White Roses

Posted on August 9, 2019 by craftycreeky

I made myself another dress!

We’ve got a family funeral next week and when I looked in my wardrobe I really had nothing suitable, whilst wearing all black isn’t so necessary these days my smarter summer dresses tend to be light and floaty or more suitable for weddings and I certainly didn’t have a simple dark jacket.

I had a look in my stash, wondering if a dark jacket would tone down one of my summer dresses, this is what I found…

…a whole outfit, just waiting to be made! The white rose fabric is scuba, I bought on a whim last year in Fabworks in Dewsbury and then wondered what on earth to make with it. Scuba is a funny fabric, I’m still not sure about it as it is so synthetic but I felt the design was perfect for a smart, simple dress. It’s not quite black, more of a dark charcoal grey with a tiny touch of brown. The plain fabric is some beautiful cashmere I bought in Armley last year, I was planning to make a winter dress out of it, but I decided it would make a wonderful summer jacket for cooler days (of which we get quite a few here in the UK!!) and as it’s dry clean only then I think a jacket is probably more suitable anyway. Colourwise it matches perfectly.

I had a rummage through my patterns and found one I think I picked up on the swop table at the last Sew Down Dewsbury, Simplicity 7667 was just what I wanted, a shift dress and a simple style of jacket. I even found an invisible zip of the right length and colour in my stash! It was all meant to be!! All I had to buy was some lining for the jacket.

I decided to tackle the dress first. It went together very easily but took a bit of fiddling to get the fit a bit better. I cut out a size 12, grading it to a 14 over my hips. Scuba is very stretchy and this pattern was for woven fabrics, but I didn’t cut smaller as I didn’t want a figure hugging dress. I stitched the two darts in for the bust and then just basted the sides and shoulders together to check the fit. That was a good move as there was alot of excess fabric round the armhole. I tried putting an extra dart in the side, that didn’t help, after much fiddling I decided to increase the size of the dart in the side seam, so I undid the basting, increased the dart, basted again and it looked much better. Still not perfect, but better than it was and the best I could do without an assistant!

Simplicity 7667

The invisible zip went in well, I always have to get one of my sewing books out for these as I don’t use them that often. With hindsight I should have started it slightly lower down the seam. I also lowered the neckline by about an inch as I find higher necklines really uncomfortable.

Simplicity 7667

The pattern uses the dress fabric to face the neckline and armholes. I thought the scuba would be too bulky, so I used some lining for that, I understiched it but even with it stitched down at the seams I could see it was going to be a pest, sneaking out at inoportune moments. Having hand-stitched the hem up I decided to just lightly stitch the facings down by hand, it seems to have worked with not much visible from the front.

Simplicity 7667

I’m really pleased with my dress, it’s super comfortable with all the ease from the scuba but I think it looks suitably smart but not too sombre so I should be able to wear it on other occassions.

Just got to make the jacket now!

Posted in Dressmaking | Tagged , , | 27 Comments

A Miscellany

Posted on August 7, 2019 by craftycreeky

Sometimes I have things I want to share here, but they’re not quite big enough to make a full post, so I thought I’d lump them together as a miscellany, a collection of unrelated items!

I’ve recently heard a bit about Craftivism and I found an article in the Guardian newspaper about it which is worth reading. Craftivism is about using embroidery and sewing as a voice of peaceful protest and it gets results. As an example the group decided to campaign for Marks and Spencers to pay their staff a living wage (as opposed to the legal minimum wage) they googled all about members of the board and made them a very personal hand embroidered handkerchief, including on them messages to encourage them to pay the living wage. They presented them at the AGM and 10 months later M&S did a U-turn and paid living wage.

Last month I was browsing on ebay – always dangerous – looking at vintage textiles – even more dangerous! I spotted a vintage Christening gown just about to finish with no bids at £6.99, before I could ask myself what would I do with a vintage Christening gown my bid was on and of course I won it!

Vintage Christening gown

From the photos I wasn’t sure what it would be like, I knew there was a little bit of damage and old repairs. It is beautiful, it’s made from a very fine soft cotton and when I examined the seams, I realised it’s all totally hand-stitched. The tiny stitches in the seams are exquisite.

Vintage Christening gown

I think the lace on the bodice is possibly handmade bobbin lace, it’s embroidered on the bodice too. I was fascinated with how the skirt was attached, I can only describe it as faggotting, all neatly gathered in with tiny pleats.

Vintage Christening gown

The buttonholes and the buttons look handmade. I think the lace on the hem is mass produced, though as my mum said when I showed it to her, it could have been added later.

Vintage Christening gown

Even the tiny cuffs on the sleeves are embellished with some hand embroidery. It’s beautiful, it’s one of those things that’s just lovely to own. I just need to learn how to launder these textiles properly now.

Vintage Christening gown

It was the Festival of Quilts last weekend, I didn’t go this year as I’m saving up for a new sewing machine, but I am planning to go to the Great Northern Quilt Show at Harrogate showground, it’s 30th August to 1st September. It’s a lot smaller but actually it’s a nice size, they have a good display of quilts and lots of stalls. I find the big shows a bit overwhelming at times, this is more manageable! I even took my mum last year in her wheelchair. It’s only £9 to get in too, a bargain, and free parking too! If anyone else is going and fancies meeting up for coffee, let me know!

Posted in Crafts, embroidery, Serendipity | 13 Comments

August Windows

Posted on August 6, 2019 by craftycreeky

It’s the first Tuesday of the month so Wild Daffodil is organising her windows photo challenge. I haven’t been out much this month to take photos so I’ve been raiding my archives!

With the open garden looming, I finally got round to replacing the broken windows in my summerhouse. This had been very airy since the door was blown off in a storm at least 18 months ago. The glass shattered, we managed to hang the door again with a lot of help from my son, but the windows were still open to the elements. I’d bought some plastic panes a few months ago as it was prohibitively expensive to buy glass, I’d just not got round to fitting them. I did it, it probably took me less than half an hour – why do we put these jobs off!!

You may remember a few months ago I did a couple of embroideries for Skipton Embroiderers Guild, we were creating a map of Skipton but wanted to surround it with images which represented where our members came from. I did one of Pudsey Bear, as I was born in Pudsey. I also stitched a poppy to represent the cenotaph in Skipton. Well the finished embroidery was on display in one of the shop windows in Skipton, I think it looks pretty good. You can just see my bear and poppy on the top row, have a look at Skipton Embroiderers Guild blog for more photos and information…

Photo by Skipton Embroiderers Guild

Last month I shared photos of Rievaulx Abbey, this month there’s Bolton Abbey and Fountains Abbey – there were lots of abbeys in Yorkshire! I would have loved to see them with their stained glass windows. I learnt a couple of months ago that the village of Glasshouses which is fairly nearby, is so called because they made the windows for the monasteries, and Smelthouses was where they made the glass.

This block is one I did a couple of years ago for my first Splendid Sampler quilt, it’s meant to be a little quilt shop. The windows are made by piecing the block, it looks a bit wonky but it’s just the photo – honest!

In comparison, the houses I’ve made for the Coming Home quilt all have appliqued windows and doors…

I’ve got lots more windows and doors to stitch in this months Coming Home blocks! For more photos of windows, have a look over on Wild Daffodils blog, she has links to everyone else participating.

Posted in Photo Challenge | Tagged | 6 Comments

Monday’s Meander Round the Garden

Posted on August 5, 2019 by craftycreeky

I’m taking it a bit easier in the garden this month, I think I’ve overdone it a bit during June and July, what with walking the Cleveland Way, medical conferences, workshops, the open garden and a virus knocking me for six. I have MS and if I overdo it, it just gives me a gentle reminder that it’s still there. After a weeks break from gardening I’m just doing an easy hour or so of dead heading every couple of days…

We’ve had a fair amount of rain this week, but really we’ve escaped lightly. In Swaledale this week, about 50 miles north, an old stone bridge was swept away in a deluge, I did have to smile though as only in Yorkshire would someone describe the hail stones as pickled onion size!! Fifty miles south at Whalley Bridge, the dam was damaged and is threatening to burst, the whole town has been evacuated, it’s still pretty critical though they have managed to pump a lot of the water out.

So I can’t complain about a bit of rain!!

Garden in August

I’ve dead headed the roses quite harshly this year due to the blackspot, they seem to respond fairly well to this and push out a few blooms later in the year. My Champagne Moments roses finally succumbed to a sudden downpour last night.

Sometimes in the garden I suddenly notice a view of the garden from a different vantage point. A couple of days ago I sat having a coffee and a rest on my new bench, under the arch. Looking across towards the summerhouse looked lovely, through the amber & amethyst flower beds to the pond area with its bright crocosmia and innula.

Garden in August

There’s several echinacea in flower at the moment, they’re great for adding colour at this time of year, the purple ones are most often seen, I also like the amber coloured ones, I bought another one on the market at the weekend! The poppy heads you can see are just starting to ripen, so soon I’ll be able to help spread the seed around!

Garden in August

I’ve got quite a few veronica around the garden, I love their deep blue spikes. I’m sure several of them are self seeded as I don’t remember buying quite that many! I like the wild version too, I’ve several of those around the garden too.This is the patio garden, I think I can see four different veronicas!

Garden in August

My bird feeders are just out of shot on the photo above,a clematis I planted a few years ago has decided to grow up the feeder, which looks really pretty but it does make it very awkward to fill the feers with seed!

clematis

I treated myself to a bunch of sunflowers from the market on Saturday, £1.50 for three huge heads, they brighten up the kitchen. I’m tempted to grow some next year, maybe up by the compost heap.

sunflowers

Our next big job in the garden which I’ve earmarked my OH to do is to prune the beech hedge back hard as it’s getting very out of hand, I think that will be later in the month, in the meantime I’ll just enjoy the sunshine when it’s there.

Posted in Garden | Tagged , | 13 Comments

Falling Leaves, Trees and Fudge

Posted on August 5, 2019 by craftycreeky

I’ve just got up to date with both the cross-stitch-a-longs I’m doing (seemed a good idea at the time!!) I’m just in time as the next part for the Zoe SAL is published tomorrow.

The Zoe Box is a stitch-a-long by Faby Reilly, last time I shared it with you I had just done the cross-stitch on the fourth side. Each side represents a different season and this was autumn….

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I knew I’d made one mistake as my very first stitch on this section was one square out! I anticipated just doing a little adaptation with the back-stitch at the beginning and end, to make sure the branch would be continuous with winter when it all went together.

Well I don’t know how but nearly every leaf seemed to be in the wrong place!! I had made so many mistakes, but luckily as some of the leaves were falling I could fudge it! I did lots of fudging!!

The squirrel is very cute, luckily he draws the eye away from all the mistakes! I love all the different stitches in Faby’s designs, the ones that look like pine cones are spiders web stitch (I think) Next we will be stitching the inside of the box, two sections in a fortnight, so there can’t be as much stitching. Here’s all four sides together…

My second stitch-a-long is by Tempting Tangles, it’s called Enlightenment and is meant to be all about trees with a zen saying. The colours are beautiful, the pattern calls for four Dinky Dye threads, which are gorgeous, I bought two of them, the designer also gives DMC alternatives so that’s what I’ve mainly used for the other two colours.

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I say ‘mainly’ as DMC 3847 seemed awfully dark when I put them together. When I was stitching the first part I didn’t fancy the big ‘tree’ in the dark green, so I found a De Vere thread which is just a shade lighter. It was sort of in between 3847 and 3848. It does look pretty perfect…

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I decided to vary between the three threads over the sampler.

This time there was another tree, so I used the darker thread and it does look dark! I’ve stuck with it and so long as I use it in a couple of other places in the sampler it will look fine! I’ve stitched a couple of stitches into next weeks section as I can’t be doing with single stitches when I don’t need to, if it’s wrong then I’ll just have to unpick it!

This is an eighth of the sampler completed. Tempting Tangles is a new designer to me, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. I love the colours, especially in the border. It will be about 8″ square when it’s finished, I’m still not sure if it will be a cushion or framed.

Posted in embroidery, Stitch-a-long | Tagged , , , , | 16 Comments

Cinema Dress

Posted on August 4, 2019 by craftycreeky

I’ve finally got round to doing some dressmaking! I’ve made myself a summer dress…

Liesl & Co Cinema dress

In my stash I had this length of teal blue fine cotton lawn with a little feather design on it. It feels like Liberty Tana lawn, so I think I bought it at Steadfast and Barracks in Lancaster. They used to make fabric for Liberty so when Liberty decided to transfer all their manufacturing abroad (don’t get me started on that one!!!) they brought out their own range of cotton lawn, at a third of the price!

I originally planned to make a simple cotton dress, sort of princess lines, slightly flared midi skirt. I then realised just how much fabric I had bought, especially as it was 60″ wide! I had a change of plan and reached for a pattern I bought a few years ago called the Cinema Dress by Liesl & Co. I’d been put off making it before because it takes such a lot of fabric – even with wide fabric it takes 3.5m. I must have bought 4m as I had plenty.

Liesl & Co Cinema dress

The dress is very loose fitting, with about 3-4″ ease around the bodice. The pattern sizing is completely different to other patterns, my size came between an 8 and a 10, in view of the generous ease I made a size 8. It buttons down the back to the waist.

Seam allowances are 1/2″, so I tended to move my machine needle across so I could follow the standard 5/8ths line instead. I overlocked to finish the seams (my overlocker actually decided to work!!) The pattern did go together pretty easily but I think the order Liesl & Co make it in is bizarre, it didn’t flow and at times it made it harder than it should have been in my opinion. As an example, there are pockets in the centre front side seams. It would have been simple to attach the welts and the pocket pieces to the front and the side front before they were attached to anything else, so it was a nice flat manageable piece. The instructions had you joining the bodices to the skirt front and backs, then the bodices at the shoulders and the sides at the shoulders first. You were then attaching the pockets onto a piece that was about 10′ long!

Liesl & Co Cinema dress

Moan over! It’s a comfortable, everyday sort of cotton summer dress. It’s plenty big enough, though if I reach up for anything the whole dress rides up – I’ll have to be ladylike in this one! I love the pockets on the front and I also like the length of the sleeves with their little cuff turn-up.

Liesl & Co Cinema dress

The final comment in the pattern is ‘Don’t you feel like a glamorous old-style cinema star in your new dress’…well no, but it’s a nice summer dress!

Posted in Dressmaking, Serendipity | Tagged , | 31 Comments

A Trio of Workshops

Posted on July 31, 2019 by craftycreeky

In June I traveled over to Halifax to Fabbadashery for a workshop, it takes about 1.5 hours to get there on buses or trains, but they have some pretty good embroidery courses, so having worked out how to get there for 10am, I’ve been on several!

Harold the Hare is a gorgeous embroidery which I first saw at an Embroiderers Guild area meeting, I seem to remember it won the competition! It was in mixed media and I think it was free machine embroidered. The designer was Anne Brooke and she now does workshops based at her home in Brighouse. As soon as I saw Harold the Hare on Fabbadashery’s workshop list I booked a place! We were stitching a hand embroidered version of Harold.

We started off with a pre-printed panel, this gives the effect of the mixed media background but makes it much easier to hand sew. The basic outline and a few details of the hare was given too.

The hare is embroidered with long and short stitch, with stitches in different directions to give texture. We’re using just four shades of brown, stitching with 3 threads at a time. Anne is a great tutor, demonstrating the different areas and giving individual help and encouragement where needed. We started off with the darkest shade and worked each shade in turn, the hardest bit was the eyes, I haven’t quite finished those, I’m tempted to put a little bit of amber in as I think hare’s eyes are a fairly bright amber. When I left the one day workshop my Harold looked like this…

Harold the Hare

I’ve since taken him to my embroiderers guild meeting a stitched a little more but Harold isn’t quite finished yet, I want to do a bit of stitching in the background too, maybe a couple of stalks of cow parsley and a few tiny french knot flowers in front amongst the stems of grass.

Harold the Hare

A couple of weeks ago I went over to Halifax again for a workshop by Deborah Mullins called An Introduction to Tahriri. Deborah came to talk to us at my Embroiderers Guild meeting at the beginning of the year. She studied Palestinian embroidery, in particular Bethlehem embroidery, when her husband went there for a three month sabbatical. Her work was beautiful and I came home and booked myself on two of her courses, this was the first one.

Palestinian Embroidery by Deborah Mullen

Tahriri embroidery is the bands of mainly couched thread which are used to embellish the traditional dress in Palestine. Couching is very economical with thread and the patterns are designed so the outline is made in one continuous thread. We practised couching first with the straight outlines, stitching on some hand dyed cotton. Deborah had a wonderful array of threads for us to choose from, many dyed by herself.

threads

The central wiggly line was next, the stripy effect is made by couching with two colours of threads. We practised the filling in pattern for couching by drawing it on paper first, a bit like practising a quilting pattern first, getting the movement into your brain and your hand before trying it in thread. We’re making a bookmark size piece, I started the second side during the one day workshop. To finish it I need to fill in the flowers and hearts with satin stitch, I chose a very colourful thread for couching so I think I’ll either go very pale or very dark for the satin stitch. Deborah was a great teacher, giving us the history as well as the techniques. I’m looking forward to another workshop with her in September.

Tahriri embroidery

At the end of June I ran my first quilting workshop, it was based at B&M Fabrics in Leeds and called Quilt in a Day. The idea was that they would make a lap size jelly roll race quilt, piece it, sandwich, quilt and finally bind it. This would mean they learnt all the basic techniques of quilt making and went home with a quilt pretty much finished.

Jelly roll race quilts are very quick to make. For those of you not into quilting, a jelly roll is a pre-cut set of 20 (half size) or 40 (full size) different fabrics, a 2.5″ strip of the width of fabric (about 42″) Sometimes jelly rolls have several lengths of the same fabric, this quilt works best when each strip is a different fabric.

Well I think it went pretty well, I had six students which really was an ideal number for the size of the room, as you do need a bit of space between sewing machines. They varied enormously in sewing experience, one lady had only started sewing three months before, but everyone went home with a quilt pretty much finished, they just had to hand-stitch the binding down.

Quilt in a Day

A friend I’d not seen for nearly 30 years came up to do the course, she stayed for the weekend so we had a great time catching up. Hopefully it won’t be another 30 years before we meet up again! She gave me some lovely hand-made gifts before she left, she has clearly got me sussed as one was me to a tee, it’s now on display in my sewing room…

Sewing PHD
Posted in embroidery, Fabric shops, Quilting, Serendipity | Tagged | 10 Comments

Tuesday’s Totter Round the Garden

Posted on July 30, 2019 by craftycreeky

I had a busy week in the garden getting ready for our open garden with quilt and needlework show. By Thursday I ‘just’ had the front garden left to sort, I say ‘just’ as it was knee high in weeds!!

Typically Thursday was heatwave day, I think it is now officially the hottest day on record, it was certainly well into the the 30’s – not ideal weather for gardening! Luckily the front garden is mainly in the shade for most of the morning, so I started early, like about 7.30am, and set too clearing thistles, marestail and bindweed, together with the usual spread of annual weeds. This was mainly superficial weeding, it just made the garden look better, but whilst I know it doesn’t solve any problems it does make me feel better once in a while! I worked so hard I believed my watch when it said it was 2.45pm, I carried on til 5pm, went inside for a cup of tea and eventually realised my watch had broken and it was actually only 1.30!! At least it meant I had a bit of time to clean the house as well!!

I weed with one tonne builders bags, I filled 2 1/2 of them that morning!! I have had another suggestion from a visitor over the weekend of how to eradicate marestail though, so fingers crossed!

English garden

Having had a scorching day on Thursday, by Saturday when I opened the garden it was about 12 degrees and raining – typical British weather, inconsistent!!

It rained pretty heavily all day, but hardy friends and family came, luckily I had the quilts and needlework for them to look at too. I had about 12 quilts to show and lots of needlework, I displayed my wedding dress, Helen’s Christening gown, all sorts of things. As I pointed out to people who commented on the volume of work, there was over 40 years of work on display, from an embroidery I did when I was 7 years old to the quilt I finished last week.

hosta

Sunday was much better, whilst it wasn’t sunny, it didn’t rain til after 4pm when we finished. We had a steady trickle of people, neighbours, Embroiderers Guild or WI members, work colleagues. It was nice as on the whole I just had time to wander round a bit with someone before the next one’s arrived. Everyone was amazed by my big hosta which has hardly a nibble out of it!

English garden

A few flowers came out just in time for the garden opening, crocosmia Lucifer was looking good, but also this giant of a flower behind the summerhouse. I tend to think of this area as my wild bit and this inula certainly looks a bit wild, it’s so big it’s visible from the other side of the summerhouse too!

The alstromeria and the crocosmia added a nice bit of sunshine to the Amber & Amethyst garden

English garden

I made lots of cake ; coffee, elderflower & lemon, coconut & lime, blueberry, apple, mincemeat, carrot, lemon drizzle and Victoria sponge!

All in all it was a successful weekend, we raised £170 for the Soldiers Charity, which considering the weather, I think was pretty good.

It was nice being able to make suggestions to help others with their gardens, one of the neighbours asked how I cope with the heavy clay soil; lots of pea shingle and compost, I used to buy a couple of tonnes each year to dig in. I also said if I find a plant that likes our conditions I buy one in every colour! So I have several astrantias, geraniums, osmanthus, brunnera…

If I say so myself, my clematis climbing the arch down by the patio looked magnificent!

Clematis

The most admired plant was actually a shrub called Sambuscus Nigra, a black elderflower, it’s actually dead easy to grow and needs a hard prune each year to stop it taking over! The lilies in front opened as the day progressed, they’re beautiful colour, I’m tempted to plant them in a bed in the Amber & Amethyst garden in the autumn.

English garden

I think taking people round also made my OH see the garden in a whole new light!

Posted in Garden | Tagged , | 11 Comments

Down the Rabbit Hole HQAL

Posted on July 28, 2019 by craftycreeky

It’s three weeks since I shared my Down the Rabbit Hole quilt with you. This quilt is by the same designer as my Coming Home quilt, Sarah Fielke. I finished the top about 18 months ago and then had the crazy idea of hand quilting it, I say crazy as it’s about 96″ square and I’d not done any hand-quilting for donkey’s years!

Three weeks ago I’d just started the last two borders, which sounds so encouraging, but one of them is a pretty deep border so I’ve still a long way to go before I can get my dancing shoes out!

hand quilting

Excuses first! I’ve been concentrating on getting the garden and house ready for the open garden and quilt and needlework show this weekend, we’ve also had a bit of a heat wave, the powers that be are still trying to decide if Thursday was the hottest day ever or not! Thirty odd degrees may not seem hot to many of you, but our houses etc are not designed for hot weather!! We’ve had a very sticky few days and it was certainly too hot to sit under a quilt hand sewing!!

Hand quilting

Having said all that I did manage to get a little done before the weather got too warm, last time I was struggling with marking, I had a go with masking tape, which I didn’t find overly successful, but I ordered a ceramic pencil at Kate’s suggestion so I’m going to try that out next week.

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, Emma, Tracy, Deb, Susan,  Nanette,  Edith, Sharon, Karrin, Gretchen and Kathi

Posted in Down The Rabbit Hole, Quilt-a-long | Tagged , | 12 Comments

A Copse or Two

Posted on July 27, 2019 by craftycreeky

I’ve just finished this month’s applique for my Coming Home quilt, a BOM by Sarah Fielke. Last month took a while as there was a lot of fiddly stitching to do, with suns, stars birds and such like, never mind piecing houses to start with. ..

Coming Home quilt

This month she gave us a bit of respite with just a few trees to applique. These are going to go in between the houses on the next border. They were fairly quick to stitch, I’ve got at least one bendy tree as I couldn’t find my fabric glue to hold the applique pieces in place. You’ll be pleased to know I’ve now had a bit of a tidy up in my sewing room and I’ve found my glue!!! The bendy tree is staying though, it gives a hint of realism!!!

#cominghome quilt

One day I’ll be rash with my colour schemes and have random colours for my quilts, in the meantime I’ll stick to shades of green for the trees! We’re also meant to be selecting fabrics for our next group of houses, so I’ll have to have a play over the next couple of days, ready for when the pattern is released on the 31st.

I’ll be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, please follow the link for lots of hand-sewing inspiration.

Posted in Coming Home Quilt, Quilt-a-long, Quilting | Tagged , , | 7 Comments