Thank God it’s Friday (Saturday, Sunday)

September 27, 2010 stitchesoftime4 Comments

Yes I know it isn’t today – it’s Monday but I have been thinking all weekend how wonderful it is to have a weekend. There’s nothing like the start of term to make you really appreciate Friday night!

I was going to post last night but was finishing off what I wanted to show you quite late last night and it got too dark to take good pics so left it till today. Was working from home today so managed to get decent some pics during what was a fairly gloomy and wet day.

I have had a lovely weekend. Friday night was very mellow sitting on the sofa with my Autumn stitching exchange (which is now finished – the first one anyway – just got to make it up). Saturday I went to Marsden again as part of my Marsden Jazz Festival duties as I was helping out in the shop.We met up to fold all the festival t-shirts on Thurs (and drink a little wine!) so we were selling them at the shop on Sat. I had a lovely time – it wasn’t very busy but had a nice chat with a few people and took my knitting which is very appropriate crafting to do there. Marsden is full of sheep and they feature prominently on the Jazz Festival publicity so I felt very in keeping knitting with wool!

At this point we all have to wave and say a big hello to Barney (the Marsden Jazz Festival Committee chair – who is a lovely man known to have worn a sheep hat in public on probably more than one occasion) and Taru (the Marsden Jazz Festival Administrator, one of my oldest and dearest friends who is also fun, gorgeous and a very talented actor) as they have alerts that flag up any post that mention the festival. So hi there and thanks very much for letting me join you – I am having a great time!

After my stint at the shop I had a wander round looking at the hills and a lovely lunch in one of the cafes there. Also bought some really nice things at one of the gifts shops in the village but I’m afraid I can’t show you as they are Xmas pressies.

Sunday I finally got chance to play with my new best friend – look at this shiny new sewing machine!

New machine — My Janome 3822 - 24 different stitches!

I have really never got into machine sewing which is a pity as I want to do more machine embroidery and quilting as well as the hand stitched stuff but my old machine just jammed constantly so thanks to birthday money from my lovely Mum and lovely kids I have bought this. And it came with lots of free thread and a big pack of scissors!

New machine 2 — Look at all that pretty stuff

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago I am going to hopefully do an Xmas Craft Fair at Oakwell Hall so have been making some stock for that. Last year I developed my own design for some little Xmas tree ornies so have decided to do more of those – both as finished objects and as kits. The new machine did very well on the lovely zigzag stitch. The first one I did was finishing off the other patchwork tree from last year.

Ornie in progress — My crazy patchwork tree

ornie in progress 2 — Look at that beautiful zig zag stitch

I have decided to do some more regular patchwork designs to start off with – this will of course give me lots of scraps for the crazy patchwork ones that I can do at the end with all the little bits. So here I did some 7 panel patchwork ones.

ornie making — WIP - needs braid and the pot adding

The aim is for them all to end up looking like this –

Patchwork tree 2 — The finished tree in pot

I was on a roll (and the machine behaved beautifully) so I managed to get a little stack done – the top one is a four panel design.

Have also cut out lots of material for the kits and taken more pics for the instruction leaflets that will go with them. Isn’t it just soo lucky that I happen to have a little (ahem!) Xmas fabric in my stash!

Well have another busy week at work ahead – lovely daughter Ellie is home at the weekend and we are planning a cinema trip and a little retail therapy as I’m sure she could always do with new clothes. We are also hopefully going to York to the Quilt Museum to see the Wartime Quilts Exhibition. We did try and go last year but unfortunately chose a day that it was shut! However we did get to visit the Minster and the Cath Kidston shop so it wasn’t a wasted journey.

Thank you very much for visiting – hope that you all have a nice week.

The first of many and the last of many

September 6, 2010September 6, 2010 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Well I have had a very lovely weekend – it has been very sunny all week which was great news as I was having a new roof put on the conservatory so I needed fine weather for that. So we started the weekend with me admiring the shiny clean roof that was not full of cracks and holes and green mould where the rain had got in! It is now raining quite hard which will be a good test of how waterproof the new roof is!

The first of many in the title of the post is the first of the reindeer ornies that I have chosen as my multi stitch ornie for this Xmas. I normally do about 10 for special friends and family – I have part completed another reindeer one but I love the JBW designs and they are so easy to do so have decided that this one I will do about 7 of with for a particular group of friends and some individual ones of different designs for other people. I will back this with one of my many pretty Xmas fabrics ( have got a few of those!) and a little sleigh charm.

The last of many is possibly the last BBQ of the season on Saturday with my brother Ben and his partner and Amanda and definitely the last little fire of the year as I have now used up all my wood – though Ben said he can get me more if needed. I so love sitting round the fire – it is one of the best things about re-enactment and this was us enjoying the warmth.

Campfire — Jake, Ben and Amanda round the fire

I do also need a new fire pit before next year – this one is a couple of years old but unfortunately has suffered from all the frost we have had and the surround is slowly disintegrating. I shall treat myself as a welcoming Spring present next year.

Amanda and Ben are off to Spain tomorrow (lucky things!) to stay in our house for a few days and then go off camping so I hope they have a fab time. Amanda works at Oakwell Hall a 16th century house near here where my knitting group are off to next weekend. From the look of the lovely pics on the web there should be plenty of textiles there so I will take my camera!

Oakwell Hall — The Hall hosts many Civil War re-enactments and events

Oakwell Hall 2 — The Grand Parlour of the Hall

We have been invited to take part in their Heritage Weekend as part of a display of crafts so we shall be knitting and teaching people how to knit. I am really looking forward to that as have never been to the Hall. Amanda has also mentioned that they have an Xmas Craft Fair there in December so I may be able to go and show some more of my baubles and pine cones and raise some more funds for the school in Nepal which again would be lovely.

I do love Xmas and all the decorations – and I am planning to make some more this year – inspired by my reading of the Elm Quilt book series I want to do some more patchwork trees as in the pic below and maybe even a wall hanging for the hall. Things should be made a lot easier by the fact that my new sewing machine arrived on Friday! Complete with loads of free reels of thread. Have not had chance to play with it yet but am hoping to get some time to do that later this week or at the weekend. Things are hotting up though as term starts a week on Monday for me so back to the grindstone!

xmas-tree — Crazy patchwork tree table decoration from last year

I do hope that you had a good weekend – thanks for visiting.

A very productive weekend

August 15, 2010 stitchesoftime6 Comments

Well despite a not so brilliant start yesterday with the technology thingies I have had a lovely weekend. I abandoned the computer yesterday afternoon and went out to do some shopping – calling in on the way for a bit of Knit and Natter at my local yarn store, Woolly Minded and Beady Eyed. I am glad to say I seem to have cracked the problem with the variegated wool and the wristwarmers so the second of the pair should be finished soon.

I finished the stitching on the pressie for my friend late last night – just got the border to finish tonight and am planning to make it up tomorrow. She keeps chickens so I thought it would be an appropriate present and I have some fab chicken fabric to back it with.

JBW Rooster — A little rooster sunning himself in the garden!

The design is called Rooster (surprise that!) and is from the wonderful JBW Designs – I am going to treat myself to some of their Xmas ones this year – might even find time to stitch one for my tree as well as all of the gifts. Sew and Sew web site do the largest range of designs I have found for the UK. I am very tempted by so many of their designs but particularly this one as I am stitching another reindeer design as my gift ornie for this year so it would maybe be nice to vary it.

Or maybe the Xmas pud just for me …

But the stocking is also very cute …

And then there is the Snow Globe …

And two lovely tree motif samplers (but I have done a lot of trees over the years!)

If you have a preference let me know in a comment as I am going to have a hard time deciding!

We have also been busy in the garden – ably assisted by Jake I have been trimming laurel hedges, cutting grass and generally tidying up and it looks very lovely – all that rain has done it good! Have also been baking and have made my first ever Lemon Drizzle Cake (a request from Jake) from the recipe on Nigella’s website.

Garden Aug 10 — The fruits of my weekend labour - tidy garden, stitching and cake!

Have also been doing lots of lovely reading, being holiday season I had bought lots of books and then went to the local library with Jake – I don’t normally visit the library as I have lots of books already in hand and really love buying them (and so quick and so cheap and so easy – thanks to Amazon!) but was browsing and came across a couple of books about quilting – novels with a quilt theme. I have heard of these from knitting and stitching friends so borrowed the two they had and finished the first one in a day. So I went and found a load more on the lovely Amazon.

They are called the Elm Creek Novels by Jennifer Chiaverini and you can see them here at the Amazon listing. I really like the way that they are historically based novels as well as about quilting and about the women that quilt. Though I have not really done much quilting myself I love looking at quilts and finding out about the history of quilts and quilting so this is literary heaven – with very good storylines too!

I had just finished reading the Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

which was excellent and the first Elm Creek Book I read was The Sugar Camp Quilt which is set in the North USA during the time of the fight against slavery. An excellent book and a very interesting read after the Hill book.

I treated myself to two anthologies of the first Elm Creek 6 books and another 2 based around Xmas and New Year themes as they were all very cheap in a bundled new book deal.

Elm Creek Qults — Elm Creek Sampler - the first three

Elm Creek Quilts 2 — Elm Creek Album - the second three novels

That should keep me going for a while – all the rest in the series are very cheap second hand on Amazon as well.

Don’t know if I will be able to post again this week and we are away next weekend – we are going to Tribfest in Beverley – a music festival composed entirely of tribute bands! My sister went last year and said it was great so we are meeting up with her and the kids and her friend for a weekend of boogieing! I have not been to a festival since about 1988 (though have been to lots of live music during the last few years which I really love) so am really looking forward to this!

Thanks for visiting.

It’s a miracle!

January 29, 2010January 29, 2010 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Two very good things have happened this week. Firstly there has been sun – real sun in Yorkshire and blue sky! January is nearly over (hurrah) and I nearly got into the garden for a tidy up this week – though by the time I had finished the work I needed to do it had clouded over and started raining but hey there was sun and this is the light at the end of the tunnel.

Of course I know by posting this that we will have a very cold wet weekend but I am hopeful that Spring is on its way. My honeysuckle has buds on and the poor garden looks like it is recovering from the cold. Have lots of frost damage to sort and tidying up to do but it is looking lots better.

The other good thing is that I have learnt to crochet (sort of!) helped by Arianwen at Knit and Natter this week. On Tuesday I had a trip to Leeds for work so decided to treat myself to a crafty mag and saw this in the news agents –

crochet mag — Look at that cute cupcake!

It came with lovely silky wool and a hook and promised simple instructions – well it did have pictures but wasn’t entirely sure so read the mag on the train and then Arianwen demonstrated and I can now just about do chain stitch and double crochet – just don’t look too closely at the neatness of the small sample below –

crochet — Look at all that pretty wool for making flowers

Will work on this in the odd moments in between finishing the teddy and bag – bag is more or less done, just the stitching up to do so will be casting on for teddy this weekend.

Am going to have a very lovely weekend as tomorrow I am running an embroidery workshop for the girls from my medieval group. They are coming to spend the day and we will be doing a project each – probably goldwork – that we can all take to shows this year and work on so that the public can see us in action. Have just been sorting through my stash and my (quite extensive!) library of reference books. We shall have a lovely day stitching and I will take pics of their projects for you.

I have just completed and posted my Valentine Exchange pice for ASOE – a new finish for me but obviously can’t post till Maggee in the US has received it.

While in Leeds on Tuesday I indulged in a tiny bit of retail therapy and went to a fab bead shop that is located in Thornton’s Arcade in Leeds city centre. Yum Yum beads have got a wonderful selection – I was very good though and only treated myself to these little sleigh charms.

xmas charms — Little charms for the 2010 ornies

These are perfect for the design that I found the other day for my Xmas ornies for the my friends here in Yorkshire and they were half price! I usually start ornie stitching early in the year as they are great little projects to take away on holiday or on the many re-enactment train journeys we do.

Yum Yum Beads also have an online store here.

I will leave you with a better pic of the Noro beret – taking pics has been a challenge this week as I have been out early and back late and it has been so dark! Roll on the lighter days and warmer weather! Next weekend we are going to a local festival, Imbolc in Marsden, that celebrates the end of winter with a fire festival so that will be fun.

Thank you once again for visiting and I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Happy (Knitting) New Year!

January 10, 2010September 11, 2015 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello and a very happy 2010 to everyone. I am having a very nice unexpectedly quiet and domesticated weekend thanks to the snow. I should have been teaching this Saturday but all classes have been cancelled due to the bad weather so instead I have been concentrating on knitting and making soup!

We arrived back from the sunny shores of Spain on Weds – a little late but safe and sound into a very snowy Manchester Airport. We are now once again fairly snow bound here as our road is pretty bad and the pavements icy but we are near the main road and buses are running and I have been and stocked up with food and lots of soup making and baking ingredients so will not go hungry! More snow arrived today and more is forecast for Mon and Tues so who knows if classes will be running this week!

At Jake’s request I made Tomato and Red Pepper Soup from my Covent Garden Soup Company Recipe book yesterday – doesn’t the veg look pretty ready to be roasted.

Today I have made Cauliflower and Roquefort using the Delia Online recipe (Jake didn’t want any of this one though it was lovely!) Tomorrow will be Parsnip and Sweet Potato (a variation on Nigella’s Butternut and Sweet Potato recipe) using some of my left over veg from before we went away. Am also planning to cook the Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies from Nigella’s Christmas book that we didn’t get around to doing on Xmas Eve.

Have been spending some more time knitting just recently and have decided that 2010 will be my year and improving my knitting skills. In terms of knitting for re-enactment purposes I would love to be able to knit my own socks, stockings and hats so need to get really good with double pointed needles and know how to turn a heel before I can attempt these feats! My fellow knitters at the Woolly Minded and Beady Eyed knit groups assure me that socks are really easy once you can understand the pattern so I shall aspire to master that this year. I have just come across an online resource about historical knitting – from this month’s Let’s Knit mag – called Knitting History so will be looking at that for info.

I do know of a very talented woman called Sally Pointer who I met through re-enactment who makes all sorts of lovely knitted and felted items as well as cosmetics. She has a web site where you can buy her very informative books and patterns and I have just discovered her blog Wicked Woollens as well so shall be reading that as well for inspiration.

So I have decided to make lots of birthday gifts to practise pattern reading and new techniques. since all my knitted Xmas gifts were so well received. My first knitting WIP is a present for a friend of mine’s little girl and comes from the Nov 09 Let’s Knit mag –

Let's Knit mag — The November issue cover

It is a very cute little bear with a knitted dress that has a bed that folds up to be a bag that the bear can be carried round in.

Teddy bag 1 — This is the magazine pic of the finished article

This is my progress so far …

I have altered the design slightly by chain stitching around the edges of the border and all the rectangles in an attempt to neaten them up! The pattern has not been too difficult to follow though there were no instructions on how to prevent getting gaps between rectangles when you swapped wools but I remember reading somewhere about twisting the wools together at the back on each row and that worked. I really like doing Moss stitch which is all around the border as it has such a pretty effect.

I was very pleased yesterday as my long-awaited ASOE Xmas ornie from Marlene in the US arrived. I was concerned as I knew that she had posted it well in time for Xmas but what with the volume of post and the weather issues here it took a long time to come! But it was worth the wait.

It is really lovely so thank you very much Marlene – I have taken the tree and all the other ornies down but this one is going to stay up for a few weeks and have its five minutes of fame!

I hope you all had a very Happy New Year – we had a lovely (warm!) time in Spain and I will be posting some pics of that later on. I hope that 2010 is going to be a very good year for you all. I had a really good 2009 thanks to my lovely family and friends and am really looking forward to this one. Thank you to all those people who have visited the Xmas newsletter page to read the summary of our year.

It is always particularly significant having a new decade and this one is going to be very full of big changes for the family – all very positive and lovely ones. Jake will finish school this year and hopefully go on to 6th form college and Ellie is very well settled at Uni. Who knows I might even be a Granny by the end of this decade – more things to knit!

The 1990s were very much about the kids for me – Ellie being born early in 1991 and Jake in 1994 and the 2000s very much about work and career as I started my full-time job at the University in 2001.

So this next decade is going to be about my new roles as I concentrate hopefully more on developing my ideas for my textile business. I am not in position to do much at the moment but have made a resolution for 2010 that I am going to produce a design from scratch based on my pictures from Spain. This is just the tiniest start but who knows what might happen!

Thank you for visiting, hope you are not too cold or snow bound and Happy New Year!

Our very traditional Christmas

December 29, 2009September 9, 2010 stitchesoftime4 Comments

We have had a very nice, and very traditional Christmas this year – this is the first one in 5 years where we have not been away on holiday (first Prague then 4 years in Spain) and Ellie really wanted a traditional family time now she is away at University.

So we had a very lovely time – helped by the very seasonal weather – the first white Christmas I can remember for at least 35 years.

There was snowman building on Christmas Eve –

And lots of baking as we decided to make our own Yule Log this year –

The gingerbread house kit I bought had suffered a bit of structural damage but Ellie got very creative with the pieces –

Gingerbread 1 — Ellie's very good at using the writing icing for artworks

Gingerbread 2 — And bits of it still look like a house!

I bought myself Nigella’s Christmas cookery book as a treat – for the last few years when we have been away I have done a pretend Xmas dinner before we go but it has not been much more than a glorified roast but this year I did lots of domestic goddess stuff and thoroughly enjoyed it – even started off Christmas Day with watching Nigella on TV and doing a bit of stitching before sorting out the turkey as I was up ridiculously early (of course the teenagers didn’t surface for presents till after 9!)

So we had a very nice lunch with some special additions of parsnip and sweet potato bake (not Nigella, think that was Good Food mag), and brussels with pancetta and then the buffets included Nigella’s Chilli jelly (bit liquid rather than solid but very tasty) and some other recipes from my new tapas cook book.

We had lots of lovely pressies and I was very pleased that Jake and Ellie liked their hand knits – they had both asked for money and a few stocking pressies this year and as I have been trying to make a hand crafted gift for most people this year I made them both wrist warmers and Ellie got a matching hat as well.

Jake gloves — Jacob likes his wrist warmers!

Ellie gloves — Ellie with her hand knit set

The patterns for these items are all freebies from Ravelry.

After Xmas lunch we went sledging which the kids very much enjoyed –

As well as the knitting I have been busy finishing the Xmas stitching. The Noel ornament from Helga Mandl that I have mentioned before was my ornie of choice for the girls who are my very good friends here in Hudds so this was the collection I finished just before Xmas –

Xmas dec 2 — I love this ornie - have now stitched it 9 times!

I am actually taking the pattern away with me to stitch one of my very own for the tree for next year.

I have also just finished these which are for my relatives in Spain – this is from the Gift of Stitch Mag – this year’s Xmas ornie edition.

Xmas dec 3 — A very pretty little snowflake design

All of these are once again stitched over my favourite 28 count sparkly evenweave (need my glasses to stitch this these days!) with Silk Mill threads.

We are off to Spain in the early hours of tomorrow morning (snow permitting!) so am looking forward to some warm weather (it is 21 degrees there rather than -3 in Yorkshire), some cycling, some lovely tapas and the Three Kings festival on Jan 5th. Am taking lots of stitching and my latest knitting project as well.

Hope that you all have a very happy New Year and let’s hope that 2010 will be filled with plenty of time for textiles!

Thank you for visiting.

Happy Christmas everyone!

December 23, 2009November 17, 2011 stitchesoftime2 Comments

As this will probably be my last post before the festive season really gets underway I would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a lovely 2010.

We have just returned from Worcester where we were visiting my sister. We visited the German Market in Birmingham while we were there to have lunch of sausages, pretzel and chocolate dipped fruit and marshmallow skewers.

Xmas market 1 — The beer and gluhwein stall

Xmas market 2 — Some very nice Xmas decs on this stall - bought a lovely bag of pot pourri and a scented star

Xmas market 3 — Ellie and Jake at the market sweet stall

Ellen is most excited to have returned to snow. They have not had any in Worcester and she was worried that the snow we had last week would have gone by the time she got here but no we got back and the world was even more white than when we left.

So much snow that we have had to do our Xmas food shopping at the local store rather than go into town as at the moment taxis are not coming up our road. I did go into town for a few special things today (have treated myself to the Nigella Christmas cookbook so needed some more exotic ingredients!) so we are now fully stocked.

We plan to spend some time baking together tomorrow – making and decorating the yule log, making cranberry and white chocolate cookies, putting together the gingerbread house and decorating the Christmas cake. Ellie and I are going to Christingle service at one of our local churches.

I have masses of stitching and knitting to show you after Xmas that cannot be revealed now but I can show you the ornie that I sent to Marlene in the US as part of the ASOE exchange. This is a design called Noel by Helga Mandl – if you look carefully at the tree the word Noel is spelt out (on each half of the tree -you will have to look at the pic sideways for it to make sense).

Xmas stitched ornie — The Noel ornament from Helga Mandl

We had our Embroiderers’ Guild Xmas meal last week and I was very pleased to see that Barbara, my very talented friend, had made some little trees for table decorations following my instructions on the blog. Here are some pics of the trees and their maker.

Xmas tree dec — Barbara's patchwork tree

I do hope that you have a very lovely time with good food, good company and lots of time for relaxing and stitching. Jake and I are off to Spain for New Year for some sun and warm fingers!

Happy Xmas and happy stitching! Thanks for visiting.

Xmas decs go live!

December 7, 2009January 12, 2010 stitchesoftime3 Comments

We have had a very lovely and very busy weekend starting with the annual Festival of Light in the town centre on Friday night. This event is always a street theatre of some kind with a grand fireworks finale.

This year it was a group from France called Trance Express who led a parade round town with a float containing a rock band and two huge drums played by men on swinging trapeze. They were followed by a band of drummers and flares. When they got to the square where the final performance was held there was a very large crane and the singing group appeared suspended from it and performed a couple of numbers while swinging above the crowd.

Then there was an excellent fireworks display – I do love big fireworks!

Festival 1 — A lot of bright lights from the flares!

Festival 2 — The suspended performers in front of the railway station

Festival 3 — Fireworks - very near to the performers!

Festival 4 — Lots of big bangs and pretty lights!

We then went for a lovely meal on Sat to our friends Taru and Bob’s where Jake and I had excellent food, excellent company and excellent wine (in my case not Jake’s!)

Sunday I spent most of the day decorating the house for Xmas – a little bit earlier than usual but I do love Xmas decs and the poor things have been in a cold garage for long enough – they need to be out to be admired. I have posted pics of the main decs before and not much has changed in the layout but I do have a few special new bought things to show you.

Every year I like to buy something special and a couple of years ago at Disneyland in Florida I bought this very cute Minnie and Mickey for the tree.

Xmas decs 1 — Minnie and Mickey from the good old USA

We are big Disney fans and love visiting Disneyland and you may remember that we went this year in March for Ellie’s 18th where I chose this lovely sparkly decoration …

Xmas decs 2 — Golden Minne and Mickey from France

Ellie wanted to buy a decoration and she chose this very cute Tinkerbell inside a bell that rings.

Xmas decs 3 — Tinkerbell for my Disney Princess Ellie

Last year I also bought these lovely little ornies – they are supposed to hang from a tree but I think they look better on the hearth.

All my hand-made decs are all over the house now and I think I may have to make some more for next year as there are just never enough baubles in some places! I will leave you with a nice pic of the tree all lit up.

Hope you have fun preparing for Xmas – now back to the stitching! Thank you for visiting.

My name is Alison and I’m a Christmas fabric addict!

November 24, 2009November 24, 2009 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Well sorry for the lack of posts recently – been very busy with work and have been away the last two weekends so have not been in regular posting routine. Lots of stitchy goodness to catch up with including the wonderful Knitting and Stitching Show last week at Harrogate.

34 of us went from our Embroiderers’ Guild club on a coach and had a wonderful day out. And yes I did succumb to the lure of Christmas stash even though I do have just a little bit of fabric already!

I also bought some more bits to go on Xmas baubles and some more cute little charms to go on my stitched gifts and exchanges. My justification is that though I have almost finished ornies for this year I have to start next year in about Sept and that is well before the next Harrogate show so I really needed to buy it now!

The two polystyrene cones at the back are a new idea from Sue Schofield of Springwood House designs – the very talented lady who sells the patterns and supplies for the baubles and cones I make. These she turns into Xmas trees using the same ribbon folding technique as for the pine cones. The instructions come from her new book Fun with Ribbons. I may just have time to try these for this year – we shall see. I had a very nice chat with her and told her all about the fundraising for Nepal I had been doing.

In the middle of the pic above are 3 very cute little knitted puds which are covering Ferrero Rocher chocs – I thought these would make a lovely table centre for Xmas lunch.

It was once again a feast of textiles with some of my favourite designers and suppliers there. I once again really enjoyed looking at Sue Hawkins, Jane Greenoff of the Cross Stitch Guild, The Historical Sampler Company and The Viking Loom to name but a few of the wonderful stalls with kits.

I am adding these people to my blog roll so that there can be permanent links as I know that lots of people access this blog looking for needlework info and these designers offer fabulous products to get started with historical stitching.

Have loads of other pics of the exhibitions at the show so will save those for another post. They were of course brilliant and once again made me want to give up the day job and be creative full time – or go and do a degree in embroidery and textiles like all those lucky students at the show. One day when the kids are through college maybe!

Also was able to give Barbara her blogaversary giveaway goodies – three ornaments with a holly theme and some Silk Mill threads in flower colours as I know she loves stitching bright flowers.

I really love using Silk Mill threads and despite having loads of Anchor and DMC in my stash I very rarely use anything else these days. They are so smooth to stitch with and so beautiful when finished and in so many colours – go check out their web site! Am just about to go there now to stock up on more greens for ornies as have run out of a particular shade.

Enjoy your stitching – thanks for visiting!

Travels round my internet

November 8, 2009November 24, 2009 stitchesoftime1 Comment

I just love the internet! When it was first invented I can remember saying that I didn’t really see the point and didn’t think I would use it – how wrong I was! I just love discovering new blogs and interesting sites and thought that I would share a couple of my new treasures with you today.

I found this first one in an old article from the Guardian Online Life and Style section about the rise of new domesticity – how baking cakes and knitting has become trendy amongst the ‘younger generation’. Personally I have always done these things but then I had a traditional girls only grammar school upbringing and could do five kinds of pastry by the time I was 15 so I think it is great that people are enjoying making and creating things whatever their age.

The blog is called Yarnstorm and is run by a multitalented lady called Jane Brocket who does all manner of household crafts and has some fab pics on the site – lots of lovely garden pics which I really like as well as all the crafts.She has also published a few books and one in particular will have to go on my wish list – Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer – a collection of recipes taken from childrens’ books of the sort I used to love reading . I am currently watching Little House on the Prairie on DVD and am having huge nostalgia moments for all those wonderful books I read – next I will go and find Susannah of the Mounties!

Most of the books I loved as a child were about adventures and people living or visiting quite remote places and I am sure these very heavily influenced me to want to travel.

It was the description of one of her visits to Kew that led me to look at a link she had to a botanical artist – an amazingly talented woman called Susannah Blaxhill. I hope that Susannah will excuse me using one of her pics but I just had to share with you some of her work. In keeping with the unofficial ‘theme of the month’ this is one of Susannah’s illustrations of some pumpkins from her web site. Go and visit and marvel at the detail. These are amazing works of art and I am going to add a book of her illustrations to my wish list.

Pumpkin illustration — Susannah Blaxill's amazing pumpkin picture

I have a busy week coming up with work but hope to have finished all of my Xmas ornaments by the end of it. I have done very little the last few days but stitch as have had the tail end of horrible flu so have got loads finished off.

Thanks for visiting and I will be back 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: xmas ornies