A Colourful Cushion

Posted on August 8, 2017 by craftycreeky

I’ve decided to enter the handicraft section of the local flower show, I’ve never been so I’ve no idea what the competition is like, but it’s only like 50p per entry…so I’ve entered ten items 🙂

One class is ‘A Colourful Cushion’, making a cushion for the show has also helped me as I’ve made the (possibly rash) move of booking a stall at the Dickensian fair at one of the local villages in December, to have a go at selling some  of my makes. Cushions is something I thought of making.

The fabric is gorgeous, it was an off-cut from one of the soft furnishing shops in Otley, they have pretty good sales, they sell the ‘nice’ curtain fabric such as Voyager and they sell off display lengths, end of rolls and shorter lengths, this was obviously what they cut off the bottom of a curtain.

I found a tutorial on Pinterest which gave me the idea. The cushion pad is 12″ by 20″ so I aimed to have the two end panels 7″ wide and the pleats 6″.  I bought a coordinating batik on Skipton market for the pleats and the binding. The pleats were my first job. I decided to try a technique I saw mentioned on a blog just a few weeks ago, using a dinner fork! It works a treat! You basically inset the fabric in between the end two tines and then twist it back, it holds it beautifully. I quite fancy making a pleated skirt now! As this was such a short width I managed to carry the pleats across with the iron. I basted them down before sewing the end panels on.

The piping was also helped with a tutorial on YouTube, how to join two ends of covered piping! I must admit in the past I’ve just winged it and crossed them over and into the back, but having seen this tutorial I decided to learn how to do it properly, especially as I want to sell some. It was fiddly but doable, just joining the two ends on the bias at just the right point (that was the tricky bit!) and then trimming the cord to fit.

I wanted to put buttons on the back to fasten, rather than a zip. Zips are trickier to get neat, but they are also not cheap, especially when you are looking at 18″ ones. I think buttons also make a nice feature on the back. I edged one side with the batik, just to make a feature. My original plan was to cover three large buttons with the batik, of course I only had two in my button box, I thought I’d do five smaller ones when I spotted at the bottom of the box some raspberry pink buttons I’ve had for ages, I knew I had a few and sure enough I found five. I think I prefer five smaller ones now, they seem to hold it nice and firm, my only concern is that they have metal shanks and I’ve had bad experiences with metal shank buttons…ping…ping…ping…so long as they last til Saturday night!

I’m really pleased with my cushion. The piping looks good, the colour scheme works well, I like the pleating detail, I just need to work out how to stop it ‘bulging’ in the middle, it’s got a bit of middle age spread at the moment! After the show I might try adding some iron on interfacing to the back, see if that holds it better.

I think it’s very apt for a flower show!

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Moody Blues and Purples in the Garden

Posted on August 7, 2017 by craftycreeky

As I showed you all my orange flowers in the garden last week, I thought I’d have a blue day, show you the flowers I have to calm down the orange in my Amber and Amethyst garden, although there isn’t too many out at the moment…

…it’s also an excuse to show you my clematis. This year it is glorious, I think it’s the best it’s ever been! I probably planted it about 15 years ago, so quite a while! It shares the arch leading to the patio with a rose and a sickly honeysuckle but it has this side to it’s self.

I’m pretty sure it’s a Ville de Lyon, when I googled it most of them look pinkier, but there are a few this colour. It’s very similar to a Jackmanii but Ville de Lyon is the name that came out from the depths of my memory!! It’s one of the ones that you prune in late winter / early spring (or at least that’s what I do!) I leave it as it is all winter then just as it starts to shoot I cut it back to about 12-18″ tall.

I think this year I must have been a bit late cutting it as usually it gets right over the arch, but it has compensated with the sheer number of blooms, right down the stems.

I actually managed to get some weeding done on the raised bed by the patio, it took a while to battle through the plants but it does look better for it. The veronica is just coming to the end but it has been lovely his year, it’s a really deep blue tall variety, luckily it’s self seeding around the garden now.

Another blue flower which gently dominates this bed is a blue geranium. It’s a sprawling one, so over winter the bed looks pretty bare but over summer it’s as full as can be. It mingles with all the other plants with it’s soft blue flowers appearing everywhere. The bees love it too.

Liatris is a funny looking plant but it adds a frothy spike of purple and clumps up nicely. We did laugh the other day when we were have lunch in a pub nearby, the waiter came to change the flowers on the table from a pretty vase of daisy style flowers to a single spike of liatris! It felt a poor exchange and even the waiter looked a bit sheepish! Unfortunately in the photo you can also see the bindweed curling round, think I’ll be getting the weedkiller out once it stops raining long enough!

Echinaceas are more pinky-purple really, they’re looking really pretty at the moment, though I think they’ve been a bit bashed by the rain. I love their spiky amber heads. I’ve got a white one in the garden somewhere too, but I prefer the pinky-purple one.

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The last flower I’m showing you today isn’t purple at all but it’s just come into flower and it’s so beautiful I couldn’t resist taking a photo to share. It’s a pot of lily bulbs I bought at the Harrogate show. I think these are called tree lillies, they are pretty tall and the flowers are huge, they are such a lovely delicate shade of pink.

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Hopefully soon I’ll be able to start laying out my new AA garden as I’ve finally finished clearing the old beds and digging over the compacted clay under the former paths, just needs a rotavate and then levelling, then it’s ready for the split log roll edging and gravel…then the fun starts, planting!

 

 

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Poppy in Silk Ribbon

Posted on August 7, 2017 by craftycreeky

Marilyn Pipe

There’s a local show on Saturday, one I’ve not been to before but a friend suggested I enter some of my handicrafts in…so I’ve entered ten items in the crafts and the photography classes! Ironically I’m also judging handicrafts at another local village show, so it’s going to be a day of shows 🙂

Having entered two items in the embroidery section I realised that although I’ve done alot of embroidery this year, most of it has been given away! Whilst moodling through my sewing box this afternoon  (the one I take on workshops with me) I found a piece I started back in May at Denman College. It was at the end of the ribbon embroidery course and I had an hour to spare so, inspired by one of the tutors samples (Marilyn Pipe – brilliant tutor and wonderful lady!)  I started a flower head, Marilyn had made daisy or gerbera type flowers, I fancied making a poppy.

I got as far as embroidering a circle of french knots, the centre is a variegated red with charcoal grey,the outer ring is a dark grey variegated thread with black. The knots are quite chunky with three threads and three wraps.

I only had one length of red ribbon, 4mm wide, so I decided to dye some 7mm and some 12mm. I tried red with a touch of pink to start with, but it didn’t look deep enough, so I overdyed it with a new mixture, red with a single drop of black, better..whilst I was mixing the ribbon in I put a few more drops of red in for good measure – perfect! It’s a nice deep, rich red, just what I wanted.

My plan originally was to try and make it look like four petals, I drew an outline with my silver gelpen and started with the widest ribbon. I just used basic ribbon stitch, trying to keep the points as broad as I could. I made two stitches on each petal, then added the 7mm ribbon along side, making some lie towards one side or the other, trying to get the petal shape. Finally I added the 4mm ribbon, that’s the only bought one and it’s a brighter red, which gives a nice contrast, but to stop it looking too stripey I tucked most of them behind the other ribbons.

In the end the ribbons don’t look like four petals, but I think they do look like the crinkly edge of a poppy.

In between the french knots and the ribbon was a very narrow white strip, I left it as it made it easier to make the ribbon stitches, but I also planned from the start to add a circle of tiny black beads to add texture and to snuggle in the gap between the centre and the petals.

I felt the background needed a bit of interest so I used a varigated DMC thread in yellow, orange and red to make little back-stitch and french knot squiggles.

I borrowed a deep picture frame from my daughter’s wall. It really needs a different colour mount, even more of an ivory, but I know I won’t have chance to get one before the show, so this will have to suffice. It would be interesting to try this again with a silk painted background, maybe in greens and reds like a poppy field.



I’m linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, why not follow the link and see what every else has been stitching.

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Flower Lattice Stitch-a-long 14

Posted on August 6, 2017 by craftycreeky

It’s three weeks since I last showed you my ribbon and stumpwork flower lattice, I’ve actually worked pretty hard on it in that time and (for the first time, I think!) I can say I’ve even impressed myself with my progress. I think the push has been that I felt it was starting to getting grubby, the problem is that if it is tidied away all the time to keep it clean, I’m less likely to pick it up until the reminder comes round for the SAL post. If it’s left out I’m more likely to do 5 minutes here and there, but it gets grubby. So, this is where I was three weeks ago…

My next task was to do all the stems, this did seem to take FOREVER,they are mainly over-stitched with just the top ones wrapped. The arum lilies were much more interesting. The leaves are stitched over felt to give an extra padded look. The instructions called for white felt, but as I had some green in my stash I thought I may as well use that as it must be easier to cover. I’m really pleased with how these turned out, I used a variegated DMC thread and satin stitch, it does make a nice fleshy leaf.

The flowers took a bit more time. The petals are stitched on a spare bit of cotton fabric, I used a soft cotton that I find really nice to embroider on, with hindsight I might have been better with a firmer cotton. The book called for silk thread, a few months back I bought a few cards of silk thread on ebay, this gave me a chance to try it out. It does feel a lot different to sew with, lovely but different! It’s also a lot more glossy which I’m not convinced is petal like, but never mind! The petals are stitched with buttonhole and then long and short stitch.

Once they were stitched I then had to very carefully cut them out as near to the stitching as possible. The stamen is made from a cake decorating stamen. The longest ones I could find weren’t really long enough so I just wrapped a load of DMC thread around the stem to lengthen it. The petals were then wrapped around the stamen and secured. This was the point at which I realised that the back of my stitching would be on full display!! It’s not perfect but it’s not terrible!! The petals still look a bit ‘fluffy’, I thought I might wait til the very end when it’s about to get framed to trim any whiskers off.

The natal lilies to the left are french knots stitched with 4mm ribbon. The stems are meant to be over-stitched wire, but I thought it could end up pretty bulky for a little flower, so I just used straight stitches of perle thread. A few little filler stitches and another diamond was complete…

The next diamond was fuchsias. To be honest this diamond has been a bit of a brick wall since I started this project, probably mainly because it calls for 15mm organza ribbon, by which I think it means silk organza ribbon, I couldn’t find anything anywhere and I’m sure you couldn’t embroider with synthetic organza. I decided to just use silk ribbon.  First I had to embroider the leaves and stems…

The instructions call for two threads of a Valdani variegated thread, I’m using DMC with a few extras thrown in. I tried a DMC thread on the first leaf but it look too stripey, so on the next one I tried a ‘special’ variegated one mixed with a plain green DMC, so when it went very light, it still had the back up of a mid green. I think it worked very well. The leaves were outlined in stem stitch first and then satin stitch was used over the stem stitch to raise it a bit. I went back to the first one and over-stitched a few plain green threads and it blended in fine.

The stems were mainly over-stitched wire, with some of them wrapped where they crossed over.

The middle leaf is stumpwork. This was stitched on a quilt weight cotton first, couching a cake decorating wire round the shape before stitching over the wire and leaf with long and short buttonhole stitch, this gives a lovely neat edge to the leaf. It was then filled in with long and short stitch. The vein wire was over-stitched down before the leaf was put on one side whilst I stitched the flowers.

The book called for 15mm ribbon, I just had 12mm in my stash, so that’s what I used. I needed a sort of muddy purple and a tangerine colour. I spent a pleasant half hour dabbling with my silk paints, dying two lengths of ribbon. The purple was pretty straight forward,but the tangerine was too orange to start with, I added more pink and eventually overdyed it with a watered down pink, it’s probably now pinkier than it’s meant to be but it looks fuchsia coloured to me!

The buds are stitched with a lazy-daisy stitch, the flowers are just in basic ribbon stitch, my main problem was trying not to catch the tails of one petal in the stitch of another. The base of the flowers and the buds is made with a grab stitch. I used a strand of DMC to shape the flowers a little more.

The stamens of the fuschias were meant to be made from cake decoration stamens dyed tangerine with the stems overstitched in green. I tried dying some with my silk paints  without success so I decided to use stem stitch and chunky french knots. I’m happy with the results.

The final task of this diamond was to trim (very gingerly!) around my leaf and then wrap the wire with thread before attaching the end to the embroidery.

So I’ve actually managed to stitch two diamonds in three weeks! There’s just four to go so I’m nearly there..starting to plan my next SAL project!

There’s quite a few of us taking part in the stitch-a-long now, so please follow the links to see what everyone else is stitching, there are some amazing projects;

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, LucyAnn, Kate, Jess, Sue, Constanze, Debbierose, Christina, Kathy, Cindy, Helen, Steph, Linda, Catherine, Mary Margaret, Timothy, Heidi, Connie

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.

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Yorkshire Day

Posted on August 1, 2017 by craftycreeky

Bolton AbbeyHappy Yorkshire Day everyone!

August 1st is Yorkshire Day, a day when we celebrate what a fantastic county we live in. It was actually started back in 1975 as a protest against the local government reorganisation when the county boundaries were changed, the ancient three ridings of Yorkshire disappeared and whole chunks of land taken out of Yorkshire. Yorkshire people are well known for being fiercely proud of Yorkshire, well it is the best place in the whole wide world…though we are slightly biased!!!

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It’s locally known as Gods Own County, my OH always laughs as he is Australian, so he says he was born in Gods Own Country and now lives in Gods Own County. We have stunning countryside (I think more than a few people were surprised when we hosted the Tour de France!), great cities, beautiful coastline, amazing historical places…and some great fabric shops too 🙂

Long Distance Walks

My stitch sampler is going to be a bit of a journal as well, so I’ve just embroidered Yorkshire Day as I start the second page of buttonhole stitch. I’ve chosen another of the DMC coloris range, 4506 as I thought the greens and blues with touches of yellow were pretty apt for Yorkshire.

Yorkshire Day

So if anyone still isn’t sure how great Yorkshire is, do have a look at the Welcome to Yorkshire video on Youtube, the scenery is just amazing 🙂

 

 

 

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Buttonholes and Blankets

Posted on July 30, 2017 by craftycreeky

It was Craft Club afternoon with my WI on Friday, we usually just take our own projects and enjoy stitching and chatting with of course a cup of tea and a slice of homemade cake. I decided to start another page of my stitch journal. I’m working my way through the TAST list of 100 stitches on Pin Tangle (Take a Stitch Tuesday)  but I stitching them in groups and adding a few extra as I come across them.

My first two pages were fly stitch and feather stitch, number 2 on the TAST list is buttonhole, so that’s what I’m stitching now. There are LOTS of types of buttonhole stitch so I’m doing a double page spread. I’ve always called the basic one blanket stitch so I’ve embroidered both names at the top of the two pages.

I’m using one of the DMC Colaris threads for this page, 4523. It’s very pretty with shades of powder blue, lilac, taupe and cream. It’s interesting seeing how the different threads sew as this one seems to have very sudden colour changes, it almost looks striped!

I started off with basic buttonhole and then stitched three different variations of stitch height and base line and three buttonhole stitch hearts. My favourite is the third one with the second row of stitches underneath. Continue reading →

Posted in Serendipity, TAST, The Travelling Sketchbook | Tagged , | 11 Comments

Feather Stitch Sample

Posted on July 23, 2017 by craftycreeky

Earlier this week I started a new, long-term project, a stitch sample textile book.  I’m working through the TAST (Take a Stitch Tuesday) list of 100 stitches on Pin Tangle and adding any extra’s I come across. I’m stitching a page on each type of stitch (well that’s the plan!) so I won’t end up with 100 pages! I also want it to be a bit of a journal too, so I might embroider major events and also where I’ve stitched it (if not at home!) Each page is being stitched in a single DMC variegated thread, so I also have a record of what the different colourways stitch like.

My first page was on fly stitch, it looks like this…

I decided to do feather stitch next, I didn’t know there were so many variations of feather stitch!! I’ve stitched four variations on the usual feather stitch and six other feather stitches too, I’ve used one of my favourite DMC threads, 4505 which is shades of green and purple; Continue reading →

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Lizzie Stitching Wallet Part 4

Posted on July 22, 2017 by craftycreeky

Lizzie Stitching WalletMy Lizzie Stitching Wallet is looking very pretty. This is a stitch-a-long by Faby Reilly, so every one or two weeks we get the next section of the pattern as the design is gradually revealed to us. Last week we stitched the ‘spines’ of the wallet, embellished with sequins and beads, it looked like this…

…I was going to leave all the beads until last as I was stitching on a hoop, but I couldn’t resist! I bought an inexpensive table top frame to try. My stitching wallet is now stretched on the frame. I’ve used it for stitching this section and at the moment I have mixed feelings, I’m sewing on a desk, sitting on a dining room chair and I find even on it’s lowest setting it’s a bit high, I also find the light tricky as I have a window in front of me and I find it’s actually quite distracting to be able to see light through the linen, I find it’s actually harder to count! At the moment I’m stitching with the frame resting on my knees, leaning against the desk, which I’m sure is not the idea!! It has made me consider looking at frames at the next stitching show when I could try some styles out and find what suits me. Continue reading →

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Oranges in the Garden

Posted on July 20, 2017 by craftycreeky

Candelabra primualsWhen I first started out in gardening, in my younger days, I would turn my nose up at orange flowers, ‘I don’t do orange!’ they were too gaudy and brash! I liked the restrained look of Vita Sackville-West’s white garden, or a subtle mix of pinks and blues.

I’m not sure what or when it happened, but I love a splash of orange now! I’m not sure if I’ve just come to realise that there’s a place for all colours in a garden (still don’t do black leaves though!!) or even on a more physiological view, as we age does our visual acuity change to the extent that we appreciate the vibrancy of colour more. Maybe I’ve just grown up as a gardener!!

I’ve even got an amber and amethyst garden now, full of oranges from peach to rust, calmed down with  all shades of purple. Late summer, early autumn it is glorious with all the yellows and oranges.  This is the area I’m redesigning at the moment, so my favourite orange plants are stashed around the rest of the garden whilst their corner of the garden is sorted. Continue reading →

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Stitch Sampler Book

Posted on July 19, 2017 by craftycreeky

I’ve just started a new little embroidery project, I know, I hear you, haven’t I got enough projects on at the moment! Well, I realised on Sunday when I was packing up for Embroiderers Guild that I haven’t got a little portable project at the moment, especially now my Lizzie Stitching Wallet is on a frame. When I’m going somewhere where I know I’m likely to be sitting around, I like to have some stitching in my bag. Embroiderers Guild doesn’t start until 10am, but because of bus times I’m usually in Skipton by 8.30am, so I go to my favourite coffee shop, order a pot of tea and maybe cinnamon toast, and I sit and sew, very relaxing…

…but I need a small and portable project, I can hardly sit there with my table top frame!. I decided to start a new project which has been lulling about in my brain for a few weeks now. A couple of months ago I found (on Pinterest) a stitch sampler made into a textile book (Right hand photo). It’s made by Maya Matthew and she has kindly written a detailed post on how she makes her books.

Shortly after, I discovered Pin Tangle, an amazing blog where Sharon has tutorials on hundreds of different stitches.She has also made a stitch sampler but this time on a 30′ (yes, you did read that right!!) by 8″ length of linen. What I loved with this one is how she made it into a journal with occasional snippets of what’s going on in the world at the time of stitching. This is the sampler on  the left.

Sharon organises TAST, or Take A Stitch Tuesday, she has been releasing a new stitch every week for people to learn and try, of course you can post it on various social media sites too. I’m a bit late joining this as they are up to week 92 out of a hundred, but the list gives a comprehensive variety of stitches for me to learn.

I’ve decided to stitch mine journal style with a page for each type of stitch. This doesn’t mean I’ll have 100 pages luckily as for example there are about a dozen different chain stitches, so they’ll all go together.

I’m adding occasional journal bits, such as where I’m stitching it, this could be fun when I go on holiday! Major events or news might pop up too, though I want it to be positive news and there doesn’t seem to be much of that around at the moment!

I’m using a different DMC variegated thread for each page, so I’ll also have a record of what the different colours stitch like. The number at the bottom is the DMC number.

So here is my first page on Fly stitch. I did plain fly stitch first, then did the strip down the side, though half way down I regretted stitching it so close together! The second row is Italian Border stitch, which is a fly stitch with french knots. The third row is Tete de Boeuf, which is fly stitch with chain stitch at the ends to look like a bulls head. The fourth row is plaited fly stitch, it’s amazing what you find when you google fly-stitch!!

I embroidered a dandelion seed head in fly stitch, I’ve fancied doing one of these for ages, so it was a good excuse! I saw the flower and the leaves on Pinterest. The final border is like a border of fly-stitch, I made that one up but I do like the effect.

I embroidered ‘Skipton’ as that is where I started stitching it, together with the date. I’m edging it with a back-stitch ruler as taught by Faby Reilly so I can join the sides together with whip-stitch when the time comes.

So hopefully over the next few months I’ll have a regular little post on TAST and learn lots of stitches too!

 

 

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