Chanel Jacket

Posted on April 26, 2018 by craftycreeky

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I wanted a few projects finished before I started more, well this was one of them and whilst it isn’t happy dance time yet I’ve made enough progress to show you it again.

Last October I went on a course with Anne to the Yorkshire School of Sewing. I wanted to make a Chanel jacket. It was a two day course and we were under no illusions that we would complete the jacket in that time. The aim was for us to have done enough to be able to complete the jacket at home. This was Ann and myself after two days, jackets basically put together but with lots to do on the inside! If you want to read my earlier post about how we got this far follow this link.

There’s an awful lot of hand-stitching on a Chanel jacket. The lining is quilted to each piece before the jacket is constructed, so basically the whole lining is hand-stitched in…

Awaiting the arrival of the ham!

After the course I started hand-stitching the lining down but then I got waylaid with other projects and it has been on Florence, my muse, ever since.

After I finished piecing my Down the Rabbit Hole quilt I decided this had to be on my list of things to do next. I started hand-stitching the seams down, there’s an awful lot of seams!! Even the sleeves have two seams each! Gillian (from Yorkshire School of Sewing) had suggested a small sleeve head made frpm wadding, I couldn’t get the sleeve to lie flat for the lining with it in, so in the end I removed them.Making a Chanel Jacket

After quite a few evenings work I have hemmed it, stitched the neck-facing down and stitched all the linings down. The basic jacket is now complete!

My next problem is the buttonholes. I wanted my jacket to have buttons so I have a proper facing at the front. I marked my buttonholes but I can’t get the thickness of the fabric under the buttonhole foot. I’ve had this problem with the last two coats I’ve made, I can’t decide if it’s a problem with the foot or if it is because the tweeds are a fairly loose weave so the fabric is more easily damaged and caught under the foot. Either way, I couldn’t do it.Making a Chanel Jacket

In the end I decided to see if someone else could do it. We have a lady in Otley who I’ve heard very good reports of, she does alterations and repairs. I popped in to see her this morning to ask if she could do my button holes. She’s snowed under with work at the moment (she was buried under a wedding dress skirt when I arrived!) so it will be mid May before she has chance to do it. I’ve left a reel of thread and a button and even the pattern piece with the spacings on, just in case my pins come out!Making a Chanel Jacket

Once it returns I’ve got all the titivating to do. I’ll make a final decision on false welt pockets, stitch braid around the edges, chain inside the hem to give weight to the jacket and help it to hang well, maybe buttons up a false sleeve placket too. I haven’t quite decided on the buttons yet, fancy black or plain burgundy. The pink and red cord might be couched inside next to the lining edge, maybe!

Anne finished hers ages ago, have a look to see her version here, she’s much more patient than me and worked hard to get a beautifully finished jacket.

I think I’ll just be happy to have a finished, wearable jacket 🙂

Posted in Dressmaking, Serendipity | Tagged , | 18 Comments

A Snip of Scissors

Posted on April 23, 2018 by craftycreeky

Just think of the plural words you could use for a collection of scissors,a snip, a slash, a cut, a blade…I seem to have acquired quite a collection of scissors, all for different things of course!

A couple of weeks ago I received a parcel in the post from the lovely Kate of Tall Tales of Chiconia, she had read my post about my experiences of flying with scissors (for embroidery on board) The clover thread cutter below is what I ended up using most of  the time. Kate told me about some mini-scissors she used on airplanes, she kindly offered to send me a pair…scissors for sewing

Have you ever seen such a tiny pair of scissors!!! Yet they are actually easy to use and sharp too. They clip into the sheath to keep them safe. Kate sent them in a pretty Chinese purse and I’m tempted to keep them in their otherwise they will go and hide somewhere! She also sent me a selection of her favourite needles for hand quilting (Birch) and a special treat of a reel of Aurifil thread, Aurifil is like the gold standard of quilting threads…she’s determined to make sure I fall in love with hand-quilting 🙂

It got me thinking about all the other pairs of scissors  I have…scissors for sewing

There’s my dress-making ones, various sizes and ages, I think the orange Friskar ones are my original scissors from many moons ago. the purple Janome ones were my go to pair of scissors until pretty recently. At the moment I rather like the rose gold ones, they were a complete impulse buy at Hobbycraft in the sale after Christmas, aren’t they pretty! They came with a tiny embroidery pair and I also bought a 5″ pair too, these two are clearly camera shy as I can’t find either of them today!scissors for sewing

These two pairs are a special treat. They are made in Sheffield in South Yorkshire using traditional methods by Ernest Wright & Son. Sheffield has a very long history with the cutlers trade so it’s nice to own some proper Sheffield Steel scissors. I particularly like using the embroidery scissors, they are about 5″ long and perfect for any small work.scissors for sewing

Embroidery scissors seem to be multiplying, especially as I couldn’t find the two rose gold stork scissors! My favourites at the moment are the purple / blue pair. Very sharp and comfortable to use and just so pretty 🙂 The flowery blue pair are some cheap ones (about £2.50) but they are actually nice scissors and when they don’t cost much you don’t mind taking them to classes etc where they might get mixed up. My pink flowery pair were confiscated at Sydney airport so I need to buy another pair to go in my Lizzie sewing case I stitched last year.

Then, of course, there’s the specialist cutters! Rotary blades for quilting, having sorted my mums house out I now have three pairs. I’ve also realised how blunt my cutter is, I think I need a new blade! The snips are very sharp and very strong, perfect for snipping multiple layers in curved seams.scissors for sewing

It’s surprising how easy it is to get quite a collection! How many pairs have you got?

Posted in Crafts, Dressmaking, embroidery, Serendipity | Tagged | 17 Comments

Monday’s Meander Round the Garden

Posted on April 23, 2018 by craftycreeky

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to paint our fence, I say trying, in that every time I had a free day off it rained! Very frustrating when we’ve had so many dry sunny days recently!! Yesterday I decided to go for it, there was a light shower late morning but I got away with it! The fence was put up by our neighbours as part of their new labour free garden, it’s six foot tall at the shortest bit, but with the terracing in our garden it must be at least 9′ in places, quite a dominant feature, so I thought long and hard about colour. This is what it looked like last week…

I’ve now painted most of the long stretch (apart from the bit I couldn’t reach, even balanced precariously on a ladder! ) It needs a second coat and I’ve also decided to paint the railway sleepers at the bottom as well. I painted it ‘Willow Green’ and I’m really pleased with it, the fence just disappears into the background now, especially when you are in the garden. It will disappear even more once I’ve covered it with roses, clematis and honeysuckle! Ideally I’d like to paint the back fence too but it might have to wait til next year!

As predicted my magnolia tree is looking amazing, I love this tree, it is just covered with dainty white blossoms.

The pond garden is shooting up, I think the Solomon’s Seal has grown 10-12″ this week, erythroniums have come into flower, hostas are starting to unfurl their leaves, iris and crocosmia leaves are appearing too, together with more than a few weeds for good measure!

My OH was busy yesterday building the compost heap, it’s starting to take shape, not bad considering all the wood is recycled from around the garden. We’ve just got to work out some kind of door system for the front.

Down the drive the forsythia and the flowering blackcurrant are covered in flowers, I have to admit to a love hate relationship with the blackcurrant, it looks very pretty at the moment, even at dusk it was still buzzing with bumble bees, so it’s an important early supply of nectar for them…I just hate the smell, I think it smells like catpee!!

Next to the blackcurrant is a beautiful camellia, pure white flowers formed in a perfect rosette. It never goes mad with flowers, as a bush it is so understated it is easy to miss, but it is beautiful. I keep wondering about trying to move it as I’m not convinced how happy it is there, maybe in the autumn.

OnNo automatic alt text available. facebook last week a photo from about 7 years ago of Helen and Rosie sitting in the arbour popped up, I called it ‘Two blondes together’.

Helen wanted an updated version. As Rosie is now too old to climb on the arbour I suggested they sat on the steps…I then persuaded Zac and Lucy (my mums dog who now lives with us) to join them…

…’and then there were three!’

 

Posted in Garden, Serendipity | Tagged | 15 Comments

HQAL ; Down the Rabbit Hole

Posted on April 22, 2018 by craftycreeky

I’ve been itching to write this post for the last two weeks!! It’s three weeks since I last showed you my Down the Rabbit Hole Quilt, I was still stitching the never ending vines…Down the Rabbit Hole

Over the following few days I made a concerted effort to finish the hand applique. I stitched the vines, leaves, flowers and bees on the last two borders, stitched them onto the main quilt and appliqued a vine around the corner to meet up with the running rabbits. This is mainly because my rabbits didn’t jump high enough to have any flowers underneath them and I didn’t just want a couple of stalks at the end. I’m pleased with my corner vines and I was so happy to finish stitching them.Down the Rabbit Hole

All I had to do now was stitch on the final border…

I had made the individual blocks for the border earlier, it’s squares on point and triangles, not the easiest to adjust if there is a problem! The first two sides (opposite) went on fine but when it came to the last two sides…you guessed it, I just couldn’t get it to fit. I had several goes at pinning it but it was about 0.5cm out, which doesn’t sound much, but when you are looking at diamonds that don’t meet, it’s huge!! Although this photo is before I stitched it, it does show the problem…Down the Rabbit Hole

In the end after much muttering, cursing and just generally chuntering, I decided I would have to fudge it. After even more thought on the best way to fudge I made a corner square of the purple floral fabric of the previous border. This nicely echoed the corner square of the earlier pieced border when I used the passionflower grey fabric of the previous border. I then appliqued the squares  of the block onto the corner-squares. I’m as happy as I can be with a fudged border, though I am tempted to see if I can applique it on the point instead. Before any of you think it wasn’t that far out, this is the best corner!Down the Rabbit Hole Quilt

With hindsight I think the issue was a mixture of the length of the border and also the size of the quilt. As it got bigger I found it harder  and harder to accurately measure the finished size of each section, if it was .5cm out on my rabbit borders then the diamonds wouldn’t fit.

So it was time for a bit of a happy dance as the top is now finished! I haven’t managed to get a photo of the whole quilt yet as it is so big, I need assistants and good weather, this is a photo taken the following day at my LAQ 🙂Down the Rabbit Hole Quilt

…all I have to do now is quilt it! I’ve decided to hand quilt it, it’s too big for me to machine quilt it (about 96″ square) I also wanted the quilting to be sympathetic to the medallion design, which ruled out an all over machine pattern and pretty much just left hand quilting. I haven’t hand quilted since I was about 18 years old, I’m hoping I’m a bit quicker!

Before quilting can start it all needs sandwiching and basting. I decided to take it to a local long-arm quilter to get it machine basted. I just have nowhere big enough to lay it out flat and baste it successfully. Christine Marriage is an award winning long arm quilter, she quilted my stained glass window quilt several years ago. She used to live about 15 minutes away, convenient! Five weeks ago she moved to the other side of West Yorkshire, by bus and train it would take me about 2 hours! It was worth it, there’s no way I was going to trust my quilt to the postman!

I managed to get a lift to Mirfield off my OH, I caught a train to Huddersfield and a bus to Honley, walking the rest of the way it took two attempts and a phone call to finally arrive at Christine’s new abode!Down the Rabbit Hole Quilt

Christine is going to sandwich the layers together and baste them using a long stitch in a meander all over the quilt to hold it firm. I can snip and pull lengths out as I go, rather than risking stitching through the threads. She’s a very busy lady, my quilt is booked in for 21st May, which seems ages off, but actually isn’t that long!

As I was over that side of West Yorkshire I decided to make a day of it, I caught a bus to Huddersfield and then another bus to Halifax.

There’s an excellent fabric shop in Halifax called Fabbadashery, so I had a good perusal and a few things came home with me!Piece HallI then went to Piece Hall. Piece Hall is an amazing, beautiful historical place,  I remember visiting 30 years ago, there were lots of independent craft shops there, it slowly slipped into decline but over the last few years there has been a big effort to revitalise and renovate Piece Hall. It was reopened on Yorkshire Day last year, I was a bit worried it would be full of trendy wine bars and cafes. I needn’t have worried, it has still got lots of small independent art and craft shops. This is what the website says about it’s history;

The Grade I listed Piece Hall, Halifax is a rare and precious thing, an architectural and cultural phenomenon which is absolutely unique. It is the sole survivor of the great eighteenth century northern cloth halls, a class of buildings which embodied the vital and dominant importance of the trade in hand woven textiles to the pre-industrial economy of the West Riding of Yorkshire, from the Middle Ages through to the early nineteenth century.

Dating from 1779, when it was built as a Cloth Hall for the trading of ‘pieces’ of cloth (a 30 yard length of woven woollen fabric produced on a handloom), The Piece Hall was the most ambitious and prestigious of its type and now stands in splendid isolation as the only remaining example. It is one of Britain’s most outstanding Georgian buildings.

Just to give an idea of the importance of the wool trade here in Yorkshire, I have a facsimile of Daniel Defoes Tour Through the Whole Island of Britain, written in 1726.He describes Leeds twice weekly cloth market;

Early in the morning there are trestles places in two rows in the street…The clothiers come early in the morning, they go into the inns and set it down. At seven a clock the market bell rings. Within a few minutes the whole market is filled, rows of boards covered and clothiers stand ready. The merchants and buyers walk up and down…you cannot hear a word spoken in the whole market by the persons buying and selling, tis all done in a whisper. By half an hour eight the market bell rings again, immediately the buyers disappear, the cloth is all sold…Thus you see ten or twenty thousand pounds value in cloth and sometimes much more, bought and sold in little more than an hour.

This astounds me, that is £20,000 in 1726!!!

I need to find another hand quilting project for the next couple of HQALs as I won’t be able to show you my Down the Rabbit Hole quilt again until the end of May!

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, Lori, Margaret, Kerry, Emma, Tracy, Deb, Connie, Susan,  Nanette, Sassy , Edith, Sharon and Bella.
Down the Rabbit Hole Quilt

I’m also linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, a weekly celebration of all things hand-stitched. Why not follow the link and see what everyone else has been stitching.

Posted in Down The Rabbit Hole, Quilt-a-long, Quilting, Serendipity | Tagged , , | 25 Comments

Last of the Holiday Stitching

Posted on April 19, 2018 by craftycreeky

I did quite a lot of stitching on holiday, we had several long flights, with the inevitable long waits in airports, together with quiet time either by the pool or on our balcony. These are the last two I have to show you, honest!

This pretty little embroidery pattern has been in my kit box for quite a few years now, just waiting for it’s moment. The copyright is from 2002 but I don’t think I’ve had it quite that long!! It’s called Butterfly Dance and it’s printed by The Sweetheart Tree, the designer is Sandra Cox Vanosdall. It came with a tiny butterfly charm.Butterfly Dance

I had most of the DMC colours in my stash, but I substituted a couple. The instructions weren’t as clear as they could have been so I’ve stitched the flower buds in teal instead of ivory! It stitched up pretty quickly though, all I had to do on my return was stitch on the beads, a few ivory ones on the scalloped border and a few teal ones in the vine.

It’s such a little embroidery (only 2.25″ square) that it was mislaid in my sewing room several times – if you saw my sewing room you wouldn’t be surprised! When I found it yesterday I decided there and then to finish it before it got lost again!

Despite having a HUGE box of beads I didn’t have any teal beads and my ivory ones looked too big, I think it needed those beads that are so small you sneeze and you lose the lot! In the end I stitched french knots in place of the beads and I think it looks fine.Butterfly Dance

I knew exactly which fabric I was going to use to make it into a mini cushion, it’s one left from my Splendid Sampler quilt. I stitched a border round then hand-stitched some lace just out from the seam. After I had made it up into a cushion I did have second thoughts about the lace, was it too frilly, would it be better with a line of ivory embroidery? I showed my mum today and she said it looks fine, it compliments the embroidery, so it’s staying!Butterfly Dance

The last piece of stitching is a cross-stitch design by Rovaris, she posted it on a face-book page I follow and I bought it immediately – I do like a good impulse buy! She has some lovely designs on her Etsy page. I love the sentiments with this embroidery and the sewing theme of course makes it perfect for me to hang in my sewing room.

It was very straight forward to stitch, the chart was nice and easy to follow. The only change I made was to stitch CRAFT in a shade of grey/brown, rather than black.Craft by Rovaris

It was probably about half stitched when I came back from holiday, I always take a little stitching project when I visit my mum in her care home, it gives us something to talk about and I’m also trying to keep her interest in crafts alive. She loved this one. She asked for the chart, so as soon as I had finished I made her a kit up, what’s hard is that I know it probably won’t even get started, never mind finished as with her dementia anything out of sight is forgotten.

I’m thinking of mounting this on card with a fabric surround. I’ve just got the two charms to stitch on first before I lose them!.

So that’s all my holiday stitching completed, two double page spreads for my stitch sample, three monthly small and these two, not bad for three weeks holiday 🙂

I’m linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, a celebration of all things hand-stitched. Why not follow the link and see what everyone else has been creating.

Posted in embroidery, Serendipity | Tagged , | 24 Comments

Mountain Sketchbook

Posted on April 18, 2018 by craftycreeky

Last weekend I shared my new Travelling Sketchbook with you, I’ve chosen a theme of flowers. It will circulate around a group in our Embroiderers Guild and everyone will put a piece of their work in it, so in a few months time when it returns to me I will hopefully have a whole garden of embroidered flowers.

I realised when I posted it that I hadn’t shared with you my Mountains sketchbook since it returned from it’s travels. This was my first experience of a travelling sketchbook and I really enjoyed stitching a little embroidery for each persons book as it came into my possession.

This book did two circuits. I shared the first ones here but here’s a few photos to remind you.

The sketchbooks then did another shorter circuit…

The first entry is so simple yet so brilliant for my theme, in fact I had wondered about doing something similar before, it’s the outlines of mountains that mean something to her. Anyone who climbs or just loves mountains knows their outlines, they are so recognisable. So Margorie has thought of all the mountains she has come across in her life, written a little story and embroidered the outline in back-stitch, there’s the Eiger, Mount Teide, Snowdon,Vesuvius, American Rockies, Mount Fuji and the far Cuillins. 

Jill stitched a lovely picture of Ben Loyal, Jill is Scottish and explained the different classifications of Scottish mountains, Munroes, Corrbets and Grahams. Ben Loyal is a Corrbet, being 2507 feet high. I love the different stitches Jill used to get the image of the landscape, such as sorbello stitch for the rugged rocks. The deer are very sweet too!

Jill Mahoney

Jill Maloney

Gail drew a wonderfully intricate picture based on a view in the Northern Lake District, wouldn’t this be a great starting point for a blackwork embroidered picture?

Gail Marsh

Gail Marsh

Angela included a hand coloured map and an lovely embroidery of the scenery as she walked the West Highland Way in Scotland. It’s a collage of mainly tweeds which are a traditional Scottish fabric, giving great texture to the piece, she embellished with stitching, representing the heathers, streams, forests she saw on her walk.

Angela Harrison

Angela Harrison

So my book is pretty much full, I’ll pop a few mountain photographs on any blank pages, maybe a poem or two to complete my sketchbook of Mountains. It’s lovely to have something like this as so many friends each gave a little bit of themselves to create it. I shall treasure it.

Posted in embroidery, Serendipity, The Travelling Sketchbook | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Monday’s Meander around the Garden

Posted on April 16, 2018 by craftycreeky

Spring has finally sprung here in Yorkshire, after a few days of higher temperatures the buds on the trees are just starting to appear and perennials are starting to show signs of life, I reckon we’re about 4 weeks behind our usual timings. Over the last few days I’ve even seen a few big bumble bees, always a good sign!

Our magnolia stellata has finally come into flower, a sure sign that spring is here. There was just one flower open yesterday and half a dozen today, so by the weekend I think it will be glorious. It’s one of my favourite trees in the garden, it’s stunning when it’s in full bloom. The flowers are so delicate, just beautiful.

I’ve been quite busy this week putting together arches for the AA garden. I managed the basic arch on my own, putting it together and erecting it in it’s spot. The gated arch was a bit more tricky, I put it together but it definitely needed two of us to stand it correctly so the gates would hang right. I’ve put a few more plants in, mainly ones which were lodging in the bottom garden, and spread around lots of gorgeous compost from the old heap. It’s starting to look like a garden! I need lots more plants, especially climbers and about another twenty bags of gravel!

We need some new compost heaps as our last ones were totally rotten. We usually run on a cycle of two heaps, one filling and one rotting down. Having priced them up we decided they couldn’t be that difficult to build. We started gathering together spare fence posts, planks and trellis from around the garden and I think we’ve just about got enough to build a double compost heap. I think my OH sees it as his project so I’m leaving him to it!

This is the old chicken run, I’m going to plant the left hand side with a deep border of shrubs all chosen for their autumn colour, so it’s going to be my Autumn Garden. I do like to name the different parts of the garden!

The pond border is starting to green up, there’s lots of shoots appearing, hostas, Solomon’s seal, brunnera, irises, give it another couple of weeks and it will look completely different. The hellebore’s are still looking good and there is a lovely haze of blue pulmonaria under the rhododendron bush. There’s a fair few weeds appearing here so I need to work on it this week.

My Jack Frost brunnera is just starting to flower, soon it will be a haze of little blue flowers. This is underneath the camellia bush, I bought it quite a few years ago at the Harrogate flower show, I love it as it is good ground cover without being invasive, attractive variegated leaves and a haze of blue flowers in spring.

Tomorrows job is to paint the big fence onn the right as we are finally (fingers crossed!) forecast a stretch of dry weather. My Eighteen for 18 challenge of three sessions a week in the garden is working well, sometimes I’m out for several hours, sometimes just half an hour, but it all adds up. I’ve just got to keep at it 🙂

Posted in Garden, Serendipity | Tagged | 14 Comments

SAL 5 The Tall Year Square Etui

Posted on April 15, 2018 by craftycreeky

It’s three weeks since I last showed you my etui box, I’d just made a mistake on the number 2, the last number of this side. I blamed jet lag, which when I saw the mistakes close up I think was a fair assessment! I’d even changed from cross-stitch over one thread to cross-stitch over two threads!! It certainly bear no resemblance to a number two…

It had to come out! I did appreciate those of you who argued that it put memories in the stitching…but it had to come out! I remember Faby Reilly saying cross-stitch over one thread is nigh on imossible to undo, it’s certainly not for the faint-hearted! It was lucky I only had one number to undo!!

I stitched the number again…it was so straight forward, what was the issue!!!  Apart from lack of sleep and messed up body clocks!

Above another row of long armed cross-stitch was a pretty border from two variegated threads. I did ponder about using the same thread top and bottom row, maybe starting with a different colour in the thread. In the end I decided to use a lighter thread for the top row and I was glad I did as I like the effect.

The last (top) row is like an embossed cross-stitch. In the instructions three colours are used, one for the base cross, one for the square and one for the little crosses inbetween. I decided to use the same thread for the cross and the square, just started with a different colourway, I like the effect.

Having completed one side of my etui, I decided to also stitch the spring square for the centre pincushion box whilst I had my chosen threads to hand. This didn’t take long at all as it’s only little.

The next side I’m going to stitch is summer. I’m choosing my own colours with this project, just thinking of what colours I associate with the season. I was originally thinking of heathery purples and greens, but having looked at the pattern again which has dragonflies, frogs and waterlilies on, I had to think again. It will be stitched on a gentle green linen, these are the colours I’ve chosen so far.

For anyone who is new to this project, it is designed by Betsy Morgan and published in the Classic Inspirations magasine. I’m using my own choice of threads (DMC) rather than those selected by the designer.

This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis, we post every three weeks, so if you would like to join in please send her a message. There are quite a few of us now, all doing different projects, so please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching;

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, LucyAnn, Kate, Jess, Sue, Constanze, Debbierose, Christina,

Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Helen, Steph, Linda, Mary Margaret,

Heidi, Connie, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Tony, Megan, Timothy

Everyone is in different time scales, so if there isn’t a post when you first look, check later in the day. If you fancy joining us for the SAL, just send a message to Avis.

Posted in embroidery, Serendipity, Stitch-a-long | Tagged , | 22 Comments

Sketchbooks on the move!

Posted on April 14, 2018 by craftycreeky

Our sketchbooks at Skipton Embroiderers Guild are about to go travelling again! This will be the third round of travelling sketchbooks I’ve been involved with. For those not familiar with the concept, we all start with an A5 artists sketchbook, cover it to make it pretty, choose a theme, write the first few pages and then send it off on a circuit of members. Each month  we swop books and stitch a little embroidery on the theme of whichever book we have, so in about six months time I’ll get my book back with half a dozen flower embroideries, all stitched by my friends. From a personal perspective I found it really helped my confidence with embroidery as I suddenly had to do something on a given subject, it pushed me out of my comfort zone and I discovered I actually could do ‘proper’ embroidery!

We’re starting a new sketchbook this time (our last one did two rounds and was pretty full!) I’ve chosen the theme of flowers. I like to keep a very open theme, rather than limiting it to garden flowers, or wild flowers…and I like flowers!

 

It’s our meeting on Monday, so I thought I’d better get cracking with it! I remembered I already had a sketchbook cover with flowers on. It’s a little embroidery from the Knitting and Stitching show in Harrogate. Rowandean have a stitching table as part of their stand, you can sit and stitch a little embroidery amongst all the hustle and bustle of the show, it’s a little oasis of tranquility! This is the one I did a couple of years ago.Travelling Sketchbook

I searched through one of my embroidery boxes and found a few finished embroideries I haven’t done anything with including a couple of silk ribbon embroideries from workshops I’d been on. I hesitated slightly on the delphiniums as they will probably get a bit squashed,but realistically it’s not good enough to frame and it;’s been sat in the box for two years, so it may as well go in a flower book!

 

I also found a piece of unfinished wool embroidery. We had a workshop at Skipton which involved needle felting and wool embroidery on a piece of old blanketing.. Mine never got finished, so last night I decided to change that! This is what it looked like to start with, a few blobs of colour and a bit of wool embroidery.Felt embroidery

The wool I have in my stash was too thick to embroider with, it was more tapestry wool. I decided to use embroidery threads instead. I started with the blue blobs, just using lazy daisy stitch around to make a flower.

I was very restrained and just used embroidery floss I knew I had over-stocked on! The brown blobs are meant to be seed heads, I used pistil stitch which is a bit like french knot on a stalk. They weren’t overly successful, mainly I think because they are just a bit too heavy for the rest of the design.Felt embroidery

I kept embroidering flowers and leaves, using fly-stitch, feather stitch, chain stitch, all pretty basic stitches. Every time I thought I’d finished, I would spot another area that needed stitching! I decided it look more balanced trimmed to leave out the left hand edge which included one of the heavy seed heads! One advantage of needle-felting , I found, is that it is very easy to undo!

This was my finished piece when I finally went to bed last night, I’m pretty pleased with it! I’ll add a couple of flower photographs from my albums and a bit of blurb and then my sketchbook will be ready to start circulating.

DSC_0022 (1)I’ll be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, a celebration of hand- quilting and stitching. Why not follow the link and see what everyone else has been stitching.

A pretty little thought to finish with…

earth-laughs-in-flowers

Posted in embroidery, Serendipity, The Travelling Sketchbook | Tagged , , | 30 Comments

Clock

Posted on April 13, 2018 by craftycreeky

Today’s photo challenge word from Postcard from Gibraltar is clock…

This is our conservatory wall, my OH finds it amusing as the clock is now set at 10 to 2, he chuntered so much about it having a loud tick that I took the batteries out, it took him several weeks to notice!

DSC_0009I’ve got a kit from Springwood Designs to make a clock for my sewing room, I bought it a couple of years ago at one of the shows in Harrogate. I’m still trying to decide whether to make it with fabric wedges like the pattern…Clock-Parts (1)

 

or sewing themed fabric, maybe plain fabric with embroidery…or buttons

…or haberdashery like this one by Live it.Love it.Make it

IMG_3019A

…decisions! There’s lots of ideas on Pinterest, I just need the time to sit down, make a decision and make a clock!

Posted in Crafts, Photo Challenge, Serendipity, Sewing | Tagged , | 7 Comments