The Treehouse

Variety is the Spice of Life

I've been having a sewing morning and decided that a little update was in order. The 1st of February meant that it was time to start on a new cottage with Carole and I was eager to start. Here's the progress so far - the colours are so pretty...

As you can see, I'm stitching mine all together on one piece of fabric. I think they're going to look lovely like that.

Once I'd finished my SKOW blocks I started back on The Library just for a few days until it was Cottage time. I managed to complete all of the bottom border and have done the outline of the next set of bricks. Just a few leaves up at the top to frog now and resttich and I'll have the green all correct.

I think it could have done with a visit to the ironing board before having it's picture taken really, never mind!

This morning I decided to prepare the next SKOW block - I really can't leave these alone at all so I'm a bit ahead of myself on the stitch a long schedule.

I'm looking forward to stitching that down and doing the embroidery over the weekend - I love this block.

Finally - I resisted and resisted but...I had scraps on my desk and ready printed hexagons and so I 'accidentally'' started on a Rose Star block - oops! I'm not planning on making loads. This one is destined to go on a cushion cover to add to the ever increasing pile of cushions on our bed! 

I've plenty to work on over the weekend now. It's our crop day on Saturday - 11 hours of chatting and stitching. Well, stitching for me and some of the other girls - paper crafting is a bit rare these days! I'll need to keep myself busy this week while Catherine's off on a school jaunt to Belgium and France. I think they're going to have a wonderful time, the schedule sounds very exciting. Although it's primarily a history trip in order to visit WW1 battlefields they are 'coming home via Paris' and fitting in a visit to Disney on the last day. My girl is so excited that she's fit to burst! The bag is all packed ready for our super early 4.30am start tomorrow. I've got my tissues ready for when the bus sets off...still can't manage to watch them leave on a bus without a few tears!

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.

Sunday Sewing

The rest of the family have been out splashing about in boats today so I've had plenty of lovely sewing time. Yesterday while they were splashing about in Coniston I made a couple of GFG flowers and did a little bit of stitching on the sunflower wall hanging. I made another GFG flower this afternoon when it was too hot to be in my sewing room and did a little more stitching of the poem on the sunflower.

I've not stitched any of these for quite a while and it was lovely to get back into the swing of things with them. I'm going to try again with the one-a-day and see if I can get them finished off...then it'll be onto the next ring and then the diamonds. No pic of the sunflower just yet, I'll wait until I've finished stitching the poem.

I made another 3 Summer Bow Ties this morning and stitched them together with the one that I made on Friday - I really like the look. I saw this layout on Jodi's Pleasant Home blog and it convinced me that I needed to make some bow ties!

I did quite a bit of cutting out for the bow ties as well so that I can sneak in the making of one now and again during the week :)

Finally, I made this month's Henrietta Whiskers block and it's another very sweet one - I'm getting spoilt for choice for a favourite block now!

The applique is only stuck down at the moment so I've the treat of stitching that to come as well as the little bit of embroidery that's on the block.

On Friday I picked up my two cross stitches that I'd taken for framing and I'm very pleased with both of them.

 

The teacups are my favourite stitch so far this year, it's a shame I can't get a better picture of them.

I'm itching to get the next block for the Designer BOM sewn, it looks lovely - hopefully I'll fit it in over the course of the week. I had thought I might get it made today but a Henrietta Whiskers block takes quite a well to prepare. I'm away to enjoy some of the evening sunshine with a glass of wine now and then perhaps some stitching on the Library later on.

Oops - a garden of flowers!

I've been waiting to post until I had finished the first fifth of the library. I've not yet finished it. Why? I got a little bit sidetracked - nothing new there! I was feeling the need to stitch a few GFG flowers as I've not done any in a while - so I gave in to the urge and stitched 6 more flowers. It was immensely enjoyable and satisfying. I laid out all of my flowers to date so I could see my garden.

All made using Inklingo I love this method. So, you would think that having got that out of my system I would then have pressed on to finish the cross stitch wouldn't you? Hmm, no that didn't happen! Recently there have been several new Inklingo releases and I wasn't able to resist a couple of them...especially the Rainbow Flower design. I've been itching to make one since I downloaded and I could stand it no longer! Not sure where I'm going with this and how big it will turn out to be eventually but here's what I played with this afternoon...

I need to think about this a little while now and decide on size etc. I only have two fat quarters of that rather fabulous pink tone on tone so yes, some thought and planning required as those petals are quite big.

Here's the poor Library - it has progressed since I last showed it, I was trying to get those bricks finished and the leaves done for the first section before I got distracted! I will get it done before I start my stitch along with Karen - we're going to be stitching Country Cottage Needleworks Bunny Hop - I'd like to finish and frame mine in time for Easter.

(terrible photo of it!)

I'm behind with my book reviewing - I've my Feb reads to write up yet and 2 book reviews for the Historical Fiction challenge to write...one of them being my second Transworld Crime Caper book. Blame it on the hexagons!

Friendship Birthday Pillow

I finished the secret stitching project yesterday just in time for Wez's 40th birthday celebration crop. I hope she likes it :) The stitchery design is taken from a friendship project by Helen Stubbings The original idea was that you stitched the centre design yourself and then 3 friends would stitch and add the borders. When I was thinking of what to make for Wez's birthday gift I wanted something special that celebrated friendship and this design came to mind. Instead of making a wallhanging, I've made the finished stitchery (minus the final border) into a pillow. I picked the thread colours from the fabrics that I chose for the little hexagons - I think they really add to the design, I'm always happy to be including hexies in something.

*Happy Birthday Wez*

Merry Christmas

Poor neglected blog! Some serious family illness and Christmas preparations have meant that my blog and blog reading has taken a back seat lately. I have a couple of finishes to show off though so made the effort to take some pictures while it was light enough the other day. I was determined to have these two quilts hanging on the wall this year as I thoroughly enjoyed making both of them.

This first one is from a pattern by Jennifer Reynolds  and is called Christmas Story. I have shown the finished top before but now it's all quilted and bound and has been hanging up for the last week or so.

I love it and was rather pleased that I managed to use all stash fabric to make it!

The second quilt is Frosty Flakes, a design by Dawn Hays Dawn offered the blocks and finishing instructions for no cost - what a wonderful treat. It was a pleasure to make and I thoroughly enjoyed every single stitch. The snowflakes I made from my scrap basket, the red border fabric had been languishing in my stash for several years and the squares are from a Basic Grey Fruitcake charm pack that I bought recently.

I have almost finished making my Tail Feathers quilt - it's been a long time in the making but I am determined to finish it off very soon as I have a couple of Leanne Beasley's quilts that I would like to start making...I have the fabric to get going too so plenty of incentive for me to finish up the birdies!

Wishing everyone who stops by here a wonderful Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year. We're looking forward to our Christmas celebrations which will be a little quieter than usual but hopefully still enjoyable.

 

One Flower Wednesday

It's been a while since I worked on my flower garden but I got my hexagons out on Friday last week. While I was stitching away I came up with the idea of stitching one a day throughout November. As it was already the 5th I had a little bit of catching up to do so I decided to concentrate on doing just that over the weekend. It's the 10th today and here are my 10 hexagons

Also at the weekend while I was on a roll I finished stitching the triangles and diamonds around one of the flowers and stitched the outer ring on another flower. I think I've added quite a bit of extra work with the diamond path but I think it's going to be so worthwhile and will look lovely in the purple fabric.

 

I may try and fit in stitching the outer ring on a couple of flowers each weekend as well, I'll have to see how it goes timewise. The more flowers I make, the more excited I get about seeing this quilt completed in these lovely fabrics and I could do with snuggling up beneath it at the moment as our weather has turned icy cold this week, definitely hat, scarf and glove weather - especially when watching a lot of sports outside! I did make a single klos on Saturday night as well but I forgot to photograph the poor little thing!

One Flower Wednesday

I managed two flowers this week and have started to put the diamonds around another - I was impatient to see how the new purple fabric looked. I thought I would have had time to finish the diamonds last night but after a whole afternoon of cycling and boating we came home, had a lovely bbq and then I was just too worn out to sew - I needed my bed!

 

Photos are funny things - the new purple fabric doesn't look anything at like this in real life...it's a little bit brighter than the purple in the middle. I''m not having a good photographing day today at all!

Today is back to school day...I could quite happily have carried on with holidaying for a few weeks more! We did the usual photos before setting off in the car but the light was odd and the little camera not behaving very well at all in those conditions so I'll have to make them suffer pose again tomorrow morning!

 

This is Catherine's third year of high school now so she's well and truly got the hang of things but my little guy there - this is his first day of high school and he looks far too grown up in that shirt and tie in my opinion...where has my baby gone :o So exciting for him to be moving on though and he's ready for the challenge and all of the wonderful sporting opportunities of course, lol! Today is a short day (Wednesday is always a short day) and they finish at 2.30pm and will be home by bus for 3 o'clock. I'm looking forward to hearing all about it!

 

 

Frosty Flakes No. 4

I'm enjoying making these little snowflakes, they're so pretty and delicate.

 

I found the perfect purple fabric for the diamond path for my Flower Garden quilt yesterday - I've stitched 6 diamonds on this evening and 3 triangles so I'm 1/2 way round...it's quite a long way! I'm aiming to make a few more hexies this week to try and catch up a bit.

 

My Garden and Clamshells

Almost missed my posting, have been super busy running around trying to find extra players for tonight's cricket match today and then ferrying boys to the cricket match this evening. Now I'm back home and have managed to iron and photograph this week's creations. 2 flowers for my garden and sadly, in spite of my determination to put an outer ring on each week, the sporting schedule has been so full that I've just not managed it - perhaps I will aim for two next week.

 

On the clamshell front things turned a little peculiar - to say the least! I spent a good portion of time printing and cutting clamshells so I knew I wasn't going to get too many stitched together...and actually, I was a little worried about those curves. Part way through the cutting, I could stand it no longer and had to get started stitching and I was hooked straight away - these little shapes go together unbelievably easily. Unfortunately, I was stitching at not the best time one evening and got a little distracted and before I knew it - I'd stitched a clamshell in the wrong way round. Well, I sort of liked it so I thought I'd keep it like that and see what developed! So - instead of rows of different blue fabrics I ended up with this...

 

It looks a little odd for two reasons - the grass isn't flat and there is an unstitched between the bottom bright blue clamshell and the cream/blue flowers one. I'm not sure whether to right this off as a practice piece or continue as I'm wondering whether this sort of shape requires a little more planning in the placement of colours than rows. The jury is out on the matter now but I need to decide soon because I want to get some more stitching done (when the sporting has calmed down a little!)

Poor klosjes aren't making an appearance this week either - soon though, very soon!