Tiny Norwegian Houses

January 23, 2016 stitchesoftime3 Comments

Hello everyone, hope you are all well and planning a lovely weekend. The sun is shining here in Yorkshire and we have blue skies which is a bit of a miracle for January so a walk might be in the plans for later on.

I have always been fascinated by tiny places to live, I have plans to buy a caravan when I retire and some of my happiest homes have been small, bedsits and little flats.

I am currently loving the tiny house movement and all the gorgeous things that pop up on my Facebook feed.

Look at this one for sheer inventiveness, it looks like something out of a fairy tale. This comes from a company called Spa Hungary.

Tiny house resized

I have found lots of lovely pictures on this Tiny House blog as well, love the look of this cabin from the Isle of Wight.

small-beach-house-exterior resized

small-beach-house- exterior resized

When we were in Oslo my favourite houses at the Folk Museum were two tiny wooden houses from the early 1900s, built side by side.

The amazing thing about these was although they were probably only not much bigger in terms of floor area as modern tiny houses 9 people lived in one and 8 in the other.

As always it was the little touches that made it home that were so amazing, these houses had been moved to the museum so they were not the original belongings of the inhabitants but still so beautiful.

Three of the family slept in this tiny loft bedroom accessed by a ladder. The ‘bathroom’ was a small bowl and mirror tucked behind a curtain at the bottom of the stairs, and the toilet was out in the yard.

Norway Folk Museum small house 2

There were lots of space saving ides like these hangings for trays.

Norway Folk Museum small house 1

Norway Folk Museum small house 3

And evidence of beautiful embroidery to make the place feel like home.

Norway Folk Museum small house 4

Norway Folk Museum small house 5

Norway Folk Museum small house 6

Both of the houses had little sewing areas with vintage sewing machines. I have one just like this which has its own table to stow it in. Sadly it does not work anymore but is a very lovely heirloom.

Norway Folk Museum small house 7

Some of the family would sleep on the sofas in the lounge.

Norway Folk Museum small house 9

There were photos of some of the families that lived there, all in their Sunday best!

Norway Folk Museum small house 8

Norway Folk Museum small house 10

It may seem strange that people now willingly choose to live in tiny houses but I can see why this is such a good idea and most of the people doing it are choosing mortgage free lifestyles either as their first homes or as retirees.

I do love my own house but sometimes I think it seems very big for just me and is very full of ‘stuff’. Why do I need 10 wineglasses when at the most there are only ever 3 people in my house drinking wine at the same time?

Of course the contents of the craft room are exempt as that is not stuff, that is the retirement fund!

Have had a lovely week at work and also managed to get quite a bit of knitting done, all body parts for one rabbit completed and am now onto the mouse which is exciting as I have not made one of those before.

Hope that you have a lovely weekend and week ahead, will be back with some pictures of the lovely presents I had for Christmas, craft related of course 😉

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Norwegian Embroidery

January 10, 2016 stitchesoftime5 Comments

Hello again

One of my favourite parts of the Oslo Folk Museum of course was the exhibition of traditional folk costume, the bunad, and some wonderful examples of the embroidery including Hardanger, a traditional type of whitework from Norway.

Norway Folk Museum embroidery 3

There were examples of wool embroidery on costumes and accessories.

Norway Folk Museum embroidery 2

Norway Folk Museum embroidery 5

These baby’s caps were a combination of wool and redwork embroidery.

Norway Folk Museum embroidery 4

There was also blackwork, excuse the fuzziness of the picture below but I wanted to show you amount of stitching on this beautiful head dress.

Norway Folk Museum embroidery 6

Norway Folk Museum embroidery 1

We also saw a bridal outfit like this one below and lots of the beautiful jewellery that is worn with the costume.

Norway Telemark Bridal Crown -small

Norway Folk Museum embroidery 7

There are more beautiful images of Norwegian bridal crowns here , it really struck me how much the head dresses and the silver jewellery resembled the Miao Chinese folk costume that I saw when I went to the Ethnicities Museum in Beijing.

Miao Chinese Folk Costume

We saw quite a few people wearing their traditional costume on Christmas Eve in Oslo, particularly in the cathedral where we went for the afternoon service.

This website has got lots of photos of people wearing their bunads at an event held at the Folk Museum in 2012.

They were also on sale in one of the department stores, with packs of ready prepared shirt material and embroidery patterns.

I was also very pleased as many years ago when we visited Sweden I bought some beautiful metal clasps that I have used for medieval costume. I only have this one left.

Norway cloak clasps 1

But I discovered that they are used in the bodice of the bunad so was able to buy some more sets, I now have two each of these beauties.

Norway cloak clasps 2

I have been doing a bit of research and thanks to Pinterest have found so much inspiration for Scandinavian embroidery. There are some gorgeous designs here

And if you want more information and pictures about the wool embroidery this is an excellent source looking at costumes from Northern Norway.

Well I will leave you know and get on with some actual embroidery rather than just adding to my to do pile! Will be back soon with the last of my Norwegian loveliness posts.

Have a lovely rest of the weekend and thanks for visiting.

The last of the flock, for now…..

December 12, 2015 stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello everyone

I have a feeling of Groundhog day as I sit on my sofa watching the rain come down on another Saturday, the good news is that I have nothing to do today except work on the last of my Christmas ornaments and watch my latest Netflix series so all is wonderful 🙂

I am feeling very mellow as all Christmas gifts have been sorted and I pity the poor people who have got to do their shopping this weekend in the rain and the cold!

Firstly I must tell you the result of the giveaway, the winner chosen by the tried and trusted random number generator method and is Textiledreamer.

Please could you message me at alisonmryan@yahoo.co.uk with your address and I will send your goodies to you.

As well as the last of the quilted ornaments I have been stitching up a little gift for one of my relatives.

My cousins all have young children and I love making things for them, especially as most of them have unusual names so I like to make personalised things.

This little bag is for my cousin’s daughter who is five and loves anything art related so I have some creative things to fill it with, as well as some Frozen goodies as she is still a big fan of the movie.

The actual bag was from the Quilt Festival in the summer, won on the fund-raising bag tombola and the design is another version of Jenny of Elefantz’s Button Bird.

I have used some new rayon threads for this, I love using silk but thought rayon might be better for a bag as it will get more wear than a picture. I have also enjoyed perfecting my lazy daisy stitches.

I obtained these threads as a bundle from an Ebay seller, The Shopping Window who have lots of beautiful threads and ribbons for sale, I got 75 gorgeous colours like these so can’t wait to use more of them in future projects.

OK off to make more ornaments now, will post some pictures of the final ones later in the week. Have a lovely weekend and thanks for visiting.

Birds of a feather

December 7, 2015 stitchesoftime7 Comments

Hello everyone

It is a rare sunny day in Yorkshire with blue skies which is lovely.

I am in a very happy mood as well as I have been sorting out the last few details for our holiday to Oslo for Christmas 🙂 Very excited as we haven’t been away at Christmas for a few years and it will be very festive with snow and everything!

I have been a very busy bee over the weekend finishing some more Christmas ornaments and a little treat for my craft room, all of them featuring bird designs from the lovely Jenny of Elefantz. Am currently in progress with another version of this beautiful one as well in the smaller version.

This is the Button Bird design, adapted as you can clearly see that there is no button! I decided to do more of the lovely lazy daisy stitches instead now I have got the hang of them and also added beads to the tail.

I was wondering how to frame it and then remembered that I had an old embroidery hoop that had lost its ability to tighten properly so wrapped that in matching ribbon and ta da.

I think it looks lovely and will be the first of Jenny’s projects to get put up in the craft room.The hanging with the three embroideries that I blogged about previously is still a WIP as I plan to paper piece a border for it.

The threads are a combination of the variegated Perle thread that I bought at Harrogate and some of my Silk Mill purples and I think they look great together.

The next project is from one of Jenny’s previous Stitchery Clubs and is one that I have sewn before but this time decided to applique the wing which gave me a chance to practise buttonhole stitch.

This is the Makower fabric that I bought from my local haberdashers a while ago and I thought a little pillow finish would be something different to do. This is one of a pair of special gifts for relatives.

This last one is also from the last Stitchery Club set and is part of the bunting, I still have plans to make the whole of the bunting, but realistically that will have to be an after Christmas project, so this is just a little adaptation as a hanging.

Have the rest of the other bird to work on this evening with the end of a very exciting boxed set, have been watching Wayward Pines and it has been very good.

I do love some nice televisual entertainment and a bit of good crafting to keep me amused during the dark nights. Happy times 🙂

Hope you are all having a good week so far and have something nice to snuggle up with on these cold nights. Take care and thanks for visiting and don’t forget to like my giveaway post, I will be drawing names for that on at that weekend.

Just a little something to brighten my day :-)

November 30, 2015 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello everyone

As I told you in the last post I was very good, (well for me!), at Harrogate and only bought a little bit of the gorgeousness that was available.

As always I love seeing the fabric and this year particularly the thread stalls, the colours of the displays are so lovely, little rainbows of stitchy delight.

I had hard time choosing what to buy, I wanted some more threads as I am enjoying my rediscovery of embroidery, thanks to the wonderful designs from Jenny.

I managed to find some more of the Cath Kidston style fabric, not in blue but in a coordinating pink and bought some Perle threads to go with it.

I bought some more embroidery thread from the bargain bin at Stef Francis, all this for £4.

And look at this beautiful fabric from Higgs and Higgs, bet you can’t guess what I might make with this.

And I was really pleased to find a stall with 5 fat quarters of one of my favourite Christmas fabrics ever so I bought all of it and a lovely gold print. I still have a couple of the quilted balls to make so this will be very useful.

I also stocked up on more red and green silk thread, all of the thread came from West End Embroidery, a company I have not seen before and they had a brilliant selection of speciality threads so I have added them to my favourites.

I also bought some more Christmas ribbons from my favourite supplier, The Ribbon Box. Several of these are new designs and all so pretty!

And I bought charms, I can’t resist charms and though I was really looking for more keys for my Steampunk outfit came away with these lovely embellishments and some more little charms for stitching gifts.

These were all from a Dutch company called Creatotaal who had an excellent selection.

Although I have enjoyed my year of quilting I have a bit of sciatica and that limits the amount of machine stitching I can do but not the hand embroidery, I have spent lots of enjoyable afternoons sat on sofa stitching and watching TV.

I really value this time on my own, many of the blogs I read are written by women with young children who are combining their craft with family life and I remember those days very well.

One of my favourite New Year holidays was when my children were staying with their grandparents and it snowed very heavily, forcing all plans to be cancelled for going out and I sat and stitched and watched films for two whole days.

It was bliss, much as I love my children that amount of, ‘me’, time was so rare then and I can now do that every weekend so I am very lucky 🙂

I think 2016 will be my year of embroidery, I would like to also explore more crewelwork and goldwork as there are some patterns that I have been wanting to work on for a while.

It is also easier on my hands as I am still having some problems with tendonitis and arthritis which limits my knitting, I am falling apart at the moment 😉

I have been particularly interested in the work of two designers, one of whom was exhibiting at Harrogate.

Nicola Jarvis does the most exquisite crewel work designs, some inspired by William and May Morris, many of birds, combining different types of stitching to produce gorgeous and very unusual work such as this blackbird from her website.

I bought a tea towel featuring some of her designs, am planning to hang it in the craft room as it is far too pretty to wipe things with and would love to work on some of her things next year.

Another crewel work designer I love is someone I found through a link from a blog,(miracles of the internet!) an Australian called Anna Scott who does really bright and beautiful interpretations of traditional crewel work flowers.

I am planning to buy one of her designs from her Etsy shop after Christmas once I have finished the ornament stitching, she does PDF downloads which is very helpful. The only thing is I can’t decide between all the loveliness that is there.

Am very tempted by this one…

Or this one ….

Anna Scott Crewel Work

So many brilliant stitching opportunities, we are so lucky to have all these lovely designers out there and the miracles of the internet to be able to look at their work and buy it!

I am working on the last few of my Jenny of Elefantz Christmas ornaments at the moment and have also been stitching one of her beautiful birds in some of my new thread.

I am combining the thicker Perle thread for the outline with single and double strands of silk for the running stitch and lazy daisies.

This is such peaceful stitching and so fast to complete. I always seem to take ages to do things but her designs are very easy to do and look so pretty.

All good and I am now feeling very happy that my colourful Friday purchases have gone to small businesses and designers and for things that makes people happy more than once, me when I buy it, me when I use it and the recipients of the gifts I make.

Hope that you have a very nice and colourful week ahead whatever you are doing, thanks for visiting and see you soon.

#Making Winter

November 15, 2015 stitchesoftime8 Comments

Hello everyone, once again I am blogging from the comfort of my sofa, under my fleecy blanket watching the rain lash down.

I think it is the tail end of Hurricane Abigail but whatever the reason today is a day to stay in, keep warm and celebrate the positives of this season.

I was left a comment in a previous post about Silverpebble and went to have a look at the blog. It is a gorgeously photographed one and the owner, Emma, makes beautiful silver clay jewellery.

I was particularly interested in her idea of bloggers coming together to celebrate the creativity that being indoors more of the time can inspire.

Winter is a time of cosy homes, candlelight at night and the excuse to eat cake and craft without feeling any guilt for not being out doing something energetic, or mowing the lawn, ( not that I have one anymore thankfully), so I am very happy to celebrate #Making Winter with my fellow bloggers.

Go and have a look at the links on the above post for other ideas of how to combat the winter blues, I really want to crochet some snowflakes like Little Conkers has, and for a very good cause.

If you use Instagram there are pictures there as well with that hashtag.

One of my goals for this winter season is to make more things for me, or specifically for my craft room. I love making things as gifts but my home contains very little of my own work and at the moment the craft room looks so pretty with all the quilt blocks up.

They will soon be gone as they are destined to become lap quilts as Christmas presents, (that is if I can get my new machine to behave as it keeps unthreading itself at the moment 😦 ) so I am working on some things to replace them.

So I have been putting together a little hanging from Jenny of Elefantz’s sewing themed stitchery. I have used some more of the gorgeous variegated thread from Cottage Garden and plan to add a patchwork border and some hand quilting.

I love looking at other people’s pictures of their craft rooms and have been very inspired by people like Messy Jesse, look at this beautiful stitching space, picture from her blog.

She is also very kindly giving away a free pattern for the Summer Baskets mini quilt in the picture.

I did venture out yesterday to Ikea to get some new storage for the craft room and have been having fun sorting out the space again. Sharon was getting rid of a bookcase so I have now moved all the magazines and quilt books there.

I found some lovely coordinating labels at Ikea as well so I know I know which patterns are in which files!

I have now got space on the units to use as a fabric cutting and sorting area. I bought more of the fabric storage boxes which fit inside the units yesterday.

It looks a lot prettier and more coordinated than the previous plastic boxes. There is also the added advantage that I can hide my stash, these could all be full of Christmas fabric and no-one would ever know 😉

I also bought some more of the very pretty little metal containers for my tools, these are actually candle holders and plants pots and I think they work very well for organising while looking cute!

So am looking forward to lots and lots of winter weekends of adding to the craft room walls and trying out new techniques for quilting.

On my list are some Dresden Plate designs, some Farmer’s wife blocks and possibly some of Lori Holt’s work – have been very tempted by both the Farm Girl Vintage work and some of her other designs , look at this one called Sew Day, how perfect would that be in my craft room!

At this rate I won’t ever want it to be better weather, will be very happy to stay in and craft forever!

Hope you have had a nice weekend and have some lovely things to do with your time, take care, thanks for visiting and see you soon.

Homemade with Heartstrings – Christmas Decorations

November 11, 2015November 9, 2015 stitchesoftime7 Comments

Hello again

I was reading Jenny’s blog again recently and was reminded that I wanted to give you all some more ideas for homemade gifts.

As you know I am a bit of a fan of Christmas fabrics and Christmas ornaments 🙂 and I think there is nothing nicer than a handmade ornament as a gift.

Years ago I used to cross stitch Christmas cards, pre blog so no pictures sadly, and loved doing it. However cards only tend to be used once then put away.

I got the idea for ornaments when my Mum started putting all the old cards out year after year so I thought why don’t I make hanging ornaments instead then they can be re-used.

So here are a selection of patterns and tutorials for your Christmas gifts, some by me others that I have found and love.

I now make at least 15 keepsake ornaments every year and they have become something that people always look forward to getting, it is lovely to go to friends’ houses and see things on their trees that I made years ago that even I have forgotten about.

Quilted Ball Ornaments

These are my 2015 special gifts for my friends from toddler group – 23 years of friendship and still going strong with sons and daughters now all in their 20s!

There is a great step-by-step tutorial here and despite the fact that they look difficult they really aren’t. Great for relaxing in front of the TV as it is very therapeutic and you don’t need any sewing skills. Fabric is pinned onto a polystyrene bauble.

Christmas Stockings

These are ultimate cuteness and come from the lovely Julie of Little Cotton Rabbits. I would say medium level knitting skills and the instructions are brilliant. They are knitted flat and are very quick to do.

Suffolk Puff Bauble

Again a great way to relax and you can embellish this with buttons, charms, pins etc as you wish. The base is a polystyrene bauble as with the quilted bauble.Detailed tutorial is here.

Hexagon Ornaments

This is one of my designs combining my love of English Paper Piecing and Christmas fabric, I love adding charms and buttons to these.Tutorial on how to make them is here.

Cute embroidered hoops for children

I just had to share this one with you, no detailed instructions for this version but they look easy enough to follow from these pictures. There are some wonderful things in this 25 ideas booklet from 36th Avenue blog including these amazing cupcakes!

Crazy Patchwork Trees and Hearts

I love using up all my scraps so have made some crazy patchwork ornaments over the years, here are some examples of little trees and padded hearts and a step by step tutorial for making the patchwork tree here.

If you want to make the hearts just make a bigger patchwork sheet as below and cut hearts out from it.

Star Pentagon Ornaments

I have not made these yet but they look beautiful and very simple to do. This Create 4 Fun site contains downloadable PDFs for this and other ornaments.

Small Cross Stitch motifs

This free pattern is for a game but I think they would make lovely ornaments stitched and surrounded by pretty Christmas fabrics.

There are lots more links to free cross stitch patterns at this site with a good selection for children’s ornaments.

Redwork Sampler

What could be more festive than redwork? This free sampler pattern from Bronwyn Hayes at Red Brolley is so lovely and could easily be used for smaller ornaments. There are more redwork Christmas freebies at that site as well.

Happy Christmas ornament making, take care and see you soon. Thanks for visiting.

More homemade with heartstrings

November 4, 2015November 8, 2015 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello everyone, hope that you are all having a good week, back to normality this week which has been good fun though I do miss my craft room,especially when it is now looking so lovely and coordinated!

I have just finished making some more handmade gifts, the first one for me and also some for my lovely sister-in-law Amanda, it is ok as she doesn’t read my blog so won’t know what I have made her for Christmas 😉

The stitching designs for all three pieces come from the lovely Jenny of Elefantz and can be found in her Craftsy shop.

The hexi flower stitch design is a freebie and I had just enough of the lovely Cath Kidston style fabric to make this gorgeous little needlecase.

I am very pleased as this was the first time I had ever done lazy daisy stitch.

The needlecase is lined with a white on white print and has a layer of wadding in between and felt for the needle storage.

I also used the decorative stitches on my new machine to quilt the back part.

For Amanda’s presents I used Jenny’s Stitchin Machine and Stitch in Time designs, I have already used the full Stitch in Time one for the paper piecing case for my Mum but just used part of it to make a cute little scissor pillow.

I have used some gorgeous variegated thread to stitch these as I thought it went really well with the fabric. It is called Cottage Garden Threads, this colour is 601 Tulip. They are an Australian brand and I got them from Quilted Hearts.

The lovely sewing notions print is one that I got from Simply Solids last year and made Amanda’s sewing case out of which I have put pictures of below.

I was lucky enough to find the last fat quarter of this print there last weekend so have some more of it for future gifts 🙂

I really love these stitching designs from Jenny and am planning to do them again for me as a wall hanging for my craft room – they will look wonderful next to my new sewing machine themed wall rack!

Have a lovely rest of the week, see you all soon and thanks for visiting.

A freebie and a great idea

October 29, 2015 stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello again

Just popped in to share with you some things from the lovely Jenny of Elefantz’s blog. I am really enjoying stitching her designs and the bad weather and poorly chest have meant that on the positive side I have got two more stitch designs done this week, just need to do the finishing then I can show them to you.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Jenny has designed a lovely bird with flowers, not as a fund-raiser but as a gift to anyone you know who is facing breast, or other cancers as a gift for support. It would also make a lovely gift for anyone who is having a hard time at the moment for any reason and can be personalised with any text.

You can find the details at this blog post and download the design at her Craftsy store.

She is also encouraging us all to use handmade gifts this Christmas, I am definitely very much in favour of that and hope that you all are too. If you don’t craft yourself then find a local craft fair or look on Etsy to support a craftsperson.

Jenny is doing a series of posts with great ideas for Christmas gifts that you can easily make from a variety of crafts. The first one is here and has links to free patterns for slippers, scrappy hearts, table runners, bags and baby gifts.

She has asked people to join in and share ideas for gifts so here is a tutorial from Very Berry Handmade, (purveyors of the lovely Liberty scrap packs), for a pincushion, because I love pincushions and everyone should have one, (or preferably more!) Picture from the Verry Berry blog.

The tutorial is very clear with step by step photos and would be a great way of using scraps. You could also make this into a mug rug or coaster set.

Have fun whatever you decide to make, see you soon and thanks for visiting.

It’s not more fabric it’s an investment in my retirement fund

October 24, 2015October 24, 2015 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hello there, hope that you are all well and happy and are doing something nice.

I am looking forward to a wonderful weekend of sewing, I have just finished up two more Christmas ornaments and have a present to finish later and then just may have a play with the latest addition to my retirement fund.

I saw three ladies at the Birmingham Festival of Quilts who had brilliant t-shirts on with the logo, ‘I have a retirement plan, I plan to quilt’. I always tell the kids that one of the reasons I buy fabric now is so that I will have enough when I am living on my pension, well it won’t go off will it?

I would not have bought this were it not for my friend Debbie who came to knitting with this lovely and incredibly cheap fabric from our local haberdashers, only £2.20 a metre, you just have to buy some at that price!

Then there was this that was a little bit more expensive, (so I only bought 1/4 metre lengths of this), the latest Makower print.

It is going to be the best sort of weekend as it is followed by half term, (yippee 🙂 🙂 !) I am not off anywhere as I saw all the family last weekend but am working from home for most of it that so that means late starts and early finishes and lots of time for nice cooking and crafting.

I am very much in soup mode at the moment as I have had a horrible cough and cold and not felt like eating much else so have purchased the pumpkin for the annual soup!

Sadly it is raining which means that I won’t be going out, but more excuse to stay on the sofa, under the fleece and sew – what a lovely life.

Here are the Christmas ornaments that I finished yesterday, another one of Jenny of Elefantz’s wonderful designs, this is an adaptation of one of the designs in the Nov Stitchery Club set.

I altered the little flag to say Merry Christmas and am very pleased how neat the little letters have come out, Jenny’s designs are great for practising neat stitches. Just ignore those bits that aren’t so neat at the bottom of the bird 😉

The little brass charm is from Stitch Direct.

I think these would look great in redwork stitching with that Makower snowflake fabric above so that might have to be my next set.

I have also treated myself to this book, it has been on my Amazon wishlist for a long time and once I have finished all the outstanding block of the month challenges, which I am hoping to do this week, I will be making a couple of runners for my house.

I have taken the decision not to do any craft fairs this year, what with making stuff for Sarah’s Yarndale stall and the wedding outfit and the possible trip to China with work that sadly did not happen, I felt that I would be too rushed so all my Christmas crafting this year will be for me!

I have already made most of the gift ornaments, that’s what you get for starting in July lol.

Have a very lovely weekend, thanks for visiting and see you all soon.

Stitches of Time

I have created this blog to share my interest in all forms of stitching, quilting, sewing, knitting, medieval re-enactment and costume making – particularly my love of historical embroidery. I also love travelling,especially when it also involves any of my other interests.

Category: embroidery

Tiny Norwegian Houses

Norwegian Embroidery

The last of the flock, for now…..

Birds of a feather

Just a little something to brighten my day :-)

#Making Winter

Homemade with Heartstrings – Christmas Decorations

More homemade with heartstrings

A freebie and a great idea

It’s not more fabric it’s an investment in my retirement fund