It’s the first day of a new month today so I’ve changed over my display of cross-stitch smalls. Last month was predominantly Valentine themed ones, some of these have stayed as it’s our 12th wedding anniversary on the 17th March.
Be My Valentine has gone back in the bureau but the others have stayed. I’ve also kept the little heart freebie from Faby Reilly,
Over the last two or three years I’ve made an anniversary card, a little keepsake of the occasion. This was last years which turned out a bit big for a card so I mounted it and included a little pocket on the back for messages.
This was the first one I made, it’s a design by Faby Reilly, it’s still a card at the moment, I haven’t quite sussed out how I’m going to make it into a small, I might just pop it in a little frame.
Faby Reilly Design
The Joyful World SAL for March is obviously included, this month has a stork and chick. .
It’s been very mild here for the last couple of weeks and we saw our first bumble bee of the year, so I’ve included this bee pincushion I made back in 2015, it’s a design by Jardin Privee.
This one hasn’t got any four leaf clovers on it but somehow it makes me think of St Patricks Day. I think it would look pretty with a tiny clover charm in the middle!
So, here’s my bowl of smalls for March. I’m hoping to finish some Easter ones for next month.
Apologies if you’re now humming the Sound of Music song! I’ve been making steady progress over the month with my Splendid Sampler quilt, I’ve made five blocks and tonight I finally got them all quilted.
This BOM is organised by Pat Sloan and Jane Davison, there are over 80 designers around the world who have each contributed one block. There’s 100 blocks altogether but I’m just planning to do maybe 49, for a 7 by 7 quilt. I bought the book so I can pick and choose which ones I wanted to stitch.
Pat suggested stitching ones which mean something to you, I thought that was a lovely idea so that’s what I’m doing.
Adventure Abounds is a block by Kitty Wilkin, as soon as I saw it this block was on my list of ones to stitch. With mountains and a tree it was perfect to represent my love of walking in the countryside. It was pretty straightforward to make, it’s foundation paper pieced, which I like doing now. I got a bit carried away with the quilting, sort of echoing the mountains so the tree sits on a hill, I quilted a free motion tree over the top of the pieced tree, likewise a heart over the pieced heart. I’m pretty pleased with this one.
Get to the Point is a block by Rhonda Pierce, as she says, a sewing machine needle is neither sexy nor glamorous, but it’s a sewing essential. This block was also foundation paper pieced. I kept the quilting fairly simple with mainly stitch in the ditch.
I rarely say no to a cup of tea, especially if it’s a cup of Yorkshire Tea! This bloc is by Pat Sloan, it’s appliqued with bondaweb and embroidered around. I did a bit of free motion quilting on this one, trying to echo the embroidered steam lines. I added the pretty checked ric-rac round the cup instead of an extra bit of applique. It looked really good until the iron singed it a little! I still like it though!
Summer Reading is designed by Heather Givens. I love books, even after a pretty major cull I still have about fifteen shelves of books, I’ve got three shelves overflowing just with sewing books! This was made with traditional piecing and I just quilted in the ditch, nice and simple.
This design made me smile, it’s called Piece in Chaos by Betsy Chutchian. She describes how her love of quilting centres around her love of fabric. She loves the excitement of starting a new project by sorting through her stash for the perfect colour and prints. The title to me describes my sewing room! The piecing isn’t perfect on this one with a few points and juctions a little off, I quilted this one along the diagonals and across the middle, basically extending out the centre pinwheel.
So I’ve made twenty five blocks now, I put them up on my design wall in no particular order, I’m really pleased with them, it’s coming together nicely. I’m just over half way if I’m aiming for a seven block square quilt, my collection of fabrics for this quilt is going down somewhat, I’m hoping not to have to buy any, so we’ll just have to see how it lasts out, there may be some strange colour choices towards the end!
I’ve often mentioned how I usually have a little sewing project in my handbag for those opportune free moments to do a little stitching, such as Doctors waiting rooms, teashops etc. I even made myself a pretty sewing wallet to keep everything safe in. It may take up a bit of room in my bag but yesterday proved why it is worth it!
I work two days a week in the centre of Leeds, about 12 miles away, I usually take the train, 20 minutes with a bit of a walk at the other end. Yesterday I left home at 7am as usual but didn’t arrive at work until 1.30pm!!!! I was stranded on a train for over FIVE hours after a power line went down, no drinks, no toilets after an hour, no air conditioning and a packed commuter train, luckily I had a seat. We ended up having to transfer across to another train via a ramp. It was certainly an experience – as I put on facebook, I’ve never been escorted off a train by the police before!
For the first 10 minutes or so after the train came to a halt I did the crossword, we rapidly realised the train wasn’t going anywhere soon, so I got out my sewing, it’s amazing how much you can do in five hours, even if they are teeny stitches…
This is a little project I started a few weeks ago, it’s a free design on the French blog Il Est Cinq Heures. It’s called Spring. There’s a rabbit and a sheep on it, together with flowers and a watering can, I thought it was rather cute. I’ve used DMC threads from my stash, trying to use up ones I’ve managed to double up on. I must admit I didn’t realise til I got it out to start (away from home) that to finish it the size I wanted it would have to be stitched over one thread! It was feeling a bit like hard work when I was half way down the watering can. I took a photo on the train after about an hour or so, this is where I was…
By the time we transferred onto the rescue train I’d stitched the watering can, albeit with the wrong colour (luckily it’s too similar to stand out – it’s not as obvious in real life!) some flowers and most of the rabbit, I just had to stitch his ears when I got home. I feel more enthused about this one now so hopefully it won’t take too long – it would be nice to finish it before the end of spring!
It’s three weeks since I shared my new stitch-a-long project with you, it’s a Dimensions kit called The Finery of Nature which I got off the sales table at my Embroiderers Guild for a donation! It was meant to be stitched on black aida which was never going to happen, my eyes and black don’t go together! I swopped the black aida for a soft duck egg blue linen. Three weeks ago it looked like this…
I must admit three weeks ago I was still a bit hot and cold about this one, especially was the change in colour going to work. I decided to aim for the bird, stitch something solid! I’ve managed to get quite a bit done in short spells, 10 minutes here and there.
I stitched all the cross-stitch for the chickadee and decided to do the back-stitch at the same time. Here I had to make my first change, the tail feathers were outlined in black, which was fine, but the head area was back-stitched in pale grey, this just didn’t show up, obviously with a black background it would have been quite effective, but not with a lighter linen. I changed it to a dark grey, a bit softer than black but much clearer than the original colour. It worked, though I’m still pondering about whether to do the beak in an even darker grey.
I had about a week when I didn’t stitch this at all, I went back to it with fresh eyes and I love it now! The soft shade of the linen looks beautiful against the embroidery, I can’t get a photo that really shows the colour properly so you’ll just have to take my word for it!
I’m working my way around the flowers at the moment, the design has quite a large border round it, borders are not my favourite thing to stitch, so I’m planning to stitch it as I go along, a bit at a time, rather than leaving it to do at the end. I realised today that the little leaves on the bottom (third ones along with a bit of blue-green) are one stitch out, so of course that’s thrown the lily of the valley out too. Luckily I can get away with that one as there is just enough room under the chickadee. However I’ve started the next flower counting from the chickadee so I know I’m back on track ready for the border. I’ve also added an extra stitch at the bottom of the stems so it does actually finish in the right place.
One thing I’m still pondering about is the highlights. The kit has quite a lot of gold back-stitching which would look quite striking on the black, I’m just not sure about it on the soft coloured linen. I’m wondering about using an Anchor silver lame thread instead, it’s about the same weight and it’s lovely to use. I think it might just give a nice twinkle, rather than looking a bit too blingy.
This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis, we share our progress every three weeks, it’s a great motivator to keep going. Please follow the links to see what everyone else has been working on, if you would like to join us just send a message to Avis.
I’ll also be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, a celebration of all kinds of hand stitching, so please follow the link to see even more inspiration.
I had a great day last weekend at a quilting workshop making quilts for care-leavers. The quilts are being made to give to young people leaving care at a big Christmas Dinner. Christmas Dinners is a project that was started by Lemn Sissay who is currently the Poet Laureate here in the UK. He spent alot of his childhood in care and has set up a charity aimed at giving the young people one memorable Christmas. Six weeks before Christmas last year an amazing lady called Maggie Lloyd Jones had the idea of giving them all a quilt too, a hug in a quilt! By Christmas there were 150 quilts made!!!
Last year I knew I didn’t have the time to make a quilt for them but I was keen to get involved this year. My son had a close friend when he was in primary school who was in care, once he got to know us he would regularly come and have a sleepover with James, it gave us a little insight into the lives of children in care. One thing I always felt very strongly about is that once they reach 18 they are expected to be independent, even if they are still at school!! How many 18 year olds with a stable childhood could be totally independent at that age, never mind someone who’s been through the care system.
This year there are several quilting workshops being organised across the country and one was just a few miles away in Steeton.
There was about 12 of us there for the day, there was lots of fabric there which had been donated, there was also orphan blocks which could be joined together in a quilt, you could make what ever quilt pattern you wanted. We didn’t even have to quilt them if we didn’t want to as there are several long armers who are happy to quilt them! There were piles of fabric everywhere as you can see on this photo of another quilt top finished on the day.
A lovely lady called Julie had given me a lift there and as it happened she brought a half finished quilt. She had started it years ago and fell out of love with it, in fact she was so out of love with it she wanted someone else to sort it. It was lovely earthy colours, strips made from circles, triangles and squares and a few narrower borders too. I thought it was rather lovely, not the colours I usually go for but I liked them, I volunteered to try and make a quilt from it.
The strips weren’t quite the same length, so I added some pieces on the ends, made some extra borders in between and gradually joined the strips together. I thought it would need a big border to bring it up to the necessary size, but when we measured the quilt it was fine. I decided to put a 2.5″ border all round just to pull the design together and to give a secure edge to all the blocks. I laid it out on the floor to check it as I was concerned it might not lay flat, however although it’s not quite true to shape, it’s flat enough to quilt and we decided the shape was near enough.
By the end of the day it was sandwiched and ready to quilt, I’ve got some variegated Guterman in those colours which will be perfect for quilting so I’ve brought it home to finish. The next workshop is at the end of March so hopefully I’ll have it finished by then.
If anyone is interested in getting involved, either making quilts, donating fabric or orphan blocks, or unwanted UFO’s if you’re on facebook then look for Quilts for Christmas Dinners, if not then let me know and I’ll put you in touch with Maggie.
It’s happy dance time as I’ve just finished embroidering my mandala…
I started it exactly a month ago at my Embroiderers Guild meeting, I popped the kit in my bag as a back-up project in case I had chance to start it and I did! It was a kit I bought at one of the shows I went to last year. The photo on the front of the kit doesn’t do it any justice, luckily the stand had some samples embroidered and I was spoilt for choice. The kit is by a French company called Chat Dans L’aiguille.
I have really enjoyed stitching this piece, it’s a very relaxing type of embroidery. The design was printed on the linen, so all I had to do was follow the lines with the right colours and stitches.
There’s a good mixture of stitches too, stem and chain stitch for most of the lines, button hole, spider web roses and french knots. The colours are very pretty. The instructions said it may take several hours of soaking to remove the transfer once it was stitched, but with a dash of a delicate fabric handwash it was gone within minutes.
I’m going to hang it in my sewing room as hoop art, I’ve popped it in a plain wooden frame for now but I’ll keep my eye open for a pretty one at the shows this year. At Harrogate show I bought a lovely hoop which was painted with a turquoise marble effect, I just bought a small one but something like that in pink would be perfect.
I’ve enjoyed it so much I’m tempted to do more, then comes the problem of what to do with several mandalas…well, a project I’ve had in mind for several months now is a textile book with the theme of the song ‘Windmills of my Mind’, mandalas might be just the thing! It’s going to have to wait until I’ve finished (not that I’ve even started it yet!) my mum’s textile book.
The weather has been seasonably mild for the last couple of weeks and everything in the garden seems to have suddenly started to wake up, the perennials are pushing up shoots, the shrubs have tiny leaf buds appearing and the early spring flowers are starting to appear. I’ve worked hard in the garden and I finally feel I’m making progress in the big tidy-up…
I’d been working on the raised bed by the patio for what seems like ages, weeding and cutting stuff back. This weekend I reached the far end, pruning the overhanging branches of the black sambucus in front of the fence, I’ve kept the height as it helps to disguise the fence. I’ve also put a nesting box up by the sambucus, it’s an open fronted one designed for blackbirds or robins, last year a pair of blackbirds nested against the fence in the shrub, so I’m hoping the box might be a bit cosier and safer. I also pruned the choisya as it was starting to impinge on the rose next to it and tried to smother the artemisia in front. I found a hydrangea tucked behind the choisya, so I’m planning to move it in the next couple of weeks to somewhere with a little bit more light and room and where it can actually be seen! The whole border looks so much better, still a bit of weeding to do, but I feel on top of it now, it looks cared for!
I then moved on to the rose border by the top circle of grass. This border is my priority this year as it was getting choked up with couch grass, mares tail and bindweed. This is what it looked like back in November…
…not a pretty sight! Four large trugs of weed roots later and I’ve almost cleared this corner. I’ve had to sacrifice a few perennials along the way such as geraniums, as they were just overtaken by weeds. I carefully dug up my shrubby clematis, pulled out the couch grass routes running through it and replanted it a bit further along the border. There will still be weeds coming up as some were right in the middle of the roses, but I’m planning on tackling those (very carefully) with a weedkiller as they appear. The border looks promising now, I’ll put some low growing flowering shrubs in and a few perennials, trying to make it lower maintenance. This is what it looks like now…
The hellebores are still flowering their socks off…
The ones round the pond still need their leaves trimming back, but the snowdrops by the pond are making quite a drift this year.
I’ve got pulmonaria in various pockets around the garden as it seems to self seed or spread, there’s just a few pink/purple flowers appearing under the rhododendron by the pond. It wasn’t easy to photograph them as they are so small and low, I just lowered the camera and crossed my fingers, this was the best shot and although it’s not got the whole flower, I rather like it!
The first daffodils of the year have appeared, it always feels like spring is getting close when the daffodils start to flower, they are so bright and cheerful, there’s even a few crocuses just showing their purple spike. These daffodils are miniature ones in a pot by the back door.
My three sessions a week in the garden are definitely paying dividends, I’ve just got to keep it up!
The latest Travelling Sketchbook project at my Embroiderers Guild starts tomorrow. We were given an A5 sketchbook last month and it has to be ready to swop tomorrow. It seemed ages off but all of a sudden I had two days!
Travelling sketchbooks are a great way of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, the idea is that each person chooses a theme for their book, decorates it and writes an introduction. It is then passed around the group each month and everyone does a little piece of embroidery on the theme to go in the book. At the end of the travels each person has a lovely book full of handwork by their friends. I find it pushes me embroidery-wise as I have to do something on a given theme, you can look for ideas but it does make me think outside the square and design something myself. Over the last couple of years I’ve had to do embroideries on subjects as divers as ‘down the microscope’, mythical beasts, astronomy, walls, chickens…
My theme this time is Christmas. I love Christmas and I thought it would be rather nice to have a sketchbook I can get out each year. I covered the book first, I used a fat quarter I’ve had for years, I love it, it’s a gorgeous rich blue covered with a delicate pattern of silver holly leaves. I lined it with another blue and silver fabric, this time it has stars on it. As a pretty but practical finishing touch I’ve tied it with a silver ribbon, which makes it look like a gift, but also holds it closed. I had just enough fabric left to make a bag to keep it clean.
On the opening pages I just stuck some Christmas card designs, I used to make all my Christmas cards using all sorts of techniques and ideas, here’s just three of them.
I wrote a little introduction to the book, mainly about what I love about Christmas, trying to keep the idea as open as possible so people can stitch anything seasonally appropriate. On the page opposite I include a red-work card my mum stitched for me around 2004. Homemade cards should always be treasured, this one is particularly poignant now as mum is rapidly losing her ability as a needlewoman.
Many years ago I went to a WI workshop on painting snowflakes. This card was the result, I loved it so much I could quite bring myself to give it to anyone! I decided my travelling sketchbook was the perfect home for it.
Finally, my official piece! I was tempted to do another snowflake, but I didn’t think I had quite enough time, I rummaged through my stash and found a Christmas quilting panel (originally from my mums stash!) which included several pictures of chickadees. I decided to cut one out and embellish it with embroidery. This is how it started.
I started off with some straight stitches on the pine-needles, it doesn’t show up that much but I know it’s there and I think it’s just enough.
When I first started the little bird I was matching the thread to the painting, I very quickly realised that this was going to make a very boring embroidery, as the stitches really didn’t stand out enough. I changed over to variegated threads which just added an extra colour or two. I used one of my favourite threads on his head and tail, it’s overall impression is quite dark but includes olive green and violet, it reminds me of the plumage of a mallard duck.
I used several different stitches, fly, feather, lazy-daisy, herringbone, chain, straight stitch and french knots. I think the floss on his chest possibly has a touch too much salmon pink in it, but I just went over with some ecru frech knots to tone it down a bit.
I decided it looked good as a circle, so I used some iron on interfacing on the back to give a bit of stability, cut round the circle and used buttonhole stitch to finish it.
I’m pretty pleased with my embroidery and having the image behind made it pretty quick to sew. I think the theme of the book I’ll have next month is the letter S, so quite a lot of scope, just got to think of an idea!
I’m linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, why not follow the link and see what everyone else has been stitching.
A couple of weeks ago Faby Reilly released a free pattern for Valentine’s Day, a very cute little heart. I love Faby’s cross-stitch designs, having stitched quite a few now. I nearly didn’t stitch it, thinking I’ve done a few Valentine ones this year… then I started to see it stitched on facebook..!
It is a very quick design to stitch as it’s just back-stitch, lazy-daisy, french knots and spider web stitch. I started it whilst cooking tea at about 6pm one evening, after tea I carried on stitching, I had about a half hour break when my son came round and it was finished by 9pm! So probably less than two hours actual stitching time!
I think it took longer to finish it! I found some fabric in my stash which matched it beautifully colourwise, both with the straw background and the different shades of red. I’m still not sure if it isn’t too busy though. It needed a bit of a border round as it is pretty small, more scissor fob size. I fancied putting some ricrac round it but I didn’t have the right shade so I made some cord using two of the DMC threads and then couched it round with a cross-stitch every five stitches, I added a bead at the same time which just adds a bit of sparkle and co-ordinates it with the heart. I made enough to go round the edge too but I decided it was enough. I’ve added it to my February smalls, just in time for Valentines Day.
I’ve also been stitching my mandala, this is definitely slow, relaxing stitching. I’ve finished the second ring and I’m now working my way round the outer circle with little buttonhole circles and spider-web stitches. I love the way it’s turning out. I’ve run out of a couple of colours but I know it’s due to my stitching, not the amount the company have provided. I find it easier to do a neat stem stitch like a back-stitch, so I come out ahead and then go back under, tucking in under the previous stitch. I find it easier but it does use at least twice as much thread as you can see from the photo of the back. (I’m feeling very brave here, I don’t think I’ve ever shown the back of my work before!!)
Hopefully I’ll manage to get some more pink thread at the weekend and be able to crack on and finish this one, then I just need to decide what to do with it. I’ll try to get some daylight photos for the happy dance post too!
I finally feel I’m getting somewhere with the quilting of my Down the Rabbit Hole quilt. The little rows of houses seemed to take for ever to quilt and weren’t particularly easy to quilt either as they are paper pieced. This is where I was three weeks ago, I was doing a mini happy dance for finishing those houses…
Three weeks later and I think I’ve made reasonable progress!
I stitched rays of sunshine from each sunflower at the corners of the houses border. I also stitched in the ditch along the purple border. I did make a slight boob here as I was stitching the rays in an ivory colour to blend in with the background so I carried on round the purple border in the same thread until I met the next sunflower. This was fine until I reached a section I’d obviously done before when I was bored of houses..stitched in purple! Luckily the backing fabric is so quietly busy you can’t see the stitching patterns anyway, never mind the colours!
Having finally finished the houses border I could move onto the rest of the sunflowers. I decided to continue the theme of rays of sunshine, it’s easy to quilt and I think it’s quite effective. As these rays were going to be significantly longer I wanted to mark them properly, so I manoevred the quilt onto my cutting table and used a hera marker to make a mark. It gives just enough of a shiny line to be able to follow. I’ve almost finished the first sunflower, I’ve just got the shorter inner ones to do. I’m enjoying this section as I’m finding it easier to get a neat stitch as I haven’t got the bulk of fabric to get through. Once these rays are complete I can stitch in the ditch round the narrow border to the next one.
I haven’t quite decided how to quilt the Dresden flowers, but I’m thinking of echoing the shape or quilting in the ditch on the actual flower. I think I need an echo of some kind round the whole flower maybe an inch out as otherwise the rays of sunshine are getting rather far apart. from a quilting coverage point of view.
The straight lines you can see are the basting lines, I’m undoing these as I go and the holes are gradually closing. I think once it’s washed at the end (which having been a few years in the making it will definitely need!) they will pretty much disappear.I’m hoping to make better progress with quilting now I’m on an easier border, I’m certainly enjoying it more. It’s much easier to handle now too as I’m not so much in the middle of the quilt.
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 also linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, a weekly celebration of hand-stitching. Why not follow the link to see even more hand-stitching..
thecraftycreek 