The Treehouse

Framed Cottages and Finished Flowers

I collected my framed cottages a couple of Saturdays ago and we hung them on the wall in my sewing room at the weekend. In hindsight I should have taken a photograph before I hung them up as in spite of the fact they're not in direct sunlight it was very hard to get a photo without light on the glass.

Quite a dreadful photo but you get the idea. They've got a couple of friends hanging next to them...

In other news, I finished the last flower for my Hexy MF quilt last night. I started stitching these last year and have enjoyed stitching on them as the mood took me. They just need to be stitched together now - rather hoping that I'll achieve that in less than 12 months time! Due to various changes of mind during the stitching process I ended up with 8 extra flowers so I have an extra row and the remaining flowers I'll applique to the back of the quilt.

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I've chosen a lovely purple-ish Oakshott to stitch them onto. This photo doesn't really do the colours any justice at all, I think the pale ones will show up much better once they're on the background fabric.

I've a few other things to show as well but I'll save those for another post I think.

A Year of Cottages

I finally put the last stitches in the last cottage last week and I couldn't be more pleased with the finished piece. 

Here's a pic of the December cottage...

Definitely one of my favourites.

Below is the whole thing. I used all of the recommended threads and I used the recommended fabric but in 32 count instead of 28 count which is probably a good thing as this has turned out to be quite large.

I am so glad to have it finished. I did make some changes along the way. I swapped around the June and July cottages and altered the July cottage to commemorate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee last year (which is when I stitched it). Plus, I made a small change to the November cottage by stitching a little squirrel instead of the turkey. I took it to the framing shop this morning and hopefully this time next week it will be hanging upon the wall in my sewing room :) 

CCN Cottage update

I've been doing plenty of stitching and knitting and no blogging so I thought I should put in an appearance with something! A week and a half ago I decided that it was time to press on with the stitching of Country Cottage Needleworks cottages. I got rather behind with these last year and although I had the September cottage underway in November I didn't stitch on it again until recently. Then, in a fervour of stitching I finished that one off and stitched two more over the course of about 10 days! I just have the December cottage to stitch now and I'm rather looking forward to that one. I'm just having a small break from the cottages for today and doing a little knitting but I am hoping to get the December cottage finished before the beginning of next month.

September cottage - this is definitely one of my favourites...

 

October cottage - another favourite, it has those lovely pumpkins...

November cottage - I had to make a small change to this one. The pattern has a turkey on the right side of the house, I substituted a little squirrel instead...

 

The whole thing...

I'm really looking forward to having this finished and hanging on the wall :)

 

CCN June/July Cottage

I've finally put the last stitches into my current cottage. I've switched this around from June to July as I used the red/white/blue July cottage for my June Jubilee spot. It was a bit tricky with the lettering but I think it's turned out ok. 

Not a brilliant picture as it's too dark to take a nice photo so I used the scanner - quite a job with this size of fabric. I can't say that I love this cottage but I do like the strawberries and the overdyed thread colours are gorgeous again - doesn't really show up properly but they are beautiful in real life.

Moving straight along to the August cottage now :) 

As a quick aside - my quilts have returned from their trip to be quilted and I can't tell you how wonderful the quilting is, absolutely stunning. I'll show some pics once I've got the binding stitched in place.

CCN July Cottage redesigned!

When I saw that the July cottage had a red white and blue theme I decided that I would do a bit of changing around on it and use it in my June spot to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. So - this is actually the July cottage, renamed as June and with a few changes to it.

So - the changes that I made are...

Top Border - I left out all of the middle flowers and added in the backstitched years and the crown. The crown is from one of this year's issues of CrossStitcher - either June or July.

Month - - I have changed from July to June

House - I left out the star and backstitched EIIR instead

Flag - I changed it from the Stars and Stripes to a Union flag - the flag was also from an issue of CrossStitcher

Bottom Border - again, I left out the middle flowers and backstitched the words in instead.

I was quite a bit nervous about making so many changes but I'm thrilled with the way it's turned out. Obviously I'm a bit behind - I'm trying to catch up though :) 

Here's a pic of the all of them together - I love the colours of every cottage, the thread choices are fabulous and the colours of the overdyed threads really are gorgeous.

Going to make a little start on the next one this evening but then it's back to work on the SKOW quilt. I'm really pleased to be excited about stitching the cottages again - it had worn off a little bit - I think mostly in part due to my fretting over making changes to the June one!

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!

CCN January Cottage

I have just put the final stitches into the CCN January Cottage. I would have had it finished last night but stitching those snowflakes under electric light was proving a challenge - my eyes were stinging and I was having trouble getting my stitches in the right place! I decided that I was overdue for my bed and called it a night. They were much easier by daylight I have to say. 

I'm really pleased with it - I love the turquoise shades. I'm looking forward to starting the Feb Cottage on 1st Feb - Carole and I have decided to start each month's cottage on the first of the month.

I'm going back to some applique now - I've a little bit left to do on this month's SKOW blocks.

2 new starts and 2+1 WIPs

I started the year off with the intention of NOT starting anymore quilts! I'm determined to work on my WIPs - after all, I started them because I loved the design and I would dearly like to see some of them complete. I did commit myself to a couple of new cross stitching projects.

The first one is Outrageous Owls by Glendon Place. I spotted this last year and when I showed it to the girls at our Cropiday (crafting holiday) in November they were so taken with it that we decided to stitch along together on it. We're stitching an owl per month plus a bit of branch.

This is what the finished stitch will look like...

and here is my progress so far...

Sorry for the terrible photos today, it's a rather dark and dreary day. This was a real treat to stitch - there are quite a few colours in each owl, 6 possibly 7 so I'm glad that we split the threads between us!

My second cross stitch project for the new year is the new series of monthly cottages from Country Cottage Needleworks. These are so pretty that it was just impossible to resist them - Carole also had the same resistance problem so we are stitching along together again :D My only problem was deciding whether to stitch them separately or all on one piece. I liked the idea of individual cottages but then wondered how to display them - I didn't really see myself changing the picture in a frame each month. I had a little sort through my stash and found a rather large piece of the called for fabric in 32 count and that decided me - I'm stitching them all on one piece. I think it will turn out too big to frame but a wall hanging will be lovely. Here's my progress so far...

I would have been futher along but for the quandary over whether to stitch on one piece or many!

Last year I started stitching Leanne Beasley's Vignette mystery quilt. I don't think I've shown a picture of my progress on this at all. I fell way behind with it once my elbow started being a nuisance and then once it was better I was SO behind that I didn't feel inclinded to stitch on it at all - how silly. I was inspired by Sharon at Lilabelle Lane to get going on this beautiful project again. I had already completed the first part...

and made a good start on the second part...

The majority of the stitching on the blocks had already been completed but I hadn't started anything on the border. Last week I dug it out and made a start on that. I have most of the stems stitched now and am taking a little break from them by stitching the teal flowers at the moment - love those, they're in tiny chain stitch. It's my intention to sew the rest of the blocks together this month and mark out the stitchery designs so that I can just keep on stitching when I eventually get to the end of part two. My lovely DH called in at the copy shop on the way home from work last Friday and got the copying done for the centre so I have no excuse now - it's time to catch up! 

Here's a project that I am up to date with - Some Kind of Wonderful. I love this quilt and the fabric that I've chosen to make it in (Fig Tree Buttercup) and I'm really enjoying stitching the blocks. The schedule for this month is two blocks from the second column - the daisy and the chocolates. My daisy is almost complete now - just the leaves to stitch on and I have the chocolates prepared and ready to stitch down. I cut out all of the pieces for this quilt before starting any of the blocks so I decided that I would make up all the little patchwork blocks and stitch them to the top/bottom of the blocks. I worked on that last week and have just two left to complete. 

I think that will be a big time saver and I am thinking of stitching together the borders so that they're ready to stitch on when I get to the end of each column but that will be after I've done some more stitching for Vignette. 

Another project that I'm slowly plugging along on is Gail Pan's Berries and Bluebirds. I'm still on the first block - there are a lot of pieces to applique!

So worth the effort though, it's a gorgeous quilt and I have my eye on her new design once this one is completed.

I've seen a lot of lovely new projects around blogland this last week or so, they're all so tempting but I really want to make some progress on my WIPs. I have given in to purchasing the Full House pattern for A Year of Schnibbles as it's one that I've wanted to make for a while. Whether it gets completed this month or even started is another matter entirely! The pattern hasn't arrived yet so I don't have any distraction from my current plan just yet!

 

I've linked this post with Lynn at What a Hoot and her BOMs Away Monday.

Back online and with a finish...

Well August turned out to be a busy month - it was also the month that my monitor decided to go kaput! It didn't like the fact that I unplugged it during my decorating and carpet cleaning frenzy. I thought I was doing it a favour by getting it out of the way of the paint and the carpet cleaner but no! It wasn't happy at all and refused to co-operate once I plugged it back in.Once we got back from our holiday on the Isle of Wight I was heavily engaged by curtain hanging and back to school activities...once that was all sorted out my Dear One beetled off and came back with a bright and shiny new widescreen monitor - I like it, I like it a lot :D

Due to all the decorating activity that was taking place there wasn't a lot of stitching achieved during the month of August. Although I did take a bag full of goodies to play with on holiday I didn't lift a needle once so not a single stitch was made. The light was too poor at night in the lovely little cottage that we rented and during the daytime it was too windy on by the sea! I did a lot of reading instead so I'm not complaining at all. We had a lovely time and the weather behaved very well indeed.

I have managed a finish this week - Country Cottage Needleworks "Bee Joyful". This was a lovely stitch, the colours are gorgeous. I used recommended threads and fabric but my fabric was 32 count instead of the prescribed 28 count because I had that in my stash :)

 

I'm still working on a few other cross stitches - The Library (LHN) is still being built bit by bit; Snow Garden I've not touched since I last updated about that one and I have begun the new Blackbird Designs Loose Feathers project which is lovely - I'll be putting a few stitches into that one tonight and then tomorrow I'll be starting Coffee Menu by Little House Needleworks which I'm going to stitch along with Carole. I've had a nasty cold this week so a little cross stitching and hexagon stitching during the afternoon has been good medicine - next week I'm hoping to get back to some quilting and catch up with Henrietta Whiskers!

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 :)