Christmas Is Comming

Scarey isn't it, the fact that Christmas is not too far away. I attended my local Sewing Guild group today & we were making Christmas goodies. I wasn't really sure what but I went along with a whole bag of bits & pieces. The above piece of fabric was just one that I went with. Watch this space to see what I do with it.

Jessica In Pink

Away from the stitching now just for a bit. The news headlines lately have been full of a corageous young girl, Jessica Watson, from Queensland, just 16 years old, & off on an andventure of a lifetime. Her ambition is to be the youngest to sail solo, non stop & unassisted, around the world. Jessica has her own blog so that we can all follow her progress. As a mother, I am not sure I could handle my child of 16 doing something like this, but then it depends on the preparation that has gone ito it. Brave parents for letting her do something like this. I will be following her progress with anticipation, and wish her well.

One-A Daisy, Two-A-Daisy, Three-A-Daisy,More

It's been a while since I posted anything here. I have been stitching though, I stitch every day in one way shape or form, well at least have some form of textile encounter.

I have been slowly working on a major piece of counted thread work, now patiently waiting to be laced into a frame ready for some cutwork to happen. I have also knitted a scarf ( started purely out of boredom when my home was invaded with football final fenatics), nothing fancy mind you, just a K2tog, wool over needle, repeat pattern in a gorgeous colour textured yarn, now waiting patiently for next winter.

Hardanger Christmas decorations have also been on the stitching list. I've made 4 so far, all to be given to a charity which my local embroidery group has orgainised. The decorations are beautiful & I want to make some for me.

Then there has been the bobbin lace, slowly but surely my next piece is happening. Just a bookmark, but it is one that I have sort of "designed" myself. I say designed, but it really is only an edge pattern I have made before, mirrored, and added some tallies to. It is nearly finished, so maybe there might be a pic here in the not so distant future.

When I was knitting the scarf, I was having all these ideas as to what to do with all the yarn that was in the bag, one of which was to pull out my Mum's daisy wheel & see how many I could make till I got bored. It's a bag of mixed yarns, left over from other projects, and I wanted to experiment & see how the textured yarns made up into daisies. I had only ever made them with baby yarn before. So far I have made 40 daisues, experimented with two different yarns, ( ditched one) and have a sort of an idea as to what I will do with them all. You will have to come back another time to see what I do with them. Some of them are in the pic above.

Now, for those of you that have read this far, I need you all to do me a favour & leave a comment on how this page is loading. I have been having a **** of a time with it over the last few days & don't know why. I have had some fun with backgrounds & thought it may have been that, so I ditched those with no improvement. I have also ditched some other links which I added in the last week & thought it may have been, ( not that I wanted to as they were lace links), and still no improvement. I am still having hassles so I thought I would add another post & see what happens then. Feedback from readers about how the page is loading elsewhere will be greatly appreciated and let me make decisions as to what to do about the problem.

Thanks all for taking the time to read this far and for making comments.

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OK, so a few hours have passed since I posted about my problem. Those people that know me know that I don't stop until the problem is solved. Well, the problem is now solved. I "phoned a friend" to see if they were having the same problem as me with this page & yes, they were. So that meant that something had to be eliminated off the page. So I have cleared a few things & wallah! no more problem. Good stuff! At least I didn't have to eliminate all my places to visit. So my page might look a little empty down the side bar, but at least it will now load & you can all read what I have been up to.

A Wessex Bookmark - A WISP Finished

It is amazing what one finds in a clean-up. Last week I was sorting through some "stuff" & found none other than another three WISPs. The above bookmark is one of those three. Stitching all done, just patiently waiting for a backing & to be fringed. Mmmmm............ just a few minutes work. I wonder why I left it so long?

Wessex Stitchery, worked onto my own hand dyed even weave linen, using a mix of Perle 8 & stranded threads.

One WISP finished, just approx 50 to go. Now that's a scarry thought.

A "What If" Leaf

When I have finished a piece of bobbin lace, the problem then exhists as to what to do with the left over thread on my bobbins. In the past I have back wound them onto something else to keep for joinings, but there is only so many of these I can keep.

So I have decided to put my left over threads into something useful. The above leaf was born from left over thread of my beds edge 4. Worked in a base of c., tw.,c., tw, giving a grid that was a little warped. Mmmmmmmmm........................grids........................................................... My mind started racing, my fingers started stitching and this little leaf came about.

Bedfordshire Edge 4

I have finally finished another sample of bobbin lace. This time it is Pattern 4 from the Pamela Nottingham book "Bedfordshire Lace Making". I have tried a different thread, Finca No 60, & at first I thought it was a little fine, but now that it is finished it looks OK. It is after all just a sample, and gives me an idea how different threads react, and work up. On the right fabric, this edge could look very pretty.

I tried so hard to get the pins in the right place on the footside edge, but still managed to miss one. I also thought I took special care with my picots not to get them caught around other pins, but missed one of those big time. I'll have to look for other ways to keep check on these points. Any ideas out there from other bobbin lace makers?

A New Shopping Bag

I've had the opportunity to make a shopping bag for a lady. I was asked first, & was told " tapestry fabric & something pouchy". So the above pic is what I came up with. The fabric was supplied & was horrendous to stitch through, requiring a jeans needle in my sewing machine. Very thick & stiff especially where it is tucked. I did think of gathering but didn't think that this fabric would gather very well. The lady that it has been made for is very petite so I couldn't make it too big, otherwise it would swamp her & if the handles were too long then the bag would drag on the ground. I hope she is happy with it, I am, & now I want one for me!

SS Band Sampler

I have finished stitching the last sampler of the Stitching Sister Counted Thread Band Sampler Round Robin.

This sampler is for Margaret, who has stitched the up/down tulip design at the top. For my band at the bottom, I tried to keep the flow of pink & green that seemed to be happening. I played with designs on graph paper first then decided the colour. The stitching started with two rows of 4 sided stitch, with 6 threads removed between the rows. I then needleweaved the remaining threads to keep them strong. Above the 4 sided stitch I worked groups of radiating straight stitches, while below is a row of large eyelets which have been outlined in back stitch. The top row was then mirrored below the eyelets.

I feel a little sad now that this is all over. I love stitching counted thread work of all types and this RR has been an excuse to venture out with colour & stitch combinations.

A Parcel At The Door

Look what arrived at my door yesterday. This beautiful book on Bedfordshire Lace. Now I have plenty to keep me busy & inspired. Mail order is wonderful.

Crazy Patch 3

Crazy patch number 3.

Crazy Patch 2

Crazy patch number 2.

Crazy Patch For Charity Quilt

My local Sewing Guild group has been given some little fabric squares featuring digitized motifs. As we were doing crazy patchwork at one of our last meetings, one of the ladies decided to put all the squares into a crazy patchwork quilt for charity. We each were given one patch each to take home & add to, the only stipulation was for a 6 1/2 " square in pastel shades. This is the one I have done. It was a struggle finding pastel shades in my stash that went with the original patch. It had yellow in it & there is not much yellow in my stash. It is now ready for someone else to stitch all the squares together & turn into a quilt.

Beds Sample 3 - The 9 Pin Edge

I have just this minute cut my latest bobbin lace sample off my pillow. This one is the 9 pin edge which is pattern 3 in my "Bedfordshire Lace Making" book. It was easy enough once I got started. ( Starts are a real problem for me) Revision of plaits, picots, 4 plait crossings & footsides. Though this footside is a little different to those I have done before, done with cloth stitch instead of whole stitch. I still need to remember where to place the pin in the footside, only missed once in this sample, though I noticed a few more times I'd missed & fixed them real quick while working the lace. There a few joins in this piece too. I'm getting better at hiding those as well. Pattern 4 here I come.

Crazy Patch 1

Remember the crazy patches that I started here? Well, I have finished the stitching on all 8 of the patches. Now they sit patiently waiting to be made into something.

What If?

OK, so if I coud do a gumleaf in bobbin lace, what about a rose leaf? Down to the garden to pick a rose leaf to trace & prick. Wind some bobbins in burgandy Perle 5, combine with some left over already wound bobbins, and wallah! Now the creative mind is really racing. Better calm it down & get back to my Beds lace learning.

A Lace Gum Leaf

This is the second gum leaf I have done in bobbinlace. As with the first one, the holes are deliberate. I played with swapping the bobbins around a little to get the colours to move around like they might in a real leaf. Looks much better in colour, don't you think? This one used a variety of threads too, perle 12, perle 8, linen, metalic machine thread ( horrible stuff). Yeh! All the linen thread is now off my bobbins & I have thoughts on how to use the green left overs.

I've spent the last two days sorting out my bobbin lace folder. I had lots of back copies of lace magazines that were taking up way too much space. I have pulled out all the "keep" pages, placed them in plastic sleeves & moved the remainder on. So now my folder has more space and all the patterns are easilly visible. Lots of inspiration & many hours of entertainment.

I wonder what will appear here next?

More Practice

After the last little exercise in bobbin lace I still had thread left over on my bobbins, ( I am still trying to figure out what to do with all these little bits) so I tried another of the samples previously worked. This one included spiders, diamonds, and some rose ground. OK, so the diamonds I can handle, as long as remember the twists on leaving. The spiders didn't take too long to detach from their web, but the rose ground is another story. I think I need to find a pricking that has lots of rose ground so I can really brush out some cobwebs.

This one still has lots of joins in it like the last one, but is a little more respectable to look at & maybe a child would like it as a bookmark. I'll let our feeless lace leader decide if it is good enough to go with the rest. Maybe it will be one to pull out when we have run out. If it inspire some younger person to make lace then that can oly be a good thing.

I still have some of this linen thread left on bobbins, but I am going to use it with some other threads on something a little more creative. So come visiting in a few days time to see what comes to be.

Just Practicing

It was my local lace goup day just over a week ago & I had no lace on my pillow to take. Ooops! So I gathered together some bobbins that had some leftover thread, the spool of matching thread, some empty bobbins and a pricking that I had not worked in a long time. It was a sample piece from when I was having lessons a few years back and I thought that it would make a simple book mark to give away at our open day comming up. I needed the notes too as it had been quite a while. So armed with my bag full of goodies I toddled off to my lace meeting.

Did I say I took my notes? Of course I did, the problem was they were the wrong notes for the pricking I had taken. Mmmmmmm.......... that made me have to think didn't it! I worked it out though & here you see just part of the piece. There are lots of joins, ( consequence of using left over wound bobbins) a fringed end on one end & a bunched up lot of knots on the other. Definately not bookmark material, it will hit a dye pot at some stage and maybe go on a piece of crazy patchwork somewhere someday.

The upside is that I have bown out some more cobwebs regarding my bobbin lace.

A New Scissor Case

The sewing group that I mentioned in my last post made scissor cases back in April and they were asked for this month so they could all be photographed. So at the last minute once again, I whipped up this one. The pattern was supplied, and the idea was to cut an outer fabric & a lining fabric, stitch right sides together leaving an opening so that it could be turned through. Once turned through, the case was then folded ( & stitched) into shape, giving a pocket for larger scissors & a smaller pocket for something else.

Mmm....... I could do better than this. My original plans were to do something fantastic, like some digitizing, but the month got away & I found myself with just one day left to make it. So I layered two fabrics together with some pellon between, free machine quilted all over, cut to shape, then bound. Wallah! New scissor case. I'd still like to do another one, maybe with some bobbin lace trim, or some digitizing on it somewhwere. We'll see.

Going Crazy

I belong to a local sewing group which meets once a month. This month the activity was on crazy patchwork. The lady who was leading the activity happens to be one of my previous students, and the project for the day was one that I had led her through a few years ago. As a result, I was asked if I could help. J*** had not asked for anything in particular, just "help". So the day before, (nothing like leaving things to the last minute) I set about putting together some samples on the "how to" of crazy piecing. All in all there were eight samples, beginning with "placing piece 1 here", and moving through the order of how to place the pieces. Each sample had one more piece stitched on to it than the previous piece, so at the end, I had 7 part made squares and only one finished square. So I have sat down & finished the others, and now have eight crazy squares similar to the one above, waiting for some embellishment & to be turned into something.

I really enjoyed being back on my machine again. After sewing for a wedding last year I have not even felt like turning on my machine. So watch this space to see what I do with these squares.