Finished just in time.....

Yay! I have just finished the first three little blocks of Gail Pan's wonderful i-stitch-club BOM. The stitcheries were really sweet and a lot of fun to work.

I used some of my favourite variegated fine silk threads from Stef Francis. I mixed two different colours and I am really pleased with how the embroidery looks.

Needleturn applique is not a technique I am very familiar with, so it took me a while to get them finished off (don't look too closely!!)

The bonus project for the month of January was the sweetest little 'dilly' bag.  I just managed to get that finished this afternoon, which is just a couple of days before the next month's patterns are due to be released.

I can't wait to see what the pattern for next month brings but, in the meantime, I am really thrilled that I have managed to get this month's blocks and project finished on time!

Thank you for visiting 💟

Hello February!

Hello..... can you believe that January 2018 has already flown past?!! I know I can't and, although I haven't been very active on the blogging front, I have managed to finish two projects in January. I might add that neither of them relate to the projects that I talked about starting in my last post but, they are both still on the 'to do' list to get started very soon!!

The first January finish was completing the pretty piece of free machine embroidered work that I made at a wonderful workshop run by the lovely Julie of Tigley Textiles. I trimmed the embroidery up a little at the edges and then stitched it onto a free-motion quilted quilt to give it support.  It looked lovely hanging on the wall and I am really pleased with it.

Using the knowledge that I gained at the workshop, I tried my hand at my own free machine embroidered picture.  I embellished it with some hand embroidery too and then framed it.  I am really pleased with the outcome.

This year, inspired by Christine at MacDonald's Patch, I am hoping to join some other lovely stitchers and follow along with OPAM 2018 (One Project A Month).  It is hosted by Peg and Kris and you can read all about it here. 

OPAM 2018

I hope that my two projects above will count as my 'One Project A Month' January finishes and I have added an OPAM 2018 page to my right hand sidebar so that you can follow my finishes throughout the year. 

I have also been tempted by Renee at Hand Stitched Treasure to take part in the International Correspondence Writing Month (InCoWriMo) to write some handwritten letters to friends and family around the World during the month of February. You can read all about it here.  So, if you are interested in receiving a letter or card from me please leave me a comment and I will contact you by email to get your postal address from you (do not leave your postal address in the comment but, if you are a no-reply blogger, please do leave me your email address.)

Already playing catch up!

Hello! I know, it has already been a while since my first post of 2018 and I apologise! I was away at New Year and, I have only just recently arrived home. As a result, I am already playing catch up with the new projects that I mentioned in my last post that I was starting in 2018.

However, before I tell you more about them, I have shared above a photograph of some of my favourite finishes for 2017. If you want to see them in more detail you can click on the 'Projects 2017' tab in the right hand sidebar of my blog or here is a quick link.

Now back to my new 2018 projects. As I have only recently returned home I am afraid I do not have much to show yet. However, I have chosen some fabrics that I intend to use for my 'Beyond TAST' and I have a very specific idea in mind with regards what I want to do. As I am keen to keep my free motion quilting up-to-scratch as well as my hand stitching, I have decided that for my 'Beyond TAST' project I am going to make a quilt-as-you-go-quilt using free-motion quilted blocks and then embellish them each with the 'Beyond TAST' stitches. I have decided the time I am going to devote to each 'Beyond TAST' stitch family will be a month, so there will be 12 blocks to complete which I will make into a quilt at the end of the year. January's stitch family is the running stitch and I am itching to get my block quilted and the hand embellishment started!!

I have also printed out the patterns and chosen theads and fabrics for the January month of Gail Pan's 'i stitch club' but I am afraid I haven't had the chance to stitch much yet..... hopefully I will get started later on today!!

Sorry there is not much else to show you for the moment and thank you for visiting me 😊

Happy New Year - 2018 Stitching Plans!!

Hello and Happy New Year!! I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. I have had a lovely time and am lucky enough to still be enjoying the company of family members.  It is always lovely to be among family to celebrate the different holidays.

However, it has been a bit wet and windy here today, so apart from doing some food shopping to keep us all well fed, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to write a post wishing you all the very best for 2018 and to share with you some of the monthly projects that I am intending to participate in this year.

The first will be a little familiar if you are a regular reader of my blog as, I am going to be participating in the 'Beyond TAST' challenge run by the wonderful Sharon Boggon of Pintangle. The last couple of years I participated in the TAST Challenge run by Sharon and above and below, you can see a couple of the samplers which I completed by working the different TAST (Take-a-Stitch-Tuesday) stitches. This year I will be joining in 'Beyond TAST'  which I am anticipating will be a lot of fun. The idea is that you take one stitch family per month and work a project using that one stitch family..... taking it to a more in depth level.  The first monthly stitch is running stitch and I can already see that this is going to be a really fun stitch to work with.

The other new stitching group I am joining in with is the 'i stitch club' run by one of my favourite designers, the lovely Gail Pan.  Again, regular readers here will know that I love Gail's designs, so I just couldn't resist signing up for this BOM club which is due to start shortly.  If you would like to join in too why not click on the button below or on the right hand sidebar which will take you to Gail's information page about the club.

Gail Pan's 'i stitch club'

I am sure that I will be joining in many other stitching challenges as well as working on a few projects of my own design this year and I will share them with you as and when I get them started.  In the meantime, I can't wait to get stitching!! 

Christmas Giveaway Winner!

M E R R Y   💞  C H R I S T M A S

Hello! Just popping in to say thank you for all your sweet Christmas messages.  It was lovely to hear from you all as I have been absent a while this year.... I am hoping to put that right again in 2018, so watch this space!!

Now to get down to the serious business of telling you who won my little Christmas giveaway!  I printed out all the comments that were left on my last post, cut the comment out for each individual person, folded them and put them in a little bowl on my kitchen table.

I gave them a good stir round and then picked out one of the pieces of paper and unfolded to see who had won and the winner is........

Katrin (Cattinka) if you would be good enough to email me with your postal address, I will send your prize straight to you..... I don't think there will be enough time for it to get to you before Christmas now but, it will be a nice gift to start the New Year with.

Now all that remains is to wish you all a wonderful Christmas again and send you all best wishes for a happy and peaceful New Year.  I will be back in January on a much more regular basis!  Thank you all for visiting me here.

Christine xx

I can hardly believe it.....

Yes, I can hardly believe that it was September when I last wrote a post.... I am sorry that I have been absent for so long.  Although I haven't being doing a lot of writing or even a lot of stitching in my sewing room, I have had the pleasure of attending several different workshops in the last few months which I thought I would share with you.

The first was a workshop covering free machine embroidery and was held at the lovely studio of Tigley Textiles in Birlingham, Worcestershire and was run by Julie Brand who is a very talented textile artist.  We had a lovely day being shown step by step various different techniques giving you the skills to make a free machine embroidered piece of artwork.  I thoroughly enjoyed the day and came home with the finished sample you can see above.  I was very pleased with it and, I so enjoyed the day that I signed up for another of Julie's workshops there and then.

This second workshop was to create an embroidered seascape.  This time the embroidery was by hand and Julie guided us very skilfully through the design process which for me is always the hardest part of getting started on a project.  It was another extremely enjoyable day and everyone left with a framed seascape to take home. I have mine in my sewing room and I am very happy with it!

The latest workshop I have attended was not actually sewing related, although I have been to quilting classes with the same lovely ladies, Terry and Hazel of InStitches in Wokingham earlier this year.  However, this latest workshop was using quite a different material..... willow.... and the instructor was a lovely lady called Judith Needham, who guided us through making several different types of willow Christmas decorations and ornaments including a wonderful stripped willow angel.  Another lovely day with some beautiful items to take home.

As I have rather neglected my blog the last few months, I thought that it might be nice to have a Christmas giveaway to end the year on.  I have collected together a few bits and pieces from my sewing room which I will package up in a box and send to the lucky winner.  All you need to do to enter is to leave me a comment wishing me a Merry Christmas!  I will pick a winner at the end of the day (GMT) on Friday, 15th December.

Now all that remains is for me to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year! I am expecting to have more time on my hands both for sewing and for blogging in 2018!

This giveway is now closed..... thank you! xx

A couple of small finishes.....

It is still busy, busy here but, my two daughters have both now returned to university so, I am expecting that I will have a little more time to myself the next few weeks and I may just have a little more time to visit with you all.

Today I would like to show you the finished picture that I made using my final TAST sampler which I shared with you earlier in the month.

The third picture is now proudly hanging on my sewing room wall with the other two.  I am very pleased with how they all look together.

I have also framed the Laura Wasilowski inspired embroidery that I recently finished. That is also hanging on my sewing room wall and is a firm favourite with me!

I am very pleased that, although I haven't had much time to stitch the last few months, I have managed to add a couple of pretty pictures to my sewing room! Hope you are all finding some time to stitch! Until next time....