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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
Last month I started the Leafy Tree embroidery by Mary Corbett, of Needle ‘n’ Thread I’d bought the e-book last year and finally got round to starting it. I love the way the colours gradually change through the tree from dark green to red, with the larger leaves being stitched in a variety of stitches.
Last time I shared it I was half way through stitching the trunk and branches and I’d just started the leaves…
I’ve made pretty good progress over the last three weeks, I would have stitched even more if I hadn’t run out of two of the flosses! I’ve finished the trunk and I’ve stitched about a third of the leaves. The leaves are all numbered in the instructions with a different colour combination or stitch for each one, there’s over a hundred different leaves and only a handful have more than one leaf in the same stitch and colour.
On the whole I’m working the stitches in numerical order, it seems easier that way as the leaves seem more or less to be listed in colour order, so a certain colour thread might be used in three nearby leaves combined with other shades.
The little leaves seem mainly to be in fly stitch and fishbone stitch…
…the larger leaves include wheatear stitch, woven lattice stitch, padded satin and long and short stitch.
I’m pretty pleased with it so far, the shading in the trunk and branches in stem stitch seem to have worked OK and the leaves are small enough to be interesting to try all the different stitches. The fine cotton fabric with calico behind seems to be holding the embroidery well too.
Hopefully over the next three weeks I’ll get a lot more leaves stitched.
This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis of Stitching by the Sea, we all post our progress on our chosen project every three weeks, just regular enough to keep the motivation going! Please follow the links to see a wide variety of embroidery projects…
It was nice this month to get all the spring themed cross-stitch smalls out. There’s an abundance of rabbits, I seem to recall a collection of rabbits is a fluffle, I’ve definately got a fluffle here!
The hopping bunnies and the duckling were cross-stitches I did when my children were babies, one was on a bib and the two with ducklings were on a nappy pin cushion.
The nuthatch and the ‘Be nice’ are recent makes, ones a Shephers Bush design and the other is a kit by Fido Design Studio. It’s a few years since I made the Hello Spring and the brown rabbit, so I can’t quite recall who the designer is. The Zoe box and the seasons etui have both been turned to the spring side.
Despite the flurries of snow yesterday, I think spring has finally sprung.
The weather at the moment is a bit like Vivaldi’s Four Seasons all at once! A couple of days ago it was so warm and sunny we sat outside in short sleeves and enjoyed a chilled glass of wine. Since then it’s been very windy and very cold, though we’ve missed the sprinkling of snow many areas have had. Despite the fluctuating extremes of temperature it’s actually pretty dry, our clay soil is already starting to crack…but heavy rain is forecast for the end of the week! The poor plants don’t know whether to stick their heads up or not…
I’m enjoying my magnolia stellata while I can, it’s blossoms are beautiful, so light and delicate. I planted this one about twenty years ago and it’s one of my favourite shrubs. During the summer it’s pretty boring, but the buds and then the early blossom make up for it. Unfortunately they do tend to brown with cold wind, it’s still looking gorgeous at the moment so fingers crossed it may have escaped the worst of the weather.
I worked my way along this raised bed last week, pruning and weeding as I went. By mid summer the wall is hidden by foliage and it becomes quite difficult to step round, especially when you have no balance like me, so this early weeding is quite important, I get as much out as I can, mainly bittercress, grasses, wild geums and self seeded alcemilla mollis at the moment.
The rose bed above the stone wall was the next to be tackled, these roses are all about fifteen years old, I’ve tried this year to cut one old branch right back on each bush to encourage new shoots from the bottom. This bed has couch grass, bind weed and buttercups! I’ve pruned back the spirea and the wiegela which both flower later in the year and the pheasantberry has had a hard cutback as it’s getting to be a bit of a thug. The bush just coming into leaf on the left is a daphne which flowers in late spring, so I’ll cut back after then. The daffies are still looking cheerful.
The next border to be tackled hopefully this week is by the big fence,you can see all the little weeds popping up! The pieris is in flower at the moment, that’s the one with the creamy white flowers on. The perennials are all starting to appear so at least I know where they are, there’s geraniums, astrantia, daylillies and a peony.
As well as weeds I also get quite a few self sown plants which I encourage, such as aquilegia or astrantia. I noticed the other morning down by the conservatory there’s a very pretty clump of violets. They’re tiny but so pretty…
I mentioned last week that my OH had taken ownership of the front garden and the side of the drive. Well he’s quite enthused and protective about his garden! You may remember the side of the drive before was a tangle of shrubs, all getting a bit overgrown. When nextdoor decided to replace the fence we decided to clear our side at the same time. We got someone in to clear it and I eagerly ordered some roses from David Austin to make a long rose border. They arrived in November as they were bare-rooted, but at that point we were still waiting for the drive to be widened…and then I had my operation…to save all my roses I ‘heeled’ them in in the front garden, I basically just planted the whole bundle together, this saves them from being damaged by frost….
…and there they sat as we then waited for a hand rail to be erected! Finally my OH could dig the area over, add two tons of top soil and compost and then plant all twenty roses! He then found to his disgust that he had created the perfect toilet facilities for the local feline population! Out comes the phone and google! Lavender and garlic he decided was the answer! I managed to buy about ten lavender plants on the market the next day and he chopped up an old garlic bulb…well it’s worked! No evidence of cats since!!
I’m looking forward to seeing how the rose border looks, I’ve chosen deep red at the bottom of the drive, gradually lightening through the pinks to creamy white at the top. I hope it works!
I do like this time of year, the trees are just starting to green up, it’s a wonderful vibrant green in spring, everything is starting to sprout and grow. It’s a positive time of year.
This week I finished my rabbit, it’s a kit from Raggedy Ruff Designs. Three weeks ago when I last shared it I had just started the free motion embroidery, it was starting to take shape…
As usual I procrastinated as I still had the hardest bit to stitch, the eye, I do think they are a bit of a make or break as your eyes are automatically drawn to them, you don’t want a rabbit that looks cross or angry!! Andrea’s instructions are great and once I’d sat down to do it it didn’t take too long. I still nearly fluffed it on the eyes, my first attempt wasn’t bright enough, so I added a brighter orange…then it was too bright and googly…so I added some grey round the edge…but that wasn’t dark enough so I added some black…which looked too dark! By this time my sewing machine was starting to complain about the amount of stitches in the area and missing a few!! In the end I added the creamy white highlights and decided from a far it looked OK…
The whiskers aren’t quite at the right angle, or maybe too uniform, but they’re staying, it would cause more mess trying to undo them!
The grasses and seed heads were fairly quick to do, again if you look closely they’re not very neat, but looking as a whole they look fine.
I still have a love hate relationship with my new sewing machine, but for this it’s a godsend as it has an automatic needle threader (just how does that work!!!) which when you’re changing colour every few minutes is wonderful!
I haven’t quite decided whether to make a cushion out of this or add it to other blocks to make another quilt. I love the colours in this one, I do like the way Andrea (the designer) does her backgrounds, there’s just enough to make it interesting without dominating the piece.
If you fancy having a go at one of these designs Andrea has a 50% off sale over Easter, so it’s an ideal time to pick up a kit or a pdf pattern to try. I’ve got quite a few kits in my to do pile but I’m still tempted! There’s a gorgeous little one of a mouse giving her mum a flower, so pretty. I’m stitching a pheasant next which was part of the highland quilt, I bought it as a stand alone piece, but I am tempted to get the others in the set. The kits are great as Andrea uses lots of batiks, the unpatterned style, just the right amount is sent, together with freezer paper and stabiliser, all neatly labelled and with great instructions.
Update; I couldn’t resist! I’ve just popped over to Raggedy Ruff so I could make a link here and the little mouse and a pair of squirrels just fell into my basket, guess I’m going to be busy for a while!
At the end of last year I promised myself I wasn’t going to do any stitch-a-long projects, I was just going to stitch whatever I wanted…so how come just three months in I’m doing not one, but three weekly stitch-a-longs! In my defence only one of them is lasting all year!
Each Monday a new workshop video is released by Textile Artist for their free Community Stitch Challenge. So far it has certainly pushed me out of my comfort zone and week 3 was no exception.
This time it was Jennifer Collier who was presenting the workshop cum challenge. Jennifer works with paper rather than fabric but stitches it together much like you would do fabric, she showed us how to do Cathedral windows ( a classic quilting technique), Suffolk puffs, a pocket, rouleau loops and a rose, all made from paper. I really wasn’t sure about this challenge by the end of the workshop, but then I had an idea and ran with it…
I don’t have much of a stash of papers, I’ve never been into paper crafts really. However I do have a large number of paper patterns which I am very unlikely to use again. I had a flick through my patterns and came across the pattern I used for my wedding dress, which I’d just kept for sentimental reasons. I also came across an old design book of mine from my twenties when I used to make wedding dresses and ball gowns for friends and family. I used to draw a sketch of what they wanted, so we both knew what was in their mind. I pulled out one of the sketches which is particularly pretty.
I used one of the instruction sheets to try the cathedral windows, they’re stitched down in the middle and then a button can be added, I found some odd pearl ones in my stash. I also used the pattern envelope to make another square to add a different weight.
I made three Suffolk puffs from the actual pattern tissue paper. I thought it might be too thin and tear, but I followed Jennifer’s instructions about folding the edge under and it made the puffs without problems. By this time I’d forgotten all about the pockets, the rouleau loops and the rose!
I then pulled out from behind a cupboard an Ikea box frame, I used to use it with lights in as a light box until I splashed out and bought a proper one. My ideas started to take shape.
I lined the back with the first page of pattern instructions, the bit with the line drawing on. I cut a square of my wedding dress lace and some vintage lace which just looked pretty.
I went through the fabric labels my friend prints and found one saying ‘Discover your passion’, so that went in the melee too, together with an old Vogue pattern label and one of my Crafty Creek labels.
I rummaged in a little drawer of vintage haberdashery which a friend gave me when her mum died. To my surprise the needles were all in perfect condition, so I just added the empty packets to my box. I picked the Merchant and Mills box off the window sill together with an old pair of scissors, a wooden cotton reel and three pins with ivory coloured heads.
In true Blue Peter fashion I stuck it all down with a bit of double-sided sellotape. This is something I’ve never thought to buy but I found rolls of the stuff when clearing my mum’s house…and it does come in useful! As it’s a box frame things like the pins, cotton reel and scissors are just propped up against the back.
So I have a display box for my sewing room, I’m really quite chuffed with it.
thecraftycreek 