Jacquie SAL

Posted on July 4, 2021 by craftycreeky

I’ve put my sensible head on for my choice of embroidery to share here every three weeks. I had two kits lined up in my mind to do once I had finished my Leafy Tree, but I realised I was ending up with too many projects in progress, and despite what some of you think about me having extra hours in the day, I still have to work occasionally and I need to make myself some new clothes! At the moment I have my Seaside quilt to embroider, my denim jackets, my blackwork sampler SAL which lasts all year, I’ve just started Faby Reilly’s Jacquie SAL and Cathy Reavy (who did the Stitchwheel Sampler) is just about to start another SAL of embroidering insects which I am very tempted with.

So I’ve decided to have Faby Reilly’s Jacquie SAL as the piece to share every three weeks. I’ve done quite a few of her SAL’s and they’re always beautiful. This time we’re making a needlecase and the colours are gorgeous, rich blues, greens and turquoise. We don’t know the theme yet but somewhere I did find the flower linked to the name Jacqueline but of course I can’t find it now!

The instructions are being released every two weeks, so it will take until end of October to finish the embroidery and then the instructions on how to make it up will be in November.

Before the first part was released earlier this week Faby had given us all a welcome pack which included the outlines of each block to stitch in advance of the start of the SAL. Of course I didn’t get round to that bit so I’m doing a bit of a catch up now. Faby suggested a Permin linen called Smokey Pearl, over the last few months I managed to buy quite a few different colours of the Permin linen either in a sale of on facebook and one of them just happened to be smokey pearl. It’s a lovely soft grey.

The little extra stitches along the outline of backstitch are ten stitch markers. Faby uses it with most of her outlines and it’s a habit worth getting into as it makes counting so much easier. I used it when making my cross-stitch books as page outlines were like 140 stitches by 90.

This first week is stitching the felt inserts and labels, I’ve managed to stitch one felt insert (there’s four altogether) and one of the labels so you get the idea of what I’m doing. The other label is cross-stitch. Despite measuring carefully my felt rectangle was a milimetre short on one length and I have only just got enough for the four squares in this lovely kingfisher blue, so I trimmed the other side slightly too so at least it looks even in the block.

It wasn’t easy getting the chain-stitch to look even, there’s a couple of wobbles! It also wasn’t easy getting the back-stitch even around the rectangle, though Faby reassures us that the ‘hand-stitched ‘ look works well with the felt – well that’s lucky, though I am tempted to try with bigger stitches and maybe redo this one 🙂

If you fancy stitching this needlecase along with me, follow the link above to Faby’s website.

This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis from Stitching by the Sea, we post our progress every three weeks, please follow the links to see how everyone has progressed with their stitching projects.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, AJ, Laura, Cathie, Linda, Helen

Posted in cross-stitch, embroidery, Stitch-a-long | Tagged , , , | 16 Comments

Flower Power

Posted on July 1, 2021 by craftycreeky

My white denim jacket is coming along nicely. It’s a lot easier to sew than I thought it might be, It’s quite a soft denim, it’s just an inexpensive one I bought at our local supermarket, Sainsbury’s. These are the stem lines I drew to start with…

I embroidered cone flowers, alliums, foxgloves as well as some generic pink flowers! I’ve just used simple stitches such as french knots and lazy daisy. I need to add a few more leaves and I think I’ll fill in the gaps along the bottom with the little blue flowers which could (with a bit of artistic license!!) be forget-me-nots.

I found that having drawn the stems before I had any real plan, some of them are a little close together – it’s just densely planted! I thought I’d nearly finished, having embroidered the left side of the seam and stitched a lot on the right…

…until I realised that wasn’t the centre back seam I was working across, it was a side back seam! So I’ve another third to do. Luckily I’m enjoying stitching this, I’m planning to include bees and at least one ladybird too. Here’s the whole jacket (somewhat crumpled!) to give you an idea of scale.

Hopefully next time I share it it will be finished, I’ve got an Embroiderers Guild weekend away in a couple of weeks time, it would be nice to have it finished for then. I’m already planning the blue denim jacket – daisies!

Posted in embroidery | Tagged , | 13 Comments

Wednesday Wanderings

Posted on June 30, 2021 by craftycreeky

This week it’s the Otley Walking Festival and it’s 20th Anniversary. It’s a week where there’s several guided walks each day from a couple of miles or less to twenty miles, there’s pub walks, history walks, teashop walks, cake walks as well as nature walks.

There was a few walks I fancied but I was a bit late deciding so many were already booked up. One was called Early birds in the Wetland, a short walk round Otley nature reserve followed by champagne breakfast and they still had a space so I booked it.

We had to meet at the Buttercross in the centre of town at 5am!! So I set my alarm for 4am to give me chance for a quick breakfast and time to walk down, though my OH, bless him, did offer at 4am to drive me down. However it was light and dry so I walked the 1.5 miles into Otley.

I wasn’t the only one mad enough to think getting up so early was a good idea, there were 25 booked on and I would estimate 20 turned up!

Otley Wetlands is a nature reserve to the west of the town in what used to be gravel pits, it’s not usually open to the public at the moment so I’ve only been once before with WI.

The two leaders, Jur and Yvonne, explained the history of the area and how the are maintaining it as a nature reserve. from what I remember the quarry closed in about 1996 and the gravel pits gradually flooded. It became a nature reserve in the early 2000’s.

The area has quite a good mixture of habitat, wild flower meadows with several different orchids flowering, native woodland, reed beds seasonal ponds and of course the lakes from the gravel working. In one meadow they started to create two small ponds,after they dug them out they found they were very seasonal, drying up in summer. They were just about to line them when someone advised them that actually a pond which dries up in winter is it’s own special habitat.

We walked all round the reserve, seeing quite a few damsel flies. oystercacthers and swans. quite a few protected birds and insects there, but also roe deer and otters.

It was a lovely walk, about three miles at a gentle pace followed by a lovely breakfast of crumpets, scotch pancakes, homemade jam, strawberries, cheese…the plates just kept on coming out of the cabin! The final offering was a glass of champagne.

Altogether we walked about three miles round the reserve bu including my walk up and down to home I had walked six miles by 8am!

It was a lovely little walk, though I’m not sure what we gained from being there so early, though that may just be because it was a cooloer overcast morning. Also, with 20 odd people wandering round you’re not going to see much in the way of wildlife.

Posted in Serendipity | Tagged | 4 Comments

Peppermint Purple SAL

Posted on June 29, 2021 by craftycreeky

One of the embroidery projects I’m doing at the moment is a blackwork SAL by Peppermint Purple. It’s a freebie which lasts all year, one block each week. Rather than using her suggested colours I’m making life tricky by creating a picture at the same time, a view of Catbells in the Lake District.

Last time I shared it was in March!! – I didn’t realise it was quite so long!

I got a bit behind, partly I think because I keep going a bit hot and cold on my colour choices. I then have a bit of a break and with fresh eyes think it’s going OK.

Having stitched a few blocks when we went up to Northumberland and also started the outer pattern I had another hiatus whilst I pondered about how to do the reflection of Catbells in the lake in front. Over the last week I made a concerted effort to catch up and make some decisions…

The green row along the bottom of Catbells is Manesty woods along the edge of Derwentwater.

The outer basket-weave pattern is stitched with a Weeks overdyed thread, aptly called Sky. I’ve debated whether to continue the shape of the ridge to the left of Catbells and I think I will, I have a green-brown over-dyed thread which I think will work. The basket-weave pattern is surprisingly difficult to do, there seems to be no end of errors you can make – I’ve done more frogging on that area than the rest of the stitching put together!

The lake was my other issue. How to get the refection without going too light. I’ve decided to go with lots of shades of grey, blue-grey, green-grey, purple-grey…

I’m all caught up now, until tomorrow anyway as the next square is released then.

Posted in embroidery, Peppermint Purple 2021 SAL, Stitch-a-long | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Monday’s Meander Round the Garden

Posted on June 28, 2021 by craftycreeky

Having enjoyed a few weeks of sunny weather, we have now settled down to the usual British summer weather – mixed, a bit of sun, a bit of rain, warmish, coolish…if nothing else then the garden is happier!

June is meant to be the peak of the traditional English garden and there is certainly lots of colour at the moment, there’s a few peonies and clematis still flowering with their big blousy blossoms. This beautiful peony is up in the deep border by the big fence, I love the simplicity of the flowers in such a pretty shade of pink.

I’ve been working hard to tidy up the patio area this week. The raised bed isn’t easy to access as it’s so densely planted, especially for someone like me with no balance! I only attempt this border when my OH is around, in case I either get stranded or fall off! I have to access it by going to the top of the garden, round the back of the summerhouse, along by the big fence and under the sambuscus nigra! The beds have been taken over by a mixture of astrantia, geranium and alchemilla mollis. I feel a bit guilty digging up astrantia as if you want to buy one in a garden centre they’re not cheap, but mine have self seeded everywhere, especially the light one. I’ve got too many nasty weeds to give plants away – I’d hate to pass on mares tail by accident! I tend to keep the pink astrantia and pull some of the whitish green ones up.

The pink geranium is a big one, it’s called Ann Folkard, I’ve realised it’s gradually spreading along the bed, having planted one plant quite a few years ago in the bottom corner by the gate I now have about half a dozen plants spreading up to the rose border above! They’re lovely and colourful but I think I’m going to need a serious sort out of this area next year.

Whilst I was up on the raised bed I pruned some of the bigger shrubs such as the choisya and the box as they’re starting to crowd out perennials. I pulled out an alchemilla mollis which was overtaking a pretty pink astrantia too. The bed is looking a bit battered now but it will soon recover.

I overhauled my pots too, some are still looking decidedly dodgy after the very late frosts we had in May, I’ve moved three pots which need a bit of tlc and put some new plants in such as a fuschia and some viola. My water feature has sprung a leak again, I thought I’d fixed it, blocking up the holes again, I think this time I’ll completely empty it and test it overnight for leaks.

With a concerted effort to tidy up, it’s a lovely spot for my morning coffee again.

Most of the roses are just starting to bloom but I’m particularly pleased with the rambling rose growing up my obelisk, I’m sure I only planted it about three years ago, maybe four at the most, it’s is covering the obelisk and the blooms are from top to bottom. Last year when I was pruning I wound some of the branches round the frame almost horizontally then this year I pruned all the side shoots off them to about six inches. It seems to have worked! Maybe I’ll direct it over the arbour next!

The garden is looking pretty colourful now, with most of the roses still to put on their best show.

Posted in Garden | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Midnight Blue Silk

Posted on June 27, 2021 by craftycreeky

A couple of weeks ago I had a mad moment and ordered three Deer and Doe patterns, I fell for the Passiflora, but once on the website the Orchidee and the Bluett also appealed.

I decided to make the Bluett first, this is a princess line dress, sleeveless but with a collar and stand and a bow on the back. I had a look through my stash file which I bought a few months ago. It’s been very helpful as I’ve measured all my fabric and together with a small sample I’ve listed the width and length of each piece. I’ve also listed them according to length so I could easily see which fabrics I had over 3m in. I had 4m of these beautiful midnight blue silk dupion. It looks darker in real life compared to the photos. It’s not as shiny or blingy as most dupion silks and I really like that understated look, it means I can wear the dress when I just want something smart and classy, not the full evening look.

I remembered my sizes from the last skirt I made ( which is fairly recent!) and duly cut out a size 42. I added about 12″ to the length to get it the midi length I like rather than the knee length of the pattern.

The pattern went together pretty easily. I did have a giggle one day, I realised I was running out of navy thread with no opportunity for a couple of days to go to a shop. As my OH was popping into Otley I asked him to buy some navy blue thread. He came back chuntering ‘Do you know how many blues there are, none of them have names on!!!’ There’s me thinking navy blue thread was a reasonable description! He actually googled gutermann thread whilst in the shop to find which number was officially navy blue!

The seams are all top-stitched, I over locked them first as dupion is a so and so for fraying. When I got t the sewing side seams stage I was already becoming a little concerned with sizing, so I made the side seam slightly narrower. The only other change was to add pockets, I do like a dress with pockets!

When I first tried it on it was definitely snug. I did consider adding a stitched on front facing but that would have meant I had to alter the collar stand and the collar. I decided in the end I could just about get away with it…and hope I lose a little weight!

The last part of the instructions was the button holes, with the extra length there’s about 17 buttonholes! I did wonder what my chances were of my sewing machine sewing so many buttonholes with out throwing a wobbly…but it made all 17 perfectly. It took me ages to sew the buttons on, there’s actually only 15 buttons as that’s all they had left in the shop, however I’m pretty confident I’ll be able to buy some more.

I’m really pleased with this dress, though it is a little snug, particularly around the midriff (I’m blaming starting on HRT!) I might need to put on some slim fast knickers! I’ll certainly be making another though, just maybe slightly bigger!

Posted in Dressmaking | Tagged , , , | 24 Comments

Jacquie Magic Needlebook

Posted on June 25, 2021 by craftycreeky

I’ve just signed up for another stitch-a-long, I know, I’ve got lots of projects on the go but I can never resist a Faby Reilly SAL!

I’ve done several SAL’s with Faby, they’re always such beautiful designs and they’re very reasonable – £10 for the whole pattern, and there’s often a discount for early booking.

Faby Reilly SAL’S

The new one is called Jacquie, it’s a beautiful palette of greens and blues. It’s going to be a needle case. What is different this time is that she has designed different levels, beginner or advanced,depending on which stitches are used, so you can choose what to do.

I’ve always enjoyed her SAL’s, there’s a friendly facebook page, she’s always easy to contact if there any issues. I like all the different stitches she incorporates into her designs too.

It starts next week, so if anyone fancies stitching it with me please follow the link to Faby’s Website.

Posted in cross-stitch, embroidery, Serendipity, Splendid Sampler Quilt | 10 Comments

Embroidering Clothes

Posted on June 24, 2021 by craftycreeky

I’ve started a new project, it hopefully won’t take too long but I’m pretty pleased with it so far.

I was trying to think of different things I could embroider, as there is a limit to wall space and my walls are getting pretty full. In the latest edition of the Stitch magasine there’s a pretty design of flowers and leaves to go on the shoulder of a t-shirt. I didn’t fancy it on a t-shirt but I thought on a cotton shirt it could look rather pretty.

I had a perusal on pinterest to try and find a suitable shirt pattern but of course I started going off on a bit of a tangent and saw lots of pretty designs on denim jackets. Now only the week before I had finally got round to buying a denim jackets – it’s only taken 55 years!! It’s actually a soft teal colour which goes with a lot of my summer clothes. I also knew they had it in pink and blue as well. To be honest I didn’t fancy all the hard work involved in sewing a jacket to then not like the embroidery,this sounded a good trying out plan!

I wandered into town and bought a blue one to embroider, they’re from a shop called Harriets which tend to sell seconds or end of lines, so they’re very reasonable.My only niggle is that they have a fair bit of lateral stretch. I decided I could work round this.

I then wandered into Sainsbury’s, our local supermarket and spotted denim jackets, £22 and no stretch!! They only had a warm white one in my size but I decided it was cheap enough to give it a bash.

…so I now have three denim jackets!

Having seen a couple on the internet the design I’ve chosen is just an informal row of flowers along the bottom of the back, a bit like a meadow or a garden border. Last night I drew in silver gel pen a basic outline of stems to give me some structure. I’m sure I’ll add to this but it seemed an easier way of getting it look even whilst still looking relaxed.

I’m pleased with it so far, I planning to have foxgloves,echincea, lavender, alliums to name but a few. I’m also not going to get too tangled up with botanical correctness! I’m particularly pleased with the blue stems as I thought up a new stitch, new to me anyway – I made a lazy daisy and then secured it with a french knot.

Hopefully I will soon havemore progress to show and I’ve already got plans for the blue on!

Posted in embroidery | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Wednesday Wanderings

Posted on June 23, 2021 by craftycreeky

I haven’t been on any big (for us!!) walks this week, I’m in the final week of a garmin challenge to do at least 20 minutes walking 4 times a week, I’ve kept up to it so far, but this week I’ve been using my every day walks to get my 20 minutes, rather than going out specifically.

Last night however, despite spending all day gardening, my step count was woefully low so I decided to do a short walk down the old railway line behind us. The railway closed along with thousands of other smaller stations and lines about 1965 with the Beeching cuts.

Our back garden gate opens straight onto the railway line, it’s perfect for dog walking, though Lucy, our bichon frise, isn’t so keen on anything further than the garden these days, she’s an old lady!

It was one of those lovely evenings where the sun shines dappled through the leaves, lighting up flowers beneath. This cow parsley (I’m happy to be corrected if it’s one of the similar flowers!) looked gorgeous…

The path is finally starting to dry up a bit, so it is passable in trainers rather than wellies, though it’s quite a narrow path past the boggy bit still. There’s been many a time when I’ve been walking the dogs in a pretty cotton summer dress…and wellies 🙂

Does anyone else give names to trees? or is it just me! There’s a few trees along here that are like marker trees, something to aim for when either the dogs or the kids didn’t want to go so far…we’ll go as far as the twin trees…well this one is the spider tree! It’s nothing to do with the eight legged variety, well only indirectly, it’s the nickname for one of the views we use in angios of the heart arteries to see the main stem clearly and the initial bifurcations. This tree reminds me of the way the arteries divide off in different directions.

Up and down the railway line from our garden is just over a mile, there’s sheep and rabbits to see and occasionally deer. Lots of bird song to listen to and try and spot their owner, one day I saw a sparrowhawk just sitting quietly on a fence post. There’s often another dog walker to have a chat to, I often only know them by their dogs name!

This little dark glade is the entrance back to our garden. It has confused many a dog walker when they have seen me walking up ahead and then I suddenly disappear from view.

And here’s our garden gate with the clematis arch going over it, the clematis is making a break for freedom up the ash tree at the moment.

Next week I will hopefully have a more exciting walk as I have rashly put my name down for a walk organised for the Otley Walking Festival next week. There were several I fancied but most were already booked up. The walk I’m going on is called Early Birds in the Wetlands, a dawn walk round the nature reserve, we have to meet at 5am, it may not seem such a good idea when my alarm clock goes off at 4am 🙂

Posted in Walking | Tagged | 6 Comments

The Seaside Quilt HQAL

Posted on June 20, 2021 by craftycreeky

I’ve not made as much progress as I’d hoped over the last three weeks with my seaside quilt, mainly because I’ve been dress-making more as I’ve realized those four or five extra pounds I’ve put on during lockdowns have been mainly round my middle, so when I got my summer clothes out some don’t fit any more!

This is from the second quilt design book by Kathryn Whittingham. I loved making my cottage garden quilt from her first book and this one is proving just as gorgeous. Both books are available from her website, Patchwork Katy, they’re lovely books, with clear instructions and patterns for making a gorgeous quilt.

Three weeks ago I’d almost finished the boat, embroidered some of the smaller blocks and I’d prepared the oystercatchers block for embroidery. I’d arranged some filler squares but not stitched anything together until I could see how it worked out…

The boat just needed a bit of bunting, stitching the seagull, a few ‘waves’ and finally a little dog at the helm. (Being completely ignorant of boats, it might not be the helm, but it sounds good!! She’s at the front!) I stitched a white fluffy dog as it is meant to be Lucy, our little bichon frise. As she was my mum’s dog she’s not appeared in any of my stitching so far, so I thought it was about time I rectified that!

The oyster catchers took longer than I anticipated to embroider as there is actually quite a lot of stitching. I used a dark grey for the back-stitch on the birds, my thought was that it will show up on the black and not look too harsh on the white.

I changed some of the embroidery stitches from those used in the book, I edged the rocks with blanket-stitch as I thought it might give the idea of rounded edges on the rocks, I used a Weeks variegated thread for all the rocks, it’s a sandy colour mixed with a very soft purple which perfectly matched all the fabrics I used. For the pictures I’m mainly using fabrics which aren’t nautical. so there’s flowery ones, paisley’s, deer (the soft purple has actually got deer and trees on!!) The oyster catchers legs were meant to be in satin stitch but I could see me having issues with tension as I didn’t have a hoop handy that day, so I used chain stitch with a single thread, doubling them up for their knobbly knees and then whip-stitched them with a double thread.

One of my birds was positioned a little high, so he had rather long legs, I stitched him mid step so it’s not quite so noticeable. I’d made a similar mistake before in that I always cut the background a little bigger than required in case it frays a lot with handling during the embroidery process. I then forget when I’m positioning things to allow for the extra half inch. With a plain background it doesn’t matter, but I positioned the rocks right at the bottom and then when I positioned the birds I was looking at times how close to the horizon they were in the book…so one bird was quite a way above the rocks!

It made such a difference once I got the blocks ‘framed’ with the sashing. All the big pictorial blocks will be sashed with these two fabrics. I chose the bumbleberries blue right at the beginning but I wasn’t sure which to choose for the lighter outer sash. As soon as I tried the seahorse fabric I loved it, unfortunately I’ve only got a fat quarter so I’ve just ordered some more!

I sashed the boat at the same time and then started arranging the little square blocks. I picked up a bundle of red fat quarters from Hobbycraft so I don’t have to use the Christmas one, though I might pop a couple of reindeer in the quilt just because! Until I get into the swing of this colour palette I basically used Kathryn’s colour placement as a guide, particularly with red and dark blue squares. At the moment the red stands out a mile, but I know from the book they’ll be scattered throughout the quilt and there’s also some red pinwheels thrown in the mix.

I collected quite a few nautical fabrics for this quilt and I’m mainly using them for the little squares, fussy cutting sometimes to get a nice image. I’ve got puffins, lighthouses, boats, sand-castles…

Next I have pinwheels to stitch in red and blue, then a hermit crab picture and another beach hut to complete the row.

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, Connie, and Sherrie

I’ll also be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday.

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