Beautiful Bavaria

May 10, 2014 stitchesoftime6 Comments

Hello there

A rainy Saturday in Yorkshire (again) just right for a bit of a catch up on photo editing and blogging.

We had a really lovely weekend in Sherwood for our first event, the sun shone, I got a bit brown and lots of people came to see us. More about that in a later post as I have some beautiful places to show you. There were also some fab doors – look at these from Nuremberg ! And lovely old churches – the bottom picture is of one in the town where we stayed – Langenau.

The holiday we went on was called Beautiful Bavaria and they weren’t wrong. It was my first ever trip to Germany and I will definitely go back. What a gorgeous country full of all the things that I love best, mountains, castles and old medieval towns.

It was stunning and I felt like I had landed in a Disney film set a lot of the time, all the inspiration for his Fantasy Lands at the Disney parks obviously came from this gorgeous architecture.

This was our first trip solely by coach, we went with this company, Shearings, to Italy two years ago but flew that time. It was a great experience being able to see lots of Europe, we caught the ferry from Dover and went through France, Belgium and all the way down to Bavaria, stopping in Belgium overnight each way.

Lots of time to stare out of the window (how I love not driving!) and lots of time for knitting – perfect! We had a great driver/guide who had researched lots about Germany history and so we learnt so much while we were there. The sort of holiday we all really enjoy.

Our first day trip was to Nuremberg which was very lovely, they have done a great job of rebuilding what was damaged during the war and the castle, churches and beautiful old buildings look perfect now. Below is the church in the city square with its famous clock.

The pictures below show the inside of one of the other churches where there was the most gorgeous little door (think it would have held an icon originally) as well as this casket in gold and silver.

And the usual wonderful religious art (not as much as in Florence but that is the Reformation for you!)

There was the most beautiful fountain in the city square as well and we made a wish by twisting a gold ring in the ironwork. We also ate sausage and sauerkraut, I had a German beer (the kids liked the sausages but not the other things!)

We visited the castle which had a great museum, this crown (which I think belonged to Charlemagne) was very impressive and the boys from my medieval group would love to get their hands on these weapons.

This is the chapel in the castle which was very simple but lovely. It was a brilliant trip and I have more pictures for you later. Meanwhile hope you are having a lovely weekend and thanks for visiting.

We did find bears!

April 30, 2014May 11, 2014 stitchesoftime3 Comments

Hello everyone

Just a quick post about our trip to Bavaria and look what Jake found! Here he is with his bear (admittedly a stuffed one) in the Steiff Teddy Bear Museum which was an unexpected bonus to a fab trip away.

The holiday was ace – you know when you see pictures of a place and think that it can’t be that nice, well it was. Bavaria is beautiful, full of castles, mountains, cute little villages and medieval towns and we had a whistle-stop tour of some of the loveliness.

It was like being in a real life Disney Fantasy Land – with free wine as we had another all-inclusive hotel deal ha ha. And I got to knit all the way through Europe as we had hours on the coach so I was very happy 🙂

The pictures below show the amazing Neuschwanstein Castle and the town of Rotenberg ob de Tauber.

Would love to go back and explore more sometime. Have so many beautiful things to share with you but this is just an interim post as have no time this week, off for our first event in Sherwood Forest this weekend so in between work, getting ready for that and the finishing of another bunny for a special baby am very short of time.

Have a lovely weekend ahead and thanks for visiting.

It’s raining again …….

April 12, 2014April 12, 2014 stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello there

The title of this blog post needs to be sung really as I am doing in my head, another wet Saturday here in Yorkshire, pity as it was so lovely earlier in the week and I was planning a little jaunt. However more time for blogging, knitting and baking 🙂

This is a catch up post really (on the grounds that there are no finishes to show at present) and I have been meaning to post a couple of things for a while.

Firstly my very talented friend Helen (she of the quilts) is also making other things including these cute bunnies just in time for Easter.
She will have some for sale through her Etsy shop at some point for £6.50 but if you are interested please go and visit her at the new blog she has.

themagpiecat.blogspot.co.uk/

And I have been meaning to post some pics of Ellie as a bridesmaid at her friend’s wedding. I just got the disc from her so here she is looking very lovely.

The baby in the photo is the friend’s little daughter Lizzie who I made a bridesmaid bunny for, you can see the bunny on one of the present tables in the last picture.

There will be no blogging for the next couple of weeks as we are off on holiday 😉

My lovely Mum will be here next weekend (it is her birthday on Friday) and then we are off to Bavaria (or Bearvaria as Jake keeps calling it – think he is expecting to see some bears) for a week of visiting medieval towns and castles. Very much looking forward to it and as usual will take lots of photos!

See you soon, thanks as always for visiting.

The joy of stitching

April 5, 2014 stitchesoftime5 Comments

Hello everyone, hope that you are having a lovely weekend, I am still knitting bunnies but turning my thoughts to other things as well as work is easing off and I have the summer coming up.

In and amongst the kit making I am planning some other stitching projects. It is while since I did anything stitchery apart from exchange pieces and Xmas ornies but am musing on some long-term projects (would love to do another big goldwork piece) and have some more blackwork gifts planned for later in the year.

I love doing blackwork, have not done any for so long and was reminded of my passion for it when Kerry brought up her sewing basket with her for our dress making weekend and there were the needlecase and scissor fob I had made for her some years ago.

This was one of the sets I made for the girls in my old medieval group, here they all are with their gifts, these were done in 2009.The picture below shows Kerry’s needlebook along with the two others I made.

A couple of years earlier I did a piece for a friend’s wedding, they are re-enactors so I thought they would like this piece based on the effigies we see (and use for costume research) in many churches.

I have so many more ideas of stuff I would like to do so am going to spend some time lining up the new projects this weekend. You never know – I might win the lottery soon and be able to give up work and is best to be prepared 😉

Hope you are having fun whatever you are doing, thanks for visiting.

Here’s one I made earlier

March 30, 2014 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello and happy Mother’s Day for all of you in the UK. I have (virtually) met lots of brilliant, creative and dedicated Mums through blogging and I hope that you have all been thoroughly spoilt today.

Here we have a double celebration as my little baby Ellie is 23 today! Seems impossible but time is flying by.

I made her a special cake – which we had at breakfast as she had to leave this afternoon!

She is very happy at the moment as she has not only passed her driving test (second time around with only 1 fault) but has also this week bought a car 🙂

She is practising at the moment but she is planning to drive to some of the events this year with me so that will be very exciting! She has also had a year’s extension on her contract so all is good 🙂

Here is the car – it is called Kim after its number plate! Can’t wait to have some fun trips to re-enactment in it.

I had some great presents and flowers from the kids including these very pretty button jars that Ellie made for me – perfect in my newly sorted craft room and loads of gorgeous buttons for embellishments!

While we were having our sewing weekend a few weeks ago she was sorting some of the stuff that she left here and came across this pump bag that I made her while she was at school. This was the name band that I stitched for her.

She must have been about 8 when I made it. A that time I was doing a lot of cross stitch and made lots of cards using little motifs like these.

There has also been another bunny from the production line, this one is Isabella and she will be going to live with a friend from re-enactments new-born baby daughter.

Am very happy at the moment as it is nearly the start of the re-enactment season, I am going on holiday very soon with Mum and the kids to Bavaria and the clocks have gone forward so there will be lighter evenings! Hurrah for Spring and Summer to follow… lovely!

Hope you have had a happy day, take care and thanks for visiting.

What a shame!

March 22, 2014March 22, 2014 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello again

Well it is raining here again, which is a bit of a shame as I wanted to go for a walk but true to form the moment I got my boots out it started pouring down.

I could have course have gone in the rain but decided I would just have to sew and knit all day, most of it in front of the TV where I am watching Supernatural on DVD courtesy of Ellie who has been trying to get me to watch it for ages.What a pity, poor me ha ha, it is even too wet for housework 😉

I have sorted out the error that I mentioned yesterday. I wanted to make an apron as a birthday gift for a friend’s little girl to send with some baking stuff I have bought. I remember Ellie being bought some baking things at a similar age and loving them so I have got cute pink utensils and pretty cup cake cases.

I found a really good free tutorial at a blog called Aesthetic Nest run by a woman called Anneliese who designs beautiful patterns for her 3 daughters (can feel a sewing spree coming on but must, must focus on medieval kit first!) She has an Etsy shop with her patterns and kids’ party printables which look brilliant.

The apron is made out of 2 fat quarters and is very easy to do (especially if unlike me you actually follow all the instructions and don’t put the straps in the wrong place and only discover that after you have hemmed it.)

She has made reversible ones but I made one out of 2 plain fat quarters from my Simply Solids Club stash and some applique motifs from a really cute fabric called Sweet Treats that I bought I couple of years ago.

And I am very pleased with the result. I particularly like the spotty pocket and straps.

I stitched the Sweet Shop label onto the pocket and added some buttons onto the sweetie jars. Am planning to add some sweets to the package for cake decorating so hope that she will like it.

I used the fabric motifs last year as part of a cot quilt that I made for Ellie’s friend and I still have quite a few motifs left over.

Have also finished stitching the replacement for the Autumn exchange piece that went missing so that will go in the post next week – fingers crossed this one gets there ok!

Hope you are having a lovely time whatever you are doing and thanks for visiting.

Quiltilicious!

March 21, 2014 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello

I hope you are enjoying your Friday – I have another weekend of sewing planned in my lovely newly tidied craft room.

Would have had a fab finish to show you but once completed realised that I had made a (deliberate of course!) mistake with one part so that will be unpicked, re-sewn and brought to you later in the weekend 🙂

Meanwhile we will have a closer look at the quilts made by Helen from my knitting group. Helen does have a blog but can’t find it at the moment (my favourites are still all on my old laptop!)

These will all be going to Spain over the next few months to an orphanage that my Mum supports.

I love the fabric choices – Helen made all these from stash, isn’t she clever. I would love to be more confident at fabric combining, always seems to take me ages to decide what to use for a project.

Hoping for some good weather for a walk as well – as soon as Google announced the first day of Spring Yorkshire decided to get all wet and windy again 😦

Take care and will update on project soon, thanks for visiting.

The joys of living alone

March 16, 2014March 16, 2014 stitchesoftime2 Comments

I do very much love being an empty nester (not that I don’t love my kids dearly and look forward to their visits) but one of the great joys of having my own space is that I have a craft room.

That along with the need not to spend weekends shopping, cooking, cleaning and washing means I have physical,temporal and mental space to create which is wonderful!

However there are some downsides particularly when you are trying to put together IKEA flat pack furniture on your own. The storage units I bought did come with a warning!

I managed in the end but they are not actually screwed together at the bottom as I couldn’t get the last side to fit.

One is missing one screw the other two but gravity seems to be keeping them stable and when Jake is home as Easter I will get him to apply a bit of brute force to see if I can sort it.

I did sort out the craft room when I first moved in using storage I already had.

But unfortunately the CD racks that I had been using as fabric storage fell over (once on my head which was a bit painful!) and the shelving units were very old and unstable and always looked cluttered.

I also got rid of the wooden chest I had there leaving me nowhere to store the small (ahem) amount of fabric for medieval kit that I have.

And I have been buying a bit more fabric since I moved in so was running out of space and rather than being the calm wonderful creative space I wanted it was a mess.

However there has been a transformation.

This was yesterday morning.

And this is the finished result.

The shelves with baskets and the lovely heart pinboard were bargains from local charity shops. It does still need painting and more pictures putting up but that will be a job for the holidays.

I still have one tall storage unit on the other side with all the small boxes but now all of the fabric is together so that I can see what I have got. I found fabric for a new blue peasant dress yesterday that I vaguely remembered buying but thought had wandered off 🙂

More importantly I have got a cutting table which is much better than crawling about on the floor!

So this afternoon I will be enjoying the fruits of my labour finishing off a little project for a birthday.

Oh and you see that pile of quilts next to the cutting area? No I haven’t been mega productive recently, they are made by my very talented friend Helen here in the village.

She has been stash busting recently and has very kindly made these to donate to a children’s orphanage that my Mum supports in Spain. Will share pics of those later.

Do have a lovely week ahead and thanks for visiting!

The joys of Spring

March 11, 2014March 11, 2014 stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello everyone

Hope you are having fun and that the weather is being kind to you where you live. We have had an excellent weekend and week so far – today there was washing drying on the line 🙂

I went out for a long walk this weekend and then afterwards came home, got the garden furniture out of storage, cleaned out the barbecue and planted more bulbs!

I took some pictures of the joys of Spring while walking – I sadly missed a photo of a jay having a little bath in the canal (he was too quick for me) and so was a kingfisher near the local mill-pond but these are some of the beautiful sights from Sunday. The crocuses are mine from the back rockery.

As I said to a friend at work this week I am surrounded by 360 degrees of excellent walking so this weekend went along the canal passing weirs and old bridges and then up the side of the hill on a footpath I had not used before, through the woods beside a waterfall then back the same way ending up passing the church where this last picture was taken.

I last did this canal towpath walk the same time last year and blogged about it here and remember meeting a little flock of sheep on my way back then.

Well they had obviously visited us again as they have eaten most of my poor neighbours beautiful crocuses (they couldn’t reach mine as they are too high up on the rockery) and attempted to eat one of my new primulas – for some reason only the yellow one was tasty 🙂

Naughty little things but it is great when the lambs come down off the hills so I suppose a few flowers isn’t much of a sacrifice.

Have got some new storage this week so am planning a weekend of craft room transformation – finally all those piles of fabric will be sorted and I can get on with all the things I have to make. Will share end results of the makeover!

Have a good rest of the week and thanks for visiting.

A bit of this and a bit of t(hat)!

March 7, 2014 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello everyone and Happy International Women’s Day. I would just like to take a moment to thank all those wonderful, inspirational women whose blogs I read for sharing their lives, their creativity and making women’s work in all respects valued.

Like many women my age I grew up in an era where craft, particularly women’s craft was not seen as really relevant to the modern world.

I had a very traditional single sex education and learnt to cook and sew but never really valued those skills though I have always enjoyed both.

It is lovely to see those things now on mainstream TV (though more is needed – dedicated sewing, quilting, knitting and embroidery channel I say!) and to see many women setting up their own businesses online selling their items and their patterns and sharing their passion for craft.

One woman I think deserves a particular mention (though there are so many brilliant people out there) is Julie from Little Cotton Rabbits who is a wonderful creative crafter and a fab mother and has shared her work with so many people and brightens everyone’s day.

Knitting her bunnies keeps me sane and shares her love and I have two of my latest creations to show you.

Here are Daisy and Sophie – don’t they look cute together, Sophie in the pink looks like she is a very loving older friend to little Daisy.

Daisy is for my sister-in-law as a birthday gift and is my first go at stripy legs and Sophie will be a present for a friend’s newborn great -niece.These are my fifth and sixth bunnies and I have more to come!

But as well as those I have been making a hat on request for my sister-in-law, the grey one is the one she originally bought and she gave me the multi-coloured wool to create a version of it.

This meant my first foray into knitting without a pre-set pattern but I was aided by my friends at knitting group in working out what to do.

I was in my local craft shop (shh don’t tell but I did buy a little tiny bit of stuff for a project I am working on) and was talking to the lovely lady serving me about the Great British Sewing Bee and she told me of a really good blog that she had found that gives advice on techniques used in the episodes.

It is called Little Black Duck Blog and is run by a mum called Victoria and it is going straight into my favourites!

This is the link to Episode 3 about working with stretch fabrics and she has advice and links to all sorts of fab tutorials for different techniques as well as other general sewing tips.

I have a few other projects in the pipeline that I hope to be able to share soon and am enjoying some sunny blue skies here in Yorkshire (among the showers!)

Take care and thank you as always 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.