I’m a member of the Minerva Crafts Boggers Network, so every few weeks I get the chance to try out some fabric in exchange for a post which will hopefully inspire some of their customers. My latest make is now live on their website!
A few weeks ago I chose some navy blue viscose, it was described as having a beautiful drape, it looked perfect for a pattern I’ve had for a couple of years, Megan Nielson’s Tanya cullottes. These cullottes hang like a skirt, they are so full. As a result they do take quite a lot of fabric, so this was the perfect opportunity to try the pattern.
They went together beautifully and I love them! They are so comfortable but smart, I love the way the viscose twirls too! I’ve worn the quite a few times. The only thing I need to change is the zip, the pattern calls for a 9″ zip, I had a standard 7″ skirt zip inmy stash, that’ll be long enough, I thought…it wasn’t! After too many wiggles over my bottom it needs changing to a 9″!
To read more about making this skirt, follow the link to my write up on Minerva Crafts.
This month is flying by, I thought if I don’t hurry up with my update, I’ll be writing Nineteen for 19 on the 19th!
So we are now half way through the year, so how am I doing with my challenges? Well, some remain a non-starter, others are finished, so a mixture. I was on holiday or away with work for nearly 10 days too, which did curtail my finishes if not my sewing!..
1 Scrap Quilt; I’ve got all my scraps sorted, just need a few more hours in the day!
2 Tutorials; I have two written, I just need to sort out some photos, so not quite done but on it’s way!
3 Sessions a week in the garden; I’ve been spending several days a week in the garden, trying to keep on top of things and getting it straight for our open garden at the end of the month.
4 Workshops; I went on one at the end of May to make a Harold the Hare, I’m hoping to finish it soon, in the meantime I’ve another embroidery class in a couple of weeks time.
5 presents; Nothing further on this one but I have plans for after the open garden, so still three.
6 Quilts; I’ve made four so far this year with another two fairly close to finishing!
7 New Patterns; I made some Tania cullotes a few weeks ago for Minerva, they’ve just gone live on their blog so I’ll share them with you tomorrow. I’m counting them now so it’s 2 new patterns in total.
8 Kits; I’ve just finished a little kit, so I’ll be sharing it with you shortly, but June’s tally remains at two
9 Mini Embroideries; I stitched a stained glass window with machine embroidery for the Travelling Sketchbook with my Embroiderers Guild, it worked out really well, so my tally is now 3.
10 Things; Still just made three but lots of things in the pipeline!
11 Cross-stitch Smalls; in June I stitched another bumble bee, this time it was for me, though I’ve now got two people asking for one! My bumble bee this month pushes my tally to eleven, so challenge completed!
12 pages on my book; just waiting for the right moment to start this one!
13 Clothes Made; I need to get cracking with this one as my wardrobe is getting decidedly tired! With the cullottes I’ll share tomorrow my tally is three.
14 Drawers organised; This remains at 8, so over half way, I need to sort my trimmings next I think as they are all just bundled into a drawer, I’m thinking of wrapping them round cards, but any suggestions welcome!
15 Minutes Tidy Up at the end of a Sewing Session; I’m getting better at this and it does help…though my sewing room still needs a good blitz!
16 Books; This is going well, I read another Robert McFarlane book called Landmarks and also a Jodi Picoult book called Sing You Home, it isn’t in the pile as I’ve lent it to a friend. So I think my total is twelve books; I’m rather enjoying stacking them all in our spare room, a pile I’ve read and a pile waiting to read!
17 blogs a Month; I only managed 15 blogs last month due to being away so much.
18 Walks; Last month we walked 80 miles of the Cleveland Way over 9 days, so that doubles my tally to 18 walks! We’ve another three walks planned too!
19 Splendid Sampler Blocks; this one is on the back burner at the moment whilst I catch up on other things, I’ve made 14 so far this year.
So I’m making fair progress with my challenges, some finished or almost there, others not even started yet. Hopefully I’ll have a few more finishes in July, I’m in the mood to tidy a few loose ends up!
I’ve been pretty busy this week in the garden, trying to get it tidy for our open garden weekend at the end of the month. We’re trying to raise money for the Soldiers Charity (Army Benevolent Fund), we’re not part of a big group or the Yellow Book scheme (open gardens around the country) we’re just inviting family friends, colleagues, neighbours, anyone who knows us really.
I’m adding a quilt and needlework display to broaden the appeal! I’m hoping it’s sunny and dry so I can hang the quilts on fences around the garden.
I’m tackling one bed at a time, trying to bottom it, weeding, dead heading, adding plants where needed. I started with the autumn bed, which is where the chickens used to be. It’s great soil but as with all freshly dug areas the weeds are coming up by the dozen!It’s filling up quite nicely, it will be interesting to see what it’s like in the autumn as I’ve planted shrubs for their autumn colour.
I’m really pleased with how the Amber & Amethyst garden is looking, considering at the beginning of last year it was a building site! Well, maybe not a building site but the area was pretty much emptied and redesigned. My favourite rose, Lady Emma Hamilton is looking beautiful, I love the coppery-pink colour and it smells wonderful. The purple veronicas are all in flower now and you can just make out an orange alstromeria in the background. I’ve given it a good weed, cleared some foxgloves as they were getting out of hand, I’ve moved the goose to fill the space left when the poppies died back. These wire sculptures are quite useful to slot into gaps, I made them at workshops a few years ago, I’ve a heron, a chicken, a duck and the goose.
Most of the roses are looking beautiful, I say most as Teasing Georgia which goes over the arch is looking very sorry for itself. I think it has blackspot so I need to prune all the affected bits, which is most of it! It’s a fairly old rose, I probably planted it over 15 years ago and it’s gradually declining. I might give it a hard prune this winter, a good feed in the spring and see what happens. You can just see it a couple of photos down next to the bird feeders.
The roses on the top bed are looking great. The creamy white one is called Champagne Moments. I planted them when we got married, it’s not got the strongest perfume but it flowers it’s socks off all summer. The beautiful yellow one is called Buttercup, for obvious reasons! It’s a very simple cupped rose, I love the uncluttered shape of it.
The bird feeders have been taken over by a clematis! There used to be a wooden obelisk here but it finally rotted a couple of years ago and I haven’t got round to making another one yet. It’s mingling beautifully around the bed instead, clambering over roses, geraniums as well as bird feeders. I treated myself to a new hanging bird table last week. I think it’s really pretty and it wasn’t at all expensive, we’re just waiting for the birds to realise there’s food in there! We were delighted at the weekend to see a flock of long tailed tits, I counted about a dozen on the feeders. They’re really pretty birds and one of the smallest we see in the garden. Because they are so small they can be hit hard in bad winters, we’ve hardly seen any for a couple of years, so it was great to find their numbers are back up again.
I had a good sort out of my pots too. This area had the worst soil of the garden, solid silver clay, so I levelled it, covered it in membrane and pebbles and put lots of different pots on it. That was quite a few years ago and it’s been brilliant. I plant up bulbs, shrubs, perennials, I also use it to grow on small plants until I feel they’ll have a chance in my heavy clay soil. The silver leafed seneccio at the front was one such purchase, it was only a £1 at the local nursery, I’ll fatten it up before I plant it out in a couple of years time. I also find that it’s made it’s own little microculture, even in dry conditions I don’t have to water too regularly.
Below is the view from just by the conservatory door, now everything has filled out the two stone walls which dominate over winter have completely disappeared, so it looks like a 10′ high wall of plants. It’s what I envisaged when I first started planning this garden, but it’s taken abut 10 years to get there!
I’m beginning to feel I’ll be about ready for the garden opening, even though I haven’t beaten the weeds like I hoped, at the moment I’m just making it look pretty! I had a good look round too and there’s lots of plants in bud which will hopefully be open by the end of the month, echinacea, crocosmia, day lillies…
…and I can always move a chicken wire sculpture to hide something!
It’s three weeks since I last shared my Down the Rabbit Hole quilt with you, this is a Sarah Fielke quilt which I am now hand quilting, it’s taking a lot longer than I anticipated, but it is a very big quilt – 96″ square. I think I can finally see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel!
Three weeks ago I was still quilting the rope border, I was just over half way round…
I spent a couple of evenings concentrating on my quilt and finally it was time for a mini happy dance, another border finished!
I’ve now just started the last two borders, yes, you read it right, LAST TWO!!! Though one is a pretty big border!
After much deliberation I’ve decided to quilt in the ditch round the rabbits and maybe the heart. I’ve started cross-hatching the background. My original thought was to follow the lines of the rope border, which would make it more of a diamond shape, however it looked like it would get messy at the corners, so I decided to use the squares of the outer border. I think it’s working out OK. I might decide to stitch another row to make the cross-hatching smaller, we shall see.
I’m leaving the vines and flowers unquilted, but when the cross-hatching goes behind I’m sort of quilting it without coming through the top layer, so on the back it will just look like cross-hatching without any gaps and I am hopefully just catching the background with the quilting. The straight lines on the photo are the machine basting, which I’m gradually taking out as I go along.
I’m struggling a bit with marking the lines at the moment, I tried a pencil, I couldn’t see it, I tried a hera marker, which was partially successful, I might try it again on a harder surface, if not I’ll try a chalk pencil. What is more frustrating is that I know I have some quarter inch masking tape somewhere…but can I find it!!
Whilst I’m quilting the big rabbit border, I’m also quilting the final diamond border, I’m just going along the centre of the light diamonds with a little one in between. There’s not a lot of stitching on this last border, so if I stitch it as I’m going a long the rabbit border, I’ll have finished when I reach the other end!
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 a bit late this month swapping my smalls over for the new month, but I’ve just chosen half a dozen cross-stitch smalls to decorate our sideboard for the rest of the month…
In the garden at the moment we have lots of self-seeded forget-me-knots flowering, they’re mingling in everywhere, in the beds, in cracks in the patios and on the edges of the path, so I had to include this one. I think I embroidered it back in the 1980’s, but never did anything with it until last year, when it was turned into a small…
Another one stitched at the same time was of clover. We saw lots of clover during our recent walk along the Cleveland Way,which brought back many memories of walking home from junior school through a clover field and picking them for the nectar! These days you don’t see half as much clover as we used to.
Of course the bumble bee I finished recently had to be included, I now have two people wanting me to make them one! It is gorgeous and it’s still my favourite for the time being!
As the garden is full of bees of all shapes and sizes at the moment, I decided to continue with the theme…
I recently finished a cross-stitch of a pot of lavender and some bees…
Several years ago I stitch a lovely bee pincushion by Natalie of Jardin Privee…
Of course July wouldn’t be complete with out the appropriate month from Snowflower Diaries…
All together it makes a very pretty, summery display..
As well as taking my Zoe box to stitch on holiday, I also took my Coming Home quilt, well part of it! This is a BOM by Sarah Fielke and I’d got a bit behind with it as there was quite a lot of piecing and applique to do. I shared it with you just before I went on holiday, I ‘just’ had the applique to do…
I started with the suns and then moved onto appliqueing the clouds and birds, I was finding the birds a little fiddly when I realised from a comment on facebook that I’d got a bit muddled with the templates, I thought they included the seam allowance, but they didn’t. As I was away from home and all set up to sew, I decided to carry on regardless, my birds are just a bit smaller than most peoples!
The stars were pretty fiddly too, some points are better than others. The fabric I’ve used for the stars has little dots on and it does actually gently glow in the dark!! I was hoping to use this fabric for the background of the border before, but it was the wrong shade of green to have on mass. I love it for the stars though! It’s not easy to photograph but here goes…
The kites are meant to have appliqued bows on their streamers, but they were just too tiny, I decided to embroider them with some variegated DMC thread. I was a bit concerned that it may look funny to have just one bit of embroidery, but the tail is meant to be embroidered anyway and now it’s stitched I really like them.
I’ve just a couple more doors and windows to do (haven’t quite decided how many yet!) and then just the moon and a couple of stars for the other two corner blocks. I can then stitch this border to the main quilt…
…and start this months sewing – trees for the next border.
It’s the first Tuesday of the month which traditionally is the day to share photos of windows for Wild Daffodil’s photo challenge, though officially it lasts all month.
Whilst I was walking 80 miles of the Cleveland Way last month I kept my eye open for possible subjects…
The walk starts in the market town of Helmsley, we had plenty of time on the first day so we did a bit of a detour to Rievaulx Abbey, one of the many abbey’s left a shell in 1538 by Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. The building of Rievaulx started in 1130, it always astounds me to see these beautiful buildings, still standing, which were built totally by hand, left to rack and ruin for 400 years and they still look beautiful. Just imagine how it would look with all the stained glass in…
A week later and we were walking through the pretty coastal village of Staithes, like most of the villages along the Yorkshire coast, it’s a complete hotch-potch of cottages, all jumbled together, for centuries it was a fishing village, perched on the steep sides of a ravine. Just recently it has managed to revitalise itsself with an active arts and crafts scene. If ever you are passing through I can recommend Dotty’s Teashop with it’s fine china cups and vintage feel. I’ve always yearned for a house with an arched window, and here there are three…
The following day we had lunch at Sandsend, another pretty coastal village. Just down on the front there’s a lovely row of interesting cottages…
…I love the windows on the middle cottage with the fancy bits on the top. Nextdoor is a thatched cottage, there aren’t that many thatched cottages around in Yorkshire, though we saw two that day.
If you would like to see lots more interesting and varied windows, follow the link to Wild Daffodil to see what everyone else is sharing.
It’s a few weeks since I last shared my Zoe box with you, it’s a stitch-a-long by Faby Reilly and I got a little bit behind, so it was one of the projects I took on holiday with me when I went on the Cleveland Way. The patterns are released every two weeks, at the moment we are working on the side of the box.
This time I’ve been working on the ‘summer’ side. Whilst I was away I managed to more or less complete the cross-stitch part, I say more or less as I forgot one of the floss colours! Anyway, shortly after my return it looked like this…
I must admit at this point I thought it was another bird in the top corner, however last Monday the next pattern was released with all the top-stitching and extra stitches and decorative embellishments.
It’s a butterfly!
I love all the extra stitches that Faby uses in her designs, here I’ve stitched french knots, spiders web stitch, rice stitch and Algerian eyelet stitch, embellished with sequins and beads.
We’ve completed three sides so far, so the project so far looks like this…
I haven’t had much chance over the last couple of weeks to get into the garden to work, what with holidays, conferences, workshops and visitors. Today I made a start, it was a bit blustery and overcast this morning, here in UK we haven’t had the sweltering heat that’s hit most of Europe, thank goodness, just the occasional sunny and hot day.
The roses are all starting to bloom, though they have been somewhat battered by the wind and rain. The most eagerly awaited one this year was my Claire Austin standard rose, it was only planted in the autumn and I have a handful of beautiful creamy-white roses.
My favourite rose in the garden, Lady Emma Hamilton, is also making a good display, it’s evened out the balance a bit in the Amber & Amethyst garden…
A couple of weeks ago it was looking very pinky-purple. A dark blue veronica is in flower, together with lots of self-seeded purple poppies and foxgloves. The bright purple flower at the front is a perennial cornflower, it does tend to spread somewhat so I try and keep it under control-ish! The seed heads of the honesty are a lovely deep shade of purple-grey.
The purple poppies are all self-seeded, they’re so pretty and delicate and all shades of purple from almost white to a rich mid purple. They’re quite tall (about 24″) and statuesque. They’re popping up all over the place, though I think I did help the seeds to spread last year as I really like them.
I had a good weed in the autumn bed today, I got three trugs full from this area and there’s still a few to pull, mainly nettles as I didn’t have the right gloves on. In some ways I find the annual weeds easier to pull once they’ve got to a decent size, they’re easier to identify for one thing!
The foxtail lillies are looking stunning as the flowers gradually open up the stem.
On the back fence the rosa rugosa hedge on the left is looking really good this year. This is the first year without being within a hen run and boy can you see the diffence. It’s only just starting to flower but it’s so bushy!! Under the bushes is also looking pretty with geraniums, astrantias and alchemilla mollis. The clematis montana I trained up the arch just this spring is taking off nicely.
The wide bed infront of the big fence is filling up nicely, I’ve mainly planted shrubs but there’s a few perennials to add some extra colour, astrantias again and the roses are starting to flower, you can just see a purple clematis which has lost it’s obelisk so it is happily meandering through the shrubs!.
I think it’s a little while since I took an overhead photo of the garden, so this is what it looks like this evening…
It’s less than four weeks to our open garden weekend, so I better pull my finger out!
It’s three weeks since I last showed you my Finery of Nature cross-stitch, considering I’ve been away for most of two weeks, I thinks I’ve done pretty well! Three weeks ago I’d just started the nest on the second quarter…
Three weeks later and the nest is almost finished, just a bit more on the right hand side but I kept losing my place so I decided to do the dragon fly. There’s still a lot of back-stitch to do on the nest but I’ll wait until the dragon fly is finished.
The half cross-stitch works pretty well for the soft inside of the nest. The eggs were meant to be stitched with three strands instead of two, but I decided that was because it’s meant to be stitched on black aida, which would take a lot more covering.
I love the colours of the dragonfly, one wing to go. He’s meant to have great big legs too, but they look too big and almost scary to me, so I’m going to leave them off!
This quarter hasn’t got as many flowers round, so hopefully it won’t take too long, then I’ve just got the border to stitch. I think it will really make a difference when the back-stitching is finished.
This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis, we all choose our own project and just share our progress every three weeks, it’s a great motivator! If you would like to join us just send a message to Avis. Please follow the links to see lots more inspiring stitching.
I’ll also be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, please follow the link for lots of hand-stitching, both quilting and embroidery.
thecraftycreek 