The Treehouse

Song of the Weather January and Lucky Stars Practice

I've just put the final stitches on the January piece for Song of the Weather. I can't possibly say how much I've enjoyed stitching this little piece. I had sworn off doing monthly stitches for this year other than the ones already underway and was seriously reluctant to take on another one. I'm glad now that Carole persevered with her temptations and that I finally caved in and decided to do this SAL. It really hasn't taken very long at all to do the stitching and the instructions are excellent. I only stumbled on the knots (in the middle of the daisies) and had to get out my left handed embroidery book to do those as the picture in the instructions was for a right handed person and my brain refused to translate! 

Here's the finished piece - I am using 25 count Lugana in ivory with DMC threads 600, 605 and 712.

Isn't it pretty? I can't wait for the February design to arrive in inbox!

Yesterday I did the practice piece for the Lucky Stars BOM (oh look, another monthly project - I thought I had sworn off those and here I am posting about another one :o ) All of these designs are foundation pieced - I thought it was time that I got this skill licked - I usually put the fabrics in the wrong place and end up with them not covering up what they're supposed to! Not so this time. I made the 6" version of the block and it went as smooth as silk, no hitches at all which bodes well for me making the January block - some time soon, before January is done and dusted!

I'm really thrilled that this turned out so well. It's destined to become a little pouch for Catherine in the near future :)

An Owl and some Seedlings...

There are a lot of people signed up to make the Farmer's Wife Quilt and I just couldn't resist (there is a link in my sidebar to the Flickr group). The blocks are only 6" and the ones that I've made so far have stitched up quite quickly...they're rather addictive. I've managed to make 8 this week and would have made more but I was determined to finish off my Owl cross stitch. Once I've made another 4 I'll be up to date until it's time to make the next blocks. I've some free time tomorrow while the boys go kayaking so I may just fire up my sewing machine and make a couple more blocks. I'm using my stash of Fig Tree fabrics - I've started with some Fig and Plum, I especially love the colours in this collection of fabric. Here are my first 8 blocks...

The cross stitch that I finished this week is Once Upon a Time...an Owl, charted by Jardin Prive. It's turned out very nicely and I'm looking forward to getting it framed and hanging on the wall.

I am still without a card reader so these are scans, I just about managed to fit the Owl onto the scanner! I'm happily stitching away on LHN The Library now and enjoying it enormously. I did a little online shopping with Carole this morning - I think we rather egged eachother on! The upshot is that we will be stitching along together on LHN Coffee Menu soon and hopefully Sunflower Inn after that! I also have a Blackbird Designs chart that I'd like to stitch soon...if only the need for sleep didn't become so pressing after a while, lol!








 

A little update...

I seem to have been AWOL for a while :o In my spare time, I've either had my nose in a book or been stitching away like mad just lately. 

I've worked on my Tail Feathers quilt - I can see the end in sight now and am glad I didn't leave all of the log cabin blocks until the end! Not much has happened with the Bluebird quilt at all, in fact - I've decided that I'm going to concentrate on finishing Tail Feathers before I launch into anymore Bluebird blocks.

Matthew's quilt is finally all quilted. I was finding it such a chore of a job and really wished I hadn't started stippling it. However, it's all done now and does look nice...just need to sew on the binding. He keeps asking me if it's finished yet and finally I can say...almost!

 

Dear Jane has taken a bit of a back seat lately. I'm itching to sew some more of these little blocks though, I love them. I did make a triangle a couple of weeks ago but that's all the progress I've made this year :o I quite enjoy making the triangles :) I treated myself to the Dear Jane cd and have played with it a little - printing out foundation patterns. Gosh, it makes things much easier! This is TR2.

 

The latest Snowbound block was posted at the end of last week. I'm itching to get started on this - it's a skiing snowman, lol! Also, I spotted a lovely new BOM on the blog of Erin Russek - I just cannot resist hand sewing you see :) It's on my list of things to get around to.

I've done quite a bit of crosstich that last couple of weeks. I finished another Blackbird Designs stocking - I love these. This one though, I wasn't so keen on really when I started it but now it's done...I really like it! 

 

Here's the first one that I finished - it's called Winter Carnation. Once the first 3 are stitched, I'm going to have a little stocking finishing session.

 
I have started the next one which has a birthday cake on it and then stopped stitching it while I contemplated whose initials and date of birth should go on the stocking...these are serious matters after all and one must ensure not to stitch too many of one person's initials and not enough of another person's initials otherwise war may break out! While I was mulling this little dilemma over I did some surfing...big mistake! I stopped by at Annette's lovely blog and while I was perusing all her lovely stitches I spotted a link...to a SAL...with birds and hearts. Of course, I clicked upon the link and it took me here to Sylvia's blog. I visited a few times. I looked in my tiny stash of crosstitching fabric. I visited again. I looked again at my fabric and low and behold I had a piece of 28 count evenweave in cream that would do the job nicely.

 

This is how far I've got. I had thought to finish the boxes this weekend but I didn't get that far...that was Stephanie Plum's fault! Or maybe it was the Library's fault for calling up to let me know that they had a couple of Stephanie Plum books ready for me to read :cough:

I did finish off my FaLaLa a few weeks ago though :D I did a little frogging on the ladies. I had stitched them plumper than they should have been and I didn't think that was fair at all so I whipped out those extra stitches and finished them off. It's quite a big ornament but I really like it. I would have preferred braid to the pom poms really but couldn't find it in the correct shade. The pom poms are quite fun though.

 

I've taken a photo of this twice now and both times it's come out blurred but you get the general idea :)

As I mentioned, I spent a lot of quality time with Stephanie Plum this weekend. I've seen people say these books are not so good but honestly, I laughed until I cried! A very good bit of light hearted humour along with a good bit of detectiving and a few hunky chaps thrown in for good measure. Just perfect for in between some serious reads. I've read the first 5 and will be going on to read more as soon as the library can provide! Last weekend I spent some time with the new Jasper Fforde...it took a bit of getting through to be honest but I was determined to get there. There are more books to come in this series and I'm thinking that a lot of time was spent setting up the new 'world' in the book so I will definitely give the next ones a go. I also read a book by LL Bartlett yesterday - she writes the Booktown mysteries under a different name. It wasn't bad at all...a little bit 'Medium' like but with a hero as opposed to a heroine. I do have the next one in my pile to read and look forward to seeing how Jeff gets on with his new found abilities. I have rather a fine stack of books to read at the moment....I spotted the new book by Elizabeth Kostova while I was in the library the other day...that may be next to get devoured!

I've promised myself NOT to spot anymore SALs or BOMs or the like, I must surf with my eyes closed. Particularly as I'm feeling the need to make a bag...it's been a while since I did the last one, lol!

 
 

Triangle Tuesday

There are 3 triangles to make each month. Thought I should try and make one a week. They're a bit stressful. Those pieces are very skinny. It took a long time but I survived and the result isn't too bad. Thank goodness I thought to put matching marks on the fabric and double thank goodness that I had the forethought to purchase the rulers! I need to go and lie down in a quiet place now and tonight we'll visit the library for some new reading material and then I'll stitch something that's less stress inducing tonight!

I think this scan is a bit wonky, it looks much better in real life and the green fabric is delicous.

I finished Shattered Silk by Barbara Michaels (library book) last night. It was an ok read. I made a start on the first chapter of the second book featuring these same characters as I couldn't nod off last night. At first I thought a new character had been introduced but no - one of the main characters is being called by a different name - Kara, instead of Karen :o How strange is that ? I flicked ahead a few chapters to see if it was a printing error but no, she's still Kara there. Perhaps an explanation will be forthcoming or perhaps it is indeed a printing error of gross proportion!

Sunday Afternoon Sewing

Have spend a very pleasant afternoon with my sewing machine while listening to DD playing her flute and occasionally singing along in a fairly out of tune fashion - tuneful singing and paper piecing do not go together, lol! 

Had a lovely little parcel yesterday morning from the Fat Quarter Shop. It was month 1 of a BOM that I signed up for. I did that at a point in time when I had few projects on the go and had recently begun to wonder if I'd made a mistake and taken on tooooo much. Well - no mistake was made, I knew that as soon as I opened the parcel and saw the fabric. It's Wiscasset by Minick and Simpson and it's very, very lovely indeed. In keeping with my 'do not get behind on BOM' rule I set to it last night and printed 1/2 square triangles onto the fabric using my Inklingo cd - love that, so glad I got it working :D This month's block is called Prairie Star and it went together super quick this afternoon :D

 

This afternoon's Dear Jane blocks - first off...A2. I was terrified of this one but it's turned out not too badly.

 

 

and a Jason's Jacks for a Dear Jane Winter Holiday swap. Got a couple more that are almost finished and just needing some applique doing on them.

C1 - Trooper Green's Badge

This one turned out well - finally, a successfully paper pieced block!

 

Cardigan has progressed - just needs its sleeves sewing on now...that's tonight's job with another episode of Bones. We're trying to relieve the Sky Player of some of its burden, we record far more than we make time to watch!

A1 - Pinwheels Gone Awry

Learned quite a few lessons from this block! It was the first one that I started to make (because of the pinwheels of course)...on my birthday, ages ago. I abandoned it after I'd paper pieced the first two rows and sewn them together. It was too lumpy bumpy and the seams weren't matching. I pulled apart the first two rows and put them in my Rainbow Jane box for a later date.

Today was the later date - I have quite a few blocks left to make for this month's Rainbow Jane so I thought I would try to finish this one off.

It's not too bad I suppose - hopefully the lessons that I learned while making it will mean that Flowery Jane gets a better Pinwheels Gone Awry!

There was progress made on the cardigan last night - at last! Just need to cast off the button/buttonhole band and sew up the rest of seams and then I'll be wearing it - woo hoo! Would have been more but DD needed a scarf knitting - her class are sending Christmas gifts to an orphanage in Bulgaria. It was difficult to know what best to send really as there was a list of things that weren't to be sent. We opted for some fashionable woolly gloves and a scarf like the ones I showed on here a little while back, this one was lilac and grey. No picture as it's gone off to school this morning to get gift wrapped.

I bought a nice little book of cardigan patterns the other week...there are a few in there that are calling my name and they're knit in lovely soft, non-scratchy merino wool - the children don't like proper wool...it itches when they snuggle up.