Fully Finished Gallery SAL - February

 Hi Everyone,

Popping in to join Rachel of Ten Hour Stitcher for her Fully Finished Gallery SAL, where we can show our work that has been completely finished since last month´s check-in.

 My fully finished disaster of this month is the book cover which I mentioned in a recent  post and which was destined to cover a future cookery book for my granddaughter.

I had embroidered two different patterns  and chose to use the smaller design and to combine it with  some of my GD favourite fabric colours .

Amongst my embroidery threads, I had some silk floss which I had bought cheaply from a local shop that was closing down and decided to use the bright and glossy plum coloured DMC 30915.

However, my finished embroidery  certainly didn´t turn out bright and shiny at all and while using this floss I learnt that before stitching one should use water to dampen the thread with ones fingers , so to keep the stitches even.

I was going to add some récipes and fotos and lots of pretty pages to the cookery book

but I didn´t really stop and think enough ......

………  my granddaughter is a very young lady and needs something light, bright and fun and  not  `so Victorian´ as my daughter so sincerely pointed out when I gave her a sneak peek of the proposed layout

She is right of course, so the cover has been sent in disgrace to the Dreaded Drawer, never again to see the light of day….. well no …no need to get carried away here, but out of my sight for the moment  whilst I plan something a bit more youthful and modern

In the meantime, plenty to keep me busy, with Valentine´s Day sewing  and Spring just around the corner. 

See you soon

Sheryl 

Let the People Choose - February

 Hello Everyone

Birds is this month´s topic for Let the People Choose SAL hosted by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching,  and I thought that I must have some birds hidden somewhere in my blog to show.

I have only stitched two patterns where birds are the main feature, those being from the Blackwork Flowers and Birds series by Lesley Teare and shown recently on my blog.

I have four more in the series to stitch during the year, they are all bright and colourful.

Love this pattern which I finished with a crochet surround

Bird in Hand is a pattern by Kathy Schmitz and was made into a Christmas ornament with tiny silver seed beads added.

I made this applique mug rug for a teacup exchange and it is a design by Rita of Twinkle Patchwork.

A little applique robin made into a Xmas card a couple of years ago.

And these storks are part of a bizarre wall hanging which I made when I started learning patchwork  over 15 years ago and which I never completely finished and now find dreadful.

Baby Cardinal by Victoria Sampler was stitched twice, as a box lid and as an ornament. As others, I seem to have quite a few stitcheries where tiny birdies can be seen, so I´m just choosing two of those well known patterns.

12 Days of Christmas by  Plum Street Samplers and A trick in my bag by C Mon Monde.

These are the few that I can share today and my favourite photo of all is this little cutie, rescued from a fall by my grandson last summer.

 Sheryl

 

 

Gifted Gorgeousness

 

Hello Stitching Friends,

My first Gifted Gorgeousness post for 2021. This SAL is hosted by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching and involves  showing something stitch related that we have received or have made to be gifted. We can check-in from the 15th until the end of each month. More information clicking here.

I´m joining the group today, with two stitched designs which I have finished this month and hopefully one of them will don the front of a cookery book cover I want to make for my granddaughter.

I stitched this pattern first.  It is called Dame au Gâteau by La Sylphide Toquee ,  It looked a bit pale, so I added some outlining but I think  the design will be too big for the size of the cover I have in mind.

because I want to mix and match the pattern with  an assortment of purple and scarlet fabrics.

I found another little pattern  suitable for a cookery book which I had half completed  some time back and I just finished it off adding  the same pile of little cakes from the first design and the overall size is better , so I will use this embroidery for the book cover.

I have also been knitting a few little jackets for some dolls which a friend of mine makes.  The pattern is one of J. Barrett´s  which I used years ago to make Barbie´s clothes for my granddaughter.              

I haven´t added the buttons as my friend will choose those.

 Sheryl            

  

Thank you for stopping by and looking.

Something Warm

 Hello and a very  Happy New Year to Everyone,

I thought twice about getting up this morning as my phone showed - 4º C, so I had a lazy cuppa while watching the news and only decided to get up when the sun started to enter my windows an hour later.

It´s been very cold lately and I had to find my lap rugs. I found one that I had knitted for my mum-in-law years ago and when she passed away, it was returned to me and I don´t think I ever showed it on my blog.

I wanted to use up some wool stash at the time and just knitted small squares in a variety of different stitches, some fancier than others.

I knitted two blankets at the same time, one mainly blue with a couple of pinky squares and the other all greens and beiges for myself, both with different but very simple crochet edgings.

 

Maybe it´s time I made some different lap rugs something a bit more ambitous

I always enjoy knitting or doing some crochet in winter and my wool stash seems as large as ever… how could that be?

Thank you for stopping by.

Sheryl

Christmas time

 Hello Everyone,

I thought I might pop in with some half forgotten stitching today as everything is calm and quiet at my house  after the hectic days of Christmas cooking and gift wrapping.  Days of continuous coronavirus restriction changes when we didn´t know whether my daughter and the grandkids would be able to spend Christmas with us or not and dithering about whether to send Amazon gifts to my house or to theirs.

I made these little crochet bags last month and somehow never got to post about them

I had been wanting to knit or crochet something, and chose these when I saw them in the magazine Labores, I was pretty sure that I would have some suitable wool without having to buy any.  

and I found these Christmasy colours in my stash and they were quick and easy to make as there was little variation of crochet stitches in the pattern.

and they were just granny squares sewn together.

I thought they might come in handy to hold  Christmas gifts, (in the end they didn´t) but anyway were fun to make.

Thank you for stopping by.  Christmas time blessing and happiness from my family..

to yours. 

Sheryl    

 

Advent Calendar Blog Hop - Day 15

Hello and welcome to day 15 of this year´s Advent Calendar Blog hop hosted by Jo of Serendipitous Stitching.  Check here for the daily links to all participants in this fun hop to get us all in the mood for Christmas.

I was eager this year to start my seasonal stitching well in advance and I started several projects which would  have been finished  by now if there had been more days in November – I´m sure there were less than usual this year.

I´m sharing my efforts at doing a couple of applique hoop decorations as I´d seen some really lovely designs on the internet and thought I would use up some of my felt stash.

Using a piece of net fabric for the background stretched over a hoop. I then  cut out  felt shapes to form a picture, just making it up as I went along – mainly trees as you can see.

I outlined the trees with some Kreinik (bag of bits) sparkly thread which looks pretty but doesn´t show up at all in my photos, added some beads and sequins and then  surrounded the pattern with a piece of trim, forming a loop for hanging.

Jo asks us to mention a favourite Christmas book or story and I really haven´t got one.  I remember as a child having a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale book which I loved and in particular The Snow Queen and The Steadfast Tin Soldier.

I also treasured the book Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and should still have my copy hidden away somewhere. 

This book as everyone  knows has several different film adaptations, the first being in 1933, although I think there was a silent film versión in 1917 - and the latest remake just last year, directed by Greta-Gerwig.  It will be interesting to see just how far this latest versión differs from the original story written in 1868.

Many thanks to Jo for organising once again this blog hop which I hope everyone is enjoying.

Merry Christmas to all and Happy Stitching.

Sheryl

Cards

 Hi Everyone,

I´ve been really busy this week working on my Christmas stitching, jumping from one project to the next and doing a bit of crocheting again – which I always seem to do at this time of year and then started worrying about how to send Xmas cards if I couldn´t even buy them locally due to our lockdown.

I sorted through a briefcase overflowing with my old cards thinking that I could repurpose some.  My stepmum who lives in Cyprus always sends me really pretty ingeniously repurposed cards but I only got as far as looking through  the cards and reminiscing all the afternoon .

Well, I could try and make some fabric cards using a gorgeous fabric called Heavenly Pixies by Michael Miller which I bought years ago at our local patchwork shop and had no idea at the time just what I would use it for.

And then some festive fabric, I´m getting really low on that, another one for the backing , some batting and I also added another stiff interfacing.

I did a small cross stitch greeting to add to the back  of the card and that´s about it,  Don´t think they look too bad.

Having now finished  these cards , I can get visiting my blogging friends and see what everyone is doing.

Sheryl