Old Cross Stitches Completed.

 I found a couple of cross stitch kits in a storage box where I keep some yarn. They were old ones that I started way back in the 1990’s and the designers themselves have long since stopped their businesses. So these 2 items as positively ancient.

The first one, a conservatory picture designed by Barbara Thompson, one of a series I think, just needed back stitching on the plant in the bottom left corner. It only took me half hour to do, so why did I leave it so long? I really don’t know.  As you can see from the chart the pattern was copyrighted 1989! 

Anyway having been shopping in Poole, I bought a frame in Wilko’s and I had a small piece of mounting board to cut to size.  It was washed, dried, ironed and framed by Saturday afternoon. It fits into a 5” x 7” frame.

With this was another cross stitch kit, which again only needed back stitching detail, but more than the one above. This one is called the Flying Scotsman at York designed by Masterplan. I used their kits before as they specialised in vehicles. I remember making a Metro one when David was a driving instructor during the mid 90’s and it was one of the learner cars that he had at the time. I don’t know what happened to that 

Anyway, this kit had typed instructions and drawn symbols on the chart and been printed, so no swish computer stuff.

The detailing has taken longer and I have measured up the frame size and will need to get a sheet of mounting board as I haven’t got a piece big enough for this.This will fit into a 10” x 8” frame. So this will be this weeks task. 

EDIT to post (14/6) the Flying Scotsman is finished!

I have since found another cross stitch kit which is an Arsenal shield kit.  Both my sons support Arsenal and this was for their room when they were growing up.  Both are now in their mid thirties and have their own homes now.  This is in an envelope and the postmark is 8 May 1997 - 24 years ago!  I don’t know if my eyes can take working on this, we’ll wait and see.

These were the start of my creativity - cross stitch led to patchwork and quilting, later embroidery.   Though I’ve always been a maker as I’ve knitted and crocheted and made my own clothes from a young age, but these things waned and it wasn’t as easy to get yarn or fabric during the 90’s . I know that for patchwork fabric it was mainly by post (no internet ordering then) or at exhibitions.  There was an embroidery shop locally, closed down years ago and I first saw the cross stitch picture which started me on this. I bought the kit, picture below, and that was it.

I made this for David in 1992 when he qualified as a driving instructor, which he did for 6 - 7 years.

I went on to make more cross stitching pictures which are dotted around the house

An alphabet sampler on the landing

A Morgan in the office

This is in the living room

This one is also in the living room, but I only half finished this one and it was finished off by my  Mum! Very subtle, dark shades were difficult to pick upon this one.

Anyway, that was a potted history of my cross stitch and there might be more sewing content soon.

June

 

This is my marker photo for this month. This is my sample of Kawandi quilting that I worked the end of last month. This is an A4 size quilt and used up some scraps of fabric and some slow stitching. 

I made a postcard on the theme of Birthday Month.  My birthday is in November so I used some Japanese designed fabric with chrysanthemums and I had some sticky backed ‘gems’ in a topaz colour for the flower centres.  I found an old piece of blue and white striped fabric for the colours of the St Andrews flag so I fused strips of that to edge the card.

One Saturday I enjoyed a bit of block sewing time and made some quarter square blocks for the Siblinggs Together bee this month.  Only 2 pairs were required but I ended sewing 4 pairs.  The inspiration came from the blog Cluck, Cluck, Sew

There’s another block drive from Siblings Together here for some larger blocks with a weaving pattern to them. I had a go at one and another has just been made.

I’ve joined an ATC group run bu Townswomens Guild online.  The theme for the swap is Red, white and blue.  I used fabrics for this swap, but I may try some other techniques for future swaps, but this is ‘toe in the water’ for me, I’ve made two cards - one to keep and one to swap.

I have been trying out some alternative things like mono printing using a small Gelli Plate and using wooden stamps to take off the paint. Some have worked better than others, but they looked quite good. A good postcard size to pop in with mail.

So still keeping busy!

A May Furtle

 So what happened in May?  Ooh a finished knitted item or two, the ending of a large quilt, getting out and about again - not much really!

I finished my Kingfisher quilt, which was about 3 years in the making, but it lives on the bed now, replacing one I made back in 2002, and makes me smile each time I see it.  It is that lovely to me.  I wrote about it in this post here. It’s another quilt ticked off my Finish a Long list.

Another item on the list is the Tubix quilt.  I’ve machine quilted the plain white square with multi coloured thread and wiggly stitch and I’ve utilised the excess backing fabric to being over to the front to bind. This a photo from laying out on the bed. Needing a bit more stitching the the outer border before I call it finished, but it looks ok.

I finished and presented the long cardigan for Sarah and a it’s been a cold month until just recently it was worn straight away.  She had a long cardigan (bought) which was worn to death and this a replacement for that. There may be another in the pipeline soon....

I also finished Alex the Mouse, which was a project from A Year of Techniques book from Arnall Culliford Knitwear.  Pinhole cast on and I-cord are the main techniques for this and he does look cute.

And here he is amongst the menagerie in my room.  The shelf is getting more crowded with softies. 

Look how ridiculously big he is compared with the tiny badger sitting on the rabbits lap! He’s even bigger than the owl (that owl if it was real would have problems eating the mouse!!) and there would be a mouse and cat fight with the pink sock cat! 

My next project out of the book was to be a Lacy cloche hat, the Talmache cloche.  Working on the double pointed needles was proving difficult and after 32 rows on more stitches falling off I’ve frogged (ripped back) it.  This might not be the end as I will work on slightly bigger circular needles instead on magic loop.  There’s a 5 pattern repeat, so 3 repeats will be on one needle and 2 on the other with stitch markers separating the repeats. The picture below is the early one while still increasing stitches from the crown.

I’ve made a couple of blocks for the block mama of the Siblings Together bee and this month it’s been quarter log cabin blocks.

These we fun to make and I’ve seen some of the blocks on Instagram and they should all make a fabulously colourful quilt.

Another small quilt I’ve made is a Kawandi quilt.  I’ve seen some of these on Instagram and I’ve looked at  some on Pinterest.  There is also a You Tube  video by Joe Cunningham who interviewed Margaret Fabrizio, search for Margaret’s Kawandi.  This is a fascinating video and Margaret herself is a colourful character.  Anyway, Kawandi quilts are worked by Siddi people in India, who have African ancestry where they apply small pieces of fabric onto a larger background and sew the pieces as they go (which is the best way I can explain it.

This is my version, which I made cutting my background, a piece of calico, to A4 size and hand folded the  edges over.

And added the pieces.  There are little triangle pieces of fabric in the corners, which I held down while applying the patches, but I think I should have sewn them in place in the corners first. Below is my first round of patches.  They are all worked from the outside in and I went around in a clockwise dierection.

This is it completed, though there may be a bit more stitching.  I like this quilt as you go method and the size if just small enough to try something out.  It may be a wall hanging,  it sure yet if it’s purpose.

I love how the back looks, with the multi coloured thread that I’ve used.

What’s coming up for June?  Lovely sunny weather and time in the garden, but there will be intervals of sewing, knitting and crochet too.

Joining in Mini Archie’s Furtle Around the Blogosphere for May

May Musings

 I finished my latest knitting make Alex the Mouse last week and posted pictures on Instagram.  The mouse is a pattern from the Year of Techniques book by Arnall Culliford Knitwear .  I really enjoyed knitting the mouse,  but think I could have been braver with my colour choices, but he’s a mousy colour.

The body and head are knitted as one piece with the other parts being knitted separately and sewn on.  The fronts and backs of the ears are joined together with an I-cord cast off. The addition of button eyes completed the look.

Here he is with the other animals of the top of the unit in my room

The animals are a variety of sizes and Alex is a big as Luna rabbit and much bigger than the pink sock cat.  Also much bigger than the owl (in real life an owl would eaten a mouse!)

But I’ve had a knitting fail and about to ‘frog’ the hat that I’ve been working on. From the same book is a Lacy beanie hat knitted in the round and keeps slipping off the dpns and it’s been frustrating trying to make sure that all the stitches are there.The hat is here .   I’ve got as far as row 33, and it’s a shame to rip it back.

As for sewing, I’ve caught up with the latest Siblings Together blocks, a couple of quarter log cabin blocks.

I’ve also started a small hand sewing project, a small A4 size a Kawandi (or Kwandi) quilt.  It uses small pieces or fabric so I’ve raided the scrap box. There’s a blog post here

I started with a calico base and finger pressed a turning of about 1 cm.

Adding fabric scraps for the first round.  Fabric scraps are added from the outside towards the middle.  Let’s see where this goes.

The Kingfisher Quilt

 As I’ve just finished this quilt I though I’d dedicate a blog post about it.  Looking back at Instagram it seems that I started this in July 2018, so its been less than 3 years in the making (I have got ongoing projects that are older!). I had made a few projects with English Paper Piecing (EPP) and I’d seen this quilt on Tales of Cloth website.  It was a quilt along and as I’d recently retired I thought it would be a good project todo.  Rather than joining lots of hexagons together these were hexie’flowers’ on a diamond shaped background, the diamonds are then joined together. Here’s the link to the blog Stitched in Color  here.  The link to Tales of Cloth is here and there is a lot of inspiration for other EPP shapes. If you look on Instagram at the #kingfisherstitchalong you will see some lovely quilts made using this pattern.

I’ve used whatever I’ve had in stash wherever possible.  I bought a few low volume fabrics for the backgrounds as I went along too.  The border fabrics was purchased but the binding fabric was a half metre piece in my stash that juuusssttt about went around the finished quilt.

Here are some progress pictures 

The first few blocks

I had a lovely folder for my EPP blocks given to me from Marie at a retreat I went to back in October 2018. She’d included a hexie flower and that’s in the quilt and a few papers too, which came in useful.

The pictures are in the wrong order, but anyway this picture is of the blocks sewn together and the one above is showing the low volume hexies to create a contrast to the border.  The border needed a ‘something’ and a chance to make more hexies! I enjoyed the cutting out of the shapes and although I used a glue stick to turn the edges over they still needed to be hand sewn together and appliquéd onto background.  

Summer last year I had backing fabric (a rather pale yellow) and wadding to layer it up and baste (tack) it together but hadn’t any idea how I was going to quilt it.  It did hibernate until lockdown this year.  It had been on my Finish A Long lists for 2019, 2020 and this year.  With not going out anywhere it was a good chance to get stuck in and get it done! 

I decided to hand quilt using fine perle thread.  I have several skeins of thread, some solid coloured and some variegated and chose colours close to the theme of each hexi flower.  The narrow cream border was also stand stitched and the edge triangles too in a plain cream.  The low volume hexies were quilted around with a dusky lilac colour thread, which toned in well with the grey border fabric.  

So all that was left was the binding.  I did cut that at 2.25” wide and got just enough from a half metre of a grey mottled fabric that I had in stash.  That was machine sewn and I slips stitched that on Monday. All that remained was to take photos and a label (that’s still not done, but it will be).  

Above I’ve hung it on the washing line to photograph and it’s now on the bed! 

There are 322 coloured hexies and 128 low volume ones, so 450 in total. 

It’s 61” wide x 59” long.

Now to catch up with other UFO’s!

Start of May

 

The first week of May has bought about a finish (yay!) and some going out and about, in spite of the cold and sometimes rainy weather.

First off is Sarah's cardigan.  It is a long cardigan in aran weight yarn which was started back in February. I'm pleased it didn't get to the hibernation stage as the collar didn't go quite right to begin with (changed to half size larger needles to make it 'drape' better. Then there was the button/buttonhole bands, for which I had to use 2 circular needles to get all the stitches on.  But it is done, washed and being blocked and there is a whole ball of yarn left to make something to go with it. So that's a tick off my Finish A Long list.

Talking of lists, one of the many email newsletters I receive is from Helen Stewart of Curious Handmade. 

I signed up last year and made the Spindrift Shawl which is a free pattern.  Anyway she has a list of 20 things to make in 2021 - #knit20for2021, for knitting different items or techniques.  I decided to list my own knitting projects so far this year and I've listed 10! 

Gosh, I didn't know I'd knitted so much!!  I must keep up with this on a personal level, not to join in with on the Revelry group.  It's definitely taken over from the sewing and quilting as I've not used the sewing machine at all this week and the Kingfisher quilt's hand quilting is going at a plodding pace.

As for out and about this week I met with Sarah at Dorchester market, which is an open air market held every Wednesday, which is lovely to have a wander round.  On Thursday heading in the other direction to near Alresford near Winchester, David and I went to Hinton Ampner to meet with his brother and wife.  Managing to dodge showers it was a chilly day but made the most of having a picnic lunch, a good walk 

followed by tea and cake.  On our walk we were entertained by some lambs (two sets of twins, it looked like) jumping on and off the trunk of a fallen tree and we having a lovely time until mum of one set of twins called out to them.

Earlier a robin wanted a share of our lunch

And we saw a scarecrow family among the tulips.

Have a good week and hope the weather improves