Delilah the Dove

Meet Delilah, a pure white dove

who used to live with her little family in the church porch.

(I tried to tat some little doves!)


It was lovely hearing them cooing away as people entered this ancient place of worship, parts of which date back over a thousand years.

The last time the doves were in the porch Delilah sat on two eggs and eventually two little chicks were hatched. Unfortunately they both died by falling out of the nest, which was balanced on one of the porch beams. But the final blow came when the porch wood needed renewing and the banging and sawing was really too much and Delilah and her partner decided to fly away and have never returned, nearly three years ago.

Everyone misses Delilah she even regularly wrote about her life in the parish magazine.

This is Pam Palmers dove but I had a little trouble making it so it might not be exactly as per instructions!







A dove is a sign of peace throughout the world, it is often seen carrying an olive branch (not an icicle!) as in the story of Noah and his ark.







On the left hand side of the picture you can see the old wood of the porch and on the right the new wood ready to be shaped. Now the wood is oak and the pieces from the old porch were taken away and my husband made crosses and doves out of them and they were sold to raise money towards the cost of the restoration. The dove you see on the header of this blog is made from that same wood and so is the shuttle below, a very special shuttle.

These are the blanks for the shuttles that are now being made, not from oak but from sycamore, Jane and I are at the moment test tatting with them.

As for the name Delilah well there is a Delilah in the bible but the name also reminds me of the song Delilah sung by Tom Jones.

"My my my Delilah
why, why, why Delilah"