A Fresh Start

Posted on January 2, 2025 by craftycreeky

Happy New Year!

As usual I am starting the year with hopes and plans for my sewing and one thing that might help me to succeed is a good tidy up and sort out in my sewing room. It’s time for the annual declutter challenge that Karen Brown from Just Do It Quilts runs every year. This is the third time I’ve done the declutter challenge but it’s first time I’ve been able to actually start the challenge on the 1st January, I’m hoping it will help me complete the full 28 days

Karen splits the declutter into small manageable tasks, so we don’t get overwhelmed and give up half way, so one day might be threads, another day it’s books and so on. Day 1 was garbage! Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture before I removed two bin bags of rubbish! In my defence a fair proportion of it was already in my two bins…but a fair amount wasn’t! Today it was squatters, those things that don’t actually belong in the sewing room.

As part of the process Karen also suggests choosing projects to work on whilst doing the declutter, a sort of reward. I’ve decided to do a small wall hanging for my sewing room, it’s one of Andrea’s quilts from Raggedy Ruff, I’ve done several of hers now, this is yet another kit I fell for just recently. It’s in two monthly instalments and yesterday afternoon I stitched the background for the first half of it…

I love the backgrounds on Andrea’s quilts, such a mix of textures and colours. This design is called ‘Autumn Harvest Mice’, it has two dormice and a robin. It’s only 18″ square so a nice size for a wall hanging in my sewing room.

With a bit of luck I might get the other Raggedy Ruff quilt finished too, it must be two years since I started it! Andrea has 50% off patterns at the moment if you fancy having a go at one of her designs.

Posted in Crafts, kits, Quilting, Raggedy Ruff Designs, sewing room | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Owl and Hare Hollow HQAL

Posted on December 22, 2024 by craftycreeky

Hand quilting is always a good winter project, I can drape the quilt over my knees so it keeps me warm whilst I quilt on an evening! I’m still just making slow but steady progress with this quilt what with Christmas and my bee book vying for attention.

Three weeks ago I’d almost quilted twenty-one blocks…

At the moment I’m quilting the owl block, I’ve quilted round the outer circle and the inner circle, I’ve also stitched a small circle round his face. I’ve still to do the sashing circle and he will eventually have two little buttons for eyes too though I might wait til the very end before I stitch those on.

I’ve now nearly quilted twenty-three blocks out of forty-nine, so I’m almost half way, with a bit of luck I’ll cross the half-way mark for the New Year.

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, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, and Connie

Posted in embroidery, Owl and Hare Hollow BOM, Quilt-a-long, Quilting | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Busy as a Bee

Posted on December 19, 2024 by craftycreeky

I’ve nearly finished them, I promise!!

This bee was one I didn’t plan to buy at the Knitting and Stitching Show, it was a pre-printed design by Anne Brooke of Hanne-made. It was little and pretty and I couldn’t resist it!

It was a fairly quick stitch too. I used variegated threads for everything apart from the wings, all DMC apart from the gold for the bumblebee which is a colourworks one left over from the bee sampler.

I stitched the bees body with long and short stitch, at first I did the outline of the wings in a fine chain stitch but it was just too heavy so I unpicked it and just used stem stitch. The green on the allium is all stem stitch too with French knots for the flowers.

If anyone fancies a stitch-a-long I’m joining both of Anne’s SALs, a weekly one and a monthly one. One of them is to stitch on a garment and I can’t remember what the other one is meant to be but I’m going to put them all in a book, or that’s my plan at the moment. Anne’s style is very much slow stitching, she’ll give us a word or an idea and some ideas and we can then run with them however we want, I did her SAL a few years back, 2021 I think, it did help me to be less afraid of raw edges in embroidery!!

Posted in embroidery, Textile Books | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Bee Book SAL

Posted on December 15, 2024 by craftycreeky

I’ve not done as much on my actual book over the last three weeks, mainly due to Christmas preparations but also I’ve been stitching extra bees which I’ve already shared with you. I have however done some extra stitching on three of the pages I’d already put together.

There were three I wasn’t 100% happy with, the two white linen pages and the lavender pot….

With the lavender pot it was just the top purple strip I wasn’t happy with, it just needed a little something, so I just stitched a line of wide feather stitch which I think is enough…

The two white pages took a little longer…

It was the edges of the circles that I wasn’t happy with, they just didn’t look very neat. I decided to stitch a ring round each one using a different stitch. I used a cotton thread which I found in my stash, it was slightly heavier than a single DMC thread and I think it worked very well.

I started with the gold bee and used feather stitch again, just catching in the edge of the voile as I went round and making one side straight with the edge.

The bee surrounded by a wreath is also surrounded by feather stitch but this time I just had the tip of one ‘feather’ on the circle…feather stitch is probably one of my favourite stitches in case you hadn’t realised!!

The white work bee is surrounded by blanket stitch which hasn’t come out as well as I hoped but it’s staying. The last bee is edged with herringbone.

I also cut away the fabric behind the two larger embroideries which has helped reduce bulk so they press better…I’d also managed to stitch a daisy-headed pin inside one of them so I had to snip it out anyway!!

I’m much happier with these two pages now, the extra embroidery just seems to bring them together.

Over Christmas I’ll hopefully finish the final bee embroideries – definitely no more after these! I can then make the rest of the pages up and start putting them into order and making them into actual pages.

This SAL is organised by Avis, please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching;

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,

Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, Cathie,

Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen

Posted in embroidery, Stitch-a-long, Textile Books | Tagged , , , , , | 18 Comments

Christmas Stitching

Posted on December 13, 2024 by craftycreeky

At our December meetings we have a tradition at Skipton Stitchers that we make a Christmas card for a swop. I remembered Sunday afternoon that I needed a card for the meeting on Monday, so a quick make was needed.

Ever since our last meeting when we stitched scenes on used tea bags, I’ve had a dozen or so tea bags drying on the radiator in my sewing room – much to the amusement of my OH – he wisely decided not to comment! This was a perfect time to try another one.

I decided to do a Christmas tree on a snowy hill, so I gathered together little scraps of lace and some strange green fibrousy stuff which was perfect for the tree.

I stitched the lace in place and then stitched the tree on using tiny gold sequins left over from my bee. I made one sequin into a star on the top, added a trunk and my teabag was finished!

I’m pretty pleased with how it came out…

I’m still tempted to make a mini book of teabag scenes, I can’t decide whether to do a series of winter ones, maybe with the words of the Christmas carol, In a Bleak Midwinter, or maybe do a couple for each season. They’re fun to do as they’re only little and so don’t take long, you can use up the scrappiest scraps on them too!

For the first time this year we also had a Christmas challenge, members could bring a piece of embroidery finished this year and everyone else voted which one was their favourite. There were about a dozen entries, a huge variety of styles, I took my garden book in…and got first prize…I was well chuffed 🙂

Posted in Christmas, embroidery, Serendipity, Skipton Stitchers | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Bee Sampler

Posted on December 11, 2024 by craftycreeky

I went to the Knitting and Stitching show in Harrogate last month, adamant I was only going to buy one specific bee themed item…of course that went out of the window! I ended up with a kit, two patterns and a printed fabric design (which was the only one I was meant to get!)

The kit was a cross-stitch bee sampler. It was the buttons that appealed to me! They also made it a pretty quick stitch. I’m pretty sure the kit was by Trudy Anne designs, but I can’t find it on the internet to put a link in and I think I might have already thrown the pattern out!

I changed one of the threads, instead of black I used DMC4000 which is a charcoal grey and very dark brown, I do find that thread so useful, it’s such a shame it’s not more widely available. I also changed the fabric from aida to an evenweave in a nice soft honey colour. It’s more of a warm honey that the beige it looks in the photo.

This has been my handbag stitching. Someone at Skipton Stitchers on Monday asked how I got so much done, I explained that I had already done 30 minutes stitching in the cafe at 8.30 when I arrived in Skipton, I usually got to work 30 minutes early, so I stitch, I spent several hours with my OH in A&E… the bus was late in the bus station…so I stitched! All those minutes add up!

Anyway, it’s already finished, after a day stitching at Skipton Stitchers I just had a few more stitches to do and the buttons to stitch on. I think I’m going to have to add a dab of glue behind the buttons so they sit straight though.

The next bee is going to be a quick one I think, it’s a pretty embroidery from Anne Brooke.

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

Goldwork Bee

Posted on December 10, 2024 by craftycreeky

Over the weekend I finished my goldwork bee, this was a kit from Crafty Heart which I saw advertised on facebook. I have to admit to being a dubious about the quality when I realised it was coming from China, but I have to say I’ve been very impressed. It was beautifully packaged, good quality, clear instructions (via a QR code) and plenty of supplies…ok I ran out of one wire but I’m pretty sure that I didn’t stretch it out enough, I think I’ve enough left of everything else to almost do another one!

When I posted about it last week I was over half way…

…the legs were pretty fiddly as I thought they might be. To start with I had the coils going the wrong way across the leg. I finally got all the coils so I was reasonably happy but then trying to add a short length of pearl purl at the end so it didn’t look disjointed proved even more tricky, some legs are more successful than others!!

The last area to stitch was the inside of the wings. This was all pearl purl and this was the bit I knew I didn’t have enough left for. I had bought some at the Knitting and Stitching show, it’s a touch wider and a slightly different shade of gold, but as both sides would be the same I decided it didn’t matter.

I’m pretty pleased with my bee, I’ve done very little goldwork previously so I’m happy with how it’s come out. Goldwork still isn’t likely to become my favourite type of embroidery, but I won’t avoid it like the plague anymore!

I’m just trying to decide if I need a protective sheet over it in the bee book so it doesn’t damage the opposite page. I’ve got some window weight tulle with bees on, maybe a square of that in between the pages, a bit like an old-fashioned photograph album!

Posted in embroidery, kits, Textile Books | Tagged , , , , , | 17 Comments

Goldwork Bee

Posted on December 3, 2024 by craftycreeky

For my bee book I’m trying to stitch bees using lots of different embroidery techniques, so I’ve a blackwork bee, a whitework bee, a collage bee, thread-painted bees as well as multiple cross-stitch bees. I was tempted by this goldwork bee as soon as I saw the advert on facebook, but being a goldwork kit, it wasn’t cheap. Of course in the end temptation got the better of me…

I’ve only tried goldwork a couple of times, once was a WI workshop about 25 years ago, and then a mini workshop at the Knitting and Stitching show a few years ago. It’s not my favourite type of embroidery, mainly because I don’t find it relaxing, it can be hard work pulling thick gold threads through fabric, I’m also not that much into bright sparkly things! Modern goldwork however is starting to appeal a bit more, you never know I might be tempted by a Jenny Adin Christie kit, especially having seen Debbie’s work (Sweet Fallen Angels ) over the last couple of years

The kit was from Crafty Heart, on line it says it’s reduced to £30, I’m pretty sure I paid about £25. I was a bit dubious about the quality it might be when I realised it was coming from China, however I have to say it was beautifully packaged and contained everything you would need, as well as the gold threads and fabric, there’s a hoop, two (very tiny!) needles, sewing thread and wax to condition the thread. Instructions are on line through a QR code, which worked better than I thought it might.

Step one was the padding, three layers of a firm felt to gently dome each body segment. Next was the outlining in pearl purl. Pearl purl is a coiled wire which is then stretched out and resembles lots of little gold pearls once stitched on. This is the only thing I’ve run out of and with hindsight, I think I didn’t stretch it enough, especially as I’ve a large surplus of everything else. The instructions said to double it’s length, I wonder if I did my maths wrong!! I’m sure Crafty Heart would have sent me some more but with the Knit and Stitch show last week, I was too impatient and bought some from Golden Hind.

Next was the thorax, this was covered with very short pieces of gold bright check, which is a sparkly coiled wire. I had to cut short pieces and then stitch them on by threading the piece onto the needle…that’s why the needle is so small! For any area so small, it took an awful lot of chips to cover it, I would estimate at getting on for 80 to 100!. I cut ten at a time and I seemed to do that lots of times!

The head is covered with smooth purl, laid like satin stitch, the tail is covered with tiny sequins…

That’s as far as I’ve got so far! Next is the legs, which look a bit complicated! The inside of the wings is the final bit which is just short lengths of pearl purl.

Once I’ve sussed out the legs, it shouldn’t take too long!

Posted in embroidery, kits, Textile Books | Tagged , , , | 12 Comments

Owl and Hare Hollow HQAL

Posted on December 1, 2024 by craftycreeky

I’m making slow but steady progress with hand quilting my Owl and Hare Hollow quilt, but I’m enjoying the process and that’s what’s important!

Three weeks ago I had done sixteen blocks…

Well I’ve now almost quilted twenty-one blocks, I say almost as I found one that’s only got half a sashing circle and I’m half way round the sashing circle next to it.

As you can see, all the blocks have an outer sashing circle and a main circle which all match (ish!!) they then have a variety of sized circles inside the block, depending on the design. At the moment I’m quilting one of the embroidered blocks, I find these more tricky as I don’t necessarily want to quilt straight across the stitching. On this block I felt that an inner circle would work as it echoes the line of the hare and the branch. I did however try to avoid a stitch actually crossing the embroidery.

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, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, and Connie

Posted in Owl and Hare Hollow BOM, Quilt-a-long, Quilting, Serendipity | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Time for Tea

Posted on November 28, 2024 by craftycreeky

Last week it was my Skipton Stitchers meeting, one of our members ran a workshop on stitching teabags! Now I have a roll of teabag paper that I found at a scrap store, but this was actual used teabags, Yorkshire Tea of course!

She’d prepared them all for us by drying them out thoroughly, making a little slit in the back so she could empty all the tea out, pressed them and then added a square of vilene on the back to give a little support.

She showed us various examples she had made using little scraps of lace and fabric. She also introduced us to the idea of an Ort jar, I’ve heard of them before, I’ve no idea where the word comes from but it’s basically a jar for all those tiny scraps that would otherwise be thrown away. When you’re working on such a small piece, you only need a tiny scrap…I now have an Ort jar!

We layered up various textiles and then added a few simple stitches. Here’s my first attempt…

….not sure where that green thread sneaked on from! I’ve not trimmed the edge as I’m thinking of making a few more and putting them into a mini book, I might extend the scene past the teabag.

I decided to do a second one using some stiff canvas to make a fence.

I finished this one at home. I’m really pleased with them, there’s lots more to see on the Skipton Stitchers website if you fancy some inspiration. I now have a collection of teabags drying on my radiator in the sewing room…it’s probably a good job my OH hasn’t spotted them yet or he would think I’ve completely lost the plot 🙂

Posted in embroidery, Skipton Stitchers | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments