The Treehouse

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!

 

 

My Needle and Thread have been...

busy stitching on LHN Needle and Thread! I've been itching to stitch this since it arrived a few months back and I determined last week to get started on it. Well, once I'd started I couldn't stop! I didn't actually have too much stitching time last week as it was 1/2 term but when I did get time this is what I stitched and I enjoyed every minute of it. I've also made a start on Blackbird Designs Snow Garden as part of a SAL...I want to get those lovely houses stitched and not have them sitting in my stash basket gathering dust. As you can see I did make a solitary, rather lonely klosje but at least it's one more to add to my total :D

 

There was a sale on at my LQS last week - it was their first anniversary of opening so I had to pop along and see what was what! I had thought to get some blue fabrics for the Clamshells and these are what I came away with...

 

Look at the cute kitty - I'm going to try and fussy cut her for the clamshells. Over in the far right hand cornder of the picture is a lovely blue fabric with some golden leaves in it, I almost cut it out of the picture altogether! I need to have a little visit to the stash because I recall a few blue fabrics from the last time I had a good tidy up in there. 

I've one more little task that I want to play at this month - Jenny's Jeans Challenge I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to make a bag...I think there are some dilapidated jeans in John's wardrobe that I can make use of so I think I'll go and hunt those down.

The weather is just awful here today - very humid and on and off rain...not a good day to have washed curtains and bedding at all, I've run out of indoor drying space and I fear that my hexagon stitching time tonight (cricket match) may be cancelled altogether if much more rain falls :(

 

 

Today's Blooms

I made 3 this week! No klosjes at the weekend but I did do a huge amount of cutting out so there is hope for a good quantity this coming weekend :) I've been having a lovely cross stitch the last few days - I got really behind with my various projects recently when I had a trapped nerve in my back - the pain was just too furious and nauseating for me to concentrate on a chart and count and my first priority as soon as thought was restored to my brain was to get Karen's birthday present made. I made good progress on Mary Wigham's wardrobe, started an Anniversaries of the Heart and now I'm enjoying a lovely treat by stitching up the LHN Needle and Thread pincusion bed and scissor keep...so cute, I love it!

Beautiful sunshine here today so hopefully we won't freeze tonight at bowling. If we're blessed again tomorrow we're going to head off for a day out somewhere :)

 

 

I bought a new Inklingo this morning - Clamshells. I was rather smitten when I saw the design done in shades of one colour, looks fabulous!

Crazy iPad Day!

We got a bit over excited about the iPad and were eagerly awaiting its release here in the UK. Now, ordinarily we don't rush out and buy something as soon as its available, we're more the 'wait a while and see if there are any problems' and 'let's think about it some more' type of people. Ever since we started buying Apple products though we seem to have gone a bit crazy - we just can't seem to get enough Apple in this house! We seem to have been awaiting the arrival of the iPad for a long time so...we decided that one of us would go to the Apple store today and try to get one. Our nearest Apple store is at the Trafford Centre and early in the morning there is a LOT of traffic in between us and the Trafford Centre! John set off very bright and early this morning to join the queue - the Apple store was opening at 8am. When he got there he found that quite a lot of folks had slept over night outside the shop :o There were about 150 people in front of him in the queue and happily he was home before 10.30am with our very own little iPad - we love it!

 

I'm not confident that the sharing thing is going to work in the long term though, lol!

While I was waiting for our new gadget to arrive home, I set too with my scissors and cut out many hexagons from the fabric that I printed onto yesterday and when my hands were tired of that I printed out more shapes for klosjes so I have plenty of spools and flowers to stitch now.

 

I've more still to cut out but I'm going to start dividing the hexagons into flowers next, I've already sorted some of the klosje pieces and pinned them together. I bought some of the green fabrics for the klosjes from the Garden Song range yesterday and I feel that they may have a future as a bag of some sort as well...they're really rather lovely.

The boys have gone off to a cricket match this evening, so while Catherine is catching is catching up with Sue Thomas FBI I've been having a play at making a crazy patchwork block - I'm joining in with Crazy Patchwork Friday I bought a book some time ago by Judith Baker Montano and had this on my list of things to play with. I wasn't paying too much attention to the instructions really so things didn't quite go according to plan.

 

I quite like the way it had turned out so far - it's needing some embellishments yet. The stitching around the outside edge is just a tacking stitch to stop everything flapping around when I come to do the embroidery and embellishing.

I'm going to be spending some quality time with Mary Wigham's wardrobe this weekend...that's the plan anyway!

 

 

 

Klosjes and Grandmother's Garden

We had a super sunny weekend here with plenty of outdoor activities. I did manage to get quite a bit of work done on the Bluebird block and am now on the stitchery part. Also managed to complete 5 more klosjes bringing my total to 7 now. 

 

This morning I spent a lovely morning chatting with Jen while listening to Tim Rice on the radio - we had stitching at the ready but there was no needle action at all :o After a spot of lunch, I've put together this week's flower for my garden :) I like them more with the smaller prints but as I'm using a jellyroll I'm committed to making use of the large prints as well. I have bought some large print with the bird on for a border...I think it will be quite some time before I'm cutting into that though!!!

 

 

  Scans today - it's pouring down outside!

Ready for the weekend...

 I like having a specific project to do on a particular day of the week and tomorrow it's time for Klosjes. I've got my shapes all printed up and ready to go. I also dug out a Bluebird block which has been sitting unfinished for ages. I began making it before I learned to applique the Piece O' Cake way and I'm not happy with how it looks so I abandoned it! This weekend I'm going to fix it and finish - well, that's the intention anyway. The children have a bowling match tomorrow so I can sit and stitch my Klosjes in the sunshine (fingers crossed) while watching them and perhaps on Sunday I can set too and get something done with the pretty Bluebird block.

There's another good reason for getting this block finished - the new Quilt Aid blocks are on Helen Stubbings' blog and in spite of having decided not to do the project this year because I've got enough things going on they're so pretty that I'm extremely tempted and I suspect that I will succumb! Maybe if I finish another couple of last year's blocks I'll allow myself to indulge :grin:

Catherine's birthday is today - she has become a teenager :o Sources have told her that with teenager-dom come bad moods, grumpiness and sarcasm. I've told her there's no need for any of that and to carry on as her usual lovely self :)

 

Saturday Klosjes

I can't resist this pretty fabric - it's Garden Song by Nancy Halvorsen. I first came across when I was looking for fabric for Karen's birthday bag and couldn't resist getting some for myself with the intention of using my Inklingo Dresden Plate shapes on it - I'm still going to do that but am using the scraps for Klosjes. I cut out lots of shapes today that I had printed off using Inklingo yesterday and managed to get two sewn up as well. Here they are posing with the 'just about to bloom' lilac in the garden.

 

We cropped today, well - I sewed...everybody else cropped! and I had drawn Karen in our birthday swap. I made this bag for her in the blues from Garden Song.

   

It almost didn't make it to the wrapping stage...I rather fell in love with it and I think Karen likes it too :) Happy Birthday Karen!

 
 

 

Decisions, decisions...

  I mulled it over and decided that now was the time to cut into my lovely Blackbird Designs Harvest Home jellyroll. At 2.5" wide, I think the strips are a good size for some 1" hexagons. I'm itching to start printing them off ready for next week but I have a few other things to finish off first of all.

I've been trying to decide which fabric to use for the Klosjes this morning. I have a Rouenneries charm pack that I could make use of but might go with an assortment of pinks/browns that currently live in a wicker basket on my shelf - they look very pretty there but I'm sure they'd look even better made into a quilt!

I have a few more flowers ready to sew in the same colours as yesterday and intend those to become a little table runner for Catherine's dressing table so I will continue stitching those as well.

Somebody decided that I needed a little help this morning while I was away making a cup of tea!

 

Actually, I'm not so sure about the help - looks more like she's having a snooze to me!