It just gets better!

June 8, 2013June 9, 2013 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello everyone and a very special welcome to all my new followers, I have been getting lots of notifications recently about people now following me and am very honoured, hope you enjoy all the future posts.

I have just got back from a brilliant trip to Florence and am sorting out my many pictures of medieval art and churches for a mega post.

I have had a lovely day today so I thought that I would share some of it with you – when I first moved here I promise to post pictures of my lovely surroundings in all seasons so here we have the early summer collection.

I love walking round here and particularly the walks up the valley with the reservoirs but the scenery has just got better as the rhododendrons are now in bloom! I love rhododendrons and they have only just started to come out so the walks will be even better for the next couple of months!

I am so lucky – all this is just about half an hour walk from my house! And there were baby geese on the reservoir today, have not seen them before.

Got back from holiday to find this very lovely Spring Exchange piece from Stephanie at Blue Star Stitcher, my latest partner in the Seasonal Exchange blog. This is a Prairie Schooler piece in an egg-shaped finish with really lovely beading. The backing fabric is really pretty as well. Thanks Stephanie it goes really well in my kitchen where I am currently displaying all my Spring exchange ornies.

Will be back soon with the Florence pics.

Thanks for visiting.

Happy half term!

February 24, 2013 stitchesoftime5 Comments

Hello there

Hope you have had a lovely week, I have had a really nice half term holiday as I have been on leave all week.

So there have been lots of lovely walks, crafting and socialising culminating in a trip to the next village in the valley for the Moonraker celebration yesterday.

I have spent the week making a small quilt for one of Ellen’s friends who has just had a baby.

I designed the pattern myself based on the motifs from the Sweet Treats fabric that I bought in Worcester at Ellen’s graduation.

I added fabric from my Simply Solids monthly delivery and some of the fabric that my Mum bought me for Christmas.

I made the quilt reversible and it is Moses basket or pram sized.

Here are a few pictures from the walk my sister-in-law Amanda and I did earlier this week up to a local reservoir.

It was beautiful weather really warm with such blue skies, very rare in Yorkshire in Feb!

Yesterday I went with my friends Taru and Bob and their daughter Leah along to the next village in the valley, Slaithwaite, where they hold the Moonraker festival.

We used to go to this every year when the kids were young but I have not been for about 8 years as I am usually in Spain at this time of year.

The festival celebrates a local legend about some smugglers who were trying to get some contraband that had fallen from a boat into the river.

When the Excise men caught them they denied any wrongdoing saying they were trying to ‘rake the moon’.

The festival is a parade of willow lanterns that are made throughout the week at workshops. The parade also involves lots of bands and culminates in brilliant fire sculptures and fireworks.

Each year the festival has a theme – this year it was time so Bob and Leah made a giant pocket watch.

There was also a Tardis and a White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland along with lots of Big Ben clocks, egg timers and watches of all shapes and sizes.

Today I walked along the canal to the village again, it was a beautiful sunny day and I saw geese and the first signs of Spring, these lovely daffodils outside one of the canalside cottages.

My village is notorious for having sheep roam the streets (and eating the contents of people’s gardens!) When I got back from my walk today there were this little group at the bottom of my road.

I am off to China on Thursday to teach for 3 weeks – going to Beijing this time so will not be blogging for a few weeks but expect some pictures of famous things when I get back – might even get to see the Great Wall!

Take care and thanks for visiting.

It’s official!

February 17, 2013 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Well I have finally got my stall at Standedge Loft Space and my membership as a designer maker. Am very pleased as I have wanted to sell things for a while and also it is a great way of supporting a local craft centre. My little stall looks very cute and I have got some nice feedback already.

It is a lovely space and I am looking forward to being able to spend more time there, especially over the summer.

There was a craft market this weekend and I bought this lovely fabric from my new friend Helen from my local knitting group. I am making a quilt for a friend’s baby and have used some of this fabric to add to my stash for that.

She and her friend Lucy run a fabric store called Material Goods in the next village – here is their card and link to their online store.

I have also been out for a few walks over the weekend – there is still a bit of snow up on the hills and lots of sheep!

I got my Winter Exchange this week from Kathy – isn’t it lovely – as soon as my partner has got hers I can post the stitching that I have done.

I am planning lots of lovely walks this week as I am on holiday! There will be lots of crafting too and some nice nights out catching up with friends. Ellie has been here for all of last week and Jake is here this week so I am being very social!

Thanks very much for visiting.

On top of the world

February 3, 2013February 24, 2013 stitchesoftimeLeave a comment

Hello there

Hope you are all well and happy, thank you for your lovely comments on my new things.

I have been busy this weekend adding to the stock as I have made a couple of new items, these are phone covers. The top one I am going to keep as I made a bit of an error with the lining ;-(

The crochet on that one is from a large piece which contains about 30 of these flower motifs – I used some of a similar design and different colour last year to make a handbag which I blogged about here. So I have plenty more to make other items.

The other phone case used one of the smaller motifs from the tablecloth that I have used for the hearts and the Kindle cover I made. I think I have got about 6 items out of that tablecloth already and still have loads of motifs left.

I acquired a new tablecloth this weekend, this one is cross stitched so I am looking forward to making some bigger items from that – I am thinking maybe toilet bags.

I am feeling very well at the moment – touch wood my dodgy back is behaving itself and I went on a really lovely strenuous walk yesterday literally to the top of my little world. It was a glorious day, very blustery and still icy as you can see from the foliage pictures below.

It was wonderful to be up so high looking down on the reservoirs.My house is just at the bottom right of this view.

I have just finished a stitch for the Winter Exchange – more will be revealed when it has reached its destination and nearly finished another version of the variegated wool hat. Have so many lovely projects I would like to do next don’t know where to start 🙂

Right am off and now for a wander and when I come back more crafting – what a lovely life!

Thanks for visiting.

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.

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

It just gets better!

Happy half term!

It’s official!

On top of the world

It’s melting!

Heading for the hills in my new hat!

Busman’s holiday

A beautiful day and a blogaversary

Seasonal Ornaments

Simple pleasures