Winter Exchange

February 4, 2012 stitchesoftime3 Comments

Well how are you all and are you lovely people in the UK snowed in yet? We have had small flurries on the hills all week and today the promised snow arrived with us – very timely as this morning I had a lovely parcel all the way from Australia (where of course there will not be any snow!) containing this wonderful ornie from Lisa V.

Lisa must know my tastes very, very well as what she stitched is perfect for me and as you can see looks very good hanging next to the little stocking on the doors with the snowflake stickers.It is Heritage Stitches design and is stitched on hand dyed Silkweaver fabric.

The snow was just starting when I took the above pic put we are nice and white now – good job I am holed up indoors tomorrow!

My exchange piece was sent this week to the USA and as soon as I hear that it has been delivered I will post pics of it.

I decided that I would make a Spring ornie for me this week rather than a Winter one as it had got a bit milder outside (the bulbs are all coming through in the garden) so have finished all the stitching on one of the Quaker Tree ornies that I mentioned last post. Just got to add beads and turn it into a little pillow ornie.

I will leave you with the some recent pics of Ellie on her nights out with friends Hannah and Becky – she did mention that there have been no pics of her for a while so will have to rectify that! The theme for one of the fancy dress nights was ‘bugs’.

Hope you are all keeping warm (or cool!) depending where you are.

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Photo Scavenger Hunt – January

January 29, 2012 stitchesoftime13 Comments

Well here we are again. Kathy has very kindly kept going with the Scavenger Hunt , click on the pic above to go to her blog and see everyone’s pics. I joined last March so this will be nearly a year of taking pics.

Some of these are from my last visit to Spain at New Year topped up with a few extras that I have quickly done today. Lots of scope this month for interpretation so it will be really interesting to see what other people have done.

A pair of beautiful doors in Cartegena.

Blur

It was good to have this as a category this month as most of my New Year’s Eve firework pics came out as a blur and here is one of them.

Company

One day I hope to be able to turn my hobby into a business, got the business cards and the company name, just need more time!

Entrance

Now this could be interpreted differently depending on how you say it – I have chosen it as the opposite of exit so here is the entrance to my house.

In my bathroom

Strictly speaking this is the downstairs cloakroom but here is my collection of postcards from some of the lovely places I have been lucky enough to visit.

In season

No I haven’t gone mad, in Spain ice-cream is always in season, this is the selection Mum and I had on Jan 5th – coconut and mango yum, yum!

In the distance

It has to be my favourite subject of mountains, taken on one of my bike rides in Spain.

Information

Part of the map of Cartagena – you have to love a place with roads called Paseo de las Delicias and Santa Florentina!

Mess

Sadly there are lots of old abandoned farms and smallholdings in this area of Spain and this is one that I passed on one of my bike rides.

Odd

These are sort of like Horse Chestnuts but with a suntan! From one of the verdes in Spain.

Soft

My Mum voluteers at a local dog shelter and takes the dogs walking one afternoon a week so I went with her in Jan. This is little Martha who had such soft ears and such a cute face it was hard not to take her home!

Warning

On the back of the antibiotics for my ear infection.

Medieval Art

January 28, 2012January 28, 2012 stitchesoftimeLeave a comment

Well the very busy week at work did not go as planned as I have had an ear infection, not good for workload but this meant that there has much stitching been done and catching up on missed TV. One of the things I have been watching this week is a BBC series called Illuminations – The Private Lives of Medieval Kings which has had me drooling over the art.

You may remember that a while ago I shared with you my latest purchase from my very talented friend Pat of Buckles Medieval Art and I promised to take some more pics if I could. Today we have had really lovely sunshine (which is very good as there was snow last night!) so I have been able to take some nice pics of my other bits of her art.

My first piece from Pat is a triptych – a three section religious painting, in this case of St Andrew and his fisherman.

I also have this beautiful painting hanging above my bed of Archangel Michael. She has painted one of my favourite castles Castle Coch in South Wales in the background. Castle Coch was rebuilt in the 19th century by the Marquis of Bute (who also at one point owned Cardiff Castle) and both buildings have some wonderful recreations of medieval decoration.Well worth a visit if you are in the area.

I also have a facsimile of a medieval bible from the 15th century which I bought as a real bargain some time ago from the Museum Selection (one of my fave catalogues) , here is a peek at one of the wonderful page decorations.

This is one of my favorite books – again another real bargain from Waterstones one day when I was in Leeds. It is available cheaply on Amazon as well at the moment at only £13 which is really good as it is huge book.

It has copies of illustrations from so many wonderful manuscripts including one of my all time favourites the Bedford Hours which was featured in the second episode of the Illuminations series.

I love looking at medieval art, as well as being great for research on costume and artefacts I just marvel at the wonderful richness of it all. I have so many ideas for embroidery designs based on all my lovely books and museum and church visits. All I need now is a few more hours each day to get them all down on paper!

Below is a pic of the finished Snow Poem piece, all I need now is a nice silver frame for it. It is very appropriate that I am able to post this today as Google informed me when I logged on that it was the 125th anniversary of the world’s largest snowflake today which was 15 inches across!

Now I am trying to decide on my next piece, maybe another snowflake or I might start one of the Spring Quaker ornies that I mentioned in the last post.

Hope you have all had a lovely week and have a nice week ahead of you. We have Ofsted coming to visit us at work, those of you who work in the education system may well know what that means! Suffice to say that there may be lots of need for stitching for sanity in the next few days!

Take care and see you all soon. Thanks for visiting.

Silk!

January 22, 2012January 22, 2012 stitchesoftime8 Comments

Hello there and I hope that you are all well and happy. I am in January mode at the minute which means lots and lots of work and marking but thankfully no snow (as yet!) to complicate matters. There is still time however 🙂

Work is very, very busy but enjoyable, the students are lovely and I am teaching an extra set of maths at the moment which I love doing! I only teach maths a bit now in between other subjects and general teaching skills but really enjoy it when I do.

I am making slow progress with the Snow Poem, I hope to be finished by the end of next week but have had little time to stitch so my textile related excitement this week has been the arrival of more silk from the wonderful Silk Mill. I had some money for Christmas so decided to treat myself so this is the fruit (and veg!) of my online shopping endeavours.

Not only are they fab colours but I love the names of each silk. The beetroot one looks especially yummy!

These are for stitching some more Spring and Summer house ornies for me. Below are the other ones I ordered in the last sale round which will also be fab for flower embroidery.

They are all still in their packets as I need another storage box and some little cards to wind them on to. That will be a fun job as not only do they look pretty they are so soft to touch!

I am planning to make myself versions of the ornies below which were exchange pieces from a while ago that I sent to the USA to go in my little ornie displays.These are both freebie designs from The Workbasket site and I love the fine detail of them.

There is nothing better for keeping out the cold than a nice bit of stitching in a warm house! Have a lovely week ahead and stay toasty!

Thanks for visiting.

Stitching for sanity

January 15, 2012 stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello there

I hope you have all been having a lovely week. I am back into the swing of things at work and have had a very nice week, weather is pretty dreadful and have a slightly leaky conservatory roof and a very broken garden trellis to deal with but hey ho – such is Winter in Yorkshire!

I often joke to people that stitching and knitting is my therapy, the stuff that keeps me sane and I know that there are lots of others of you out there who feel the same. It doesn’t matter how bad the day has been, or what has been hurtful or difficult to deal with when I light my candles and get out my stitching, sitting on my sofa with a glass of wine I am the happiest bunny in the world. It is lovely as well to create something that also gives pleasure to other people when they receive so it is a double bonus.

Reading my free Metro newspaper on the bus to work today I came across an article about a prisoner of war who had stitched to save his sanity but also within his stitching had used hidden Morse code to include subversive messages. His name was Alexis Casdagli and his work, along with that of his son who he also taught to stitch, has been included in a recent exhibition at the V and A Museum.

There is a really good article about the piece at the following website and here is a pic of the piece from the Metro newspaper site held by his son Tony, there is a clearer view of the Morse code on the web site.

Prisoner of War stitching 2

I know there are many other examples of how people have used crafting to while away the hours. I have seen a cross stitch done entirely in human hair from a prison exhibition in Nottingham , a quilt made from uniform jackets by soldiers on campaign and last year at the Birmingham Quilt Show we were shown a wonderful whitework piece done by sailors during their long voyages.I love the fact that I am part of this long history of people who create as therapy – I think it is a wonderful way of calming the soul!

I do not have much to show you this week in the way of stitching progress. I have just completed the stitching on my Winter Exchange piece but cannot show you that yet, however since I had lots of stitching time in Spain I am also part way through a piece for me.

As you know I love snowflakes (but not too much real snow!) and came across this poem a while ago and have finally got around to stitching it so thought I would show you my progress. It is called Snow Poem by Erynne Chard from Red House Crafts. I have just checked on the web site and can’t find it so it must have been an old design.

It is stitched on sparkly Aida (to give my poor old eyes a rest from the small count evenweave I have been using for the exchange piece!) and done with my favourite Silk Mill thread again.

The Silk Mill are having another sale giving 30% off so I have treated myself to a set of green silks this time which will arrive soon! The sale is still on so if you fancy stocking up head on over there. I do love a bargain. Wendy who runs the Silk Mill very kindly sent me a little note on my last order saying she liked the blog and I was really touched – thanks Wendy, I really love your silks!

I have a number of different themed seasonal stitched ornies thanks to my exchanges but am very short on Winter ones so am going to spend a couple of months stitching just stuff for me on a Winter theme so that I can have another lovely seasonal display.

I do hope that you have had time for some therapy this week and thank you very much for visiting.Stay warm!

Photo Scavenger Hunt December

December 28, 2011 stitchesoftime14 Comments

Well as we went to Disneyland for Christmas most of my seasonal A – Z pics were taken there – some I did struggle with so had to be a bit creative! Hope you like them and really looking forward to seeing everyone else’s pics this time. Click on the pic above to go to Kathy’s Scavenger Hunt site.

A is for Angel on the top of my tree

B is for Bauble – this one was in the Christmas Market in Paris and I liked the way the Eiffel Tower was reflected in it !

C is for Castle, the Disney one all lit up for Xmas

D is for decorations, so many to choose from , this is from one of the beautiful window displays

E is for Eiffel Tower which was all lit up and sparkled for a few minutes as well- it was very magical

F is for Favourite – this is Sully from Monsters Inc, my favourite Disney character

G is for Goofy dressed as Santa

H is for Holly from Tatton Hall

I is for Igloo in Paris at the Christmas Market

J is for Jake (and Ellen) jingling all the way on a sleigh at Disneyland

K is for Kings from this beautiful Xmas card

L is for lights, these giant ones were at Disney Studios

M is for Market and Mulled wine – here is a pic of the Christmas market at the Eiffel Tower where we had lovely mulled wine

N is for Nativity at the Eiffel Tower, they had real animals in the manger as well

O is for orange – a tradition for Xmas (along with the less healthy chocolate versions!)

P is for Princess from one of the shop windows – Aurora Sleeping Beauty

Q is for Queue – we amused ourselves admiring various families’ festive headgear while we were waiting for rides. There was one family all dressed in Santa suits but could not get a pic of them.

R is for Reindeer, in this case their stables

S is for Snowman, not real but he looks like he would enjoy throwing that snowball!

T is for Tree of course from the Disneyland Main Street, I love the little gingerbread decorations

U is for unwrapped, the children’s traditional Xmas chocs from the stockings they unwrapped Xmas morning

V is for Village , the Disney Village which was looking very festive

W is for Winter Wonderland a cute show with Mickey and Minnie and friends

X is for Xmas cards , this was one of my faves this year

Y is for Yoda Stitch which Ellen bought as a present for herself

Z is for Zac Efron from High School Musical who you can just see on the wall of this themed cafe that we ate lunch in (told you I had struggled with some!)

Disneyland Christmas !!!

December 28, 2011February 6, 2022 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello there

I hope that you are all well and happy and that you have had a very good Christmas. We had an excellent time at Disneyland as we expected to and thoroughly enjoyed our first Disney Christmas. Thanks to my very lovely children I have now have a new camera which they let me open before the trip so was able to take some very good pics.

We arrived back safely on Boxing Day evening despite high winds that made for a bit of a bumpy landing and since then have been relaxing (I am on leave for the next two weeks which is wonderful!)

I have finished my latest stitched item, this is a gift for my aunt who lives in Spain. She loves antique style frames, I can’t remember where I got this one from but I have had it for a while and the blackwork design is from an old copy of New Stitches magazine issue 106.

I am off to Spain at the weekend where it is nice and sunny and am really looking forward to it. Hope that you all have a very happy New Year wherever you are and see you in 2012!

A very merry Christmas to you!

December 20, 2011 stitchesoftime3 Comments

christmas pic for blog

Well this is my last post before we set off for our little trip to the Magic Kingdom so I just thought I would wish you all a very happy festive season. I hope that your Christmas is everything you want it to be, that you spend lots of time with the people you love the most and that you have joy and peace and happiness in your lives.

Take care and see you all in 2012!

I’m the happiest Christmas tree …..

December 18, 2011December 18, 2011 stitchesoftime2 Comments

As you may remember last year I was a bit disappointed with the look of my tree, it had lots of mass-produced shop bought baubles and very little that was unique so I have worked very hard this year and am proud to say that this year every single thing on it is either hand-made or a special ornie bought at places like Disneyland, visits or craft fairs so all have lovely memories attached to them.Here is the lovely tree with some close up pics of some of my special things.

I have also made some new baubles for the mantelpiece to go with the tree skirt I made last year and moved the other set to the hallway where they co-ordinate with the little trees and hanging from last year.

I had a lovely time last weekend with my very good friend Kerry, we went to the Xmas Fair and special event at Tatton Hall, where we go each June for a re-enactment event. That takes place at the Tudor Old Hall but we had never visited the later manor house so went for a lovely day out. The craft fair was very nice, I bought some ornies (surprise!) and this very cute little Xmas cake shaped like an Xmas pud.It goes very well with my knitted Xmas pud that I bought from the WI craft stall a couple of weeks ago.

The manor house was gorgeous, the theme was a Venetian Christmas and they had the whole house decorated with trees, displays and baubles, it was heaven for an ornie addict like me.No pics were allowed as usual in historic properties so you will just have to imagine the loveliness, there were lots of ornies based round peacock feathers in purples and turquoises.

We walked around listening to the chamber orchestras they had playing imagining ourselves to be guests at a Downton Abbey style house party and bought some lovely spiced mead and quince chutney for our forthcoming Xmas buffet this week.I also bought a couple more packets of beautiful paper napkins, one Xmas themed (which now makes about 5 sets of Xmas napkins!) As well as the Xmas fabric addiction I have a slight napkin addition – especially Xmas ones, well at least they do get used up!

I have ordered a gourmet smoked cheese hamper from a friend, Martin, who has his own business supplying fine foods so we are looking forward to some very nice food this week. We are having pretend Xmas dinner on Tues and my brother and partner round on Weds for a buffet. Ellie is home for the holidays and today we have been making gingerbread – very festive!

The winner of my blogaversary giveaway was Thimbleanna – I am posting her ornies tomorrow, they may just make it to the USA in time for Xmas but at least they will keep till next year if not!

I do hope that all your preparation for the festive season is going well.

See you all soon and thank you very much for visiting.

A little pre- Christmas pressie for me!

December 9, 2011 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hello there

I do hope you are surviving the freezing weather, wind rain and whatever else the heavens are throwing at you – roll on Spring, am bored of cold and wet now!

Way back in the Summer I ordered myself a little gift from my incredibly talented friend Pat Buckle who paints the most wonderful medieval pictures. Pat has recently started painting a new set of pictures depicting medieval trades so I ordered one of me as an embroiderer, in my blue dress. It arrived this week and isn’t it stunning!

It goes really well with the one I already have of me in my nun’s role as it is the same colours, I have them both on my mantlepiece in my bedroom where they look fantastic. I also have a large painting of the Archangel Michael fighting a dragon and a triptych of St Andrew (if we get any good light in the next few months I will try to take pics of these!).

Do go and visit Pat’s website and marvel at her talent, she is a genius and a very lovely lady as well!

I am off to Tatton Hall on Sunday for their Xmas Fair so will take some pretty pics and will see you later. Don’t forget to post on my blogaversary giveaway before then.

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.

Winter Exchange

Photo Scavenger Hunt – January

Medieval Art

Silk!

Stitching for sanity

Photo Scavenger Hunt December

Disneyland Christmas !!!

A very merry Christmas to you!

I’m the happiest Christmas tree …..

A little pre- Christmas pressie for me!