A couple of weeks ago I went on a workshop organised by a friend from WI. Rachel Poole was running the class and I’ve been to a few of her days and she’s an excellent tutor. This time we were making stained glass decorations.
I’ve done stained glass twice before, both with Rachel; the first time was a nativity set, we were amazed that we managed to get the whole nativity made in one day, including cutting all the glass, applying the lead and soldering it all together…
Last year we made Christmas decorations – holly, angels, trees etc, these were made by covering the edge of the glass with copper tape and then applying solder to the tape…
This time we were making a winter scene of trees and hills. Some of the trees were pre-cut just to save time, others we cut ourselves – it’s pretty scary cutting glass, you have to score it and then snap it – that’s the scary bit!! Once the shapes were cut we had to grind the edges both to smooth the outline and to ensure the copper tape had a surface it could stick to. You can see in the photo below that the clearer ‘cloud’ was still quite rough round the edge.
It took quite a long time to stick all the copper tape on. The aim was to have most of the copper tape applied by lunch. Then after our sandwiches we had the scary bit of dipping each piece in acid and then covering it in solder – those soldering irons are VERY hot!
Once everything was covered in solder we could arrange them and stick them together with blobs of solder, making sure each piece had enough soldered points to anchor it securely. I made twirly bits of wire to decorate the trees and make a star, all stuck on with a bit of solder. I must admit I got Rachel to solder the two rings on – that was just too close to the soldering iron!
I’m really pleased with my winter scene. It’s already hanging in the conservatory, I think it can stay up all year as although it’s wintery, it’s not too Christmassy.
By the end of last week I’d managed to catch up with both my cross-stitch stitch-a-longs, the patterns are both released fortnightly with just a few days in between…
First to be stitched is always the Zoe box SAL by Faby Reilly. This will be finished by Christmas and we have just two more sections to stitch before we start constructing the box. This time we were stitching the top of the box lid. It’s a gorgeous design of leaves and berries, flowers, cones etc. The cross-stitch was completed the week before, so it looked like this…
This week we added all the back-stitch, spidersweb stitches, woven roses, sequins, beads, all the extra embellishments that make Faby’s designs so special. It’s made a lovely wreath of leaves going through the seasons. I love it…
The next pattern has just been released, we’re stitching the inside of the box lid now, it’s so pretty but you’ll have to wait for that installment!
My Zen cross-stitch is actually called Enlightenment, it’s by Tempting Tangles, it’s a sampler of Quaker images with a Zen saying. This one is being released in strict square order, which I must admit isn’t my usual way of working, I do keep stitching extra bits when I can see what’s coming! Last time it looked like this…
This time we’ve finished the row, so we’re exactly half way through the sampler…
As you can see I have stitched a little bit below the line, mainly to help with counting for things like the letter t. There’s also meant to be the tops of other stitches completed, but it was like one or two stitches only for each letter, so I’ll stitch that when we get the pattern for the rest of the letters. I love the border, it’s stitched with a beautiful variegated thread.
The next pattern will be released on Friday, I think we’ll just reach the letter C on the row below. I think think this one is destined to become a cushion in our guest room – by chance the colours will go perfectly with my Coming Home quilt!
It’s 200 years since Anne Bronte was born, she was the youngest of the Bronte sisters and wrote two novels, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall before her untimely death aged 29. Until recently her literary work has been overshadowed by that of Charlotte and Emily, however The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is now seen as one of the first major feminist novels.
In the New Year there will be an exhibition in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, which is where Anne died. Each exhibitor was given an actual page from a vintage copy of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and had to produce a piece of work, of any medium, inspired by that page and the same size as the page!
I’ve just finished my piece!
I got page 215, it didn’t start off very inspiring as it was mainly about a disagreement in a drawing room. I was getting a little concerned as to what I could do! I finally read to the last paragraph on the page and found my inspiration…
I saw him pacing down the park, in the comfortless gloom of the damp, cloudy twilight
I sketched a basic picture of parkland with hills behind, my original plan was to frame the picture like a window, but that soon went out the window as too fiddly! I pulled out my batiks, thinking I could use them as a base, but before I made much of a plan I pulled out my box of textiles, looking for organza and the like to layer the design.
In the bottom of the box I saw some tweed and suddenly had a bit of a light bulb moment! The colours were perfect for the twilight scene I wanted to create and as Yorkshire was the centre of the woolen industry for many years it seemed apt to use it for this piece. Anne would have been very familiar with wool and tweed cloths.
I laid the tweeds in place and blanket-stitched them together, cutting away the excess behind. I trimmed it to size, I was a bit worried it might fray as I was working on it but it didn’t at all.
With the background in place I ‘just’ had to embroider it, it took me ages to pick threads and stitches. I started with the tree using a chenille thread. I found if I couched it it looked a bit like leaves, it gives quite a nice texture.
I embroidered the hills with overlapping feather stitch and a curving chain stitch. I was particularly pleased with the strip in the middle, I found some quite springy thread, a bit like a very fine ric-rac, in green/purple/grey, I positioned one length, letting it curve as it wanted, tacking it down with fly-stitch in a variegated DMC thread, once I’d secured that strip I folded the thread back over the strip and made a second row overlapping the first, and then a third row, going over one final time with a thicker fly stitch. I think it looks really effective.
Another area I’m please with is the grass of the parkland. I wanted to indicate a path, but I didn’t want a dominating line. I decided to have a mown path through the grass. I used straight stitches in three shades of green and various sizes to show the grass, getting lighter and smaller in the distance. I left the path plain. I used a variegated thread to do some french knots, the ones at the front have three wraps with two threads, they reduce down until the ones in the distance have just one thread and one wrap.
For the cloudy sky I used a circle of organza for the hazy moon and stitched two rows of feather stitch to show clouds.
One of the most difficult things with this kind of embroidery is knowing when to stop! I was thinking of adding beads and all sorts, but I decided it had enough with the embroidery.
My next job was to decide how to mount it. I found a muted quilting cotton which worked well as a background. My original thought was to embroider the words from the book, but I couldn’t reduce it enough to fit it in with the room available. In the end I embroidered the name of the book and added my page number to the top.
I blanket-stitched round both pieces and bondawebbed the embroidery to the backing. It was finished!
I’m really pleased with how it’s come out, I’ll put it in the post tomorrow and look forward to seeing the exhibition in the New Year.
The exhibition is going to be at Woodend in Scarborough in January, dates to be confirmed. Lindsey, the organiser, is also trying to publish a book of all the entries, the mock-up looks beautiful! She’s funding it with Kickstart, this is a bit like crowd-funding. She needs people to pledge to buy a book, or a print, or a couple of postcards in order to be able to go ahead. If anyone is interested please follow the link to the Kick-starter page.
We’ve had a couple of frosty mornings this week, lovely sunny days but pretty cold too. I love seeing the garden edged with frost, these are some little clumps of moss on the garden wall, I always think they look like mini hedgehogs!
I’ve been tidying up the garden and filling up the compost heap this week. All the hostas were long gone over so most of the dead foliage has been pulled off, I’ve cut back the iris leaves too as they were flopping and starting to brown. The pond area is only half done, so it’s still looking untidy…
The geraniums down by the arch over the patio went a bit mad this year, so I’ve been pulling up some of the roots as well as the foliage, trying to thin it a bit, I’ve still rather a lot to tidy here too! In some ways I would have been better just concentrating on one bed and getting it finished, but my OH wasn’t very happy getting wet legs from all the foliage over-hanging the path every time he walked the dogs!!
I’m really pleased with my autumn bed, it’s working out just as I hoped. The eunonymous alata is looking amazing, a fiery red colour. There’s a blueberry just peeping in the background too with lovely red leaves.
The acer is beautiful with lots of shades of orange and purply-red too…
Just behind these two there’s a purple erysimum flowering it’s socks off, together with a bright yellow rudbekia – not a bad display of colour considering it’s nearly November!
Once we get our hot composter our current compost heap will be dismantled, so I’ll have another bed to plant with autumn colour! There’s already a golden cotinnus and a photinia planted at that end. So far I’m wondering about an amelanchier, but any suggestions welcome
I realised over the last few weeks that I have somewhat of a gap in my smalls collection, I’ve lots of spring and summer ones, lots of Christmas ones, but no specific autumn ones, I’ve only just finished ‘October’…
Faby Reilly is one of my favourite cross-stitch designers and recently she released a little autumn freebie. I always think freebies are a perfect way of trying out a designers style, you can check out their instructions and style before committing lots of time to a larger project.
I’ve stitched several of Faby’s designs and this was a nice little quick one to stitch for autumn. It took a couple of evenings or so to do the stitching, it’s only about 2″ square, hence the photo is not quite in focus! It’s very pretty.
Last night I decided to make it up. I rummaged through my stash and found this batik with a leaf image on it, colourwise in matched perfectly. I pulled a few trims out of my drawers to play with and eventually settled on this gorgeous variegated ribbon trim – I bought it at Yarndale last month.
I added a row of fly stitch and hand stitched the trim on right next to the seam. It was then a simple job to machine stitch it to the backing fabric, turn it and stuff it. My original plan was to put some buttons on the brown batik, I even thought I’d found some perfect ones in my stash – slices of wood, but they were just a bit too big, mother of pearl ones were too bright – I decided it was best left plain in the end.
So come November 1st I’ll have an autumnal small to share!
I’ve been making lots of windows again – in fact I’ll be happy if I never have to stitch another window again! I’ve been working on my Coming Home quilt and I’ve just counted up and on this border alone I’ve made 73 windows and 21 doors, plus there’s the 36 windows already on earlier borders of the quilt!
I’m a bit behind on this quilt but I’m not stressing, especially as I’m not doing the final border. Last time I posted about it I think I’d just made the smaller houses…
Now I had to made 8″, 10″ and 12″ long houses, together with all their windows and doors! All the windows and doors are hand-appliqued, I stitched when visiting my mum, I stitched windows in the coffee room at work, I stitched windows in a cafe, I stitched windows at my Embroiderers Guild meeting…
Making the houses came with all the usual indecisiveness about which fabrics to choose, I’m pretty happy with how they’ve worked out, there’s only one I’d change with hindsight and that’s the willow leafy one, it really needs a darker roof but it’s staying as it is. I’m pretty pleased with my rows of houses.
My next job is to stitch them to the quilt. I’ve made four corner blocks which will have leaves and a bird appliqued on them next. I pieced the corners more than the pattern so I could have my background trees growing in the right direction.
This quilt is pretty big already so it’s getting increasingly difficult to photograph, with these borders on it’s about 70″ square.
The pattern (by Sarah Fielke) has quite a complex pieced deep border, I don’t really want it much bigger, I already have three king size quilts and only one king size bed! This one is earmarked for the guest room which will soon have a double bed in it. I still haven’t decided how to finish it, I feel it needs some kind of border, probably more than just a double strip of fabrics. There’ll be a narrow silver grey border to complete the curved edge of the cornerstones, but what then…I wondered about a row of mini houses, but I think that might be too bitty, I might just do a row flying geese, all colours, making like a zig-zag up the sides. Any suggestions gratefully received!
I’ve just finished another quilt for care-leavers. These will be given out at Christmas Dinners for Care-leavers, an organisation started by Lemn Sissay, (our poet laureate at the moment). Following on from his experience of many years in care, he started organising Christmas dinners for young people who are leaving care, they have not just the dinner, but hairdressers, beauticians, entertainment, trying to give them a positive memory of Christmas. Making quilts for them came from a comment he made once that at times, all he wanted was a hug. Maggie Lloyd-Jones heard this and decided to start making quilts, as wrapping yourself in a quilt is a bit like giving yourself a hug. It only started just over 12 months ago, but it has snowballed and hundreds are being made around the country. The young people choose their own quilt from the pile supplied.
I made this top in early summer, but it sat there waiting to be quilted. We have another sewing day for the quilts on Saturday so I thought I’d better crack on with it – eleventh hour as usual!
It’s a design by Pat Sloan called Oh My Stars, a freebie, Pat is very generous with her pattern designs. The backing is a colourful feather design which matches the front perfectly colourwise.
I wanted to keep the quilting fairly simple and therefore quick, so why I decided to quilt round each star I don’t know – 8 pointed stars are not quick to stitch round due to all the maneuvering of the quilt. It would have probably been easier if I did it with the free-motion foot, but I’m not sure how straight my lines would have been!
I decided to cross-hatch the rest of the quilt, adding extra lines round the stars whenever I reached one.I used a variegated blue and green thread – I think the area I tested it against was mainly those colours, I think if I did it again I would probably use white. Finally it was all quilted…
I just had to bind it. I pondered about doing a scrappy binding, but in the end I decided to use the feather fabric, it’s worked brilliantly as all the different colours almost make it look scrappy. I’m really pleased with the effect. I machine stitched the binding on, front and back – usually I hand-stitch the back down. I cut the binding slightly wider than my usual and stitched in the ditch from the front. Most of it worked out OK – I only had to redo a couple of areas where it had missed the binding. I still prefer hand-stitched binding, so this hasn’t converted me over.
I’m hoping to make one more quick quilt for the care-leavers this year, but if I don’t get it done in time it will go on next years pile. If anyone would like to join us then have a look on facebook for Quilts for Care-Leavers, if you’re not on facebook then leave a message below and I’ll put you in touch with one of the organisers.
I’ve just realised I didn’t do a Nineteen for 19 challenge update for September – only three weeks late! I’ve a lot of projects in progress at the moment, so not so many finishes, but still a lot done…
1 Scrap Quilt; still hopeful on this one, especially now my number of quilts on the go has reduced!
2 Tutorials; Still waiting on photos for one, but hopefully soon!
3 Sessions a week in the garden; I started my autumn tidy up in September, so whilst I might not have managed 3 sessions, I still did a fair bit.
4 Workshops; I went to another workshop with Deborah Mullins at Fabbadashery on Bethleham Embroidery last month, so I’ve another project added to my work in progress pile! This makes 3 workshops attended with another one in October.
5 Presents; This remained at three in September.
6 Quilts; It was definitely happy dance time when I finished my Splendid Sampler quilt, so with six-ish quilts made this challenge is complete!
7 New Patterns; I didn’t post about any dress-making in September, so this stays at 5. I think I’ll manage two more this year.
8 Kits; This is still only three, I really need to work at this one as my stash is getting bigger!
9 Mini Embroideries; I’ve still one to do this month, but my tally remains at 5, hopefully with my new stitchbook this is still achievable..
10 things; I made a purse this month – much needed as my old one was falling apart. I also made about a dozen theatre scrub caps! I work in Cardiac Catheter Labs and for some procedures we have to wear scrub caps. The disposable ones available are not very comfortable, so I’ve made some cotton ones out of fun fabrics and I’m selling them to raise money for the Soldiers Charity. I’ve raised about £100 so far and I’ve orders for several more! I’ll just count them as one make for the challenge, making my total nine – almost there!
11 Cross-stitch Smalls; No more finishes this month but I’ve already made 11 over the year.
12 Pages in my Book; This is a textile book of my mums craft things. Whilst I haven’t actually started yet I have got all the embroideries etc out and washed and pressed everything, I now have in my head a better idea of how I’m going to do it.
13 Clothes made; This remained at 8 in September, though I’ve made more since so still hopeful that this is achievable.
14 Drawers organised; I had a big sort out of my beads and buttons last month. I used to have the beads in those round, stackable plastic pots which I didn’t find entirely satisfactory. Ages ago I bought a box with thirty little individual pots in, it was much better. I treated myself to several more, including some of the bigger size posts. I spent an afternoon decanting my beads into these little pots. I find it so much better, I can take one pot out to use separately, like the one for my Zoe Box, I can easily organise them into colours and they are easier to see. The old containers have found a new use too, I’ve put my buttons in them, instead of being in a jumble in my button box they are now organised in their own pots. So with two more boxes sorted my tally is up to 11 – not that my sewing room looks any tidier for it!
15 minutes tidy up each day – must try harder is probably an appropriate phrase!
16 Books Read; I’ve just had a count up on my bookshelf and I’ve read 21 books so far – definately my most successful challenge!
17 Blogs a month; I posted a comfortable 19 posts last month.
18 Walks; In September my walking buddy and I walked another 20 miles of the Cleveland Way over two days, so we’ve now done 20 walks over the year.
19 Splendid Sampler Blocks; I smashed this one this month when I made 19 blocks in a matter of days! It gave me enough blocks to finish the quilt making it 7×7, so this year I’ve made 33 blocks for my Spendid Sampler quilt.
So pretty good progress really, I’ve a few longer term projects taking up my time at the moment such as quilts and cross-stitch, but I think I’ve five challenges already finished, eight definitely achievable and others still possible with three months to go!
I’m a bit late with this post as I’ve been trying to finish my October cross-stitch, I finished it at the weekend. It’s one of the set from Snowflower Diaries, they’re free on her facebook page. For some reason this one has felt hard work, I nearly packed it away for later a couple of times until I gave myself a stern talking to and buckled down to finish it. I think part of the problem was that I’ve a couple of really pretty autumn ones I want to make before it’s winter!
This also wasn’t my favourite design of the set. I made a couple of changes – the hedgehog and the snail shell for some reason were in DMC white, now I know hedgehogs are lightish, but they’re not white! I changed it to a light beige colour, though it now seems to blend in with the linen a bit. The flowers were a strange colour scheme but I left those as they were. I found some floral cotton for the background which picked out the pink and the gold of the flowers nicely.
I stitched some of the variegated ric-rac round the edge, I bought it at Yarndale – I love this stuff! This one is dusky pink, peach and brown. I added a bow and a button and it was finished.
With my October one finished I could finish my arrangement of cross-stitch smalls;
I made the pear a few years back, the gold bee was one I made for my mum many years ago, it matched a cushion I made her. The cat is from even further back, I probably stitched that in my 20’s, in was a UFO in my workbox until I turned it into a small last year.
I stitched the daisy last year, it hasn’t appeared in my monthly collections for a while as it went into hiding in my sewing room! It re-appeared over the weekend so here it is! The blackwork sheep was a practice piece for an Embroiderers Guild Group Challenge.
The bumble bee remains my favourite of all my smalls.
I’m not going to even try to stitch November and December in time as there’s others I want to do first, hopefully I’ll stitch them in time for next year!
It’s a while since I meandered round the garden on a Monday, mainly because the weather hasn’t been brilliant for photos – or gardening, if you’re a fair weather gardener like me. I took these photos at the weekend just before the light started to fall.
There’s still a fair bit of colour in the garden, and of course the autumn shades are starting to appear. There’s a few flowers around and the roses are trying to put their last few blooms out. There’s an awful lot of gardening to do at the moment but I’ve been putting it off a bit as I actually quite like seeing the garden in the gradual decay of autumn and winter.
I’ve a lovely clump of nerines in flower at the moment, they came from my mum’s nextdoor neighbour last year. I wasn’t sure they were going to flower as there was no sign of life all summer, then in a matter of a couple of weeks a few leaves appeared and the flower buds. It’s surprising how such a delicate looking flower survives the autumn weather.
I’m really pleased with my autumn bed. This is where the chickens used to be. Most of it was only planted this spring, there’s lots of colour and interest with both flowers and foliage.
It makes a nice continuation from the Amber & Amethyst garden below, though my day lilly in the foreground is clearly ready for a tidy up!!
The pots are still looking reasonable, the creamy hydrangea which has been beautiful since I bought it in June is just starting to go over, the fuchsia and the lamium pot next to it need re-positioning – they were pulled out when the little boy nextdoor was trying to retrieve a football.
In the spring I also moved an arch so the clematis montana I’d planted last year would have something to climb over. Whenever I walk the dogs I tuck another piece along thge arch, it’s covering it nicely. I’m hoping in time it will also creep either side of the fence.
I’m hoping to do a bit of tidying up this week, or at least make a start, most of the foliage can go in the compost bin. We’re thinking of buying a hot composter for each other for a joint Christmas present (I know, we buy each other such sexy presents, last year he got a pair of wellies amongst other things – well he needed a new pair 🙂 ) If anyone has any experience of hot composters I’d be interested to hear.
thecraftycreek 