The Treehouse

The Secret London Cross Stitch...

Why secret? well, I have been working on this since July and totally forgot to tell Carole that I'd even bought the chart :o After finishing the owl stitchalong the crop girls decided on this as our next project. It has 6 of the little polaroid pictures in it - one for each month up to December with the other bits being fitted in as and when. The chart is from Jardin Prive and rather appropriate for all of the 2012 festivities.

Here's my progress so far...

It's really quite a fun and easy stitch. Of course I had to go and make a couple of mistakes - all of my water is in the wrong blue. I'm attempting to live with it but given the time I will probably frog it and restitch :)

Halloween Mail

Back at the beginning of August, I was reading Polly's blog and she was showing off a lovely Halloween project that she had just completed from a Fons and Porter special edition magazine. I was so taken with it that I ordered up the magazine. Then I was so taken with the stand that the project is displayed on that my fingers danced across the keyboard and before I knew it...I had ordered up the stand and the little kit to make the project. Well it must have been very popular because it was immediately back ordered. I wasn't bothered about that due to lack of sewing machine time during summer holidays and impending holiday in France. Yesterday it all arrived...

You can see the stand in this photo and a pic of the lovely mini Halloween quilt. I am a sucker for anything with either an Autumn or Halloween theme - I just love the colours. My secretary husband is getting the pattern enlarged for me today and I am hoping to get to make it at the weekend. Yes, I would like to start making it right now or at least as soon as I have the enlarged pattern in my mitts but I have committed myself to working on my Some Kind of Wonderful quilt this week and I'm sticking with the plan. I'm rather enjoying it too. I have several of the blocks in various stages of production with this sweet little heart block all done and dusted...

I've been working on a couple of personalised blocks this week too as a couple of the blocks weren't favourites of mine. I'm hoping that when it's time to report in for BOM rehab that I will have several more blocks to show.

Henrietta Whiskers finished...

Poor Henrietta Whiskers has been languishing in my sewing basket for quite a lot of months now. I was inspired to get her finished by Sinta's BOM rehab and so once Catherine's new school bag was completed I dug her out and set about putting the finishing touches on her. 

This is how she looked back in March

which is the last time I did any work on her. All of the blocks were stitched together with block no. 9 needing to have the applique stitched down on it. At the time, I was debating whether or not to leave out the birds in the border and instead of making a decision I procrastinated for 6 months! I had all of the borders cut out and ready to stitch on and had even traced the applique for the border but...just couldn't decide whether to put it on or not.

On Thursday I made my decision - I wanted to put the applique on the borders. I set too and stitched the borders on and cut out the applique shapes and soon had them glued down. Since then, I've spent my evenings happily whip stitching the wool pieces and blind stitching the birds wings and I am delighted to have finished the top. I've decided to send this to be long arm quilted as I'd like a good job to be done of the quilting after all the hours spent handstitching and I'm just not capable of doing it justice. I emailed last week and Henrietta is booked in to be quilted by Chris at the end of October - I can't wait to see her once she's all quilted up.

Next I intend to work on finishing off my version of Anni Downs' 'My Favourite Things' from the book Some Kind of Wonderful - especially as I bought her new book over the summer holidays and would like to make the quilt in that too! 

 

Linking with BOMs Away Mondays 

Summer Stitching

I didn't get around to blogging during the summer so this is going to be a bit of a catch up post.

 

My intention was to get up to date with the cottage stitching but...that didn't happen. Instead, I was overwhelmed with a desire to finish off the stitching of The Library by Little House Needleworks. I had had this on the go for way too long and get dipping in and out of it. It's finally finished and framed and I am thrilled to bits with it. I'm also excited about the new charts with book themes that Diane is designing and am looking forward to stitching Around the World in 80 Days with Carole next year.

I think a wall of book related cross stitching will look marvellous :)

I spent quite a bit of time preparing hexagons for the Fat Quarterly Hexy MF quilt along and enjoyed piecing the flowers together. I am almost halfway done with those. This is the latest photo that I have of them - the colours look nothing like this in real life, the photo does them no justice at all.

I'm thinking of putting them onto a rich purple background - probably an Oakshott one.

I made a few Great Granny Squares for Lori Holts quilt a long but getting time on the machine during the holidays isn't easy so a few is as far as I got!

They are really quick, easy and fun to make - I will be making more very soon.

When the recent issue of Fat Quarterly came out I immediately wanted to make the Keep Calm quilt and dove into the stash in search of red fabrics. I had enough and got them all ironed and ready to cut into. Then I showed the quilt to Catherine who is a huge fan (particularly around exam time) of the 'Now Panic and Freak Out' saying. A request was made and I found myself diving back into the stash for blue fabrics! Here's the result...

It's been washed since this pic and has crinkled up beautifully and has already been on a trip to France and had plenty of snuggle time! The Keep Calm quilt will happen eventually :)

Back to School time means new bag time and while the cupcake bag that I made earlier in the year is still going strong it was a little small and definitely not waterproof. Another request was made and the result was this gigantic, waterproof bag...

I bought a yard of two different Kokka laminates a while ago when they were on sale. I've never sewn with laminate before and was a little nervous of it to be honest until I read a very useful blog post by Kathy of Pink Chalk Fabrics which encouraged me to at least have a go. Kathy has a few posts on laminates and this post led me to her Pinterest board for laminated projects which led me to this tutorial by Cheryl of Sew Can Do for a large bag. It turned out a bit bigger than I thought but Catherine is thrilled with it and it even fits an A4 lever arch file inside so she doesn't have to carry two bags anymore! The laminate was easy peasy to sew with - I will definitely sew with it again (if only to use up the other yard to make myself one of these bags).

Finally, my stitch a long with the crop girls was completed - a bit late but better late than never. I just picked it up from my framer this afternoon and I think he did a great job...

Outrageous Owls by Glendon Place.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far, that was quite a long post. I'm currently in the mood for 'finishing off' things and so, inspired by Sinta's BOM rehab I am working on finishing my neglected Henrietta Whiskers quilt - I'm hoping to finish before the weekend is done :)

 

Cottage Challenge

Last Wednesday I set myself a little cottage challenge. I was quite a bit behind with these and wanted to get at least a little bit caught up. I wondered whether I would manage to stitch two cottages in 10 days. Carole thought it was doable. So, I set out to see if it was! I started the April cottage on Wednsday evening and finished it on Sunday afternoon. I immediately started the May cottage which I've been very excited about since I first saw the chart...all those little buzzing creatures, the beehive, the birdhouse - so pretty. I put the final buzzing stitches onto May last night.

My 10 day challenge was more than doable, I took just a bit over 7 days - I could probably stitch another one before the end of the month but we're taking Winnie to the Lake District this weekend so it's not going to happen! 

These photos are not the best - the weather here is awful this morning. In fact, it rained so hard just as the children were about to leave for the bus that we piled into the car and drove to school instead! They would have been soaked through in spite of wearing coats and carrying an umbrella. I was hoping it would clear the air a bit but it's still very humid. 

 

Each time I stitch a new cottage it becomes my favourite! I'm not sure that will wear off with the May cottage but honestly when you see them all together it's hard to say which one is the prettiest...

I'm making a few little changes to June and July. The July cottage is all red white and blue in honour of the 4th July. As I'm English I'm going to switch that to the June position and try to incorporate a few bits to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee so the June cottage will go in the July slot. I'll be playing with something else for a week or so though, it's time for a little break from the cottages after this intense burst of stitching!

Adventures with Alice

When I saw Rachael's beautiful medallion quilt I couldn't resist signing up for her class. The class is actually all about handstitching which I am definitely not a stranger to but...the projects looked lovely so I dove in! I have chosen to use a fat quarter bundle of Adventures with Alice that I bought in a sale a little while ago. I've managed to use part of the panel for the centre of the blossom. Catherine has already claimed this quilt as her own so I'd better not fall too far behind with it! I have part one all completed and just need to mark the stitching lines on the white border for part two and get stitching.

I'm currently on a mission to catch up with my CCN cottages as I fell behind during April and May when I wasn't well so I'd better get stitching!

Now Panic and Freak Out

I completed a couple of quick projects on Friday evening and yesterday. The first was a simple pillow case for an old friend. I've had this pillow forever and it was time to make a new, snuggly pillowcase for it - it's always been clothed in flannel. I used a piece of gorgeous floral flannel from Bonny and Camille's Ruby collection. I think this is my favourite fabric out of the entire collection. No complicated sewing involved once I'd worked out the measurements - I did use French seams which have turned out beautifully.

After I'd made the pillow case I started on a quick cross stitch for Catherine whose current favourite post exam saying is "Now Panci and Freak Out"! While we were away on our little Winnie break she bought a mug with the words on and we spotted this cross stitch pattern while perusing Etsy one evening. Luckily I had this blue linen in my stash and some variegated Anchor floss (1302 I think but not 100% sure) looked just right against it.

Next up is to start the huge pillow out the Fat Quarterly book - my ginormous insert arrived yesterday morning, it really is ginormous!

5 little owls...

I've been working on catching up with some cross stitching this week. I'm now up to date with my monthly owl stitch a long that I've been doing with my friends. Just one owl left to stitch and this will be ready for framing :excited:

The chart is Outrageous Owls by Glendon Place, this has been a really fun stitch to do each month. The colour of the background fabric doesn't show too well in the photo - it's a delicate blue colour, really pretty.

It seems that I am incapable of NOT starting new projects. I had the Fat Quarterly Shape Workshop book on pre-order at Amazon and when it arrived I drooled extensively at the blocks and projects. I was restraining myself from starting something new until 2 things happened. Allegory @ SewAllegorical suggested a quilt a long for the Orange Soda Pop quilt - I resisted for a little while and then gave in to the inevitable! There is a link in my sidebar to the details of the quilt a long. I will be using the fabrics below...

Terrain by Kate Spain :love: The bright pink is the colour that I'm using for the applique melon shapes.

Then yesterday, just as I'd finished telling myself NO MORE, Katy posted her version of the twinkling star cushion from the book. Before I knew it I was asking her where to get the HUGE cushion from which was all that had been holding me back from the making it. Of course, Katy was super helpful and next thing you know I have ebayed myself a gigantic enormous cushion. Oh for more hours in the day (because I want to do the Hexy MF quilt a long too!).

I am just having a little break from the owl stitching and doing a super quick stitch for my poor exam beaten up daughter. She chose it herself while we were perusing Etsy a few evenings ago. In case you don't want to click the link, it's along the lines of Keep Calm and Carry On but instead it says - Now Panic and Freak Out! She loves this quote and has a mug with it on. I'm stitching it with a variegated cream Anchor thread on a royal blue background. I've only got a few rows of the crown done so far but enough to see that the colours look good :) 

Tomorrow is the montly meet up with the girls, I'm really looking forward to a good chat and stitch - haven't decided what to stitch yet, maybe a cottage - they could surely use some stitching doing on them!

 

Long Time No Blog - a catch up!

The last couple of months have passed by in a blur of holiday excitement, illness, exams, cricket, more exams, crown green bowling and yet more exams!

There are quite a few photos to follow. In April we took delivery of our new toy - Winnie. 

Here she is on her first night away from home - we took her on a little trip to Castle Howard and York. We had a lovely time and the weather mostly behaved. She is very comfy to sleep in and riding along in her is huge fun!

During April, I didn't achieve a great deal of stitching because of the holidays and because of the aforementioned poorliness which is still ongoing so my stitching progress has slowed considerably. I did however manage to start and finish the first part of SamSarah Designs new monthly stitch which is called The Flock.

I LOVE the colour of the linen - it's called Red Pear. I got all my bits and pieces from Karla at The Patchwork Rabbit and am looking forward to stitching part two when it arrives.

I have also stitched month 2 of Lynette Anderson's new BOM In Full Bloom and have almost finished part 3. Here are the two stitcheries for part 2 - I love the little bumble bees!

 

There was a school bag emergency in April - the handle of Catherine's bag snapped for the second time and I decided it was time to make a new one. I used the All About Anna pattern from Stephanie at Loft Creations to whip up this little cupcake special...

I also made a matching pencil case which turned out to be more of a pencil pouch as it was rather large...not managed to take a photo of that yet. I wasn't allowed to photograph the bag model's head! I did however snap this quick pick of said model up on the roof of Winnie after a kayaking session :grin:

I've been working on stitching together some 2" hexagons on and off over the last couple of months - easy stitching when feeling grotty and it's looking quite pretty. I'm using Kate Spain's Verna with a few extra pinks thrown in - so wish that I had bought more of Verna when she was available, she's so lovely.

Finally for now, I allowed myself to be drawn into stitching the Around the World SAL by Papillion Creations. I knew that Carole was going to stitch this and had decided that I couldn't fit it into my schedule...until I saw it stitched up! I started last weekend and have so far stitched the first heart of part one. It was a pleasure to stitch and I enjoyed it all except for Berwick Stitch which totally defeated me and so I resorted to using my good friend blanket stitch instead :)

You can see in the pic that I am just now stitching the tulips for part two - I thought I might as well while I had the dark green out to stitch the second heart. I spent ages choosing which fabric and threads to use and managed to pick the exact same fabric as Carole is using! It's a 28ct Jobelan and the colour is Bone - it's lovely to work with. Thread colours so far are...

Dark Green  -  Weeks Dye Works Moss in perle no.8 and stranded cotton

Medium Green - DMC 370

Light Green - Gentle Arts Cornhusk

Floral 1 - Crescent Colours Wild Berries (an all time favourite of mine)

Floral 2 - Crescent Colours Clay Pot

Floral 3 -

Floral 4 -

Floral 5 - Gentel Arts Grape Arbor

Floral 6 - DMC 3835

Floral 7 -

Floral 8 -

Metallic - Pink Petite Treasure Braid

Bead 1

Bead 2

I did have a full selection of colours before I started to stitch by I'm tweaking it slightly as I go along which is why I've left some of colour choices blank for now until I make a final decision.

That's about all for now. We're off on another jaunt in Winnie next - I'm really looking forward to it. We're hoping to visit Cragside and maybe one or two other National Trust properties and just generally relax for a few days.

March Owl

Finished this last night just in time! Each little owl is a gorgeous, quick, satisfying stitch. They look lovely when they're stitched but then when the backstitch is done they really spring to life. I think the April owl is green, I'm really looking forward to that! This is half way done now, there are only 6 owls in total.

Hard to tell on this picture - the fabric is a gorgeous soft blue colour with white cloudy bits -  really pretty.

My task for today was to start the next cottage however - I've ordered up a larger R&R frame for the cottages as my hoop is making a disaster of the fabric and it's getting harder and harder to iron the creases out each month. My plan therefore is to start on this...

Completely off plan and rather naughty of me but...I couldn't resist. It's full of birds and look at the colour of the fabric - luscious! It's a 12 part series called The Flock by Sam Sarah Design Studios. I think I can just about manage to squeeze in another bit of birdie stitching each month :grin: I bought the goodies (including the lush fabric) for my flock of birds from Karla at the Patchwork Rabbit I spotted it on one of my frequent 'let's see if the next cottage has arrived' browsing sessions!