Daisy the Sheep

Posted on May 14, 2025 by craftycreeky

It’s our local show on Saturday and I rashly entered ten items, many of which hadn’t been started, never mind finished! One such class was a toy suitable for a young child, in other words it had to be small child safe, so no button etc.

I decided to use a kit I bought on a facebook destash site a few years back. It was a kit by Cool Crafting to make Daisy the sheep. I was pretty impressed with the kit as it includes everything from felt, buttons, cotton, needles, everything apart from the stuffing.

I’ve made a few of the ‘Luna Lapin’ characters over the years, several rabbits, a mouse, but I’d not made a sheep. Here’s a selection of the creatures I’ve made over the years…

The sheep’s head was a little more complicated this time, I remembered to put the toy safety eyes in first, then it was ears, horns head and then frilly bit. Apart from the ears it’s all hand sewn with mainly blanket stitch. I got myself organised before a train trip to London and the south coast and managed to get a fair bit done, although I was nearly scuppered in the first half hour when I dropped my needle 🙂

The legs and arms are usually stitched on with buttons, obviously I couldn’t use buttons for the show(I might add them later) so the arms are just stitched on with a sort of cross-stitch which goes right through the body, basically I stitched it as if there was a button there so there is still movement in the arm.

The legs on this pattern are a bit different. A plain button with a shank is stitched into the top of the leg with the shank sticking out, a safety pin temporarily holds it in place whilst the legs are stuffed. Elastic thread is then passed through the button shank. through the body to the other leg and then back again, I think I might have done it twice, before pulling tight and tying a knot.

I love the horns, Daisy is meant to be a Herdwick sheep and the ewes don’t have horns, so she’s going to have to be a different breed instead as I want to make a pretty dress for her.

With Daisy made, I then had to make some clothes, but that will wait for another post. If you fancy making Daisy the kits are available from Cool Crafting or the pattern is in one of their books. She’s very cute!

Posted in Luna Lapin, Serendipity, Sewing | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Mondays Meander Round the Garden

Posted on May 12, 2025 by craftycreeky

It’s been a while since I meandered round the garden, I spent several hours gardening today and I finally feel like it’s starting to look like a garden again instead of a building site.

Last weekend I was working on the pond area, we had the path made wider here and therefore the beds narrower. Nearly all the plants were dug up and moved to safety for the building work. Late winter was the perfect time for moving everything as it was all still dormant, the problem being that I didn’t label everything and one clump of roots looks much like another clump of roots!! Some of the plants have just been planted not really knowing what they are, there may be a few moves before the end of the year.

I went a bit mad on hostas at the local nursey, I do like hostas but I didn’t quite realise how may I already had, though some are from another part of the garden so I might move them back later, I’ll see how the bed looks later in the season. That huge hosta on the left is one I’ve had for years and it rarely gets eaten by slugs so it looks good for months.

As you can see I’ve still not done anything about the duckweed problem in the pond!

Today I’ve been working on the ‘pottery’, my collection of pots down by the patio. I cleared out things that hadn’t survived the winter or were really past there best, ones that needed transplanting out to a border. I weeded, repotted and generally tidied. I put all the spare pots in the dead space at the back, there’s a small ledge there which has now got smaller pots on and then the big pots in front. I’ve tried growing stuff here but it’s in complete shade and very dry too, so I’m pleased with the new use for the area.

The top of the garden is gradually coming together though there’s still a lot of gaps, there’s no point filling it up straight away or there wouldn’t be anywhere to put future impulse buys!!

There weather here in the UK has been unseasonably warm and dry so we’ve had plenty of occasions to sit and enjoy the garden with a cup of tea or a glass of wine.

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Butterfly Alphabet SAL

Posted on May 11, 2025 by craftycreeky

Apologies for being so quiet on here, our building work still isn’t finished, though yesterday we had our first bath and cooked a roast dinner in the new oven…so things are moving forward! Any spare time I have had has been spent stitching entries for the Otley Show next week – I rashly entered ten different classes, I’ve just one left to make which may or may not get made!

So, my butterfly alphabet, I have made a little progress, just a little, but as I always say, progress is progress!

Three weeks ago I had just finished the first row, letters A to G…

I’ve started the letter H, just not quite finished it! My satin stitch doesn’t seem to be improving much, it’s a good job this isn’t for a competition! I’m enjoying stitching it and that’s what matters.

Hopefully next time I’ll have made a bit more progress, and I’ll have told you what I have been making over the last month.

Avis organises this stitch-a-long, we post our progress every three weeks, hopefully everyone else has made better progress than me, please follow the links to see what everyone has been stitching.


Avis, Claire, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,  

Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, Cathie, 

Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen

Posted in embroidery, kits, Stitch-a-long | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Butterfly Alphabet SAL

Posted on April 20, 2025 by craftycreeky

Happy Easter everyone! We had a family meal yesterday, so today was spent undercoating and gloss painting in the kitchen before the units go in. I hate gloss painting, probably because I don’t think I’m very good at it, but it needed doing.

I’ve made a little progress on my butterfly alphabet kit. Three weeks ago I was half way through ‘F’…

I worked on it for a few evenings and finished F and G, I’ve just started H. More importantly I’ve just finished the first row. Hopefully I’ll have done a couple more letters by the next post, then I’ll be over a quarter of the way.

This SAL is organised by Avis from Stitching by the Sea, please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.

Avis, Claire, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,

Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, Cathie,

Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen

Posted in embroidery, kits, Serendipity, Stitch-a-long | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Birds and Blooms Book

Posted on April 19, 2025 by craftycreeky

I’ve started constructing my Birds and Blooms book, this book is a mixture of new cross-stitch birds and ones I made over the last few years as mini cushions. I’ve interspersed them with a handful of cross-stitch flowers to fill it out a bit.

I posted the page with the long tailed tit last week…

I backed each page with iron on buckram, stitched it to the next page before ironing the two pages together. It does give a nice crisp page. The pages are 5.75″ square.

Once I have two sets of pages I stitch the pair together to make a double page spread. The next page is actually a cross-stitch I did probably about forty years ago, I made it into a bell pull, it’s been in my sewing room on my pegboard for the last couple of years. I decided to use it for my book. I trimmed about the bottom inch of stitching, added two long borders, a length of tape and some feather stitch. The page opposite is some quilting fabric I picked up at the Spring Quilt Show last weekend.

The next double page spread (still to be attached down the spine) has some forget-me-knots I made into a mini cushion many years ago and a kookaburra I stitched a couple of years ago when I was making lots of mini-cross-stitches. It’s another Fido Stitch Studio kit.

After the kookaburra is a blackbird print from some dress-making fabric I’ve earmarked for a shirt which colour-wise picked up the colours of the cross-stitch nuthatch nicely. This one is also a former mini-cushion…

After the nuthatch is a new cross-stitch, this is a bluetit, all the birds (apart from the bellpull one) are designs from the same company, Fido Stitch Studio, I like the detail in their designs. I usually prefer to buy a pattern rather than a kit but to be honest, they use so many different colours (in Anchor too) it’s better to get the kit. To give you an idea, the bluetit uses nineteen colours!! Opposite it will be a colourful quilting fabric that has bluetits on.

I’ve about another eight pages to stitch together, then just a front and back page to create. I think I should get it finished in time for the local show in May!

Posted in cross-stitch, kits, Textile Books | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Swale Way; Day 1

Posted on April 15, 2025 by craftycreeky

Each year my friend and I try and do a long distance walk, last year we did the Yorkshire Wolds Way, this year we have decided to do the Swale Way which follows the River Swale from it’s end where it joins the Ure near Boroughbridge to it’s source up at the top end of Swaledale above Keld. Altogether it’s about 80 miles, we’ll take quite a few days to walk it as we don’t like doing more than 10 or 12 miles in a day.

We’re completing the first few miles as day walks, part of our practise regime to get out stamina up! Yesterday we had a good start to the walk, the weather was perfect, much better than we expected from the weather forecast, sunny but not too hot. and more importantly, no rain!

We started at Boroughbridge, a small town on the edge of the Vale of York. We started our walk with our traditional sausage roll and a view of the weir. You can just see the heron hoping for some breakfast on the rocks in the middle.

This is actually the River Ure, the one which flows down Wensleydale, most of the Yorkshire Dales are named after the river, Wensleydale is the exception, Wensley is now a small village but used to be the most important town in the dale until it was decimated in medieval times by the Black Death. We followed the River Ure for a couple of miles to the confluence with the Swale.

This is the point where the Swale finishes, the Swale is coming down from the left, joining the Ure coming from the right. We celebrated with a coffee break…

We walked along a levee as far as Myton bridge before turning off into the village. Levees are naturally formed when a river floods, depositing a mound of silt along it’s banks, however this one was rather tall so I suspect it was substantially added to to prevent flooding many years ago. We then had a fair bit of road walking, albeit quiet roads, until we reached the villages of Helperby and Brafferton. The two villages merge into each other, so I’m not sure where one finishes and the next starts. I think this is the Brafferton end!

There were some interesting old houses to study as we walked through. We did have a giggle as we saw a sign outside a rather large mansion, it said ‘No parking tanks below’ I must have had my military daughter on my mind as I understood it to mean the army couldn’t park their tanks there!! It was only when we got home and I showed it to my OH and he pointed out that it meant no parking as there were tanks under the pavements!!

We decided Brafferton was far enough for our first day, we had walked about 7 miles, so we got a taxi back to Boroughbridge. The next walk won’t be for a couple of weeks, then the big walk is in June.

A good start to this years challenge.

Posted in Walking, Yorkshire | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Owl and Hare Hollow HQAL

Posted on April 6, 2025 by craftycreeky

Over the last few days I’ve been painting our new kitchen diner so it feels like we’ve made progress even though we still have no kitchen or downstairs bathroom, I’ve managed a little quilting in the evenings on my Owl and Hare Hollow quilt…just a little!

Three weeks ago I was still quilting the 33rd block…

I’ve now finished that one and also completed two, so I’m just about to start the 36th out of 49 blocks, just 14 blocks to go – at the current rate that will take me another three months!

I’m just about to start the windmill block, I’ll be quilting the usual outer circle. I’m then thinking of quilting a small circle around the sails of the windmill and maybe another that encircles the whole windmill.

Hand Quilt-a-long

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.

Please visit the rest of our group and see what they are up to:

 Kathy, Deb, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, Connie and Laura

Posted in Owl and Hare Hollow BOM, Quilt-a-long, Quilting, Stitch-a-long | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Birds and Blooms

Posted on March 31, 2025 by craftycreeky

It’s Otley Show soon and I’ve entered several handicraft classes including cross-stitch. I decided to make another fabric book using various cross-stitch birds and flowers I’ve stitched over the years plus a few new ones.

We regularly get long-tail tits on the bird feeders in our garden. They’re cute little birds, very small bodies and long tails, they fly around in gregarious groups, flitting from tree to tree until they reach our feeders. I love watching them so I wanted to include them in my bird and bloom book.

This is another kit from Fido Stitch Studio, I’ve stitched several of their kits, they only do a full kit, not a pdf pattern, and actually when you see how many different shades they use, it’s probably wise! I’ve swopped the aida provided with an even-weave linen from my stash, the charts are nice and clear, my only grump would be that the pattern lines of the back-stitch have to be taken as a approximate position as they’re not necessarily feasible in reality. The detail does ‘make’ the design though.

The kits take me about a week to stitch, here’s my long tailed tit…

I’m aiming for the finished book pages to be about 6″ square, so the bare minimum of stitched piece is 6.5″, I’m therefore adding borders and embellishments to enlarge it a little and make it look pretty! I found some floral cotton which co-ordinated perfectly. I covered one seam with cream ric-rac, I did regret half way through stitching it on with a fly and chain stitch combination, it seemed to take ages! The feather stitch coming down the other seam is in a soft variegated DMC thread. The purple lines (in case you’re wondering!) are just Frixion pen markings of where the edge of the page will be.

I’m also recycling some cross-stitch birds I stitched earlier and turned into mini pillows, I’ve unpicked three sides, added extra fabric where needed and made another page. Here’s the nuthatch one.

I’m thinking of typing (on an old-fashioned typewriter) some information about the bird on some cotton paper which I bought at Sostrene Grene which I can then stitch on the fabric above the bird.

Hopefully I’ll have time to make them into a book for the middle of May…together with all the other entries I need to make!

Posted in cross-stitch, embroidery, kits, Textile Books | Tagged , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Butterfly Alphabet SAL

Posted on March 30, 2025 by craftycreeky

Where did the last three weeks go, probably in a blur of wall paper stripping and now painting! I have made a bit of progress, but not a lot!

Happy Mothers Day to mums all over the world, I’ve spent today with my daughter…painting…walls, not pretty watercolours 🙂

Three weeks ago I was embroidering the letter E…

Well the letter E is now finished and I’m half way through F, so not a lot of progress, but I’ll get there one stitch at a time!

I’ve been spending what stitching time I have mainly making things for Otley Show which is in May. This year for the first time they have a needlework class and the cross-stitch class doesn’t have any limitations on it, so I’m entering lots of things most of which I haven’t finished yet. I’ll try and share some of my things this week.

After the show life should have settled down a bit so I’ll have more time for stitching…hopefully!

Stitch-a-long

This SAL is organised by Avis, please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.


Avis, Claire, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,  Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, Cathie, 

Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen

Posted in embroidery, kits, Stitch-a-long | Tagged , | 17 Comments

Monday’s Meander Round the Garden

Posted on March 24, 2025 by craftycreeky

It’s a while since I’ve had a meander round the garden, mainly because it’s been more reminiscent of a building site…but I finally think I’m winning!

In our quest to future proof our house and garden, I decided the top part of the garden needed a rethink, both to make it lower maintenance and also safer for me to work in. Beautiful as it was, it was just too much work for us, especially to also have time to enjoy it. I worked out a design that managed to keep all my favourite shrubs in situ, so things like the standard rose, eunonymous elata and the acer have not been touched.

We got a landscape gardener in to carry out the hard landscaping, so we’ve taken up the log-roll edging and replaced it with stone, making the beds a bit smaller at the same time, re-working the left hand side of the garden and the pond area.

Late winter was theoretically a good time to do the hard landscaping as I could move all the plants I wanted to keep during their dormant stage, unfortunately we also got snow, hard frosts, ice…so my plants were out for probably a couple of months, but I think most of them look like they have survived. It hasn’t helped having the kitchen and bathroom redone at the same time!!

Once the hard landscaping was done we had a ton of top soil and a ton of compost delivered to help top up the new beds, all of which needed carrying up our steep drive and up the garden, my OH was a star at moving it all! I’ve rotavated most of the beds and recently been replanting everything, together with a few new plants!

Today I’ve been out in the garden most of the day, I’ve got to the stage where I’m just putting plants in anywhere as I got a bit overwhelmed with it all, I can’t see the bigger picture at the moment and imagine what it will all look like in the summer. It doesn’t help that I’m struggling to identify some of the perennials as they haven’t started to put out any spring growth yet, so I’m sure there will be lots to move over the coming months.

This morning I was mainly working in the raised bed by the patio, another area I’d cleared to put flowering shrubs in, I’ve planted a hardy fuchsia, an azalea and a cistus (rock rose) with a few perennials in spots I can reach without climbing on the bed. I’ve probably planted them a little close together but I’ll see what it looks like in the summer.

On a positive note, there’s lots of buds on my magnolia stellata, so that should look good in a couple of weeks time.

To give you a better idea of the changes, here’s a photo from April 2023…

…and this is now;

We’ve chairs and table to get yet but I think it will work. I love the trellis, it’s high and sturdy enough to stop me falling over the edge but it’s not visually overpowering. Hopefully as the spring growth starts to appear it will look a bit more like a garden! Watch this space as they say!

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments