Pattern: Blue floral needle book

On Wednesday I posted photo's of my needle book that I'd designed and stitched during IHSW. Today I'm back with the pattern and finishing instructions for it. I'm a big fan of adjusting patterns to colours that suit you so please do change them to something you like! If you don't have something look in your stash and see what you do have that might work, it's how this embroidery came about too.

What I used to make mine:

• A piece of 18ct Aida or 36ct linen that is about 6 1/2" x 9 1/4" (After embroidery it needs to be cut to 4 1/2" x 7 1/4" if you are comfortable with less space around as you stitch that is the minimum you need)
• A piece of fabric for the inside of 4 1/2" x 7 1/4"
• A piece of batting of 4" x 6 3/4"
• 2 pieces of felted wool of 3 1/2"x 5". I used 2 colours but one is fine.
• A button to match that's not bigger than 1/2"
• Sewing thread
• DMC variegated threads:
• 67
• 90
• 101
• 103
• 122
• DMC Colour variations:
• 4020 - Tropical Waters
• Kreinik Silk Mori Milkpaint:
•  0416 - Very Dark Hemlock
• Kreinik blending filament:
• 085 - Peacock

You can find the pattern here

Instructions:

• Fold the Aida in half and make a crease, then fold the right hand side into 4 to find the middle. This is the place to start counting from to stitch.
• Count 10 stitches to the right starting from the last cross stitch on the right and make a button hole stitch loop, I used only 1 strand of floss for the starting loop but more is perhaps more practical. A nice tutorial showing how to do this can be found here: Ysolda.com: sewn button loops
• Once the stitching is done press the embroidery carefully with a not too hot iron - you don't want to accidentally melt the blending filament.
• To trim the embroidery to 4 1/2" x 7 1/4" you need to start by measuring 1/4" from the stitch after the loop you just made. Mark this line.
• Next count 12 stitches down from the lowest flower stalk/leaves on the bottom, add 1/4" then mark this line as well.
• The 3rd cutting line is found by counting 13 stitches above the last stitch of the tall flowers and add 1/4", mark this line.
• The last cutting line is found by measuring 4 1/2" from the butterfly. Mark this line and then cut out the embroidery.
• Place the batting on the back of the lining fabric making sure it's 1/4" from the edges on all sides. 
• Baste the batting in place making sure that if you knot your thread the knot is on the good side of the fabric so you can easily remove the basting later. You can also use temporary fabric adhesive for this.
• Place the fabric good sides together onto the embroidery making sure that if your fabric is directional it's pointing the same way up as the embroidery. Turn it over so the embroidery side is facing up and pin the layers together.
• Stitch the layers together starting about 1" away from the middle lower seam. I used a back stitch as I like to be 100% certain nothing will come loose.
• Stop stitching about 2" away from your starting point, you need quite a big gap to get it all through and if the hole is too small you might damage the embroidery fabric making closing the last bit very complicated (it happened to me so umm yeah...)
• Cut the corners off at the diagonal making sure you do not damage the seam so you get nicer points once turned.
• Carefully turn the needle case the right way round, use a knitting needle or chopstick to press the corners out.
• Make sure the batting is nice and flat before carefully sewing the last bit of seam closed.
• Remove the basting.
• Count 9 stitches from the butterfly on the left. Mark this with a line that goes from top to bottom line.
• Count 11 more stitches from this point and mark that with a parallel line.
• Using one of the blues make stitches using 2 threads that go through all 3 layers, make sure you do the stitches over 2 Aida squares or 4 threads and skip the same distance before making the next.
• Leave the thread loose at the end as you will need to go back in a moment.
• Do the same with the other line. 
• Place the needle book embroidery side to the table.
• Fold each piece of the wool felt in half and finger press to find the centre line. 
• Place this line onto the line of stitches you can see on the inside. Make sure it's centred top to bottom - about 1/4" from the edges.
• Pin in place. Turn the needle case over again and rethread your needle. This time make the stitches in the spaces you left open making sure you also stitch through the felt. Finish off the thread and then do the same with the other piece of felt.
• Sew the button onto the back edge making sure it's not too big for the loop and is centred.
• If you like you can now mark your pages with the needle size.

I hope you enjoy the pattern and have fun making one yourself! If you have any questions please do ask, you might just not only help yourself but someone else too.

It's been a while...

So long in fact that many of you who I don't speak to elsewhere may have forgotten me - however here is another of my famous update posts with everything but the kitchen sink in it - but only because it's full of dirty dishes the kids still have to do.

I didn't complete any further embroideries or other projects till the beginning of January when I completed the embroidery in picture above.  The description below is mostly from my Deviant Art submission of the artwork.

The background: When Cookie Clicker did it's Christmas update it had a lot of strange Santa's that you can upgrade to via some more normal Christmas related things and an elf embryo (yes really) and this is the final one called "Final Claus". Of course it was just weird enough to embroider so I did!

I took great care to match the colours from the artwork in the pattern maker (PCStitch 10) while making the pattern but it came out a bit darker than I wanted, however I was able to make it seem a bit lighter with the red border fabric I chose for it.


I really enjoyed making the embroidery it seemed to come alive as I added more stitches and I love how it looks so 3-D due to the shading of the eye.


I hand sewed the border fabric to the embroidery to make sure it was perfectly straight along the weave of the Aida.

Colours: Made with 3 shades of green, 3 shades of red, white and 6 shades of brown DMC
Fabric: 18 ct Aida and Hoffmans quilting fabric from 2006 or so.
Embroidery: 2 1/2 inches/6.35 cm square
Completed piece: 7 1/2"/19.05 cm square

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I've also been working on a little something for a friend that hasn't been received yet so I'm not going to talk about it - silly post always being so slow.

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 Then I went on to do a lovely dragon which is so wonderful it deserves a post all of it's own so expect another post in an hour or so after I've had a go at making a progression image of all the photo's I took.

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 Tusal: I have been good and kept my jars with the threads as time went by but have been less than good about taking photo's of them - As it's dark now I can't take decent photo's of the jars so will have to postpone it till tomorrow.

TUSAL update

This time I'm giving you a 3-in-1 TUSAL update as it's been a while since I have taken photo's of my TUSAL jars and put them on my blog. What is a TUSAL? It's a Totally Useless Stitch-A-Long! Check the side bar for a linky to the lovely lady who runs it. Quite a lot has been created lately but not always stitching related and as I only keep the threads from embroideries the jars are not as full as they might be. I am only including photo's of the embroidery things I've worked on, however everything mentioned is on my blog.

July

 In July the only thing I embroidered was the raccoon embroidery so the jar is empty aside from the tails of threads and the threads from the kit that I didn't use as they were too short for me to keep.

August

In august I worked a bit on the apple and on the failed mystery project B

 

September

 

In September it got a lot done I finished the apple and stitched a complete sewing kit.

Non stitching wise I made an e-reader cover and a cable pouch for the e-reader cable. as well as completing a recycled plastic messenger bag, a crochet plastic basket and a tiny little pouch that is the right size for a few coins or 2 AA sized batteries and a small quilt top.

A little bit more fruit... or is it a lot?

As I said on my apple post:

This was made for the #stitchingpirates Sailing the fruit contest however as the rules say that there must be 2 pieces of fruit this is not my final entry - I need to add something else before it is eligible.

Well the pieces you see with the apple are the "something else" I added to make it an eligible entry. I first planned to do a 3D  strawberry which was originally mystery project B but it turned out to be too stiff to be able to make a strawberry out of it so I knew I had to make something a little bigger. So I then decided to make a tangerine to go with the apple but creating a pattern as I went along making the tangerine (as I just *knew* that people would want to make the tangerine and there was no way I'd be able to make a pattern once I'd completed the piece) was slow and I didn't think I'd be able to finish this on time. So I looked in my pattern scrapbooks to see what I could find that might work.

  It all started with the raspberry embroidery which I completed in less than a day but once it was done I didn't know what to do with it and it didn't really seem to suit the apple so I set it aside to think. The pattern I'd found in my scrapbook to make the raspberry also had some other fruit so I decided to move on to the strawberry with the initial plan of using the strawberry next to the cherry as a needle book but the strawberry turned out to be so bit that would have been a little bit too large for the needle book, and the two together would have been bigger than the bit of embroidery fabric I had left. At that point I decided to just do the strawberry and leave the cherry for something else, though I now also didn't know what to do with the strawberry either.

Full of doubt as to what I was doing for this but knowing that even if I skipped the apple completely and just went with the strawberry and raspberry it would not be "enough" I decided to keep going with the embroideries thinking that at worst I'd have a set of fruit that went together as they all came from the same pattern. I looked at the scraps of  embroidery fabric I had left that was the same as what was already present in the other embroideries and had a think as to what I could do with them. I still wanted to go with a sewing kit but couldn't see how I could use the strawberry for it. I decided to make a needle book out of the raspberry and considered using the cherry for a pincushion but realised that it would just look odd. I did know that with the round shapes it would look nice on the flap of a scissors case so that's what it became.

The last pattern of the 4 for the fruits was far too big for the fabric I had left as it was a long string of berries  but I picked out a couple of the berries and used them. I didn't want to make a square our of it as I had the idea of a single dangling tassle at the bottom so sacrificed 2 of my hexagon papers to make elongated hexagons and using a bit of red fabric as the backing and a scrap of ribbon I had on my desk I made a scissors fob out of it.

By the time I'd finished all these pieces I realised that I could make a box with the strawberry if I lined pieces of cardboard with fabric, so, as I didn't have any fabric glue, I had to do it the old fashioned way: by stretching the fabric over the pieces of cardboard and then carefully sewing a second piece of fabric to the first. The piece you see above is the base which was given a piece of felt as the outer side so I had to stretch the lining first before adding the felt. For all the other pieces I stretched the outer fabric over the card and sewed down the lining. I needed more fabric around the edges of the strawberry than I had so I sewed some strips of red batik to the outside of the embroidery and placed that on 2 pieces of batting (one smaller than the other to make it dome a little) and then stretched it around the cardboard. I then sewed all the pieces together using DMC perle thread and a large needle - it was rather painful sewing this together and by the time I was finished my hands really hurt.

I wanted to be able to fully open my box so didn't sew up the sides of it As you can see I also added 2 little pockets to 2 of the sides. What isn't so visible in these photo's is that the box is covered with read and white fabrics - 2 red and 2 white for the lid and 2 red and 2 white for the box itself - swapping them round so no 2 are next to each other.

Stats for all the items:

Apple:
Colours: 11 DMC colours blended together to create 30 different colour groups.
Fabric: White 28 ct Even weave
Size: 2 1/2" wide x 1 3/4" high / 6,35 x 4.45 cm

Berry:
Colours used: 6
Fabric: White 28 ct Even weave
Size: 1/ 3/4" x 1 1/4"

Cherry:
Colours used: 6
Fabric: White 28 ct Even weave
Size: 2 7/8" x 4 1/4"

Raspberry:
Colours used: 7
Fabric: White 28 ct Even weave
Size: 2 7/8" square.

Strawberry:
Colours used: 10
Fabric: White 28 ct Even weave
Size: 5 1/4" wide x 5 1/4" deep x 3 1/4" high

IHSW update

 I got quite a bit more done during the IHSW this weekend. So much more that I actually finished something stitching wise - just need to make it into what it needs to become. I also had a great time chatting with my friend Carla, so much so that time just flew!

 

This is the completed embroidery part of my mystery project A which I finished today. I had a spot of bother with being able to finish as I'd run out of the orange 741 with just 20-30 stitches left so I decided to use 740 instead for those  last stitches instead of waiting till Wednesday when I had money to get more.

In the mean time I finished this little mini quilt top made of leftover squares that didn't make it into my hexagon quilt or were too small for the hexagon quilt. The smallest squares are 1" /2,54 cm square. The quilt is 14 inches / 35,56 cm square

Recycled plastic...

Yet another contest entry (I've been doing a lot of them this year too) This was created for the recycling and reusing contest at #projecteducate on Deviant art, as part of the the Artisan Crafts fortnight and I got it completed at the very last minute (I seem to be making a habit of that too hehe)

I had learnt how to do this at the arts centre last year when they had an open day and you could sign up for several free classes - I chose this one as it looked like fun and seemed simple to do - which it was!
I'm going to save my hands and do a copy paste from the post at deviant art to show how I made this.

What I did:

• I took a lot of plastic bags from shops and cut out shapes I liked the look of or colours that matched what I had going.
• I took a large plastic bag to use as the base and cut off the side seams and handles.
• I took all my bits to the ironing board I'd already previously covered with greaseproof paper and turned the iron onto a low setting.
• I then placed another sheet of greaseproof paper on top and started ironing the layers together, trying to take care not to melt the platic too much but also not too little.
• The resulting sheet was trimmed straight along the sides and one edge and the top edge that was to be the flap was cut to echo the shapes along that edge. (which is why it looks a bit crooked - It doesn't help that I'd slightly overheated the plastic there lol)
• Then I sewed some decorative lines on the plastic using black thread.
• A strap was made from a thick red plastic bag that I'd cut 2 strips from the base without cutting the side seams - I cut one side open on each and cut the folds of the base of the bag so that I ended up with 2 long strips that were 4 layers thick each.
• I placed them on each other and sewed them together along the sides.
• I sewed the side seams of the bag closed and, by folding the bag so that the side seam was against the middle of the base I sewed a line to make the base of the bag.
• Last of all I added the strap to the bag.

Size: 11 1/2 x 13 1/2" / 29.2 x 34.2 and will take an average sized laptop.

Hexagon flowers

On Deviant art the Artisan Crafts Community Volunteers hold a monthly challenge The august challenge was "memories" and we were free to interpret the theme any way we wanted. This entry was made for the August #CRArtisanCrafts's challenge. This is what I wrote on my entry:

I had a long think about it and decided to make the first patchwork thing I had ever made: An English Paper Pieced hexagon patchwork pincushion.

The reason I chose this as the project for the #CRArtisanCrafts August Artisan Crafts Monthly Challenge theme was because I still remember how pleased I was when I was finally given the Habitat kit to make it that I'd been looking at longingly for so many months before for my birthday. This was waaaay back in the 70's when Habitat sold such things and they had a tall rotating rack with crafty things one could make. The patchwork hexagon kit caught my attention and I wanted it *so* much but I didn't have enough pocket money to spend on it. So every time we ended up in Habitat I went to that rack to see if they were still there and every time I was relieved to see this was the case. I kept on saving my pocket money to buy it but in those days I didn't get much so it was taking a long time.

I had some trouble learning how to do the corners and as my mother insisted that I basted through the paper and I wasn't so good at removing them then I wasn't able to re-use the papers but I enjoyed making it and am sad that I no longer have it as it was lost in one of the many house moves we had back then.

I started with just the one - the white one but had so much fun picking colours and sewing them together that I soon had a few more sewn and ready to stuff. I needed to get a new bag of stuffing so it was some time before I got round to finishing them but I managed to do it *just* before the deadline.

I ended up winning one of the two prizes for this challenge which was a bit of a surprise as I was sure someone else would win as there were so many wonderful entries.
 
These are completely hand sewn 1"/2.54 cm sided hexagons made with 14 different fabrics per pincushion and are stuffed with poly stuffing

The border strips that are not...

Last January I was happily living in the blissful dream that I could do a gazillion tiny 1/2" diamonds to be able to attach the border strips to the quilt, I have awoken from this dream and realised that this will be too difficult for me to achieve. So I decided to use up the strips of hexagons in other ways. First I made a lovely reversible cover for the nook my darling bf had given me because he wanted me to enjoy even more books.

I had to do quite a bit of seam ripping to get the right lengths of strip for the cover + do some creative adding of the hexagons to make the flap. I made it reversible as it seemed a shame to waste the opportunity to do so as it's quite easy to make reversible when you are joining hexagons together by hand.

The entire cover is made by hand and contains 350 1/2" mini hexagons, 175 for each side, the flap is weighted with an old Belgium 0,20 Frank coin I had lurking in a drawer.
It's 6 3/4"/17.14 cm square

I still had some of the strips left so went on to make a matching reversible pouch for the cable, which certainly makes it easier to find the cable in my drawer of cables - I think I'll be making more cable pouches now hehe.

The entire cover contains 96 1/2" mini hexagons, 48 for each side.

It's 4 1/2" x 3 1/4"/ 11.4 x 8.5 cm

Having finished the cable pouch I still had the rest of the rather longer greens, blues and whites left and I sewed some of them together - this project isn't complete yet but I did use the scraps to make the little coin purse you can see above. It's just the right size for a few coins, a Lego minifig or 2 AA sized batteries.

The entire cover contains 40 1/2" mini hexagons, 20 for each side.

It's 2" x 2 1/2"/ 5 x 6.35 cm

Insane Hexagon update

If you had thought that I'd forgotten about this project you could be forgiven as I've not worked on it or updated any progress for over 18 months. I did pick it back up again in May when I was given new meds that made concentrating on anything complicated almost impossible. I have since completed all 3 reds that I could made from the fabric I had.

  

Next up: cutting the yellows.

These are (from top to bottom) the 33rd, 34th and 35th blocks in this project.

For more information see:  The insane hexagon quilt
To see all the quilt blocks together look here:  Insane Hexagon Project

Travel sewing bag

2 years ago I started making this to take with me on my travels with the kids during the summer holiday as we went on our day trips to other towns and to visit museums (my kids LOVE museums... as long as they are the interesting kind and not just filled with modern art). What with one thing and another and me trying to make something super duper complicated (for a bag) and not knowing how to complete it, the bag ended up in the pile of UFOs.

I finally worked out how to make my neat edges with the flaps I wanted: add a zip at the join of the blue inner lining and the patchwork bag flap. That way I could turn it right sides out after sewing around the sites.

The bag closes by folding the top flap down and then folding in the side flaps. Then the front is lifted towards the back and the Velcro strips do the rest. The bag flap is closed with a thread wound around a button - a simple and quick way to keep it closed securely.

The flaps can be folded up and fixed in place with Velcro strips on the front flap to create a corralled area to work in, say in a moving train or on a boat so that things don't fall to the ground and get lost. It also makes it easier to pick up the bag while open and move it from one place to another.

• It has one pocket with a zip that is the same size as the bag itself. As the bag is fully lined on the patchwork side this will not result in the seam allowances getting ravelled. 
• It has 4 gusseted pockets in different colours sewn onto the lining, these pockets close with Velcro.
• It has a scissors holder (the triangle thing)
• It has a thread holder with inbuilt needle holder. (the cylinder thing)
• It has a tiny biscornu pincushion.
• The entire outer cover and the inside of the flap is hand sewn 2" patchwork hexagons
• The strap is made out of 3" squares machine sewn together.

Stats:
Closed the bag is 10 1/2 inches wide and 8 inches high / 27 cm x 20 cm
Open it's 22 inches long and 8 inches wide / 56 cm x 20 cm
Fully opened out it's 25 1/2 inches long and 17 inches wide 65 cm x 43 cm

New handbag + accessories

I cut this bag out over a year ago planning to make it before I got side tracked by whatever I decided to do instead. I was getting a bit tired of my current handbag so decided to get this out and finish it. Since I'd done most of the fabric cutting already making this bag only took a couple of hours.

I used one of my favourite fabrics for the outer cover and chose to use a matching green check for the centre panel. I used 2 shades of red for the inner bag - a lovely bright red for the lining and a paler red for the pockets.

It's a pattern by Lazy Girl Designs called "Gracie handbag" which I adapted a bit to suit my personal likes and needs. First and most obvious is that I didn't add the handles but made a single long shoulder strap instead as I prefer to wear my bags across one shoulder and down the other side. The other thing I did was add two little loops on the inside side seam (one on each side) with a D-ring in them to hang things on. When I'd finished the bag it looked a bit "unfinished" so I used a bit of leftover shoulder strap on the closure flap to liven it up a little.

When I made my new handbag I realised that my old blue and yellow rail card holders wouldn't suit it . So I decided to make myself a new one, however having the closure to the holder at the bottom was something I didn't want this time so I decided to workout how to add it to the top instead - using the old trial and error method I tried a few things trying to avoid the pattern I'd used before as I wanted to make a tutorial for it if it worked. However this didn't really work so I decided to adjust the pattern instead.

Since I wanted it to be red on the inside I cut the front piece from 2 fabrics and added a bit extra for the seam allowance I needed. I measured on the old card holder where the flap ended and added the seam allowance before cutting a bit for that + another piece the same size as the front cover to complete the outer back section. I first sewed a bit of green into the front flap to give it the stripe you see and sewed the flap, smaller back cover piece and a loop made from green together before pretending the back was made out of one piece and continuing from there. You will notice that I forgot to trim the corners of the flap but in the end I decided it looked ok and I wasn't going to rip this apart a 3rd time lol.

This can be attached to the D-ring in my handbag

Then I decided I wanted a nice cover for my passport and after some fiddling worked out how to get all the seams on the inside. I added some Velcro to the front and a closure strap (using another bit of the shoulder strap from the bag + some green to make the stripe) to keep it closed in my bag.

Since I'm going to be going abroad later this year I decided to also make a little purse (wallet for all you lovely American's out there ) to put the other currency in while I'm using the currency of the country I'm in since I've found that it's a pain to have 2 currencies in the same purse at the same time.

I made this from 4 pieces of fabric using this pattern as the inspiration and then adding my own twist to it, and made my life difficult in the process.

First of all I sewed the two smaller pieces together along the bottom seam then I measured where that seam touched the inner lining and sewed along the seam line again to fix it in place effectively hiding the seams and invisibly fixing the inner coin section to the lining. I then folded the purse to be into the end shape and found the velcro closure placement and sewed them in place.

Once that was done I started fiddling and folding the bits of fabric, pinning it in place and turning it right sides out till I'd worked out how to sew it all together with a single additional seam, did a few origami like twists while turning things right sides out through what would become a zipper seam and spent a while cursing while inserting the zip as it could have done with a tinsy bit more space for ease of sewing. I hand sewed the front cover to the zip to hide the seams (and because I couldn't sew the last bit by machine without sewing the coin purse shut hehe)

Catching up... *again*

I'm so behind with updating some stuff so I'm just going to make another of my catch up blog posts. First of all the Diary cover you see above. This embroidery started with a little red "starfish" shape and then it took a life of it's own as it slowly evolved to become the heavily embroidered piece that it is now. It became a coral reef - full of life and unexpected things - there are starfish, seaweed, a crab and if you look carefully you may even spot the lobster that somehow ended up there. The red wavy bit at the bottom left is only attached at the bottom - the rest is completely free from the background. The long snakelike thing that curves from the bottom to the top of the piece has over 2000 stitches in it and took me several days to do - it's made with the Casalguidi Stitch. I had a lot of fun making this, it was nice trying out loads of new to me stitches and, as it was made free form, even I didn't know what it was going to look like till it was finished.

It's 4 x 3 1/8 inch / 10 x 8 cm, made on 14 ct black Aida using 5 colours of variegated perle (red, green, blue, orange, yellow), 4 colours DMC colour variations, beads and several kinds of ribbon. I used a total of 25 different stitches to create this, many from Sharon b's Dictionary of Stitches for Hand Embroidery and Needlework and some I found in my ancient copy of Enclyclopedia of needlework by TH. de Dillmont.

I made the embroidery into a cover for my far too pink diary, which I'd only got because I LOVE the (not so pink) interior and I knew I'd eventually get round to making a cover for it.

I used the following stitches:
Basque Stitch
Bullion Knot
Bullion stitch
Buttonhole Bar Stitch
Buttonhole Wheel
Casalguidi Stitch
Cast on stitch
Chain stitch
Coral Stitch
Cretan Stitch
Detached Buttonhole Stitch
Detached Chain Stitch
Double Cast On Stitch
Drizzle Stitch
French knot
Feather stitch
Ghiordes Knot
Knotted Cretan Stitch
Renaissance Stitch
Rosette of Thorns
Scroll Stitch
Sorbello Stitch
Whipped Fly Stitch
Whipped Spiders Wheel
Woven Spiders Wheel

One thing that really surprised me is that this was selected as a Daily Deviation over on deviant art!  There are around 35 volunteers there and they each get to choose something from the section they look after as a one day feature and one of the Artisan Crafts volunteers chose this! Thrilled barely covers how I felt about this when I found out hehe.

Although I haven't mentioned the February TUSAL (see sidebar to the left for a link to the project) yet, I did make my monthly jar. You can see threads from the clown I finished in January, the Elemental biscornus and the Soufflé girl Dalek heart.

And this is the not so late Match TUSAL In it are threads from the Coral reef diary cover, the little end bits one keeps from projects from the colours I used for the Dalek heart that I'd not tidied up on time and got a good soaking from a glass of coke that got knocked over. I'd washed ALL the threads on the spools and rewound them on new ones but just couldn't face all the little bits I'd saved so decided to put them in the jar instead. There are also threads from the start of Mike's Mushrooms.

In case anyone has forgotten it's IHSW weekend! So get stitching!!

I was going to add a recipe to this but have decided to write it up as a separate post instead so it's easier to find later on in time.

IHSW, TAST, and more

I didn't get as much time as I'd hoped to stitch during the IHSW, nor did I have as much energy as I'd like - I'd seriously underestimated how long it takes to recover from pneumonia and how easily I tire still, which is also why this post is so late - I just have not had the energy left after dealing with everything else.

What I did manage to achieve was a start on a bookmark for a special someone, which I finished last night. The completed bookmark is 7" x 1 " / 17,5 x 2,5 cm. the little blue figure is a Lego minifig the recipient chose from their collection for me to use as the inspiration. He said that he thought the minifig looked dead because of the X eyes and the fact that he's lying down which he thought was extra fun - that's kids for you lol. The name is done with red variegated thread, the rest with standard DMC floss. Made on a scrap of 18 ct Aida.

I sewed one of the two Elements biscornu's together - the fire and water one, which I won't include now as it's not yet got the button on, looks exactly the same as the last one and I'll make a separate post with both of them once completed.

I also cut out 2 cloaks from fleece for the kids that I still need to sew together, and, as there isn't much to look at apart from a pile of fleece I won't be showing photo's of them yet either.

This year I'm joining in with the Take A Stitch Tuesday project where every Tuesday (or almost every Tuesday) a wonderful lady shows how different embroidery stitches are done. Since I want to expand my stitch knowledge this seems like a good thing for me to join in with and hopefully it will be fun to do. One of my many UFO's was a partially finished frame that I couldn't remember what I had started it for. I realised that this would make the perfect frame for me to try and do all the TAST stitches in, hopefully also creating a pretty picture in the process.

 I have already done this weeks stitches for this - not much as I don't want to run out of space prematurely and I can always add more later. I am also working on completing the frame of cross stitching.

12 Months of Christmas

Introduction:

 I can hear you thinking "what on earth is she talking about? Christmas was last month, it doesn't last all year!" and you are entirely correct, it doesn't last all year. What this is, is a new plan of mine that I thought of because I was disappointed that I just didn't find enough time in the run up to Christmas to make some additional Christmas decorations as I had planned. So, I thought to myself, "What can I do to have the additional home made decorations without running out of time?" And the answer was actually quite simple: make something each month during the year. Each month I hope to find time to make something new and I will share the result. If I create the pattern myself I will also share it, otherwise I will direct you to where I got the idea/pattern from, however the plan is to think of each months creation myself. 

Some things I've been thinking of making but never got round to:

• Place mats 
• Additional baubles 
• Wall hanging (this might take more than a month) 
• A new door wreath (can't use real foliage due to allergies) 
• Napkins (Christmas deserves real fabric napkins) 
• Napkin rings/holders

Since I'm all about using what I already have as much as possible I'll certainly delve into the boxes of bits and pieces I've collected over the years, not to mention my rather sizeable fabric, bead and thread stash. I'll be sewing, quilting, embroidering and who knows what else to make these projects and my hope is that I don't need spend a penny on the projects and that I can do them all from my stash.

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The First project:

I had a 16 inch wide x width of fabric striped Christmas fabric that inspired me to start project 1 - what will probably become a tree skirt. I cut it using a 9 degree circle wedge template and cut it in such a way that the pattern continued all the way round the circle - a rather wasteful way of cutting BUT it achieved the pattern I wanted. This is what the fabric looked like while cutting:

I only wish my fabric had been wider - just a few more inches would have meant I could get 10 slices out of the width instead of 8 making it a 1/4 per run of cuts that I got out of the fabric which then in turn would have meant I got a nice complete pattern all the way round. Halfway sewn - you can see how much smaller it gets when the seam allowance is used:

And this is them all sewn together - to make a full circle I'd have needed 40 sections but I only got 38 from the fabric.:

At the moment it's on my bed with different fabrics underneath while I decide what borders to give it as it's a bit too short to cover up the basket my fake tree sits in.

As you can see it's a really effective way of using a striped fabric and really easy too!

UFO #6 and #7 update

UFO #6: I wanted to test how to do a single piece frame around an embroidery as I'd never done it before so I grabbed the shells embroidery and used that - things didn't go exactly to plan so I had to get creative however I'm glad it happened with this instead of the 8 Colour Challenge piece I want to make the frame on as I would have had a panic "attack" (a mental one without the nasty physical side effects) if things had gone wrong on that instead so it was a good idea I tested first.

I hand sewed it all - not really a strength of mine but it's a skill I want to improve so I'm doing it more often.

UFO #7: I've been quietly working away at this in between everything else - it's not been going super fast but speed has picked up since I scanned the pattern and enlarged it on my computer - it was just too small for me to easily read the many symbols on it. I've done about 1/3 of the pattern for this fish so far. I decided that in order to avoid too many miscounted stitches due to not using Aida I'd do one thread of each colour at a time unless there is a larger area I can safely do with more before doing the next colour.

Right now my priorities are:

1. Finish the 8 colour challenge embroidery so it's a completed item.
2. Finish the awning I'm supposed to make for the neighbours (but got side tracked from due to ill health)
3. Make a wall hanging out of the shells embroidery
4. Finish UFO #7

"Hup Holland" keyrings with charms

Youngest's school has the tradition of not celebrating the birthdays of teachers on their actual birthday but all the teachers of a year (or sometimes more years) get together and plot a party that lasts either all morning or all afternoon of a school day (in older classes they also do stuff like a sleepover and a gala dinner) and the kids then usually take a small gift of some sort (the teachers try to encourage something home made from the kids but youngest isn't all that crafty unfortunately). I really hope the teachers like them :)

So this year I made keyrings/bag decorations in the colours of the theme of the party "Hup Holland" which is the football supporters chant at Dutch national football matches (that's soccer for the USA people who are wondering :) )

The large things hanging from ribbons are 4 different coloured  (red/white/blue/orange) 60 degree diamonds sewn together with a layer of leave in stabiliser stuck in place with iron on adhesive so that I didn't have to stuff the shapes but could keep them lightweight.

I also made little "delfts blue" hearts with blue and white fabric bonded to a little heart shape cut from the stabiliser. and strung larger beads onto the ribbons and tied them in place around seashell or sun charms

I bound the tops of the ribbons together with embroidery floss then wrapped it around the ring 3 times and made it pretty with a blanket stitch going all the way round and then over the bit I'd wrapped the thread round.

Borders update

 

Not much to say here at this point - this is how far I am with the borders so far, still only using one of each colour as mentioned in my previous post about the borders Borders.... already?  I have done as much border as I can for each colour I used in the quilt so far and will be doing the orange, yellow and red as soon as I have finished making the blocks for each colour. I have found that I rather enjoy sewing these little hexagons together and then when I go back to the 1" ones the seem so very large lol.

Screaming Oranges

I don't know if there is a better way to describe how loud these oranges are but they are anything but shy and retiring. They are so bright they make the white background look bluish. They are however perfect as a colour to be sewing with during the dark days of January just after all the Christmas stuff has been cleared up and put away and things are seeming more than a bit dull.

I'm not really sure what's next - the reddish oranges require me to cut a load of red fabrics as well to see what suits and I don't think I have enough salmon to make a full block yet.. so there too more cutting will be required.
 
I won't be adding the link to the Imgur gallery view this time - I find it really ugly and you can see it better if you go to that site itself.


This is the 32nd block and the 2nd orange one.


For more information see:  The insane hexagon quilt
To see all the quilt blocks together look here:  Insane Hexagon Project

Summer Sunset.

Just when you thought I'd forgotten all about my hexagons here I am back with a new block that I finished a few hours ago. Things had gone a bit more slowly due to me being busy with other projects and because I had some troubles getting the colours decided for this block and the block that is next.  This block is orangey yellows and I'm putting it with the oranges as it feels more orange than yellow to me.

This is the 31st block and the 1st orange one.
Next up: the second orange one - Screaming Orange

For more information see:  The insane hexagon quilt 
To see all the quilt blocks together look here:  Insane Hexagon Project

Time flies...

Goodness it's been a while since I last updated this - it's not that I didn't have anything to update it with - it's just that I lacked the time - below are some highlights of what I've been up to in the mean time.. Just images or I'll never catch up lol.


The WCD baking competition:

The 2+ meter strip of brown mini hexagons that I'd put in a jar for a competition elsewhere in early October.

Halloween cookies and mini cupcakes in odd (and not so odd) flavours (melon, cranberry, toffee and peach)

Taco's done our way:

The gift wrapping for oldest's "Sinterklaas suprise" for a class mate (she loved it!) that I made in 3 days flat including sewing the scraps together to make the fabric.

Christmas decorations:

 The Christmas eve bacon quiche:

Last night's dinner - Secret Chicken noodle soup: