Snowdrops Biscornus

Posted on November 9, 2026 by craftycreeky

Over the past few weeks my project in my handbag has been a bicornu pattern by Faby Reilly of snowdrops. Last time I shared my progress I had almost finished the back-stitching…

I realised when I added the photo I had missed one of the snowdrop stems, that was easily rectified.

I had various decorative stitches to do now. This was definitely easier to do at home rather than keeping it as a handbag project. First I added sequins. The instructions call for domed ones but my domed ones are very pearlised and the colour just didn’t look right. I also have some matt ivory sequins in my stash, I really like them as they are not too glitzy, well they’re not glitzy at all! I think they’ve worked particularly well here as although they are matt ivory, they’ve taken on the pale green hue of the linen, very pretty.

I found some small ivory beads in my stash and added those next. The silver thread embroidery came last, mainly because I really don’t enjoy stitching with the metallic threads so I kept putting it off! I use the DMC Diamante thread which is better than the stranded cotton…but I still don’t enjoy it. The border is rice stitch which has a base of cross-stitch in pale green DMC thread, the silver thread is then stitched over the top in a square pattern.

Here’s the finished square.

Isn’t it pretty! Today I’ve started another one by Faby Reilly with wisteria on. These are all going to go in a book of course 🙂

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Violets SAL

Posted on November 8, 2026 by craftycreeky

I’ve made a little progress with my violets, but not huge, it’s still not firing me up so it’s usually my last choice of something to do on an evening! This is a kit from Caroline Zoob, it’s a beautiful design, but I think the instructions are not quite as specific as I’d like. Anyway, three weeks ago this was my embroidery…

I’m still working on the leaves, this may be part of the problem, maybe I need to do a few flowers, at least those which are no where near leaves. I know with satin stitch or long and short stitch the background is stitched before the foreground, so I understand why the instructions say stitch the leaves first…they’re just not very exciting! Anyway, here’s my progress, or lack of it!

I think I might do a couple of buds and flowers, then I might feel I’m making progress and feel encouraged to pick it up more…watch this space!

This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis, we share our progress (or lack of it!) on our chosen project every three weeks. Please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.



Avis, Claire, Kathy, Margaret,

Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Daisy, Cathie,

Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen, Sharon

Posted in embroidery, kits, Serendipity | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

All the Trimmings Quilt

Posted on November 7, 2026 by craftycreeky

On Monday I delivered my quilt for Project Linus to a lovely quilt shop in Saltaire, Barley Craft Fabrics, I’d not been before as it’s difficult to get to Saltaire by bus from Otley, despite being fairly close. It’s only a little shop but boy do they squeeze a lot of fabrics in, they had a great selection and of course I fell for a few fat quarters!! They were delighted with the quilt so I’m now hoping to make a few more for Project Linus with my ever growing pile of scraps. This was my quilt…

When I did the Sewing Room Declutter in January I found two almost finished quilts that I’d stashed away, out of sight and out of mind, one was the quilt above, the second one was a Christmas quilt I started back in 2021, it was a QAL by the Fat Quarter Shop called All the Trimmings. I got as far as sandwiching it and starting the quilting, I think I then lost inspiration for the quilting.

I pulled it out of the hiding place in January and sat it on my workstation, hoping to guilt myself into finishing it. It worked!! As soon as the Project Linus quilt was finished I cracked on with the Christmas one.

I had already quilted the bows and half the stockings, so I could just continue the same with the other stockings stitching holly leaves and berries over the main sock and zigzags over the tops.

The baubles (or berries!) on the top I did with a spiral in the circle and then arcs across the oval ones. The Christmas trees caused most head-scratching. I just couldn’t think of any design for it. In the end I followed the lines of the pieces to make overlapping squares, it looked a bit boring so I added a scalloped border in red. It’s not turned out great but it’s quilted! Of course after I had done that bit I thought of a better way of quilting it, lots of irregular zigzags like the branches of a fir tree, but it’s too late. I’m not frogging it!

I felt the quilt needed a little something to lift it, I decided on a red flange round the border. I had some red bumbleberry fabric in my stash which matched perfectly. I cut a 1″ strip, folded it in half and stitched it round before adding the blue border as usual. I would have liked a narrower flange but I always chicken out as I can’t see it when I’m stitching so I’m always worried I’ll wobble and it will disappear into the binding 🙂

It’s not perfect, there’s points missing and it’s not a smooth as it should be, but it’s finished and I’ll find a home for it this Christmas…and it’s out of my sewing room 🙂

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Stitching on the Go

Posted on November 1, 2026 by craftycreeky

I’ve made pretty good progress with my snowdrops cross-stitch. This is a design by Faby Reilly, I’ve stitched quite a lot of her designs over the years and I’m never disappointed. This one is meant to be half a biscornu, which are those funny shaped pin-cushions. They’re lovely but I’d rather make several into a book. I like the square designs with the repeats going round…if that makes sense!

Last time I shared my progress I’d just finished stitching all the cross-stitch and I’d started back-stitching the snowdrops…

As well as stitching when I’m out and about I’ve also been stitching this when I’m having my morning coffee or afternoon tea, these little projects are perfect for just picking up for a few minutes…even if a few minutes gets rather longer! I’ve now finished all the back-stitching, it’s not perfect as I kept getting confused where I was on the long leaves and stems, but hopefully it won’t be noticeable.

I’ve now got the special stitches to do, a rice stitch border, some sequins and beads and half Algerian crosses, though I’ve just realised I haven’t stitched one of the snowdrop stems so I’d better put that right!

Posted in cross-stitch, Serendipity, Textile Books | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Bird Painting

Posted on October 30, 2026 by craftycreeky

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not an artist in the painting sense of the word, my mother was a superb artist, I used to joke that I could do distant wishy-washy scenes and that was about it, but just this year I have started to dabble a bit so when I saw a workshop down at Otley Common to paint birds with Posca pens I thought I’d have a go. It was run by Kim Coley who is a wildlife artist, mainly painting birds and bugs. It was about £30 I think, for the afternoon, bargain!

I had no idea even what Posca pens were, they’re acryllic paint pens, so you can apply them like a felt tip, but you can then water them or smudge them too.

We started off choosing a photo of a bird to use as a starting point. I chose a wren as I thought he had quite a distinctive (recognisable!!) shape. We had some cheap paper to start with, learning to look at shapes within the bird and doing a quick sketch with a finepoint pen.

Once we had the idea, we were given posh paper, scary, I chose A4 size as it wasn’t quite so scary as A3! We drew our bird with the black fineliner again and then applied some thin washes of colour using a brush, using tester pots of household paint, nothing too detailed, just getting blocks of colour really.

Then the fun started with the Posca pens, adding detail and more colour. The pens took a bit of getting used to as it looks like a pen, but it doesn’t always flow like a pen, sometimes it came out quicker than I anticipated, but I found I could also smudge or spread it with my finger, or mix it with another colour nearby. Anyway I was pretty happy with my first attempt…

We had time to do a second one so I chose a nuthatch, we’ve got a pair visiting the garden regularly at the moment and they also have a distinctive shape and colouring too. It took a while to get the shape right but I’m pretty happy with the result.

I’m not sure I’ll rush out to buy Posca pens, but it was a fun afternoon and I’m pretty pleased with the results. Kim was a great tutor, good explanations, not easy when you have such a varied class of skills and experience, she was very encouraging too. My next workshop is in mid November, Chinese brush painting!

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Mosaic Workshop

Posted on October 29, 2026 by craftycreeky

Since retiring I’ve enjoyed a few little workshops. I did a full day book-binding last month, this month I’ve done a couple of mini workshops here in Otley. These were only £15-£20 for a morning or afternoon workshop down in Otley Common. The Common is a new community space in what was the Methodist church. I understand the church still use it on a Sunday morning, but the rest of the time there’s community events and classes. This workshop and another I’ll share tomorrow were part of a Wildlife Friendly Otley weekend.

The mosaic project is being run by a local mosaic artist, Frances Taylor, she has a workshop in Otley and runs regular courses there.

I spent two hours helping to make a mosaic for the town. This was being worked on over several weekends, we each helped do a small part of a bigger picture. The design is beautiful, showing some of the wildlife found around Otley. It split down into small sections so we could each have a bit to work on. I was doing part of the sky.

I’ve not done mosaic before, it was quite good fun cutting up the little glass squares to fill our section. We glued them upside down onto brown paper. As I understand it these will be put in moulds and concrete poured on top, once set the brown paper and PVA glue can be easily removed and the pieces will slot together nicely. I didn’t do all this sky, just the left hand cloud and some of the blue underneath:-)

There were about twenty of us working on it that morning, as you can see there was still quite a lot to do but apparently after another weekend of workshops it was nearly finished.

It’s going to be displayed somewhere around Otley, it was lovely to take part in a community event like this and it will be nice to be able to spot my cloud on the finished mosaic! I’m quite tempted to do one of Frances’s workshops at her home too.

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Flower Bobbins

Posted on October 28, 2026 by craftycreeky

I’m trying to have a bit of a clear out in my sewing room, well clear out is probably the wrong word, I’m trying to make some kind of headway into my stash, both of fabric and kits, trying to stitch quicker than I buy!

Several shows ago I bought a kit from Kates Kloths. Kate hand dyes threads, ribbons, fabric, they are beautiful, I usually fall for a little bundle of threads on her stall. She also has kits and I fell for a little box which contains everything to make a slow-stitch, flower filled pair of wooden bobbins, one made into a pin-cushion, one as a stand for a pair of embroidery scissors. This week-end I decided to make them.

First task is to make the backgrounds. Now these a very small embroideries, 8x3cm, so when I had to arrange different textiles on the calico backing, they are very small pieces. There’s some hessian, some thin cotton gauzes and what looks like a scrap of furnishing fabric. All I had to do was a few lines of running stitch to hold it all in place. It’s amazing how the stitching makes it feel like one piece of fabric.

As you can see, next I embroidered stems and grasses with simple straight stitches, first with a medium perle thread, then with a finer one. Then came the fun of embroidering the flowers. The two bobbins are slightly different.

The first one I stitched was the one with foxgloves on. These were stitched with a very loopy thread which was couched on. The purple flowers are made from little circles of hand-dyed silk. The instructions suggested cutting a little square, putting it on the needle and then trimming it to a circle, that certainly made it much less fiddly. These are attached with French knots. There’s some tiny little flower buttons on the foxglove bobbin, these are so small I had to use a beading needle to get through the hole!! . There’s a few green French knots sprinkled in for good measure.

The second bobbin has purple flowers made from little circles of silk but attached with straight stitches and French knot to finish. There’s more French knots to make purple flowers. The leaves on the second one are just made with little scraps of green silk. You can see the gorgeous threads I was stitching with.

With the stitching nearly done, I just had to stitch the strips round the bobbins and then make a pincushion top for one. This is just a circle of card, wadding and a circle of cotton. There’s a lazy-daisy flower in the middle too. This was glued onto the bobbin and left over night with some sellotape strapping. I put a little scrap of fabric over the pincushion to protect it from the sticky tape. The final flourish was to couch the wide green thread round the join.

I think they’re delightful, very pretty and lovely to stitch, probably not very practical but they look very pretty in my sewing room 🙂

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Foragers Stitch Journal HQAL

Posted on October 25, 2026 by craftycreeky

My sewing room feels a bit like the calm at the centre of a storm as we are being battered by the second storm within a matter of days. I’ve just been out and done the quickest prune ever of my two standard roses as they were in danger of breaking off the trunks! There’s already several trees down on the back lane, so my OH is happy collecting firewood for our log burner!

Back to my sewing room, three weeks ago I was almost up to date having nearly finished stitching Septembers page of my Foragers Stitch journal, a monthly SAL from Pretty Fabrics and Trims…

I cracked straight on and finished it a few days later with three more blackberries and a fly stitch border. I think I rounded off a couple of the blackberries too, as they were looking a little square, although looking at it again, maybe the top blackberry could do with a bit of rounding off too!. I like this page, the colours a nice and soft somehow.

This months didn’t arrive until Thursday, it’s usually about this time as we pay each month on the 20th. I was wondering what October’s would be and I was pleased to see it was chestnuts, when I was young we used to roast them on the fire and dip them in salt. One of the signs of winter when I was training in London used to be when the chestnut sellers arrived on Oxford Street with their roasters. You can still buy chestnuts on the markets, I remember it being hard work stabbing through the shell before roasting them.

I’ve started the stitching, having done all the back-stitched letters and I’ve stitched the tree trunk and branches with split stitch. I’m now doing leaves with French knots.

Once the embroidery is done I can stitch the two pages together and quilt and bind them. Then I just need to wait for the next instalment, which I think will be the front cover.

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Deb, Sharon, Margaret , and Daisy

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Stitching in my bag

Posted on October 21, 2026 by craftycreeky

I always have stitching in my handbag, for opportune moments to do a little stitching, train journeys, doctors waiting rooms, cafes…I’ll stitch anywhere!

Last weekend I travelled down to London for the day for a nurses reunion. We had a fab time but it was probably nearly five hours travelling in total. Of course I made sure I had my sewing packed and booked a seat with a table.

I shared my stitching on Instagram on the way there…

With time on the train and waiting at the station I made good progress, last night I managed to finish the cross-stitch part and I started the back-stitch. This is where Faby Reilly’s designs really become special. There’s beads, sequins and other stitches to do yet, but here’s my snowdrops so far…

Once I’ve finished this one I’ve a couple more patterns already lined up, they’re meant to be biscornus but I love the designs as they are, mine are going in a book. I stitched the blue iris design earlier in the year, I seemed to have shared it part way through but not the finished piece, so here it is…

I think the other designs I’ve got lined up so far are the magnolia one and apple blossom…the wisteria one looks lovely too. They’re perfect for my handbag projects.

Do have a look at Faby Reilly’s website, she has some gorgeous designs, I’ve stitched quite a few over the years, here’s a photo I took a few years ago showing a few of her designs I’ve stitched.

Posted in cross-stitch, Serendipity, Textile Books | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Violets SAL

Posted on October 18, 2026 by craftycreeky

Three weeks ago I had just finished my phenology wheel. I also mentioned a BIG project I wanted to do, which intrigued several of you! Well I’m not starting it just yet as with my sensible hat on, I need to clear the decks of some smaller kits first. However I will give you a sneak preview!!

I’m stitching it on white – I’m not daft enough to even contemplate using the black aida provided 🙂 I’ll use some evenweave linen, it measures 80 x 50cm, so my biggest ponderance at the moment is whether it will work using a quilting ring or larger embroidery hoop, as the traditional tapestry frames (of which I have several) are more comfortable to use if the linen is going to be rolled upwards, rather than left to right, otherwise I’d be reaching across a tall frame to stitch at the top…I’m probably not explaining this well but I know what I mean!!

In the meantime I’ve started a little flower embroidery. It’s a kit I bought a few years ago from Caroline Zoob, I do like her designs, I’ve got this one of violets and another of foxgloves.

It’s probably a good job I’m doing this as the stitch-a-long as I’m not enthused with my stitching so far. The design is pre-printed onto the background fabric and silks and instructions are provided. Unfortunately the instructions are not as detailed as I would like, leaving a lot open to my interpretation…and at the moment I’m not keen on my interpretation!

I’m probably not helping myself as the embroidery is meant to be stitched with a single strand of DMC, I started that way but it was taking sooo long I changed over to two strands half way through the first (lower) leaf. The second leaf does look better, maybe I’ll stitch some more of the middle shade of green on the lower one to try to merge the colours better.

Hopefully in three weeks time I’ll be a bit more into it and have finished the leaves.

This SAL is organised by Avis, we share our progress on our chosen project every three weeks. Please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.


Avis, Claire, Kathy, Margaret,

Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Daisy, Cathie,

Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen, Sharon

Posted in embroidery, Serendipity, Stitch-a-long | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments