Prettying up the craft room

November 1, 2015November 1, 2015 stitchesoftime5 Comments

Hello everyone, hope that you have had a good weekend, a lot of my time this week has been spent in my lovely craft room which makes me very happy 😉

Even though I have been here over 3 years now it is still a work in progress adapting the layout, adding to the furniture and decorating so I thought that I would share with you some of the prettiest bits. I am enjoying not finishing it all at once as it is lovely to buy things bit by bit.

If you are anything like me you love seeing rooms in people’s houses on their blogs, especially their craft rooms. I am currently really loving Vanessa from V and Co’s blog, she has a beautiful home with lots of quilts displayed.

One day that will be me, at the moment it is just quilt blocks but I am building up a good selection of these.

I decided against a full design wall but went for some pinboards where I can store blocks. I need to get some more of these as now I am making better progress with the Block of the Month challenge am getting into double layers.

I went to The Range this summer with my daughter, that is just the most gorgeous shop for homewares and craft things and I could have spent a fortune, I did spend a small amount on practical things like more storage for pins and magazines and got some bunting as well.

My lovely daughter also keeps me well supplied with pretties such as all of these cute jars with buttons that she buys me for Christmas and birthdays and this lovely crochet basket in the picture below that came filled with delicious fruit curd and now holds some of my pincushions.

This stand was originally supposed to be a cake stand and is now the one I use for craft fairs, when at home it is for displaying my collection of cross stitch exchange ornaments, the Autumn ones are out at the moment but can’t wait to get the Christmas ones displayed as well.

To be honest can’t wait to decorate the whole house, been playing with Christmas fabric since July and really want to cover the whole house in it 😉 Is it still too early do you think? Maybe I can now Halloween is over just like the shops do lol.

Last month’s treat for the craft room was this beautiful flower clock from Wilkinsons , I had been looking at this for so long and it goes really well with my framed flower prints.

This month’s treat was an unexpected purchase, I had been thinking about maybe getting a cotton reel holder for near my machine when I saw one on a friend’s post and a quick search later found this gorgeous one that had to come and live with me. I got it from Vintage Pink and they have some really lovely craft room things, might have to go back for more later!

Also on my wish list is this newly discovered accessory rack from Quilt Direct I was actually looking for simple hangers for some quilted hangings I am making but wouldn’t that go so well with my cotton reel rack! Like it was meant to be.

Also rather in love with these button themed things here – go and have a look at the cute button print drawer handles!

Thank you internet for all the lovely online shopping opportunities that are out there, I do love you!

I also had a very good time at Simply Solids yesterday making a lovely thread catcher and pincushion so will post some pictures and info about that project later in the week.

Hope you all have a very good crafty week ahead, half term is over so it is back to lots of teaching next week but hopefully the weekend will be here very soon.

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Channelling my inner Amanda Jean

October 30, 2015October 29, 2015 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hello again everyone, hope that you have had a good week. I have had a lovely one, full of crafting time after work.

It is amazing how much you can get done when you don’t have to be out of the house for 13 hours a day! I have had a very nice time trying to be more creative with my quilting endeavours.

One of the people I really admire for her creativity is Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts, she does the loveliest things with scraps and also recently had a Pincushion Party to promote her new fabric range. She makes so many cute pincushions to keep in a basket to give to friends so I have been trying to make some quick ones out of scraps.

This is my first one, following a design that Vanessa from V and Co did as part of the Pincushion Party and I am very pleased with it, it only look about 3/4 hour to sew the strips and that was with putting together the fabric as well.

The back is some Cath Kidston style fabric that I bought last year at Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show, will definitely get some more of that if I see it this year as have used it a lot.

The fabrics that I have used are all the offcuts from the Block of the Month Challenge that we have been doing, I am catching up well, have made May’s block a Box Kite , and a random block out of bits that I had left that were not big enough for doing June’s block.

I am calling this one Bow Tie Nine Patch as I don’t know what it is really called as I put it all together myself.

Am enjoying this experimenting, on the downside this has ended up a 10 inch block rather than a 12 inch but I do have some other 10 inch ones that I can use with it, (and a couple of 13 inch ones). Accurate piecing is one of the things that I still have to work on 😉

I have had to swap to other fabric for the rest of the blocks from June, I am trying to keep them all cohesive so that I can make a couple of lap quilts out of them for Christmas presents.

Am planning to make more scrappy pincushions – here are some of my inspiration pictures, sorry don’t know where I got these from as did not make a note of the source but think probably from Pinterest.

This one is a free stitching pattern from Jenny of Elefantz, you can get it from her Craftsy store . I think this would look cute in the rest of that Cath Kidston style fabric that I have used above.

Am off for a class at Simply Solids this weekend to make a pincushion and thread catcher so really looking forward to that. Have been doing some decorating of the craft room so will share some photos of that in the next post.

Have a good weekend ahead and enjoy yourselves if you are celebrating Halloween. Ellie and Kerry are going to Leeds to be chased by zombies! Sounds fun but I am just going out to see some bands with friends from knitting group.

Thanks for visiting and see you soon.

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.

Sweet books from blogs

October 26, 2015October 25, 2015 stitchesoftime4 Comments

As regular readers know I do love buying books, am trying to be good about buying novels as I have so many to read already but the temptation of Amazon is hard to resist!

However I have allowed myself the purchase of two lovely books by bloggers that I am going to use as Christmas presents.

One is from the lovely Nana Company blog by Amy Sinibaldi and is something that I had my eye on for a while.

The Sweetly Stitched Handmades has got so many lovely ideas in for using Liberty and linen and some great gift ideas.

This bear cushion is one of my favourites, isn’t that brilliant! Such a simple idea but so cute.

I also really love the spot trivet, there have been lots of these on social media and they are all gorgeous.

And look, stacked hexi flowers! What a great idea.

The other book was one from a new blog to me, Why Not Sew?, where Erin makes lovely vintage inspired quilts.

I found her blog and her book through Crazy Quilt Mom’s pincushion party where she had made the cutest little bird pincushion and really loved the book Sweet Treats , you can see everything that is in the book at this post here.

All of the designs feature cute little birds and these are some of my favourite ones. Isn’t her stitching so good, especially love that last one with the umbrella!

Am making good progress with all my WIPs, lots of things got halted because of the need to make kit for people, the things for Yarndale and the wedding outfit but am now back on with the block of the month challenge that we had set ourselves.

I completed May’s block this weekend and an extra one to use up the fabric I had so that I can make the first 6 blocks into a lap quilt as a Christmas present.

I will then start on the blocks from June which will be a second lap quilt using some gorgeous fabric I bought at the Birmingham Quilt Festival.

I am really enjoying our challenge, even though I am so behind, and it is definitely making me more confident with my quilting skills, my piecing is far more accurate and we have done some blocks that I would never have attempted on my own.

Pictures when I have put it together as a quilt top, hopefully some time in the next week. Have a lovely week ahead whatever you are doing 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.

A woodland wedding with wellies!

October 18, 2015 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello everyone

I can finally reveal the wedding outfit that I have been working on for so long as we celebrated my brother’s wedding this weekend. The jacket and shirt were finally finished with three days to go before the wedding!

We had a brilliant time, without a doubt one of the loveliest weddings I have ever been to, full of personal touches from Ben and Amanda that made it really special and very memorable. There are not many weddings where the bride gets to drive a tractor as part of the day!

Amanda works at Oakwell Hall, a beautiful Tudor house and country park so most of the wedding took place there. They did have a short legal ceremony at the Registry office, here are all the family with them after signing the register.

Amanda had chosen a gorgeous silk brocade for me to make the wedding jacket from, with black silk collar and cuffs. I also made a linen shirt and Amanda’s Mum stitched a blackwork acorn design on the collar and cuffs.

The most important part of the day for them was an exchange of rings in the woodland that is part of the parkland, Amanda helped to build the faith circle where we sat for that ceremony.

It was brilliant, starting with Amanda in her tractor leading all of the guests from the hall to the circle where we were all given bubbles to blow as the bride arrived.

Here are the kids and their cousins Sam and Sarah enjoying the bubbles.

The ceremony featured wooden rings that Ben and Amanda had made themselves and very moving vows where they promised to be each others ‘forever friends’ and go on adventures together.

We had all been asked to wear wellies or colourful boots for that part of the ceremony so here are mine, my sister Jackie’s and Ellie’s boots in the leaves.

The reception took place in the barn which had been decorated with bunting made by Amanda’s Mum Eileen and sister Kate. Ben and Amanda love wood-turning and had made all of the serving platters for the cheeses as well as a mushroom for each guest as a wedding favour.

It was Ben’s 50th birthday as well as their wedding and so they had a woodland cake with models of their two cats on and a wedding cheese cake, they also made all of these little mice to decorate the cakes.

The evening ended with a fantastic firework display, one of Ben’s favourite things.

A wonderful day made all the more special by the fact that they did everything themselves, with help from friends and family, from the food to the decorating all of it was very much the way they wanted it to be.

This is one of my favourite pictures from the day, Ben in a very fetching apron serving the canapés!

The kids have gone home now so it is all very quiet and I am looking forward to a very relaxing afternoon catching up with some Christmas stitching. Have a happy week ahead, see you soon and thanks for visiting.

Just in time making!

October 2, 2015 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello everyone

Hope you are all ok, it is a beautiful sunny morning here in Yorkshire and I am looking forward to a lovely weekend of sewing and crafting.

This is the weekend to finish the wedding jacket and make the shirt and I am hosting another crafternoon tomorrow for friends from knitting group to work on Christmas ornaments.

I have been working very hard on all of my stitched things for Sarah’s stall at Yarndale and managed to finish everything just in time last Friday for her to pack up the car and head off. She and Sharon had a great time which I am so glad about, Sarah has worked so hard for this.

Here they all are at Yarndale with the stall, (picture copyright to Sarah).

She sold a lot of her brilliant book of Elven inspired designs and also some of my things sold as well which is lovely. I was actually hoping that not all of them would sell out, partly as I want some of the stuff for me and for Christmas presents!

If you would like a copy of the book you can get one from Sarah’s website Alder Sign Designs or individual patterns are available from her Ravelry shop as well.

You will have already seen work in progress pictures of all of these pincushions and needle books but here they all are on my little display stand.

Sarah said it looked really good on her stall and brought people in to have a look at everything else which is nice.

Just peeking out behind that are the larger needle cases I made, I my haste I didn’t take pictures of the fronts of these but they had the same large Liberty hexagons on as the rolled ones.

I made two knitting needle cases for circular needles and accessories and two knitting needle rolls for circular needles, I have seen lots available for straight needles but wanted something for circulars now I have learnt to use them.

As you can see I have been taking full advantage of my new sewing machine’s lovely embroidery stitches for all of these things.

I love my new machine so much and am really looking forward to using it more over the autumn and winter. I have so many lovely quilting projects planned!

The last two accessories cases were for scissors and tape measures.

I am also counting these as project number 12 on my 2015 Sewing Bucket List which is a bag.

Right off to do some more work now then later a bit of cutting out of the jacket lining. Have a lovely weekend whatever you are doing and thanks for visiting.

Let there be elf ears!

September 20, 2015 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Am having a lovely weekend sewing, Jake has gone back to Uni so it is very quiet here now.

I am just finishing off the last few bits for Sarah’s stall at Yarndale next week but have popped in to share with you the very exciting news that her book of designs is being published and is available for pre-order.

Not only does it have some stunning designs in it, Sarah is hugely talented and very creative and there are some beautiful things, it also features my lovely daughter Ellie with elf ears!

She was very, very excited to be asked to model for this, (unaccustomed as she is to having her photo taken of course), and had a brilliant day with the other two models, my friends Suzi and Helen from knitting group, in a local park which has a lot of dells filled with ferns and made a brilliant setting for the designs.

There is a little video showing the location and an outtake from the shoot here – the girls challenging their inner Charlie’s Angels!

Unfortunately the elf ears had to be added post -production as the make – up artist was not available that day but she looks fab in them.

I think this is my favourite picture of Ellie.

Though this one is very lovely too – she is actually wearing one of my flower head dresses in this picture 😉

So go and take a look at all the wonderful designs in the full book – it is available on Ravelry and on Sarah’s Alder Sign website, it would make a lovely Christmas present for a knitty friend.

I can’t wait until my wrist is better and I can start knitting again. I think I am going to make a shawl like this beautiful one modelled by Suzi, or maybe a jumper for Ellie as she did request one of the ones she had modelled.

I am going to be having a lovely day again today, more sewing in front of the TV and it is Channel 5’s, ‘End of the World Weekend’, with lots of disaster movies. I do love a good disaster movie 🙂

As long it is not really the end of the world as that would be sad, given the amount of work that Sarah has put into her book 😉 and the fact that Ellie and her best friend from Uni are going to Spain tomorrow for a very hard-earned week of R and R in the sun.

Hopefully we still all be here next week, I have a busy week ahead as the trainees are in all week so little crafting time but lots of fun planned around that.

Have a good week ahead and thanks for visiting.

The importance of afternoon tea

September 19, 2015September 14, 2015 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello everyone

Hope that you have all had a good week. It has been a busy one for me and very little crafting is being done at present, partly due to the start of term but also I am trying to rest my wrist as I still have a problem with tendonitis which is quite painful.

However I have lots of photos from trips out over the last few months, mostly involving lovely textiles so I thought we could look at some of those over the next few posts instead!

Sharon and I recently visited Cannon Hall House and Gardens. We used to go there a lot when the kids were little as they have an excellent farm but had never been in the house.

The reason for our visit was an exhibition of costume from the Downton Abbey TV series.

There were some really lovely pieces, starting with some of the very simple outfits worn by the cook and Lady Sybil in her role as an Army nurse.

But then they got more elaborate. It was lovely to see them in the room settings with the all important afternoon tea laid for Lady Violet, I did love her character, she was so witty with her put downs!

The daughter’s costumes were beautiful, but they were all so tiny, they must have only been size 6 or 8.

Two of these ones in the drawing-room were made for the series.

This one was an original 1920’s dress and was worn by Lady Sybil in the series.

Though the below stairs costumes were very plain the housemaids who would be in the family rooms had some pretty detail on their aprons.

And for serving dinner they had lovely black dresses and lace aprons.

Though nowhere near the glamour of the dresses worn by Lady Sybil, Lady Edith and Lady Mary. I love these, ‘new fashion, looser more unstructured gowns.

Having worn corsets and very restraining dresses in my medieval roles I can really appreciate how the women must have felt to be able to wear this rather than the Edwardian costume of their parents and grandparents.

I always love seeing the laundries at old houses as well, when I was little my grandmother had a tub with a mangle, it did plus in so the water was heated by electric but I used to love using the mangle!

Sharon and I ended the day with visits to a couple of garden centres and of course some afternoon tea and cake!

I think I could easily live the life of a Downtown Abbey daughter, not that I don’t appreciate all that feminism has done for us but lots of time to read, embroider and take afternoon tea, I think I could cope with that 😉

Meanwhile I shall content myself with organising Crafternoon Teas for my friends – we have another one coming up in a few weeks so chance to get the cake stand out again.

Hope that you have a nice weekend planned, take care and thanks for visiting.

Just Charming!

September 14, 2015September 13, 2015 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello everyone, hope that you had a nice weekend, mine was very productive, a lovely and not too damp walk with Ted where I picked lots of blackberries for crumbles and lots of sewing on the wedding jacket.

It is very beautiful material to work with, silk brocade, a change from my usual linen.

As regular readers will know I love adding charms to my stitched pieces so I thought that I would show you some of the some of the charms I have bought recently and finishes for Sarah’s stall.

I sent some pictures of my finished, ‘A Stitch in Time’, paper piecing case to Jenny of Elefantz and she really liked the clock charm, there were lots of these at the recent Steampunk event and I bought some more from the market there as well as some dragonflies to add to some of the flower designs she does.

Also got these beautiful keys, when we go and visit National Trust houses they often have displays of keys and these are so lovely.

I have bought lots of little charms to go on stitched gifts, I now have ones that say, ‘I love …..’, for knitting sewing and quilting.

I got most of the sewing and snowflake ones from this Etsy seller, Bohemian Findings, she has one of the best selections I have seen.

Another supplier I have used is DIY Club – also on Etsy.

These ones below are for use on the Christmas ornaments, I have two sets so that I can use pairs on the baubles I make.

These are the needle/pin books I have made to match the pincushions for Sarah’s Yarndale stall.

I found some very cute button headed pins to add to my stock of novelty pins so have added a few and a charm. I got these from Glitz and Pieces on Amazon.

I am never sponsored by any of the suppliers I link to, I just do it because I know I like to know where people get things from, I have seen some very cute bird headed pins on a blog recently and need to find them next!

The new term starts tomorrow with a new group of teacher trainees, I do like autumn, even though there is a sense of things finishing for me it is all about new possibilities.

Plus the planning of trips and activities for the off-season, I have lots and lots of crafting related stuff planned for this coming year which will be lovely 🙂

Take care and have a nice rest of the week, see you all again soon and 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.

Prettying up the craft room

Channelling my inner Amanda Jean

A freebie and a great idea

Sweet books from blogs

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

A woodland wedding with wellies!

Just in time making!

Let there be elf ears!

The importance of afternoon tea

Just Charming!