We tried to go for a walk yesterday but we were thwarted by the weather…
Our plan was to climb Great Whernside, another one of the Dales 30. We set off in good time having bought our packed lunches on route. We were planning to shorten the walk by driving up Parkrash and parking at the top, reducing the amount of climbing substantially! The road is a very scenic, single track lane winding it’s way over to Coverdale.
When we parked at the top the wind was howling round the car and the rain was coming sideways! Now we don’t mind rain when it happens during a walk, but setting off in the rain is not our cup of tea – this walking lark is meant to be fun! We sat in the car, ate our suasage roll and had a coffee, hoping it would show signs of blowing over.
After half an hour we decided it wasn’t going to happen…maybe a walk further down the dale. We drove down all the little back roads, mainly single track with passing places, so my friend did have to do a fair bit of reversing as we met cars coming the other way. It was a delightful route though.
We parked up near Embsay, hoping for a walk round the reservoir, but the rain was still coming down. I did manage to get a pretty evocative picture of the moody skies…
…we ate our sticky buns and had another coffee!
We drove up to Ilkley Moor, the weather was still inclement so we ate our sandwiches looking at the views over Wharfedale before returning home for a coffee in the garden in the summerhouse!
It reminded me of the Safari Suppers that were popular in the 80’s with each course in a different house!
Hopefully next week we might actually manage to do some walking!
I’m now four parts in to the Jacquie SAL and I love it already! The pattern sections are released by the designer, Faby Reilly, every two weeks, as this SAL post is on a three week cycle, sometimes I’ll just have one new part to share, and sometimes, like today, I’ll have two parts to share.
Three weeks ago I just had a jelly baby on a stick…
You’ll be pleased to know that uneaten jelly babies metamorphose into beautiful dragonflies!
As well as the beautiful blue dragonfly, Faby had stitched a cloud of little ones in a metallic silver thread. Whilst I was rummaging in my box of metallic threads I found two variegated ones which I thought might work, a green/purple one and a pale gold/pink/turquoise one. I decided to stitch a flutter of them across the top in the darker one and all the others in the lighter one. I rather like the effect. I also used the darker metallic one for the veins in the wings
When the next section was released on Wednesday I was that keen to stitch it that I forgot to take a photo before I started the extra back-stitching.
The final section of this panel includes outlines inback-stitch which give it an almost Art Deco feel, together with beads and sequins. I like the matt finish sequins and one little packet has so far done several projects and there is still plenty left! I checked on line the colour of the Mill Hill beads which Faby uses and found some similar in my stash. I decided to change the colours for the heads of the darker dragonflies to a light mauve/green metallic bead. I’m really pleased with the way it’s come out. I love the way the dragonfly stands out even though the background is so busy.
I’ve a decision to make soon, when I was stitching the outlines I realised this piece of linen wasn’t quite big enough for all four panels so I messaged Faby to see if there was a preference for which panels were stitched in a different colour. The next section was one of them. I had a look through the various colours I have in my stash, there’s lighter ones, darker ones…and I found a piece the same colour!! So now I’m wondering whether to do it as per instructions all in the same colour, or do I do two panels in a different colour. I think I’ll wait and see what the next part looks like.
If anyone is tempted to join this stitch-a-long please follow the link to Faby Reilly Designs. It’s nicely paced and her designs are always gorgeous!
Stitch-a-long
This SAL is organised by Avis, we share our progress every three weeks on a wide variety of hand-stitching. Please follow the links to see what every one else has been stitching;
Earlier in the year whilst the Great British Sewing Bee was on television, Cool Crafting from Kendal ran their own version, the Great British Sewing Bunny. We had three hours each week to make a costume on a set theme for a Luna Lapin or one of her friends, it was great fun. One week the theme was heroes so I dressed my Violet as a Barts nurse, I trained as a nurse at St Bartholomews many moons ago and this is what our uniform was like, starched aprons and hat and a black wool cape…
Well one of my nursing friends was very keen to have her own Barts bunny, so whilst I was away at the weekend I started sewing Flossie. These are hand-stitched apart from the ears. My friend wanted pink ears, so I found a pretty pink ditsy print for her ears and feet, I left out the interfacing from the ears as I knew they would be getting squashed under a hat.
The hardest bit of these rabbits are the eyes and nose, the eyes are small buttons with some straight stitch eye lashes. For the nose I stitched over some pink felt so it didn’t look too pointed, I’m still not sure about her nose but I’ll wait until she’s dressed and see what she looks like then.
Flossie in her undies!
I made a pair of pretty pale pink French knickers from some broderie anglais in my stash, with a little white flower at the front.
She’s now waiting impatiently for the rest of her uniform…
…so the collar is made and the apron (all the white bits first!) I just have to finish putting the dress together, keeping my fingers crossed that the collar fits OK as I’m mixing two patterns together. Back in the day the collars were detachable, together with all the buttons, it used to take about ten minutes to sort out a clean uniform, and that’s if you didn’t have to make a hat!
Once the main dress is stitched I can add the extras like scissors, I’ve even managed to find a mini fob watch, then it’s just the cape to make.
Hopefully soon Flossie will be on her way to London, where else would a Barts Bunny live 🙂
My friend and I had a couple of nights in a lovely B&B up near the pretty village of Ravenstonedale, walking some of the more distant Dales 30 mountains. Many are close enough to do as a day trip, but some are nearer the lakes and it’s much easier and more fun to have a couple of nights away. We stayed on a working sheep farm called Upper Greenside, it was ideal for us, comfortable, good breakfasts and a drying room for wet clothes!
We drove up via Swaledale to climb Rogan’s Seat. We parked in the pretty village of Keld and had THE BEST bacon sandwich from the farmhouse at the bottom which has a campsite attached. The walk took us up the top of swaledale, past the ruins of Crackpot Hall. I’d seen the hall on maps but never walked this way. It’s about 300 years old, originally a farmhouse it was finally abandonned around 1950 as subsidence from the lead mines made it uninhabitable. It’s wonderful name apparently comes from old norse words for crow and cave
It was a great walk up, we went up a narrow valley, which felt quite precarious at times. Swaledale used to be very much an industrial area (in 18th century terms!) with lots of mining and quarrying. The remains of buildings and spoil heaps can still be seen, it must have been a pretty desolate place to work. The heather is all in flower on the moors at the moment, it looked beautiful.
Once we reached the top plateau, the mist and rain started, luckily we were then walking on a landrover track which as there for the shooting fraternity. The actual official top of Rogan’s Seat wasn’t very clear, especially shrouded in mist, so we chose a clump of stones amongst the peat haggs and decided we were there!
We usually have our lunch on the top but there was clearly going to be no where dry in the rain and wind in the middle of a peat bog. I remembered passing a shooting hut about quarter of a mile earlier, we thought we might just be able to sit in the lea of the hut out of the wind. However we were pleased to see the shooting hut was only closed with a sneck lock and a rusty nail, so we opened the door, peered inside and found a long wooden table with benches either side, a perfect spot for lunch.
We returned by the same route, I did comment to my friend as we walked down that there’s a reason some summits have no paths going to them, as why the … would you want to go up there!! The walk up to the plateau was lovely though and it ticked another one off our challenge.
Having dried off at our B&B the next day (Sunday) the aim was to climb Yarlside and Randytop. We parked near the Cross Keys, an old Temperance Inn on the road to Sedburgh. The path took us gradually up towards Cautley Spout, which is meant to be the highest waterfall in England. Our path veered off to the right before reaching the falls but we still got a pretty good view and you could hear them for a long way too.
The path took us steeply up to the col with Bowderdale and then straight up the side of Yarlside. The higher we got the stronger the wind got, wind on mountains scares me more than anything due to my lack of balance, I’ve been blown over before! As we reached the ridge, just before the final ascent, it was getting beyond a joke. We sat down and ate our sndwiches, in the hope it would ‘blow over’. Half an hour later it was no better so we made the decision to turn back, it just wasn’t safe to continue. We were probably only 100m from the summit.
When you’re walking in the mountains you have to have total respect for the mountain and for the weather, it can change so quickly and there are so many micro-climates. It’s one of the hardest things to teach someone, when to turn back.
Despite not quite reaching the summit (We’re still calling it climbed for our challenge!) We really enjoyed the walk, we pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones, there were a few scary bits even without wind and the views were amazing. This is on the edge of the Lakes and it has a completely different feeling to walking in the Dales, I love getting up high on the ridges, you can’t beat it!
After our walk we called in for a pot of tea and a slice of lemon drizzle at the Cross Keys. It’s a fascinating place, still run as a Temperance Inn so there’s no alcohol served. Apparently it’s the only pub in England without a liquor license! I’ve just read an article about it and it dates back to 1732, originally it was a normal pub, but in 1902 the landlord drowned inn the nearby river Rothey trying to help a drunk man. The next owner removed the license and it’s been a Temperance Inn every since, selling a huge range of non alcoholic drinks…and cakes!
Fellside from HowgillLane
On Monday we decided to walk up Fellside, this is one of the mountains you can see as you drive up the M6 through Cumbria. It was a lovely walk, all the high mountain feelings of being on top of the world without the scary bits of steep, narrow paths!
We were delighted to see the wild ponies on our ascent – until I read the Dales 30 book I didn’t even know there were wild ponies up here!
The view from the top was amazing, we could see across to Morecambe Bay, over to the Lakeland fells, though trying to identify them from that direction wasn’t easy – we think we could make out Helvellyn and the Langdale pikes…
It was a fairly easy descent, picking our way down the flanks of the mountain and through the bracken back to the car.
All in all we had a wonderful few days, despite a little inclement weather! We ticked off three more of the Dales 30, I think we’ve also realised that the authors suggestions of doing two in a day are a bit optimistic for us, we can do it occasionally like with Pen-y-ghent and Plover Hill, but we also know when enough is enough. We’ll just have to go back for another weekend!
The Dales 30 book is certainly making us explore and walk in corners of the National Park we’ve never been to before. Next week we’re hoping to climb Great Whernside.
I’ve just got round to changing my display of cross-stitch smalls. Last month I was wondering whether to do a themed display or not, bees or birds, well bees seemed the most popular so here are lots of bees…
The big bumble bee is one of my favourite smalls, I’ve stitched it three times! I made one for myself, one for my mum and one for a friend at work. The pattern is still available on etsy.
The square pincushion with four bees on is one I made back in 2015, it was one of the early pieces I shared on here, it was a pattern from Jardin Privee. The Scatter Sunshine one is a recent make from Shepherds Purse which happens to have some tiny bees on.
There’s still lots of bees in the garden, though they keep getting stuck in our conservatory, I’m getting a dab hand at catching and releasing them. They keep popping up on my embroideries too, my embroidered denim jacket had a couple buzzing around the flowers and my Cottage Garden quilt had lots of bees around.
I’ve just counted up and there’s over thirty bees on these photos 🙂
I do like a pretty frock for warm summer days. Just recently I’ve fallen for a few light cotton prints from facebook sites, mainly Maggie Tuite and Fabric Heaven UK. They both sell gorgeous colourful cotton for a very reasonable price. The only problem is you have to buy it when you see it as they buy from India in relatively small quantities…well hat’s my excuse for all the squishy parcels that keep arriving!
I decided it was time to start stitching some up before the summer disappears, we’ve been promised another heatwave,but like all weather forecasts here in the UK, we’ll believe it when we see it! Just to digress for a moment, I did hear a plausible reason why weather forecasts are more unreliable than usual at the moment, they usually get information from airplanes but of course there hasn’t been as many flying. It makes sense to me.
Back to sewing…I decided to make a dress from Style 2713, I think it’s a pattern I got from a destash site. It’s a princess line dress with or without short sleeves and a rather pretty deep sweetheart neckline. There are a couple of minor variations but I chose the midi length sleeveless version
It went together pretty easily, I French-seamed the seams where I could and overlocked others.The neckline was a bit fiddly, the point isn’t as sharp as it should be but it looks OK.
I had my usual struggles with fit. It is a fairly loose fitting pattern, but how loose is too loose! I think the main problem is that my body shape has changed and I’m not too keen on the new shape, especially my belly! I’m still drawn to shapes which suited my old figure but probably need to reassess what to look for in a pattern.
Anyway, despite having misgivings I persevered. The neckline has a facing, I decided instead of understitching the facing down, which I often find allows it to peep round, I would embroider round the neckline and arm scythes.
I kept it simple with a feather stitch, I started at the back each time as I wanted the stitch in the same direction on either side. I did think it would be awkward sewing the opposite way to my norm, but I think it was actually easier! I also added a bead at every stitch, ensuring that it settled on the outer line of the stitch. I left the armholes embroidered but free from beads so it didn’t scratch. I’m really please how this came out, pretty and subtle, but not blingy!
I’m still not 100% on the dress but it is definitely growing on me, the fit feels a bit loose, even fora loose fitting dress, but if I take it in I look several months pregnant! Not a good look!
I can see myself wearing this, sitting in the garden ona warm summers day with a glass of chilled Pinot Grigio. You can definitely flop around in it!
Back in the Spring I bought myself a Garmin watch with the aim of getting myself a bit fitter as particularly post wound infection my stamina was pretty low. Rather than set myself an unachievable target of 10,000 steps a day, I started on 5,000 in May and I’ve been increasing it by 1,000 each month. So far it’s working pretty well, I’m also calculating it over the month, rather than daily, so if I have a bad day, I can catch up (hopefully!) in later days.
So on Sunday after a day socialising at a BBQ with friends, I found I had only done about 1300 steps towards my 8.000 target. I didn’t want to be so far behind at the beginning of the month, so I went for a brisk walk round the neighbourhood, taking a few detours to increase my steps.
It was a lovely evening, I walked up the old railway line behind our house and under the old bridge. I noticed probably for the first time it’s actually a pretty substantial bridge with three arches for a path which may at the most have taken a horse and trap, but I wouldn’t have thought ever a car, there’s only a winding footpath on the other side!
I walked round a nearby residential area, through the park and back up on the railway line. The sun was just starting to get low in the sky so it looked lovely through the trees.
The council come round every six weeks or so to mow the verges, trying to keep the nettles at bay. They’ve obviously just been as everything is neatly trimmed again. They do seem to enjoy churning the mud up too but luckily this time the ground was fairly dry. This is a track up to the farmers field. I always glance up here as occasionally we see a deer in the field or a hawk sitting on the fence post.
There’s a lovely bank of rosebay willow herb, just round the corner from our gate. It’s all in flower at the moment and it looks just as nice when autumn colour starts and the seed heads are all white and curly.
So I was back home having walked nearly three miles and back on track for my target. I should get a lot of steps in next week as on Saturday my walking buddy and I are going up to Ravenstonedale for a couple of nights, aiming to tick off another four of the Dales 30 – that’s the plan anyway!
It’s three weeks since I last shared my Seaside quilt, this is the quilt from the book by Kathryn Whittingham, the same lady who designed the Cottage Garden quilt I made earlier in the year. I was just embroidering the last few blocks for the top row with just a few seagulls to add to the hermit crab…
I cracked straight on and finished piecing the top row. I’m really pleased with it so far, it’s such a happy quilt!
I’m working through the book pretty much in order, so I had a few little blocks to do next. I’ve prepared four blocks, using bondaweb to attach the appliqued shapes, I’ve embroidered nearly two of them. The ice-cream is stitched with back-stitch and then I added some french knots in a variegated thread for hundreds and thousands. Here in the UK an ice-cream cone with a chocolate flake in it is called a 99, no idea why! They were always a special treat when we were little as they cost more than a simple ice cream.
The life belt is half stitched, I need to make some white cord for the rope as I haven’t any white perle thread to use.. Once these are finished I have a lollipop and another beach hut to do. There’s several beach huts on the quilt but I haven’t found many suitable striped fabrics for them, like I have two! I mentioned this to my daughter and she kindly sent me a scrap of blue stiped bee fabric to try. It’s gorgeous fabric but I’m not 100% about the bee, especially as he hasn’t come out completely central. I might see how it looks when surrounded by all the colours in the quilt.
Hopefully over the next three weeks I’ll stitch my favourite block in the whole quilt 🙂 If you fancy stitching this gorgeous quilt too,please follow the link to Patchwork Katy.
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, and Daisy
I’ve just caught up with the Peppermint Purple SAL, this is a blackwork sampler stitch-a-long which lasts all year, one block a week, we have just completed week 30! I find it easier to do several at a time as I find I can work the colours out more easily. I’m making it a little bit difficult for myself by making mine into a picture of Catbells, this is where I was last time I shared it with you…
I had just started the background and reached the reflection in the lake part…
Well I haven’t stitched any more background but I have done another four blocks. For the reflection of Catbells in Derwentwater I’ve decided to use lots of shades of grey. I’m using the bore grey-green or grey-brown for the reflection bit and then I’ll use shades of grey-blue for the reflection of the sky.Hoping it works OK, at least it’s a plan!
It’s funny how some blocks are so much easier than others, the oblong one on the left which crosses over the fell and the lake was a nightmare. For some reason I just kept making mistake after mistake. I’d look at it the next day and wonder what I was thinking, unpick it all then make another big mistake! I blame it on being tired! There’s still one mistake which I didn’t frog, that one is stayng as too undo it would cause too many other problems.
I need to start working on the border again soon, otherwise come December I’ll be left with lots of border.
Earlier this month I had a wonderful weekend at Bishop Burton College where the Yorkshire region of what used to be the Embroiderers Guild hold their summer school. It’s an annual event but it was the first time I’d attended. It was wonderful!
Bishop Burton is an agricultural college over near Beverley. During the holidays when the students have gone home other groups can hire out their facilities. There was a choice of four tutors, all with very different styles, I decided to learn silk shading.
Bishop Burton College
Our tutor was Sara Dennis, she’s a tutor from the Royal School of Needlework and is also the textile expert on the BBC’s Repair Show. She is lovely, very patient, very good at explaining the technique and helping us where necessary. We had just the right amount of banter in our class.
We were starting an embroidery of a poppy. Our first lesson was how to put the fabric in the hoop, I was amazed how tight it went, she came round with a screwdriver to make sure the fabric wouldn’t shift. It was as tight as a drum!
We had a choice of fabric to work on, silk or cotton. The design was pre-printed onto the fabric which I think made life much easier. I chose to do my embroidery on cotton as it’s a bit more forgiving than silk.
Over the course of the weekend we learnt the basic stitch, how to blend colours, how to work out what order to embroider different areas in, how to work out the stitch direction and lots of tips as we went along.
They work you hard at summer school, we had to register by 3pm on Friday, we had an hour meeting our tutor and prepping work before tea and more teaching time after tea. We were in class all day Saturday, back in the evening and more on the Sunday!
They feed you very well too at the college, I think they’re used to feeding big strapping lads, we had a big breakfast, two course lunch and three course evening meal! I put on several pounds in a weekend…which of course doesn’t disappear as quick!
It was a baking hot weekend weatherwise, so on Saturday afternoon after an intense stitching time Sara suggested we had a short walk round the walled garden. It’s a beautiful and interesting garden, for example there was one corner with rows of different types of hedging, another area had plants with the RHS Award of Garden Merit. There were some interesting sculptures around too, I loved the quirky snail!
It was lovely meeting people from other guilds too, just to be amongst people who enthuse about threads and fabric. Anne Brooke was there as a student, she was the designer of Harold the Hare and also the Stitching 4 the soul books which kept so many of us going during the summer of 2020. She’s now doing the 52 tags project, a few had brought their tags along and I’d popped my Stitching for the Soul book in my suitcase too, she was delighted to see them all…as we sat outside on the warm evenings drinking wine and gin!
At workshops there’s always the issue of people working at very different speeds, I’m a quick worker and there’s always the conundrum of whether you have people like me sitting around waiting for others to catch up, or people get left behind, or the tutor ends up teaching the same thing several times. Sara had a good way of keeping us all together but ensuring everyone was busy. Those of us who finished a section earlier could start the stem and then the leaf, going back to the petals as everyone caught up.
So, this is my poppy, not finished but I’m well chuffed with it. Apologies for the slightly out of focus photo, I took about ten photos and this was the best!!
I just need to buy a six inch hoop to go in my lap hoop stand and I can get it finished. I was delighted to hear the Summer School is already booked for about the next three years, so it’s not disappearing with the demise of the Embroiderers Guild. I hope this will be an annual event for me.
thecraftycreek 