Simple Pleasures

September 3, 2011 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hello there

Hope that you are all having a nice weekend, I have been very busy with decorating since early this morning so have decided to have a nice sit down and do a post with a cup of tea before I go and cook.

Ellie has gone back to University – we helped her move in to her new house on Thursday and left her to unpack.She has got a bigger room this year which is good as she had a lot of stuff! It is a very nice house with a brand new kitchen (not at all like student digs in my day!) so I’m sure she will be very happy there.

I had a good journey back just sitting stitching another JBW Xmas ornie with a cup of tea, looking at the lovely views out of the train window now and again. It was a very lovely couple of hours and I really enjoyed it. I do love using trains, I’m sure that driving is very useful and I can see the advantages sometimes but I was very happy sitting and relaxing with my stitching and reading my book.I felt very peaceful and mellow, it was great!

I have treated myself this week to some new books that have been on my wish list on Amazon for a while so I thought that I would show you them (in the absence of any finished stitching – do have two Xmas ornie WIPs which should be done soon!) I do love reading – again another one of my fave things to do and am very sad that the book below is the last in the series at the moment. I started reading the Elm Creek Quilt series last year on the recommendation of a friend from knitting and I love them, they are a wonderful mix of quilting patterns, history and the story of the women who make the quilts.

This book as you have probably guessed is about the American Civil war and picks up the stories of the lives of some of the quilters in earlier books such as The Sugar Camp quilt and The Lost Quilter. I really hope that there are more planned for the future!

My other great pleasure is of course finding out more about the history of needlework and this is a book I have had on my wishlist for a long time, I noticed last week that there was a very cheap second – hand copy for sale so snapped it up. The book is a history of American Needlework written by Rose Wilder Lane, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder of ‘Little House on the Prairie’ fame. It was Rose who encouraged Laura to write all her books, being a successful author herself and I can’t wait to get some time to study this in more depth.

Here is just a little taste of the lovely stuff inside, some red embroidery, traditional patchwork blocks and an applique quilt from the Brooklyn Museum.

I have also treated myself to some new JBW patterns from Sew and So – yet more little Xmas ornies! I love these as they are so quick to stitch.

My last treat is some new silk thread from The Silk Mill to stitch all these ornies with – an Xmas colour pack and some extra greens as they are having a 35% off sale until the 5th Sept – to good to miss. That has not arrived yet but will take a pic of it when it does for you so you can admire the silky loveliness!

Well I do hope you all have a lovely week ahead, we are gearing up for the start of a new term with Jake back at college this week, my new students will arrive the week after so it will be all go then, no time for being mellow but I will try to factor in lots and lots of stitching time!

Thanks for visiting.

London Life Part One – the bit where we see famous people!

July 10, 2011August 23, 2011 stitchesoftime1 Comment

We have just got back from a very lovely, very busy trip to London and I have so many pictures of beautiful places to show you I have had a hard job editing them down to a few to post.

We visited the British Museum, the Museum of Natural History, the British Library and Hampton Court as well as Canary Wharf and Leicester Square on the evening of the Harry Potter premiere.I will post the historical venues later on in the week but meanwhile here’s what we got up to at the premiere.

We knew we had very little chance of getting near to see anything much as we only arrived on the afternoon and there were people who had been camping out for days. Here is a pic of the kids at one of the blocked off sections of the square by the publicity hording.

However we were lucky enough to get to the back where the stars were arriving in their cars (the largest collection of silver Bentleys with blacked out windows in the world!) and peek through the hoardings surrounding the square to be able to see lots of red carpet activity.It was very amusing trying to work out who we might be seeing – we realised the next day when we saw pics in the paper that we had seen Helena Bonham Carter (recognised the hat!) We worked out we probably saw everyone arrive but since they were all behind their blacked out windows can’t really saw we saw them!

Sadly we did not see the main stars but we did meet a lot of very lovely people who were very excited, like us, just to be there and Ellie and Jake got interviewed and broadcast live on BBC Radio London which was fab! The pic below shows them with the reporters.

I can’t find the live interview but here is a link to the earlier interview the reporter did with them that went up on Twitter and the pic from the Twitter site.You can just see one of the fans peeking over the top trying to see who had arrived!

http://audioboo.fm/boos/406900-harry-potter-fans-gather-at-trafalgar-square-for-the-final-premiere-of-the-series

Later on in the week we went to Comicon – a Sci – fi film and magazine convention where we did see lots of very famous people from TV and movies close up, there were stars from films such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter and TV series like Buck Rogers, Doctor Who, Firefly as well as loads of fans dressed up.

We saw some very nice Storm Troopers, a Charles Xavier (Professor X from X Men – we have just been to see the new movie which was brilliant), Wolverines, a Klingon, a few R2D2s, some Disney princesses and too many Dr Whos to keep track of – more Matt Smiths than David Tennants and only a couple of the older Doctors – sadly no John Pertwees who was always my favourite doctor (probably because most of the people at the convention were not born when he was the Doctor!) Anyway it was a really fun day and the kids were very excited – the same as I was at Hampton Court. I have started watching all the Tudor series again tonight in homage.

As it was London and we were living the glamorous city life we had some very nice meals out and had a special picnic on the train on the way back from Marks and Spencers including this very lovely little glass of wine, you may remember that last year I posted about portable wine containers in my post on Glamping. This plastic glass full of Chardonnay came from the chiller cabinet with a peel off lid! Very useful.

I made good progress with my fabric Xmas ornies before I went away – I now have about 20 in various stages of completion – here are some pics of the crazy patchwork ‘sheet’, the cutting out and one of my newest finished batch in case you want to use this method to make your own.By careful placing of the heart I managed to get 8 cut out of this sheet. The final pic shows the backing fabric I have used as well. I added a small Xmas tree button to this set from the packs I bought at the Malvern Quilt Show a while ago.

I appear to have solved the problem with the fabric pics on my posts being wavy lined, I thought it was my old camera but realised that when I looked at them in slide show preview that wasn’t happening , it seems it was my photo editor software, am using another one now and pics are a lot clearer!

I spent part of this afternoon working on the Makower farm animal quilt which needs to finished in a couple of weeks for a family birthday present. Am making up my own pattern so it is very challenging – think I know what I am doing but am being very careful cutting out!

Don’t forget to post a comment on my giveaway post if you would like to win an ornie. Thanks for visiting.

A giveaway

July 3, 2011 stitchesoftime9 Comments

Hello everyone

I hope that you have all had a nice weekend – it has been a very hot and sunny one here in Yorkshire and much garden fettling has taken place including the clearing of weeds from a neglected area at the bottom of the garden, thanks kids for your sterling work today. We have had a lovely BBQ this evening as well!

It has almost been too hot in the conservatory to do any fabric fettling but Ellie and I did a little bit today and I have some pics to show you from earlier in the week.We have been making a whole load of very cute pincushions from her Simple Sewn Gifts book that she got for her birthday and I have been helping by cutting out the fabric. These are very lovely.

There is one for her with a very cute frog button.

One for her auntie as she loves cats.

One to go with the scissor keep she made as a donation for the ‘Put em Ins’ that we are making for the Quilter’s Guild Tombola at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in August (Put em Ins are anything you can put things in).

One for me to match ny WIP sofa throw in the lovely medieval fabric.

I am still sewing my little patchwork Xmas hearts which leads me to the giveaway which is the title of my post. It was my birthday this week – the kids were kind enough to buy me this lovely card!

Ellie also made me a very pretty bag and is making me a jewellery roll in the same fabric to go with it.

It is also my 204th post right here, right now – I had meant to have a giveaway to celebrate the 200th post which was last week sometime but missed it so thought I would do it now as a birthday and blog celebration.

I am offering an Xmas ornie as I love doing them and it can be any one of your choice – either a stitched one or a patchwork – tree, heart etc anything at all. If you click on the ‘Xmas Ornies’ link in my Category Cloud you will see all the ones I have ever made so pick your favourite one. To enter please leave a comment on this post telling me what you would like to have . I will pick the winner in two weeks on the 17th July.

We are off to London next week for a little holiday – lots of museum visiting and we are going to lurk around the premiere of the last Harry Potter movie on Thurs in the hope of seeing some stars! Hope that you all have a lovely week ahead and thank you for visiting.

Unseasonal Stitching

June 26, 2011 stitchesoftime3 Comments

Hello there

It has been a very busy week for me – work wise, family wise and crafting wise. We have got a lot done this week – am spending most of the next couple of weeks at work finishing off the marking and admin for this year’s group of students and starting the planning for next year so we shall be busy before we go away on holiday.

Jake has been very busy with his assignments as he finishes college next week – he has been doing some very impressive 3D modelling as part of his Games Design course. We went to Teeside University Open Day this week to look at a Games Design degree for him and this week are going to Newcastle for their Open Day – all very exciting stuff!

Ellie and I have been doing lots of crafting – she has been doing it all week (lucky thing!) but I have only been doing bits evenings and weekends but we have both had a very productive weekend. This is what Ellie finished off this week. The cat is a present for one of the family babies and the bags are for friends of hers, aren’t they lovely – especially the glasses case in the last picture.

The pattern ideas all come from the Cath Kidston Sew book I bought her for her birthday but she has adapted most of them. She is now working on a pile of very cute pincushions from the same book – pics to follow!

I have been mainly finishing and making Xmas ornies this week – hence the title of this post though it has not been very summery weather until today when it was scorching hot so it did seem a little strange in my very warm conservatory with all the doors open putting together Christmas fabric.

The first two pics are stitching finishes – one of the latest in my JBW ornie series with a cute little tree and the other reindeer ornie was a cross stitch mag freebie that Ellie stitched a while ago that I have turned into an ornie.

Both of the backing fabrics for the above ornies were purchases from the recent Malvern Quilt Show and are from Makower’s current Xmas fabric range – I am very pleased with the way that the reindeer ornie matches the backing fabric – as if they had been made for each other!

I have started working on my stock for Xmas craft fairs this year – using the same ideas as I did for all the little patchwork trees last year. This time I am doing some hanging ornies. I have used the same technique of a backing fabric with Bondaweb ironed on and then lots of fabric scraps crazy patchworked on. I have then zig zag stitched all the joins then I cut out the shapes.

I have done a set of hearts this weekend and I think that they look very cute when finished with one of my little brass charms. The pics below show the cut outs with the ‘Merry Christmas’ backing fabric I have used with a couple of finished hearts and a close up of one of the hearts.

Well it is late now and I have a busy week ahead so will have to say bye for now – thanks as always for visiting and have a lovely week!

And relax ………..

June 9, 2011June 9, 2011 stitchesoftime1 Comment

I have just come back from a great week in Spain , I went this time with my lovely friend Kerry who very much enjoyed herself and it is now the end of term so after this week no more teaching . Hopefully I am set for a mellow summer – a lot of marking to be done but I am very much looking forward to the next few months. That is the very nice thing about my job that it is quiet during the best times of the year so that I can get my work – life balance better when the evenings are lighter and the weather nice (though we did return to good old Yorkshire rain which looks set in for the rest of the week!)

Very little crafting was done this week though I did manage to finish a square for Knit in Public Day on Saturday. Lydia from Spun yarn shop here in Huddersfield is having a Knit and Natter on Saturday to sew all of the squares together to make charity blankets – sadly I can’t go as I am teaching but Ellie is going and she has made some squares as well.

Here is mine – the pattern is Moss Stich Diamonds from my Knitters’ Bible book in some left over Sublime yarn.

And these are Ellie’s in garter stitch made from Escape – a lovely variegated wool.

I have also finished another Xmas ornie – a little JBW tree from the Christmas Keepsakes 2 chart from Sew and So that I have backed with pretty red tree fabric, this one I have added seed beads to as well on the tree and all around the edging.

Ellie was busy while I was away – she has used her birthday pressies to make the gorgeous Cath Kidston bag that came with her Sew book and to make some other little bags as well for herself and friends. She says that she is having trouble the straight lines with her quilt but she has made a very good job of the bag – I love the button detail on the side.

Now that I have the batting I am planning to finish off the throws for the sofa soon and am still cracking on with Xmas ornies. Am having a little problem with the pattern for the pink Sublime baby cardi so that is on hold till I can find a correction for the pattern as the instructions for the left front make no sense at all!

I will leave you with a few pics from Spain, the cactuses that I took pics of the last time I went have flowered and here is a lovely door in Oriheula at the cathedral – I could have saved this for the ‘architectural detail’ pic for this month’s scavenger hunt but have many lovely other Oriheula pics to choose from.

We went back to the park in Guardamar where we saw some cute little red squirrels and this time I took some bread for them. They were very tame, here is one letting me feed him with pieces from my hand and a close up of him later playing on a tree.

Hope that you have had a lovely week and are gearing up to Summer. Thanks as always for visiting.

Never too early for Xmas crafting!

May 15, 2011 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hope everyone has had a nice week. I have been getting on well with my Xmas ornie targets for this year – I am aiming to make one new ornie for me a month as well as the usual present ornies and stock for at least one Xmas craft fair. So I will be starting that stock as soon as term finishes at the end of May and I have a bit more time.

So far for me I have finished three JBW stockings (plus a blue one to hang on the conservatory door) and this week completed the JBW Xmas pudding ornie and another one which is taken from a bigger design using blackwork of ivy leaves from one of my old New Stitches magazines. I have made the ivy leaf ornie before for my Project Nepal fundraising but want to re-make a lot of past ornies just for me and this was my demo piece at last week’s WI craft bee. They are both backed with some nice holly fabric from my stash and the pudding one has a great stocking ribbon that I got at the Harrogate show last year.

I am now working on a JBW tree ornie for me. I have put together all of the blocks for my stained glass window Xmas fabric throw with the sashing and this afternoon will do the border which is pieced from all the Xmas fabric used and the backing. Hopefully that will be finished this afternoon as I have been very good and got up early to do the housework and spring clean the cellar!

I am very pleased with the way that it has turned out – I did have a bit of a challenge with the outer sashing as I discovered that the bottom row of blocks were quite a bit smaller than the top row (my inaccurate cutting!) so I had to stretch that row to make it fit but it turned out ok. With the left over block I am going to make a cushion in the same style and have cut out single pieces for a matching cushion. I have also got lots of odd rectangles from cutting the border so thought I would make a small runner for the coffee table so that my room can be very co-ordinated this Xmas.

We had a bit of a show and tell of all the different blocks on Monday at Quilt Group. This is a pic of Davina’s blocks that I took at the workshop which just shows how different the choice of fabric and sashing colour can make the quilt look.

If you go and visit Davina’s blog you can see the pic she took of the original stained glass pattern with solids and black sashing.

I have had a very nice week, very busy at work but I have had a few trips out to visit my students which is always lovely. On Monday I went ‘over the border’ to Nelson in Lancashire. It was a lovely train journey through very beautiful countryside, this is a very historic area full of beautiful hills and moors and lots of industrial heritage – mainly dating from the Victorian era when all the mills were built. Here are a few pics to share with you – the first two are taken at Hebden Bridge station, then there is a view of the hills from the train and the flower was near the college I was visiting.

I hope you have all a nice week ahead. I am very much looking forward to next week as I am going down to visit Ellie in Worcester and we are going to the Malvern Quilt Show ! There may well be some additions to the stash (it would be a shame if there weren’t!) and then I am helping Ellie bring all her stuff back up as she is coming here for the summer this year which is lovely as we can do lots of crafting together.

Thanks for visiting.

Cold hands, warm heart

January 7, 2011March 13, 2011 stitchesoftimeLeave a comment

Hello everyone and welcome.

Hope you are all wrapped up warm and cosy, I am busy knitting woolies at the moment, luckily my LYS opened again yesterday after the hols so I was able to cast on for the last of my knitted gifts – pics of those later when finished. I am making a pair of wristwarmers. That being the item of choice round here at the moment. I have just finished a pair for me yesterday in the nick of time as look what happened again this morning!

Rib wristwarmers 1 — Modelled against a backdrop of my snowy garden

I was not expecting snow again – was only thinking the other day ‘oh this was the really bad weekend for snow last year when me and Jake only just got home as they had closed lots of airports’ and lo and behold it is here again. The wristwarmers will come in very useful, we have a conservatory on the back of the house and it provides a lovely view of the garden while I am sitting working (or blogging!) at my computer but it does get a bit cold in winter and I do have very cold hands a lot of the time.

I was looking on Ravelry for some more patterns the other day and found this very lovely site CreativeYarn with lots of wristwarmers among other things so do go and visit – all patterns are free. This very talented lady (sorry don’t know her name ) lives in Rome – fab city, went once a few years ago and would love to go back. Here is a peek at one of the patterns I am planning to do for me soon.

emerald_handwarmer2 — Moss Stich handwarmers - pic by Creative Yarn

I have recently been reading ThimbleAnna’s brilliant blog (am still going through all the archives which has been a lovely antidote to the marking I have been doing!) Be warned before you visit her – not only is her blog wonderful but she has links to so many other fab people as well , this could take up serious amounts of your time – well I suppose one of my resolutions was to spend more time on fun stuff on less on housework so I can justify ThimbleAnna as a form of therapy!

Well hope that you are keeping warm and happy – thanks again for visiting!

A very merry post Xmas to you – JBW love

December 29, 2010 stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello there

Hope that you all had a lovely festive season – we did despite colds and flu for all of us at some point over the time but we all had a lovely time if very hectic. Everyone has gone now (there were 8 people and a very cute dog in the house for all of Xmas with 13 on Boxing Day so it was very busy and lively) – since then I have mainly being lying on the sofa knitting and stitching – ahh bliss! I had lots of very lovely pressies – lots of books and lots of DVDs to watch while I stitch and knit.

I will start with pics of the festivities – my sister and her kids Sam and Sarah joined us this year as well as my Mum and Nana as it was Sam’s 18th birthday on Christmas Eve so we had a festive bar-b-que at my brother’s house (he likes fires!). I did not get a good pic of Sam blowing out his sparkler candles but here is a slightly fuzzy one of the cake I made him – the sparklers spelled out his name.

Sam's cake - a very yummy spiced choc cake from Sainsbury's magazine

I spent a lot of time cooking and tried out some of my new recipes and had a great time – here is the Xmas dinner table with my new table decs, as well as the little fabric trees that I made I had bought some silver tree name place holders and a new gold table runner from Spain so was very pleased with the way that it all looked.

My lovely sister-in-law Amanda , who is also a big JBW Designs fan, stitched me a card for Xmas and guess what she chose? The reindeer that I have just made two of for my aunt and cousin – I have made him into an ornie so he can hang on the tree again next year as well.

Reindeer from Amanda 1 — Isn't he cute - that is so good as I was planning to stitch him for myself anyway

Reindeer from Amanda 2 — The back of the reindeer ornie - fabric from this year's Xmas stash

She has also lent me some of her JBW patterns so that I can make more ornies – think I will start on the top tree next.

JBW from Amanda — 3 Xmas designs, a cute cat and the autumn pumpkin

I have already started on my next lot of ornies – I completed one before Xmas and one just after – these are from the new JBW Designs stocking sets that I treated myself to just before Xmas. One is for my Mum but is hanging on my tree at the moment for safe keeping!

JBW Stockings 1 — This week's stitches - the one on the left is for Mum

JBW Stockings 2 — The backing fabric - more of my new stash

JBW stocking on tree — It looks even better on the tree!

I am really enjoying these as they are so cute and quick to stitch. They are only about 2″ high.

Have cast on for the last little bit of gift knitting – a purple hat in Sublime which needs to be finished by the end of next week along with the matching wristwarmers. Good job I am not doing anything much for the next few days! I will probably be having a very quiet New Year – the kids are out but I am still full of cold so am planning a night in with the telly and my crafting!

Hope that you have a lovely time whatever you do and wishing you all a very happy 2011!

Thanks for visiting.

Nearly there!

December 19, 2010December 19, 2010 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Well have just finished and uploaded the Xmas newsletter, was great fun deciding which of our many pics to put up. Have been making spiced pear pickle this afternoon to give as a homemade Xmas gift so the house smells very lovely. We had our Xmas party last night which was great fun, Ellie got home just in time before Birmingham station was closed due to snow.

I finished the tree skirt off on Friday so thought I would show you some pics of that.

I cut round a circular mat I have to give me the pattern – I used some red cotton that I had in my stash – then folded this into 16 to give me the template for each piece. I cut a slit in the backing fabric so that I could put it round the tree.I used eight different Xmas fabrics, cutting two segments from each and ironed bondaweb on to the backing fabric then ironed all sixteen pieces on evenly spaced. I then cut a small hole in the centre and zigzagged over all the joins. I didn’t put any wadding between the layers though you could if you wanted it thicker.

Tree skirt WIP — The tree skirt with the centre hole cut out

I then hemmed it all and added a ribbon and voila here it is under the tree!

Tree skirt finished — It looks very pretty - just waiting for the pressies now!

I have taken a couple more pics of the tree just to show you a couple more of my unique ornies. Here is one that I did show you last year – an exchange that I got from the USA, it got delayed due to bad weather so never made it to the tree but here it is this year.

: A beautiful hand stitched ornie from Marlene

The pic below is one of my new crop of baubles for this season – I love making these!

green bauble — A new addition for this year

As I mentioned in my last post I want to stitch more ornies next year so I have ordered these three below from Sew and So – I still have another two that I ordered previously that I have not made yet, a tree and an Xmas pudding and am also going to make myself versions of the lovely ornies I have given away over the last few years. My aim is to complete one a month during 2011 so I will be posting details of how I get on over the year. Once I have finished sorting out the house for Xmas I will snuggle down on the sofa with some mulled wine and make a start!

Well I do hope you have nearly finished your preparations for the festive season. We have got a packed week planned, with visits to the cinema and to an exhibition at the Trafford centre of replicas from Tutankhamun’s tomb, then all the relatives arrive Weds and Thurs for the duration. In between I have a whole lot of marking to do!

Hope you have a very, very lovely Xmas with lots of time for relaxing and crafting. Ellie and I plan to do nothing in between Xmas and New Year except sit, knit and watch girlie movies – heaven!

Thanks for visiting.

Giveaway winner and a few more Xmas finishes

December 13, 2010 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Apologies for not posting about the giveaway sooner, I have had a very hectic weekend and have been working lots and very little time for the fun things in life. Thankfully term is nearly at its end and we now get the bliss that is Christmas holidays with lots of crafting. I do intend to spend an awful lot of this holiday knitting and I have just signed up to do a charity quilt through the Quilt Guild for a local children’s hospice. Don’t have much (or anything really) in the way of kids’ fabric so will have to treat myself to some stash.

Anyway the winner of the 3 year blogaversary giveaway is Elmsley Rose! Please mail me at alison.gorf@yahoo.co.uk with your address and I can send you your goodies. I am going to the post office on Thurs so if you see this before then I can post them then, they may not get to you before Xmas but they will keep!

I have been enjoying the warmer weather here – no snow and spent a very lovely time yesterday decorating the house for Xmas. It took me ages as I just pottered around moving things here and there and trying to decide where best to put everything. I have some new ornies this year as I have made myself some new pine cones and baubles to keep and some little Xmas tree pots. I have also finished the Xmas hanging so that will go up in the hallway later in the week (just need the curtain rod to hang it from.) I machine pieced this then hand quilted it with metallic thread (not a good idea it breaks way too much) them added some of my little brass charms.

Xmas quilt hanging — Jacob very kindly held it up for me!

Xmas quilt hanging 2 — Detail of one of the brass charms on the quilt

Some of the tree pots are in the dining room which has gold and silver colour scheme. These two will be used on the table on Xmas day – they are the same size it is just the perspective!

The others are on the mantelpiece in the lounge along with the mini poinsettia which started it all (the surplus gold pots that I have acquired over the years). Apologies for the quality of the pics – the light was not good as it is a north facing room.I made one of these last year but the matching one took a year to get finished!

Xmas tree pots - multi — The festive mantel

I have also finished some cross stitched ornies- have only done two of these this year due to getting sidetracked by the delights of patchwork! These are from JBW designs and I have added a little charm I bought last Feb in a bead shop in Leeds. I have just been to the web site at Sew and So to add the link for JBW and have seen that they have some new stocking designs. I do love their designs so much, I still have a tree and a plum pudding that I have not done yet but am going to set myself a goal of doing one Xmas ornie a month next year so that I can have another 12 for my tree, as I was decorating it yesterday I was wishing that everything on it was handmade rather than mass-produced baubles so will add to my stock.

Reindeer ornie 1 — Reindeer ornie showing back and front

Reindeer ornies 2 — Detail of ornie showing the charm

My camera is behaving very well at the moment (if the light is ok ) and the pictures are very clear. It must know it’s on its on way out as I have ordered a new one (though will keep it as a spare as am very accident prone with cameras).

Have also started a new project that needs to be done for Xmas (because of course I have loads of time!). I have lost the skirt for the Xmas tree – not that I liked it anyway as it was very polyester and shed glitter everywhere, I may well have thrown it out last year meaning to make another one before this Xmas (oops!)

So this evening before Quilt Guild I cut out another one, I was a bit stuck what to use as a pattern until I remembered that I have a small circular rug so cut a circle a little bigger than that and divided it into 16 and cut out 16 triangles of Xmas fabric (lucky I have some you see for just this type of emergency!). Did not get chance to sew it together as I need more Bondaweb which I will get later this week.

Am aiming to get this made by Friday! I mean this Friday as we are having Xmas party on Sat – not that anyone will notice bare legs on the tree but if not will get it done Sunday as there is the little matter of party food to prepare, yes Mum is going to Iceland for some of it (the little mini fish and chip cones at Ellen’s request) but the rest will be all home-made so I shall have to get cracking!

Well have a lovely week and once again 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.

Tag: xmas ornies

Simple Pleasures

London Life Part One – the bit where we see famous people!

A giveaway

Unseasonal Stitching

And relax ………..

Never too early for Xmas crafting!

Cold hands, warm heart

A very merry post Xmas to you – JBW love

Nearly there!

Giveaway winner and a few more Xmas finishes