Sewing Room Declutter Challenge

Posted on February 12, 2024 by craftycreeky

I’m progressing slowly with my sewing room declutter, this is the annual challenge organised by Karen of Get It Done Quilts. I like the way she breaks it down into manageable chunks – much more doable than just looking at the whole room. It’s a 21 day challenge, supposedly starting 1st January, some days take longer, some I can do several in a day…

Day 8 was scissors and all things cutting, like rotary cutters, thread snips etc. I’ve written before about my extensive scissor collection, I had a bit of a cull last year and then took them to be sharpened at a new cutlery shop that’s opened in Ilkley.

So my scissor collection stays the same, however I have sorted my unpickers, you know the little things with the red blob on for unpicking seams. I knew I had a few, but I didn’t realise I had twelve!! I decided to have a sort out, I had an embroidery I wanted to unpick a coil of thread off, so I used that to check the sharpness of my unpickers, two jobs done in one! I’ve whittled it down to six, one of them is a beautiful hand turned wooden one with an awl at one end and a seam ripper at the other, that one was definitely staying.

I’ve also had a bit of a rethink with my rotary cutters, I have three, one for fabric, one for paper and fabric (such as paper piecing) and a small one which needs a blade in it. Recently I’ve had problems with the paper one, the screw which holds the blade wouldn’t stay tight, when I tried tightening it it was difficult to get the tension right so the blade would rotate but not wobble….anyway I decided it was time to replace it. It was pretty old anyway as it’s one I inherited from my mum. So I’ve still got three, but two which work well and one just waiting for a new blade.

Day 9 was threads, a huge area, as I’ve thread for sewing, overlocking and embroidery. My sewing and overlocking threads are pretty sorted, they’re all on my pegboard. I had a bit of a sort out with bobbin threads, you know those with a quarter spool of thread on that you never get round to using, well they’re now empty. Any Gutermann spools that are nearly empty go in the draw next to my sewing machine for tacking etc. Reassuringly last year the spool rack was full, now I have more than a dozen empty dowels, so my stash is going down!

DMC embroidery threads are all on Pip and Chip bobbins, so my basic set is sorted numerically in custom made drawers (from Creations by Rod on Etsy) I do have rather a lot of spare skeins though which I think mainly came from my mums. Last year I listed them all in a book so I knew which colours I had spares of. This was a good idea except I still had a jumbled box of threads, so even if I did look, I then had the job of finding them – I’ve over 100 spare ones!

Recently I discovered the app Thread Box, I use my Fabric Stash app a lot so I thought I’d try a thread one. I’d already listed all basic stash of DMC threads on it, but not my spares. Today I went spare threads and listed those too, so I know which ones I have multiples of. I even bagged them all up so each number group such as 301 to 399 has it’s own bag! All I need to do now is make sure I update the app when I get a spare out or buy some more. There’s a shopping list section too which I find useful, so I’ve listed the threads I know I’m getting very low on and when I happen to be in a thread shop, I have my shopping list ready.

None DMC threads are on bobbins but stored colourwise, I used to have them in a box but I could never see what I had, whilst thin bobbins probably aren’t ideal, it works for me, it means I do use the threads.

All that was left to sort was machine embroidery threads, but that will have to wait for another post!

Posted in embroidery, Serendipity, sewing room | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Owl and Hare Hollow HQAL

Posted on February 11, 2024 by craftycreeky

Well I’ve made some progress on this quilt, not as much as I would have liked, but progress is progress!

Three weeks ago I had the basic blocks made for four more pieced blocks, they ‘just’ needed finishing…

…well turning eight square blocks into circles and appliqueing them takes a surprising amount of time, like several evenings. They were gathered round a cardboard template then the 7″ circle was stitched on first and the backing cut away underneath, then the 4.5″ circle could be centred and stitched on top. It took time but it is done…

Some of the colourways work better than others, but I’m fairly happy with them, the only thing I would change with hindsight is the backing fabric to the bottom right one as it’s all a bit busy.

I’ve also finished another embroidery, I think I just have two more to do, so I think I’ll have a big hexie making session, making enough for the two that are just waiting for the ring of hexies and the remaining two too. That’ll be 76 hexies!! I’ve hopefully got a few already made.

I’ve another four pieced blocks to make with a churn dash block on and two applique blocks, once those are all made I can start putting it all together. I think I’ll have a prepping afternoon so I can do the hand sewing on an evening.

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

I’ll also be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, so please follow the links to see what everyone is stitching.

Posted in embroidery, Owl and Hare Hollow BOM, Quilt-a-long, Quilting, Stitch-a-long | Tagged , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Strawberry Sampler Book

Posted on February 10, 2024 by craftycreeky

I think I’ve got too many embroidery projects on at the moment, like four! Rather than concentrating on finishing my long running ones like my garden book and the Owl and Hare Hollow quilt blocks, I keep being distracted by the new ones, namely the embroidered tote bag and the strawberry sampler book, hence I’ve finished another page for the strawberry sampler book.

This is a kit produced by the Cross-Stitch Guild, I bought it at the Knitting and Stitching show last year with the idea of stitching it on holiday, which I did. I stitched the cover…

This still needs finishing with a double folded edge and some hem-stitch.

I also stitched the first pair of pages, these will be folded in half to make a double sided page…

I’ve now finished another page set, this one is called Strawberry Cottage, for obvious reasons! I did make a couple of mistakes on this one, the main one being that the cottage should be pinkier. One thing I have found a little confusing with the instructions is that each double page spread has it’s own set of charts over two A4 pages, which is great, but the colour symbols vary from one page to another, which I don’t find quite so great.

I automatically thought white for the picket fence, and the symbol had I think been used for white previously, so I continued with a white cottage. When I then added the shadows in a slightly darker shade of pink, it looked totally wrong. So of course, me being me, thought there must have been a printing error, unpicked the darker pink and restitched the shadows in the pale pink, which in my defence looks more like the photos in the instructions! The cottage (and the picket fence) should have been in the pale pink, then the darker pink shadows would have looked fine!! It still looks pretty!

I’m already almost halfway through the next set of pages which concentrate on darning stitch, which is basically running stitch made into patterns. After that it’s the more complicated pages with hardanger, they may take a little longer.

Half of me thinks after this next page I should put this project on one side to get the stitched garden book finished, the other half says crack on and finish this one!

Posted in cross-stitch, embroidery, Textile Books | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Stitching my Garden SAL

Posted on February 4, 2024 by craftycreeky

Three weeks ago I was full of plans for one of the last pages for my garden book. I’d mapped it out a few months ago with the help of google maps and put it somewhere safe…and guess what, I can’t find it!! Despite tidying up with encouragement from the Sewing Room Declutter Challenge, it hasn’t turned up, so I’m going to have to draw it out again.

In the meantime I found I’ve still a few mini embroideries to incorporate into a page or two. I decided to do the one of my standard rose, Claire Austin. It’s a beautiful creamy coloured David Austin rose, I’ve just looked through my photos on here and I couldn’t find a single photo! Very remiss of me as it’s a beautiful standard rose, it’s probably because photographically the background is the garage and the kitchen window, not exactly photogenic!! It was the first standard rose I bought, it’s pretty big now. Anyway, here’s my embroidery together with a few bits I pulled out to have a play with.

I embroidered the words onto some evenweave fabric I found in my stash, it was a bit ‘fluffy’, which has softened the pulled edges a bit.

I decided the wider bobbin lace, although very pretty, it made too much of a stripe, the flower trim looked better. This was me playing with the trims after I’d stitched the fabric background.

I stitched the words on with a simple running stitch, the butterfly with buttonhole stitch and shortened the flower trim before stitching it down. It’s squarer than it looks in the photo!

It still needed a little something so I stitch wavy lines of feather stitch in two shades of green. I think it’s just enough without competing with the central embroidery.

I think I’ve about a dozen pages finished now, possibly one or two more little embroidery ones and the map to do…then I can start putting it together.

This SAL is organised by Avis form Stitching by the Sea, we post every three weeks which is great to keep me motivated on a project. Please follow the links to see what everyone else is stitching.

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

Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, 

Daisy, Cathie, Linda, Helen, MaryMargaret, Cindy

Posted in embroidery, Garden, Stitch-a-long, Stitching my Garden, Textile Books | Tagged , , | 16 Comments

Strawberry Sampler Book

Posted on February 1, 2024 by craftycreeky

This is the third (and final!) holiday stitching project, I bought this with the holiday in mind at the Knitting and Stitching show last November. I’d admired it for quite a while (we’re talking several years!) and finally took the plunge and bought it. It’s called the Strawberry Sampler Book and it’s designed by the Cross-stitch Guild

It’s only small, the finished book is only about 4″ square, inside are several pages using different stitching techniques such as hardanger, hem-stitch, darning as well as cross-stitch. There are a few techniques which are going to stretch me a bit, I have done very little pulled thread work such as hardanger, in fact I think I’ve only done it once several years ago on a little sampler, so I’ll have to concentrate on that bit.

I didn’t do as much as I thought on holiday as I realised the pattern wasn’t going to be that convenient to carry round. It’s printed on A4 sheets, which is an easy size to use, but it’s also easy to blow away on a ships deck! I decided not to risk it and mainly stitched when I was sitting quietly indoors or whilst staying with family.

I still managed a fair bit though…

I started with the cover. I’ve still to do a folded hem round it but the stitching is done. I’m still not sure about the four-sided stitching down the middle, the instructions say to use the ecru, but the photo looks a lot more like the colour of the linen, I might still unpick that and stitch it again in a matching colour.

I’m now working on the pages. These are all stitched in pairs which are then folded in half to make a double-sided page.

I’ve changed slightly the way I’m going to stitch the pages together, the instructions use hem-stitch round the outer edge, if I say it’s like an ‘w’ rather than an ‘m’ I hope it makes sense, the solid line of stitching is on the inside of the design rather than the outer edge. The two halves are then stitched together using back-stitch along this solid line. I felt it would mean the edges wouldn’t be as neat as the two edges aren’t joined at the very edge…anyway…I decided to do a row of blanket stitch which when it’s neatly trimmed, will allow me to whip-stitch the outer edges together. I might put a layer of interfacing in it too to just stiffen the pages a little. Here’s the first page complete.

I’m making good progress with the next page too so it hopefully won’t be long before I can share that one too.

If you fancy making one of these little books, the Cross-stitch Guild do several different designs, such as a Tudor one, a country one etc, follow the link at the top of the post to see the full range.

On Sunday I’ll be linking up with Kathy’s Quilt for Slow Stitching Sunday, please follow the link to see what everyone else is stitching.

Posted in cross-stitch, embroidery, Textile Books | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Tote Bag Stitching

Posted on January 27, 2024 by craftycreeky

This is another bit of holiday sewing!

I bought this tote bag at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show, it is made by the same people who designed the sewing box, Sew Enchanting. I think they had two or three designs to choose from. There’s no kit, just a bag with a design printed on for you to embroider. It was quite useful on holiday as initially I used it as a bag to carry my sewing stuff in, then once I finished the first embroidery I started this one.

When I was selecting my threads I felt I wanted some that were slightly thicker than DMC and variegated where possible. Last year when I was doing the Sewing Room Declutter Challenge I organised my embroidery threads, they had been stashed in a big box, mixed up and rarely used as I couldn’t see what I had. I bobbined them all, and also started a note book with a sample of stitching and a description of the threads. From this I could deduce they were Paint Box Threads, beautiful hand-dyed threads I must have picked up at a show somewhere. They were just the weight I wanted in gorgeous rich shades.

I’ve chosen quite a rich palette of colours and I’m pleased with how it’s coming on, so far I’ve just used chain stitch throughout…

The flowers remind me of clematis, the purple ones still need a French knot at the end of each petal, I just haven’t decided what colour to do them yet, a contrast such as orange, not quite so contrasting such as pink, or subtle with dark purple. Decisions!

Posted in Serendipity | 8 Comments

January Photo Challenge

Posted on January 26, 2024 by craftycreeky

Cathy from nanacathydotcom is running a photo challenge this year, mainly as a way of encourage herself to get out more, I think it’s a great idea. This month the theme’s are trees and sky.

I’m rather partial to pointing a camera straight up in a wood, this is one I took on holiday near Wellington in New Zealand…

We had a few lovely sunsets on holiday too, this one was as we were leaving Auckland…

There’s quite a few people sharing their photos so please follow the link to see a tree and sky fest. Next months themes are flower and road, I’m sure I’ll be a bit nearer home next time!

Posted in Photo Challenge | Tagged | 5 Comments

Sewing Room Declutter 2024

Posted on January 22, 2024 by craftycreeky

Last year I did the sewing room declutter challenge for the first time and it certainly helped me sort things out a bit…but things sneak into sewing rooms over the year so I’m back to do the challenge again!

It’s organised by Karen of ‘Lets get it done quilts’ and it runs over 21 days, starting on January 1st, which I’ve obviously missed, but it doesn’t matter, you can start when you want as all the video prompts are on youtube.

In case you think it can’t be that bad, after four days of the challenge here’s where I’m at! This is a panoramic view, I haven’t really got round walls!!

Karen breaks it down into manageable chunks, so hopefully by the end it will be more sorted.

Day 1 was just taking rubbish out, one bin bag later!

Day 2 was ‘squatters’, all those things that really shouldn’t be in the sewing room

Day 3 was subscriptions; I checked through all my magazines, wheedled out a few I’m not going to realistically use, these are mainly Classic Inspirations magasines, so I’ll probably try and sell them on ebay. I also unsubscribed from a few companies on my computer who keep sending e-mails.

Day 4 was books; always a hard one for me as I love books, but I did flick through a few I’d picked up in charity shops which I don’t think I’ll be using, I’ll probably take those to my stitch group to see if anyone wants them.

Today I’m tacking Day 5 which is patterns, hopefully the dress patterns won’t be too bad, though I know there’s half a dozen that don’t fit me any more since I’ve lost weight and gone down a couple of sizes. Quilt patterns though do need sorting, especially ones on my computer, I do need to get them organised.

This is where I store my dress patterns, in those three tubs on the top shelf and the basket underneath…

…wish me luck!

Posted in Dressmaking, sewing room | 21 Comments

Owl and Hare Hollow HQAL

Posted on January 21, 2024 by craftycreeky

Last time I shared my progress was on New Years Eve when I was actually on holiday on the other side of the world, I’d just finished another embroidered block, it’s still sitting on my design wall, waiting for the mini hexies…

This week has been pretty much wiped out with jetlag, getting back to work and trying to get some kind of routine for Bella, our new golden retriever, more about Bella in another post but here’s a photo of her enjoying her holiday with my daughter…

I did manage to make a start on four of the pieced blocks this week, these are called four patch circle blocks. As you can see I have two sets of four squares for each block, a large one and a smaller one. These now need to be trimmed and gathered round a 7″ and a 4″ circle template before being appliqued onto a background square. As usual the hardest bit is choosing the fabrics…

I’ve some churn dash blocks to make then I’m onto the last magazine instalment. There’s just three more blocks to make then before I can start putting the quilt together. I’m tempted though to do an extra embroidered block, the quilt is designed with 48 8″ blocks, arranged 8 x 6 with a border round. I’m tempted to make an extra one so it can be 7×7. I’m thinking of an embroidered one with a sewing theme where I can include my initials and date, instead of a label on the back.

I also want to put sashing between the blocks. I haven’t decided yet whether to put say a 1″ border round each block, or a 2″ square strip between, I’d rather not buy yet more fabric so I just want to use up some of the fabrics I’ve used. Any suggestions gratefully received! Here’s some of the other blocks to give inspiration!!

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

I’ll also be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.

Posted in embroidery, Owl and Hare Hollow BOM, Quilt-a-long, Quilting | Tagged , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Bits and Bobbins Box

Posted on January 20, 2024 by craftycreeky

Whenever I go on holiday, I always pack a little stitching to do, as we were away for nearly four weeks this time I took several projects, a cross-stitch kit and also two pre-printed embroidery panels. The panels proved great for the trip as all I needed was a bag of threads, no pattern to fiddle with on an airplane or to blow away on a breezy ships deck.

The first project was the embroidery to go on the lid of a sewing box. It’s a kit I bought at the Knitting and Stitching Show last autumn by Sew Enchanting. You could buy a kit which included everything to make the box but I decided to just get one with the embroidered panel and instructions. I’ve just googled it and it’s available at Craft and Create at the moment.

I took a selection of DMC threads with me, both plain and variegated ones – I do like a variegated thread! I varied the stitches slightly from the instructions – instead of detached chain stitch for the leaves, I used fishbone stitch. I felt if I used chain-stitch the chances of me covering the printed lines were slight…and I like fishbone stitch for leaves. Otherwise it’s mainly back-stitch and French knots.

It’s about 10″ diameter, it’s going to be made into a zipped drum shaped fabric basket using bosal to stiffen it. I’m thinking of using a batik fabric for the outside which has blues, greens and purples in, I need something fairly practical as it’s going to live next to my chair in the lounge for when I’m sewing in front of the TV. I need to buy a 36″ double ended zip and also check I have enough bosal in my stash. The box in the pattern is plain inside but I am tempted to put pockets round the sides inside the box, it helps keep little things like threads or embroidery scissors tidy.

So this is the finished top…

I finished it midway through the cruise, I’m pleased with it, it’s a cute design and it has lots of happy memories stitched into it too.

I’ll be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts tomorrow for Slow Stitching Sunday, please follow the link to see what everyone else has been stitching.

Posted in embroidery, Serendipity | Tagged , , , , , , | 19 Comments