Pansies and buttons!

I'm really enjoying this project and  I love the colours.  Last week I removed the offending green tent stitch down two sides, so I will probably redo them today while I'm snuggled up watching a film this afternoon.

Daily stitching continues on Buttons and Stitch, although there isn't a lot to see just yet, but give it a few more weeks and I will be raving about it!!

I'm off to do some sewing now as the computer/internet is playing up.

Have a lovely Sunday.

Scrappy Saturday - Blue

It's incredible that we are on the last Saturday in January and the last week of playing with blue scraps! Where has the time gone?  I've added a blue fox to my hedgehog made at the beginning of the month, but not a lot to show. And of course I should have been concentrating on light blue, but never mind! Pop over to super scrappy where you can see what blue projects other people have been working on.

Sunny Day!

After all the rain we've had recently it was nice to walk along the beach today in the sunshine! Yesterdays fierce winds meant the poor dog had a very short walk (I had trouble staying upright).

Generally after a storm the beach is littered with lots of debris and I walk along collecting all the bits of plastic bags and bottles that get thrown up, but today all I came across was this large bit of tree which had some lovely pink seaweed attached to it!

Pansies, buttons and slow Sunday stitching!

I'm really starting to enjoy this little project (despite discovering I have miscounted and I need to pull out the dark green row of stitching on the right hand side).  I love the geometric shapes and the symmetry of this sort of embroidery. I sat down yesterday afternoon to add a few more stitches and switched on the radio to listen to Radio 4's moving picture programme which happened to be reviewing a patchwork quilt made by a lady called Ann West and dated 1820. While listening to the programme you can go onto the Victoria and Albert Museum site and tour the quilt as they talk about it. It is an amazing piece of work and the embroidery detail in it is extraordinary (unfortunately the link doesn't do it justice)

While cruising the Slow Sunday Stitching blog posts last week, my eye was very much drawn to the 365 Project - buttons and stitches over at Warm Quilts which led me on to Lilblueboo.  Now I had said I didn't need to do another big '1 year of stitches' project this year and how long did I resist for ..... 2 weeks! So here I am embarking on 2018s 1 year of stitches and already I'm having fun!  I spent ages sorting through my button box and there are so many memories in that box (not too many pretty buttons though, but quite a few novelty ones). I am wondering whether to add some negative spaces in this years challenge? Maybe not anything as large as last years lizard but maybe the odd circle or two?

Kathy over at slow Sunday stitching has also posed the challenge of taking a photo of your embroidery/quilting hoop and what's in it at the moment.  I generally don't leave my work in the hoop when I've finished working on it but I think I will with my new challenge as was suggested by Lilblueboo - it does make a great frame! I also went to look to see how many hoops I own and I can't find any of the small ones! I think they may be behind the unit in my sewing room!!!

Have a great day stitching!

Pansy picture

Monday I still couldn't decide what I really wanted to work on, so decided to number all my UFOs (well I gave up at 12) and put them into a box and picked one and this is what came out. I bought this kit back in April last year and had only completed the yellow part of the pansy.  I wasn't loving it at the time but it really is growing on me now! The rest of the kit is worked in blocks of four and I know I'm going to enjoy that bit more, BUT I'm not sure I've counted correctly (I seem to have problems with counting). So I'm going off piste and not following the correct order of stitches in the hope I get the correct number of stitches right in the frame around the pansy. OK a bit complicated but I know in my head what I mean!

Seascape and hexies

There is something about the start of a new year that makes me (and I know I'm not alone in this) want to start lots of new projects and of course surfing 'Blog land' just makes me want to do even more new projects. I am trying to rain myself in, but I keep changing the goal posts!  So my latest idea is to allow myself to start 6 new projects this year providing I finish 6 this year!!  Is that going to work - well who knows!  All I know is I've spent a lot of time thinking about sewing but actually not sewing much at all.

On Monday we had our sewing group and this month we had a textile artist come in and give us a landscape/seascape workshop. I went into the workshop, having not seen her work, and therefore ill prepared.  The workshop was titled needle felting, so I concentrated on gathering my needle felting supplies but what I actually should have focused on was gathering interesting fabrics to construct the background (of course I have a mountain of fabric at home but only a limited pallet on the day).  So I started off the day thinking it was going to be a disaster but by the end of the day I realised I had actually quite enjoyed myself!

And this is the result - a seascape (OK you might need to use your imagination here)! I added some wool tops and thread that are needle felted and I have started to add some French knots.  Before I go any further I think I will probably take it to the sewing machine and add some texture.  And of course it looks so much better when a border is added!

I might have mentioned in a previous post that my local craft/hobby shop was closing down - very sad to see it go.  I popped in for one last scout around to discover that they now had 75% off everything.  So with my quest to finish 6 items this year I bought several metres of backing fabric (I especially like the green script fabric) and of course a few other bits and bobs made there way into my basket!.

I've also been working on hand sewing my hexie quilt.  My quilting is definitely improving although every time I go back to it I feel I start from scratch again, even if it's only from the previous day.  But I really want this one finished (this year!!!) I have linked up to Slow Sunday Stitching to help give me some handing stitching inspiration!!

Slow Sunday Stitching

I've just been reading Kathy's blog for Slow Sunday Stitching and believe it or not it's -25* where she is in Canada!  It's been pretty cold here in the UK recently but for us in the South of England it's been no where near that temperature.  That said walking the dog across the New Forest today was freezing, despite the sun shining, I guess it was that icy wind that does it!  Still stopping off for coffee and cake in the little village of Burley helped warm us up (the dog preened herself while she waited and left a pile of bracken and fern littering the floor).  So here is a photo of the tulips I bought this week to cheer me up once all the Christmas decorations were down....spring is on its way!

I've been working on my hand quilting recently.  I admit I've not really mastered the technique yet and my stitches are all different sizes.  But I decided early on that I would not rip any of them out, but would just learn from the experience!  I did however brake two needles the other evening (literally one after the other).  I wondered if I had the quilt too tight in the hoop?

I'm not being very adventurous with my quilting either, just echoing the hexagon's! 

And this picture is of Lola making herself very comfortable on the folded up quilt and a coat! (this was not taken today post walk - cos she is filthy!)

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - BLUE

 My DH bought me the Fancy Forest pattern by Elizabeth Hartman (along with some lovely spotty fabric) for Christmas and I have been itching to make a Hazel Hedgehog!  So last Wednesday I got into my sewing room, accompanied by my DD who sat and crocheted and chatted to me, while I played with fabric.  And here is the result and I love, love her!!  I went for the blue spot because I thought I would play along with the weekly Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I will link up with so scrappy where lots of other people have been playing with their blue scraps already!  My plan was to just make lots of Hazels in different colours but I now want to make every other Forest animal in the pattern! LOL!

Some of the pleasure of making this block was definitely having Faye join me in the sewing room.  She has now returned to China and it will be a while before I see her again, which makes my heart ache.  Thank goodness for Skype that's all I can say!