I spent Saturday over in Fridaythorpe in East Yorkshire making another chicken wire sculpture. The courses are run by Susan Nichols, she’s great, very patient and everyone leaves with a chicken wire bird that looks like it’s supposed to look!
I’ve been on several of Susan’s course, round the garden I have a chicken, a duck, a goose, a heron and an owl, they last for years, the hen was the first one I made and that’s at least ten years ago, I move them round the garden depending where there happens to be a space ;
There was eight of us doing the course, others were making mainly pheasants and owls. This time my friend and I both wanted to make a curlew. We’ve seen them many times on our walks but they are sadly on the decline. They have quite a recognisable shape and a long beak curving down at the end. I did a little embroidery of one a few years ago…
It’s physically hard work making a chicken wire sculpture, especially on the wrists and shoulders. We started off with a basic wire frame which Susan had made, then we had to cover it with chicken wire and make ‘yum yums and sausage rolls’ out of chicken wire to pad it out, securing each layer down with more layers of chicken wire. Each layer has to be shaped and the ends twisted in to secure it to the bird. I do like a chunky solid bird, so mine is quite heavy.
I didn’t take any halfway photos but in this close up you can see the mass of chicken wire inside and the ‘magic knickers on the outside!
Susan makes the legs from heavy thick wire, we then had to wrap them in thin wire. The whole bird is finished off with some ‘magic knickers!!’ otherwise known as heavy duty chicken wire, this neatens the finish of the whole bird.
After a whole day’s workshop, here’s my curlew…
I’m well chuffed with him, he looks quite at home on our lawn. He hasn’t got a name yet but I’m sure something will come to me! Colin, Charlie, Cuthbert!!!
I still want to make a pheasant, and the guinea fowl looks good too…and the hares!
One of my granddaughters is particularly keen to learn to sew, she’s only nine but is very enthused by the clothes I make for her. Of course I was delighted to be able to teach her. I suggested we started with a simple elasticated skirt. I found some very pretty cotton in B&M fabrics and also added a couple of lengths from my stash. We had planned that over the summer I would go over with my spare sewing machine and spend a day or a few hours sewing with her.
At short notice, we decided Sunday would be good, so I packed everything I could think of into my sewing machine trolley and trundled off to their house.
Harriet had never used a sewing machine before, so we did the safety bit first…I didn’t want mum to have a visit to A&E with a needle through a finger! I put some washi tape on the footplate to make the 1,5cm line clearer, I taught her how to thread the machine and let her practise on a spare piece of fabric, trying to get a fairly straight seam.
We soon progress onto the actual fabric. We made them from a width of fabric, so there was just one side seam, then a turn over on the top for the elastic casing. She learnt how to pull elastic through a casing with safety pins, not as easy to teach as it looks! She then just had to stitch the hem and it was finished!
It took her a little while to get used to the fact that you only have to guide the fabric through, not push or pull it, I helped her guide the seams for some of it but she gradually got the hang of it. She was a dab hand at threading the machine by the end as the machine decided to be a bit of a twat and kept breaking threads. Little fingers and young eyes are definitely an advantage at threading machine needles! Here she is on the practise strips…
After making her skirt we still had plenty of time so she made a second one! Here she is with her two skirts, looking rightly pleased with herself! She tried them om over her trousers but I’m sure you get the idea.
She wants to make a top now, so I’m thinking of an elasticated top with shoulder straps, basically like the skirt but with straps on. I think I need to start looking for simple patterns next…she wants her own sewing machine already! I’ve already primed her mum not to get a children’s sewing machine, just go to a sewing machine stop and choose a simple one. If anyone has any suggestions of simple sewing projects please share!
Apologies for being a day late with this post, I had unexpected Grandma duties!
Well I’m no further with my quilt, partly because I’m still not 100% decided whether or not to add a border. This is it without the border…
I popped into B&M fabrics in Leeds last week and picked up a couple which I thought would work, I’d taken a strip of the sashing fabric with me, there’s a plain light blue which does perfectly pick up the background of the sashing, I do quite like that for a narrow inner border. I also chose a patterned green which I thought matched, but after getting it home, I don’t think it is dark enough…
I have half a meter of this sage green spotted fabric which I think is a contender…but I only have half a metre! I could do a 2″ border but then I have to think about the binding!! Of course I could do a scrappy border… I think I’ll visit one more shop, the Remnant shop in Harrogate, which does have a good range of quilting fabrics, if there’s nothing there that jumps out then it might be borderless!
Hand Quilt Along Links
This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another. If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.
Kathy, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, and Connie
It’s time for a new project for my three weekly SAL posts. This is a cross-stitch I actually started a couple of months back but never got round to posting about it. It’s for another fabric book! This time the book is about bees.
Over the years I’ve done quite a few little cross-stitches of bees, some have been made into mini cushions, some are still in my ‘finished but not made up’ box. I decided some time last year to collate them all together in a bee book, maybe with some interesting facts about bees scattered around too. Here’s a few of my bees…
I’m planning to do some that aren’t cross-stitch too, but at the moment I’m half way through a cross-stitch bumble bee. I originally thought I might put this on the cover of the book, however I’ve decided there’s too much work involved in this to put it on the outside!! It’s from a kit I think I bought from a destash site. I’m not stitching it all together, I’m breaking it up into the four smaller pictures…
I’m doing the main bee picture first, that is going to determine the size of the book. This has been my handbag sewing for the last couple of months, so I’ve stitched it in dentist and physio waiting rooms, coffee shops, I also stitch it whilst having my morning coffee, watching TV at the end of the evening…you get the drift, it’s my pick up and sew when I’ve got 10 minutes to spare.
As you can see I’ve got most of the cross-stitch done, but then I need to do all the back-stitch…and there’s a lot of back-stitch. I kept thinking I’ll do it as I go along, but then I ‘ll just do this bit first, then that bit!
I’ve also changed the word at the bottom. Whilst flowers worked in the picture as a whole, I didn’t want it for the book, especially when I was thinking of using it for the cover. As you can see I’ve changed it to Bombus which is the Latin for the bumblebee family.
Hopefully in three weeks time I might be on to the back-stitching.
This SAL is organised by Avis from Stitching by the SEA, please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.
At Skipton Stitchers today we had a wonderful speaker called Wyn Ingham, she was talking to us about lace but wove into it her Catholic upbringing with lots of Irish aunts and grandparents, she brought with her family pieces of lace and embroidery which brought the talk alive, collars worn by her grandmother, hankies given to her for her confirmation, christening gowns, swaddling bands, together with little samples of lace and embroidery she’s collected over the years from 5th century stitching to 20th century lace. A fascinating and very entertaining talk.
In the afternoon she taught us to make macaroons, fabric ones, I think the idea is that you can put pins in the sides but I think mine is going to be for decoration.
She provided us with two large circles of cotton, three little ones to make Suffolk puffs with, a piece of lace, some buttons, two make-up pads, two circles of wood and a thick foam pad which was actually the circles you can buy to put on the bottom of furniture.
The pads were placed on the wooden circles as padding, one large circle was gathered round it and the foam circle was stuck underneath. That was one half of a macaroon done.
We then had to decorate the top circle with the Suffolk puffs, lace and buttons. This is how far I’d got when I had to go to catch my bus home…
This evening I started adding a few more French knots, some straight stitches round the lace and choose some smaller buttons from my stash. I could then gather it round the second wood circle…
All I had to do then was stitch the two halves together. This was done with perle thread and herringbone stitch, it actually went together fairly easily. It was a fun and fairly quick project to do, I love it, I think it’s pretty cute.
I’m trying to clear the decks a bit at the moment, I’ve quite a few half finished projects, several from mini workshops that I’ve attended and then not finished. One such item was this pretty Christmas decoration.
It was from a member run workshop at Skipton Stitchers, Sue had made several of these decorated wooden cotton reels for various occasions such as wedding anniversaries, birthdays etc, they were very pretty, so we asked her to teach us. Our mission was to do a Christmas version.
We measured out the length required for the embroidered bit, tacked round it so we would keep within the parameters, it has calico behind to give the embroidery a bit more support. We could embroider or decorate it however we wanted. I decided on Merry Christmas and a winter scene.
I used a pretty batik for my background and embroidered the Merry Christmas in chain stitch. I like chain stitch for writing as it does take the curves really well. I think I was about 2/3rds of the way along the writing by the end of the session, then it sat in my workbox for several months, looking reproachfully at me!
A couple of weeks ago I pulled it out and started to stitch it again. I outlined the mountains in split stitch, regulars to my blog may have spotted the outline of Catbells – I couldn’t resist sneaking that in! I embroidered the trees next and the church. It still needed a bit of filling so I stitched two rows of seed stitch to look like footprints in the snow, I then added feather stitch to the mountains. I decided a bit of sparkle was needed so I found some tiny sequins and sparkly beads in my stash and added those too. Here was my finished strip…
We were given a strip of stiffener to iron on the back, unfortunately I didn’t think to check the width first and mine was about 1/4″ too wide for my cotton reel. As the stiffener was attached to the calico, not the main fabric, I decided to fold the top fabric out of the way whilst I trimmed the calico back with a rotary cutter. Unfortunately I didn’t fold it out of the way far enough and sliced through the front, you can just see it on the photo above.
Panic! I had several thoughts on how to rectify the situation, but in the end I just trimmed it all right along the top edge and then did a small blanket-stitch to secure the side. Although the bottom edge was just folded in I blanket-stitched along there too to make it even. Here was my finished strip…
All I had to do was stitch it on to the reel and decorate the top. The reel had a strip of double-sided sticky tape which did help to hold it secure whilst I stitched it. I decided to use organza ribbon and a button to tie it round the reel, the organza ribbon didn’t detract from the embroidery as much as satin ribbon did.
We had been given a Christmas tree for the top. I stood it on a small wooden button just to raise it a bit. I found a mini cotton reel which I wound with Christmas coloured DMC thread, I used a glue gun to attach everything. The tiny sewing machine is a charm, there’s some little scissors and then several buttons…it’s surprising what you can fit on top of a cotton reel!
So it’s finished, I love it, it wouldn’t win any prizes but it’s cute and I like it.
Talking of prizes, you may remember the quilted place mat I made from a couple of orphan blocks for a WI competition, it was part of the group competitions held at the Great Yorkshire Show. To my surprise I received a message yesterday to say it received top marks, 20 out of 20!
I’ve had a busy three weeks in my sewing room since I last shared my progress on the Owl and Hare Hollow quilt but this week I’m pleased to say the top is done…I think!
Three weeks ago I’d just started the sashing…
This week I cracked on with it. I decided after the first row that I wanted the pattern to be all going in the same direction. The strips above were all from a left over piece. For once I managed to plan in advance and when I was starting to cut into the 2m piece I first cut two full length strips off the side to use for the side sashings. I then cut 9″ strips widthways to use for the rest of the short lengths. The crossway strips took two widths, I decided to stagger where the seam was so I haven’t got a line of seams down the middle, I think it makes the joins less obvious.
I always forget just how long it takes to piece a quilt like this, but there’s 49 blocks to sash, I used over two whole reels of thread!!
My plan was to use another fabric from the range for an outer border, with maybe a narrow cream border first, but it didn’t look right. I did find a subtly spotted green that possibly worked for the inner border, but actually it’s a good size without. I think I might take the sashing fabric to the fabric shop and see if anything jumps out, if not I might bind it in a mid green.
So here it is…
I’m really pleased with it, I love how the colours have worked out. I’m thinking of quilting it with overlapping circles unless anyone has any other great ideas.
Hand Quilt Along Links
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.
I’ve been meaning to write a post about Bella since she arrived last November but the weeks pass by!
We had about 18 months without a dog and decided it was time to get another one. My OH wanted another golden retriever, Rosie was gorgeous and was very much his dog, she would gaze adoring at him, I think he presumed all goldens would do the same! He happened to meet a breeder on a training course who mentioned that when dogs had had two or three litters they would find them a good home. They had one just about to have her last litter, she was four years old, this was in September. She sounded perfect for us, past the adolescent stage but plenty of life left ahead.
We arranged to go to see her in mid November, thinking that having agreed to take her, we could collect her straight after our big holiday in mid January. She was gorgeous and spent most of the time glued to my side having her ears rubbed. We said we would love to have her, take her now, they said. I explained that we couldn’t as we were going away for four weeks, try her out for 4 weeks, we’ll have her back over Christmas, then you can collect her afterwards…but we haven’t got anything, no bed, no food…she’ll be fine on a blanket, here’s a bag of food! Her name? we call them all Sandy! She’d probably earned them thousands of pounds and she didn’t even have her own name! So we came home with a dog!!
We realised very quickly that Bella (she deserved her own name!) had quite a few issues. She had clearly been kept in the barn most of the time, only allowed in the conservatory occasionally. It took us a week to get her to leave our conservatory. She had never been lead walked, traffic terrified her, infact most things scared her, she cowered alot, particularly round my OH. She had no idea of food treats, she wouldn’t eat in front of us, in fact in the first month she only ate at night time, she lost about 4kg in weight.
She was a nightmare to walk, I didn’t dare walk her with my balance issues, she pulled my OH over twice and slipped her collar and bolted a couple of times in the first week. We realised we needed help and got a dog trainer round. When he looked at her he said if a normal chilled out dog is 0 and a hyper dog is 10, Bella is about -8, she was just so shut down. He advised keeping her in the house for three weeks and literally take her round the house on a training lead. So that’s what we did, if I went to make a cup of tea, I took her on the lead into the kitchen, if I went to watch TV, I took her with me. She eventually got used to the idea that she could go round the house. She still doesn’t like going in the kitchen, but she has a bed in all the rooms we spend time in and she seems more comfortable following us round.
And then we went on holiday!! We had realised within 48 hours of getting her that there was no way we could take her back there for four weeks, she would have regressed so much. Luckily my daughter came to the rescue and looked after her. It wasn’t an ideal situation as Helen was here there and everywhere, but she did a brilliant job with her. She spent Christmas at her boyfriends mum’s house, which was quite good in some ways as his mum has two dogs, so Bella could see what a dog is meant to be like in a home! Helen took all three dogs up to the Lakes for New Year, then took Bella down to her home in Colchester. Eventually we came home and could settle Bella into a routine.
It’s now six months since we came back from holiday, so how is she doing…
She is great at being lead walked, it was about two months before I dared walk her on my own, now she’s mainly off the lead as her recall is so good. There’s still situations I avoid, she’s still a bit nervous with traffic so, for example, I don’t use the island in the middle of the road to cross, I wait until I can cross in one go. She’s still not keen on gates or doorways, but I can usually persuade her now. She travels on the bus with me fairly happily.
It’s lovely to see her run, what we call a freedom run, she loves deep puddles and prances through them. There were a several on our regular walks earlier in the year, she was so disappointed when they eventually dried up! She is still a different dog outside, a lot more relaxed and happy.
In the house she is still a little reserved, she will come into the lounge or my sewing room, but is obviously still a little unsure, as if she’s expecting to be told off. We’ve moved her food dish to next to her bed so it is away from the busy end of the hall, she will now eat when we are around, so long as we don’t get too near. She still rarely takes a treat from the hand, but if I put it on the floor next to me, she’ll take it. She’s a golden retriever and she’s not food orientated! It did make training a little tricky as so many trainers use food, she’s happy with a tickle behind her ear!
She’s very much my dog, dogs usually choose one person and she’s chosen me! She is much better than she was with my OH but she still occasionally cowers or skulks away. My OH was pretty disappointed at first, I think he wanted another Rosie, but of course dogs are all different, he has worked hard to gain her confidence but it’s obviously going to take a while. It does make us wonder what went on in her previous home.
She loves having visits from her big sister Helen! I think they will always have a special bond.
I saw a video on social media a while ago about someone who rescued a breeding dog, she was totally shut down too and it took about two years to really come out of her shell. One comment really rang home with me ‘she’s almost too good, she never barks, she doesn’t chew, she doesn’t jump up’. That’s Bella, I know just what he means. She’s come on so much in the last few months, it’s lovely when other regular dog walkers notice the difference in her too. Her tail is up high when she walks along and she has a lovely smile. She’s a different dog to the one we collected last November. She’s beautiful and gentle, she’s gorgeous!
Last year I decided to make my granddaughters a quilt each, it was going to be for Christmas but I ran out of time so I decided to aim for birthdays instead, this also nicely spread out the delivery dates to January and May. I made Pip’s in time for her New Year birthday but May came and went but I was determined to make it my priority after my walking holiday at the end of May.
My youngest granddaughter is 9, she somehow gained the nickname of Moo when she was a baby and it has stuck. When I asked about colours for Moo’s quilt, it was dusky pink. I envisaged a pretty chandelier quilt in pink batiks. At the quilt show last year I had looked for suitable fabrics, but it was difficult to decide what was dusky pink, some looked dusky, but then peachy too! When we went fabric shopping for a skirt I took them into the quilt fabric department to show me what they meant by dusky pink…big mistake…they fell for a Barbie fabric and a pink sparkly one!!!
I’ve decided I’m not very good at making quilts for others when I’m not very keen on the choice of fabric. I had pointed out that quilts were meant to be a long term thing and maybe when she was a teenager she wouldn’t be so keen on Barbie, but they were adamant that she would still love her Barbie quilt…I’m resigned to making another more grown up one in a few years!
I’ve also realised that Barbie pink is patented, so unless you buy the actual Disney fabric, you can’t get the same shade of pink, so it took me ages to get a reasonable range of pinks that worked together. I decided to do a disappearing nine patch, which is where you make a block of 3 x 3 squares, then cut it into four, rearrange and stitch back together. I did my calculations wrong and ended up with lots more blocks than I needed! I decided as the blocks ended up 16″ square, with a sashing in between, nine blocks in total would be enough. I arranged them on the floor, I really wasn’t sure about this quilt, it was very…pink!
I played with doing the sashing in white, but it did look better with yet more pink!
As I said, it’s very pink! I really wasn’t very keen and found it quite difficult to make decisions because I didn’t really like the fabrics.
This weekend I had five days off work as Bella was being speyed on Thursday so I wanted to be around for her recovery. I was determined to finish this quilt.
Having finally pieced it together I wanted a bit of a border so I used some of the blocks I’d already stitched together to make a narrow border.
I also used some to make a strip down the seam in the backing fabric. I sandwiched it on the lounge floor. At this stage I was still having so many doubts about it I sent photos of it to Mum saying please show it to Moo, does she actually like it, please be honest…and apparently Miss Barbie loved it!
I found some pink thread with a slight sheen in my stash, it was a perfect colour match for the quilting. I decided to do a meander to try and break up the strong shapes a bit. I started with a heart in the centre and for once I managed to do the whole quilt in a continuous meander…so I finished with a heart in one corner and called it Heart to Heart!
I’m pretty pleased with my meanderings, there’s a few wobbles and a couple of cross-overs, but really not too bad!
I bound it on my machine with the same pink as the sashing, then I just had the label to do. I sent a message to Mum asking if Moo would like her nickname or her proper name on it. I got impatient before the answer came in and embroidered Harriet…and of course the answer came back ‘Moo’! So I decided to embroider that in the corner with the heart, I embroidered round the heart on the back and also round the centre one.
So it’s another finish for the weekend – I rather like having five day week-ends! The quilt has grown on me a little since quilting – it does seem to have brought it together a bit, it’s still not what I’d choose but I’m assured she will love it and that’s what is important!
Well I’ve finally finished it! Two years in the making but my embroidered garden book is finally finished. To say the least, I’m well chuffed with it 🙂
Three weeks ago I’d just finished making all the pages, I was planning how to finish it and had more or less decided on exposed binding…
I changed my mind and decided to do a full cover instead, mainly because I think it will protect the pages better and I hope this will be treasured for many years so longevity is important. I stitched the pages together using my mock Coptic stitch, I say ‘mock’ as Coptic stitch is designed for double page signatures, so I’ve had to adapt it for single pages. I also made an extra page front and back to act as the book lining, making attaching the cover much easier. I used perle thread as it’s a good weight and strong, stitching five rows across the spine.
I’d been mulling over the title of the book for a couple of months, The Garden Book, My Garden in Stitch…none of them inspired me. Then it came to me in the bath! A Stitch in Thyme. Gardens are ever evolving, so some plants have already changed since I started this book, this book is really just a snapshot of our garden. Changing ‘time’ to ‘thyme’ just emphasized the garden theme.
I embroidered the title on a scrap of linen and stitched it on the fabric I’d chosen for the cover. I’d originally bought some gorgeous watercolour style flowery fabric for the cover, I still love it but when I put it against the actual book it was just too colourful, especially as the first couple of pages are fairly muted. I’m hoping to use it to make a book bag to keep it in instead. I chose an equally beautiful floral in duck egg blue.
I used bosal to make the cover, it holds it’s shape but it’s a bit flexible too, I like it for book covers. I just used 505 spray to hold it in place whilst I put it all together. Having attached the fabric to the bosal I realised my calculations for where the title needed to be were a bit off, not central where it was meant to be but not far enough to the side to be there either. I unpicked it but of course it left a mark. I decided to mount the soft green linen onto some off white linen, making a bit of a border. I stitched it back on in the centre and actually I think it looks much better for the extra layer.
I added a strip of cover fabric down the inside where the spine would be as I realised there would be a fabric gap between the front and back lining pages.
At the last minute I remembered I rather like a ribbon or thread to close the book, I found a perfect button in my button drawer and some organza ribbon, I felt the organza ribbon worked well as it doesn’t dominate the cover, it just sort of blends in. I used clover clips to hold the cover and the lining together whilst I slip-stitched it round…
…and that was it, finished!
I knew I couldn’t share photos of all the pages, so I’ve made a little video and put it on instagram, here’s the link…
If it doesn’t work for anyone, just send me a message and I’ll send a copy.
I want to say a huge thank you to Nicki Franklyn of The Stitchery who started me off on this journey with her Stitching your Garden course, I did her first one which was live, it’s now been fine-tuned and honed to a recorded class called The Garden Sampler
This SAL is organised by Avis from Sewing by the Sea, we post our progress on our chosen project every three weeks, perfect for keeping us motivated and moving forward on a long project. Please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.
thecraftycreek 