Tuesdays Splash around the Garden

Posted on May 4, 2021 by craftycreeky

Last week I ordered a solar powered water fountain for a bird bath, apparently the sound of the water attracts the birds. As soon as I pressed ‘buy now’ the sun went in and as soon as it arrived and I sorted out the bird bath it started raining!!! It’s forecast rain for at least another week!

The fountain is in the blue ceramic bowl which I’ve unsuccessfully had as a little water feature for years. I decided to fill it with pebbles so it’s fairly shallow and float the water fountain. If anyone is considering using a ceramic planter as a water feature, one word of advice, the instructions all said to use plumbers sealant to plug the drainage holes, I tried that, left it to dry, but as soon as I filled it with water it disappeared. After several attempts I resorted to blutack, I made a large plug of blutack and pushed it into the holes. That must be about 15 years ago and it’s never leaked!!

Anyway, to my surprise the fountain does work even when it’s raining and gloomy, but it just gurgles at the moment, I think I need sunshine for a proper fountain! You can see it in the background here with Luna in her new dress (more of that later in the week) but so far we haven’t seen any birds bathing.

I’ve planted up a couple more of the pots too, the stalls on Otley market keep tempting me, so the large shallow one on the left has a campanula, an aquilegia and some pinks. The little violas are new too.

In the bed opposite the pots the camassia is starting to flower, it looks lovely through the conservatory window, just not so easy to photograph. However I have a few clumps of camassia and this one by the pond is just coming out too. It looks lovely with the Solomon’s Seal and the fresh iris leaves behind.

The beds are filling rapidly now, especially after a few days rain. This bed is in the Amber and Amethyst garden, otherwise known by my OH as the beer garden! The Lady Emma Hamilton rose has gorgeous reddish new leaves, the peony is shooting up with it’s dark purple leaves. The pulmonaria is still flowering in front and you can also see another camassia just starting to flower.

The pond garden is filling fast too, with brunnera still flowering, Solomon’s seal shooting up together with hostas and iris. I’ve just bought a fishing rod to try and clean out the fish pond as it’s overrun with duck weed.

I was pleasantly surprised when I took a photo of the garden in the rain, it’s actually looking quite colourful!

Posted in Garden | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Outstanding Blogger Award

Posted on May 2, 2021 by craftycreeky

I was well chuffed last month to be nominated by Laura of LC’s Cottage for the Outstanding Blogger award, there’s nothing like a peer compliment to give you a bit of a boost, so thank you Laura!

Part of the award acceptance is that you answer five questions set by your nominee, so here goes…

Which lifestyle are you most comfortable living…cluttered or organized?

I would love to be organised, and in theory I am, I do like everything to have it’s place, I’m just not very good at putting things back in their place! So looking around at my sewing room, overflowing to the landing, I have to confess to clutter!

What is your favorite quiet place?

My favourite quiet place is probably my sewing room, or if it’s sunny and warm I like to sit in my garden.

To party hearty or enjoy an intimate gathering?

I much prefer an intimate gathering. I decided early on in the lockdowns that I must be an unsociable being as I didn’t miss going out, we never did frequent pubs or restaurants very often, the one thing I did miss was having a few friends round for dinner. We always eat in the conservatory and we can easily seat eight comfortably, we sit and talk, eat and drink into the evening.

Early to bed or a night owl?

I’m in between here, bed at around 10.30 or 11pm, up at 8ish if I’m not working. I can’t stay in bed once I wake up!

What makes you accountable to your goals?  What keeps you motivated?

With my sewing etc writing this blog helps to motivate me, I started it as a way of kick-starting my sewing when I lost my mojo. The previous year my New Year resolution was to post a photo of the garden every day on facebook, I hoped that by finding something to photograph I would see the good parts in the garden, not just the weeds and work. What I didn’t anticipate was that by going out to photograph I would then do a little gardening. Posting about my sewing projects helps to keep me motivated in the same way, stitch-a-longs are even better!

So now it’s my turn to choose five bloggers who inspire me…

Wild Daffodil

View from our Hill

Sweet Fallen Angels

Living in Rapid City

Martin Moorman

Many of you will already follow some or all of the amazing crafty blogs above, but Martin Moorman is probably new to you, I’ve only just started following him; if you like my walking around Yorkshire posts, you will love Martin’s, he goes on much longer walks and takes some amazing photos of the scenery and the wildlife. He’s just moved from the Pennines to Nidderdale, so I’m hoping to get some ideas of walks to do.

…and my questions are;

What would your perfect holiday be?

Where is your favourite place to walk?

What inspired you to start a blog

What did you miss most during lock-downs

What was the last book you read?

To those I’ve nominated, thank you for inspiring me with your posts, there is no obligation to take up the challenge of answering and asking the questions, I will not be the slightest bit offended if you ‘don’t do this type of thing’. If you do accept, then please answer the questions, nominate 5 other bloggers and then compile a set of 5 of your own questions.

Posted in Serendipity | 13 Comments

Leafy Tree SAL

Posted on May 2, 2021 by craftycreeky

I’ve not spent a lot of time on my Leafy Tree recently, mainly because I’ve been concentrating on other projects so I could get a few finished – I’d reached that point of realising I had too many embroidery projects on the go at once…like five! This pattern is from an e-book by Mary Corbett of Needle and Threads called The Leafy Tree

I have made some progress though, three weeks ago it looked like this…

Having just compared photos, I’ve made more progress than I thought!!! I’ve now started on the light yellows and orange threads. I’m tending to stitch in numerical order, as each leaf is numbered for the stitching key, allocating it’s colour and stitch, this means that I’m stitching with just a handful of colours at a time. There are 104 leaf combinations, so I know I’m over half way now. This is my Leafy Tree at the moment…

The little leaves are mainly fishbone or fly stitch, but there’s a few different stitches used for the bigger leaves, such as up and down buttonhole, cretan and battlement couching. I’m getting better with the long and short stitch too.

This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis, from Stitching by the Sea, we post our progress every three weeks, just long enough to keep us motivated on a project. Please follow the links to see lots of beautiful hand stitching.

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

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

A Birth Sampler

Posted on April 29, 2021 by craftycreeky

A couple of months ago a friend from Embroiderers Guild (or Skipton Stitchers as we are now since the demise of the Embroidery Guild as we know it!) asked if I would do a cross-stitch birth sampler as a commission. She’d been having a sort out at home and found the one she had made when her first baby was born. She wants to pass it on to her daughter but realised (as is often the way) she hadn’t had one made for her second daughter! My friend admitted she just hasn’t got the patience for cross-stitch, preferring the more relaxed or experimental forms of embroidery.

She gave me the original sampler to work from as she wants something similar but subtly different. I think it’s a typical sampler of the time, mid 1980’s…

I’ve chosen a palette of blues, greens, pinks and a soft gold and I’m using a parchment coloured linen, which looks a similar colour to the original. I started trying to plot it all out on graph paper, but I realised that was going to take forever, so I’m just adapting things as I go and keeping my fingers crossed it will all work out! I’ve decided the original border will stay the same as it’s too complicated to try and work out spacings of another. I’m changing the bottom two borders and also the font of the name and date of birth.

I’m using bands from a sampler I did at around the same time (thirty years ago!! where did that time go!) I’m planning to use the two border patterns which are on the 7th row and I’ve also used the scroll pattern near the top. Some of these are narrower than the original as I’m hoping to space things a bit more evenly than the original sampler.

It’s surprising the difference a slight colour change makes, in these top few rows there’s not that many differences, just a few extra stitches, but I think it looks so different. I’ll probably stitch the outer border before I get to the bottom, just to check it works out OK count wise.

I’m please with it so far and more importantly my friend was happy with the progress photo I sent to her.

Posted in cross-stitch, embroidery, Serendipity | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Spring Walks

Posted on April 28, 2021 by craftycreeky

I’m trying this year to get a bit fitter, a mixture of medical issues and lockdowns have had somewhat of an impact on my stamina. Earlier this month I treated myself to a Garmin watch, one of those watches that has GPS so it can track and measure walks (or runs if you’re so inclined!). It’s taken me a while to get used to it – it was a week before I worked out where to find my step count! It even measures heart rate, sleep patterns, energy levels…all very interesting but it was the GPS bit I wanted.

My OH has set up Garmin and Strava on my computer so I can join in challenges and link up with friends. I’ve been trying a few short walks so I learn how to use the watch. Today I did an almost circular walk, I say almost as the rain clouds were gathering as I reached Menston station just as a bus arrived, I took it as a sign and got on for the last half mile home!

Our garden backs on to an old railway track, our side ends just a bit further up the main road where the railway bridge used to be, but the railway line continues on the other side for quite a way. It’s easiest to access it via the golf club, though crossing a golf course is a hazardous task!

Once up on the old line it was lovely and peaceful. The trees have just started to get the lovely fresh spring growth…

There were lots of wild flowers too, I saw bluebells, violets, anemones, celandine, forget-me-nots…there was another pinky purple one which having checked my wildflower books was possibly wild pulmonaria or lungwort. In the photo below you can just see a sprinkling of celandines and anemones.

The railway line took me almost to Burley in Wharfedale where I joined a minor road which turned into a farm track. There were lots of young lambs, still at the spindly leg stage! This ewe looked very proud of her twins…

By the time I reached Menston I was regretting not packing a flask of coffee, so it didn’t take much persuasion for me to take advantage of the village bakery, I sat outside with a very welcome coffee and a slice of cake.

I walked through Menston to the station, planning to cut through the housing estate and home before the rain started, I could see rain on the other side of the valley and the clouds behind me were pretty dark. When a bus arrived just as I was passing the bus stop it seemed too good an opportunity to miss!

Altogether I walked about four and a half miles, not a bad start to my path to fitness!

Posted in Walking | Tagged | 9 Comments

A Handsome Pheasant.

Posted on April 27, 2021 by craftycreeky

On Sunday I posted about my pheasant block, this is a kit from Raggedy Ruff Designs, I’ve quite a few waiting to be stitched. I only started it on Saturday evening, so by Sunday I’d made the background block, cut out all the applique pieces and made a start with embroidering it…

Yesterday I decided to crack on and finish it. It’s not a very big block, it’s about 6″ by 12″ so it didn’t take too long.

I stitched all the feather patterns first and once I was happy with the bird I stitched the grasses and wild flowers behind. Doing this kind of sewing makes me appreciate my automatic needle threader on my machine as every couple of minutes you have to change thread! I’ve got a limited selection of machine embroidery threads, all variegated, I’m hoping to get some more colours but unfortunately the ones I like are usually only sold in huge rolls so I’ll have to wait for a show so I can have a good look for some.

I’m pretty pleased with my pheasant, I’m getting better at remembering to breathe when I’m doing the free motion embroidery! I particularly like all the different shades on his body, it all blends in beautifully when seen from a reasonable distance. I not sure which Raggedy Ruff design I’m stitching next, maybe a lampshade or a clock…

Posted in cross-stitch, Quilt-a-long, Quilting, Serendipity | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Monday’s Meander Round the Garden

Posted on April 26, 2021 by craftycreeky

We’ve had a funny April weather wise, this month is usually known for it’s showers interspersed with sunshine, usually it’s pretty wet. This year we’ve had snow, hail, hard frosts and then gloriously sunny days! The poor plants don’t know whether they’re coming or going. I’ve lost a few plants with the late frosts and a few more have got very sad looking shoots. My beautiful magnolia stellata was looking more like a teabag tree at one point as the blooms are very susceptible to frost and turn a sad looking brown. Fresh blooms have come out since though and it’s scent is wonderful as you walk past.

I had a good sort out and tidy up of my pots at the weekend, working out what’s survived the winter and what needs replacing. There’s a few pots on their final warning too, start looking pretty or you’re for the compost heap! I’ve one large ceramic pot which is a water feature, unfortunately I’ve not had much success with plants in it, they either grow too big or not at all. The other day I saw an advert for a floating solar-powered fountain. Apparently birds love them for bathing in, so I’ve decided to turn my water feature into a bird bath! I emptied all the water out, gave it a wash and started putting pebbles in, I need a few more so it’s possibly a couple of inches below the surface of the water. Just waiting for the fountain to be delivered now.

We arranged for someone to come and paint our new fence (it’s pretty long so would have taken me for ever!) I asked him to paint the arbour at the same time and it does look much better for a coat of paint. My friend has one of these arbours too, we both bought them at the Harrogate Spring Flower show, I was quite surprised when she said it was ten years ago!!

Although it still needs a sweep up, the garden is looking much tidier, I’m feeling more on top of it at the moment. This arbour is where I like to sit and drink my coffee when it’s warm.

Just to the right of the arbour is Jack Frost, the first brunnera I bought. It’s a great plant, good ground cover, interesting foliage for nine months of the year and pretty blue flowers at this time of year. Even my OH commented that he could do with planting some Jack Frost in the front garden.

I’ve started sorting out the old compost heap too, collapsing all the wood and digging up huge nettle roots. The borders are looking reasonable in the Amethyst and Amber garden. This is our sunny spot in the afternoon, my OH calls it the beer garden! It’s perfect for a glass of Pinot Grigio too!

I’m planning to tidy the pond next, it’s full of duckweed and the iris are spreading uncontrollably! I’ve never seen any frog or toad spawn in there so I’m not worried about disturbing it, if I don’t tackle it now then in another month or so the surrounding plants will be so lush I’ll struggle to reach the pond, so it’s now or never!

I’m enjoying the garden at the moment, every time I have a wander round it looks like everything has grown another 3″, the ground is very dry and cracked at the moment, hopefully we’ll get some rain this week and then everything will really start to shoot up.

Posted in Garden, Serendipity | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Three Heads for a Pheasant

Posted on April 25, 2021 by craftycreeky

I’ve got a bit behind in my posting this week, I seem to have a few projects on which are not necessarily that interesting in the half way stage, like the white blouse I’ve been making. Hopefully this coming week there will be a bit more to share.

A couple of months ago I came up with the idea that on the Sunday without a SAL post I would post my progress on one of my Raggedy Ruff designs. I have rather a large collection of kits waiting to be sewn and at least this way I will slowly make my way through them, though it doesn’t help when I buy even more kits in the meantime! Three weeks ago I had just finished the gorgeous hare…

I waited until last night to start the pheasant! It’s smaller than other blocks I’ve stitched, it’s about 6″ by 12″, it’s part of the Highland Quilt, though I think it’s nice as a stand alone block. This is Andrea Walpole’s version, Andrea is the designer of Raggedy Ruff Designs.

The first thing to stitch is the background. Andrea does gorgeous backgrounds, with a mix of batiks, Essex linen and the occasional metallic fabric. This one has a four point star design, my blocks didn’t match up particularly well for some reason but as most of it is behind the pheasant I didn’t fuss.

The next task was to trace round the pattern image of the pheasant onto freezer paper so I could then accurately cut the various shapes out of the batik fabric. I then laid them out on the background to check it all looked OK…

When I looked at it I thought the head might be a bit dark – it was darker than it looks in the photo, I had a rummage in my batik scraps and found another to try, but that was too bright, I then remembered the dark blue batik collection I had in a drawer and one of those was a perfect dark teal, just that little bit lighter than the one provided, third time lucky…

Next comes the scary bit, the free motion embroidery! First job is to stitch all round the edges to hold everything in place, the main bit I struggled with was the tail as the narrow feather ends kept trying to move! I’m getting better at remembering to breathe at the same time!

I embroidered the legs outline next, I sketched those lightly with a silver gel pen first which did help.

The hardest bit with all these blocks is the eyes, the eyes really do make it, deciding whether your creation is going to be a happy one or a cross one! This time we got it over and done with at the start, so I’ve just stitched the eye and the beak. I then filled the legs in too.

There’s still lots of stitching to do on the feathers, but I’ve made a good start.

Posted in Quilting, Serendipity | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

The Cottage Garden Quilt HQAL

Posted on April 18, 2021 by craftycreeky

Well it’s happy dance time and I’ve got my best dancing shoes on as I love this quilt so much! It’s the Cottage Garden quilt from the book of the same name by Kathryn Whittingham. Three weeks ago when I last posted I was making my way round the border and still pondering about the binding…

It didn’t take long to finish the quilting on the flowers as I’d worked out a pattern which I could get into a good rhythm with, with three rows of scallop shapes and then the middle petal. For the corner blocks I just stitched another four petal shapes and quilted a quarter inch inside round the little appliqued blocks.

I’m well chuffed with how the quilting came out, I used Gutterman’s Sulky thread, three different variegated ones. It was lovely to quilt with and the colours worked perfectly. I used a different batting to my usual too, unfortunately I don’t know what it was called as it was easy to quilt and has a nice loft, it feels slightly more polyester-ish to me than the usual 80/20 cotton ones I use.

I was still pondering about the binding, I had the two pieces of the olive green and a small amount of the dark red, a few readers were wary of scrappy borders due to the risk of trying to get a neat corner if the seam falls on it and I could see the dangers lurking there! I decided to consult with the Queen of scrappy quilts, Kate form Tall Tales from Chiconia! Kate was really helpful, she makes her scrappy bindings in four lengths so she can control the corner strips. She also advised on lengths of scraps etc. So a big thanks to Kate for giving me the confidence and know how to go through with my idea of a scrappy binding.

I cut my green binding strips into 2.25″ by 12 to 15″.The red one I just left as 2.25″ strips and trimmed as I went so as not to waste any. My original plan was to have a red square in between each green strip, in the end I decided I just wanted a couple on each side, so I put them every other green strip instead.

My first length was long enough to go down most of the first side, round a corner and almost to the second corner. This meant I could carefully pin it on to ensure I had a decent length of binding with no seams at the corner. I then carried on adding strips as needed. I did get cold feet half way through about the red, was it going to be too much, but of course I was looking at the 2″ square not the little strip which is visible at the end.

Well I love the scrappy binding and of course the red doesn’t over-power, it just adds that little pop to the edge. In fact I think it barely looks like a scrappy binding as the colours are so similar and sort of blend in.

All that was left was to embroider a name. All quilts should have a name, usually by the end I’ve thought of something, but this has always been known as ‘the cottage garden quilt’. I debated just embroidering that but I decided that was the name of Kathryn’s quilt, mine should have it’s own. After much thought I’ve called it ‘Bees & Blooms’, there are little bumble bees all over the quilt and all the blocks include flowers and I’ve quilted flower shapes too. I embroidered it in back-stitch on one of the squares at the back, together with my initials and the date.

So it’s finished! I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed making a quilt as much as this one, every stage has been a delight, from embroidering the appliqued blocks to piecing and finally hand quilting and binding it. Yes I even enjoyed the hand quilting!!

I have to give a big thank you to Kathryn Whittingham for sharing this gorgeous quilt in her book, if you fancy making one too please follow the link to her website, Patchwork Katy. My next project will be another of her quilts, the Seaside Quilt, I’ve already got my fabrics ready!

In the meantime, there’s lots of hand quilted inspiration if you follow the links below;

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, Gretchen, Daisy, Connie, and Sherrie

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

Posted in embroidery, Quilt-a-long, Quilting | Tagged , , , , | 28 Comments

Stitchwheel Sampler

Posted on April 15, 2021 by craftycreeky

I’m managing to keep up to date with my stitch wheel, the SAL sampler by Kathy Reavy. I’ve just realised that last time I posted about this SAL was the middle of March! At that point I’d just finished the third ring…

Since then we’ve been adding three stitches each week. Rather than spacing them around the outer ring like Cathy does, I’ve just worked methodically round the ring, partly because it makes it easier to photograph!

The first stitch is the one that’s meant to be two peapods, it’s made with stem stitch and outline stitch, as far as I can see outline and stem stitch are the same, it just depends which way the stitch lies!

The big scroll shape is couching and the Y shaped branch is a raised stem band which is a bit like doing stem stitch on a framework of thread.As well as couching, Cathy demonstrated trailing, this was used to stitch the stem on the purple flower which is just peeping out. With trailing it is stitched like couching, but over two threads and with the couching stitches right next to each other to make like a raised stem.

The purple flowers are lazy daisy stitch, with the squiggle in chain stitch. The next one was new to me, it’s heavy chain stitch, which is almost like a double chain stitch, it does make a nice raised line.

The next stitch is feather stitch, mine looked a bit boring so I added some French knots. After that came blanket stitch in the form of wheels. Double up and down blanket stitch took a bit of concentration! In the photo below you can also see that we have added flowers to the basket on the ring below. These are made with oyster stitch. I think this one is going to take a bit more practise, I didn’t find it easy to work out exactly where the stitch would end up.

Today Cathy released another three stitches, the first was knotted pearl stitch, I rather liked this one, I can imagine it being quite effective.Herringbone I’ve stitched lots of times, I often use it to stitch hems up. I might add some French knots to this one too as it does look a bit empty. The final stitch is double herringbone. There is a simpler version where the second colour is stitched over the top of the first one in the same way. With this version the two colours weave together so you have to create the stitch slightly differently, I rather like this one.

There’s only five spaces left, so by the end of the month it should be complete. These stitches are all demonstrated by Cathy on her youTube channel for both left handed and right handed stitchers if you fancy having a go.

Posted in Crafts, embroidery, Stitch-a-long | Tagged , , | 11 Comments