Stitching Maps

Posted on July 21, 2022 by craftycreeky

I’ve enrolled on a Zara Day Cartography Embroidery course, I’m way behind as usual but as Zara sends links for all the recordings which I can then save, it doesn’t matter how long I take! I’m just enjoying the journey!

In the first workshop we were stitching directly onto a map, I used a map of the Yorkshire Dales where I could plot my walks…

We had a second method to try from the first week too. This involved choosing an area and stitching areas so the map could be cut a way in places. Half the conundrums on doing this course is choosing a map…and I’m clearly not alone from the comments on Whatsapp! In the end I decided to do a map of West Witton.

West Witton is a village in Wensleydale where my mum had a cottage for many years, she was up there every weekend and school holidays too, she made lots of friends in the village and joined in village activities as much as she could. We had many holidays up there too especially when the children were small.

I found a map and laid it over some soft green fabric, not sure if it’s cotton or linen but it feel lovely. I tacked round the map to hold it securely. I started off using stem stitch for the main road through the middle and a slightly thinner stem stitch for the side roads and back lanes.

I liked the patterns of the fields on the map with the remnants of the old strip fields which go back centuries. Each cottage would have a strip of land behind it to grow vegetables or raise animals or chickens. I used back-stitch in grey thread for the walls. I then used a scalpel to very carefully cut away the paper so the fields were shown as green fabric.

The blue chain stitch is used for the streams around the village. We used to often walk over the fields so the children could paddle in their wellies, the intermittent one shown at the bottom of the map is not much more than a rill in places but they would spend hours toddling up and down. I’ve found a photo, well it’s a photo of a photo of a photo, so excuse the quality!

I’ve stitched the footpaths in red and the heart shaped button is where my mums cottage was. The buildings weren’t very clear on the copy I made so I went over them with a sepia fine point pen.

The bunch of French knots by the lower footpath marks the spot where I rolled a rigged sheep, as a townie by birth I was pretty proud of myself! For those of you who are wondering what on earth a rigged sheep is…

In the spring when the fleeces are pretty thick the sheep can get top heavy especially after rain. If they overbalance they can’t get back up again and just lie stranded on their backs. Now sheep are a bit like chickens, one day you have a live healthy chicken, the next day it’s dead, or as a friend who’s a farmer once said to me, any excuse and a sheep will die! If they are left upside-down for any length of time they won’t survive, all you have to do is give them a push to roll them back over onto their feet. In Yorkshire this is known as riggwelter or a rigged sheep. Those of you in the UK will probably have heard of Black Sheep beer, it’s brewed in Masham, just down the road from the cottage. They have a beer called Riggwelter, it’s 5.9% so pretty strong for a beer (so I’m told!) and if you drink too much you’ll end up riggweltered!

Anyway, I gave the sheep a push and over it went and trotted off down the field.

So there’s lots of happy memories in this stitched map. I put it in a ring frame partly to reduce the amount of stitching and I think it looks pretty good.

Posted in embroidery, Walking | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Stitch a garden SAL

Posted on July 17, 2022 by craftycreeky

I have finally made some progress with my garden SAL. This is a course by Nicki from the Stitchery, she’s been giving lots of ideas on how to represent trees, flowers and structures etc. I’m making mine into a book about our garden, we have put our house on the market so it’s going to have lots of memories stitched into it.

It’s taken me a while to get going with this piece, I think it’s one of those where you have to just jump in and start, three weeks ago I’d just made the patio on some painted calico…

With hindsight (always useful!) I would have been better to cut it out and iron it on to the final piece first, or at least once the main outline was done as although it’s bondawebbed on fine at the moment, I think it would have been better to secure it with some embroidery through all thicknesses.

This first page is a map of our patio just in front of the conservatory. I did find it very hard to start, however once I’d used running stitch round the border of the design and also used three rows of running stitch to mark the stone wall of the raised bed I did get a bit more confident. This is my page so far…

I’ve used a quilting cotton to stitch on and that is how it came, a sort of splodgy muted green and brown! I’ve no idea what idea I was thinking of when I bought it but I think it works pretty well for garden background. The applique trees and shrubs are all from the calico I painted earlier, I painted a new area for the purple acer and sambuscus.

The hardest thing so far which I’m still struggling with a bit is perspective. If I did it like a proper map then the arbour would have been just a flat rectangle, the bird bath would have been a circle…I’ve had to use a bit of artistic license! Here’s a close up…

The large purple shrub is the sambuscus, or elder, it has quite feathery leaves so I’ve just used a sort of planned seed stitch, the other purple one is the acer which also has feathery leaves so I haven’t quite worked out how I’m going to differentiate between the two. Maybe just using a redder shade will do the trick.

Initially with the roses (caller Generous Gardener) which grow over the arbour I was just planning to do the French knots, but it was too spotty, so I added some branches and I think it looks a lot better.

My pots are many shades of dark blue, green or terracotta. As I’ve just done circles so far I’m just stitching the rim in blue and I’ll then put some plant stitching in the pots. The blue circle edged in blanket stitch is the water feature. There’s a couple more pots to add to fill the right area, though in reality I have LOTS!

Either side of the patio are irises, I’m still trying to work out how to stitch them though I think I’ll just do straight stitch leaves pointing to the side like the bird bath with little blue flowers.

The other area I’m still trying to work out are the areas of the beds where it’s general planting all mingling together, rather than specimen plants. I’m thinking of painting the background green and then stitch a general melee of leaves and flowers. I’ve also an obelisk to include with clematis growing up it which should be reasonably simple to do.

Hopefully now I’ve started I should make reasonable progress, though I’ve another two maps to do! I’m really enjoying the process though.

This bloggers SAL is organised by Avis, we post our progress on our chosen project every three weeks, just enough to keep us motivated! Please follow the link to see what everyone else has been stitching.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Connie

Posted in embroidery, Garden, Stitching my Garden, Textile Books | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

A Flower Wreath

Posted on July 11, 2022 by craftycreeky

A few weeks ago I bought a surprise bundle of linen and designs from SoukieSoo, I follow her on instagram and I like her style. Quite a few were immediately earmarked for my garden book. Once I’d finished my ladybugs and bumblebees I stocked my little project bag with a few DMC threads and a couple of designs. I even added a tiny 3″ hoop which came with the bundle which I must admit when I saw it I thought it would be too small to use, but actually on little pieces of embroidery it’s perfect.

The designs are all on vintage or antique linens and they’re lovely to sew on, I’ve just ordered a bundle of linens from her website for £20 as I think they’ll be great for fabric books.

Anyway, I started with a little wreath pattern, the basic design just had the wreath with little buds or berries on short stems, it’s drawn I think with a Frixion pen as it disappears on ironing. I stitched the main wreath with stem stitch and then added the stems with a little fly stitch on the end. I could then use French knots in a softly variegated blue thread for little flowers.

I felt it needed a little more so I added leaves in fishbone stitch and then added lots more blue French knots.

Isn’t it pretty, it’s only about 1.5″ across so it was stitched in an evening. I’ve just started a long thin one this evening which will be in coppery tones. I’m thinking they’ll be lovely with some crazy patchwork or as part of a ‘slow stitching’ page with maybe a garden quote.

Posted in embroidery, Serendipity, Textile Books | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Lady Bugs and Bumblebees

Posted on July 10, 2022 by craftycreeky

It’s been a little busy and stressful at home recently, our house is one the market so we need to keep it as clean and tidy as possible (not easy for someone like me!) we do have someone interested so fingers crossed! Baby Hugo, my grandson is still on the neonatal unit, feeding better but is going to need three or four operations before he’s 6 months old, so as well as giving emotional support I’m trying to help them practically too, yesterday I made shepherds pies, cheesy bacon pasta and pasta bolagnaise, all frozen into tubs for 1 or 2 that they can reheat in the hospital microwave. I also made apple crumble (my son’s favourite!) and a chocolate cake for a bit of a treat. Add to that a new job and hospital visiting and there hasn’t been much time for stitching, never mind writing or reading blog posts!

As always I have a little stitching in my handbag, something easy for opportune moments. I recently shared with you a cross-stitch by Country Cottage Needleworks called Ladybugs and Bumblebees. I fell for the pattern on a facebook destash site but it is still available to buy.

I was over half way when I last showed it to you…

My original plan was to stitch it in two halves so it could go on opposite pages of the bee book I’m planning to make. I changed the pattern slightly in the middle before deciding that wasn’t going to work. I mulled over a few ideas such as a concertina book whilst I was working on it.

I have finally decided it’s too pretty to potentially ruin by folding it in a book, yesterday I took it to the framers in Otley, Art Works, they always do a lovely job and I’ll just have to find some wall space to hang it when we move house! I think maybe I also need to be a little ruthless on pictures I did many years ago, I’ve got quite a few from when I was a child or in my teens. I’ve just had a quick wander round the house and I have 44 pieces of work framed and hung!!

Anyway, here is the finished piece just before I handed it over for framing…

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

Posted in cross-stitch, embroidery | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Staying Home HQAL

Posted on July 3, 2022 by craftycreeky

Back in 2020 I finished a quilt called Coming Home, with the leftovers I made a quilt which I called Staying Home, pretty apt for the time I thought! The embroidered blocks were from a free stitch-a-long from ‘Hugs and Kisses’ in Australia, if I remember rightly each block was designed by a different quilter. I then added the house blocks to make it bed quilt size.

Since then it has sat in my to do pile, stored together with the spare fabric to make the backing from. Having recently put our house on the market we have to make it all look wonderful for potential buyers, I have a design wall in my sewing room, rather untidily hung up from a line of picture hooks. I decided that rather than having an empty design wall looking untidy I would hang my quilt on it. It looks rather nice if I say so myself!

This arrangement has also had the added bonus that I’ve been able to ponder how to quilt it whilst I’m working on other projects and I think I’ve come up with a plan!

I’m going to hand quilt it, it would seem a shame to machine quilt something with so much hand embroidery on and I do enjoy hand-quilting now! My plan is to quilt round the edge of the embroidered blocks, the houses will probably be round the edge and then just inside the house. It was the borders that I’ve pondered over the most, I’m now thinking of a heart design centred on each corner stone. I’ve cut out a template and now I just need to decide on the orientation of the heart. I’m leaning towards the left-hand one at the moment. Any other quilting suggestions gratefully received!

Hopefully in three weeks time when I next share my progress I’ll have made a start.

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 Tracy

Posted in embroidery, Quilt-a-long, Quilting | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Cartography Course

Posted on July 2, 2022 by craftycreeky

Several of our Skipton Stitchers members have done on-line embroidery courses with Zara Day and they’ve always enthused about them so one of them mentioned she had just signed up for her cartography course I decided to check it out.

I’ve always loved maps, even as a child I could sit for hours looking at or drawing maps. I’ve been mulling over an embroidery idea for a map of the Yorkshire dales for ages, so I’m hoping this will help. It’s a six week course with about an hours online course each week, not bad for £45 I think so I signed up straight away.

We had our first live session this week, we were stitching routes on printed maps. She showed us how to do a screen shot and crop it for printing, turns out it’s very simple even for a non-techy person like me! Zara shared with us her thought processes for different maps she has worked on or incorporated into what I would call textile art.

We have two bits of ‘homework’ this week and I’ve just finished the first one…

The hardest bit was choosing an area and finding a suitable map, obviously I wanted an area that means something to me that I can also find a suitably sized map for! I decided to do a walking map, originally thinking of one which would cover all the long distance walks my friend and I have done, but that would involve a map covering all the north of England and the lower end of Scotland. I settled on a map of the Yorkshire Dales National Park and got my OH to print it off in colour.

As instructed I ironed some interfacing onto the back of the paper, I used a cotton based one as I felt that could make a better stitching base than vilene.

Conveniently the Dales Way route was already marked on the map so all I had to do was back-stitch along it. Zara recommended back-stitch, or stem or split stitch. I like split stitch generally but I thought that would weaken the paper more as there are two holes right next to each other so I used back-stitch. I chose a variegated purple as all my walking gear is either purple or teal!

Having stitched along the Dales Way, I plotted the route of the Bay2Bay walk. This is one we did over two years as the guide books started at Grassington and then walked either way to the coast, so one year we did the 100 miles east from Grassington to Barrow-in-Furness and the following year we did 100 miles west from Grassington to Robin Hoods Bay. I stitched in purple the route across the National Park/ though maybe plotting it with a silver pen wasn’t a great idea!

Over the last 18 months we’ve also been doing the Dales 30 challenge, aiming to climb all 30 mountains within the National Park, so I used French knots to mark the mountains we have climbed so far. I tested one out on the side first as I wasn’t sure how well French knots would work on paper but they sat neatly on the top rather than pulling through to the back.

Here’s my finished map…

With hindsight I think a brighter thread for both routes and mountains may have been better, even staying with the purple colours it would just have shown up a bit more, but that’s why you do these courses and practise pieces, to learn and develop your own style. All in all I’m pretty pleased with it.

Zara does lots of different embroidery courses, if you’re interested I’d suggest following her on instagram or e-mail her to be added to her mailing list.

Posted in embroidery, Serendipity, Workshops | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

A Winter Wreath Quilt

Posted on June 29, 2022 by craftycreeky

Three years or so ago I stitched a Spring Wreath quilt, it was a design by Andrea Walpole of Raggedy Ruff Designs. I’ve made several of her designs and kits now, they all raw edge applique with free motion machine embroidery and they are beautiful designs, this is the spring one…

Isn’t it gorgeous! Well she has since brought out a summer and an autumn one which are lovely but I have resisted so far. However as soon as the first block for the Winter Wreath appeared I was smitten!…

I have quite a vivid memory from many years ago (last century!!!!) when I was driving home from work along a country lane. As I turned a corner I disturbed a barn owl in the middle of the road with what was probably it’s tea. It rose up off the road in my head lights, it was quite a magical moment. The centre block of this quilt is just how I remember that moment…

The quilt looks like it will have a similar layout to the Spring one as the star is starting in the same place. I love the way Andrea does her backgrounds, they’re very subtle but with little pops of colour and variety both in fabrics and blocks.

With these quilts the components of the applique bit are drawn on freezer paper, ironed on to the batik and then cut out. Batik fabric doesn’t fray as much as standard quilting fabric as it’s a denser weave. Andrea just holds the pieces in place which she stitches them in place, I’m not that brave so I use a tiny blob of fabric glue. The first task is just to stitch them all down with some brown thread. I used to worry how neat (ornot!!) this bit was, but I know know that actually it doesn’t matter if this bits a little wobbly as it won’t be noticeable at the end. This is what it looks like at this stage…

Next is the ‘fun’ bit, adding all the detail. Andrea’s instructions talk you through each stage and it’s actually a very forgiving style fortunately!

I had to google barn owl pictures to check on the colour of their beaks and legs, yes they are pale grey! So here’s a close up of my owl…

I’m well chuffed with him, looking forward to doing another block, though I’m going to alternate this quilt with making the other quilt kit of Andrea’s I’ve started called The Secret Garden.

If anyone fancies a go at one of these designs do have a look at her website, she has several block of the month quilts as well as stand-alone designs, I find doing a block a month makes it manageable and affordable. For all the fabric, design and instructions it’s about £30 per block and she sends out one block each month. She’s doing a gorgeous panda one at the moment. If you like the designs but don’t fancy the applique bit she also has lovely printed panels.

Posted in Machine embroidery, Quilt-a-long, Quilting, Raggedy Ruff Designs, Serendipity | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Textile Book SAL

Posted on June 26, 2022 by craftycreeky

Well my stitch-a-garden project has had to take a back seat over the last three weeks, what with trying to finish the cot quilt before Hugo was born, trying to sell the house and the worry since the little one was born, I haven’t managed to do any more stitching towards my garden fabric book.

I have managed to do a little stitching though which was started for a fabric book on bees, but I’m now having second thoughts…

I’ve a few little cross-stitches of bees and some crazy quilting with bees on so I had this idea to use them all in a fabric book about bees. I spotted this pattern ages ago on one of the destash sites and thought it was rather pretty. It’s a design by Country Cottage Crafts and it’s been my handbag project for the last couple of months. With my new job I get an hour for lunch, so that’s 20 minutes eating and 40 minutes stitching! My original plan was to stitch it in two haves for facing pages in my bee book…

I’m using some lovely dyed linen with DMC threads, the pattern uses different threads but does give DMC equivalents for all but the variegated ones so I’ve chosen ones I think will work.

I stitched to the approximate half way mark, adapting it slightly to level it off at the bottom of the words…and then decided it was going to be too long for a page, top to bottom there it was 6.5 inches and a border would be needed. The bottom half would be shorter too. So I’m currently stitching it in one piece, I’ll then decide what to do, thoughts at the moment include making it into a concertina book so that can be a double page spread, though that would mean folding it, or I might abandon the fabric book plan and use a nicely bound book to stick work in, or I could make it a bigger book, possibly using it as a cover…or I could just get it framed as a pretty picture, but I have run out of wall space!

It’s still looking decidedly crumpled despite a good press, I think it’s going to need a bit of Best Press when it’s finally finished!

This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis, we post our (supposed) progress on our chosen project every three weeks. Please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Connie

Posted in cross-stitch, Serendipity, Stitch-a-long, Textile Books | Tagged , | 12 Comments

Mums and Babes

Posted on June 25, 2022 by craftycreeky

Little Hugo was born on Wednesday afternoon, my first grandchild (I do have two ready-made ones as well) He’s gorgeous, though I’m probably somewhat biased! I’ve not yet had a cuddle as unfortunately the midwives realised within minutes of him being born that there was an issue with his oesophagus. He was whisked off to intensive care and yesterday had a 7 hour operation. As you can imagine it’s all been very stressful, trying to support mum and dad whilst coping with all our own worries.

As soon as I heard I dashed up to my sewing room and grabbed the first two blue fat quarters that came to hand. I cut two 5.5″ squares from each one, stitched two together round the edges, leaving a gap for turning. I could then turn and press them and hand-stitch the opening closed.

I gave these two squares to mum, the idea being that she tucks one in her bra to get the scent of her skin on it, the other goes next to Hugo, every day they are swapped so he always has her smell around him and she has something positive to do. It’s meant to help with bonding when they are separated like this. She loved them and yesterday they sent me a photo with one of the blue cotton squares next to him, together with a cuddly duck I bought to go with the quilt.

I found it helpful to have something practical but simple to stitch when my mind was on overdrive with worry, hopefully it will help them bond as a family too. I think most of the hospitals here in the UK have something similar to my blue squares, sometines they’re heart shaped, some crocheted, all made by volunteers. Mum had been given a pair by the hospital but felt mine were softer.

Hopefully grandma can have a cuddle soon 🙂

Posted in Serendipity | 20 Comments

Hugs for Hugo

Posted on June 24, 2022 by craftycreeky

Over the last few weeks I’ve been busy making a cot quilt for my new grandson who was born on Wednesday. When I asked re colour schemes and themes a while back mum said she liked neutral colours and maybe some lemon. At the spring quilt show I spotted this quilt kit which was the perfect colour scheme together with gorgeous little ducks and ducklings. It was £40 for the kit which seemed quite a lot but it did include all the precut squares, the border fabric and the binding.

Having made the basic top I realised I could quite nicely include his name on the front of the quilt, having checked first there was no chance of them changing their mind! After trying different fabrics I plumped for the border fabric. I drew the letters by hand and bondawebbed them on, hand-stitched round with dark grey blanket stitch which brought the letters out nicely.

It made up beautifully, here’s the quilt top waiting to be quilted…

I’d given myself sufficient time to make the quilt, until I decided to hand quilt it about three weeks ago!! I made the quilt sandwich with some lovely soft blue for the backing with the words ‘threaded with love’ all over it, I used 505 spray to baste the three layers together, then it was ready to quilt.

I used a variegated grey gutermann thread and started with the name squares. I just went round about 1/4″ in for these.

For the rest of the squares I did a simple cross-hatch which is fairly quick and easy to stitch but effective.

It took me a while to decide how to quilt the border, hearts, lines…I decided in the end to do a meander and to my surprise it’s so much easier to meander by hand rather than on the machine, I think with the slower pace you can plan a bit better. I finished quilting it last night, talk about eleventh hour!

I wasn’t sure about the stripy binding when I first bought the quilt, but it is perfect. The only thing I id have to watch is that I usually stitch my binding strips together on a 45′ angle as it spreads the thicker seam a bit. With stripes there was no way I could match the pattern, so I straight seamed all the joins. machine stitched it to the front and then hand-stitched it to the back.

All I had to do then was to embroider a label. I started this last night and finished it this morning before I went to work after I happened to wake up at 5am!

I gave it to his mum and dad today and they love it 🙂

Posted in Quilting | Tagged , | 14 Comments