The Treehouse

Some Kind of Wonderful and Autumn

I finally finished the backstitching on the last block of the first part of the Some Kind of Wonderful stitch a long. Part one is now all stitching together and it's looking very nice indeed. Here's the little suitcase block...

and here are is the first column stitched together with its border on...

I've also been working on the Autumn part of the Blackbird Designs Loose Feathers mystery - it's just as lovely as Summer and I'm enjoying stitching it. Not quite sure why I started stitching the bird from the bottom up - must have been that my hoop was down there and I couldn't be bothered to move it, lol! I'll be reattaching my hoop at the top when I do some more on this - hopefully over the holidays. I'm hoping that the postman will visit today with my order for CCN January cottage. I've been stitching again on my Berries and Bluebirds applique by Gail Pan - haven't a picture to show yet, I keep forgetting to take one so that's definitely a job for the new year!

 

I doubt that I'll get chance to post again before Christmas now so I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a very happy, healthy and stitchy New Year :)

 

 

Summer and Wildflower

I've been having a little break from blogging for the last little while. My Dad died at the beginning of November after a long illness and although it wasn't unexpected it still really knocked the stuffing out of me. I'm slowly getting back to some semblance of normality and some days are better than others... I have lost myself in some good books and pondered matters and reminisced while doing some quiet stitching. 

I did manage to finish the Summer part of Blackbird Designs Loose Feathers before the next part arrived. I was really enjoying stitching it and would have gone straight on to stitching Autumn but needed a few threads to arrive in the post and decided to wait for those until beginning the new chart. A couple were out of stock and they've just arrived this morning so I'm looking forward to putting some Autumn stitches into place very soon. Here's a pic of Summer...

The colours are beautiful and the photo really doesn't do them any justice at all - it's a very dull and dark day here today and difficult to get a good pic.

I am stitching along with Carole again this month on Wildflower which is turning out to be lovely. The colours are most unusual and probably not something that I would ordinarily choose but I'm thoroughly enjoying seeing them come together. I started this while away with friends for a weekend of crafting and made quite a good bit of progress there. Unfortunately I also managed to stitch the letters in the wrong colour and didn't realise until I started stitching again last Friday so there was quite a bit of unpicking going on!

The letters are actually in a variegated blue thread some of which is quite bright compared to the dark parts - it looks very well with all the other lovely threads in this piece. 

I have done a little work on my sewing machine but not a lot. I'm keeping up with the Blogger's BOM blocks and will take a photo of my latest block soon. I've also been playing with my new embroidery machine which my lovely husband treated me to on my birthday last month. I've not been able to give it a thorough workout as yet but am looking forward to using it more very soon. I'll be back soon with an update on the Some Kind of Wonderful quilt blocks too - again, not much done on that yet but I don't plan on being behind come the end of December!

Coffee and Grandmother's Flower Garden

I started stitching on the LHN Coffee at the weekend - this is a SAL that I'm doing along with Carole following the shopathon that I reported on a little while ago (I think we'll have to do it again, it was good fun!). I had wanted to get all of the word stitched but my eyes were demanding some that I close them last night - we had a busy day out at a bowling competition and a football match. Otherwise, I'm pleased with the progress I managed to make and it's a very enjoyable stitch - I'm looking forward to stitching the friends taking coffee together this week :)

I'm using the recommended threads and some lovely fabric that I had sitting in my stash from a previous (still underway!) project - Vintage Country Mocha.

Last week I did quite a bit of stitching on my GFG flowers  -  I made 11 and started to put the outer rings on. I've dragged this project out for quite a while now and I would like to get some serious progress made on it - wrist/elbow permitting - I need to move onto machine stitching this week to give them a rest.

I had been going to surround all of the flowers with the blue fabric but last week I happened across some of the plain green and plain rust coloured fabric and decided that it would look better with more than just the blue colour so I'm awaiting the arrival of these fabrics so that I can print up some hexagons and try them out. It was a lucky find I think as it's quite some time since Harvest Home was first released. Whatever is leftover I intend to use to piece the back of the quilt.

At last - pictures again!

I've been without a card reader for a little while and goodness me it has been a heck of a nuisance! I've scanned a few things but not everything will fit onto the scanner! Today I loaded the children into the car and we  set off on a mission to buy a new card reader and new swimming togs for Matthew  - we were successful on both counts and now I can show you pictures and Matthew can once again go swimming in a 'decent' fashion!

I accumulated quite a few things to photograph over the last little while - we'll go with cross stitch first - I've been happily stitching away on LHN The Library which I started a long time ago and abandoned. I'm enjoying stitching on it now - here's the progress so far...

Another project that I gave new life to last week is Blackbird Designs Snow Garden - again, I started this ages ago and struggled to stitch it under electric light as many of the threads are similar in colour. This is how far along I am...

It's difficult to see the stitching on this - I have only a tiny bit of border left to stitch now.

I replenished my cross stitch stash on a Saturday morning super spend with Carole the other week - we've got quite a few stitch a longs planned now. We have both kitted up for CCN April Showers, LHN Coffee Menu and LHN Sunflower House. I also kitted up for CCN Bee Joyful - alas, Carole is not a fan of the little creatures so I'll be stitching that one solo! We have plans for another super shop in the future once there are some stitches done, I think the new CCN Sunflower chart is in both of our futures!

Carole also directed me to some very pretty threads called Six Strand Sweets which are currently on sale at Sew and Sew and I had a small indulge and in fact I am already stitching away with one of them. They are lovely to stitch with, nice and smooth.

Recently, Jenny of Elefantz has begun publishing a monthly magazine. I, of course, signed up to receive it as I've enjoyed Jenny's lovely designs for some time. I was just putting together my fabrics for the new BOM that is in the magazine when along came one of Jenny's email newsletters. In the newsletter was a pattern for a sunflower wallhanging. It was a 'stop everything and make this' moment. Why? Well, I have a bit of a thing for all things sunflower (see above cross stitch chart) and on top of that there are little bumble bees (love those) and then - the sunflower is a Dresden plate! Now, several moons ago I purchased a fat eighth bundle of Charlevoix by Minick and Simpson with the intention of making Dresden plates with it. Clearly that hasn't yet happened or there would have been some pictures of them on the blog :blush: I decided that I could pinch a little bit of Charlevoix for this wallhanging and here is the progress so far...

It's not the best photo in the world I'm afraid, I had to stand on a chair to get all of the sunflower in the picture and there may have been some wobbling going on! If you squint a bit you might be able to see the bumble bees (stitched in Dreamy Caramel Cream Six Strand Sweet thread) It's an overdyed so there is a lovely subtle variation along the length of the thread and although it calls itself Cream it is in fact a delicate lemon that's just perfect for this project. There is a verse at the top to stitch yet and I'm quite tempted to put another bumble bee on there somewhere :)

I think I mentioned that I had signed up for the Fat Quarter Shop Designer BOM and I made the first block last month. Due to the problem with the card reader I wasn't able to show a picture but here it is now...

I had been debating on whether or not to purchase the finishing kit and when I saw it on Christine's blog I was sold on the idea (plus I was fretting that in 12 months time there wouldn't be a jot of Strawberry Fields fabric left on the planet!).

This month's block arrived this morning too - I'm having a sewing day on Sunday while everybody else kayaks so I'm looking forward to working on these. While I was ordering the finishing kit I also indulged in a kit for a quilt that I had seen in McCall's Quilting - bit naughty really but I cannot resist baskets and the fabric is beautiful!

Phew - thank you if you read to the end of that rather long posting. Hopefully the pretty eye candy made it worth the while :) I knew I would forget some photos - my Vignette progress and also astonishing progress on Catherine's giant pinwheel quilt (another long abandoned project) which has now made it to quilt top status although I'm stuck as to how to quilt it now - they can wait for another post :)