It’s melting!

January 28, 2013 stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello everyone

Hope you didn’t suffer too much disruption because of snow last week, here in the UK we had a massive snowfall and there was the usual chaos and complaints about how badly we manage snow!

I got into work ok (the joys of being a non car driver) but this was the front of the house last Monday!

I have been working on my lastest range of upcycled things for my craft stall at Standedge. These are the full set of hearts – I found this very cute cake stand in Cardiff over Xmas and thought it would be perfect for displaying my stock.

I have been making Kindle / e-book covers out of the charity fabric and vintage embroidery and some old clothing.

I am really pleased with the way that they have turned out, especially with my machine applique. I did want to get better at machine work and am pleased that I have managed to be neat in the stitching round the hearts.

This coming weekend I will be working on some phone covers.

My lovely friend Kerry came to stay this weekend – we had a very nice trip to Oakwell Hall where there was still very deep snow on Saturday but heavy rainfall overnight meant that our walk on Sunday along the valley was full of flooded rivers and rushing water under bridges.

It was amazing to see especially compared to the last time I went there a couple of months ago which you can see in this post.

The second photo on that previous post was taken at the same spot as this one below.

We had a lovely time and are looking forward to doing the same walk when it is drier and we can cross the streams to get further up the valley.

Hope that you are not suffering too much from the weather, take care and thanks for visiting.

Heading for the hills in my new hat!

January 20, 2013January 20, 2013 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello and welcome, I hope you are all warm and snug and wrapped up well in this very chilly weather.

I have had a very lovely day today, starting with making a very delicious beef stew in my slow cooker which meant I could leave it gently simmering away while I went for a walk in the snowy hills – wearing my newly finished walking hat of course!

I hurt my back earlier this week by falling down my stairs so just went for a very gentle walk round the reservoir on the flat path. There were some wonderful frosty views and some beautiful icicles, some of them looked like weird sea creatures.Lots of people were sledging on the slops of the reservoir – looked great fun!

I have been getting on well with my upcycled hearts and other designs from my charity shop stash, these are to be taken to The Loft Craft Centre at Standedge next week along with a few Kindle cases that I have been making out of the same fabric.Will post pics of the cases next week.

Here is my production so far, I really love the embroidered hearts which came from a tablecloth and the broderie anglaise and denim ones which are from a charity shop skirt and one of Ellie’s old skirts for the stripey backing and the denim.

The first four pics show front and back of the different hearts and the last one shows both front and back of the embroidered one.

Have a lovely week ahead – there is more snow forecast here so don’t know what is going to happen work wise. Thanks for visiting.

Busman’s holiday

December 9, 2012December 9, 2012 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Lovely daughter Ellie has been here for a few days so we have done lots of nice things. It has snowed here this week (not much) but enough to make the roads and pavements very icy when we went for a walk and to give the reservoirs this lovely winter scenery.

We went shopping while she was here and have I stocked us both up with new winter boots, fleecy pjs and fleecy throws to snuggle under when it is cold. The village is a few degrees colder than living near town, have cast on for a new snug fitting winter hat which should be finished soon to protect my ears from the cold wind!

This weekend we went on a little busman’s holiday trip to a local stately home Harewood House where we did a re-enactment event earlier in the summer.

Ellie was particularly interested in the way that they had displayed their kitchens as she has been working on the ones at Powis Castle and was very envious of their display of copperware and their model pies.You can read about what she has been doing in this post from her blog.

No pics allowed of the inside but we got some brilliant ones of the gardens. It was nearing sunset and there were beautiful clouds and setting sun from the terrace.

We followed that up with a visit to the Huddersfield Festival of Light celebration – we have been going to this for a number of years but this was the best yet.

Normally they have one big show focused around the theme of light but this year they had so many wonderful smaller events of lights, music and street theatre, it was really good.

They also had an excellent selection of food and drink stalls so we had mulled wine and cider and curry to keep us warm!

Below are some pictures of the wonderful light installation in the Parish Church Gardens which was beautiful and reminded me so much of campfires and fire jugglers at re-enactments and a snow globe which was part of a film projection set up.

I am still collecting vintage embroidery – here is my latest acquisition – the detail is amazing.

Have been busy crafting this week, along with the hat knitting I have finished the cushion covers to match the quilted Xmas sofa throw and finished a batch or Christmas ornaments to take up to the craft centre next weekend.

It will all slow down this week though as I have lots of Christmas events to got to – poor me!

Don’t forget to comment on my previous giveaway post by next Fri 14th.

Have a lovely week ahead and thanks for visiting.

A beautiful day and a blogaversary

December 2, 2012December 2, 2012 stitchesoftime10 Comments

Hello everyone

I hope you are all well and happy. I have had a really lovely day, it has been perfect winter weather, frosty with blue skies and sunshine.

I made my beetroot soup with some of the contents of this week’s veg box then went for a wonderful frosty walk along the valley up from the Tunnel End Canal Centre following the stream.

These are some pictures of the frozen canal and the frosty stream, lots of lovely patterns of frost on the leaves at my feet, it was all very crunchy!

This afternoon I made some more Christmas ornaments for my upcoming debut at The Loft Craft Centre at Standedge. What a perfect day!

It is also my blogaversary. I have now had this little old blog for 5 years.It has been an interesting 5 years (for blogging and my real life) and I now am using blogs more and more at work (and running sessions on blogs for my students) and still really enjoying reading the blogs of those people who I first met.

I have also added many new blogs to my list to reflect my changing craft interests, looking more and more at textile and pattern designers and those who use vintage fabric, which has had a huge influence of my latest collection of vintage embroidery.

One of the main themes of craft work at The Loft is to reuse and recycle so I am planning lots of wonderful things with all the new vintage stash I have.

I think it is particularly significant that my vintage stuff comes from local charity shops as I would like to think I will be repurposing the handiwork of local women.Here are my latest finds bought yesterday before the Christmas lights switch on – four embroidered tray cloths and a linen tablecloth with lace inserts.

It also gives me a chance to track the progress of work, I started this a long time ago on a Quilt Group workshop and have finally finished the Christmas sofa throw using the Stained Glass Quilt design. When I get some more backing fabric the matching cushions will appear! I have added little brass charms to each panel.

The blog has also been a lovely record for me of all the wonderful things me and my family have done, it was very poignant just recently to post about Ellie’s graduation and to look back at that first post of her arriving at halls for her very first year of University.

I have just posted about Jake leaving home and will look forward to four years time when he graduates. So blogging is a lovely way of me saving my memories.I have been able to share more detail with family and friends of all the lovely holidays we have had. So blogging is fab!

To celebrate I am going to do my traditional giveaway for a selection of my Christmas ornaments. This year I have made a range of simpler more Scandinavian style ones as well as my usual traditional ones so when you post please tell me which sort you would like.

To enter the giveaway please put a comment on this post. I will leave the giveaway open until Friday 14th Dec to give me time to post things out to the winner.

As usual thank you all for visiting – without you it would just be my random musings into the ether and I really appreciate all of the likes, comments and subscriptions from my readers.

Have a happy week ahead!

Seasonal Ornaments

November 25, 2012 stitchesoftimeLeave a comment

Tis the season to be stitching!

Hope you are all having a lovely Autumn week. I have had a very nice relaxing few days and have spent lots of time this weekend working on my latest batch of ornaments ready for my craft fairs coming up at the end of December.

I have also been on more wonderful walks as the weather has been very good so am feeling very mellow and happy 😉 Here is a pic of the autumn colours at one of my local reservoirs.

It has been wonderful to have a craft room with everything in one place so that I can just get out all my buttons, fabric and ribbons and have spent a lot of time this week just playing around with different combinations of things to develop some new designs.

Here is one of my new ones – the tree motif is from a ribbon I bought some years ago and is printed onto the organza. I cut them out and stitched them onto the gold silk.Each ornie has a different xmas fabric for the backing as well. In real life the tree is much more gold as the pale organza does not show as much.

I have also made another set of the little patchwork hearts that I made last year as those sold very well and are great for using up scraps from other ornament making.

I have lots of other things in production that are more Scandinavian in design, I love the traditional red, green and gold but know a lot of people like the simpler designs so will be working on those this week.

I can also finally show you my Autumn exchanges from this round of the Seasonal Exchange blog.

I got this lovely ornament from Sarah in the USA a week ago, isn’t it beautiful, just my taste with its Elizabethan motif and the most delicate beading all around the edges. The colour goes so well with my new kitchen where my bowl of Autumn exchanges are displayed. Thank you Sarah it is lovely!

I sent off my exchange before I went to China but couldn’t find the pics I took of it till now! I stitched this piece from my Blackbird Designs book ‘A Stitcher’s Journey’ for Jayne also in the USA. It is finished as a pincushion and backed with some purple velvet.

I really enjoyed this stitching and have been doing another Blackbird Designs piece as an xmas gift.

I managed to resist going to the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Fair this year due to having bought lots of fabric in Worcester and wanting to use the time to make something from my stash but have treated myself to some online retail therapy and ordered some charms and buttons for ornament making which I will share when the arrive!

Hope that you have had a fun and productive week, thanks for visiting.

Simple pleasures

November 18, 2012November 18, 2012 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello everyone, I hope that you are all well and happy and enjoying Autumn.

I very much enjoyed my time away but it is lovely to be home in my village enjoying the everyday stuff of my lovely new life here. The weather here has been really good this week and as I have been working at home a couple of days this week I have had the chance to have some lunchtime walks. It has been lovely crunching through the leaves and looking at the autumn colours.

I also had a lovely walk today on my way to the Standedge Tunnel Centre to book my table for the upcoming Christmas Craft Fair at The Loft Space. I came home and spent a very nice 4 hours in my new craft room designing some new Xmas ornies for the upcoming season, pics to follow.

Below are some pictures from my walks. I love being so near the moors, the river and canal and am planning to do some biking later in the week as well.

I have been playing with some of my new Xmas fabric that I bought last week in Worcester and here are some pictures of the new stash, the sweetie fabric is for a new ornie range I am planning for Spring and the elephant fabric will be a play quilt.

We have some very good charity shops in the village and I picked up these two embroidered pieces this week. I am very inspired by what people like Hen House do with vintage embroidery so have added these to my stash.

Am looking forward to a few nice quiet weeks of playing with fabric , hope that you are enjoying your creative time as well.

Thanks for visiting.

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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: walks