The Traveller has Returned!

Posted on July 18, 2017 by craftycreeky

Yesterday I had a great day out at Skipton Embroiderers Guild, not only did we have workshops in the morning (stitching doodle flowers and felting) and an inspiring speaker in the afternoon (Jackie Cardy with her beautiful embroidered felt) we also received our Travelling Sketchbooks back from our little groups!

Wow! What more can I say!!!…

It’s absolutely beautiful, I’m thrilled with it, the work my friends have done for me is stunning…

We all wrote a page or two about our inspiration and how we created our entry, mine tended to be pretty brief but some inspiration pages were as much works of art as the actual entry.

The first entry was from Jean Collingbourne, it’s the only one I had very briefly seen when we did the first swap, we were  all a bit unsure of what was expected so we did show each other’s entries that month. I love this one and it made me laugh! Her inspiration was a trip up Snowdon on the Mountain Goat train. Snowdon is the highest mountain in Wales but there is actually a little train that chugs to within a hundred feet or so of the summit. Jane attached a couple of postcards (one written to me!) and even decorated the page with a pen drawing of a dry stone wall. The postcard shown in the photo is the one her embroidery is based on.

Jane painted silk noil with watercolours and then embroidered satin stitch and french knots to give the effect of the steep gullies of the side of the mountain, the effect is amazing. The bit that made me laugh was the red train button attached with a length of silk, I’ve got my own Mountain Goat train to chug up my Snowdon, I love it!

In April Sally McGonigle embroidered me a view of the Rockies in Canada, this is on my bucket list of places I want to visit so I loved seeing the photos she included. Sally visited the Rockies as part of her Honeymoon as she described in her inspiration page. From the photos she included I’m not surprised she struggled to find a favourite view!

Sally hand dyed fabrics and marbled papers to get the effect she wanted and then embroidered and couched the fabrics to create the beautiful scene. I love the way the colours  and the textures just give that feeling of the cool, crisp views with glistening snow on the tops of the mountains. I also learnt a lot from this piece as I’ve bought a few ‘textiles’ recently, and wondered how to use them, this has given me lots of ideas on how to incorporate them into embroideries. Sally has run mini workshops on marbling at Guild meetings, now I can see how to use it!

In May Clare Hutchinson created TWO pieces for me!! She was inspired by  a holiday to Mexico back in the 1970’s when she saw her first ‘real mountain’. The first piece was a fragment of Shibori embroidery. She spent a day at a workshop in Denton learning about indigo dying using shibori methods. This was some of what she made that day, the shibori shapes reminded her of mountain peaks. I love the simplicity of this piece.

The second piece Clare created is anything but simple, wow! This is the volcano Popocatepetl, complete with a plume of smoke! The beadwork is stunning, these are all stitched on by hand!!!! Clare says she doesn’t want to see another bead for a long time! I think that will be a shame as this is amazing!

In June, Jane Law created a beautiful embroidery of the contours of Mont Blanc. I love the word play on the inspiration page too, set off perfectly by the map behind. I wish I knew how to do that on the computer!

I love this embroidery, maps fascinate me, I can spend hours looking at contours and symbols on maps. When I was planning my entry for the international sketchbook I did recently I did seriously think about doing an embroidery based on maps but I couldn’t see how to  do it. Jane’s entry has inspired me to look again at maps and embroidery. It’s beautifully embroidered in stem stitch and the colour changes work perfectly.

The final entry in my book is by Gail Marsh. I always followed Gail in the books as they were passed round, so I knew how exquisite her entries were, but gosh, this is just beautiful! Her inspiration is a gorgeous watercolour she painted from a photo taken on holiday on Spain, it spreads across one and a half pages, leaving a tempting glimpse of the embroidery overleaf.

The embroidery is from two different silk papers which Gail made herself, painted and then machine embroidered. It is gorgeous, the more you look at it the more detail you see. I love the grasses in the foreground made from silk filaments, they just look like they are blowing in a soft breeze.

This piece has inspired me to have a look at silk papers and also to try out machine embroidery as I love the effect on here.

I’m just overwhelmed with my book, I’m amazed at the work my friends put into their entries with hand painted, dyed, handmade papers and fabrics, beading and so much embroidery.

I will treasure my Sketchbook, what more can I say…

Thank you

 

 

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Travelling Sketchbooks Review

Posted on July 17, 2017 by craftycreeky

Today I will hopefully be bringing my travelling sketchbook home from my Embroiderer’s Guild meeting, I haven’t seen it for about six months so it’s pretty exciting waiting to see what everyone has been embroidering for me.

This is the sketchbook that we’re sharing at Skipton Embroiderers Guild, we are all in groups of six and we had to choose a theme for our book. Each month we swopped books so we’ve each done an entry for everyone in the group. I thought I’d do a quick post today about my entries for the sketchbooks before I hopefully show you mine tomorrow! Click on the photo to see the original post.

I’ve learnt alot doing this project and also gained alot of confidence in designing an embroidery from scratch. I’d always followed patterns or used kits before so it was well out of my comfort zone to be told here’s a topic, embroider something! I admit I usually turned to Pinterest for ideas and inspiration, but I do feel I found my own style of embroidery.

We were given our sketchbooks in January and our first task was to choose a theme, decorate our book and create the first entry. I chose mountains, I covered the book with an applique image of Catbells on the front. My entry was really a practise for the Sisterhood of the Travelling Sketchbook which I knew would be arriving on my doorstep late spring. I’d bought some textiles and fancy threads from Stef Francis at the Harrogate show but realised I really didn’t know what to do with them, I sort of made it up as I went a long and I was pretty pleased with the result.

We took our books to the February meeting and passed it on to the next person in our group. My next entry was to be on birds. The lady who always passed to me always did some exquisite entries, which was somewhat overwhelming for me at first. I’m still very new to the group and to this type of embroidery and I really didn’t know what would be expected.

I stitched a wren, I chose a wren as it has a pretty recognisable shape so hopefully people would know what it was! I used simple embroidery stitches in variegated threads and added a few beads for extra interest. It came out really well which did give me a bit of a confidence boost…I can do this!

The theme of the book the following month was trees, my original plan was to do a little cherry tree. All the trees were in blossom when I was stitching this so it seemed pretty apt. I decided in the end to just stitch a branch, a whole tree would either be very small or take too long as it would have so many french knots in it!

For the sketchbook on Walls I chose to do a dry stone wall with flowers in front. I think this was a lesson in less is sometimes more. Having outlined the stones I decided to fill them with different stitches, nice idea but I think it became too cluttered. I stitched the flowers in fairly bright colours so they would stand out from the wall. The finished embroidery turned out OK, but not my favourite.

Astronomy was a bit of a tricky topic, I spent ages on Pinterest, I saw lots that I liked but invariably they would have been too complex and taken too long. In the end I hit on the idea of using shisha mirrors and stitching round them like a mandala. I added a few squigglies and beads to fill in and bring it all together.

The final sketchbook was on tiles. I stitched this just last week, I decided to do a slightly more tongue in cheek entry and made Scrabble tiles. I like this one, makes me smile!

We’ve got the option of carrying on with the travelling sketchbooks, they’ll put us in a different group of six and we can fill our book up! I’m very tempted to volunteer for this as it has pushed me out of my comfort zone and sometimes that’s what I need to do. I think we have a month with our books before we continue, so there maybe a few more of these little embroideries in the next few months.

Tomorrow I will hopefully reveal my Sketchbook with lots of embroideries about mountains.

 

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Flower Lattice Stitch-a-long 13

Posted on July 16, 2017 by craftycreeky

It’s three weeks since I posted about my stumpwork and ribbon embroidery and I’m pleased to say I’ve made pretty good progress. It probably helped that this is one of my favourite diamonds in the embroidery! This is where I was three weeks ago…

This block is nearly all ‘proper’ embroidery, as opposed to silk ribbon work. It takes a lot longer but I find I enjoy the embroidery part more, it may just be a confidence thing, silk ribbon embroidery is still a very new technique to me. There’s lots of new stitches and techniques with the stumpwork but somehow I find it easier.

The pergola was stitched with raised stem stitch, which is basically like weaving stem stitch across a framework of threads. The next bit to stitch was the leaves and the stems of the wisteria, these were stitched with stem stitch and fly stitch for the leaves.

I must have stitched hundreds of french knots over the last few weeks, between the hydrangeas, wisteria and other projects! The instructions called for a dusky pink and a light violet colour, I decided to just use one variegated DMC thread, I chose 4220 which has light shades of purple and blue with a bit of white. I tried to avoid the white where possible or buried it under some blue ones so it just gave a little highlight. Continue reading →

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Lizzie Stitching Wallet Part 3

Posted on July 15, 2017 by craftycreeky

About a month a go I signed up for Faby Reilly’s Lizzie Stitching Wallet stitch-a-long. I was planning to make a stitching wallet of some kind anyway as I think it will be useful for Skipton Embroidery Guild days. This one will be very pretty too, it will include a scissor holder. needle case, etc, all in Faby’s lovely style.

The patterns are released on a Monday, we have one or two weeks to stitch it, depending on how much work there is to do. Last week I stitched all the back-stitching which brings the lisianthus and the hydrangeas alive. I decided at that point to leave out the beads as I was stitching on a round hoop, aiming to add them all at the end. It looked like this…

This week we were stitching the folds of the wallet, like the spine of a book. It’s a trifold wallet, so the flowers we’ve stitched so far will be the bit that folds inside (I think!) There’s a narrow spine and a wider, outer spine. They’re stitched in one of my favourite DMC colouris threads which is in very pretty shades of pink and green, using Algerian Eye stitch. It makes a lovely border. Continue reading →

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A Word About Embroidery

Posted on July 13, 2017 by craftycreeky

Over the last few months my Embroiderer’s Guild has been creating Travelling Sketchbooks. We’re all in groups of six and each month we have someone else’s book to make an entry for. This is the final book before we get our own books back on Monday and we get to see what every one else has been stitching in our own book.

This month I had Jeans book with the theme of tiles, so there’s entries about Moroccan tiles, floor tiles, all sorts…I decided on Scrabble tiles! I was pretty relieved when I was chatting to her and she admitted she was thinking of doing a tongue in cheek one for this month, she’ll hopefully appreciate this one!

I came up with three words which were suitable, not too long and would connect together, Scrabble style! Stitch, Tile and Jean. Now I know in real life Scrabble you’re not allowed names, but call it artistic license! I used my die cutter to cut perfect one inch squares from some lovely wool felt I bought in Skipton.

I drew the letters first with my silver gel pen. This is my marker of choice now as it leaves a fine twinkly line, it can be washed out, and it’s acid free, so it’s not going to damage the fabric over time. If my line or the stitching is slightly off a fine twinkly line isn’t as obvious as a pencil line. I just used back stitch in a dark grey thread,(DMC3799)  three strands for the letters and one strand for the numbers. Continue reading →

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A Dog Bed and an Armchair

Posted on July 12, 2017 by craftycreeky

A few weeks ago I was looking for something for my mum in the cupboard above her wardrobe, in amongst two bobbin lace pillows (which was what she wanted) I found eight (yes, EIGHT!) old pillows, bearing in mind she lives in a one bed bungalow and hasn’t had anyone to stay for several years, this did seem somewhat excessive! Luckily she agreed, I left her with two spare and took the others with an idea formulating in my head about a dog bed!

Our dogs sleep by the front door, which no one ever uses, they share a big dog bed, it was getting decidedly wiffy so I decided to make them a new one from the pillows. I worked out that three pillows in a row would cover the area and that furnishing fabric was just the right width.

The fabric is some I’ve had since about 1988 when I bought my first house, a two up two down cottage in Silsden. This was left over when I made my lounge curtains. It’s actually Skopos fabric, they make furnishing fabric for commercial customers, so it’s tough! They used to have a factory shop down near Shipley where they sold seconds and thirds! This is actually a third, it’s got a little white blob every so often! I still love the colours, but it’s very 80’s!!

I’ve never made pillow cases, so I made it up as I went along, I turned under the long edge, folded it over to make a decent sized flap, stitching the ends. I decided 80cm would comfortably fit a pillow in, so I folded right sides together to give me 80cm and stitched the sides together. Once turned the right way I divided it into three and stitched two dividing seams straight down the bed. It was then an easy job to slot the three pillows into their connecting cases.

Zac tried it out straight away, as you can see Rosie couldn’t be bothered to move to test it out!!

My new project to share with you is turning out bigger than I anticipated! When I bought my cottage in Silsden all those years ago, I was given a little cottage style three piece suite. Those were the days when you could buy a cottage for £20K and you were happy furnishing it with everyone’s cast offs whilst you found your feet!! The settee went years ago but the armchairs are really useful, they’re small so they tuck in a corner, but with their high backs and wings they’re really comfortable. They were also getting very grubby. They were recovered professionally about 20 years ago, I made some temporary loose covers a few years ago, but they now desperately need recovering.

About 12 years ago I went to an upholstery class, over the two years I went I progressed to recovering a wing back chair using traditional techniques. I don’t think you can even buy horse hair now! However it does mean it’s not a completely new field for me, even if I am decidedly rusty!! This is my Damson chair which I recovered, I still love it!

I bought some John Lewis furnishing fabric a few months ago in the Shuttle in Shipley, it was £5 a metre in their sale, which was lucky as I knew I needed to get about 15 or 16m, it takes a surprising amount to cover an armchair! It’s a plain fabric in a sort of duck egg blue colour, so I haven’t any pattern matching to worry about.

Yesterday I started stripping down the first chair. I foolishly hoped there would be a calico base underneath it so I wouldn’t have to worry about repadding it. No such luck! There’s just layers of padding laid over the base wood. My main problem at the moment is staples! There are hundreds of them and they are so and so’s to pull out!! I’m trying to take photos as I take it apart and I’m keeping the fabric labelled to use as a rough pattern.

Once I’ve stripped it back I’ll get my friend Trish to come and have a look, she did the course with me and has done a lot since!  She can see if it’s a viable option for me to recover it. I think I need to find some suppliers in upholstery padding too!

I think it’s a case of watch this space!

 

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Wentworth Woodhouse

Posted on July 11, 2017 by craftycreeky

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Last week my Women’s Institute had a fantastic day out at Wentworth Woodhouse, near Rotherham in South Yorkshire. We had an amazing guide, full of character, who really brought the place alive, his knowledge of the history of Wentworth Woodhouse was vast. He had worked there for many years as a carpenter, so he knew the place inside out.

I have to confess that until last year when another visit was organised, I’d never even heard of Wentworth Woodhouse, but our guide informed us that many American students know all about it as the family are linked to the American War of Independence. It has been in the UK press a lot recently as it has just been sold to a preservation trust for £7 million, which hopefully secures it’s future, but it is estimated that it needs about £42 million spending on it! It is seriously big, like it has about 300 rooms!!

Wentworth Woodhouse is actually made from two houses, the oldest house is from the 17th century, when the Earl of Stafford wanted something bigger he just built a whole new house in front in the 1700’s house, it was later extended either side with new wings, and another Earl decided he didn’t have enough room so he added an extra floor on top of the whole house!! It now has the longest facade in Europe at 625′ which is about 11′ longer than when it was first built due to mining subsidence!

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The interior is fascinating, it is seriously huge, I can see why they have a back marker on guided tours as you could quite easily get lost! The staircase up to the marble hall is beautiful, one of those that is a pleasure to walk up!

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The marble hall is classic palladial proportions, 40′ by 40′ by 40′, a perfect cube. The marble floor is beautiful.

The house is currently open for private tours and weddings but is also used a lot for filming by BBC, Bollywood etc. Victoria was filmed here as well as at Harewood House.

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The house needs a huge amount of work to restore it and it is a seriously big space to find a function for too, it’s fascinating to look around now and it would be great to return as the restoration progresses.

DSC_0025After the house tour we had a tour of the gardens and parkland. We walked via the ‘punchbowl’ which used to be lit by gas as a beacon! I would guess it’s about 15′ tall,  I wouldn’t like to be the one chosen to light that one!

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It was great to have the tour outside afterwards as it helped to make sense of the different eras of the house, looking from the outside. This is part of the older house behind the main house.

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After our tour we took a short coach trip, round the corner, to Wentworth Garden Centre, which is much more than just a ‘garden centre’, the plants were gorgeous too though!! I resisted with difficulty but I want to go back once I’ve got our garden sorted!

We had a lovely lunch and then mooched round  the courtyard shops before exploring the old gardens, they were beautiful, with an original bear pit, a maze planted in 2000…

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an original duck house, though we did come up with a few different uses before we read the guide and found out what they were…

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and an Italianate sunken garden, just look at those hostas, not a nibble from a slug in sight!!!

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It was lovely just meandering down the paths…

admiring some beautiful acers.

Altogether we had a great day out, looking forward to our next trip 🙂

 

 

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Monday’s Meander Round the Garden

Posted on July 10, 2017 by craftycreeky

I’ve been quite busy in the garden recently, I can actually see light at the end of the tunnel with the clearance of the AA garden! All the wooden beds have now been removed, beds have been cleared apart from a Japanese quince and a day lily. The lily is just about to flower so I decided it can stay there for the time being and I’ll move it last. I’ve just got two paths to clear now, then I can start trying to level it and marking out the position of the new beds.

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Much to my OH’s delight I also started pruning the drive, it was getting somewhat narrow and overgrown to get the car up. I’ve still to prune some big branches, but it’s looking much better. This is the drive before…

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…and after…

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I always refuse to cut it back until the ceanothus has finished flowering, this also means the main nesting season is over, all the baby birds have fledged. We keep seeing the chicks being fed around the bird table, they’re much bigger than their parents but still shaking their wings and chirping for food. We found two birds nests in the bushes so I was pleased we waited.

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Our roses are looking lovely at the moment, especially from the patio. The ones on the arbour are called Generous Gardener, I think I’ve got a bit better at pruning these as they seem to be thickening up a bit.

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DSC_0011The yellow roses over the arch are called Teasing Georgia, I think I need to concentrate on pruning this one a bit better, they look really pretty though, especially when the deep purple clematis flowers  mingle through it.

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I noticed the tritellia are flowering at the moment. These are a summer flowering bulb, so I tend to forget about them 90% of the year until they suddenly come into flower. They’re really pretty and delicate and a clear shade of blue.

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The deep pink geranium is going mad, spreading herself around, mingling with the blue ones. I’ve got a support at one side to try and keep her off the path but it’s only partially successful!

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From our upstairs window the garden looks pretty good, especially the bank of roses round the top lawn. I’ve decided this year to just concentrate on finishing my AA garden, then next year I can try and reclaim the roses from the bindweed and the couch grass. I shall turn a blind eye for the time being and just admire from a distance!!

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Moving Further Down the Rabbit Hole

Posted on July 9, 2017 by craftycreeky

Last week I was in a bit of a quandary about fabrics to use for the latest border on my Down the Rabbit Hole QAL, I posted various options and ideas and had lots of really helpful comments and suggestions which helped me finally make my mind up!

This was my first attempt which I just wasn’t happy with…

…I felt it was too contrasting and dominating with the rest of the quilt. There were a few people who suggested my background fabric might be more of the issue, too fussy, I did contemplate it for a while, but knowing my fabric choices for the outer border, I think it will help bring it all together. It brings together the soft grey in the centre circle and the silver grey rabbits that are going to be hopping round the edge. It’s also got the touch of olive in the rest of the quilt.

I cut out wedges from lots of different fabrics, trying various combinations, as soon as I tried the mid purple with the blue/green I knew I had one decision made. They both have what I call smudgy colour variations, so they look fairly plain against the passion flowers, without the colour block of a plain fabric.

For the centre wedges I’ve chosen a lighter purple and light creamy gold, I’m hoping this will link up with the rest of the sunflowers which will be stitched into each corner next month. I was hoping in the very centre to use an olive green, but I couldn’t get it to work, however I think this one with a dark purple background and an olive branch works well.

I’m stitching them all down now, I’ve finished two and I’m well on the way with the third one. My hand applique stitch definitely improved with the third one, practice makes perfect! Although this may also be due to stitching the first two on Friday night whilst sipping gin with my daughter! She’s home from uni for the weekend and we just sat and chatted, putting the world to right, drinking gin with elderflower tonic until midnight. I love those evenings just enjoying each others company.

I’m linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, a celebration of anything hand-stitched. I’m also linking up with Quilts My Way for Quilter’s Monday, why not follow the link and see what everyone else has been stitching.

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My Lizzie Stitching Wallet Homework

Posted on July 8, 2017 by craftycreeky

I’ve managed to finish this weeks homework for the Lizzie Stitching Wallet stitch-a-long in plenty of time. This SAL is being organised by Faby Reilly, I’ve stitched a few of her cross-stitch designs now as I really like her style. We started nearly three weeks ago and I think we’ll finish mid October (from memory!) The patterns are being released every one or two weeks, depending how much stitching we need to do.

Last weekend I finished the cross-stitch for the front of the wallet and eagerly awaited the release of the pattern on Monday. This is what it looked like then, just enough for me to suss out that the Lizzie in the name was for lisianthus flowers…

This week we’ve been adding the detail which is where I love Faby’s style, the back-stitches cut across the cross-stitches but the eye just sees the outline of the flower. The hydrangea flowers look gorgeous wth the back-stitching and the buds are embroidered with colonial knots, this was a new stitch for me. We had the choice of french or colonial knots,  I’ve used french knots many times so I decided it was a good time to learn a new one. Faby has a great tutorial which shows the two stitches on her website. The results are very similar, but somehow the colonial does seen firmer and flatter. These were stitched with 3 strands of threads, I’m not sure if you want a bigger knot if you can add an extra loop like in french knots or if you just use thicker thread.

The stems are stitched with the full six strands of floss, it went through a lot easier than I thought it might and to my surprise the short stitches over two threads seemed neater than the longer ones over say four threads.

There are still some beads to add in the centre of the hydrangeas and also around the curl of the frond, but as I’m using an embroidery hoop I’m leaving that til the end, I’m bound to squash them under the hoop otherwise.

Our next pattern comes out on Monday, if you’d like to join in the SAL I think you have until Monday to sign up, after that you’ll have to wait until the end of the SAL to buy the pattern! 

I’m linking up with Kathy’s Quilts tomorrow 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 embroidery, Serendipity, Stitch-a-long | Tagged , , | 24 Comments