Hummingbird Skirt

Posted on August 16, 2024 by craftycreeky

Earlier in the month I made myself a new skirt for the summer. I bought the batik on a facebook destash site earlier in the year. When it arrived I liked it but I didn’t love it, in fact when I was planning for the destash sale a couple of weeks ago, it was in the pile to go. When the sale was cancelled at the last minute, I decided to use some of the fabric as what these days is often referred to as a wearable toile. When I’m trying out a pattern for the first time I don’t want to use my favourite or special fabrics, then if I’m not careful then the patterns never get made. Using a fabric that’s OK if the garment doesn’t work out is a good compromise.

I decided to make the Estuary Skirt by Sew Different, it’s a pattern I think I got in a sale, a gathered skirt, buttons down the front and an elasticated back, a good everyday going to work sort of skirt.

I made so many mistakes making this skirt it’s amazing it’s come out OK! It’s a very fabric hungry pattern, the envelope says it needs 3m for the longer length which is what I had, but I wanted to add about 7″ to the length! As the humming birds weren’t in one direction I decided to cut it out sideways, that way I could just about get it out of the piece…

Somehow I managed to put the centre front on the bias and the side seam on the straight grain! I also thought when I started sewing it that the two sides were identical – they’re not, so the hummingbirds on the front are not quite as distinct as the ones on the back!

Anyway, I’ve ended up with a very wearable skirt, so wearable that I’ve worn it several times already! I’m happy with the length, it’s got lovely deep pockets in the side seam and the elastic in the back makes it super comfortable!

Posted in Dressmaking, Serendipity | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

Bee Book SAL

Posted on August 11, 2024 by craftycreeky

I’ve made pretty good progress over the last three weeks with my bee cross-stitch, this piece is for a fabric book on bees. I’ve quite a few bee cross-stitches so I thought I’d put them all in a book, I do like my fabric books!

This is where I was three weeks ago…

Not only have I finished the cross-stitched areas, I’ve done all the back-stitching too! Yes I have my happy dancing shoes on for another finished piece!

The back-stitching proved quite a challenge as I found the chart difficult to read. It’s an old Fleur de Lis kit and they had thoughtfully provided two charts, one with just the cross-stitches on and one with the back-stitches on too. Unfortunately the lines they used were so wide I actually found them difficult to read, it wasn’t easy working out exactly where on the cross-stitch I was meant to be. I have to confess to making some of it up in the end! I’m happy with the end result anyway, the back-stitching makes a huge difference to the finished piece…

You may recall that the bumble bee was the bottom half of the original design, I’ve now started the top half of the picture. My original plan was to break this design into four separate pieces. However I’m now thinking I might stitch the top half as one, with the beehive, honey and honeycomb together, I’ve quite a few cross-stitch bees already and I don’t want the book to just be cross-stitch.

I’ve almost finished the honeycomb. just a few more half cross-stitches and more back-stitching to do…

Hopefully next time I share it I’ll be well on the way to another happy dance. I’ve already got two more patterns lined up, a whitework bee and a blackwork bee and I’ve spotted a lovely embroidery kit of a bumblebee on Etsy. I think with those stitched I’ll have enough bees for my book.

Please visit the other blogs that are also taking part in this SAL. There are so many different projects to enjoy. The participants live all over the world so you may need to allow for time differences. We’re posting today at local time. Click the links to their blogs below and see what they’re up to.


Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Jackie,

Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, Cathie,

Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen

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

Seascape

Posted on August 10, 2024 by craftycreeky

Earlier in the year I attended a great workshop organised by Skipton Stitchers, the tutor was Laura Edgar who does the most stunning pieces of textile art inspired in particular by the seascapes of the Northumberland coast near where she lives. Here’s a link to here website where she has some amazing examples. We were asked to bring a picture of a scene we wanted to stitch, I chose a moody photo of Scarborough beach I took at the end of our Cleveland Way walk a few years back…

Laura’s technique is to use lots of different textiles, often worn and distressed, ripped or frayed, layered over each other with lots of free stitching over the top….completely out of my comfort zone, but sometimes I surprise myself!! Laura was a great tutor, very inspiring and encouraging.

Here’s my piece by the end of the workshop, still a lot of work to do, it’s like the bare bones of the picture, I liked it enough to want to finish it…

As you can see there were still lots of pins holding various scraps of fabric in place. The shiny areas of the photo are organza, it’s not actually as shiny in reality, just a little! It does vary hugely though depending on the light when I photograph it, the sea is identical in the photo below but looks very different. I had done a little stitching round the sun just to give myself the idea of how it would work.

I felt the headland was just too black, OK it’s very black in the photo but against my sky and sea, it looked a bit too much. I removed the black lace and used a strip of dark grey lace instead, it just softens it a bit.

Over the last couple of evenings I’ve been adding stitching. So far I’ve stitched over the headland with running stitch and feather stitch, I’ve also done a fair amount of the darker sky area with feather stitch.

It’s amazing how these photos differ so much, I think the last one is probably nearest the actual piece.

So I’ve still a lot to do, and it’s probably one of those where it’s difficult to know when to stop, but I’m happy with it so far.

Posted in embroidery, Skipton Stitchers, Workshops, Yorkshire | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Tuesday’s Totter Round the Garden

Posted on August 6, 2024 by craftycreeky

The garden has been somewhat neglected this summer, at first it was so wet, I’m a fair weather gardener and this year has been particularly wet…until about two weeks ago, now it’s too hot for me to garden…see, I’m typical British, never happy with the weather!

One plant that loves the wet is the hydrangea and they have been wonderful this year…

The lower creamy one is in a pot, I think I got that one a couple of years ago. The pink one behind was planted a long time ago behind the choisya, the choisya was only little at the time and once it overtook it I must admit I pretty much forgot about the hydrangea behind it! Over the last couple of years it’s nudged it’s way to the side and this year it brings colour to quite a dark spot.

These cream ones are beautiful, I love them. I planted these a couple of years ago near the bird feeders. They’ve been in flower for over three weeks already and they still look stunning.

Many years ago (at least ten!!) I bought a beautiful soft blue hydrangea at the Harrogate Flower Show. It was one of those plants that when you’re walking round the show with it people say ‘Oooh, where did you get that from!’ It was gorgeous…and it never flowered again!! I tried it in different spots in the garden, a planter, I bought some special food, I spoke to the guy I’d bought it from a couple of years later – he said I must have pruned it wrong, even though it had never grown enough to prune it!! Eventually last year I moved it up to the far corner of the garden, where the chickens used to be, where it could act as a green shrub if nothing else…well this year it’s flowered!!

They’re not huge blooms, they’re pink rather than blue (the colour of the blooms is dependent on the pH of your soil, so that’s OK) but it’s flowered! They’re very pretty and delicate.

For an unplanned planting, it actually works really well with the plants around it, there’s a darker pink geranium pstilemon, a purple leaved bush as well as the very slightly pink tinged astrantia.

I’m hoping that now it’s got the idea it might flower a bit more prolifically next year, make up for lost time!

Posted in Garden | Tagged , | 6 Comments

A Chunky Curlew

Posted on August 5, 2024 by craftycreeky

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!

Posted in Crafts, Garden, Workshops | Tagged , , , | 17 Comments

Spreading the Joy!

Posted on July 30, 2024 by craftycreeky

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!

Posted in grandchildren | Tagged , | 11 Comments

Owl and Hare Hollow HQAL

Posted on July 29, 2024 by craftycreeky

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

Posted in Owl and Hare Hollow BOM, Quilt-a-long, Quilting | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Bumble Bees SAL

Posted on July 21, 2024 by craftycreeky

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.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Jackie, 

Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, Cathie, 

Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen

Posted in cross-stitch, embroidery, Textile Books | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

Making Macaroons

Posted on July 15, 2024 by craftycreeky

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.

Posted in embroidery, Skipton Stitchers, Workshops | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Christmas in July

Posted on July 10, 2024 by craftycreeky

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!

Posted in Christmas, embroidery, Skipton Stitchers, Workshops | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments