A little late but here is my first post for 2024!!

It has been a while and life has been busy but I am finally getting round to my first post of 2024! I hope everyone has been keeping well and I am sorry if I haven't been to visit your blog and leave you a comment.  Life has been hectic!

I haven't been doing a lot of stitching which is why I haven't had any reason to post much although I haven't been idle either as I have been doing some crafting, watercolour painting and making folded paper books, which is a lot of fun.  Here are some photos of those projects.

I have now also finished a small wall hanging that I started last year.  It is from a pattern (called Allium and Lavender) by Vendulka Battais which I bought at the Malvern Quilt Show and is a companion wall hanging to one that I finished in November of last year and showed you here.  They both have the same background panel which I made using Vendulka's pattern but the tulip and forget-me-not appliqué and embroidery were my own design.

I made a few little changes/additions to the pattern and this is how it finished up.

The two wall hangings look nice together so now I will have to find somewhere to hang them.

Enjoy the rest of your week and until next time..... 😊

A new addition to the family.....

No, I'm not announcing the arrival of another grandchild but, an addition to my collection of homemade toys.  Introducing 'Ringo' who is a sock monkey.

I made him following a very easy to follow tutorial by Kool Kooky Kreatures on YouTube.

He is now sitting comfortably in my sewing room with some of the other toys I have made as well as some that my daughters have made and given me.

It's very cold here in the UK at the moment, so I hope those of you have snow are keeping warm!

Until next time.... 😊 xx

A few more stitched details and a new finish....

Having finished my 'tulips and forget-me-nots' wall hanging which I showed you in my last post, I decided that it needed a couple of extra little details just to finish it off.

I added a couple of extra machine-stitched details to both of the butterflies on the lower wings.  It was a great way to use some of the special stitches offered by my sewing machine and I think they added something extra to the appliqué.

I also decided that the tulips would look to have more depth if I added some straight stitched edges to what I think of as the front petals.  I am so pleased that I decided to add the extra details and I am looking forward to getting this hung up in the house now.

Since finishing the wall hanging I started a new project to make some little fabric boxes.  These are to hold some Christmas treats as gifts for a couple of quilting friends.  I can't wait to share them with the recipients later this week.  (They will have been filled with chocolates by then!)

Wishing you a wonderful, creative week.... 😊 xx

  

A frame (or two) and another finish....

Well, here we are in November and I have managed to start the month quite productively, by framing the little wren textile art piece that I showed you last time.

I fused a piece of heavyweight interfacing (fast 2 fuse) to the back of the trimmed down piece and then turned it over and fused some backing fabric to the other side of the interfacing.  I then stitched around the edge of the piece using a straight stitch about one eighth of an inch from the raw edge.  The backing and interfacing were then trimmed level with the raw edge of the piece and finished with an overcast stitch.

This made the whole piece stable and I was able to just put it into a frame that I had in my stash.  I hung it up but I wasn't entirely happy with it, so I swapped a few of my framed embroidery pieces around and I ended up putting it in this second frame which I preferred.  It is now hanging in my spare bedroom where I have other pieces of stitched art with frames of the same colour. (I'm not sure the photographs show this second frame to it's best!)

Last weekend I was away at a quilt retreat held by my quilt group, Romsey Quilters at a hotel nearby.  The first day of the retreat we had a workshop on free machine embroidery with Janet Clare.  She showed us how to write and draw with our sewing machines and then to add some raw-edged appliqué.  These are the little pieces I worked on....

The second day of the retreat we were able to work on our own projects and I am pleased to have been able to get one of the small wall hangings that I have shown you previously finished off.

Here are some close up of the details.....

I am hoping that I may get the other one finished off soon too!  Until next time.... 😊

Catching up since my last post....

It has been a while!  Time has run away from me as there seems to have been a lot going on, so I thought I should catch up a bit!  As a result, this is going to be another long post!  What have I been doing?  Well, I had a long weekend trip to Thessaloniki in Greece to attend a friend's wedding.  The weather was hot and the wedding was beautiful.

We had a lovely day visit to a beautiful National Trust property called Stourhead (which is where they filmed some of the 2005 version of the film Pride and Prejudice).  Such a beautiful house and gardens.

Then we had two and a half weeks away in our camper van travelling through France down to the border with Spain and back.

We travelled back via Switzerland.  The first time I have been back since we moved back to the UK in 2021.  It was lovely to see it again.

I have also had a couple of trips up to Norwich to visit family including a quick visit to help my daughter move house.  Needless to say with all the travelling from place to place I haven't had a lot of time to stitch but, I did take my watercolour paints to France and you can see some of my finished sketches here on my 2023 projects page.

I am hoping that things will settle down a little now and I will be able to get back to my needlework projects.  I did attend a Regional Day held by my Quilt Guild on Saturday just gone and followed that with a workshop on Sunday with guest artist Kate Findlay.  I loved the workshop and was delighted with the piece I made.

I just need to get it framed!

Well, that's all for the moment.  Hopefully I will have more needlework projects to show you next time!  Until then.... 😊 xx

Another busy month.....

Another busy month has passed since my last post, so there is lots to tell you and even more photos!  Firstly, I celebrated my birthday for which I received several bouquets of beautiful flowers which filled the house with colour.

  

The following week we visited Norwich to attend my daughter's PhD (Doctorate) Graduation.

Very excitingly my homegrown sweetpea plant eventually decided to flower and it was well worth the wait as it is producing beautiful colour blooms.

At the end of July I travelled to Northampton to attend two workshops given by the talented Australian designer Gail Pan at a lovely little quilt shop called The Poppy Patch.  As well as getting to chat with Gail I started work on two lovely projects.

The following week I joined some other quilters from the local area on a coach trip to visit the Festival Of Quilts being held at the NEC in Birmingham.  What a spectacular display of quilts! I took far too many photos to show you them all here but, here are a few of my favourite quilts.

This past week we have been having our windows replaced as several of the double-glazed units had blown.  So to keep me sane amongst the noise and the brick dust I have been dabbling in some mindful watercolour painting.  The results of which you can see here on my projects 2023 page.

I have also had some time to add some hand stitching on the two wall hangings that I had started last time.

Thank you very much for visiting me here and if you have managed to read to the bottom of this post, congratulations!!

Until next time..... 😊