Apologies for the brevity of this post, hopefully normal service will be resumed by the next update!
Here’s my garden embroidery last time I shared it, I’d just started the embroidery of the flowers…
Well I’ve not done a huge amount but I have done some stitching. I finished the foxgloves next to the rose arch. One of the green blobs is now a standard rose bush, this one is called Roald Dahl, I bought it in memory of my mum as she was a primary school teacher and one of her favourite books to read to her classes was James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl.
A second green blob is now a geum, these lovely perennials are covered with little orange flowers on long stems, they flower for months on end. I’ve stitched my tree peony next to the arbour using a French knot surrounded by stem stitch with lazy daisy leaves.
I’ve just started the buddleia bush in the corner, I need to add more leaves and then the long purple flowers, I’ll probably use little French knots for these .
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.
Whilst I was on holiday in Cornwall I was also busy finishing an embroidery for Skipton Stitchers, it was meant to be handed in at the June meeting but with the neck issues I was having I didn’t manage to finish (or start it!) in time. I knew I was holding things up so I stitched it and posted it from Cornwall.
This was a group project, a local landmark, Skipton Castle, has agreed to display a piece of our work in the castle. Skipton Castle is an amazing place, it’s over 900 years old and it’s one of the most complete and best preserved medieval castles in the UK, well worth a visit if you’re in the area. We selected a photo of the central courtyard which was then enlarged to about 40 x 32″. It was then cut up into twenty 8″ squares, we were given the piece of photo and some calico, our task was then to reproduce it in stitch as accurately as possible.
The important thing with these squares was to make them true to size and any major lines in the picture needed to be just right so they would line up with the next block. Now they are all complete they will be stitched together to make one big picture.
We couldn’t choose a square, we were given a brown envelope with a picture and calico inside, presumably so we didn’t all want ‘easier’ squares. My square at first glance seemed fairly straight forward, it’s paving stones in the courtyard, the bit between the steps and the cobbles.. I was quite relieved when I saw how complicated some of the areas would be! I suppose it was straight forward really, it just took a lot longer than I anticipated – it takes a lot of stitching to fill an 8″ square!
I decided to paint the fabric to get the main colour and then embroider the paving stones. My first attempt was painting the actual calico but with the ecru colour of the calico it just looked wrong.
I then decided to paint some fairly textured cotton/linen which does give a nice finish for the Yorkshire stone slabs. The white fabric I had overlaid for the sunny bit still wasn’t light enough so I laid another piece on top!
I sketched the main outlines with a Frixion pen having made sure that they lined up with the photo. I then started embroidering. This is how it look just before I went on holiday…
I used several stitches, running stitch, stem stitch, chain stitch and split stitch, using a variety of threads and colours to try and get the right effect. I decided to miss off the dark thing off the bottom, I wasn’t sure what it was but I was pretty sure if I tried to stitch it it would probably look like a dog poop!! I did check on the original and it didn’t look important to the overall picture!
I probably found the light bits the trickiest as I didn’t really want to embroider the whole of the light shadowy area but I needed to get the effect. In the end I embroidered round the edges of the pattern on the light area and also did some stitching in white.
So this is the finished piece, photographed on a hotel bed, I’d removed the Frixion pen with a hairdryer but I didn’t have access to an iron to give it a good press. I was pretty pleased with it in the end. It looks quite purple but then so does the photo, so I’m just hoping it looks OK with it’s neighbours. It was also hard to get the tonal values right, some of my lines and shadows look a little dark but they were actually stitched in pretty light shades, much lighter and they didn’t show up at all. Here’s a closer photo of the actual piece…
It doesn’t look much stitching when I see it now but over 8″ that’s a lot of little stitches!! I was glad to get it finished and in the post, just in time too as I got a message that day asking how I was doing with it so I was glad to be able to reply that it was in the hands of Royal Mail – who delivered it the next day! When the final piece is finished I’ll post a photo.
We’ve just had a lovely holiday in Cornwall, just over a week, the week before was a mad rush trying to get things finished, I had a few deadlines, some I managed, some I didn’t! Since we returned it’s been a mad rush trying to get ready for visitors at the weekend, we’ve family coming to stay ( Aussies with tickets for the Ashes match at Headingly!) so guest bedrooms to sort, food to organise, house to tidy…and I’m back at work! Deep breath…life will settle down soon!
In the meantime, here’s a quick post about the last block I made for Kate’s ovarian cancer quilt. This is one deadline I was determined to make before I went on holiday. The quilt is going to be auctioned for her local charity, teal is the colour for ovarian cancer and Kate always thinks of a theme with a pun on the word teal, so this year it’s ‘Teals on Fire’ so lots of wheel shape blocks and fiery colours to go with the teal.
The first block was this one…
I’d bought a set of teal fat quarters on Etsy and also spotted a wonderful ombre fabric in yellows and orange, I only needed to buy quarter of a metre to get all the wonderful colours, and really fiery they are too.
For the second block I decided to do a quarter of a wheel using the centre template from my Down the Rabbit Hole quilt, for those of you without memories going back several years, here’s the centre…
So I made a strip of alternating orange and teal stripes and cut them up using the DTRH wedge template, which I happen to have spotted amongst my templates a couple of weeks before, perfect timing.
With the stripy bit made, I could then cut out wedges in a darker teal and stitch them all together to make a quarter circle. My lines didn’t line up very well, one line was worse than the others so that one was unpicked and realigned with a bit of an improvement. However it was at the bottom where the discrepancies showed up the most with the end of the orange segments, though looking at the purple circle above, the central ones aren’t perfect and it doesn’t show up much. With this one being fiery orange, it showed up!! So I used a slightly bigger circle so it would cover the offending ends.
At one stage during the making of the block I did wonder about making prairie points round the circle, but I decided it would mess up Kate’s quilting and when I tried a few triangles around the edge, planning to stitch them down, it actually looked a bit much. Instead I stitched the wide orange border, I felt very brave (or reckless!) at the time as I cut it out as an arc and then stitched it on the machine, stitching curved seams on quilts is usually enough to send me into a panic so I was relived when it all fitted OK first time. The bias teal strip was also stitched initially on the machine and then hand stitched to the background.
I did wonder about adding a little something in the opposite corner but nothing I thought of really worked so I left it with the teal feather batik. I’m pretty pleased with how it came out, especially considering the design changed a bit as I went a long, I’d hoped that the wedges would come out bigger but looking at the Down the Rabbit Hole one again, I do wonder if the wedges were cut from higher up the template as I lost two rows under the central circle, hindsight is a wonderful thing!
The blocks have now arrived in sunny Australia, 10,000 miles isn’t bad in two weeks! Kate has just published a post with the initial layout of the quilt and it does look amazing. There’s some wonderful New York Beauty blocks in there too, I might just have to make one of those quilts sometime in the future! Please follow the link to Kate’s blog to see all the Teal’s on Fire quilt in the making.
I’ve had a crazy busy few days trying to get stuff done before we go away for a short break, I ended up with a few deadlines, some of which I’ve met…and some I haven’t!
I completely missed the SAL post, apologies! I haven’t managed to do anything further on mine, but here’s the belated links for our other members so you can check out their stitching progress…
Kate will be pleased to hear that the second square for the Teal’s on Fire quilt is finished so they will hopefully be posted out tomorrow. Photo later when I post about it.
I was trying to make a mobile for my grandson, it’s his first birthday on Thursday, I’ve made all the bits and was all set last night to stitch a pair of eyes on and put it together when I lost a star – if you saw my sewing room at the moment you wouldn’t be surprised – I’m lucky not to have lost an elephant!!
I spent all weekend stitching an 8″ square for Skipton Stitchers, it’s a group project where we’ve each been given a section of a photo and we have to reproduce it in stitch, then they’ll all be joined together to make one picture. It was meant to be handed in yesterday, I was so close, just needed a few more hours to embroider the sunlit areas…
I’ll take it on holiday and hopefully finish it there.
I’ve also done a little prepping of fabric for my Owl and Hare Hollow quilt, so that will also be something to do whilst sitting on the beach. I’ve sewn some four patches and cut some 1″ card templates together with a selection of fabrics, so I can crack on with some blocks.
The garden has finally had some rain, our first real rain was unfortunately at 1pm on Saturday – just as Otley Carnival was starting! We’ve had nice gentle but steady rain since, missed all the big storms so although I haven’t managed to plant everything I was hoping to, I have more hope that it will still be alive when I get back. The garden is looking full and colourful and it’s smelling lovely!
So as you can see, I have been busy, just not managed to finish everything!
Every year Kate form Tall Tales from Chiconia makes a quilt to be raffled for an ovarian cancer charity. It’s always a teal colour as that is the colour for ovarian cancer ( much like pink is for breast cancer) and the theme is always a play on the word teal, such as Time for Teal. This year it’s Teal’s on Fire, a play on Wheels on Fire, so think teal with highlights of orange. There’s a group of us quilters around the world who make a block or two for Kate, post it off, and then she puts them all together and makes a wonderful quilt.
I offered to make two blocks. I looked through my batik stash and realised my teal pile was getting rather small. I found a page on etsy that sold bundles of fat quarters and there was a bundle of four teal coloured ones, perfect! Even more perfect was the ombre fabric I spotted on the same page, a batik going from golden yellow at one side to deep orange at the other. I ordered 25cm and it’s ideal, it gives me a variety of colours from one fabric!!
My first idea with the theme was inspired by one of the next blocks I have to do for my Owl and Hare Hollow quilt, it’s a large circle made from four fabrics surrounded by eight little circles. I initially thought I’d do the centre of the big circle in teal batiks, maybe surrounded by a narrow circle of orange, then eight teak mini circles. However by the time I came to make it I’d decided to have a thin outer circle in a dark plain teal so it looked a bit like the rim of a wheel and surround it with the little circles in orange.
I didn’t take any progress shots, but the central circle looked a bit meh, the batiks were too alike. At this point I had my orange circles cut out and pressed (I remembered Sarah Fielkes tip to wrap the fabric round a template in tinfoil and press!) I thought maybe a narrow strip of binding across the seams of the circle…two strips turned into four to make the eight spokes of a wheel. I then had the dilemma of how to finish the ends..I then had a flash of inspiration and continued them under the outer circles, so it makes it into a wheel of fire!!
My other flash of inspiration was to draw the mini circles with a frixion pen first, it helped position them accurately but also gave me a stitching guide. I shall do that again!
So here is my first block complete…
I love the different fiery shades of orange!
My only bit of concern with the block now is that the centre point is pretty thick! Luckily the plain teal fabric is pretty thin, not the usual quilt-weight cotton. There is the option to remove the back circle of batik if necessary as I was careful not to go through when I was stitching all the spokes on. The other thought I had would be remove the centre of the spokes and stitch a ‘hub’ over the top. It all depends on the quilting plans Kate has for the quilt so I shall liaise with her.
This block ended up 90% hand stitched so I have plans for a machine stitched second block as time is getting short – I have a few sewing deadlines over the next 10 days!
I’ve been busy decorating our spare bedroom for the last couple of weekends, what else do you do when it’s scorching outside! I did however manage a day in the garden when my friend came round to help.
I had a lovely morning fishing in our pond! Officially I was cleaning it out as it’s full of duckweed and it turns out, lots of rotting sycamore leaves too. The first scoop with a fishing net caught four newts!! I quickly put them back and consulted my friend! I knew last time I cleared the pond out I found two newts but that must be well over five years ago and I’ve not seen any since, not that I’ve furtled round in the depths of our pond much! Anyway, my friend said to put them in a bucket of pondwater, continue clearing the pond and then return them afterwards. Well I stopped counting at twelve, there must be well over twenty, especially as that’s just the ones I caught, I was pretty excited, to me it makes it a proper wildlife pond! I still only saw one frog though. I scooped out half a trug full of duckweed, pondweed and dead leaves, I left it on it’s side next to the pond so any little critters I’d missed could find their way back. I’ve since been topping up the water level, we haven’t had rain for weeks but it’s not good to just add tap water due to the chlorine levels in it, however leave it for a day or two and it’s OK, so I’ve been filling the watering can and tipping it in a couple of days later. I’ve a bit more duckweed to fish out but it looks so much better…
The hostas are looking good around the pond as you can see, they give some useful shade to the pond too. That’s a fine specimen of marestail on the left too!!!
The top border which is officially called the autumn border has lots of colour for the summer too. I let the foxgloves self seed as you can see, I only thin them if they are getting a bit much, they add a bit of height and colour and the bees love them. The rose over the arbour is starting to flower, it’s a rambling rose rather than a climber and it’s been much easier to train over the arbour, just needing a bit of gentle guidance and it’s already over half way across. It’s a lovely place to sit on an evening.
The patio garden is looking very peaceful, I am trying to keep the colours more calming here, it’s where I sit for my morning coffee, or if the sun is getting a bit much there is always shade under this arbour. In amongst the pots I have a large blue cceramic pot full of pebbles and water, I made it last year as a birdbath but I rarely saw a bird in it. At this years Harrogate show there was a pond nursery and I bought some spiky reed and a mini waterlily. Since those appeared the birds seem to have twigged on that there os water there, the blackbird bathes in it, the goldfinches and the robins stop by for a drink, I’ve even spotted damselflies on the reeds.
This year I’ve had quite a good start with sweet peas, I’ve bought them before but they always seem to have ended up in a heap and never found their way up. This time I bought a pot of mixed Spencer sweet peas and planted them up initially in individual pots in the conservatory and then I bought a large plastic container inside and planted them up. I didn’t move the planter outside until the risk of frost had gone, then I gave them a helping hand up a new plant support and they’ve done really well. What’s nice with sweet peas is that you have to keep picking them or they stop flowering, so I have a lovely jug of scented flowers in the kitchen.
There’s no rain forecast here for another week, I could really do with some as the ground is cracking it’s so dry and I’ve a few plants in pots waiting to be planted. We’re going away for a few days soon so I could really do with planting them out first. Fingers crossed for a thunderstorm!!
We’ve had a glorious weekend weather-wise, hot and sunny, unfortunately I’ve spent most of the time decorating one of the dormer bedrooms, we’ve got a bit of a deadline as we have family visiting from abroad and I want the smell of gloss paint to have chance to fade before anyone sleeps in there.
Having spent the day indoors, it’s been lovely spending late afternoon or early evening sitting in the garden, enjoying the last of the rays. June is the peak time for the classic English Garden, there’s so much starting to flower, I shall pick my favourites!
If last week was iris week, this time it’s definitely the turn of the peony. I love peonies, they may have a short flowering season but they are so beautiful and the scent is gorgeous…these palest pink ones are my favourite at the moment, they’re just by the conservatory door and as you go up the steps the scent wafts at you!
…these magenta ones are a bit blousy, they’re up in the Amber & Amethyst garden…
These ones are up by the summerhouse, they make quite a display, looking good even from an upstairs window, they’re mingling nicely with the alliums and the astrantia too…
Up in the autumn bed at the top of the garden the peony has just started to flower, it only has one open so far but it’s very pretty…
The roses are starting to bloom too, most have just got one or two blooms out so far, but one bush is looking amazing, I think it’s called Golden Celebrations, my daughter bought it for us when our golden retriever died…
Aren’t those flowers just beautiful, I love the variation in the colour from deep orange in the bud to soft peach and yellow blooms.
Even the honeysuckle has decided to excel it’s self this year, I planted this a few years ago to grow over an arch and it’s always been a bit pathetic and straggly. It’s still straggly and not very tall but at least it’s flowered!
Around the garden there’s quite a few self seeded foxgloves, I usually let them self seed at will so long as they don’t go mad. This year there’s quite a few down by the patio, mingling with a creamy white one I think I bought last year, I think that’s one of the perennial ones…
There’s lots to do in the garden at the moment, but lots to enjoy too. My gardening friend is coming round this week so hopefully we’ll get a fair bit done. Whilst I’m enjoying the warm weather, it hasn’t rained for sometime, we could do with a little rain, just at night time to freshen everything up!! I’ve got quite a few plants waiting to be planted out but the soil is too hard to dig at the moment and I’m not very good at remembering to water them!
I’m enjoying this block-of-the-month by Natalie Bird but I am finding it a little harder to keep my motivation up due to the time delay getting the magazine to the UK. The magazine is published every two months in Australia but then takes about six weeks to swim up here!!! Unfortunately this means that by the time I’ve received the pattern I’m way behind everyone else in the facebook group…and I know it’s not a race, it’s just the way my mind works, I’m much better with a deadline, like knowing when the next patterns will be arriving.
Anyway, I’ve worked out that I should be doing at least one a week, so sharing three with you at these HQAL posts, ideally four so I start to catch up…well I’ve not got that but I have made progress.
Three weeks ago I’d one block almost finished and another embroidery just started…
I’ve finished stitching all the hexagons on, I’ve also discovered a quicker way of stitching them on, I was stitching these in two’s, going right round a hexagon and then straight onto the next in like a figure of eight. I have since found it’s much quicker and easier to firstly tack all the hexagons on so my thread doesn’t constantly catch on pins, and secondly, to stitch round the three outer edges of all the hexagons as one continuous line and then stitch the inside edges…it just flows better.
I’ve finished the embroidery of the house, there is a lot of stitching in these blocks so they do take quite a while to do. I’ve also stitched all the hexagons on – with my easier method!
The next block I tackled is made of unfortunately named ‘coffin’ blocks, it took me a while to get going with these mainly as I was having difficulty seeing how the colours would work out. I’ve made quite a few coffin blocks so I can see how the colours work together. The first one contains the pink ones which didn’t work in the embroidered blocks…
I now need to choose a background fabric and stitch them down. I’m actually thinking of prepping quite a few like this as I’ve got a few days away in Cornwall coming up so I can stitch them down in the evenings. I’ve to make four like this, I think I need to stop overthinking the fabric choices and just make them! If I include the next magazine there’s another three English paper pieced sets of blocks to do so if I get myself organised…
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.
It’s a bank holiday here in the UK and the weather has been warm and sunny, not like the usual bank holiday weather at all!! I’ve managed quite a few hours in the garden, though there’s still an awful lot to do as I lost about six weeks after my op. I’ve decided I’m a bit of a flitter when it comes to the garden, I do a bit here and then get distracted by something over there that needs doing. It all needs doing but I think that’s part of the reason why I never feel I’m winning, I never finish a job properly!! I think that’s one reason why it’s so great when my friend comes to help, she really bottoms a border before moving on to the next…I need to learn from this!
I did a fair bit of weeding and tidying round by the patio, cutting back faded flower spikes, unwinding the bindweed so I can pop in in a poop bag and spray with weed killer. I cut back the lower branches of the purple sambuscus too, it’s getting to be rather large, they can be a bit thuggish! I’ve taken off the lower branches to bring a bit more light onto the bed below it and to neaten it up a bit. When my OH has his chainsaw out next there’s one more branch to come off!
The view from the bottom of the steps, peeping under the standard rose bush, is lovely at the moment. There’s three different alliums, two irises and both purple and white foxgloves…
I’ve pruned the early flowering clematis by the side of the arbour, a bit late but it’s done. I’ve also pruned and fed the fatsia japonica as it wasn’t looking very happy. I had a bag of farmyard manure which I’d bought to mix with John Innes compost when we we’re planning to move house, I’ve been round the garden and given a few shrubs a bit of a feed with it.
I also did some weeding up round the top roses by the lawn, I went to give them some manure and got distracted by the weeds! Kneeling on the lawn I got a different view of the border by the big fence and that’s looking very pretty too. I couldn’t get any nearer as I also realised this weekend that the bird box on the side of the summerhouse is home to a family of bluetits – when I had my coffee in there on Saturday I could hear them cheeping away.
The alliums have come up through the peony, I don’t recall planting any there but it’s worked pretty well. The peony has quite a few buds on, I think they’ll open over the next week. There’s a white astrantia (well a sort of very pale green colour) and behind it is a pink one. The philadelphus at the back has just come into blossom and smells wonderful.
Over by the pond my OH has been weeding the path, he’s also realised the log-roll round the pond border is pretty rotten, it has probably been there about 18 years so it doesn’t owe me anything! He wants to re-lay new weed membrane under the gravel and replace the log roll, he’ll hopefully agree that it will be easier to wait til autumn.
We thinned the Solomons Seals a lot last year but it needs a bit more I think, I could do with a nice clump, rather than a sprawl…and I bought a candelabra primula which I want to plant by the pond where I can see it. The purple plant at the front is a rogersia, I’ve a green one too at the far side of the pond. The hostas are looking huge already!
The purple clematis by the autumn bed is looking amazing this year, the flowers are huge. The purple acer is looking happy and hopefully the peony will soon be in flower too. The rambling rose growing over the arbour is looking huge but it’s nicely spreading over the arbour.
I do like this time of year, everything is still looking fresh and new and there’s something different every time you wander round the garden…lots of things to distract me!
It’s three weeks since I shared my progress on my last big piece for my embroidered garden book. I’ve not done as much as I wanted, mainly because I’m having increasing issues with neuralgia in my arm at the moment and I think my usual habit of sitting on the sofa hand-stitching on an evening doesn’t help. I’m trying to limit myself for a short while – it’s hard when everything you like to do either impacts on or is affected by health issues! I tend to do what I want and live with the consequences, but occasionally I put my sensible hat on and give myself a break!
Three weeks ago I was busy stitching the rose bush which grows over the arbour…
I’ve not done a huge amount of stitching but I have put blobs of colour on where shrubs and bushes are, these are hand-painted calico stuck on with bondaweb. Psychologically these help a lot as they suddenly reduce the amount of empty space to be filled with stitching, even though I’ll be stitching over them.
I’ve stitched a few of my gorgeous velvety deep purple irises which are in flower at the moment and I’ve started some foxgloves in the corner by the roses. The foxgloves are a little artistic license as there seemed to be a big gap to the left of the rose, I do need to fill out the rose a bit but I didn’t fancy doing the whole lot, so I added some tall foxgloves!
I think this one is going to be stitched slightly different to the others perspective – wise, the other two embroideries have worked out better imagining I’m stood in the middle of the garden with plants ‘fanning out’. Whereas I think this one is better stood on the path looking down the garden, so everything will be stood straight. Hopefully next time you see this there will be a few more plants stitched.
Stitch-a-long
This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis from Stitching by the Sea, we post our progress every three weeks on our individual projects, it’s just enough to keep me motivated! Please follow the links to see what every one else is stitching.
thecraftycreek 