I’m still away walking the Yorkshire Wolds Way, hopefully finishing today. I haven’t had chance to work on my quilt over the last three weeks so no progress to share unfortunately. I’m still undecided about sashings!
I’m sure everyone else has been beavering away, so please follow the links to see what everyone has been stitching.
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 finally plucked up the courage and started stitching the pages together for my garden book. I’ve been prevaricating for a while on how to do it, I discussed it with one of my friends from my stitching group who has made lots of textile books and made a plan I was happy with…
Each page is backed with pelmet interfacing, it’s actually double-sided iron-on, which I didn’t realise initially, but it’s actually been quite useful. I worked out what size I wanted the pages to end up and trimmed the stitching with a half inch border. The hardest bit was lining up the embroidery onto the vilene as I had to press it from the fabric side and I couldn’t see through it easily. Here’s a pile waiting to be stitched together…
Four blocks need making a little bigger, mainly early stitchings before I’d really settled into the project. Two of them are crazy patchwork ones so I can just add a narrow border on two of the sides. The other two are embroideries I can put a border round. One I’ve already done is the trees embroidery…
I’m slip stitching the pages together – I’ll work out later how to bind them together! I’ve made four pages so far, I think I’ll end up with about ten or twelve. I’m pleased with how they’re coming together.
Having put the pages into a sensible order, I realised I was one page short, I needed another page about the patio area. I decided to do one about the birds that visit the garden as the feeding station is in that area. I remembered some mini panels I bought at the Harrogate show last year, they were of beautiful paintings of birds. Perfect! I chose the bluetit as they are regular visitors. It has a nice splogy background, I decided to write the names of birds that visit the garden or that we see from the garden. I wanted it to look like the bird painting was on top of the words, so a couple of the less common sightings are disappearing behind the blue tit. I’ve used a variegated DMC thread which is subtle enough to be seen without dominating the image.
I’ve just got the last four letters to stitch and then a label below on linen. I’ve still got a fair bit of work to do before this project is finished, so I’m not polishing my dancing shoes just yet!
This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis from Stitching by the Sea, please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.
I start my first big walk since 2020 today, the Yorkshire Wold Way, 79 miles from the Humber Bridge, inland to Malton then back out again to Filey Brigg.
My friend and I used to do a long distance walk every year until covid, since then life has plotted against us, but this year we’re back on the trail. We like to do about 10 miles a day, this year we’ve got a 12 mile day, which usually wouldn’t be a problem, but this year we haven’t managed any practise walks together, I’ve just been dog walking!
The bluebells have been particularly glorious this year, so I’m hoping we will see a few on the walk, here’s some from the Chevin a couple of weeks ago when I did 8 miles with Bella.
I think spring is one of my favourite times of year, I love the fresh greenness of the new foliage, we’ve had a particularly wet start to the year so it’s been lovely recently to have some nice warm spring days. This is another photo from Otley Chevin…
Bella decided she’d had enough after 6 miles, she just sat down mid path! I persuaded her on to a seat a few minutes further and after a little rest she was ready to go again.
I’ll be updating my progress each day on Strava, so if anyone can find me (Margaret Creek) you’re welcome to follow me and see how I do. Hopefully I’ll be finishing next Sunday afternoon.
I’ve just finished embroidering my tote bag. I bought it at the Knitting and Stitching Show in November, it was from a company called Sew Enchanting. It was pre-printed with the design and I could choose what threads and stitches I used. I started it whilst I was on holiday over Christmas – I used it to carry my other stitching projects too, so it was quite a useful bag.
The threads are mainly from Paint Box Threads, they’re single ply and subtly variegated. They were a nice weight for the chain stitch which I used for all the lines. I think the only DMC one was the pink flower at the bottom.
This is where I was last time I shared it with you…
I cracked on and finished all the words. The hymn ‘Morning has broken’ always takes me back to my childhood as it was a regular at school assemblies in those days. Here’s the finished embroidery…
I’m really pleased with how the colours have worked out, it’s all the rich jewel colours I like. I’m planning to line the bag now, I think I’ve done too much work on it to leave it as a simple tote bag!
Apologies for the radio silence, I’ve had major internet problems! My computer is in my sewing room on a desk that is about as far away from where the internet comes in as it could be, it’s been getting ridiculously slow and despite a booster thing nearby it got to the point where I just couldn’t get on the internet. Very frustrating! Last night I suddenly had the idea to move the desk to the other side of the sewing room, when I suggested it to my OH he suggested moving onto the landing where the booster is.,,well it’s a game changer!! So now I can catch up on all those posts I haven’t read as well as tell you what I’ve been up to.
The sun has finally started shining here in the UK and I’ve managed to do several good sessions in the garden. I’ve tried to be a bit more methodical rather than my usual trick of flitting here and there.
I started clearing the autumn bed at he top of the garden, it’s where the chickens and the compost heap used to be and I still get an awful lot of weeds here though it is getting better. I still need to sort the path out at the end as I’m pretty sure there’s crazy paving under the weedy bit.
Yesterday I tackled the other side of this bed, the Amber and Amethyst garden. I only managed half of it but I filled a large garden sack with weeds, there was a new to me weed which was rather prolific in the corner, so I’m hoping it’s one that is easy to control. This photo was taken on a wider setting, so it’s a bit distorted but it gives a better idea of the space.
Down by the patio the choisya is in full bloom, that’s the shrub with lots of white flowers on. I don’t think I’ve seen it quite so floriferous before! The pale pink blossom you can see behind by the lawn is a deutzia, that’s also looking rather splendid. The purple acer in the pottery has come into leaf and is looking very graceful. There’s a few pots need sorting out but they will wait a while.
Up by the pond the Solomons seal is still trying to take over despite a heavy thinning last year, so I think it’s going to have to be moved to somewhere where it can spread to it’s heart’s content. The hostas have all unfurled their leaves over the past couple of weeks so the bed has really filled out. The pond is disappearing behind all the foliage! I have a contact for someone from the local wildlife group who will come and look at garden ponds to advise on how to make them more wildlife friendly, I’m hoping they will be able to suggest something to sort out the duckweed which is safe for the newts.
I’m taking stock of the garden a bit at the moment, seeing which beds need an overhaul and which just need a tidy up, there’s a fair bit of work to do as usual!
Well I’m still undecided about sashing for my quilt so I haven’t started stitching it together yet. I did spend quite some time however trimming all the blocks to 8 1/2″ as per instructions. I think if I hadn’t had one block which was only just big enough I might have been tempted to make them a little bigger, even 9 1/2 “, but I’m happy with them as they are.
I started laying out blocks on the two fabrics I’m thinking of, this was my first attempt…
I preferred the darker, but I decided to try lay out blocks ensuring I included most of the background fabrics. This is the darker one, which I do still like…
This is the lighter one which gives a completely different feel to the quilt. If I do either of these layouts I do need to buy more fabric as I only have 1/2m of each..
Then I tried the darker one with light cornerstones, these are all the same colour but the idea was that I could use the different backgrounds as the cornerstones.I do rather like the cornerstones…
I then decided to try using other fabrics from this range. I’ve cut some strips from the scraps I have left and laid them over the two main fabrics. I might have to buy a couple of fat quarters, but I rather like this option too and I think it goes with the scrappy nature of the quilt.
I’m still open to suggestions and comments, but I am leaning towards this one at the moment.
I’m not sure if I’ll be any further on in 3 weeks time for the next update – April and May are just crazy months this year! In ten days time I start a long distance walk called the Yorkshire Wolds Way, which we’re taking eight days to complete – it is 79 miles, so days off are spent on practise walks.
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.
Part of my busy few days away was a reunion, in January it was forty years since I started nursing!! I trained at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, I was in Set 37 and there were 37 of us in our set, we decided to have a reunion down at a pub we used to frequent near to Barts. We couldn’t trace everyone, it was the days before social media after all, but I think to have found over half was a great result.
The Fox and Anchor pub was next to Smithfield Meat Market which was open during the night so they had special licensing hours (this was well before the open all hours pubs we have now) from about midnight til about 10am. We used to go there for breakfast at the end of a stretch of nights. They had a very long griddle and we could go along getting bacon, eggs, sausage, black pudding, beans, tomato…and a gin and tonic!! Then the market men would come in ‘free round of drinks for the nurses’…then the policemen came in from their night shift, ‘free round of drinks for the nurses’!! We would sleep well that day!
The Fox and Anchor is still there but open at the more usual hours. We booked a private room at the back and had a fantastic time, about 18 of us met up. We laughed so much it was fortunate it was a private room!
Of course I decided to make myself a new dress. Last month I spotted the terra dress by Vivian Shao Chen, a designer I’ve not heard of before but it was love at first sight. It’s a shirt waister but with gorgeous sleeves and deep cuffs. It’s a pdf pattern but I got it printed on AO paper by Cool Crafting of Kendal, they were just setting up the service and their prices are very good.
The fabric is from Fabric Heaven on Facebook, she has some beautiful designs, all 100% cotton, this is the lightweight one. It feels gorgeous and it drapes really well too. This one is one of her more muted designs, there’s some stunning richly coloured ones too, I’ve fallen for quite a few as they’re very reasonably priced too, I just need to get sewing them.
The fabric sewed and pressed really easily, I French-seamed the long seams as being soft cotton, it does tend to fray. The pattern doesn’t take as much fabric as I thought it might, 3-3.5m depending on the width. It went together easily, I added about 6″ in length as I do like my dresses long, I also added in seam pockets, there were patch pockets on the pattern but I felt that would detract from the line of the dress. I also didn’t add the split up the side seams. Next time I’ll probably make the cuffs a little closer fitting, I love the depth of them but they are a little big.
I had to change the spacing of the buttons as it is quite a greedy pattern when it comes to buttons, like it needs about 24!! there’s meant to be four on each cuff! I only had 17 as that’s all they had in the shop and they were such a perfect match I just changed the spacing a bit, I used three on each cuff, missed the collar button off and used a different button under the belt.
I love this dress, it’s very easy to wear and I’ll definitely be making more.
I’ve just had a very busy week off work – one of those where you go back to work for a rest! I worked out that in four days I had eight train journeys, all over an hour, so I got lots of sewing done, especially as I also reached Kings Cross Station about 2 1/2 hours early on the last day – I just couldn’t face meandering round London with a suitcase in tow for any longer!
My ‘handbag project’ over the last few weeks has been an embroidered bag. I bought the pre-printed calico bag at the Knitting and Stitch show last November and started it during our trip to Australia, so it’s a well-travelled bag. Last time I shared my progress just before my holiday I seemed to have quite a few areas half done…
Well I’ve managed to finish all the half done bits and more…in fact I’ve just got half the words left to do. It’s mainly in chain stitch with a few French knots. I chose the colours from my stash, it’s mainly a single ply thread with a couple of DMC threads too. I love the way the rich colours have worked out.
Once I’ve finished the embroidery it’s going to need a gentle wash as it has got a little grubby, I’m then tempted to line it and maybe put some nice handles on it, make it a bit more that just a calico bag.
I’ve had a particularly busy couple of weeks, culminating with a few days away visiting various friends and family this week. As a result I’ve not managed to start stitching my book together. I have put the pages in some semblance of an order…but that’s as far as I’ve got!
I thought these two pages worked well together and I’ll make it so the page with the quote on it is the last page of the book.
I’m sure others in the group have managed to be much more productive with their projects, so please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.
I’ve managed to do a bit more on my embroidered tote bag over the last couple of weeks, it’s now my in-bag project, the one I work on in dentist waiting rooms etc, it’s a bit bulky to go in my bag ideally but it’s getting it finished.
Last time I shared my progress I was working on the flower at the bottom…
I’ve now finished the pink flower, undid the offending purple line, added orange French knots to the purple flower tips and made a colourful flower on the left. Birdie now has beak and legs too, though I’m still undecided about the eyes. I quite fancy doing an orange/yellow outer ring round the eye like a blackbird but will that look right with say dark blue ‘eyelashes’…decisions!
I love the way this is turning out with all the rich colours, though I am tempted now to make it into a slightly more substantial bag after all the work that is going into it!
I’ve a few long trail journeys visiting friends in the south of England this week, so hopefully I’ll get a fair bit done.
thecraftycreek 