Happy, happy, happy!

October 7, 2012October 7, 2012 stitchesoftime3 Comments

Hello and I hope that you are all well and happy.I am so, so happy, I really can’t explain what a lovely time I am having here in my new house!

I have had such a such a wonderful weekend, my lovely friend Kerry came to stay to help me sort out some of the fabric in my craft room and to enjoy some of the delights of Marsden.I also persuaded her to take away some of my fabric as it has been languishing with no use made of it so hopefully she can make pretty things out of this.

It has been such a beautifully sunny weekend and we had a very nice walk in the Peak District, walking past 3 of our local reservoirs, Butterley, Blakely and Wessenden. The sun was shining on the water and all was right with the world. I am so lucky to be a few minutes walk from all this beauty.

Kerry and I sat on a bench overlooking this view on the way back thinking that life does not get much better than this!

However today things got even better. We went for another walk to the other side of the village and called into the Standedge Tunnel Visitor Centre, this is a local heritage centre which has displays about the history of the canal here.

I had been told that there was a craft centre there but had not realised what it actually was.It is called the Loft Space – Creative Hub and it turned out that they not only have designers working there but also they are selling fabric, wool etc and running workshops and also renting craft space to other people.Have a look at their Facebook page as well.

I have signed up to become a member which means that I can go and work in the centre and am very, very excited about doing more things there. It is a beautiful space and they have so many lovely things to buy.They also rent out overlockers and embellishers by the hour.

I knew I was so right to move here!

Here is some of the very cute ribbon I bought from one of the designers there, Janet, from Green Fusions.

There is also a wonderful wool shop, Juey, that I need to go and visit again when I have more time and my camera!

I am going to have a very exciting 3 weeks as well as on Weds I am off to China again to teach. I am spending two weeks in Guangzhou teaching and am then staying on for another week where I get to so some sightseeing in the city.

I am going to Hong Kong for 4 days, including a trip to Disneyland for Halloween! I am so excited and so lucky, I have been wanting to go back to China ever since I went in March and am really looking forward to getting to know the city better.

I will not be in touch for a few weeks so stay happy whatever you are doing.

Thanks for visiting.

Planning

September 30, 2012September 30, 2012 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello there I do hope that you are all well and have not been too rained on this week.

I have been very busy with planning just lately. As a teacher I do a lot of planning, autumn is always the time for a good review and sorting out what I will be doing for the rest of the academic year. I have just met my other new group of students and they are very lovely so am looking forward to a good year.

I am very keen on planning but in recent years have had to train myself to be a bit more relaxed when my carefully arranged ‘what I think I will be doing for the rest of my life’ stuff has been interrupted by real life. As a result I am very much more mellow and actually enjoy not having my future all planned out.Who knows what lovely things will happen to surprise me?

However I have been having a very nice weekend doing planning of another sort, meeting up today with friends from my medieval group Swords of Mercia to plan our events for next season over a lovely pub lunch and planning my craft room!

This second bit is going to take a while as I appear to have quite a lot of fabric (ahem) and keep running out of storage boxes and having to go and buy more.

At least I have unearthed all the stash now and have marvelled at all the lovely things that I had totally forgotten I had. Some of this stuff has not seen the light of day for about 6 years! I am determined to use more of it though and will have the sewing machine busy during the off-season making kit for the boys in the group.

Here are some shots of my work in progress, it looks a bit bare but I have a dedicated work table for my machine which is great.

I still have a way to go in filling up my quilting fabric shelves (especially since most of this is Ellie’s fabric) but the rest of it is looking ok.

These boxes hold my Xmas fabric and ribbons which will all soon be having an outing as I can feel an ornie session coming on.

And to finish a little shot from the bus on my way out of the valley today for those people who have commented on the views – Yorkshire is still very lovely even in the rain!

I do hope you have a good week ahead, this is my last full week before I go to China for a month which I am getting very excited about!

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Home alone – no pumpkins yet!

September 24, 2012September 24, 2012 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Some years ago in 2009 I did a post entitled ‘Home alone ……. with a pumpkin’ as both the kids were away and I was making pumpkin soup. In that post I wrote about how Jake would be leaving home so I was practising then for the time when I would be home alone for good.

Well this is it and Jake has left for University. We took him and all his belongings (and there were a lot of them when piled into my sister-in-law Amanda’s car!) all the way up north to Teesside University where he is happily settling in to his student hall.

Here is the outside of the halls of residence , not the most glamorous of buildings but Jake chose it as it has very large student rooms and good communal facilities and is very near campus.

Here he is – with top hat of course – moving into his room.He says he has space for a grand piano but don’t think he will be able to afford that on a student budget! It looks a good room for parties though as it is twice as big as the space shown in this pic.

It doesn’t seem two minutes since we dropping Ellie off at her halls of residence – you can see her at her first day at her halls in this post .

Hope Jake has a fab time, we are very proud of him

And of course now I get to start sorting out the new craft room, did a little bit last night but I have a lot of stuff to move – am hoping to be able to show you pics at the end of the week.

Still have not really decided on a decorating theme, was going to do a vintage/Cath Kidston look but most of my fabric is either Xams stuff or medieval so don’t know what would look best. Maybe I should just go for a Santa’s grotto theme and then I could have all my ornies out year round, that would be pretty 😉

Am going to my new knitting group in the village tomorrow, Wool and W(h)ine, held at one of the local pubs (what a good idea) so am taking a simple pattern as don’t think I will be able to concentrate on anything much.

I was out partying this weekend and met a couple of the knitting group who are very lovely. One of them is an ex re – enactor who has just set up an online fabric store which I will get the details of and post here! How exciting, I knew I was so right to move here.

I have had a wonderful week, on Monday I went to see the Mikron Theatre Company’s latest production at one of our local pubs – a wonderfully funny play called ‘Losing the Plot’ about an allotment. The info for the company is at the link above – do go and see them if you get a chance, brilliant unique theatre.

Since I now have no one to look after or feed I thought I would do my bit for the local wildlife so have bought a lovely new bird feeding station for my front garden. I was ignored for the first 24 hours but then got some lovely visitors, starlings, crows, two finches and two robins. Was difficult to get good pics but this one is lovely.

And as for the pumpkin it is nearly time to buy one for my favourite soup – Delia Smith’s Roasted Pumpkin Soup with Melting Cheese – yum yum!

A busy week ahead but hopefully will have some crafting time. Thanks for visiting.

The needlepoint cats in their new home

September 16, 2012September 16, 2012 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hello there

I hope that you are all well and happy.I have had a very enjoyable week, term has started and I have met my lovely new group. I have also spent a wonderful weekend putting the final touches to my new house. All the pictures are up and it is really feeling like home! One of the things that I have had great pleasure in putting up is my stitching, including the oldest pieces, my needlepoint cats.

Before I found cross stitch (courtesy of my sister) I mainly stiched needlepoint which I enjoyed but was very time consuming. However it was very good therapy with small children and I completed a number of pieces. These cats are from a book called Needlepoint Cats by Martin Leman and are now on the wall in my kitchen.

I took time out from house sorting yesterday to enjoy the beautiful weather and my lovely new home’s location on the edge of the Peak District National Park.I went for a walk up the hill, I am very lucky as 10 minutes from my house is this wonderfully scenery. This is Butterley Reservoir in the late afternoon sun.

This is the view from the road up to the reservoir and the picture below is the view back down the valley. The old mill chimney you can see down in the valley is right next to my house.

And this of course is one of the most important things about Marsden and the symbol of our Jazz Festival – a local sheep, famous for invading people’s gardens and eating their flowers!

Am looking forward to many more walks – have got the loan of a couple of friends’ dogs if needed and am hoping to take my bike out soon, maybe tomorrow if I get time.Am feeling so happy now everything is settled and sorted, it is all such a relief!

Take care and thanks again for visiting.

Caldicot 2012

September 11, 2012 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Well we had such a fantastic weekend at our last show of the year, the weather was brilliant, the beer tent great fun, the company excellent and the castle is just the most beautiful place to be – I am so lucky to be able to camp in places like this.

We arrived early on Friday as we were helping organise the event – here are the other two members of the Sisters of Mercia , Kerry and Ellie , (the water carrying branch of our Swords of Mercia group) relaxing on gate duty on a sunny Friday evening.

Although Kerry has been on the battlefield before it was her first time wearing her own helmet! Here she is with Andy modelling it before the battle.

I took lots of pics of the tents inside the castle, there were some beautiful banners so have taken some close up pics of the applique for you.

A brilliant time and thanks to all my lovely friends for helping me celebrate my house move (and to Ellie for not pushing me in the moat for spending all weekend saying how happy I was!)

Term has started and my new group are here so it is very hectic – am hoping for a nice weekend of finishing off bits in the house before chaos descends again next week! Ellie is visiting the new house tomorrow for the first time (and taking some of her stuff back with her!) so that will be lovely.

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Green door what’s that secret you’re keepin’?

September 2, 2012September 2, 2012 stitchesoftime7 Comments

You may remember the Shakin’ Stevens song of the same name. Well I have a secret to share with you all – do you want to know what is behind this green door?

It is my very lovely new house!!! I have been planning this move for two years and been trying to actually make it happen for almost a year since I put my old house up for sale.

All seemed to be going well until June when I was expecting to move but a major delay with the chain set us back 2 months. I have been all packed up ready to go since then and have been sitting surrounded by boxes trying to keep myself cheerful but dreading it all going wrong.

But it hasn’t and we moved in two days ago. I didn’t want to post anything until it had actually happened as did not want to jinx things. I have moved to a lovely little house in the country, in the beautiful village of Marsden.This is where I am, the views up and down my street.

You may remember that I have posted about the village before. 2 years ago I started helping as a volunteer with the local Marsden Jazz Festival as a way of getting involved in the community. I have really enjoyed doing this and made lots of new friends here.

The village is fantastic, surrounded by wonderful moorland and reservoirs with lots of cute shops (including a new craft and wool shop – they knew I was coming!) and lots of very practical things like a train station and supermarket. Also a knitting group, book club, Zumba and belly dancing as well as theatre, live music etc so I will not be lonely once Jake leaves for Uni.

The old house was lovely but far too big for just little old me so I have decluttered and decluttered (not that the removal men believed me when they saw the amount of stuff) and thankfully it all fits in here.

And after two frantic days, with help from my wonderful friends Taru and Bob (who organised lunch and dinner on Fri and humped boxes and ran us around to estate agents) and Kerry (who took me shopping for house essentials and gave me her interior design advice on my lounge while unpacking my endless collection of embroidery books!) we are about 80 % unpacked and I am relaxing on the sofa with the candles lit.

All is very well with the world and I am beyond happy!

Would you like to see a few pics of the house? If you are anything like me you love seeing other people’s houses . If so carry on and I will show you the finished bits. When Jake goes I will move all of the boxed things in the guest room into my new craft room (aka his bedroom) and we will be sorted.

One of the reasons I love the village is the countryside and this is the view from my bedroom window. I am looking forward to lazy Sunday mornings with cups of tea and a good book looking at the hills.

Here is Jake all set up with his computer in his new room (the most important thing for him of course), making the most of home comforts as he leaves in 3 weeks.

This is my lovely kitchen, this really sold the house to me. I have the most beautiful door knobs on the units , I forgot to take a close up picture before it got dark but they are so pretty.

And my bathroom. Another great thing about the house is all my things fit so well with the existing colour scheme here, no redecorating and no need to buy new things!

This is my lounge with my lovely stitching sofa and an ‘in situ’ picture of the other sofa with the quilted throw that I am working on, not finished yet but it will be a lovely housewarming gift to myself!

Can’t wait to be able to show you the craft room when it is done – so excited!!!

Hope that you have a good week ahead, I am on leave for the next few days to finish sorting and then it is off to our last show of the season at Caldicot Castle in South Wales. Really looking forward to that as Ellie is coming as well. A beautiful venue and it is a very special show being the final one of such a wonderful year for me.

Take care and thanks for visiting.

The joys of hand quilting

August 30, 2012 stitchesoftimeLeave a comment

Although I started making quilts to improve my skills at machine sewing I find I do a lot of hand quilting on them which I find very relaxing, especially after a hard day at the chalkface.

The current sofa throw WIP is being hand quilted with metallic thread which is always a bit of a challenge to stitch with as it tends to unravel and break a lot but the results are beautiful.

I am hoping that the wonderful fabric and detail given by the hand quilting on this piece will detract the eye from the very inaccurate piecing.

You can’t really see it in pic above but the rows do not align well either side of the central panel. At least some of the very out of sync pieces will be hidden on the back of the sofa when it is in place!

Here are some of the squares in detail, the quilting shows up particularly well on the lighter coloured squares. I am planning to add gold seed beads to the centre of the flowers as well.

I think most of the fabric is by Robert Kaufman and I know some is called Holiday Flourish which is from their Christmas Collection. As always I wish I had bought lots more of it , I do have a few half metres of some of the patterns but not much.

They have some gorgeous fabric in the new collection which is Holiday Flourish 5 – very medieval looking so will be treating myself to some of that at this November’s Knitting and Stitching show.

This is a lovely start of autumn project as it keeps my legs warm while I am doing it. I am planning to make a bigger one in plain fabrics for my other patterned and that will be lovely and toasty to quilt over winter!

I have a busy weekend planned with house stuff and then the planning for the next term starts. It only seems two minutes since the last group left but I am looking forward to welcoming a new group of lovely trainee teachers.

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Measuring the bear’s forehead (and other conservation tasks!)

August 28, 2012July 16, 2019 stitchesoftime2 Comments

I hope that you are all well and happy. I have some time off this week so am very much enjoying myself – have just done a bit of gardening and am now continuing with my hand quilting.

I had a lovely time visiting Ellie at Powis Castle this weekend. It was beautiful weather when I got there on Sunday so I took lots and lots of pics. Here is Ellie in her National Trust uniform.

The title of this post comes from one of Ellie’s daily tasks which is to take light readings to check that there is not too much sun coming into the castle which would damage the textiles.

I went round with her when she did this on Sunday and one of the things she has to do is to measure the light on the bearskin rug in one of the rooms. She has a chart on the clipboard in the above photo to record the readings and one of the columns actually says ‘bear’s forehead’.

Years ago when she was very young we went to Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire and as the castle had just been restored the custodian took us on a personal tour and let Ellie unlock the castle with a massive key.

Ellie has always remembered that but these days she has the big keys herself and she gets to lock the beautiful doors like these on the coach house.

She is living in a house in the grounds which overlooks the gardens – here she is on her doorstep and the view of her garden – and the croquet lawn!

The castle is amazing and full of the most beautiful things – we were not allowed to take photos of the interior as usual and it was too dark to take good pics anyway but you can go and look on Ellie’s blog where she details all of the wonderful things she does and has lots more pics.

I am so very proud of her, it is a brilliant job and she is having a wonderful time. I went out for a meal with her colleagues and they are all very lovely and Welshpool is a really pretty little town to live in.

Here are a few of my fave close up pics from the garden – taken with my new camera which is working very well (until I break this one of course!) I am going to frame some of these for my new craft room.

And the beautiful gardens – some of the best I have ever seen. Well worth a visit if you are in the area.

Take care and thanks for visiting.

A Wet Saturday

August 25, 2012August 25, 2012 stitchesoftimeLeave a comment

Oh the joy of having nothing to do apart from sit and watch movies and stitch!

I was contemplating doing some gardening (which I did not want to do as it was boring lawns) but it being a Bank Holiday weekend it has been pouring down along with thunder and lightning so I have the whole afternoon to do as I please!

I am still working on the hand quilting of the throw, this will be a long job but a very pleasurable one. I decided to hand quilt some of the flower motifs from each of the patterned squares with metallic thread rather than just outlining the squares and it is looking really good.

I am still not very confident with my machine skills for doing any other type of quilting – I look at Crazy Mom Quilts with envy. One of my targets for this winter (in my new craft room!) will be to get better at this.I think I will make some little art quilts for the walls to practise.

My Summer Exchange piece has arrived at last in the USA so I can reveal it to you. This was organised once again through the Seasonal Exchange blog and was sent to Sarah who does not yet have a blog herself.

Strawberries always remind me of summer so I stitched part of an Elizabethan knot garden design from a book I have had for a while, ‘Elizabethan Cross Stitch’ by Barbara Hammett. It is a beautiful book with loads of lovely designs.

Once again it is stitched with Silk Mill threads. I made it into a pincushion with plain green evenweave for the backing and I have put a little strawberry charm from my stash on the back and a couple of beads from my Xmas ornie making stash on the front in the middle.The strawberries also have seed beads on them.

Am off to see Ellie tomorrow so lots more stitching time on the train – what a lovely life!

Thanks for visiting and see you soon.

Blackbird Designs

August 23, 2012August 23, 2012 stitchesoftime3 Comments

Hello everyone, hope you are enjoying the last few bits of summer where you are. Weather here has been variable but I am having a lovely time, have had a quiet week at home this week, marking work, reading lots of lovely books and generally mellowing out.

And I have been stitching from my new Blackbird Designs patterns which arrived last week from Thread Bear!

I really love these designs and have been admiring them on lots of other blogs and in exchanges so I have treated myself to one of their books, ‘A Stitcher’s Journey’, and two other patterns. I have started stitching from the book but cannot reveal anything as it will be an exchange but am loving the way the pattern is stitching up.

I need to get started on my Xmas stitching as I will be away in China so much this Autumn which will mean little time to stitch. I ordered the Christmas set of stockings, ‘Merry December’, and will make all three for me.

The final design is this little Wild Lilies pin keep which will look so good stitched in these lovely Silk Mill lilac threads.

I bought a little bit of new fabric when I was away last weekend – ned to get more stash for my lovely new craft room and these Cath Kidston lookalike fat quarters will come in handy for something.

I have also been doing some quilting on a WIP. A long time ago I started this throw for the lounge.

I have now pieced and backed it, stitched the borders and am hand quilting it, am very pleased with the progress so will take some nice pics to show you soon.

Am off this weekend to visit Ellie at Powis Castle which I am very much looking forward to. It will involve two very long train journeys as well so lots of lovely stitching time! Hopefully the weather will be beautiful and I can take some arty shots of the castle for you.

Thanks again for visiting and see you all 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.

Happy, happy, happy!

Planning

Home alone – no pumpkins yet!

The needlepoint cats in their new home

Caldicot 2012

Green door what’s that secret you’re keepin’?

The joys of hand quilting

Measuring the bear’s forehead (and other conservation tasks!)

A Wet Saturday

Blackbird Designs