stitchnpatch

2012-01-31T10:36:00.000Z

Finished!
The crewel work picture is finished! Hurrah - it is mounted and now ready to be handed in for assessment.

To get the mounting right took a lot of work and a lot of tweeking but I am pleased with the finished result and look forward to getting my assessment mark - hopefully a good one.

Now on to the next module - Blackwork. I have chosen to do a picture of Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland - lots of opportunities to use a variety of stitches (about 6) and lots of shading in the picture which will present an interesting challenge.

2011-12-03T21:08:00.000Z

Recent Progress

I have made a lot of progress on my Crewel Work piece since the last time I blogged about it, firstly I finished the flower on the right hand side then worked on the flower on the left, also finishing that. I have also completed 2 of the hillocks at the bottom of the piece and the branch for the robin to sit on.

This week when I went up to Rugby I added a new flower at the top, decided on the stitches for the hillocks, started work on one of the hillocks and worked on the robin. The robin is stitched using long and short stitch for the body/breast in 4 shades of the pink.

This week I shall try to finish the robin and the hillocks so that when I go back for the last session before Christmas I just have the flower at the top to work on. This means that I shall be ready to mount the piece in the New Year and move on to the second module.

2011-10-06T22:30:00.000+01:00

Day 3
During the past 2 weeks I have done some work on the crewel work design, slightly hampered by a sore thumb, a busy couple of weeks and the record breaking hot weather we have enjoyed over the past week. However, I did manage to do some of the work most of it being done twice! I started with the leaves at the base of the tree using a mixture of stem stitch and chain stitch. When I came to doing the branch for the robin to sit on I hit a couple of problems - firstly, the mixture of colours I chose was wrong, too light and too similar to the leaf on that side, secondly, I wasn't sure how to stitch around the feet of the bird. I managed to sort out the colours myself but left the rest of the stitching until I could ask for advice from the tutors - now I know what to do. The trunk of the tree is stitched using raised stem stitch - here you can see the base stitches which it will be woven on.

I also tried to do the upper petal on the flower, filling it with the trellis pattern but realised when I had done it that it looked too heavy, too solid and the columns of stitching looked wrong - so out it came and again I waited until I went to Rugby to ask advice about how to position the stitches to get a more balanced effect.

When I was in Rugby we looked at how to finish the flower on the right - I worked the upper trellis to get the positioning correct, started to fill the end petals with pearl stitch, the pink solid petals with fishbone stitch graduating from dark to light at the tips. The small outer petals are edged with a dark green thread which is couched down, then a row of scroll stitch fills the inner shape of the petal.

Here you can see the flower in more detail.

It is surprising how slowly it takes shape - I have lots of works to do for homework in order to finish this flower, the branch the robin is sitting on and then to start the other flower. We are also talking about adding a third, smaller flower at the top of the design to balance it more. Now it's back to the stitching ...

2011-09-22T15:06:00.000+01:00

Day 2
Yesterday I headed up to Rugby again for Day 2 of the certificate. I was looking forward to transferring my design on to the linen and starting to stitch it out. I started by pinning my pricked out design onto the linen and then used a soft roll of wadding to gently push the powder through the holes. Once the design sheet was removed I then carefully painted over all the lines with a very fine brush and watercolour paints. I was now ready to start stitching!

As I needed to start by stitching items that are at the back of the design, I began with one of the leaves near the bottom of the design using 3 different shades of green and a mixture of outline stitch and chain stitch. I will continue with the other similar leaves at home using different combinations of the greens to add variety to the finished design.

During the last 2 weeks I had done a bit of practising of some of the stitches which enabled me to get a feel for the wool and some of the different stitches I might use. Then I moved onto the trellis work on the flower - here I found it quite tricky to lay the threads down evenly in the grid and ended up using a separate piece of wool to work out the position of the next line. The threads are tacked down with a tiny diagonal stitch, then the squares are filled in alternately with satin stitch and french knots using pink and blue threads.

The next section I started work on is the flower petals - outlining them using back stitch. This will then be whipped with a lighter shade of pink. Along with some decisions made about which areas to complete for homework over the next 2 weeks until I go again, that was my days work.

I have now come home to work out the best way I can set up a work area to support the frame without a large outlay of money and it taking up half of the living room. I am going to try using 2 TV tables with a small pad on each to raise the front end up - it may not work which will mean I have to get my thinking cap on again for a different solution. This final photo give some idea of the size of the slate frame I am working on.

2011-09-07T23:30:00.001+01:00

Day 1

Early thing this morning I headed up to Rugby by car, I was originally thinking of getting the train but changed my mind at the last minute, as I had never been to Rugby before and didn't know how far it would be to walk from the station to the Library, where the course is being held. All of the main locations in Rugby appear to be well sign-posted and ignoring the sat-nav I ended up in the right place first time! The Library and Museum are in a new building right in the centre of town, opposite Asda with a large carpark in front of them. There were the 2 tutors, Nikki and Sarah,and 4 students today. Two of the ladies had already been on some day courses with the RSN and had made a start on their designs and stitching so that left 2 of us to think about a design for the crewelwork module. After we had coffee and an introductory chat we looked through books and other source material before Nikki use her fantastic artistic skills to draw the elements we wanted to include ready for tracing and photocopying. The designs traditionally have hillocks, a tree, leaves, flowers and a bird or animal - so my design will have hillocks, a tree shape, a large leaf, a carnation and a robin. Once the design had been drawn, traced and photocopied to the right size it was time to colour it in, deciding which colours should go where and then which stitches to be used in the various areas. I will be using shades of terracotta and green with accents of blue and gold.

After lunch we started to prepare the material to work on by framing it up on new 'slate frames' - the carefully ironed linen twill was centred and sewn to the webbing on the top and bottom slats, then webbing was stitched to the 2 sides before it was bound with string to the 2 sides of the frame. The string was tightened so that the fabric was drum tight in the frame. Now it is ready for the pattern to be transferred onto it next time I go up to Rugby. I really enjoyed my first day on the certificate, learnt lots and am looking forward to my next visit in a couple of weeks time. In the meantime I can practice the various stitches that I will be using in my design using the wools on calico. I can also try the different colour combinations although I don't have all of the shades of the two main colours yet.

Later whenI left the Library I drove around the centre of Rugby and discovered how far it is away from the railway station - I think I will be driving up there in future especially when I have to carry the heavy frame and other materials as it is about a 20 minute walk into town.

2011-09-04T14:56:00.003+01:00

Nearly there

Only 3 days to go until I head up to Rugby to start the course. I have the course information, some of the books on the recommended list and the basic equipment that I need to take with me. I haven't done any hand embroidery lately as I want to be fresh when I start the course, but I am working on a super kingsized machine embroidered quilt. Each block is made from a plain piece of fabric and is heavily stitched to create the design on it - so far I have completed 9 blocks and need 16 for the full quilt. During the last 2 weeks I have been putting together the blocks that are completed with the sashing and backing and quilting them ready to be assembled together into a larger piece. Here is one of the blocks created using the patterns from the book 'Aquamarine Ambience' by Simon J Haskins.

I need to keep working on the quilt as it needs to be finished in the next 2 months ready for an exhibition at the beginning of December.

2011-09-02T23:19:00.000+01:00

New Beginnings
I have a love/hate relationship with this time of year - I hate the fact that summer is coming to an end and cooler weather and then winter is approaching, but I love the fact that this time of year is when new things often start and we have exciting things to look forward to. I have always loved using something new for the first time, a new outfit, a fresh loaf of bread to cut into, a new exercise book at school. This year I am excited as this week I start a new course with the Royal School of Needlework and I will be realising a dream to train to produce beautiful, high quality (I hope) embroidery. I start on Wednesday in Rugby on the certificate course and will begin by learning how to produce Jacobean crewel work which uses a variety of embroidery stitches. I have done a wide variety of embroidery over the years including cross stitch, needlepoint, canvas work, contemporary work but never crewel work, so I shall be very interested to see how working with wool on a firm twill background differs from the other forms of embroidery. The RSN are very flexible in how you attend and I plan to go to Rugby about once every 3 weeks for tuition, this will give me time in between the sessions to enjoy the work I am doing and not feel as if I am rushing through the modules. Once I have finished the crewel work module I shall then move onto canvaswork, goldwork then finish with long and short silk shading. More details about the certificate can be found on the RSN website here.

2011-07-26T15:25:00.000+01:00

Prizewinner!

Imagine my surprise last week, while on holiday, when I happened to look on the Irish Quilting blog to discover that they had listed me as a missing person/reader and that I had won a prize in a competition that they ran earlier this year! When I went to the Festival of Quilts last August I picked up a copy of the Irish Quilting magazine out of curiosity and read that they were running a competition in association with Janome to design and stitch a 10" flower quilt block which incorporated three different quilting stitches. I registered my interest in entering and eventually made the quilt block shown below, having used this design in a Baltimore style wall hanging.

The central section is machine appliqued using my Janome 350e embroidery machine using batik fabrics on a black background. The border is foundation pieced then attached to the central section. I then free motion quilted around the flowers, quilted in the ditch around the border and used one of the preset embroidery stitches on my Bernina 730 to do the other lines of quilting. As I didn't hear anything when the winners were due to be announced I assumed that I hadn't won anything, especially as nothing arrive in the post. First and second prizes were sewing machines (which I didn't win), third prizes were Janome Mega Tote Bags - apparently there was a mix-up and I should have received one of them, so now I look forward to receiving it.

2010-10-14T22:06:00.000+01:00

The garden in autumn

The garden in autumn is still looking lovely with many flowers still blooming although I am very glad that I have added a number of plants in addition to the original planting plan otherwise there wouldn't be very much in bloom at the moment. We have also had 2 rather strange birds land in our garden! They have arrived from the Austrian/Italian border and seem to be making themselves at home in amongst the flowers!

2010-10-11T13:50:00.002+01:00

Holidays and stitching - just back from a fortnights holiday driving to the South of France and back via Lake Como, Stuttgart and Luxembourg. We had great weather on the Cote D'Azur - cloudless blue skies virtually every day, no rain until we got into the Alps, great food and lots of driving.

We stayed in a cottage in the South of France which was very rural and quiet yet only 5 minutes from the motorway which it made it very easy to get around and visit St Tropez, Antibes, Grasse and Nice.

We visitied some very interesting places including the Musee Picasso in Antibes, the International Perfume Museum in Grasse and the Villa Ephrussi di Roschild in Cap Ferrat.

On the way home we also stopped in Brugges for a couple of hours to wander round and enjoy the atmosphere.

Stitching - before we went away I decided to try to get a quilt finished for my nephew, Andrew. His sister and 2 cousins had each had a quilt when they started university, but as he hasn't gone off to uni I've made him one anyway and here is the finished result.

The pattern is from a book called and was really easy and fun to do - the scariest part was cutting the completed blocks to the right size then trimming them so the would appear twisted. I then had to decide how to quilt the finished top. A week before I went on holiday I went on a course at The Bramble Patch with Edwina McKinnon entitled 'But how do I quilt my quilt?' On the course we discussed lots of ways to quilt the various quilts tops that we had taken and this inspired me when I came back to have a go with a spiral design on this one. It took me about 15 hours to quilt it but I was pleased with the finished result and I think Andrew liked the finished quilt.

Since coming back from holiday I have been making a pegbag as a sample for this month's Creative Thread project and preparing samples for a nativity wallhanging workshop we are holding at the end of the month.

2010-08-04T14:08:00.000+01:00

Back again

Oh dear! I should never make a New Year's Resolution as I can't keep them - here we are in august and this is only the second post this year - no excuses really apart from laziness. So what have I been up to? Lots of travelling round the world and in Europe, lots of stitching related things, enjoying our newly landscaped garden and a little bit of housework. Here is what the garden looked like before

and after the landscaping -

This quilt is one that I designed and organised at the machine embroidery group I belong to - we made the star blocks using a technique of foundation piecing in the hoop which presented us with many challenges which many in the group don't want to repeat! The embroidered blocks were digitised to represent significant landmarks in the 5 local counties and the quilting was done 'as you go' with the borders and binding added after the blocks and sashing had been assembled and quilted. The quilt is to be presented to a member of the Armed Forces in the next few months - I just need to make a bag to put it in with some of the spare blocks.

A lot of my time recently has been spent improving my machine embroidery skills - below is a table runner that I made last week for a wedding present for a friend. It took a lot of practising and false starts before I managed to get the design to stitch out to my satisfaction with a minimal amount of puckering and with all of the elements of the design positioned in exactly the right places. Now I hope they like it!

These are just 2 of the stitching things I have been doing recently - more to follow.

2010-01-09T13:25:00.001Z

Hello 2010!

Happy New Year to everyone! OK so I didn't do very well with blogging last year - only a couple of posts - lets see if I can do better this year. As the country is gripped with a covering of snow we've been taking advantage of activities being cancelled and not going far and I have done some more snow dyeing and other crafty things. I am at the moment experimenting with overdyeing some fabric that I dyed earlier in the week as it came out very pale and not very interesting. Interestingly the snow I gathered this morning has a different texture to that which I used earlier in the week when it was fresh, this time it was more powdery and finer so I'll be interested to see if it makes different patterns.

We are off on a big holiday in 2 weeks time downunder to New Zealand so this will become something of a travelogue as well over the next couple of months. In preparation for the trip I have been sorting out a stitching project and thonk that I will work on a miniature, foundation pieced 'storm at sea' quilt. I have a small cutting mat, rotary cutter and ruler to take with me and decided yesterday to make a wallet to hold them whilst on my travels. Here is the finished article

2009-10-12T23:01:00.004+01:00

Back to blogging

I've just realised that it's 7 months since my last entry here so I'm going to try to blog regularly from now on. Lots has happened during that time including a lot of stitching in various forms - mainly bridesmaids dresses for Jon's wedding in August.

Last week I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace - I decided to go twice, once on my own and again with a friend. When I went on thursday I booked to do 2 workshops in the afternoon, the first one was Silk Shading and the second Goldwork, both with a tutor from the Royal School of Needlework. It's ages since I really did any embroidery but I really enjoyed doing the Silk Shading and have managed to complete the design since getting home. I didn't think I was doing the wings particularly well when I was in the class, however the tutor and those around me seemed to think that it was really good showing a good direction of the stitches - see what you think. (photo tomorrow as its too late to do it tonight). Most of my purchases at the show were linked to dyeing fabric including a book on tray dyeing and a book about Shibori.

I started the Goldwork design in class but haven't had a chance to finish it yet - it has inspired me to get a goldwork design of harebells that I bought at the show a couple of years ago and need to finish.

In the meantime I am in the process of quilting a quilt for Matthew who has just gone off to university a couple of weeks ago. It was supposed to be ready for him to take with him, however, when I got to the quilting stage I was rushing to get it finished and made a mess of it so I pulled it out and started the quilting again. This time I am much happier with it - I quilted much of it in the ditch, I then digitised an african drum outline to use as a quilting motif on some of the plain blocks and am now adding some more straight quilting lines diagonally across some of the blocks. I will try to finish it tomorrow and add the binding.

2009-02-09T11:11:00.007Z

Snow and fabric dyeing

Well my new year 'resolution' to blog more didn't happen - we are now half way through February and this is only the second entry of the year - note to self - must try harder. This was the scene outside the house on Thursday last week - we had about 4" snow and more on Friday.

On Friday Gerard and Matt built a snowman in the back garden - he didn't last very long I'm sorry to say.

I spent part of Friday 'snow dyeing' - I had seen it mentioned on a couple of blogs, but it wasn't something which I had come across before. Basically you soak the fabric in a water, salt and soda solution, place it on a rack (which I didn't have so I used the utility room sink and a cat litter tray) then drizzle two or three colours of Procion dye solution over them.

Leave it until the snow has melted then wash it out and see the beautiful mottled results.

The two pieces of fabric that I dyed using golden yellow, fuschia and magenta turned out very well as you can see from the pictures, unfortunately the piece I dyed using golden yellow and medium blue only took the yellow and parts of it turned marginally green. I don't know why it didn't take the blue at all so have tried again today - that under the snow at the right of the picture below. I've also included some pieces of silk this time as well (mum's suggestion - thanks mum!). As the snow is now melting as it is raining I don't know that I'll get any more opportunities this winter to play with this techniques. I'll just have to enjoy using the pretty pieces of fabric that have been created.

2009-01-01T23:02:00.003Z

Happy New Year - I have decided to try to blog more this year even though it is going to be a busy one - more about that in a later post.

2008-05-25T16:39:00.003+01:00

Gerard's Quilt
I have spent the last couple of months, in amongst other things, making a quilt for the flat in Germany for Gerard to use - I need to make a second one for when I or visitors are visiting but haven't yet started it. Here is the front of the finished quilt - the stars were foundation pieced, then the flowers were machine appliqued before adding the sashing.

For the reverse I decided to make it a bit more 'manly' and used a lot of black, white, cream and red music fabrics left over from Jon's quilt - inevitably I didn't have enough and we had to go searching for more! So I'm still left with a pile of black and white music fabrics! This time I used a much simpler block that I pieced as time was running short, added sashing then quilted it.

The only thing I was disappointed with was the quilting as I found it very difficult to match up the sashing front and back, so I think for mine I will choose an easier backing and possibly do ita as a 'quilt as you go' in smaller sections.

2008-04-23T12:20:00.001+01:00

New Bag - April BQL Challenge Bag
Yesterday I finished making this bag which is from the British Quilters List April pattern (slightly adapted). Having treated myself to a new sewing machine a couple of weeks ago I used various features that came with it to create the bag.

I only had a smallish piece of the printed pansy material so decided to team that up with the plain cream and use the new embroidery unit to embroider the pansies onto it. The machine that I have bought is a Bernina and has the Bernina Stitch Regulator that I can attach to it so I used that for doing all of the quilting - good practice to find out how best to use it. I used the walking foot to quilt the handles and one of the inbuilt embroidery patterns to put a stipple pattern along the cream border at the top. And of course used the machine to sew it all together. One of the feet that I got to go with the machine is the edge stitch foot and I used this to top stitch the cream band at the top to the pansy material. I'm quite pleased with the result - it's quite a large bag but far too pretty to use for grocery shopping which was the original idea of the BQL challenge.

So - I love my new sewing machine - now I am getting used to having lots of little (and big) extras that my other machine didn't have - like a thread cutter - sooo useful and cuts down on thread wastage, the needle down position and a knee lift for raising the presser foot to turn corners which you do a lot of with applique. My new machine and I are going to be very happy together I know!

2008-03-06T19:22:00.004Z

February bag - here is the bag I made for the February bag challenge on British Quilters List. I haven't followed the instructions fully as I was supposed to do the swirls with a thread in the bobbin of machine and I have hand couched it down, also it was supposed to have hearts or leaves on it and I have left them off. I did, however, hand dye the fabric for both the outside and the lining material.

I haven't got a lot of other sewing done recently as a lot of my time has been tied up with organising things to do with my husbands job in Germany - mainly tring to make sure we have enough money in the right place at the right time to pay everything. So far the job seems to be going well and he is enjoying the flat we are renting there - this week he is back working in the UK.

Here are a couple of photos of the flat - it is the top floor of this building complete with a mezzanine - and yes - we do have to climb the stairs in the turret to get up to the flat!

this is one end of the lounge

I would add a couple more pictures but blogger isn't co-operating tonight.

2008-01-14T20:02:00.000Z

Gosh - it's ages since I posted anything here so time for a quick update. I passed the Module 2 and have started on my Module 3 work. I've done virtually no stitching over the Christmas and New Year period, even though I had high hopes of getting lots done - having a bad cold over New Year didn't help my motivation. However, yesterday I did some weaving - one of the tasks for the Module 3 - here are my first 2 attempts. I may do a bit more as I really quite enjoy it.

This weekend I also made a bag for the BQL bag challenge following the pattern given for January.

2007-12-05T20:13:00.000Z

Module 2 is finished and I posted it off to my tutor yesterday for marking. Now I can get on with Module 3 which I actually started when we went on holiday in July, only I've lost the bit of stitching that I did while we were away - will have to go and have a biiiiiig search for it. No more stitching to report.

2007-11-27T08:53:00.000Z

The wallhanging is finished! I hand quilted the lines on it to resemble water flowing down and painted some more silk to use to bind it and got it finished - I am quite pleased with how it finally turned out. Now I need to finish the rest of my samples and paperwork then I can send it all off to be marked.

2007-11-24T15:02:00.000Z

C+G Module 2 - I'm trying to get Module 2 finished - a couple of weeks ago I worked out how I was going to do the final wallhanging and did some silk painting that I could then quilt. The design is based on a postcard of pebbles - I am using just one of them as inspiration for the shape and colours. The shapes of the different sized pebbles and the border were outlined with gold gutta. I embellished the silk painting by using salt on the largest of the pebbles, printing on the smallest and markal paintstiks on the middle one and outer border.

Once It was dried and heat set I then quilted the pebbles and the plain green border - however I didn't like the quality of my painting or free machine quilting - so its back to the drawing board - I cut off the border and echo quilted round the shapes, thinking I would then applique them onto a background - still didn't like that.

So - I cout out each of the pebbles and appliqued them onto a newly painted piece of silk - I also stuffed them as I sewed them on. After layering the silk I hand quilted round each pebble.

Now I need to work out the rest of the quilting then the border. I am going to try and use the original speckled border for this piece - if there is enough fabric.

2007-11-15T16:33:00.001Z

Quilts and sewing space

My niece has recently gone off to University for the first time having spent a gap year working and travelling. Part of her time was spent in Tanzania working in a Bible School and training to climb Kilimanjaro, which she succeeded in doing towards the end of her stay. Before she went I asked her to see if she could bring back some material for 'an African project I would be doing over the summer'. She obliged by bringing back some tartan fabrics, some black and white fabric and 2 different lots of batik style fabrics with animals on them. Over the last 3 years or so I had been collecting very brightly coloured patterned fabrics as I had it in mind to make her a quilt for going off to Uni - she loves very bright colours. But - how to mix the 2 lots of fabric into a quilt that didn't look a complete mess?

Looking for inspiration early in the summer I found a Fabrications magazine that had a quilt in it with stars and decided to adapt it to use the bright fabrics - many of the smaller sized stars have centres made from a duck material which added some humour to it. I also used the tartan fabric and some of the batik fabric for the centre stars/squares. The black and white fabric had a variety of African motifs on it so I cut them out and appliqued them onto blue fabric to use in the corners.

Here is the finished front - I started by trying to be very random in my choice of fabrics, but that didn't work for me and I thought I would just end up with a mess so I was then more organised in my combinations of fabric.

Next to the back - the batik fabric was pale aqua and brown with animals on it - I knew I wanted to use large panels of it and managed to find some chocolate brown patterned fabric at the Festival of Quilts which seemed to go very well - I also bought a bit that was brown with gold glitter on it!

I bound the edge with a plain darker aqua coloured fabric, outlined some of the motifs on the front with Madeira 'Glow in the dark' thread and quilted it with a variegated thread in primary colours and got it finished so my sister can deliver it to Christine today - hope she likes it and enjoys using it.

Now for my sewing space - here is a photo of the sspace where I was doing some silk painting last week in the kitchen.
When I counted up I realised that I was storing my stuff in at least 9 different places around the house - we live in a 3 storey house - so that's a lot of stairs to climb everytime I was trying to do a project. My very tolerant husband accepted the fact that there was always stuff lying around the lounge and kitchen but would have much preferred it to be tidier. So ... last Friday I mentioned the problem to him and we decided to move things around on the ground floor - the result being that I have my own dedicated sewing room!! Wonderful. Son number1 now has a music room for a bedroom when he comes home from Uni at Christmas (it has 2 pianos in there + guitars and amps) but there is room still for his bed, so he does have somewhere to sleep.

So - here is the room - the wardrobe has been pinched from Son Number1 and now houses my fabrics and things like freezer paper and heat gun

Now all I need is to finish marking lots of my students assignments then I will have time to play and create in there - wonderful!

2007-11-08T19:50:00.000Z

Although I have been very quiet on the blogging front recently, I haven't been quiet on the creative front. During the first half of October I decided to make a bag and to stitch on to it the embroidery panel that I did as my piece for the Sumptuous Surfaces course I took during the summer. Here is the finished article -

2007-10-06T17:57:00.001+01:00

It's finished! For the past 9 months a group of 6 of us from church have been working hard to create a banner to celebrate the church's 350th Anniversary and we finished it this week just in time for our new associate minister's induction this afternoon. The banner looks really good in situ on a white wall and is 6ft wide by 5ft high - unfortunately this photo isn't particularly good as I had to stand on a chair about 20ft away from it to take it, but it gives you the general idea.

We have depicted the church in the centre surrounded by groups of people representing the different eras over the years eg puritans, victorians and the multicultural influence today including young people and children.

2007-08-28T19:37:00.001+01:00

Needlefelting/Embellishing - I have looked with interest at the increasing coverage on blogs and in the media about using embellisher machines and wondered about the benefits of having one. For a minimum of £200 it seems an expensive machine, which I'm still not sure that a) I would have the space for and b) how much I would use it. I am interested to see how other people use them and what they create with them.

With all this in mind I was very interested when I discovered that Clover have brought out a needlefelting tool - I know that needlefelting needles have been around for ages - they always looked rather dangerous to me, whereas this one has a safety guard round the needles, so may cut down the number of times that you spear yourself. I decided that at £12 this was a much more cost effective option to try similar effects to the machine. So, I purchased one today from Hobbycraft, along with a foam pad (much cheaper than the Clover mat) and some felting wool and had a go this afternoon. Here are my first 2 experiments - firstly a small landscape scene on a base of felt, using the wool and some threads from my stash

then an abstract on a base of lightweight calico, again using mainly wools and silk tops

The needles work very well with the wool fibres, fibrous yarns and silk tops but not so well with smoother threads as there is little for them to push through the surface, although calico did work well as a base. With the smoother yarns I needed to put a little bit of wool over them to hold them in place. I shall keep experimenting as it was great fun and they would make a great base for adding beads and hand or machine embroidery to.

2007-08-20T15:07:00.000+01:00

Sumptuous Surfaces - my first piece is finished! It has taken me a couple of weeks to actually stitch it but now it is done and I am really pleased with it. I used Caron Waterlilies threads, DMC stranded cotton, fancy threads couched down, beads and shells to create the textured surface. Now I need to decide what I am going to do with it - am I going to make it into a picture or use it in some other way.

Festival of Quilts - I spent a lovely couple of days there at the end of last week - as it worked out, I could've done with more time to walk round the exhibition as I had booked a couple of workshops which obviously cut down my time. On Friday I did a full day workshop with Gloria Loughman from Australia, called Playing on the Surface - it was great fun and very inspirational. She showed a way of working and creating a unique quilt which totally suits my way of working - making it up as you go along! Now I have lots more work to do on the quilt to get it finished.

This week I am going to attempt to finish my Module 2 embroidery work which is actually different kinds of quilting - I have silk painted the fabric for the 3 samples, now I need to quilt them, then decide what to do for the final wallhanging. I am basing my work on a photograph of pebbles, that I found in France.

2007-08-05T14:03:00.000+01:00

Sumptuous Surfaces progress - well I have made a start on stitching my piece - hampered a little by the fact that I have ready Harry Potter 6 in the last couple of days and am just about to start reading HP7. Originally I was going to work in creams/ecru colours, but found that I didn't have very much thread in that colour scheme - so after a trip to the embroidery shop on Thursday I ended up with this colour scheme - I had already outlined the shells before I went.

So, now I have finished the border and filled in the lines on the shells using pulled back stitch in one strand of cotton. I then used 2 strands to do a very random herringbone stitch in the top half of the picture to give a base for the more texture stitches. I don't think I will do that at the bottom - I want to leave it feeling lighter. I started to work some buttonhole wheels/cups using perle cotton and then couched a wonderful fuzzy yarn at the bottom right hand corner. Now I need to add lots more textured stitches when I can drag myself away from Harry Potter.

2007-08-01T22:06:00.000+01:00

I have spent the last 10 days working on my 2 quilts for the Festival of Quilts - for the past few days all I seem to have done is stitch and very little else.

Well both quilts are finished and on their way - hurray! It was rather a close call in the end as I finished the roses quilt on Monday and blocked it out yesterday - it looked quite good when it was finished - I spent 2.5 days machine quilting it in the end. I started this quilt about 3 years ago on an online course through Quilt University it is machine appliqued onto a background of 2" squares.

I finished stitching the blue quilt as the UPS man rang the doorbell!!!! I had asked them to come between 3 and 5 to pick the quilts up but he arrived early at 2.45 so he had to wait while I took a photo of it, gave it a very quick press and packed it up - now I realise that I didn't have a proper look at the finished item so don't really know what it looked like overall - it'll be a nice surprise when I get to the Festival of Quilts.

The four corner blocks are candlewicking - french knots, the central block is beaded and the applique blocks are done by hand, the sashing scrolls are couched with Caron Watercolours thread.

I've attached photos of the finished items - the blue one hasn't come out very well, I'm afraid. I know that I could've sent them by UPS tomorrow but I wanted to make sure that they had enough time to get to the depot, in case UPS had any sort of delay. Now I can get on with the rest of my life. So...

Tomorrow is likely to be filled with shopping, washing, ironing, tidying up and starting to read HP6 as a refresher before I move on to HP7. I have started to outline my shells for my first Sumptuous Surfaces piece but need some more neutral cream/sandy coloured threads to make the background interesting.

2007-07-23T09:13:00.001+01:00

Sumptuous Surfaces - well I ended up with some free time last night as i found that I didn't have enough fabric to do what I wanted to do with one of my wallhangings - will have to go shopping today, so I played around with some ideas for a design and this is what I have decided to do.

My concept is 'Happy family holidays' - there are 4 of us in the family - hence 4 shells on the beach. I decided to go with the shells as I thought that they would be easier to work with in a monotone colour scheme and lend themselves more to a variety of textural stitching.

I will work the design on cream coloured Belfast linen - the background will be heavily textured stitching, including beads and small shells that I bought on holiday in Bulgaria (a bracelet so they already have holes drilled in them). The shells themselves will be outlined, possibly in stem stitch, then I shall use pulled work stitches to fill them in, trying if possible to echo the vertical lines of the patterning on the shells.

I'll have to see if I can get started this week - depends on how the wallhangings go and how bored I get with hand quilting and finishing.

2007-07-22T08:15:00.001+01:00

Current work - I am busy at the moment working on 2 wallhangings for the Festival of Quilts - I need to have them finished before the end of the month so that they can be posted off - as usual I am working on them at the last minute and still have a lot to do. One of them involves a lot of handstitching - I have done all of the candlewicking and hand applique, now I am on to hand quilting and then putting it all together. This is one of the applique blocks (I completed 3 of them this week).

The other wallhanging needs some machine applique on it then to be quilted and finished - fortunately I have a completely clear week ahead of me, with absolutely nothing in it but housework and sewing.

I haven't had time to do any work on my Sumptuous Surfaces design although I have been following all the discussions in the forums - I just don't have time for anymore handstitching at the moment. However I will try and finalise my design for it this week when I need a break from stitching.

Then of course there is my C+G work - I need to get on and finish Module 2 so I can send it off for assessment, before I do any more work on Module 3.

I'm also resisting picking up Harry Potter 7 - I've decided that I need to reread HP6 first, but don't want to get engrossed in it until the quilts are done. Matthew read HP7 in 8 hours yesterday - he did nothing else except eat and drink until he had finished it, now Gerard is reading it.

With all these things on my list of things to do, it's a good job that I don't have to go to work for the next 7 weeks - I love my job and the summer holidays!

2007-07-17T19:12:00.000+01:00

Sumptuous Surfaces - getting started on lesson 1. Lesson 1 is all about finding a concept to use for the first sample and using the ideas from the concept to explore design ideas and to develop the design.

I started thinking about this at the weekend - as we have just returned from a very happy family holiday, I decided to think about the best holidays that we have had as a family. I did a mind map including ideas about places we have visited which have been our best family holidays (Bulgaria, Florida, Rome, Lanzarote), the weather (sunny, hot), accommodation (selfcatering, hotel), getting there (flying), location (seaside, city break), activities (sight seeing, beachcombing, theme parks, museums, stitching, reading, people watching) and more. We plan to do one more big family holiday probably next year to the US, then I expect our eldest son won't come on holiday with us again (he's 19 now and at Uni).

So I have decided that my concept is Happy family holidays.

Motifs that spring to mind linked to this are - shells, pebbles, sunshine, space shuttle, palm trees and stingrays (from when we were in Florida) and Roman architecture.

I have never before had to explore a whole concept like this and am looking forward to keeping a record of it in a sketchbook and seeing where the ideas take me.

So I started by collecting some pictures of some of the ideas - shells, stingray and palm trees. In one of forum postings a suggestion was made to look at sand patterns so I thought I'd have alook at those as well. I sketched some of the designs and these are the ones I have so far -
I have now started to play around with some of the shapes with tracing paper - here are some of my first attempts.

I want to try some different arrangements and changes of scale, I also haven't looked at positive and negative space/shapes. Time to get the tracing paper and pencil out ...

2007-07-14T18:15:00.000+01:00

Holiday activities - just before I went on holiday I received Module 3 of my C+G Course (haven't finished Module 2 yet, but that's mainly quilting I need to do and I'll get it finished soon). Some of the activities for Module 3 were perfect to sit and do on holiday - namely drawing lots of lines with all sorts of different media - so I went armed with an A3 sketchbook, lots of pencils, watercolour pencils, charcoal and paint. Here are a selection of the pages that I did - the first one was using a 4B pencil -

This page is using wax crayon -

On this page I was experimenting with watercolour pencils -

On this page I used a selection of pencils, 2B, 4B, 8B and charcoal to create the same motifs.

After that I then moved on to one of the stitching exercises which was to stitch a pansy using satin stitch - I have never been very good at satin stitch in the past, but was pleased with the finished result this time. I painted the background calico with Koh-i-Noor paints and used 3 strands of stranded cotton for the stitching.

I need to stitch it again using long and short stitch - hence the sample using varigated silk thread.

2007-07-14T09:39:00.001+01:00

Bulgaria - we've just returned home from a week in Golden Sands, Bulgaria where we had a great time. We stayed at the Iberostar Hotel, Obzor Beach - a first for us as we usually go self-catering in a cottage, apartment or mobile home. I really enjoyed not having to think about food shopping, cooking or washing up! The hotel was very nice, plenty of facilities and a large buffet at breakfast and dinner with enough choice to satisfy even the fussiest of diners.

Our rooms overlooked the promenade and the beach - very golden sand.

At the start of the holiday the sea was very calm, lapping peacefully onto the shore - by the end of our week there must have been a storm out at sea and the waves were a very different matter.

It took us about 15 minutes to stroll into the resort centre, passing hundreds of restaurants and snack bars and stalls selling everything from tee-shirts to the local pottery. Our favourite stall was of course the one selling the most expensive gifts - but they were the best quality items - hand painted silk scarves and ties, leather pictures, handbags and jewellery. I treated myself to this handbag - the central section is very textured.

We went out on a couple of day trips while we were there - this photo of my husband and I was taken at Cape Kaliakra overlooking the very blue sea.

On the same day we visited an 'Ethnographic Museum' where we saw this display of textiles - this motif had been crocheted and had a very 3D effect.

On another day we visited Varna - one of the largest cities on the coast - there we visited the Cathedral - very ornately decorated inside, another Ethnographic Museum and the Dolphinarium. This is a photo of the Cathedral.

On a couple of the evenings we went as a family to play mini-golf - here the boys are trying to sabotage their fathers shot.

For some reason they weren't very happy with me on the last night as I won!

Now we are home again - I have lots of sewing projects to do including 2 quilts to finish for the Festival of Quilts, lots of work to do for my Level 3 City and Guilds and work to do for the latest online course I am taking with Sharon Boggon through Joggles - Sumptuous Surfaces - I think that will keep me busy for the rest of the summer.

2007-06-17T18:07:00.001+01:00

TAST French Knots
I love doing French Knots! This weeks stitch for Take a Stitch Tuesday is French Knots and while I haven't done a special sample I have found pictures of work where I have used them a lot. The first picture was a sample that I did for my C+G Level 2 - it was based on a picture of a starfish, embroidered in 2 thicknesses of variegated perle cotton and surrounded by kantha type quilting.

The second picture is the bag I made at the end of the C+G Level 2 course - much of the embroidery is French Knots in different types and weights of threads.

Recently I went on holiday to Normandy for a week - before I went I bought a pack of threads from the Fibre Factory along with some dyed scrim I then painted a piece of linen and created this freehand design - including of course, French Knots. The rest of the threads are couched down as they are too thick to use for stitching but give wonderful texture to the piece.

This last sample is one that I have done very recently - candlewicking - it will be made into a wallhanging along with some other blocks made using other techniques. I even made one of these blocks travelling through France doing French knots!

2007-05-13T16:50:00.000+01:00

Recently I have been stitching but don't actually have a lot to show for it, if that makes sense. I have done some applique, which is slow work as I wanted to try and do it really well, and I did a design in beading - but have taken it out twice so far, last time because I realised that I didn't have enough beads and needed to space them out more. I have now counted all the beads (480!) and have worked out the design, so I can start stitching it again tonight, hopefully for the last time.

Recently on Tuesday mornings I have started meeting with a couple of friends to discuss projects, share ideas and play. This week we decided to do some fabric dyeing - I needed to dye some fabric for the sky of our next banner project for church and at the same time did a bit of space dyeing with calico, silks and other cotton. Here are the results.

The previous session when we met together, we were playing with Markal paintstiks and rubbings which ties in very nicely with my current C+G module. I tried some rubbings on cartridge paper (not very successful) then on material. After that, it was out with the toothbrushes and masking tape to make interesting patterns.

For the final picture I was trying to mix different colours with an iridescent blending stick- it doesn't show up on the photo.

2007-05-03T20:48:00.000+01:00

I have just bought a Koh-I-Noor paint pallette from Art Van Go and have done a little bit of experimenting with it - these are the basic colours - plus black and white.

The colours are very intense and very brilliant depending on how much water you add to them - while waiting for the tea to cook tonight I experimented putting two colours next to each other.

I haven't yet tried mixing the colours together - I'll probably do that over the weekend and see what results I get.

2007-04-29T22:54:00.000+01:00

This is my sample of running stitch that I have just finished - it is a mixture of patterns created with the stitch and lines of running stitch whipped with various threads.

Today our church has been celebrating it's 350th Anniversary - it is one of the oldest Baptist Churches in the world.

We had a lovely day with special services, many ex-members and friends coming back to share the day with us and to share lunch, and the opportunity to catch up with people we haven't seen for years. This is one of the beautiful flowers arrangements that decorated the church.

Then the young people had a long walk ending in a game of rounders and a barbecue. Now we are all exhausted.

2007-04-22T09:26:00.000+01:00

Time to catch up with posting my small samples for the TAST challenge. I don't feel as if I've been very creative with the stitches but I've been busy with other stitching in the meantime and nibbling away at my Module 2 for City and Guilds.

The first stitch is this weeks stitch - Palestrina stitch. I started in straight rows then tried overlapping the rows with different lengthed stitches, then I did the S shape. The bottom two rows were done slightly differently to Sharons instructions - on the first row I added an extra knot to make it more knobbly, on the second row I started off the same but the second 'stitch' I passed under the first stitch then did a final knot - this gives a better right angle - more like a knotted buttonhole stitch.

This is my sample from Week 14 - Bonnet stitch - just a couple of rows - not very exciting.

This example is from Week 13 - Knotted Cretan stitch which was fun to do as it was easier to get some variety in the stitches.

This couching example is for Week 12 - I used some lovely textured thread that I bought in Germany before Christmas and it just cries out to be touched.

This is Week 10s sample - Barred chain - again a fun stitch to play around with.

2007-04-09T23:00:00.000+01:00

A belated Happy Easter to you! This is the Easter banner that I have been working on recently for church and managed to finish last week in plenty of time. I became very frustrated with my sewing machine and had to abandon using it by Monday last week as it needed a new lever to raise the presser foot - fortunately it was fixed on Wednesday - now it's a pleasure to use again.

I have had a lovely weekend - the family have all been away and I have been able to experiment and sew as much as I wanted to - nothing to show here as yet as I have been preparing some ATCs for an exchange and will post them during May once they have been received. Just let me say that they linked to my Module 2 texture work - silk painting and texture rubbings and I am quite pleased with the results.

Today a friend and I went up to the Living Crafts Show at Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire - the weather was great and we really enjoyed our visit. It was nice to see some different crafts on display, other than textiles and to enjoy a falconry display - we missed the ferret racing! There were lots of jewellry stalls which were very tempting - I did buy one pair of stud earrings and a pair of sandals in very soft, red nubuck leather.

2007-03-23T17:28:00.000Z

I haven't posted anything for a few weeks now because I haven't had anything new to show - I have spent some time learning to hand quilt and practising those skills, and the rest of my time has been taken up with work and bannermaking. This weeks TAST stitch is couching so I thought I'd show this example that I did about 18 months ago which I started at the Knitting and Stitching Show in London.

I must start doing some more hand stitching and experimenting with threads.

2007-02-13T21:07:00.000Z

This weeks stitch for TAST is feather stitch - as I have used this stitch quite a lot recently I decided to group the photos together here (and cheat as I haven't got time before we go away to do another sample). The first sample is from the Personal Library of Stitches course -

This second sample is from my City and Guilds course and is depicting spring - the calico background has been sponge painted with colours taken from a source picture, then the feather stitching worked on top in coordinating colours

The third sample is my final picture for Module 1 on my City and Guilds course - I used feather stitch a lot for the trees at the back of the picture and used a variety of thicknesses of threads on evenweave fabric, again sponge painted.

2007-02-13T21:03:00.000Z

This is my sample of stitching for Week 6 - Algerian Eyelet Stitch for TAST. I decided to paint some fabric to make it more interesting and tried to alter the sizes of the various arms of the stitches.

Tomorrow we are off to the Lake District for a few days as this week is our half term holiday - it'll be nice to get away for the break.

2007-02-09T08:16:00.000Z

Yesterday and today have been declared snow days by the school and college - so half term has started early. Matt and I went for a walk round the estate and to the woods on the edge of it - I thought that this first picture looked a bit surreal

Matt decided to try throwing snowballs at trees and kept missing!

DH came home from work early and they decided to build a snow man

The snow was excellent for rolling - just like a carpet or grass, so they very quickly ended up with a large ball of snow - then another... and another...

until they ended up with a tower or totem pole -

2007-02-03T20:14:00.000Z

Well this week I managed to finish and send off Module 1 for my City and Guilds course, to my tutor for her to mark. I am now waiting for it to come back and to get Module 2.

Here is a small sampler that I have just finished for Take a Stitch Tuesday - this week the stitch was Chevron Stitch which I have use to couch down a thick chenille thread and used it to make patterns.

2007-01-27T20:07:00.000Z

Just a quick post tonight to show a picture of a tree done in detached chain stitch for Take a Stitch Tuesday - I used three different colours of Caron Watercolours thread to stitch. I don't think I've ever done a picture where I've only used one stitch and stitched it so densely before - I quite like the effect.

2007-01-24T21:39:00.000Z

This week I have been working on the final piece for Module 1 of my C+G course - a landscape picture based on a photograph that I took while I was in Cornwall last June with my mother - I think that I took it at the National Trust house, Lanhydrock.

I have used an evenweave fabric which I sponge painted, then used a number of the stitches used in the module including herringbone, feather stitch, fly stitch, thorn stitch, fern stitch and roumanian stitch.
I tried to plan it out before I started, based on the photo, but my drawing lets me down and I ended up stitching it freehand as I went along. I didn't want an exact replica of the garden - more the general feel of it, which I think that I have achieved.

Now I need to do a quick embroidery on winter, then finish all my comments and presentation before being able to send it off as planned next week.

2007-01-15T08:35:00.000Z

This weekend I have been concentrating on working on my City and Guilds Module 1 - I am now aiming to get it finished by the end of the month so that I can send it off for assessment and start on Module 2. With that in mind I have completed the Design for Craft section and am just finishing a few stitch samples and mounting them. Then I have to do the stitch sample for 'winter' and a final landscape piece.

This first sample is using fern stitch and a very pretty rainbow variegated thread - I tried to vary the sizes of the stitches and on the last sample on the right added french knots at the end of each stitch.

The second sample is worked in Cretan stitch on a piece of evenweave fabric which I sponged painted with fabric paint to make it more interesting. I also wove in some knitting wool into one of the samples and for the last sample on the right used 2 different thicknesses of thread and random sized stitches.

Lots of people keep sketchbooks with ideas in them - I decided today that as there are so many variations of each stitch that I would keep a sketchbook devoted to the stitches. One stitch per page, starting with the traditional variations, then different ways of experimenting with it. Here is page 1 - Herringbone stitch (sorry the quality is not brilliant - it wouldn't scan any better)

Having done the Personal Library of Stitches and now taking part in the Take a Stitch Tuesday there are so many inspirational ideas of how to use the different stitches that I thought it would be good to jot them down in one place - some of the ideas are from Sharons notes and others are from samples done by members of the challenge. As I experiment further I can add additional notes and more photos of my samples over the page.

2007-01-09T14:09:00.000Z

Happy New Year to all my visitors to this blog!

Stitching update - I have done a bit of stitching over the Christmas break - mainly small samplers of different stitches, one for the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge, the other 3 for my City and Guilds course.

The first weeks stitch for the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge was Herringbone - I had already done some experimentation with this stitch before Christmas - see here, so I decided to try stitching on hand painted silk with Caron Watercolours thread - it has puckered a bit but creates some interesting patterns.

For the City and Guilds module that I am doing I needed to do a selection of stitch samples, many of which I had done on calico, but since doing the Library of Personal Stitches course had decided to redo on linen. These are the latest ones that I have done - fly stitch. Here I have used a piece of hand dyed scrim over a piece of white linen to add a bit of colour to the base fabric.

These are example of thorn stitch using a variety of thicknesses of yarns and varying the sizes of the stitches.

On the left of this sample is a leaf done in Roumanian stitch and on the right using fishbone stitch.

2006-12-23T14:18:00.000Z

Postcards sent and received
This first postcard purchased from Fibre Art for a Cause following the International Quilt Festival in Houston - it was created by Jan Johnson and is called Paint Strokes. I like the way she has combined satin stitching with paint splodges to make the design.

On the City and Guilds Yahoo group I belong to, we did an end of year postcard swap - this is the postcard that I received from Karin in Germany - I find it very calming yet interesting to look at.

This is the postcard that I created for Karin - hand dyed scrim on pink aida with stitching and beads added, edged with hand made cord. Many of the stitches were ones that we had done during the Library of Stitches course.

2006-12-10T20:47:00.000Z

Well, we haven't put the Christmas tree up instead I've had some fun this evening doing this embroidery with thick, interesting threads on scrim which I then stitched onto felt. I did try doing some bullion knots which were a bit of a nightmare as they kept getting tangled up with the fibres from the wools and I also added large green beads, mainly round the edges. We actually like the cream scrim that is visible round the outside so I haven't covered it up - if I'd had time before I started then I would have dyed or painted it.

2006-12-10T14:41:00.000Z

This is a sampler that I have done for week 6 - all based on chevron stitch and using some lovely variegated threads of different thicknesses. I have tried varying the sizes of the stitches, working them the wrong way round (look at the middle row), overlapping them and using both bullion knots and cast on stitch to vary the look. Some of the threads I used proved to be a bit of a nightmare - either very silky or with a slub that didn't want to go through the ground fabric.

I bought some Caron Watercolours thread yesterday and that was lovely to use - it feels so soft and the colours are yummy - I let myself play with one skein and am getting 7 more for Christmas - can't wait! Next I want to play with stitching on scrim to develop a picture with thick yarns and I need to find enough room in the lounge for the Christmas tree to go up this afternoon.

2006-12-08T20:53:00.000Z

This week, since I finished the banner I have been busy creating a postcard to send off for a swap - it was going to be the one below - Christmas red and green with a bit of gold - but I didn't like the finished embroidery, so I started another one. I finished and posted it today and will post a picture of it here once it has reached it's destination.

I have also been stitching a small sampler for Week 5 of the Library of Stitches - this time using Arrow Stitch and lots of variations of it to give different effects - don't they look effective?

2006-12-03T14:10:00.000Z

I can't believe it's nearly Christmas! Yesterday I finished the banner we have been making to hang in Church over the Christmas period and here it is -

Although you can't see it very well on this photograph the gold lines from the star extend outwards to the edges and we sewed blue sequins on to the sky which sparkle as the light catches them. The star is actually mounted on a cross (made from blue net) which is very subtle. It got a good, positive reaction in church this morning which is encouraging for all those who were involved in its production. Now we can start thinking about a hanging to celebrate the church's 350th anniversary next year - we are one of the oldest Baptist churches in the world.

I can also now start to get on with some other stitching and thinking about Christmas pressie shopping etc.

2006-11-26T09:42:00.000Z

I've just finished my first postcard for Week 4 - I ended up using Antwerp edging for the border. I started with the bottom row in variegated perle thread then did the rest with 2 threads - the variegated and a dark purple. I have used a very fine variegated crochet cotton (which must be about 30 years old) for the main part of the stitching, all of which are variations on buttonhole stitch. The 'mess' at the bottom right hand corner is also buttonhole stitch worked densely in various threads.

On Tuesday evening I started a course at work (nothing to do with embroidery) and we had to introduce ourselves by creating something out of a piece of card. We had to put our name on it and 2 things that would help people to remember who we were - with stitching in mind I drew my name in chain stitch and outlined it with 2 colour herringbone, with a nice flower with feather stitch leaves and stalk! Just shows how stitching takes over!

2006-11-23T21:11:00.000Z

I've had a really busy week what with the banner making, C+G display on Saturday, marking students assignments and starting a course myself (as a student) at work on Tuesday, so I haven't managed to squeeze in a lot of stitching. I have however done one postcard sampler based on Week 3 stitches which were concentrating on lines. I really like the cable chain stitch at the left hand side of the picture and a knotted cretan stitch in the middle.

Hopefully this week I'll have a little more time to experiment with Week 4's stitches and design ideas although I do have a lot of stitching to do on the banner to get it finished to hang probably next weekend.

2006-11-19T09:57:00.000Z

I have now finished my second sample postcard for week 2 - I did the border in portuguese stem stitch having realised that I did it wrong last week. Here is a close up of this weeks version.

And here is the finished postcard. This weeks lesson was about pointilism and using stitches as motifs to create points. I've not only used stitches but also beads, sequins and stitches based on buttons and brass washers.

I've just started the border for week 3 - this week is all about line, should be fun.

I've had a busy weekend - but forgot to take any photos of the banner making on Friday. I t was a fun event - hard work, but rewarding to do. The banner isn't yet finished - my sewing machine will be hard at work over the next couple of weeks topstitching and quilting it to get it ready for the beginning of December.

Yesterday, the local patchwork and quilting group I go to, Patchwork People, celebrated their 25th anniversary - we had a special cake, lots of silver around, a special raffle and Barbara Chainey talking about her visits and interest in the tentmakers in Cairo. I organised a display of some of the work that 4 of us did for our City and Guilds embroidery course - unfortunately I forgot to take any photos of it.

2006-11-12T22:56:00.000Z

This is my first postcard sized sample for Week2 of the Library of Stitches class - it's done on pale green aida with blue variegated perle cotton and dark blue stranded cotton. I seemed to spend most of my time unpicking stitches to get everything even. I've done moss stitch, crown stitch, variations of fly stitch and cross stitch - good fun.

I have also spent some time on another sample this weekend using single motifs some based on brass washers and sequins - that one isn't complete yet - will post a picture later in the week when it is.

Yesterday afternoon, I spent a couple of hours developing a design for a church banner, using different coloured papers. A group of 8 or 9 of us at church are going to be making up the design on Friday afternoon in a workshop session which I am organising. This is the first time I've done anything like this so it's a bit scary - I am used to teaching and organising classes but not for sewing activities.

2006-11-09T23:04:00.001Z

This is sample 2 which I have just completed for Week 1 using a number of variations of herringbone stitch.

2006-11-06T08:45:00.000Z

I have finished the first sample of fly stitches for the Library of Stitches and am quite pleased with how it has turned out. I used a variety of threads including cotton perle in 2 thicknesses, embroidery floss, thick chenille and a metallic thread. The thick chenille didn't shred at all on the evenweave - I had to use a huge needle that felt like a poker to even be able to thread it.

2006-11-05T18:01:00.001Z

Tonight is Bonfire Night and there was the most amazing sunset visible from our top floor. Jon is back from Uni this week and is planning to go off to the large firework display in the city centre tonight – they always put on an amazing display.

I have started an online course with joggles.com – Sharon Boggons Personal Library of Stitches which is kick starting my stitching again. I have started with a 6x4 piece of space dyed linen and so far completed the border in guilloche stitch. I have used some space dyed perle cotton, variegated thinner perle cotton, terracotta coloured plain perle cotton and 3 strands of plain embroidery floss for the French knots. As you can see I haven’t quite finished the French knots yet.
Then I shall work a variety of feather stitch combinations in the central part.

2006-10-20T20:25:00.000+01:00

Summer School 2006

During the summer I attended a summer school for 3 days run by our embroidery teacher, Catherine I thought it was time that I put the work onto my blog for all to see. Last year at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace I went to a 1 hour workshop run by the Fibre Factory which was about using various threads and fabrics to create an embellished piece of embroidery - this was my finished piece.

This piece gave Catherine the inspiration for the summer school - we started with some source material for the colours - these day lilies were mine

Then we painted papers with procion dyes - we only had 6 colours to work with - 3 warm colours - golden yellow, vibrant magenta and indigo navy, and 3 cool colours - lemon yellow, scarlet and brilliant blue. We were encouraged to play with the colours, mixing them to achieve colours that we liked and painting them on the paper.

After we had painted the papers we then space dyed a selection of fabrics and threads.

Using a picture or selection of pictures as design source material we experimented, again with paper, to develop shapes and ultimately a basis for a design that we could stitch.

This was my pencil drawing with notes on it - as you can see I'm not the best artist in the world.

We then started to experiment and sample different techniques and stitches that we might use in our finished piece.

Then came the fun part of doing the actual stitching - this is the finished article - maybe one day I'll decide what to do with it.

At the end of the 3 days we laid all our inspiration and experiments out for all to see.

It was a really nice, relaxing, fun 3 days.

2006-10-16T09:27:00.000+01:00

This is a picture of the completed autumn piece - only winter to go. I have yet to decide on a picture to base it on. It is very difficult to find a photo which depicts winter that isn't misty and grey or all white and that is interesting.

Autumn again is sponged with brown, yellow, orange and green fabric paints - I use Jacquard, then stitched in perle cotton with fly stitch. Originally I was going to do leaf shapes in cretan stitch but decided to go more abstract, however, once I had started stitching I thought they looked like sycamore seeds falling to the ground.

2006-10-14T15:41:00.000+01:00

Today I am going to show you the first two pieces I have done for the first module of the Level 3 City and Guilds course I am doing by distance learning with WS-Touchbase in Dorset. As part of the first module looking at colour we had to find photos depicting each of the four seasons, pick out the main colours from the photos, using fabric paint sponge the colours onto plain fabric then using similar colours stitch onto the fabric using the stitches we have practised. I am not showing the original photos as they are copyrighted.

This first picture shows spring - the original photo was on a postcard depicting a bluebell wood - I have used feather stitch and mainly perle cottons on a calico background.

The second picture is summer taken from a photo of a meadow in the height of summer. This time I have used buttonhole stitch radiating both inwards and outwards again in perle cotton on calico.

I am now working on autumn then need to finally decide on a picture for winter.

This is a wall hanging that I have started based on a design from a Fabrications magazine I bought a few years ago. I have used a piece of 'Sky Dyes' fabric by Micky Lawler that I bought in America to create the sky and now have to start quilting it.

Will show the finished wallhanging later.

2006-10-13T17:39:00.002+01:00

Waddesdon Manor
Today started of very grey and misty but the weather forecast promised sunshine later, so DH and I decided to head out to Waddesdon Manor this afternoon. As soon as we got there the sun came out and it was really warm walking through the grounds and the house. Here are a few pictures showing it in all its 'French' glory - it really does look like a French Chateau and is richly decorated inside (it belonged to the Rothschild family before the National Trust took it over)

These are the grounds showing their autumnal colours

This is the aviary which had been restored and regilded in time for this season

This is a photo I took of the main garden and back of the house when I went with my mum back in June when the flowers were in full bloom

2006-09-22T17:30:00.000+01:00

I have just finished a quilt for my son to take off to university with him on Sunday - he is very interested in music (hence the theme for the quilt) although he is going to be studying Theology at Uni.

Now I can get on with some of my other creative activities including finishing the first module for the Level 3 Embroidery which I have had since June. I did have high hopes of completing it during the summer but I was frankly too lazy. Now I'm back to work and the boys are back to school/Uni I have the time to get on with it.

2006-09-14T17:30:00.000+01:00

I have recently completed the Level 2 City and Guilds course in Creative Hand Embroidery - this was done at a local centre and was really fun to do. It was a lot of hard work with many new tasks to be completed each week but I made some new friends and learnt a lot of new things along the way. At the end of the course we had to submit 10 experimental samples and 2 projects for assessment accompanied by lots of paperwork. So here are the photos of my 2 projects -

The first was a wall hanging based on my mothers garden - this was mainly done using the sewing machine.

The second project was a backpack that could be converted into a shoulder bag - all of the stitching on the panel was done by hand.

I must be completely mad because I have now started doing Level 3 by Distance Learning - will post some of my work as I complete it in the next few weeks and months.

2006-09-01T18:19:00.000+01:00

Hi and welcome to my blog - my space to say and display my thoughts and my creations. You are welcome to enjoy and be inspired by the pictures that you see here but please remember that these are my quilts and are protected by copyright.

First a couple of quilts I designed and displayed at the Festival of Quilts lastyear (2005) - the first one was created using the Quilters Guild challenge fabric and was inspired initially by a quilt my husband and I saw in America at Easter in the Quilters Heritage Celebration in Lancaster PA.

The second quilt based on a digital picture I took of Warkworth Castle in Northumberland, printed onto cotton fabric and embellished with beads and needle lace.