Friday’s Photo Challenge

Posted on March 30, 2018 by craftycreeky

This week I thought I was going to have to think outside the box with a colourful photo of  embroidery threads as the theme is ‘rainbows’.

This was my first thought…

I actually won a prize at the local show with this photograph!

I love seeing rainbows, there’s just something about their fleeting appearance and that hope of better things to come. I also love the way how ever many you see, and lets face it we’ve probably seen hundreds in our lifetime, you automatically say (or at least think) ‘Ooh look, a rainbow!!’…or is that just me!

The problem I have today is that I can’t find a decent photo of a rainbow! I have however found a photo that has the merest glimmer of a rainbow. I remember the day well as it was the final day of our walking holiday last September. We were meant to be walking thirteen miles back to Keswick but we chickened out and took a glorious bus ride along the Honister pass back to Keswick instead. Later, after a good walk along the shores of Derwentwater we decided to take the scenic route back via the launch. The black clouds gathered but the photo shows that classic mix of rain clouds, blue skies and sunshine…and right in the middle, just above that cloud that looks a bit like a jigsaw piece, is just a glimmer of a rainbow!

The Friday photo challenge is organised by Postcard from Gibraltar, do follow the link and hopefully someone has a photo of a full rainbow!

Posted in Photo Challenge, Serendipity, Walking | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

…and Crosses

Posted on March 28, 2018 by craftycreeky

DSC_0651During the first week of our holiday we drove from Adelaide to Sydney, travelling along the stunning scenery of the Great Ocean Road. In the evenings I would do a little stitching whilst we chatted over a glass of wine. I decided to record the different places we stayed in the sampler in amongst the variations of crosses and stars.

Twelve Apostles

The Great Ocean Road was amazing, we saw London Bridge, the Twelve Apostles, I became quite good at spotting potential places to visit on the map, my favourite place was one we found by accident, we were heading for Childers Cove, my OH was chuntering a bit as the narrow road seemed to be going on forever. Just before Childers Cove we saw a signpost for another cove, Murnanes Bay, it was gorgeous, I could have happily stayed there all day, a tiny deserted cove, blue seas and golden beach and cliffs…not so keen on the 5′ snake that slithered across our path on the way back to the car!

I started the sampler page with  three eyelet stitches and a row of cross-stitches. I love the way the variegated thread works with this row. The little stitch after the Great Ocean Road is a square boss. Yuulong’s stitch is a star stitch.

Stitch SamplerWe stayed in the Eagle Hawk Motel in Malden which is currently owned by family, it’s a lovely vintage style motel with brass beds and patchwork quilts. There I stitched a row of Ermine stitches.

We stayed just outside Gundagai in the middle of nowhere, kangaroos usually pass through the area just after dawn on their way to the river. I got up early, didn’t see any kangaroos but I did enjoy the sunrise. I can see this photo as an embroidery! The six stitches on this row are woven crosses. On our way to Kiama we called into Canberra as my OH wanted to spend some time at the War Memorial, I visited the botanical gardens as was rewarded with an echidna ambling along towards me, I sat for about 20 minutes with another lady just enjoying the moment.Echidna

Of course, stitching crosses in Australia, I had to do a representation of the Southern Cross! The biggest cross is an outlined diamond eyelet, the four medium crosses are Algerian Eye, and the tiny one is a woven star.DSC_0018 (2)

So, that’s our drive from Adelaide to Sydney in stitches and another page for my stitch sampler.Stitch Sampler

I’ve now completed six double pages for my sampler, so I really think I need to start stitching them together into a book!

Stitch Sampler

 

Posted in embroidery, Serendipity, TAST, Textile Books | Tagged , , , | 12 Comments

Knots and Crosses

Posted on March 27, 2018 by craftycreeky

Over on Pintangle Sharon has started a new series of TAST, 100 stitches to learn with one released each Tuesday. I’ve based my stitch sampler on the last TAST list so I’ve been trying to do the ‘Beyond TAST’ where she gives us a stitch or a family of stitches to develop a bit further over a month or so. The first month was running stitch and I was quite amazed how much I managed to do with simple running stitch.

The second month was ‘Isolated Stitches’, I’d been trying to work out where to include all the little odd stitches in my sampler book so here was my opportunity to put them all on a double page spread of Knots and Crosses! Apologies for the pun, it came to me half way through the flight to Australia!DSC_0012 (2)

I started with a tree of french knots, I’ve admired these on pinterest for ages so it gave me an opportunity to stitch one. Under the tree is a little row of straight stitches. I then tried three bullion roses, and a row of colonial knots. These are very similar to french knots, they’re formed in a different way which takes a bit to get your head round, but somehow they do seem to sit a bit neater. Pistil stitch is a bit like french knots on a stalk, so it was perfect for a seed head type of embroidery. I just managed to record our height before we started the descent to Adelaide.DSC_0119

Adelaide is a lovely city, not too big for a non-city person like me! We had a day wandering around, along the river, up to the Botanical Gardens and of course a glass of wine in the wine museum! It was Adelaide Festival weekend so there was all sorts of music and entertainment on the streets. There was even an air display of  jets doing loop the loop etc, this was a bit of a surprise to us as here in the UK, due to a couple of serious accidents, all air displays have to be over the sea, we can have a fly past over the cities but certainly no acrobatics.DSC_0013 (2)

The next block of stitches are Danish knots, sheaf filling, palestrina knot and Sorbello. Underneath is a woven spider web and a ribbed web, I really like the ribbed web. The bottom row are four-legged knots which really is like a knotted cross-stitch.

From Adelaide we drove down to the pretty town of Robe, where the sea was a beautiful mix of turquoise, jade and azure blue. After stretching our legs along the sea front we headed down to Portland for our first stay in an Air B&B. We had booked three nights in Air B&B’s, each very different but all great.DSC_0146

Before leaving the area we drove down to Cape Bridgewater to see the blowholes and the Petrified Forest. These look like fossilized trees but it’s actually just limestone eroding away. As I looked at the ‘trees’ I did think it would be an amazing theme for an embroidery, not sure it’s within my ability but it was an interesting thought!DSC_0283

The final group of stitches on this pages are detached wheatear (Tete-de-boeuf stitch), crown stitch and tulip stitch. I stitched this page with DMC 4514 which is pretty shades of jade, purple and pink. I think with hindsight I would have been better with a more ‘flowery’ colour, just because I ended up stitching  quite a few blossoms and flowers. DSC_0014 (2)

I stitched all the ‘crosses’ as we made our way along the Great Ocean Road to Sydney, but I’ll leave that for another post 🙂DSC_0010 (2)

Posted in embroidery, Serendipity, TAST, Textile Books | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Monday’s Meander Around the Garden

Posted on March 26, 2018 by craftycreeky

After all the bad weather they’ve had here whilst we’ve been sunning ourselves yesterday it was a lovely early spring day. The sun shone all day so even though it was only about 5′ it felt a lot warmer. My OH and I spent several hours in the garden clearing the old chicken run.

Our chickens went to pastures new in the autumn and the area needed clearing of rubbish, the old rotten compost heaps needed removing and the gorgeous compost moved elsewhere. I dug up lots of bindweed roots, which is always satisfying, though I know there’s some I couldn’t get at so it will have to be weed-killered when it starts to sprout!

We’re getting some new compost heaps and then I’ll be planting up a deep border with shrubs and climbers. My original plan was to grow clematis up the old fence posts, my OH felt that once we started taking the gate off they would all come down…after battling with said gate with claw hammer, jemmy, sledge hammer for far too long the gate and post eventually came out and he decided my idea of growing clematis up the other six posts was a good one!!

Plants are just starting to emerge in the garden, these bulbs are some I forgot to plant for a year, so I’m amazed they’ve come up!

We’ve lots of daffodils in flower, adding a splash of colour. I particularly like these miniature ones, they’re only about 6″ tall, they’re very dainty but they seem to stand up to inclement weather better than the taller ones.

Underneath a rhododendron the pulmonaria are just coming into flower, they’re a very pretty pinky blue. Their traditional name is lungwort as they were thought to treat lung problems, mainly because it was thought their leaves looked vaguely lung-like!

I’ve two or three osmanthus in the garden, their leaves are like holly but they have a much more bushy habit, I find them very good for flower arranging at Christmas! They are a useful small shrub in the garden, neat and tidy, no major care, good evergreen interest. This is the golden variegated one, I’ve another that’s edged with cream and a plain green one in the front garden!..if you have heavy clay soil like mine and you find a plant that likes it, you buy it in all colours 🙂

I’m hoping this week to finish tidying the pond area, before the snow arrives again just in time for Easter!!

 

 

 

 

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A Tall Square Year Etui Stitch-a-long

Posted on March 25, 2018 by craftycreeky

It’s three weeks since I last showed you my etui box, this is a pattern by Betsy Morgan from a Classic Inspirations magasine. I’m using my own choice of colours so I’ve chosen the spring colours of blue, yellow, fresh green and a touch of pink. This is where I was three weeks ago, I’d just about managed to get a few hours in at Embroiderers Guild before I went on holiday.

We only flew back on Thursday, so I’m still somewhat jet-lagged, but I decided to try and stitch a little this evening so I had something to show you!

I completed the long legged cross-stitch row. The alphabet row looks lovely but it’s those tweeny single strand cross-stitches again! As I wanted the variegation to stand out I stitched all the crosses individually, rater than doing a row of half stitches and then returning to cross them all. I’m not sure what happened to the number two at the end, I think it’s the jet-lag stitching!! I might see how I feel in the morning as to whether or not I unpick that number.

I’ve just got two more rows to stitch and this side is complete.

A little update on the National Crafters Award; I mentioned just before I went on holiday that I had been shortlisted for this award, it was with some trepidation that I posted my Flower Lattice down to Devon for judging. The award was one by Victoria Mattewson with a stunning embroidery of a ladybird. Follow the link to see a photo on the Sew and Sew websight. Between the classes there were over 800 entries, so I’m pretty proud to have been shortlisted. I was very relieved when my picture arrived safely back again!DSC_0003

This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis, from Stitching by the Sea, we share our projects every three weeks, if you would like to join us, just send Avis a link.

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

 

 

Posted in Serendipity | 34 Comments

A Travelling Needlewoman

Posted on March 24, 2018 by craftycreeky

I’m not very keen on flying, I’m better than I used to be but I can’t say I enjoy it. For our long haul flights this time I decided to take some sewing to keep my mind occupied. I packed about half a dozen project bags each with all the threads, needles, fabric and of course the pattern. The only thing left to pack was some scissors…

I read lots of comments on facebook about what airlines allow and what they don’t, it does seem very variable, some of them don’t even allow nail clippers or floss cutters, so I decided to do a mini test! I  packed different types of cutting implements to see what would be allowed and what would be confiscated.

I packed some pretty little floral scissors, they’re actually very sharp but they have a blade less than 1″. They are also very cheap so it didn’t matter if I lost them. (I did take the fob off first!!)

I packed some paper scissors, they were sharp enough for thread, a longer blade, but importantly they had a rounded blunt end.

The last thing I packed was a clover thread cutter. This is a notched disc with a circular blade inside. I threaded it with ribbon to make it into a pendant.

Our flights to Australia were with Emirates, they studied both pairs, interestingly they seemed more concerned about the blunt pair. I had been careful to put them inside the project bags so it was obvious what they were for. They let both pairs go through.

Sydney to Bali was with Virgin, they confiscated the floral pair as they had a sharp tip.

Bali to Kuala Lumpar was with Malasian Airlines, they confiscated the blunt pair.

Nobody took any notice of the thread cutter round my neck. I sent it through the scanners like a pendant and they never gave it a second glance. It was actually perfect for sewing on the move, I never actually used any of the scissors in the end. As it was hanging round my neck there was never any issues with dropping them, loosing them down the side of the seat or even just having to furtle round in the bag every time. It doesn’t cut quite as close as a pair of scissors but I can always trim off loose threads later.

On the flights to Australia I managed to finish February of the Joyful World calendar by Maja Matyas of The Snowflower Diaries. I think February is a particularly sweet design with the two ducks sitting together. The linen is actually a really pretty soft shade of green, but it’s not showing up on the photos. I’m making these into mini cushions with the idea of eventually having a basket of seasonal ‘smalls’ on display. Obviously there is a bit of catching up to do as I’ve still to make it up and were already nearly at the end of March!

February Joyful World from The Snowflower Diaries

I did lots more sewing over the three weeks which I will show you over the next few days. Between flights, airports, sitting round the pool ( I can’t just sit and do nothing!) I got quite a few hours in!

My final tip for flying…I found a use for some leftover binding strips from the Kaffe Fassett quilt, I wrapped it tightly round the handle of my purple suitcase, I could spot it a mile off on the baggage carousel!

Posted in embroidery, Serendipity | Tagged , | 33 Comments

Friday Photo Challenge

Posted on March 23, 2018 by craftycreeky

I’m back from our holiday just in time for the Friday Photo Challenge organised by Postcard from Gibralter. This weeks theme is Spring…and we’ve got snow forecast again this weekend!! The meme I posted a few weeks ago comes to mind!

Having been away for most of March I was concerned I would return to a garden already galloping away from me as this is when the garden usually starts to galvanize it’s self and everything shoots up. One advantage of all the snow the UK has had recently (to us as we enjoyed the 30′ heat of Bali!!) is that it has delayed the start of spring. I think any plant that was starting to stick it’s head above soil level has changed it’s mind. The garden is pretty much as I left it at the end of February.

We’ve had the Beast from the East and then the Pest from the West, I haven’t seen snow like this for many years. When we left to go on holiday we had about 8″ in the garden, in fact we could easily have missed our flight, despite booking a hotel near the airport for the night before. We left early about 3pm for the drive across the Pennines to Manchester that usually takes about 90 minutes tops. We finally arrived after 7pm, four hours later and heard on the news that the M62 motorway had been shut due to conditions and accidents just after we got through and people were stranded in their cars for the night up there!!

Hopefully spring will start to arrive soon, in the meantime these photos are from last year in our garden…

Our magnolia stellata is one of my favourite spring trees, it’s still in tight bud so it will be another few weeks before it looks like this. The daffodils beneath them have a lovely strong scent which fills the air on a warm spring day.

Primroses are a lovely herald to spring, this little clump is at the top of the garden next to the path so they cheer us up as we go to walk the dogs up the back lane.These are candelabra primulas with a round head of flowers on top of a tall stem, I’m trying to get a few more of these around the pond as I think they are really pretty. The pond area always looks good in the spring as the hostas and the irises leaf up pretty early on and there’s lots of spring flowers interplanting them.

Forget-me-nots, Solomon’s seal, hellebore, aquilegias, wall flowers and a little dicenta, all things to look forward to in the next few weeks 🙂

Posted in Garden, Photo Challenge, Serendipity | Tagged | 8 Comments

Down the Rabbit Hole HQAL

Posted on March 11, 2018 by craftycreeky

It’s three weeks since I last showed you my Down the Rabbit Hole quilt, I was making good progress then after a few good sessions on it. This is where I was…

Nearly there!!

…and I’m afraid that is pretty much where I still am, the final length of vine is still unfinished!! I didn’t have chance to do any applique before I went on holiday. It doesn’t help that I’m a bit wary of taking it away for a weekend or a holiday, just in case it get’s lost!!

I am hoping to concentrate on it once I get back from holiday, in the meantime please follow the links to see what everyone else has been hand quilting.

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, Deborah,  Susan, Jessisca, Sherry, Nanette, Sassy, Edith, Sharon and Bella.

Down the Rabbit Hole

 

 

Posted in Quilt-a-long, Quilting, Serendipity | 7 Comments

Friday Photo Challenge

Posted on March 9, 2018 by craftycreeky

It’s Friday again, so it’s photo challenge time organised by Postcard from Gibraltar.  The word for today is Best Friend…

I’ve got three best friend photos to show you. Next weekend it’s our eleventh wedding anniversary, so here’s a photo of my best friend and OH on our wedding day;

 

….second it’s got to be a photo of Zach. He’s over 14 years old now, lumpy, bumpy and grumpy as well as blind and deaf!! I got him when I was first divorced and he’s been my little shadow ever since, following me around the house and sitting at my feet when I’m sewing. He would defend me to the end, though luckily he’s never had to prove himself!

The final photo is of my friend I do long distance walks with, we manage to put up with each other for a week of walking and sharing a room with ease 🙂 I think this walk was the Bay2Bay walk, heading to the west coast…and yes, the cow parsley really was that tall, we were more worried about the nettles!

Hedgerows

 

Posted in Serendipity | 9 Comments

Monthly Photo Challenge

Posted on March 6, 2018 by craftycreeky

Wild Daffodil organises a monthly photo challenge, her word for today is scale.

This photo was taken just before we went on holiday, Lucy is my mum’s dog, now living with us, she is a little bichon frise, tiny compared to Rosie, our big golden retriever…and look at the size of those snow flakes!!

This elephant quilt was made for a charity auction last year. The original pattern was for a cot quilt, I scaled it up to make it big enough to be a single bed or throw size.

These miniature daffodils should be flowering when we get back from holiday. They have a lovely strong scent and I find them a bit more robust than the taller varieties.

Finally, a photo of Beverley Minster, we visited there with WI, the sheer scale of it is quite awe-inspiring, it is beautiful, makes you feel really small!

 

 

Posted in Photo Challenge, Serendipity | 10 Comments