The Treehouse

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!