Spectacle case

More felt, made with much the same ingredients as the heart, but to give it more substance, lined and interlined with more felt.

I cut the outside layer to the size and shape I wanted, then folded the two inner layers around a broom handle to 'take up the slack' with the black layer on the outside. I then tacked the layers together around the edge before stab stitching and lastly cutting the inner layers level with the outside edge.

Heartfelt flowers

Inspired by things I have seen on Pinterest I've been having fun with felt; I made the heart as a Christmas gift for a friend, the same one as appreciated the crazy patch heart I made in 2008. That link shows a photo taken before it was finished off, but you will get the idea. The large flower shapes on this year's heart were cut using the Cuttlebug and a Sissix die, the smaller ones by hand after I tried without success to punch them with an ordinary paper punch. The leaves were made by cutting a Cuttlebug flower into sections. The beauty of working with felt is that the flowers can be attached with simple large stitches, and there is no need to worry about fraying edges. I used scraps of floss that hadn't made it into my filing system for one reason or another, but enjoyed the wild and tangled lifestyle of the plastic container of odds and sods on my cluttered work table. A little subtle bling of pearls and bronze beads, a few flower sequins and a black ribbon with a picot edge softened the bright colours, and I was happy with it.

Finished stitching...

...the Wildflower Hearts square. My home-dyed threads didn't have as much variation as the Caron wildflowers, so I combined one thread of each colour to stitch the outside octagons. I should have fiddled a bit more in PS before posting these photos as the forest green looks quite dull and dark here.

A Little Stitching

I've not felt like stitching the picture on the big slate frame, so have been working on a series of small things either in a small frame or held un-stretched in my hand. At the moment I am working on Wildflower Hearts, a freebie from Caron Threads. The original was worked in Caron Wildflower, an overdyed thread that comes in a series of beautiful colour combinations; I can't stretch the budget that far, but have adapted what I have in stash. A dark terracotta and a dark forest green matte stranded cotton, both overdyed with a red and a yellow fabric marker to give a subtle variation in tone, rather than the pronounced variation of the original.


The Rhodes stitch hearts are worked with two threads, as is the reverse faggot stitch of the surrounding square. I have used a single strand for the back stitch, and to save fastening off and fastening on for the rice stitch squares, I have made each stitch twice with a single strand. When I have finished the square, I think I shall surround it with the remains of the fabric I used as backing for these postcards. The colours are quite a good match, despite what the camera says, and I think it would make a cushion for somebody.

What else have I done lately? Not a lot, as we seem to have been on a merry-go-round of nurse-doctor-hospital-nurse-doctor-hospital, but hopefully now we are out of the loop again until halfway through January, and I can get back into my usual routine of total idleness interspersed with gentle bouts of finger twiddling.

Friendship Heart

I stitched for Pam for her birthday. As usual, in my rush to send it off in time, I forgot to take a photo, but this is the one she posted to the Group, so I have snagged it...

Harbour

Thanks to Eve, who sent me the hank of Anchor floss I needed, I have now finished another inherited cross stitch picture. The photo is a bit lopsided because I had it pinned to the curtain, but you get the idea. Eve didn't want anything in return as she said it was returning favours from the past, but I can't resist finding homes for my orphans, so I sent her this heart, stitched as a try-out for some space dyed threads.

There is too much tone difference in the pink, but I can soon add more colour to the pale sections of the hank so that the fuchsia doesn't stand out so much.


The next inherited UFO is already on the frame; it's a birth announcement picture of two mice and a pair of tulips, with half a mouse completed. This had been left in a hoop and was quite grubby, but it has washed well enough to be finished. The one mark that didn't wash out can be covered by an extra bee. This is a picture of the finished article that I found on line.

It's too hot to do much of anything...

...but I have been doing a little light stitching. When my friend Dot died last September, I inherited a number of started stitcheries pushed into a bag with a tangle of threads. Then a couple of weeks ago another friend passed onto me a couple more she had been given by a very elderly neighbour who was in the process of clearing the decks before I die...again, in the bag, was an assortment of un-numbered threads; some wound around cards and others in a tangle.

I have been able to finish this one of hedgerow flowers, as luckily the packaging and charts were in the bag with the cloth. It took the best part of an afternoon to untangle the threads, sort them into colours, and with the help of an ancient Anchor colour chart (lots of the newer numbers are not on it) loop them through the appropriate hole in the cardboard strip that was provided. Why this had not been done originally I have no idea. I have been stitching away for weeks now, on and off. It was very grubby, and had rust marks down one edge where the needles had been left in. I soaked it overnight in warm water and washing up liquid, but it is still not what one would call pristine. I may have to apply a little gentle agitation in a second wash before I do anything else with it. The rust stains haven't washed out of course, but they won't show if I decide to have it framed with a mat. If it doesn't come out clean after the next wash, I shan't bother with the expense.

The next one is already on the slate frame; Harbour View it is called. The instructions call for a lot of half cross stitch with a single strand on sea and sky. The stitcher has ignored this and stitched full cross stitch with two strands over the sky with the result that there isn't enough thread left to stitch the sea. There are only two shops in town that sell embroidery threads, and they both only stock DMC, not Anchor, so I have had to substitute from my stash. Having done quite a bit of stitching last night, I can now see that the thread I chose is a shade too light and hardly shows at all against the white Aida, so it is snip not stitch tonight...

Colour Fast

In the past I have tested my home dyed threads by wetting them and ironing them onto white cloth. They appeared to be colour fast. Now I am pretty sure they are, because unloading the dishwasher just now, I found a hank swinging from the top rack, its colours just as bright and fresh as when I first dyed them. Don't ask me how it got in there; all I know is that it was thread I was using until quite late last night because Bossman was watching Man U, and I can only think that it was on my person somewhere, and fell into the dishwasher as I went to put my nightcap mug in before going to bed.

Tea for Two

My friend KR and I had a little fabric ATC swap with a tea theme. She sent me an elegant stamped greetings card enclosing two pretty QTCs of fused teapots set on an oriental fabric background, with added beads and gold stamping. I sent her a cross stitch teapot and cups. As quite often happens, I was in such a hurry to send it on its way that I forgot to scan it before posting, but to give you an idea, here is the pattern I used, from 50 tiny Tea Motifs by Jorja Hernandez.

A Scissor Keeper...

...from a pattern I found on The Drawn Thread. I had some oddments of home dyed thread I wanted to test, and this seemed an easy pattern. The pink to red thread is Coats crochet cotton left over from a batch dyed years ago with Dylon Cold, the green shaded thread and the pink/yellow is a Spanish crochet cotton dyed with Chromotex T shirt pens.

I've cheated on the photos because I haven't shown just how un-square this is! I used cloth that wasn't quite evenweave, and so when I stitched the side seams following the instructions, I ended up with a rather interesting twisted shape. I don't seem to have photo of the hanging loop, either. I made it with the remainder of the red/pink crochet cotton.

I've spent a few hours cross stitching this week, embroidering a band on a guest towel for a friend's birthday; wrapped up and dispatched before I remembered to photograph it...

On the Rocks

Photo found here...thank you!

I have a dozen or so blogs in the Embroidery section of my Blog Reader. Most of them I just use as eye-candy; admiring the work, but realising that I can never reach their level of expertise. When I see work by Hideko, Judy, and others of their ilk, I am full of admiration, but I am not really inspired. On the other hand, when I make my almost daily visit to The Beauty of Life, a blog that started off in the Embroidery folder, but now promoted to the Must Read "A" list, I always come away inspired by Paula's handiwork, or entertained by her writing. On Tuesday, she showed some embroidered paperweights she was making for a PIF, and referred to others that she had made in the past. In her usual generous way, she shared how she made them, and from where her inspiration came. I couldn't wait to try. My first thoughts were of lichen on rocks; the pink marble outcrops in my garden have their patches of bright yellow and silver grey, but a search of Google Images found the photo above, showing much more varied colours, although on an equally pinkish rock.

I didn't have any pinky grey felt, but I did have a felted pinky grey vest in the depths of my duster bag. My camera has its own weird take on colour. I have had to play with the following photos to get the thread colours to look anything like the real colour, but take my word for it, the pebble is covered in a bit of Gran's pink vest...


I have only used French Knots. The tapestry wool is DMC Colbert, given to me by a friend who had a few odd part skeins left over from a project. It is thicker than ordinary Anchor or DMC tapestry wool, and so ended up in a bit bag of thread I used for making needlepoint spectacle cases, rather than in the boot box that holds regular gauge needlepoint threads. I rummaged around in my stranded threads for matching colours and added a few more knots, but it all looked rather flat, so around the grey knots, I tried using a variagated lavender coloured floss, and I felt much happier with the result.


Five or six years ago, I brought some Dylon Cold Water dye back from the UK, and had great fun dying cheap white embroidery floss. Most of it has now been used, but I have some odds and ends left. Suddenly, lichen went out of the window, and I had rock garden in mind! When it became clear I would need more greens, I decided variagated was the easy way to go, but I didn't have any, so needs must when...etc.

I have some Cromotex fabric painting felt tip pens. They are cheap as chips, but they do what they say on the packet; colour fibre. I used a shallow plastic tray, scribbled patches of all my colours onto the tray, sprayed them with water and pressed odds and ends of green floss onto the resulting wetness, spraying as I went until the thread was damp enough to absorb the colour and blend it. A quick blast from my heat gun dried it and set the colour, and a swift swipe with the iron smoothed out the kinks and restored the shine. I think I need to find a source of Dylon again...I feel this may only be the first of a series of Rock Gardens...

And my heart will go on...

....and on...and one day may get where I want it to go..but in the meantime, Paula's suggestion that I embroider pansies in the left hand patch was an excellent one, but I had already bitten the bullet and repeated the buttonhole wheel. I have unpicked the orange fly stitch from the seam on the left, and it already looks better, but I still have a mish-mash where that seam meets the stars. I think the time has come to pin it up where I can see it and let it brew for a while.

Yesterday was a downer, as first thing in the morning we had a phone call to say that a dear old friend had died bang on midnight. I say bang, because as her son later told us, being determined to last the year, she went just as the fireworks started. I'm not sad for her, as she has had a painful few months, and said she was ready to go, but I am very sad for her husband. They have been married for 62 years, and he is going to find life very hard from now on. I just hope he can forgive me for wishing him a happy new year when I picked up the phone.

I'm not happy...

...with the curved Herringbone seam to the left of the centre. I think I shall unpick it. I added some shiny orange Fly stitches, but they haven't improved things, just made it more of a jumbled mess...I think it needs something more regular in its spacing.

I am happy with the beads on the bush, and I decided on a buttonhole circle to fill the left hand patch's space. I still need to do a chain stitch border like this around it and the third fan. I have added some straight stitch arrows in a single strand of black, and may add something or other to the centres.

The stars at the bottom have had another layer added, and some black French Knots. I'll finish off the third star when I decide what I am doing with the centre left seam. I used the scanner to produce these pictures. I can't complain about the focus, but the colour is a bit off; in real life the colours are warmer.

Happy New Year Everyone; Happy Crafting!

Gilding the Lily...

....or in this case; the pansy. This is the first stage of the embellishment. For those who haven't got any embroidery books at home, I'm going to link the names of stitches to Sharon B's wonderful stitch dictionary. The black Chevron stitch on the seam between 1 and 2 was made with two strands of embroidery cotton. This has been overlaid with Fly stitch in some shiny orange rayon thread with a tight twist, and topped with Lazy Daisy stitches with one strand of embroidery cotton from a hank I space dyed in shades of yellow. I shall probably refer to home dyed threads quite often, as I enjoy using them. Some are the result of a day spent playing with a variety of different types of thread and three tiny pots of Dylon cold water dye in a red, a blue and a yellow, others are made using fabric painting felt tips on damp thread, ironed dry to set the colour....but that's a story for another day...

I haven't done anything along the seam between 1 and 3 because it is only a small patch, and I have chosen to fill it with a pattern. Here you can see how far I have done, making stars with two strands of space dyed tan floss. This will be added to at a later stage.


Next you can see the green Feather stitch vine curving up and over the right hand side of the heart. I have tried to match the green of the stem to the green of the pansy leaf. It needed to be darker for an exact match, but I used two strands of the closest green embroidery floss that I had. The leaves/flowers, I haven't decided which yet, are Lazy Daisy stitches made with a double strand of home dyed rayon. This is a complete pain in the backside to sew with, as it has no twist at all, and is composed of many, many very fine strands that fuzz up in no time at all, but it has such a wonderful shine, and takes colour so easily, that it makes up for all the swearing. The space dying of the thread, combined with the use of two strands together leads to a wonderful variation in the colouring that I think brings it to life.

I haven't decided how I shall continue with this, but I may do something like this next picture. Having a good margin around your heart gives you a space to experiment with colours and stitches...
I have used the shiny orange rayon twist to place three Buttonhole fans along the seam of patch 5. More stitches may be added later. The seam treatment between 1 and 4 is a simple shaped Herringbone, first in black, then overlaid with a space dyed peach, each stitch just to the left of the black stitch. To mark the curve I have stitched, I used a strip of micropore tape cut to shape. I love this tape; it stays where it is put, but peels off without leaving a mark. I use straight strips with measured out pencil dots as a guide to keep my stitches even when that is needed. I shall probably add to this at a later stage, but for now I have to decide what to do with that patch of pale yellow shirt on the left. It is too glaringly light at the moment. Do I extend the Herringbone seam? Do I enlarge on the fan? Do I add an embroidered motif or a scrap of lace? A cluster of buttons or beads? Decisions, decisions....I may be gone some time, so don't wait up....I might not come back until next year...

QTC from KR

This little work of art is from my friend KR; one of a series of Landscapes that she did for an Exchange on her Quilt Group. This is entitled Sunlit River, and isn't that just what it is?

Spec-ulation

For some time I have been making needlepoint spectacle cases, sometimes using normal canvas, and sometimes using plastic canvas as a base. They have been quite well received as gifts. As usual, most of them have gone off to their recipients before I have thought to record them for posterity, but there are some that I use myself, in particular, this one with the hollyhocks; just a scrap adapted from a much larger canvas in a Jill Gordon tapestry book that I have. There is a picture of another of her hollyhock designs here. I have attached a neck cord to this one so that I have my magnifying glasses always to hand. (Bossman thinks I should hang my keys around my neck as well!) At the Craft Club on Monday, Sally asked if she could commission me to make one to give to her 96 year old mother, as she was always losing her specs. She also said that she didn't want to pay a lot as she was planning on giving her lots of small presents for Christmas. I asked how much she was willing to pay, and she said between €5 and €10. As it takes between 10 and 15 hours to stitch one side...say a minimum total of 25 hours to stitch two sides, line and overcast with wool, I told her that I am more than willing to put in that effort if I am making a gift for someone, but not to sell it for less than the cost of the materials. At her crestfallen look, I offered to make her mother a less complicated version, after all, the idea was that she should have her specs to hand, not that she should have the needlepoint...so here is the patchwork version with ribbon for the neck, made with some of the scraps sent by Kate in return for some stiff interfacing.

Here she is...

My first attempt at a Dottee Doll, except that as usual, I can't stick to the instructions and she is a different shape and has a different face altogether from Dot's original design! I want to make Winter dolls, so I cut out three bodies, each slightly different in shape, from a piece of very soft white needlecord that had once been a shirt. I ironed a piece of bond-a-web to the back of the face area and marked the face oval and cut it out. I made three faces yesterday, two on Vilene and one on a scrap of cotton. This is Vilene, and the features are drawn with coloured pencil and permanent pen. The pencil colour has disappeared into the fabric overnight, so I think I shall have to add a little more colour with a fabric pen. I had intended to put some red fabric behind the Vilene to give it a more fleshy tint, but only remembered after I had stuffed and sewn up her bottom, so she is very much an Ice Maiden. Her head has been decorated in the prescribed manner with beads, sequins and embroidery, and the embroidery continues around her body to add a little interest. I found it an enjoyable little project that only took a couple of hours while catching up on my downloaded podcasts from the Beeb. If you would like to have a go, there are instruction videos galore on Youtube to help you.

Guess what I'm making...

Colouring lace

I was undecided about the lace square on the CQ heart, and I have now coloured a piece of lace to compare the two. The colours are a little more saturated in real life, as the harsh light of the scanner does it no favours. For anyone interested in how I do this, I use fabric felt tips and a child's blitzer, a simple squeezy bulb device that forces a stream of air past the tip of the pen and deposits a spray of colour on the surface beneath. By wetting the lace first, you force the colours to blend as they spread out. The results are fairly random, as it is difficult to control the amount of ink that is sprayed, or where it falls. I only have a few colours, so it is guesswork at this stage. You will see the odd spot of yellow at the end of the petals where I have attempted to make a different shade of green.
Here it is in place on the heart. I still haven't made my mind up, so I shall leave it hanging where I see it every time I come to the computer, and after a while I hope it will speak to me.

Work in Progress

A CQ heart, not yet stuffed because I'm not sure if I want it rounded or just padded a little. The lace square over the ribbon loop is not yet stitched down because it will help to cover the central seam I left open on the back. Neither am I sure if I want to leave it that colour or paint it. Any and all suggestions will be welcome as I am a complete beginner at this CQ malarky...