A belated happy New Year!

The 9th of January and I’ve only just sat down to blog! There’s one New Year’s resolution I failed with already

My Big List of Sewing Blogs has grown to 96! It’s been great – people have started emailing with their blogs and putting my button on their site (Ta!) – it just has to be sewing related and active to get in, so if you think your blog fits the bill do leave a comment/send me an email!

The best part for me is exploring the new blogs, I particularly enjoyed finding Kimono Reincarnate and Travel, Fibre and Thread – who’s doing some great work on this month’s Take it Further Challenge. (I will be blogging my contribution to this month’s challenge over the weekend!)

I finished my first card of the year yesterday! It’s a birthday card for a friend who played Pitti-Sing in our production of the Mikado this summer:

Click on the thumbnail to read the line of music! I’m not sure how easy it would be to do without the thread showing through from the back – maybe it’s the material I used!?

Thanks Jo !

I’m still playing catch up, but I had a productive afternoon in front of Harrogate Railway vs. Mansfield in the FA cup – as well as spotting my future father-in-law in the crowd (not a huge crowd I have to say!), I also worked my way through lesson two.

I wanted to try all of the stitches Sharon listed, so design wasn’t really a priority – I like the idea of keeping the sampler in my sewing box for inspiration!

I worked my way through the list of stitches:

starting with triple chain stitch butterflies at the bottom

A little pattern with double fly stitch and french knots over on the right

A crown stitch pattern on the left

I played about with some detached chain flowers up at the top

A circle of detached chain in the middle

A whipped long armed chain top right

Tulip stitch up at the top – I made a little man which I think is quite cute!

there’s also some moss and berry stitch on there somewhere

And finally a woven picoult flower which I’m also rather proud of!

I’ll try and get week three’s lesson started this week!

I’ve finally finished my first week of Sharon Boggon’s Personal library of Stitches course!

Inspired by a post oncrafting in public I took some materials with me on a train journey last week. I sat and sewed all the way back to London. It made the journey pass very quickly and I was probably the only one glad it was delayed by half an hour as it allowed me to finish my piece! I also had an interesting conversation with the woman sat next to me, she wanted to learn to knit – I told her about Stitch n Bitch and I hope she gives it a try!!

So onto my sampler – I packed quickly so had to make do with limited resources, but I had a lovely green piece of felt! To begin with I thought I’d just go through the stitches Sharon had detailed in the notes (I didn’t have a stitch dictionary with me) in straight rows – as you can see with the Guilloche stitch and the Portuguese stem stitch – which I’m still not sure I’ve got right! – If anyone can give me some pointers as to why it looks so messy?? I got a bit carried away with the feather stitch and decided it reminded me of a snail and my original plan was to use a chained bar to finish it off, but it just didn’t look right – which is why I just left the long stitches..

It’s not when you actually look at it a huge amount of sewing, but I enjoyed working on felt and I incorporated stranded cotton and 4 different sizes of perle…

After being really busy last week, I’ve had a bit of a quiet one this week. I haven’t been feeling great – I have one of those half colds that won’t fully develop, but has still wiped me out!

It’s the first week of Sharron Boggon’s Personal Library of stitches course, I’ve not managed to produce anything yet but there’ve been some great things created by others in the group here, here and here.

Elsewhere, I love these faces embroidered on pillowcases over at Needle N Thread!

I’m looking forward to the arrival of my copy of Amy Butler’s In Stitches even more since I saw these trousers. Our sorting office in Streatham was apparently the worst effected place in the country – and we’re still feeling the effects of the strike – since seeing those trousers I’m getting more impatient!!

I’m addicted to free rice a fun game, that feeds people – for every right answer they donate 10 grains of rice through the United Nations.. Check it out I’ve already expanded my vocabulary and fed people! - The only problem it’s addictive and it’s easy to convince yourself you have to keep playing as it’s doing good!

Well I was a busy bee this week, making full use of my wrist feeling better! I did a bit more work on my Jacobean piece, I should finish this one pretty soon..

I finally made up a new bag for Duncan:

I’m really pleased with it – this is the first pattern I’ve made up from scratch, and after two days it’s still not fallen apart

I made cards – this is the one for my sister’s anniversary that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago: A birthday card for Will, I find making cards for boys a bit harder – you can’t really get away with flowers and butterflies Luckily Will’s a big basketball fan, and I used my fool proof inspiration plan – Clip art!! I often do a quick inspiration search on a lunch time at work and email the results to Duncan for printing.. I had to ring Hev to find out the right colour shorts and number..

This card was for a sick friend – the flower is detachable and can be used as a brooch ..

and finally, some coasters from my nephew – he’s 4 next week, starting early! He made them for all the family.

A flower for me and a hockey stick and ball for Duncan..