TAST 51 - Raised Herringbone Band

This band uses a combination of stitches to produce a very decorative band. It is time-consuming but I do like the finished result.

I had planned to stitch something different but in the end I came up with this colourful Easter-inspired egg.  The satin stitch was done in Janlynn DFN threads (I don't know anything about them, size or even colour - they came in a value pack with no information, but it's a twisted thread about twice the thickness of Perle no. 8), the herringbone in Aida crochet cotton no. 20, and the weaving in Anchor metallic.

Do head over to Pin Tangle to see how the band is worked.  It's well worth reading through the comments to see how people have interpreted the stitch. The TAST FAQ page also lists all the stitches done so far by number so you can easily look at previous examples.

TAST 50 - Inverted feather stitch

I am soooo behind with TAST! But determined that I will catch up at some point.  Here's my attempt at Inverted Feather Stitch.

I'm happier with the idea than the execution.  I think my silhouette is a bit dodgy and as I wasn't using counted thread fabric I should have taken more time to mark out the border to get nice straight edges.  Live and learn :)

Pay a visit to Pin Tangle to see the other offerings.

Pretty Things

A few weeks ago we went to the South Downs and on the way home stopped of at Winchester.  It's a pretty little city best known for its Cathedral.  On the day we visited there was a market in the city centre, where I saw this lovely embroidered bedspread.  There were a lot of other embroidered items on the stall, but restless kids meant that I didn't have a lot of time for photographs.

This wonderful colourful book cover in a museum shop also caught my eye:

Wear Flowers in Your Hair

Last year I opened a shop on Folksy, but it was a bit of a half-hearted affair.  So at the start of this yuear I decided to make more of an effort to fill it and promote it.  It's slow going with all the other things that I've got going on, but slowly but surely I'm getting it together.

My mum used to sell costume jewellery, some of which she made up herself, and during a clear out of her garage she found a HUGE stash of plain metal hair clips in pristine condition, which she donated to me.  Well, they were just crying out for a bit of embellishment and so I accepted the challenge to make them pretty!  I love flowers, and crocheting them so that seemed like a good place to start.  This is what I've done so far (+ a pincushion):

Berry Bakewell on Folksy

What do you think of my crocheted flower hair clips?  I like them, and have actually diverted a couple from the shop for my own use (not a good business model!).  9 down, about 300 to go!

Make do and Mend Monday - Upcycled Denim Skirt

I'm a woman of the large-thighed variety, so this is an unfortunate side-effect of many of my trousers:

Rather than try to patch them up or throw them away I decided to make a skirt out of these jeans.  I can't remember where I saw the trousers-into-skirt thing, but no doubt there are hundreds of tutorials online.  I made my little upcycling project the basis of a couple of my sewing lessons.

First step was to cut the jeans to the length of skirt that I wanted and then to cut down the inside leg seams.

Then I took the bottoms that I'd cut off and cut a piece to match the gap, which I then pinned to the wrong side of the skirt. The piece was then top-stitched in place. Lastly, I added a length of colourful fabric to the hem to brighten the skirt up a bit. Ta dah!

Not a great set of instructions or photos I know, but I just wanted to show you what I did.

You + Me = Home: TAST 44-49

Towards the end of last year I fell quite behind with the TAST challenge.  I meant to catch up by stitching individual samplers for each stitch, and I did do a couple, but in the end I decided to do one ensemble piece that included all the stitches I had missed.  Incidentally, the TAST format has changed a little for 2013.  Stitches are now listed by number rather than by week, the featured work item will be less regular than last year and will feature work that shows any of the TAST stitches, not just the stitch of the week, and there will be a design challenge every 4-6 weeks.  For full details head over to the TAST FAQ page on Pin Tangle.

Inspired by these cute house ornaments I saw on Pinterest I thought it would be nice to try an embroidered version. "You + me = Home" popped into my head and I thought it would be nice to combine the words "you" and "me" within the word "home".  Originally I was thinking that the word "home" would somehow make up the outline of the house, but this is what I ended up with:

I've used arrowhead stitch (45) for the roof, Portuguese border stitch (44) for the window and door frames, knotted cable chain stitch (48) for the door, buttonhole eyelet flowers (46) on the right and knotted feather stitch (49) with berry stitch (47) for the flowers on the left.  I also had my first attempt at stem stitch (14 - needs practice!) and split stitch. Phew!

I like how it's turned out, but if I were to do it again, I think I'd be a little more adventurous with the backing fabric.  I'm also thinking about printing the picture on to the front of as greetings card. What do you think?

Book Review - The Encyclopedia Of Stitches

While out Christmas shopping I came across this book in a discount book store: "The Encyclopedia Of Stitches" edited by Karen Hemingway. 

The cover first caught my eye with the lovely picture of a sampler stitched in brightly coloured threads. After a quick leaf through and at only £5.99 for the hardback I knew I had to get it.

There are chapters on counted thread work, free embroidery (including sections on beadwork, silk ribbon embroidery, stumpwork and more), cut work, smocking and canvas work, with a short introduction into preparing and mounting fabric.  While the chapters don't comprehensively cover any of the areas, they do still present a good variation of stitches.  Each section starts with a brief suggestion about the type of fabrics and threads to use, followed by the stitch guides, and then a project at the end. There are lots of bold, bright colours, which appeals to me, and gives some of the more traditional needlecrafts, like canvas work, a bright, modern look.  The stitch guides are clear and well illustrated although at times a little short.

I would class myself as a beginner embroiderer - I have done some embroidery but there are a lot of stitches and techniques in the book that I haven't tried or come across before.  So I think this would be a great book for someone like me, or someone with a little more experience looking to expand their embroidery repertoire.

2012

It's customary at this time of year to recap the year gone by. From a crafty point of view it's been an excellent year for me mainly because I've moved from just thinking about being creative and making to actually producing and finishing lots of things. I started the year totally obsessed with crochet but towards the middle of the year I got back into sewing and later on, embroidery. 

Right at the start of the year I signed up to the Granny-a-day crochet challenge set by Ali with the hope that it would encourage me to get making, but I soon fell behind and never really caught up. In hindsight I think it would have helped if I'd had a project in mind at the start as producing random granny squares with no plan soon lost its appeal. Also I found the daily challenge a bit stifling after a while. But I did manage to produce a few pretty things, both granny square-related and otherwise.

I also started going to a sewing class which rekindled my love of sewing. An unfortunate side-effect is that it has also rekindled my fabric addiction!

In September I came across the Take A Stitch Tuesday (TAST) embroidery challenge on Pin Tangle and fell in love with it. Embroidery is a skill I really want to develop and I loved the process of learning a new stitch, then thinking of a way to use it and also seeing what everyone else came up with.  Some of the creations were really inspiring.  I missed the last few weeks of the challenge, but fully intend to catch up, and to take part again next year.  The format will be a bit different, but should still be fun and interesting.

Overall I've learnt a lot this year, picked up a few new skills and honed a few old ones. I think I've achieved most of my sewing aspirations for the year, apart from using up my fabric stash, which has instead grown to epic proportions!  I'm looking forward to getting more creative (and productive) in 2013.  How has your 2012 craft journey been?

Patchwork Advent Calendar

I finally got around to making an Advent calendar. It's a little late (ahem!), but as they say better late than never.  I made it using 7x7cm squares of Christmas fabric sewn together in patchwork strips and then attached to a linen background. I sewed up the seams of the individual squares to make little pockets. The spacing of the rows is a bit off, but I really like it and more importantly my 5yo likes it.

5 Reasons to Visit CRAFTfest - The Online Craft Fair

My soapmaking alter-ego, Fairfield Gardens, is taking part in CRAFTfest, an online craft fair, which started on Saturday and runs until 1st December.

There are lots of great reasons to visit, not least the 250 or so stalls to browse through, but here are my top 5:

1. It's on 24/7 so you can dip in and out whenever you feel like it.

2. There is so much to discover. One of the nice things about real-life fairs is finding something new or unexpected.

3. You can bookmark finds. If you're not in the market right now you can bookmark finds and makers that you like and come back to them at a later date.

4. Oodles of inspiration. Let's be honest. Sometimes you're not really interested in buying anything; you just want to look at the stalls and bask in the loveliness. With CRAFTfest there are blogs to discover, Facebook pages to follow, Pinterest boards to covet... You can find a list of most of the stall holders and their various locations on the internet via this CRAFTfest networking spreadsheet.

5. You can browse from wherever you are. It's nice to get out, and be able to touch and smell the goods on offer, but if it's raining buckets, or freezing cold outside, you just don't fancy getting dressed or you're on the move, you don't have to miss out.

So what are you waiting for? Head over to CRAFTfest and start browsing. If you're not convinced here's a taste of what's on offer: