This year I’m taking part in Foot Square Freestyle (F2F) which is a monthly block swop organised by Kate of Tall Tales from Chiconia. We make three blocks each month for someone in their chosen colour scheme with the idea that everyone will have enough blocks to make one or two quilts by the end of the year. It does push you out of your comfort zone colourwise sometimes.
In July we made blocks for Robin, her colours were blue and yellow, we could use any shade or tone of the colours. I rummaged in my stash found some nice cheerful bee fabric with pretty sunflowers on. I used that as my base and then added some more yellows, a paisley blue print and a couple more blue flowery ones. For someone who doesn’t particularly use yellow, I was surprised how much I had!
The patterns came from my Block-a-Day book, I have a love hate relationship with this book as it does have lots of different 12″ blocks (365 of them!) but I don’t like the instructions, so I make the ones I can work out without following the instructions! The big flower below is meant to be in red as a poppy, I thought it could look like a big sunflower in yellow – the block for the petals is basically a simple house block turned sideways.
I managed to fussy-cut two sunflower blocks for the last one, cutting four would have been very wasteful with the fabric, so the opposite blocks have honey and bees on them instead.
At the moment we’re holding on to our blocks until it’s safe to post them, then there will be lots of squishy parcels winging their way around the world. Do have a look at the F2F website, everyones colours and blocks are on there. This month we’re making them for Kate in pale greys and a bright colour, time for another stash rummage!
I finally finished my July wordplay to go with the Anthea Calender SAL this evening. The Anthea Calendar is a monthly stitch-a-long by Faby Reilly with a seasonal flower design for each month, I’m going to make mine into a textile book so I’m doing a wordplay to go on the facing page about what I’ve been doing or my memories of the month. I’m trying to keep it positive and covid-free, but it’s not always easy, especially this month, hence I dilly-dallied a bit, I think I needed to distance myself from the month a bit in order to remember the positives!!
July’s design is very pretty with bunches of lavender and butterflies, Lavender is one of those plants I’ve never had any success with in the garden, I always blamed my clay soil, but plants didn’t fare any better in pots, and our neighbours have a lovely lavender hedge! I think I’ll stick to embroidering it…
As soon as I saw the lavender design I knew what verse I would be embroidering. I used to sing Lavender’s blue dilly dilly as a lullaby to my kids when they were babies (and bigger!) I liked the gentle rhythmic tune.
My friend and I finally got some days walking together, we’re concentrating on local walks which we just haven’t quite got round to before, so Almscliffe crags and Thruscross reservoir provided good 6-7 mile walks.
Almscliffe Crags
July was also the month I finally got my haircut, I was lucky in having had it cut early just before lockdown started, so it was only four months and not six!
We used to have a woodpecker visiting our feeders a few years ago, he was very shy, staying on the side of the feeder away from the house. When we moved the feeders to nearer the house we didn’t see him again…until this year. My OH saw him a couple of times first, but I always just missed him. In July I finally saw him on the sunflower heart feeder.
The geraniums in the garden have been flowering their socks off, especially the big magenta one called Ann Folkard. It needs cutting back hard really as it’s getting a bit rampant- my chicken wire goose has all but disappeared!
In mid July we sadly lost my dear mother in law, Ann, very suddenly and unexpectedly really, though we could take solace from the fact that she was still able to live in her own home right up to the end. However to add to our grief soon after we had to make the awful decision that Rosie, our golden retriever, was struggling too much, whilst we didn’t take her to the vets til the beginning of August, the two events did cast a big black cloud over the end of the month.
So, here’s my wordplay for July. I added the butterfly and some of the extra stitches from the SAL to tie it all in. I’m pretty pleased with it, hopefully August won’t be quite so hard! It’s stitched on a soft grey green linen called French Lace.
My friend and I usually go away for a week in June or July to complete a long distance walk, we’ve done quite a few now, they’re usually around 80 to 100 miles so we aim for 12 to 12 miles a day. It usually takes quite a few practice walks in the spring to get our fitness back up again. This year we were meant to be walking the Lady Anne Way from Skipton to Penrith…it will have to wait for another year.
We were both shielding in the spring, but last month we finally managed to get out and do some walks – during the week we were meant to be walking Lady Anne’s Way. We needed a route a bit shorter and fairly local. We decided on Arncliffe Crags for the first trip out.
I can see Arncliffe Crags from my garden, a shapely little crag on the horizon, one of those that entices you to walk up it, but until last month we had never visited the crags! We parked at the village pub of North Rigton, from there it’s a fairly short pull up to the crags.
There’s a bit of a scramble to reach the top, but plenty of room for a coffee break with amazing views. I think in clear weather you would be able to see York Minster, especially if you knew where to look! Even with overcast weather it was lovely up there. I think this is looking over towards Otley – somewhere over there is our house!!
There were lots of names carved into the rocks up there, interestingly it was mainly from around the time of WW1, it struck me as the sort of place locals would go before they were called up.
The rock formations were interesting, similar to Brimham Rocks in Nidderdale, just a bit further north…
From the crags we walked around the aptly named Round Hill and Gravelly Hill, before finishing the walk via Weeton and then back to the Square and Compass pub in North Rigton for a very welcome cup of tea. On route we saw an amazing insect hotel, it was huge, made from a stack of wooden pallets with a whole array of things stuffed into the gaps, such as pinecones, twigs, bark, airbricks…
Altogether we walked around 7.5 miles that day and the following day we managed another walk…
Near Otley is the Washburn Valley, it’s a pretty valley which now has four reservoirs with lots of paths for walking round them. Swinsty and Fewston are very popular with families as the paths are easily passable with pushchairs. We’ve walked them several times, both as part of a long distance walk or just as a gentle walk.
Thruscross reservoir is the highest one, we’d skimmed the edge of it when we did our first long walk, the Six Dales walk, but we had never actually walked round it. We approached from below the dam from the lower reservoir that time, it was actually quite unnerving as they were obviously opening the sluice gates to fill Swinsty and the little babbling stream which connects the two was a raging torrent! The dam itself is huge and quite awe-inspiring, it makes you feel very small!
This time we parked at the top of the dam and walked around the reservoir, about 6 miles altogether.
We loved it, it is so different to the other reservoir walks, it’s a ‘proper’ walk, with lots of variety – a wooded bit, a moorland stretch, rivers and the reservoir itself. Unfortunately I have only one photo as I was travelling light with just my phone and it decided to die on me!!! There’s some interesting ruins around the reservoir – it was the last one to be built, from memory it was about 1965, whereas the others are from the 1800’s. We found a ruin right on the waters edge which we deduced to be a mill of some kind, a quick google when I got home confirmed it was a flax mill. There was a lovely old house in ruins too – as my father would say, ripe for renovation!!
We took our time walking round, noting the flowers and foliage around, listening to the buzzards mewing overhead. It’s definitely a walk to return to, we decided it would be great to walk there in the autumn, or even the winter with a crisp covering of frost…
For several years in July I went to the Tea and Tents unofficial WI camping festival, they were brilliant, 600 ladies from all over the country sharing skills, ideas and friendship. It was all done on a voluntary basis, everyone did their bit at either holding a workshop or activity or helping with the running of the camp. It was sadly a victim of it’s own success as it became too much like hard work for the organisers and the last one was a couple of years ago…
…until this year! It was decided that due to the current climate, we all needed a bit of cheering up, so a virtual Tea and Tents was held on zoom. Many ladies set up camp in their back garden – or their living room! There were talks and workshops on zoom throughout the weekend. It was lovely to see old friends again.
I booked onto a course held by Paula who I met several times over the years. She was demonstrating an embroidered pincushion. The design was by Corrine Lapierre, she kindly made the pincushion pattern and a needlecase available on the WI website, but kits are available on her website, she does have some very cute felt kits.
I rummaged in my stash and found some lavender and peach felt, I then just chose a selection of DMC threads to co-ordinate.
Paula talked us through some suggested embroidery stitches and the making of the pincushion. It’s just made with two strips of felt for the sides and three circles for the top and bottom. The instructions are actually really clear and easy to follow, it was just nice having the social side of a zoom stitch-a-long!
The workshop was just for an hour, which wasn’t long enough to complete the pincushion, but by that evening it was finished. I used lazy-daisy, french knots, pistil, fly stitch and some straight stitch vaiations.
I stuffed it with a little bag of crushed cockle shells at the base – otherwise known here as pigeon grit – cheap and easily obtained at a petshop! It’s not too coarse but gives a bit of weight to the pincushion to help it stay stood up.
It was a lovely relaxing afternoon stitching with virtual friends, with a very cute pincushion made a long the way, felt is so forgiving for embroidery, it was a perfect project for an afternoon with friends.
I’m having a bit of a break from my vintage quilt, I’m just not feeling it at the moment – we’re having a bit of a rubbish time at home at the moment and I just need projects I can stitch and enjoy without too much concentration – there were too many important decisions with that one!!
Instead I’ve started a new quilt, it’s one I’ve been planning for a while – I bought some fabric for it at the Knitting and Stitching show last year but I wanted to get a few other quilts finished before I started this one.
The quilt is called the Cottage Garden Quilt. It’s in a book of the same name by Katherine Whittington. Kathryn does the quilting classes at Fabbadashery in Halifax, as soon as I saw the photos of the quilt on facebook I ordered the book. It’s gorgeous. It has lots of hand-embroidered panels of garden scenes. The instructions are for hand-piecing, sorry but mine will be hand-embroidered but machine pieced. I still haven’t decided on the quilting yet – that’s a long way off!
I decided to do the chicken panel first, it’s very cute! I used bondaweb to attach the applique shapes and I’ve now started blanket-stitching around them. I then need to add beak and legs and some flowers and grass for them to stand on.
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.
In the last few days I’ve finished my Spring Orchard needlepoint. this was a kit by Derwentwater Designs which I bought on impulse (not like me at all!!) in Grassington. Last time I showed you it I had just done battle with all the french knots – lots and lots of them…
I still had a few more french knots to go on the border, but they didn’t take long. The border is a pretty cherry blossom design, with a double satin stitch row on the outer edge, it really finishes off the embroidery.
I really enjoyed stitching this one, I love the effect from all the different stitches, especially for the wall and the way the gate stands forward. It reminds me of the walks we’ve done in springtime when the blossom trees have all been in flower. The pattern was clear and easy to follow, my only criticism would be the amount of thread I had left- it’s easy to think Ooh, how generous, but when all’s said and done, we’re paying for it.
I clearly need to do some blocking to straighten it up as it is slightly parallelogram shape, though it’s not bad considering it was stitched without a frame. I’m thinking of trying to do this on my wool pressing mat as it is thick enough to pin it to. The finished stitching is actually only about 11cm square, so I’m just trying to decide how to finish it.
It’s three weeks since I posted about my Bethlehem embroidery, this is the one I started at a workshop by Deborah Mullins last autumn. The design is inspired by Palestinian embroidery, particularly the style found traditionally in Bethlehem. Three weeks ago I was couching round the spiral copper wires…
I’ve not done much this time but progress is progress! I’ve finished the couching, I managed to unpick the bit at the beginning where I was couching in and out of the spiral – it’s not that easy to unpick on the heavy felt backing as the threads bed themselves in!
I’m still a bit undecided about how to fill in the gaps, but I decided to stitch the outer chevron ring first, so I can plan the fillers as a whole. I’m using two threads of perle at a time, just alternating the colours, I think it’s going to take a while!
This SAL is organised by Avis, we post our progress on our hand-stitching every three weeks, please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.
It’s been three months since I last wrote a book post. It may seem odd but I actually did less reading during lockdown than I did usually. Somehow I lost my usual reading slots – I used to read on the bus on the way to visit my mum, which was an hour each way, I would read on the train on the way to work. It took me a while to find new slots for my reading. When I did start again it was a very eclectic mix…
Fingers in the Sparkle Jar by Chris Packham; I’d be interested to hear from anyone else who’s read this book. Chris is a TV presenter for The Really Wild Show, I have to confess I’ve never watched it so I have no preconception of what he is like as an adult. This is a memoir of his childhood. It is beautifully written, as one of the reviews says ‘Bold, beautiful, raw and lyrical’, as well as writing from his own perspective he also includes chapters seeing him from others views, such as the ice-cream man who he used to try and buy ice-creams from with his ladybird captured in a matchbox. He does come over as quite a strange boy, it’s also interspersed with sessions from his therapist as a young man. It’s quite a captivating read, his descriptions of nature and life generally are wonderful.
The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena; My daughter passed a couple of books on to me to read, this was the first one. It’s a thriller about a baby who goes missing, lots of twists and turns in the plot, I read it in one sitting as I couldn’t put it down.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris; This was another book my daughter passed on. To be honest it’s not the sort of book I would usually read – I don’t ‘do’ war stuff, my OH loves watching war films and reading about it, I find the complete waste and disregard for human life too disturbing and upsetting. I know it went on, I’d just rather not read about it. As my daughter had passed it to me, I thought I ought to read it…it’s a brilliant book, it’s based on the true story of Lale Sokolov, he arrived in Auschvitz in 1942 and was given the job of tattooing fellow prisoners as they arrived. He fell in love with a girl he was tattooing and set about ensuring that both he and Gita survived. Although horrific acts are described, it is somehow an uplifting and positive tale. Enjoy is the wrong word, but I strongly recommend reading it.
Immunity The Science of Staying Well by Dr Jenna Macciochi; This was only published at the beginning of the year. It was recommended to me by a friend with rheumatoid arthritis. As I seem to be collecting auto-immune diseases, I bought it immediately. Dr Macciochi is an immunologist, she explains in detail all the different aspects of the immune system, how it works, what affects it, how to strengthen it without boosting it. It is written for the layman, but she does use a lot of medical terminology, explaining it as she goes along. It’s not an easy read – I’m a nurse and I had to concentrate, but if you or a family member have an auto-immune condition, it’s worth it. I’ve already made one change, it might be coincidence, but I feel 100% better – I stopped using ibuprofen as my go-to analgesic. I didn’t take it regularly, but if I had a headache, or general aches and pains or unwell, it was ibuprofen rather than paracetamol that I reached for. Dr Macciochi explained that such drugs wipe out the good inflammation as well as the bad, a bit like antibiotics leading to thrush. I’d had about 9 months of blocked nose and sneezing, it stopped within a couple of weeks of not taking ibuprofen!! There’s no quick fix for immunity, it’s lifestyle, diet, exercise, but it helps to have some knowledge on how to help yourself and which quack treatments to avoid!
Something a bit different you may be interested in joining in; The Yorkshire Festival of Story. This is on throughout August. I’ve not heard about it before but I presume it’s on line because of the current situation. There’s over 80 one hour talks and readings on a wide variety of subjects, and it’s free, though they not unreasonably ask for a donation. I’m booked on to three so far;
The Yorkshire Shepherdess – I’ve heard her talk before at a WI event and she was brilliant. She was born in a mill town near Leeds, her mum wanted her to work at M&S, but she set her heart on being a shepherdess. With no previous experience of farm life, she set about learning the trade. She’s ended up farming right at the top of Swaledale, married with nine children. Very entertaining. This embroidery is of the lower, gentler end of Swaledale – she is at the bleak top of the dale!
A Single Thread; Tracy Chevallier is reading from her new novel based around the people who embroidered the kneelers at a cathedral. I’ve got this book on order, so looking forward to this one.
Our Oldest Allies- Stories of Trees; this is also Tracy Chevalier, together with someone else, talking about amazing trees around the world.
There’s all sorts of talks and stories, follow the link above to see the programme.
Every project I’m stitching at the moment seems to involve french knots, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy stitching french knots, but there are limits!!!
I’ve just finished July for the Anthea Calendar SAL by Faby Reilly. It’s beautiful, it’s got two bunches of lavender…with lots of french knots!
It’s based on Faby’s lavender design which I’ve stitched before – I made the scissor tag, card and lavender bag for my mum a few years ago, so I did know what to expect.
Faby Reilly Design
Faby Reilly Design
I enjoyed stitching this block – it was one of those satisfying ones where you could stitch the whole of one colour before moving on to the next. I love all the different stitches Faby uses – even the 200 plus french knots!
All I’ve got to do now is the monthly word play, but I haven’t even started thinking about that one yet.
The other knotty project is the cherry tree orchard in needlepoint. It’s a kit from Derwentwater Designs. Last time I showed you this project was at the beginning of July, I’d just finished the needlepoint in the centre and I was just starting the french knots…
By this point I was getting a bit fed up of french knots, so I drifted onto the border for a while before having a strong word with myself yesterday to just get on with them. I think I struggled because it wasn’t that easy to follow the chart to see where they were meant to go, especially once you started sewing a few. I realised I just had the mid pink ones left to do, so I ignored the chart and just filled the gaps in, much easier!
The border has some pretty cherry blossom flowers, it reminded me of a tapestry I did of sheep many years ago, it had a big paisley border with some strange colour combinations. I hated it until I started putting the background in and it all suddenly came together and I loved it. This border doesn’t look much until you get the soft green background with it. There’s a few more french knots to do on the flowers and a couple of stems too.
I love the way the designer has managed to get perspective into the embroidery, the gate really stands out in front of the trees.It’s only small is this design, about 11cm square altogether – there’s another two narrow satin stitch borders yet. Hopefully it won’t take me too long, then I just have to decide what to do with it.
I first heard about #sewing4thesoul a couple of weeks or so ago, I’m rather late to the party but it’s just what I need at the moment, a bit of relaxed stitching for the enjoyment of stitching. It sounds similar to the Stitchbook Collective, but concentrating on the actual stitching, rather than trying different products and techniques. I hesitated at first as I was several months behind on the Stitchbook Collective, however I made a concerted effort over the last few weeks to catch up, so I feel able to start this one now.
#sewing4thesoul is a stitch-a-long organised by Anne Brooke, she’s the designer of Harold the Hare, she does some lovely embroidery kits too. She lives over the hill (well, a few hills!!) in Brighouse, not that far away. I think she started a stitching for the soul project at the beginning of the year, it was like a stitched roll. It was meant to last all year but when the lockdown happened, it was finished a lot quicker. She then started a textile book.
Harry the Hare
She’s released lovely, gentle, chatty videos on YouTube of the different pages she is stitching, I still haven’t worked out how often they’re being released, possibly weekly. Anne is stitching hers on a book made from batting. I can see it would make a lovely tactile book but I wasn’t sure about stitching straight into a book that’s already made – it sounds like it could be awkward as it fills up. I’m stitching mine using the pages from Untangled Threads – calico pages I can bind together later with beads.
I’ve just completed the first two pages…
Last year the Cone Exchange from Harrogate, which is a fantastic textile community recycling project, came to talk to us at Skipton Embroiderers Guild. He had a little stall too, I bought a fabric sample book – one of those with a range of furnishing fabrics in. It cost me all of £3! It’s beautiful, it has embroidered flowers, monograms, linen, expensive fabric! I decided to use this as the base for my stitch book. Anne suggested we chose one colour to go right through the book, not necessarily as the dominant colour, more of a continuing thread, so on each page there will be at least one thing of that colour, it could be some stitching, or a button, a piece of ribbon…I looked at the colours in the sample book and decided on a sort of ecru / taupe.
For the first pair of pages we had to create something with circles and squares, using just straight stitch. She talked through how she had developed her two pieces, giving us ideas on how to start. Straight stitch could include anything from running stitch, cross-stitch to seeding or stars.
I chose a few fabrics from my book, the first colourway was a soft red and a neutral ecru sort of shade. I cut some squares, the edges frayed nicely. The middle square is a checked linen and the top one is a lovely loose weave striped linen. One stripe is quite coarse, the other is gauze like. I cut the circle out of one of the fabrics with the monogram on.
I started off stitching everything down with a basic running stitch, I then carried on with running stitch around the circle and along the strips. The curly piece of thread is couched on with a cross-stitch. I’m pretty pleased with how this one’s turned out.
The second piece was to involve a circle cut out of fabric, so based around a hole. I found this one a bit harder to get started on, I think I found it harder to choose which fabrics would work. I cut the circle out of the checked linen again and laid the gauze striped linen behind, lining up the stripe with the check. I then had a rummage in my textile box and found a small piece of harris tweed which worked colourwise and it fits in with the other natural fibres. I cut part of a circle, so it would echo round the main circle.
I then played around with threads, lace and scraps until I was happy-ish. The frayed strip is a scrap off the gauze striped fabric – it frays beautifully!
The curly thread helps to link the design to the first one, it’s stitched on with long and short stitch. I did some seeding at the top, tied cross-stitches along the red line, running stitches to continue the lines across the circle and the stars at the bottom are a nod o the comet flying over us at the moment – not that I’ve managed tosee it yet – it’s always cloudy when I look out! The lace is an old piece I’ve had in my stash for years. I stitched the piece onto the page using a slanted stitch which follows the line of the tweed. I like this one but I’m still not so sure it doesn’t need something else to make it pop. It will have to stay pop-free as it’s stitched in now!
I do like it with the light behind it though…
I’ll be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, please follow the link to see lots more hand-stitching.
thecraftycreek 