Owl and Hare Hollow HQAL

Posted on June 29, 2025 by craftycreeky

Well it’s time for a little happy dance as I have finished hand quilting my Owl and Hare Hollow quilt, it’s only taken me eleven months!! To be fair I have had quite a few other projects keeping me occupied, never mind the on-going house renovations and the garden redesign, but it’s done.

Three weeks ago I just had six blocks left to quilt…

I finished quilting the fiddly corner and edge blocks a couple of nights ago. I’m really pleased with how the different sized circles and the larger interlocking circles have worked out. I just have to remember to stitch little buttons on for the owl eyes on a couple of blocks.

I’m thinking of using the blue William Morris print for the binding, I think I have enough, t’s the one I’ve used for a stripe down the middle of the back. I don’t think it’ll be too busy a print but I’ll have a play before I commit…

All I have to do now is trim the edges, stitch on the binding and hand stitch it down and then it will go in the wash! I don’t wash them immediately generally but having had all the building work done over the last few months I’m sure it’s grubbier than it looks.

I’ll definitely be ready for a full scale happy dance next time!

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, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, and Laura

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

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Butterfly Alphabet SAL

Posted on June 22, 2025 by craftycreeky

Apologies for not posting sooner, I’ve been painting the hall all day – we’re at that stage of our building work so at the moment it seems endless! We’ve got quite a big hall, well it’s T shaped and has seven doors and a window to paint round, never mind plugs and light switches etc, but it’s now had it’s first coat and looks so much better.

Back to my alphabet, I’ve made pretty good progress, I took it away when I went on my walking holiday as you do need something peaceful to do in the evenings after walking all day. Three weeks ago I was embroidering the letter K…

Not only have I finished K, but I went on to embroider L, M and N, so I’m now over half way and I’ve finished the first two rows, happy days!

I think my satin stitch is finally improving too!

Please visit the other blogs that are also taking part in this SAL. There are lots of different projects to enjoy. The participants live all over the world so you may need to allow for time differences. Click the links to their blogs below and see what they’re up to.

Avis, Claire, Christina, Kathy, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, Cathie,

Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen

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Tealing All Our Stories

Posted on June 19, 2025 by craftycreeky

Every year Kate Chiconi makes a quilt to be auctioned for an Ovarian Cancer charity. Several quilters around the world help make blocks for the quilt. The ‘colour’ for ovarian cancer is teal so that’s always the colour scheme and the theme of the quilt is always a play on words with teal. This year the title is ‘Tealing All Our Stories’ , it’s a bookshelf quilt so we were to make a 12.5″ block of books and a few personal touches could be included too, like you would have on a book shelf. Kate wants to start making the quilt very soon so I knew these blocks were my priority as soon as I finished the walk.

I volunteered to make two blocks. For the first one I used some gorgeous teal batiks, one with gold patterns on which I’ve treasured for years in my scrap box, waiting for the perfect time to use it. I’ve not made a bookshelf block before and the maths did throw me a bit at first, I sort of chose the fabrics, then made books before arranging them so they looked balanced. I toyed with the idea of adding a Yorkshire rose to one of the spines but I decided it would dominate too much, so I’ve kept this block fairly simple.

For the second block I decided to make it a bit more personal. We were allowed to use other colours so long as they don’t compete with the teal. I made this is sections, thinking on my feet as I went along. My starting point was a little picture of Catbells, my special place in the Lakes. I cut out the shape and stitched it onto the sky on the machine with ‘blanket stitch’. I then added the lake in front. I used a grey pattern to frame it.

I decided to stand the picture on lying down books. I chose a couple of bee fabrics, partly because I’ve just made a book on bees, but also as a nod to my mum, we used to keep bees and she thought (wrongly I think!) that our family name of Bickerdike originated with beekeepers. One of them does have a touch of teal in the pattern and the other is a blue which goes well with teal. The bottom book is probably more green than teal, it’s a bird themed one for my love of birds. With hindsight these books should have been the other way round as I feel they’re now lying face down!

I was planning to have a slanted book standing, but if I was to keep the lovely allium head on the spine, I didn’t have room to make it lean.

Hopefully these two blocks will work for the quilt design so they are now winging their way to Australia. Have a look at Kate’s blog to see the other blocks that have been made and in time to see the beautiful quilt.

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Day 8 Swale Way

Posted on June 12, 2025 by craftycreeky

Today we reached the source of the River Swale, we have walked from one end to the other, over 70 miles in total! I’m back home and feeling a bit more human after a long bath!!

Last night we stayed in a yurt, mainly because the other B&B’s in the village were both full but it turned out to be a lovely end to the walk. They are surprisingly spacious, ours had two single beds, a bed settee, a table and four chairs, fridge, kettle, log burner…we had our own private toilet and shower albeit down in a shower block. They provided a piping hot evening meal, breakfast, packed lunches, all delivered to the yurt. Here’s the inside..

This mornings walk was less than 6 miles, there was a lovely hazy light which was perfect for photos…

One little bit of excitement along the way was when we spotted some filming on one of the farm tracks, it soon became apparent they were filming another show about Reuben Owen, one of the sons of Amanda Owen, the ‘Yorkshire Shepherdess’. Their farm, Ravenseat, is only a couple of miles from where we were walking, I love watching the TV programmes.

The Swale officially starts at the confluence of two becks, Birkdale Beck and Great Sleddale Beck, so we sat and had a celebratory cup of coffee at the confluence…

So that’s our long distance walk completed for 2025, we haven’t decided which one we’re doing next year, however we have decided we want a walk that is on better paths than this one. We enjoyed this one but it was hard walking, not the distance but the terrain. We’ll probably have forgotten our traumas in a couple of weeks time, but that’s our thoughts at the moment 🙂

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Day 7 Swale Way

Posted on June 11, 2025 by craftycreeky

Today we walked about 12.5 miles from Reeth to the hamlet of Keld at the top of swaledale. It was a hot day so despite suntan lotion, my arms are a little pink this evening.

The first half if the walk was pretty hard going, the author of this route seems to delight in funding the less frequented, often very faint footpaths and over tricky terrain, especially if you have balance problems like me.

Swaledale is well known for its hay meadows which the farmers cut late to allow the wild meadow flowers to set seed for the following year. This is one reason why we decided to do this walk in June. They are beautiful, full of buttercups, poppies.

Having walked an easier route for the second half of the walk, we are finally esconsed in our yurt, a new experience for us.

Tomorrow we just have 7 mile’s to walk to the source of the Swale and back.

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Day 6 Swale Way

Posted on June 10, 2025 by craftycreeky

Today was hard, we walked 12 miles from Richmond to Reeth. We usually average 2 miles an hour including regular breaks, today a lot of it was about q mile sn hour as the terrain was do difficult.

We had very narrow paths with nettles on one side and a very steep drop on the other, slippy stony pstgs, deep gorges to climb in and out of, thick heather or bracken to walk through.

Luckily there were dome amazing views along the way…

Hopefully tomorrow’s walk will be easier, still 12 miles but better terrain

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Day 5 Swale Way

Posted on June 9, 2025 by craftycreeky

We’ve had an easier day today, thanks to the extra 4 miles we walked yesterday, we walked 7 miles from Bolton on Swale to the town of Richmond. My friend and I usually find shorter walks take almost as long as longer walks as we dawdle more, stopping to identify wild flowers or working out the architecture of a building. As I’m still keen on the merlin bird app we also stopped to identify birdsong, today we heard a yellowhammer and s goldcrest among others.

The countryside has changed with today’s walk, it’s more what I think of as the Dales, we’ve had no road walking either which is a blessing.

We’ve walked through some lovely woods with little streams and wooden footbridge.

The walk approached Richmond from the falls, we sat and had a drink and a snack by the falls, we’ve had a fair bit of rain over the last couple of weeks so there was plenty of water coming down. The river here rises very quickly and potentially dangerously to the extent that there are flag poles next to the river and if there’s a red flag up you need to leave the river area immediately. I can imagine there being a big storm further up the dale sending a surge downstream which people wouldn’t anticipate if the weather seemed fine.

Tomorrow we’re walking about 12 miles to the village of Reeth, we’ve studied the guide book and the maps and it sounds like a good walk.

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Day 4 of Swale way

Posted on June 8, 2025 by craftycreeky

We’ve had a good start today, we were planning to walk 9 miles from the village of Maunby to Great Langton, but we felt ok after that so we walked an extra 4 miles to Brompton on Swale. It means we have less to walk tomorrow and also makes more sense with the taxi to the hotel.

Today’s walking was mainly along field edges, having had problems over the last couple of walks with crops of wheat hiding the path, this path wins the prize for the best field path…

We are now relaxing in our hotel room just about to have a G&T!

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Owl and Hare Hollow HQAL

Posted on June 8, 2025 by craftycreeky

I felt I’ve been plodding along with this quilt over the last three weeks, I can’t quite do one square on an evening, however when I photographed it yesterday I’ve made a lot more progress than I thought. I tend to spend the early evening in my sewing room then at 9pm I usually go and be sociable in the lounge, and that is where I am quilting this quilt.

Three weeks ago I had just started the 39th block out of 49…

I’ve finished a few blocks round the edges which I find more fiddly as they don’t sit well in a hoop. When I opened the quilt out for a photo I was surprised to see I only have six blocks left to do, so the end is nigh!!

I’m pleased with how the whole circle theme has worked out with the border and the outer circles being regular, then a variety of circles in the middle depending on the block.

I don’t think I’ll have my happy dance shoes on next time, but it shouldn’t be long now!

Hand Quilt-a-long

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.

Please visit the rest of our group and see what they are up to:

 Kathy, Deb, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, Connie and Laura

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The Swale Way; Days 2 and 3

Posted on June 7, 2025 by craftycreeky

Tomorrow we start the final bit of our Swaledale walk, about 50 miles over five days. We did two 10 mile sections as day walks, here’s a few photos…

Day 2 was Brafferton to Thirsk. There was a fair bit of road walking which we’re never very keen on. My friend described this bit as a bit industrial, which I think is a bit harsh, but it’s more what I call farm land as opposed to countryside. We won’t get to the really picturesque part of Swaledale until we reach Richmond.

The Swale Way isn’t one of the popular long distance walks, so it’s occasionally sign posted with the little yellow arrows, otherwise its map reading, which we enjoy the challenge of. It also means some of the paths are a little overgrown, this was along the edge of a field of oil seed rape, it was chest high…

For this part of the walk there isn’t much riverside walking, it depends where the public footpaths go, but we did see some lovely old bridges. This one is an old packhorse bridge on the outskirts of Thirsk, built in 1672 with a grant of £20, a huge amount of money in those days. Packhorse bridges were designed to be just wide enough for a laden horse to cross, about 5′ wide, but also it has low sides to allow clearance for the horse’s panniers.

The walk that day ended in Thirsk which is a lovely old market town, bustling with visitors as it was May bank holiday.

Last weekend we walked from Thirsk to Mawnby, we were hoping to walk further but the clouds looked very ominous (thunder had been forecast) and diversions due to collapsed bridges, cropped fields and the occasional misunderstanding of the instructions had already made an 8 mile walk into a 10 mile walk.

We walked through some lovely woodland, a few bluebells were still in flower to give a little scent…

The walk took us through Thornton Stud, formerly a horse racing stud, now it seems to have been converted to houses. It still has what were obviously some very grand gates, now sadly looking a little dilapidated.

Tomorrow we start the rest of the walk, 50 miles in 5 days to the source of the Swale. I’ll try and post a couple of photos each day. If anyone is one Strava, you can see my progress on there, I think I’m just under my name (Margaret Creek)

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