Stitching My Garden SAL

Posted on December 11, 2022 by craftycreeky

I’ve been busy trying to catch up with Christmas preparations over the last couple of weeks leaving me with little time to stitch my garden. Three weeks ago I’d made a start on my second big piece for my fabric book, this embroidery depicts the lawn and the summerhouse area….

Since then I’ve finished the gravel path, started to add a hint of paving stones in front of the summerhouse and back-stitched the roof of the summerhouse.

I have also finally started stitching some of the plants. I still need to add the small shrubs with applique, that will make a big difference to the piece as the borders do have quite a few shrubs as well as the shrub roses.

I’ve begun to embroider the plants round the pond, so there’s a couple of hostas, some irises and some solomon’s seal…

Hopefully once Christmas is out of the way I will start to make better progress!

This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis, 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, 

AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Connie, Cindy, MaryMargaret

Posted in embroidery, Stitch-a-long, Stitching my Garden, Textile Books | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Young Master Rabbit

Posted on December 6, 2022 by craftycreeky

I’m making two rabbits for Christmas, Luna Lapin rabbits from Cool Crafting in Kendal. One is for my daughter Helen, one for my new grandson Hugo. Over the weekend I cracked on and made some clothes for Hugo’s.

The patterns for these clothes are all in the original Luna Lapin book (I think the author, Sarah Peel, is now on her forth or fifth book.) One thing I love about these clothes patterns is the amount of detail in them, they’re made just like a miniature version of adult clothing, within reason!

I made a shirt, complete with a lined yoke, collar, placket effect on the sleeve and working buttonholes…

… yes those buttons are just 6mm across so I just put my buttonhole foot on the smallest size and it worked! The buttons on the sleeve are even smaller but they’re just decorative. I thought the fabric was perfect, with ‘threaded with love’ all over it

Young Master Rabbit has now got a fluffy tail too, I think officially they’re called a scut.

His dapper little waistcoat is made from a scrap left from making my coat, so he’s a very posh rabbit having a waistcoat made from wool woven just down the road. Those buttons are just decorative!

His trousers are made from a fat quarter of quilting cotton I found in my stash, it’s got rabbits and hedgehogs on. I even managed to fussycut his back pockets so he has a motif on each one,

Although this young rabbit is for my grandson I haven’t made the clothes little child safe. The actual rabbit has safety eyes and no buttons where his arms are stitched on. When I looked at the clothes patterns it would have been difficult to make them without buttons. I have decided to tell his mum and dad that as soon as he shows any interest in actually playing with him I’ll make a new set of child friendly clothes.

That’s another present ticked off 🙂

Posted in Christmas, Luna Lapin, Sewing | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

An Exploding Heart

Posted on December 5, 2022 by craftycreeky

I’m finally starting to get a few finishes under my belt and one which I am very pleased to have finally finished is the Exploding Heart quilt, a design by Slice of Pi. This is a quilt for a happy young couple who finally got married in May after many delays due to covid. Yes I’m about six months late but I didn’t get the colour scheme until April…and I’m not very good without a deadline!

Last time I think I shared my progress on this particular project I had just finished piecing it, it was sandwiched and I was trying to decide how to quilt it…

I asked for suggestions on the UKQU facebook page and took on board a couple of comments and ideas, in particular that an all over meandering design might detract from the cream heart outline. I had found what I thought was a lovely free-motion quilting design of hearts and loops on Etsy, it was only about £2.50, but when I struggled to download it I found out that it was actually for computerised long arm machines! The shop owner kindly sent the design as a pdf so I could use it. Whilst I didn’t copy it it did give me a general pattern of hearts and loops.

I started in the middle with a heart and quilted the central heart in sage green with a meandering mix of hearts and loops. I then used cream to quilt just inside both edges of the cream heart. The rest of the quilt was then quilted in a very pale green. The colour changes worked well as the quilting doesn’t stand out too much, I used cream thread throughout underneath as the backing is a cream with tiny hearts on.

.During my visit to the Knitting and Stitching show I picked up some sage green fabric with tiny spots on which blended in nicely for the binding. I embroidered a label with the couples initials and the date and my initials at the bottom.

I’m really pleased with this quilt, it’s the biggest quilt I’ve quilted on a machine so far, it’s 72″ square. It’s also the first one I think I’ve quilted on this machine, it’s a memorycraft Janome with a wider stitching throat and it does make a huge difference when I’m trying to control 36″ quilt to the right of the machine needle.

I’m particularly pleased with the effect of the ‘scrappy’ background, the pattern was for a plain background but I used about five or six different fabrics in shades of cream and off white. Visually I think it’s a very effective pattern and the instructions are certainly easy to follow…it just took longer than I anticipated with all those half and quarter square tringles!

Hopefully the bride and groom will love it too.

Posted in Quilting, Serendipity | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

A Fluffle of Bunnies

Posted on December 2, 2022 by craftycreeky

I do like the traditional collective nouns, a charm of goldfinches, a peep of chickens, a parliament of owls…and a fluffle of bunnies. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been stitching my own fluffle of Luna Lapins.

Luna Lapin is a rabbit designed by Sara Peel of Cool Crafting in Kendal. I think she’s published about four books now, branching out to other animals such as deer, sheep, a mouse, otter to name but a few. They are all designed to be hand-stitched but can be machine stitched too. I tend to hand-stitch the rabbit and machine stitch the clothes

Over the last few years I think I’ve made three rabbits and one mouse…

This Christmas I decided to make one for my new grandson and also my daughter asked for one for Christmas, so two to make.

For Hugo, my grandson, I decided to make one in a creamy felt with the inside of the ears and the feet in a quilting cotton left over from a quilt which has hearts all over it. As Hugo is only a few months old I bought some safety eyes rather than use buttons and I’ve omitted the buttons at the top of the arms. I used blanket stitch for all the seams, the face didn’t shape quite as nicely with the safety eyes so I hand-stitched a little to pull them in.

Helen wanted a white Liberty rabbit and even sent up two fat quarters of tana lawn for me to use, both very flowery. I chose the pretty pink one for the ears and feet. I used buttons for the eyes and also ‘Handmade with love’ wooden buttons for the arm joint. She’s got little eye lashes too. They are both made with the 100% wool felt from Cool Crafting, it’s a lovely quality and doesn’t give way when you’re stuffing them!

‘All’ I’ve got to do now is make their clothes, a dress, coat and knickers for Helens and shirt, trousers and waistcoat for Hugo’s

Posted in Luna Lapin | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Robin Redbreast

Posted on November 30, 2022 by craftycreeky

I’ve a few projects on the go at the moment, various presents or Christmassy stitchings, I haven’t quite decided what this one will be yet…

I love seeing robins round the garden, they’re never very far away when I’m gardening, hoping for a tasty worm no doubt. There’s an old saying that when a robin appears, loved ones are near, so I often think of my mum when I see the robin bobbing about. I bought some heavier weight cotton with robins on a few years back and I decided to use one of the robins as basis for an embroidery. This was my ‘stitching on the go’ project which is kept in my handbag for those opportune moments for a little stitching.

I kept the stitching fairly simple, using chain stitch on the head, French knots, fly stitch and a few straight stitches for the red breast and light coloured feathers underneath. The back and wings are fly stitch again, blanket stitch and herringbone with a few sequins and beads added too.

Having the basic image underneath does help as I don’t have to think about dimensions and shape, just embellishing where I want to. I haven’t quite decided if this one is going to be made into a mini pillow as a present, kept as a Christmas decoration or even made into a card…

…I think I’ll see how I’m doing with other projects before I decide on the finish!

Posted in embroidery, Garden | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Staying Home HQAL

Posted on November 27, 2022 by craftycreeky

It’s three weeks since I last shared my progress with hand quilting my Staying Home quilt, this was made with fabric left from my Coming Home quilt and embroidered blocks from a QAL by Hugs and Kisses back in 2020 during the lockdowns, hence the title!

Three weeks ago I had finally got into the swing of my chosen pattern, hearts in the sashings and stitch in the ditch mainly for houses…

Well I’ve made steady progress and I’ve finished the row with a cat on it, blocks and sashings top and bottom. I’m now working on the row below, I’m just working on the second house, the central embroidered block is already quilted, so just two more embroidered blocks to do and then the sashing…

…as I said, steady progress, not huge but progress is progress and quilting has slowed down now with Christmas presents to make and party outfits to stitch. Christmas seems to be sneaking up rapidly!

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  Cathie 

I’m also linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, please follow the links for lots of hand-stitched inspiration.

Posted in embroidery, Quilt-a-long, Quilting | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

Stitch My Garden SAL

Posted on November 20, 2022 by craftycreeky

Three weeks ago when I last posted about my garden embroidery, I had just started the lay out of the area by the summerhouse…

I haven’t done a huge amount but I’ve started the ‘hard landscaping’, as with a real garden the walls and fences and the basic layout of the garden need sorting first.

I’ve used a single running stitch round the edge to denote fencing – stitched in green and brown like in my garden. A double row of running stitch denotes the wall, we have a steep plot so the previous owner had terraced the garden back and front with stone walls. Last time I also found it psychologically better to stitch with the boundary of the garden clearly marked.

The chain stitched line is the log roll edging, at the moment it looks very dominating, but I’m hoping that ones the shrubs and flowers are stitched it will merge a bit more.

I’ve used back-stitch round the paved circle around the lawn and the lines between the paving stones. Back-stitch was also used for the summerhouse, I’ve still to do the roof both round the edge and the shape of the ridge. I haven’t quite got the sizes right with the summerhouse door and windows but only I know that the windows and doors actually measure the same!

At the moment I’m just stitching tiny French knots for the gravel path. I think I’ll add the shrubs next which are cut from painted fabric and stuck on with bondaweb, that will fill the space up nicely.

This embroidered book I’m making was inspired by the Stitch-a-Garden course held by Nicki Franklyn of the Stitchery, I think it’s still available if you’re inspired to have a go.

This blog SAL is run by Avis from Stitching by the Sea, we post our progress on a chosen piece every three weeks, just enough to keep me motivated! 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, 

AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Connie, Cindy, MaryMargaret

Posted in embroidery, Garden, Stitch-a-long, Stitching my Garden, Textile Books | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

A Big Coat for Winter

Posted on November 13, 2022 by craftycreeky

Even though our winters are a lot milder than they used to be I still like a big coat for winter, the sort you can put lots of layers on underneath and even a shawl over the top…a big coat!

In my enforced isolation with a mild dose of covid I decided to make a big coat. I had recently bought the September coat pattern from Merchant and Mills and that definitely comes under the big coat heading. I read a few reviews and decided to come down a size from my measurements so I made a 12 and it’s still very roomy.

I rummaged in my wool stash which at the moment is in my freezer, this is not as random as it sounds, we had an outbreak of carpet moths last year and they eat wool, as I had rather a large stash of beautiful locally made wool I popped it in airtight bags in the freezer to kill any potential larvae. It was meant to be there about 2 weeks but 12 months later it’s still there!

I found a length of a closely woven wool in a herringbone weave, it’s a length I bought from Marton Mills in Pool in Wharfedale when they had a pop up shop pre pandemic. I think it was about £12 a metre whereas in shops good quality wool tends to be at least £25. I also like the fact that it’s woven about 3 miles from my house. It’s a lovely soft shade of blue.

I also found in my stash a length of pretty jacquard lining in a silver grey and blue which went with it beautifully. I do like the jacquard linings for coats and jackets, it’s just a bit more interesting than a plain lining fabric and they tend to feel nicer too.

The coat went together beautifully, I find Merchant and Mills patterns are a bit like Vogue patterns with separate pattern pieces for linings and good instructions. I only made a couple of minor changes, it was meant to have a breast pocket too and the patch pockets were meant to be on more of a slant. I felt that even though the herringbone weave wasn’t too obvious, to put a pocket off grain could look a bit unbalanced. I also lined the patch pockets rather than just turning the edges under.

I’ve been wearing my coat all week, it’s very comfortable and easy to wear, I think another time I would leave the pocket flaps off as I think they detract from the line of the coat. The pattern is designed to be either winter weight or summer weight, it could look rather nice in a linen for spring or summer. I might go down one more size as there’s still plenty of room. I’ve had some nice compliments about it too which is always good!

Merchant and Mills describe the pattern as ‘Overcoat meets duster, a coat for striding through town or country with purpose’ I think that’s pretty accurate 🙂

Posted in Dressmaking | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

A Quick Stitch

Posted on November 8, 2022 by craftycreeky

Last night I put together some threads for a little piece of stitching to go in the project bag I have in my handbag. I started stitching whilst waiting for my physio appointment and finished it this evening! It’s only about 2″ tall, so there wasn’t a lot of stitching but I’m pleased with the result.

It’s a little simple flower design which was among the mystery bundle I bought from Sookie Soo on Instagram, ideal as a little embroidery for my garden book.

I decided to make it into a geranium psilostemon which is one of the bigger geraniums, it has deep magenta flowers with black centres. I’ve got a couple of plants by the patio, I had a huge one where the gate opens but last year I decided it had outgrown it’s spot so I moved it elsewhere and just left two of it’s babies which had moved onto the raised bed.

The big one used to billow out onto the path and through the gate so when I stitched another Sookie Soo design earlier in the year with a garden gate on I embroidered it with the geranium behind…

For the flower I stitched the petals with long and short stitch in two shades of DMC thread with black French knots for the middle. The leaves I sort of adapted fishbone stitch to give the shape of a geranium leaf, even if the size is totally out of proportion!

Todays embroidery will hopefully go on the same page with a bit of crazy patchwork to bring it all together…

Posted in embroidery, Garden, Serendipity, Stitching my Garden, Textile Books | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Staying Home HQAL

Posted on November 6, 2022 by craftycreeky

I’ve made reasonable progress with my Staying Home quilt over the last three weeks. Last time I’d just started quilting some of the sashing having finally made a decision as to how to quilt that area…

I was hoping I might have finished a row, well I haven’t but I’m fairly close. Once this row is stitched the rest should in theory be quicker as this row has top and bottom quilting.

I think it helps that I’m enjoying stitching the little hearts and even more encouraging I think it works pretty well as a design. I cut myself a heart template out of some spare round templates left over from a previous Sarah Fielke quilt and I just draw round it with the Frixion pen. I’m still being cautious with the Frixion pen, just doing dots where I can get away with it.

So here’s my progress so far…

I did wonder last night if I should quilt another square of the block sashing, but looking on the back I think there’s enough quilting…

…but I’m still undecided on that one. It might frame the individual blocks better with another row of quilting.

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  Cathie 

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

Posted in Quilt-a-long, Quilting | Tagged , | 10 Comments