Anthea Calendar SAL

Posted on October 6, 2020 by craftycreeky

Last weekend I managed to stitch the wordplay for September to go with the autumn crocus design for the month. Once I get the design sorted it doesn’t usually take long to actually stitch as a lot of it is back-stitch.

I finally have a more positive month to share!

The latin name for an autumn crocus is colchicum, though I do like the common name of naked ladies! We actually saw some in flower in Hexham but I didn’t manage to get a photo

I did manage to get a photo of these amazing mushrooms, they were a gorgeous shade of lavender, I think it’s called a shaggy inkcap, or judges wig, but that’s only via google – I know very little about mushrooms, I certainly wouldn’t trust myself to eat a wild one. There’s lots of mushrooms and toadstools appearing at the moment.

I’ve felt quite domesticated making chutney, I used to make lots of jams and chutneys but then I got out of the habit, I think I had a couple of not so good batches which took forever to use up and it sort of put me off. I love the smell of chutney cooking – it certainly clears your nose! I made caramelised red onion chutney, red onions are usually more expensive than white here but at the moment they’re the same price for some reason, so I decided to take advantage and make some chutney. I bought a couple of pound of damsons too on the market – they’re only available usually for a pretty brief window, so I put them in the freezer ready to make some damson gin.

We hear the tawny owls a lot more in the autumn and winter. So far I’ve just heard a female, it’s lovely when you hear another one answering back. The calls always make me smile as the female says ‘Twit’ and the male answers ‘Woohoo’.

The big quilt went back on the bed in September, it’s the Down the Rabbit Hole’ one I made a couple of years ago (but didn’t finish quilting til last December!) it’s a lovely weight, makes us feel all snuggled. I wanted to include electric blanket on the wordplay but I didn’t quite have the space, we love the electric blanket once it gets cooler!! It was an extra Christmas present to my OH a few years ago and he always says it was the best present ever!!

The yellow rudbekia have been lovely in the garden over September, adding a welcome splash of colour…

We’ve had two family birthdays this month and a much needed week-end away in Redesmouth. Redesmouth is a tiny hamlet in Northumberland, it used to have a bustling station and we were staying in a lovely old railway cottage called Whistlestop. We booked it through AirB&B and it was perfect for what we needed. More photos in another post but this photo was about a five minute walk from the cottage…

Spiders! At this time of year the big spiders seem to move into the house. They may not be big to readers in far off climes, but they’re big to us! I don’t mind spiders, I usually give them a help if they are stuck in the bath, otherwise I just leave them be. We call the big spiders George in our house, I think it started as a way of stopping the kids from being scared of them, if it’s an extra big one then it’s a Grandad George!!

The quote this month is from one of my favourite poems (or is it prose??) I first saw it when I was about 19, a student nurse in London. I went to stay with a friend at Canterbury uni and she had it pinned to her board. I wrote it out and kept it safe. I love it, it’s sort of like my philosophy in life. This is the whole poem

In this special moment in life….

Think freely. Practice patience. Smile often. Savour special moments. Live God’s message. Make new friends. Rediscover old ones. Tell those you love that you do. Feel deeply. Forget trouble. Forgive an enemy. Hope. Grow. Be crazy. Count your blessings. Observe miracles. Make them happen. Discard worry. Give. Give in. Trust enough to take. Pick some flowers. Share them. Keep a promise. Look for rainbows. Gaze at stars. See beauty everywhere. Work hard. Be wise. Try to understand. Take time for people. Make time for yourself. Laugh heartily. Spread joy. Take a chance. Reach out. Let someone in. Try something new. Slow down. Be soft sometimes. Believe in yourself. Trust another. See a sunrise. Listen to rain. Reminisce. Cry when you need to. Trust life. Have faith. Enjoy wonder. Comfort a friend. Have good ideas. Make some mistakes. Learn from them…

Celebrate Life

Jan Michelson

I love it enough to stitch the whole poem, I made this several years ago…

Having stitched the crocus in amongst the words, I had a bit of a gap, so I added the spiders web stitch and a few beads to fill it out – right next to the word spider!! I’m pretty pleased with this one, sometimes they just come together more easily. Here it is next to it’s flower page.

Faby has just released this months design in the Anthea Calendar SAL, it’s gorgeous! Deep pink cyclamens!

Posted in embroidery, Serendipity, Stitch-a-long, Textile Books | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Monday’s Meander Round the Garden

Posted on October 5, 2020 by craftycreeky

It was surprisingly pleasant in the garden today, I say surprising as the weather forecast wasn’t too promising for most of the week – mind you here in the UK the weather forecast is taken with a pinch of salt! I was well wrapped up but it was quite warm in the sunshine.

I managed to get out for a couple of hours tidying up, there’s lots to do in the garden at the moment, it can be quite overwhelming at times, thinking I’ll never get on top of it, but little by little gets the job done – eventually!

I decided to concentrate on the Amber & Amethyst garden, mainly because it’s an easy area to make an impression!! I weeded, cut back or dug up dead bits, picked up leaves. It does look better…

…as you can see though, I’m always torn between leaving seed heads for the birds and cutting plants back. My rule of thumb is that if it’s still pretty green, I leave the seed heads on!

Just at the other end of this bed, in between the arbour and the obelisk is quite a busy little corner, it never quite makes the limelight, but there’s always something going on. At the moment the red astrantia is still flowering, together with a smattering of perennial wallflowers. Once they fade the skimmia will take centre stage.

The autumn bed which I planted up last year is starting to colour nicely, there’s an acer, a blueberry and a euonymus alata together with a rudbekia still flowering happily along.

Over on the otherside of the top garden, in the rose bed, there’s a sedum which desperately needs dividing, it looks quite something with it’s big splayed circle of flower heads, but they should be more upright and it’s a sure sign it’s overcrowded – another job for the autumn.

Just next to it is a pheasantberry, or leycesteria, the purple bracts are beautiful at the moment, I tend to cut this back fairly hard each spring as it can be quite a thug. I’m currently just enjoying it filling a space with a splash of colour…

Last week I did some clearing by the patio. The geraniums have gone a bit rampant this year, especially Anne Folkard with it’s big magenta flowers. I cut a lot of them back revealing Goosey Lucy for the first time in months – I put there there in the spring as the local cats started sitting there ready to pounce on an unsuspecting bird at the feeders…

… it seemed to work well, although Lucy the dog is a much better deterrent!

This is Lucy very pleased to be back home after our few days in Northumberland, she reckoned her legs were about three inches shorter having walked about 16 miles in three days!

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Dancing to Bethlehem

Posted on October 4, 2020 by craftycreeky

It’s three weeks since I last showed you my Bethlehem embroidery, I was still prevaricating over the filling in designs round the spirals and I was still only half way round the outer border…

Well it was the first thing I packed for my weekend away as I was determined to crack it – though I did take a few other back-up sewing projects too! I took a variety of threads, mainly perle ones, it would have helped if I had spotted the instructions from the original workshop in my workbox all the time…the workbox I took with me to the cottage…but I didn’t spot that til yesterday!!

I was struggling with the areas around the spirals, not helped by the fact they vary so much in size, it needed to be a fairly organic design. I tried couched hearts but that looked messy, so I unpicked that. I then tried more pointed sort of hearts, that worked better, I used a finer thread in a variegated orange so it didn’t detract too much from the blue spirals. I felt it needed filling in, so I chose a mid orange which didn’t look right. I then found out how difficult it is to unpick embroidery from a thick felt background!! In the end I stitched over it in a darker orange thread. I’m still not 100% on this bit of the design, but it’s done, it fills in a gap!

Obviously I wanted something different on the outside, I decided to do a sort of zig-zag to fill the shape in, a bit like a scribbled Christmas tree. This could easily be adapted to fill any size shape. I used a darker rusty orange and couched away one evening. This works much better I think.

So it’s finished! I like the overall effect, the only bit I would change is those pointy hearts, but from a distance it looks OK. I particularly like the clarity of the central spiral with the plain turquoise felt behind. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, I might put it on a cushion, but I think it would also make an interesting textile book cover – it’s heavy enough!

This is the second piece of Palestinian embroidery I have stitched, both from workshops with Deborah Mullins at Fabbadashery in Halifax last year. Deborah spent some time in Palestine when her husband was on sabbatical there and she spent the time studying the different regional styles of embroidery. Her work is stunning, do have a look at her website. The first workshop I did was on Tahiri strips – I made mine into a bookmark…

These Tahiri strips would be used (from what I can gather) on garments, such as down dress sleeves and skirts, a more ordered and symetrical panel (as opposed to my stylized version) would be used for a front panel on the bodice. Each region had it’s own distinct style and patterns but Bethlehem embroidery was considered the finest. There’s lots of couching in one long continous thread from what I can gather. I do find it interesting looking at different styles of embroidery in different countries, depending on what textiles were available to them and their needs too.

So it’s happy dance time for my SAL, I just have to decide what to stitch next…maybe another UFO!

This SAL is organised by Avis, we each plot our progress on our projects every three weeks, it does help keep me motivated! Please follow the links to see what every one else is stitching.

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

Posted in embroidery, Serendipity, Stitch-a-long, Workshops | Tagged , , | 21 Comments

2020 Vision

Posted on October 3, 2020 by craftycreeky

It’s a while since I last checked how I was doing with my 2020 Vision, I’ve just looked back and it was May – doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun!! As we are now three quarters of the way through the year, I thought I’d better see how I was doing with the twenty things I wanted to make in 2020. I have to admit though, the way 2020 has panned out was certainly not in my vision, I’ve done a lot of what Anne Brookes would call ‘sewing for the soul’, stitching what I fancy rather than what I need…

Five Clothes;

  • Jeans: made and worn lots of times, though I don’t find the button fly as comfortable as a zip!
  • Trousers: made and worn a few times, these were from the Ultimate Trouser pattern, they’re a bit snug for my liking, I’ll try a different pattern next time.
  • Sheer blouse: made and waiting for a special occasion to wear it!!!
  • Tailored jacket: I’ve got the pattern and the fabric, just got to get organised.
  • Tailored coat: Ditto!! I’ve got a few days off next week so I might aim to do one of these.

Quilts;

  • Coming Home Quilt; Flimsy is finished, just need to send it to the long-armer
  • Cottage Garden Quilt; I’ve almost finished the top row of this one, I’m really enjoying making this one.
  • Baby Quilt; Completed and gifted earlier in the year.
  • Scrappy Quilt; My Staying home quilt is just waiting to be quilted. I’ve also started a true scrappy one from my scrap boxes, Pat Sloans Flower Garden QAL.
  • Charity Quilt; I’ve a quilt for care-leavers which just needs the quilting finishing, I just need to get it out of the bag and get it finished!

Projects:

  • Stitchbook Collective; All finished and made into a book.
  • Mum’s Memory book; I finished this just in time for my mum’s funeral, I’m really pleased with how it’s worked out.
  • Anthea Calendar SAL; I’m keeping up with this lovely stitch-a-long from Faby Reilly and I’m managing to do a wordplay for each one too though at times it’s been difficult to think of positive words to stitch!!
  • Workshop finishes; I finished my Harry the Hare and I’ve an update on the Bethlehem embroidery tomorrow!
  • Finery Of Nature; Completed.

Things!

  • Slippers;Finished and worn lots of times, even if the tops are the wrong way round!
  • Lampshade; No progress here, though I keep looking at the kits!
  • Jelly Roll Rug; ditto!
  • Wallet; This went on my back burner during lockdown as I wasn’t going anywhere to spend money, I really do need one now though!
  • Luna Lapin; Florence is made, she just needs some clothes.

I’ve just done a count up and I think eleven things are fully finished, four are well on their way with five none starters!! Not bad considering the year we’ve had and I’ve still three months to go….

Posted in 2020 Vision, Dressmaking, embroidery, Quilting, Serendipity, Sewing, The Stitchbook Collective, Workshops | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Florence makes an appearance…

Posted on October 2, 2020 by craftycreeky

Last year I made a ‘Luna Lapin’ for my great-nephew, well actually I made an Alfie, same rabbit, different clothes…

They’re from a gorgeous book by Sara Peel called ‘Making Luna Lapin’. Luna has a whole wardrobe of beautifully made clothes and now has a range of friends made in two other books, mice, cats, squirrels, deer… Sara has a lovely fabric shop in Kendal called Cool Crafting, as well as the website, she sells everything you need to make them or you can get a kit. I fell for the book when they had a shop in Skipton. I was planning to make my mum one for her birthday this year, but it wasn’t to be, so I’m making one for myself and calling her Florence after my grandmother.

I cut everything out before we went away for the weekend, they’re designed to be hand-stitched in felt, so it was the perfect project to take with me last weekend.

She went together pretty easily, I’d machine stitched the ears beforehand – they have some interfacing inside to help them stand up. All the other seams are blanket-stitched. The arms are stitched on with wooden buttons (saying ‘handmade’) so they are poseable to a degree. By the end of the week-end I just had the eyes and the mouth to stitch. The eyes are little black buttons, I embroidered some lashes too, to make her a bit girlie, the nose is embroidered in brown DMC thread.

Florence is a rabbit of standards, so she wouldn’t allow any photos until she had some knickers on! Luckily the book includes a pattern for lacy knickers. I found some pale pink lace I’ve had for years. I hand-stitched these completely as I decided machine stitching small seams in stretch lace was going to end in tears!!

I just need to make a dress and a coat now…oh and a tail!

Posted in Luna Lapin, Serendipity, Sewing | Tagged | 12 Comments

Stitching Away

Posted on October 1, 2020 by craftycreeky

Last weekend we finally had a few days away, staying in a cottage in a tiny hamlet in Northumberland. It was bliss, just to get away and relax, of course I took some sewing with me…

I took four hand-sewing projects with me – well I wouldn’t want to run out!! I worked on my Bethlehem embroidery, which I’ll show you on Sunday with the SAL post. I also took with me a cross-stitch I started a couple of weeks ago, this is my ‘in my handbag’ project. It’s a Dimensions kit, I think I bought it on a destash facebook page, it’s for Christmas without being too Christmassy. It’s like a mock patchwork design round ‘Believe’.

I started in the middle as usual, I nearly came a cropper when I was stitching the word backwards – never my strong point – I nearly missed the ‘L’ out!! Luckily I hadn’t got far into the ‘E’ when I realized my mistake, though I did have to fudge a bit as the ‘L’ is meant to be one stitch wider!

The threads come ready attached to a strip with all the numbers on, which is great, except I can’t re-attach leftover lengths to keep them safe. The obvious thing to do would be to make myself a thread card with a hole puncher, instead I’ve just been using the thread up on other sections of the design, hence the odd bits of colour all round!

It’s coming together nicely, I’m wondering about making a patchwork border round it to make it into a cushion, I’ll see how it looks when it’s finished.

Posted in Christmas, embroidery | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Wild Twinchies

Posted on September 24, 2020 by craftycreeky

Over the summer Sandra, who blogs at Wild Daffodil, started making twinchies. Twinchies are two inch squares of fabric which can then be embellished as you want. It’s surprising how much you can fit on a two inch square!

Sandra made a background by layering fabrics randomly on a calico background, before stitching lines over the pice to hold it all together. She then cut it up into 2″ squares and asked if anyone fancied stitching one or two. My hand went up straight away!

A couple of weeks later two twinchies arrived in the post, I put it in a safe place and there it sat until last weekend. I have to be honest and admit that was probably partly because when I first got them out the colours didn’t inspire me, I didn’t get any ideas jumping out…

At the weekend I was in the mood for ticking boxes, you know, the list of things you have to do with a time scale, so I got them out again and had another look. I got my trims drawer out too and started to get some ideas. I forgot to photo the first one before I started, but it was mainly the muted foliage pattern you can see behind. I found some looped trim which I got on my last trip to Hobbycraft (this is what happens when you have a £5 birthday voucher you have to spend!!) It made a rather nice flower and the colours worked perfectly. I drew a small circle with a silver gel pen just to give me a guide line, then stitched the loopy trim in a circle. I filled the centre with french knots and added a ric-rac stem. First twinchie complete!

The second one had three layers of fabrics, as the middle one was green and the bottom one had flowers on I decided it could be a landscape, here’s the twinchie before I started…

I added two scraps of lace from my trims drawer and started stitching. I decided to use fly-stitch – I remember Helen from Untangled Threads saying it was a great filler! I started with the green lace and some green and purple variegated thread. I did them varying heights and sizes, overlapped them and then repeated the exercise with the ecru lace at the bottom. I started off with a light beige and blue thread but it wasn’t so effective at first, I doubled my thread up and that helped…

I then decided to fill the green and purple strip with more fly-stitch, in one of my favourite blends which has dark purple, green and rust. I kept stitching until it was all nicely blended…

So here’s my two finished twinchies together, I’m pretty pleased with how they came out, so thanks Sandra for pushing me out of my comfort zone! They were fun to stitch and didn’t take long at all, seen as they’re only two inches square! They’re hopefully winging their way to Dorset at the moment.

Posted in embroidery | Tagged , | 10 Comments

Anthea Calendar SAL

Posted on September 22, 2020 by craftycreeky

Last weekend I managed to finish this month’s cross-stitch for the Anthea Calendar, this is the SAL by Faby Reilly with a seasonal flower design for each month.

September’s was a delight to stitch, the flower is the autumn crocus, or colchicum, otherwise known as Naked Ladies as they flower before the leaves come up. I haven’t got any in the garden, probably because my friend and I never manage to get to the autumn flower show in Harrogate and I can imagine there’s a few sold there.

Anyway, the design was stitched with I think about five shades of purple, ranging from a dark royal purple to almost white, they blended together beautifully. I stitched it on a soft purple linen from Permin, it works really well.

As usual the back-stitching and the embellishments make the design, this one has green and gold rice-stitch round the edge broken up with purple spider web stitches. A few tiny gold beads for stamens finishes the design.

I need to stitch the back-stitched edge round still which I will use to stitch the pages together. Having stitched round all the other pages last month I want to keep up with it. All I need to do then is the wordplay for September but I usually wait until a bit nearer the end of the month for that. Just three months to go…

Posted in embroidery, Stitch-a-long, Textile Books | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Foot Square Freestyle

Posted on September 21, 2020 by craftycreeky

I’ve just made my blocks for this month’s recipient for Foot Square Freestyle, which made me realise I haven’t shared last months blocks yet – we’re not allowed to share them until the following month to try and keep the element of surprise there for the lucky person whose month it is. By that time I’ve forgotten about them!!

Last month it was Kate’s month. Kate organises the whole swop and tries to keep us all in order. Kate’s chosen colours were pale to mid greys with a bright colour. I had several pale greys left from my coming home quilt and a few brights in my scrap box. It’s interesting choosing the blocks, most of mine come from a book called A Block a Day, so I’ve 365 to choose from, but certain colour schemes seem to work better with a more modern style block.

The first block is called Midsummer, illustrated in oranges and yellows. Mine looks completely different in pale grey and red, but I like the crispness of it.

The second block is called twist. It’s described as ‘simple to stitch with high impact’ I’d agree with that, the top stripe is more magenta than red. I think this is the second time I’ve stitched this block.

The final block is called Hole in the Corner, I feel it may have worked better with a little more contrast in the greys, but I still like it.

These blocks will be winging there way over to Australia once it is safe to do so. If you follow the link to the Foot Square Freestyle blog you can see all the other blocks made for Kate.

Just for comparison, these are the same two blocks made earlier in the year…

Posted in F2F, Quilt-a-long, Quilting | Tagged , | 5 Comments

The Cottage Garden Quilt

Posted on September 20, 2020 by craftycreeky

I’m really enjoying making this quilt, it’s from a book by Kathryn Whittingham who’s a local designer – pre-covid she ran quilting classes at Fabbadashery in Halifax. Last time I shared my progress I was embroidering some of the applique blocks…

Since then I’ve embroidered another two blocks and started making them up into their full quilt blocks, I’m really pleased with my fabric selection so far, all pretty pinks, greens and blues…

I stitched a tall red flower. The applique is all done with bondaweb, I tend to blanket-stitch round many of them, though Kathryn just does a neat back-stitch. Once the stitching was done I cut out 22 squares and made the borders.

I stitched a little garden hand fork, there is a trowel to go with it but that is further down the quilt…

I stitched the border round the little pink heart, it’s a simple log cabin block, I was originally going to do pinks on one half and greens on the other, but the traditional light and dark looked so much better..

I made four pinwheels, these actually go in a line on the final layout…

I think it’s going to be a very pretty quilt, this is the layout so far, though I may rearrange some of the pinwheels…

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, Tracy, Deb, Susan,  Nanette,  Edith, Sharon, Karrin, Gretchen, Daisy, Connie, Monica and Sherrie

I’ll also be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, please follow the links to see lots of hand-stitched inspiration.

Posted in Crafts, embroidery, Quilt-a-long, Quilting | Tagged , | 19 Comments