Sewing, stitching, baking, cooking, gardening, shopping and general homemaking.
Wednesday 31 December 2008
Tea Parties
Sunday 21 December 2008
Machine Sewing
Friday 5 December 2008
Paper Trees
Wednesday 26 November 2008
Isle of Man Patchwork
Sunday 23 November 2008
Cards
Tuesday 11 November 2008
Crazy Quilting
Tuesday 21 October 2008
Saturday 18 October 2008
This Week
Monday 6 October 2008
Swaps
Wednesday 1 October 2008
Paper Crafting
This type of card is very quick to make. I had to make some cards for a charity coffee morning that a friend is giving. In less two days I made over 30 cards using this method, basically it's just gluing things in place on the card. I don't like them much myself but they are popular at fund raisers.
Thursday 25 September 2008
A Good Few Days
The success with the advent calendar spurred me on to get this Christmas wall-hanging finished. I started it a few years ago, I can't remember how long ago but at least 2 years. I was trying to be too elaborate with the quilting and it got boring. This morning I just put the backing on it and left it as it was, it looks fine!
Wednesday 10 September 2008
Autumn
Wednesday 3 September 2008
Scissors
Making the scissor cases made me look through my scissor 'collection'. I think I've been unconsciously collecting scissors! I remember when I was a girl at home, we had one pair of scissors and they were useless for cutting anything, they were not sharp and they were loose. I wonder if this is the reason I have a pair of good scissors for every occasion??? Also several pairs of scissors that I just think are pretty. The ones shown here are all sewing related, I have lots more for my paper crafts too.
Saturday 30 August 2008
Looking Back - The Lake District
Wray Castle to Ferry House, Windermere. We took a boat to Ambleside then another boat over to Wray Castle. The walk to Ferry House was very pretty, even the weather was sunny and cheerful for our 4 1/2 mile walk. At Ferry House we got another boat back to Bowness, where we were staying.
Loughrigg Fell can be seen in this picture, I don't know anything about the house, I just thought it looked very picturesque. This was on our trip to Ambleside. After getting off the boat at Waterhead, Ambleside, we walked along the side of the River Rothay to Rothay Park via the ruins of Galava Roman fort.
We spent a week self-catering at Bowness on Windermere in May. The house was lovely and had great views, the weather was the best I've ever known it in the Lake District, so altogether this was a beautiful holiday, I've thought about it a lot this summer. We intend to go back to the Lake District next May, this time we'll hire a house at Windermere itself.
Friday 22 August 2008
Sewing Kit
Wednesday 20 August 2008
Free Patterns
Monday 11 August 2008
Sewing Machines
Friday 25 July 2008
Fuchsia
Monday 21 July 2008
Shopping and Links
A Few Useful Links
A favourite pastime of mine (and a lot of other people's) is surfing the web looking for stitching related sites. It amazes me how generous stitching people are and I've found some fantastically useful pattern sites. These are just a few I've found recently:
http://www.casamiainitalia.com/hp/information.htm I love this one, her work is beautiful, so artistic and interesting.
http://www.xstitchhappy.com/ An extremely generous blogger, if you like making needlecases etc and stitching on evenweave you'll love this one.
http://www.glorybeestitch.com/free.shtml Loads of very nice small designs for every occasion.
http://www.rainbowgallery.com/freechart.cfm Cross-stitch, needlepoint, blackwork, plastic canvas and hardanger charts here, very useful and generous.
http://uk.geocities.com/tanglecrafts/index.html It's not very often that we get someone from England offering free patterns. If you know any different I'd love to be contradicted!!! The canvaswork patterns here are beautiful, this is a very talented lady.
http://tts-tutorials.blogspot.com/ A lovely blog for tutorials, good instructions and pictures.
http://www.twdesignworks.com/Free/index.html I was amazed at how generous Teresa Wentzler is on her website. She designs the most gorgeous patterns, I have several of her designs stitched in my house. I didn't stitch them though, my DH is a fantastic stitcher and produces a huge amount of amazing work and not tiny stuff like I do, he stitches the big stuff!
Well, that's it for today, I'll add more as I find them.
Monday 14 July 2008
A Collection of Cards
Sunday 6 July 2008
Thinking of Christmas
Knowing how long it takes me to cross-stitch even the smallest decoration I decided to try something else and came up with this snowman. He only took about an hour to make and I am quite pleased with him.
Friday 4 July 2008
A Little Treasure
Thursday 3 July 2008
Every Cloud
I also enjoy stitching onto a coloured background, I've used fabric paint in the past but this time I printed a picture onto some polycotton. I didn't use any special ink or anything, just my normal inkjet printer.
Tuesday 24 June 2008
A Bit of a Problem
Close Up
Monday 23 June 2008
A Slow Start
This is the raised bed Graham built for me, I do much less gardening since I had my back problem so this raised bed is ideal for me. I only grow a small amount of any type of vegetable and in this bed there are peas, two sorts of cabbage, pak choi, lettuce, leeks and courgette. I've put those canes across that corner to protect the lettuce, we get a fox in the garden and he often has a walk around this raised bed - the little rascal!!!