Blues Quilt

Posted on July 20, 2023 by craftycreeky

Someone dear to me is about to go into a care home, I was planning to send some flowers until I had a lightbulb moment, I could quickly finish a quilt for her!

You may remember back in 2020 I took part in a quilt block swop organised by Kate from Tall Tales from Chiconia called F2F (Footsquare Freestyle). The idea was that we chose a colour scheme each and then each month everyone would make three 12″ quilt blocks for someone in their chosen colours. There were ten of us taking part so we each ended up with 30 wonderful blocks from all round the world in our chosen colours. This would make a quilt 5 blocks by 6 blocks. Somehow I’ve ended up with 31 blocks so one kind quilter made me an extra one.

(Edit…I’ve just revisited the F2F website which has details of who made each block and it was me that made the extra block!!)

I’m afraid to say mine have been sitting in my quilt block folder ever since, so these are perfect for a quick quilt!

When I started to arrange my blocks three of them were a lot more purpley than the others and I just couldn’t get them to gel with the others, so I put them on one side. As it happened one other block which could have worked in the quilt, actually went perfectly with the purple ones as although it’s blue, it shares a similar background colour… it goes better than it does in the photo! I think they will make a nice table topper.

Another block was beautifully appliqued but was a fraction too big and trimming it to size would have trimmed the design too. It will look great on a tote bag or a cushion as will one more block which I needed to discard in order to have a square quilt left. It was hard choosing which blocks to leave out as I know the work that goes into them but I felt happier having a plan for these ones.

That left me with 25 blocks which makes a nice square throw size quilt. I arranged them with the darker ones round the edges and the stars in the middle, I felt it needed a border so I made a 1″ border from some dark blue batik and then some plain beige.

Today I sandwiched it with a plain light blue backing. I love seeing quilts when they’re all neatly laid out on the floor…

I’m going to quilt it with a simple 3″ cross hatch, I drew all the lines with a Frixion pen this evening which took quite a while. It may seem excessive drawing all the lines in when it’s just diagonal lines across 12″ blocks, but some blocks are based on four squares, others nine squares, I struggle to sew a straight line corner to corner on a three inch square so I’m hoping it will make it easier and neater!

With a good wind behind me I might finish it over the weekend.

Posted in F2F, Quilting | Tagged , | 12 Comments

Owl and Hare Hollow HQAL

Posted on July 16, 2023 by craftycreeky

I’ve made good progress on my Owl and Hare quilt over the last few weeks, I did some prep work before I went on holiday, making sure I had everything I needed for some holiday stitching and it paid off. This is the BOM by Natalie Bird which is being published in the bi-monthly Homespun magasine, July/August has just arrived this week and whilst I’ve not finished the last magasine yet, I’ve done a lot of catching up.

Last time I shared my progress was actually six weeks ago as I missed the week we were away. Despite several weeks work, at that point I had just two embroidered blocks and one coffin wheel block made…

In Cornwall I made another three coffin wheel blocks so the blocks from the first magasine were now completed.

I also made inroads into the next magazine’s blocks. I made three penny circle blocks first, though my 1″ circles look more like dodecagons! I then started the Dresden plate blocks, I like these, I’m beginning to think I’m more of a straight line quilter!! They’re easy to get nice and neat! I’m also a convert to the stick and stitch method of English Paper Piecing, using a light fabric glue to baste the fabric round the shapes, though the next block might prove a bit more of a challenge…

…For the next block I need to make a narrow circular border from ten arcs of EPP, I’ve started gluing, my concern is the fabric distorting and fraying as I remove the papers as so much is on the bias.

The hare was meant to be needleturn appliqued but I decided I wouldn’t get the lovely flowing curves with needleturn so I opted for bondaweb and raw edge applique with a blanket-stitch round it.

As you can see I have my final Dresden plate prepped, I just need to stitch them together. After those two I still have two embroidered blocks to do, I’ve started one, it’s called Queen Bee…

There seems to be two of these blocks in each magazine, these are the ones that take the time. With the first magazine I started with these which is why I ended up feeling so far behind, this time I’ve just put this one in my handbag and I’m just stitching when I can. It’s simple enough stitching to do in my lunch break or in Doctors waiting rooms, I’ve a couple of weekends away in the next couple of months so I’ll probably take them with me for evenings or journeys.

At the moment I’m mulling over the idea of quilting the blocks as I go and then stitching them together with a sashing, I did a couple of quilts with similar size blocks a few years ago and it worked pretty well as I could easily machine quilt different blocks with individual designs. I suppose in theory I could hand quilt them this way but I think in practise it would be adding too much to my current work list!…although I suppose if I waited until I had finished all the blocks (which will hopefully be early next year) I could then just work my way through them…decisions!

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 has been stitching.

Posted in Owl and Hare Hollow BOM, Quilt-a-long, Quilting | Tagged , , , | 22 Comments

Elephant on Cloud Nine

Posted on July 11, 2023 by craftycreeky

My grandson was one at the end of June, I didn’t quite manage to finish his presents so we gave him a little something to open on the day and as today was my first free day since holidays and visitors, I concentrated on finishing it.

It’s an elephant mobile, I found the pattern on Etsy in a shop called Cloud of Joy Art. She has some gorgeous designs and interestingly you can either buy the pattern or she also sells larger mobiles ready made. The pattern went together easily enough, I just blanket-stitched all the seams.

Before I went on holiday I had stitched the elephant, a cloud and three stars, I then lost a star which is why the mobile wasn’t finished before we went on holiday! I’m sure it’s somewhere in my sewing room but it’s still hiding…

I made another star, a silver grey one…then realised I actually needed four stars, so I made another blue one. I added eyes using chunky French knots, the pattern calls for beads, but just in case he gets hold of it I thought I’d embroider them instead.

The elephant is sat on the cloud using the hanging thread, he’s not actually stitched to it. I found some long doll needles in a drawer but they were really thick so I found the longest needle in my embroidery box and squished the elephant down! The thread goes from head to bottom of the elephant, through the cloud, it’s knotted before I carried on and hung the central star. It other two stars are then on one thread so they can be adjusted if wanted. The star on the end of the trunk is hand-stitched down and to my surprise it does stay upright!

I think he’s pretty cute!

Posted in Sewing for Grandchildren | Tagged , | 20 Comments

Monday’s Meander Round the Garden

Posted on July 10, 2023 by craftycreeky

…and breathe!

We’ve had a great weekend with family visiting but it is nice to have a quiet house again!

The garden seems to have gone mad whilst we’ve been away, everything seems to have grown several inches and lots of flowers have been and gone. I spent an afternoon last week dead-heading and generally tidying up a little so the garden looked presentable to the guests, we did manage to sit out with a glass of wine on Saturday. We’ve had several thunderstorms over the last few days accompanied by the usual heavy rain, whilst the rain has been welcomed, the blooms have taken quite a bashing, I need another dead-heading session already.

This is a rose called Champagne Moments, we bought it when we got married in 2007, it’s probably about 4.5′ tall and it flowers profusely all summer, it’s not got the strongest scent but I love it. Even with quite a few rain bashed blooms it is still putting on a good show.

The rose rambling over the arbour is flowering well too, I managed to deadhead the right-hand side last week but I can’t easily reach the rest. The deep purple spikes in the border is a veronica, it looks particularly good against the lime green of the pieris next to it.

I’ve several hydrangeas around the garden, one of them has been banished to the back of the garden as it is steadfastedly refusing to flower but a cream one I bought a couple of years ago has a few flower heads on. This one is planted down by the bird feeders by the patio. They’re gorgeous…

I particularly like the view just as come out of the conservatory, peeping under the branches of the standard rose bush (Claire Austin) across the patio towards the arbour. The perovskia (otherwise known as Russian sage) is in flower at the moment, that’s the one on the right with purple-blue flowers on silver leafed stems. The light mauve flower at the front is a hosta, pale green/white spiky flowers are astrantia, these are growing like weeds in my garden now, I keep having to thin them out a bit! The taller purple spikes are veronica again, the purple leaves are sage.

As we don’t have any dogs at the moment the path up to the railway line isn’t as well used and you can tell! The astrantia (I said it grows like weeds!!) and alchemilla mollis are leaning over from the left and the hosta leaves spread out from the right!

The view from upstairs is looking pretty full… The white rose in the middle is the champagne moments one, The raised bed below it is filling up now, it always seems to look untidy and empty in the middle for the first half of the year, like there’s not much going on, I think maybe I just need to think of it as a late summer border and plonk one of my chicken wire sculptures there in the spring.

I’ll hopefully manage to get a bit of time in the garden this week, generally tidying up and weeding, as of course the weeds are growing even faster than the plants!

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Stitching my Garden SAL

Posted on July 9, 2023 by craftycreeky

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.

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

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

Daisy, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Cindy, MaryMargaret

Posted in embroidery, Stitch-a-long, Stitching my Garden | Tagged , , , , | 20 Comments

Skipton Castle

Posted on July 7, 2023 by craftycreeky

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.

Posted in embroidery, Serendipity, Skipton Stitchers | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

Teals on Fire

Posted on July 6, 2023 by craftycreeky

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…

Hand Quilting Down the Rabbit Hole

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.

Posted in Quilting, Serendipity | Tagged , | 14 Comments

Busy busy busy!

Posted on June 20, 2023 by craftycreeky

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…

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, 

Daisy, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Connie, Cindy, MaryMargaret

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!

Posted in embroidery, Sewing for Grandchildren, Skipton Stitchers, Stitch-a-long | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Teals on Fire

Posted on June 13, 2023 by craftycreeky

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!

Posted in Quilt-a-long, Quilting | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Monday’s Meander Round the Garden

Posted on June 12, 2023 by craftycreeky

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!!

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , | 2 Comments