The Treehouse

March Cottage, In Full Bloom and Henrietta

I was a little late starting this month's cottage as I was busy finishing off the first two blocks for Lynette Anderson's In Full Bloom BOM. I got underway with March on Friday last week - I LOVE the greens in this cottage. I've loved all the colours so far actually and each month becomes my new favourite!

Here's the progress so far...

The little shamrock above the house is in the wrong place and will have to come out - I miscounted, oops!

The next pics are of the In Full Bloom block of the month - there are two blocks to stitch each month and these are the one for the month one. Thoroughly enjoyed stitching these although that garden bench seemed to be neverending!

My kit for this BOM came from Bev at Fobbles and she has chosen a gorgeous linen type fabric for the stitcheries, it's a pleasure to stitch on...so glad I bought an extra metre of it for my cushion making.

I decided to stitch the quilt top together while I was in the mood so that all I will need to do each month is to stitch the designs and then applique them to the background. The original pattern uses Broken Dishes blocks but I wasn't too keen on those and have swapped them for pinwheels. I have the two borders to stitch on and then the quilt top is all done but for each month's stitcheries. My husband loves this quilt already and can't wait to see it hanging on the wall!

In the continued spirit of finishing things off, I dug out poor neglected Henrietta Whiskers yesterday. I decided to get the final block made and to attach the borders so that I can take this away with me at the weekend and enjoy stitching the applique down. I'm hoping to get the top finished before the end of the month. Just a few borders to stitch on and the applique to prepare now - Sophie the blackbird makes several appearances in the border along with some more stars I think.

We're having the first of our crafting weekends away this coming weekend and I'm really looking forward to it. I've probably got enough stitching for 6 months ready to go with me! 

I've got quite an exciting little project planned once the postman delivers. I was enjoying a wander through the Fat Quarter Shop coming soon pages one day when I happened upon the upcoming Grinch fabric. Catherine was looking over my shoulder at the time and fell in love it and asked if I would make her a Grinch quilt. As it doesn't come out until May I explained that she would have to wait. Later on, I found that they still had a supply of the previous Grinch fabric so I have secretly ordered it up in the hopes of completing a quilt for it in time for her birthday in May. Whether or not I'll manage I don't know as procrastination is one of my middle names!!!

February Cottage

I put the last few stitches into the February cottage on Sunday. This is such a pretty design, I really enjoyed stitching it.

Not such a brilliant photo as it's rather dark here the last few days - in fact, this morning it's really rather foggy outside...headache weather :(

Here she is next to January...

I'm really glad that I decided to stitch them all on one piece of fabric - I'm using 32 count, I think the chart calls for 28 but I had a large piece of 32 in my stash so went with that. I started stitching on my February owl when I'd finished and Matthew thought that I was going to stitch his cottage next...his birthday is March so of course, the March cottage belongs to him :) The March cottage is green - my favourite colour. I'll be starting that along with Carole on 1st March. Carole made a few litle changes to her Feb cottage which I think are wonderful - she substituted Rhodes hearts and I think they're smashing...go and take a peek.

I've been fiddling about with cushion making this month. I bought a gorgeous pattern from Chitter Chatter Designs as soon as it was released last year and then put off making it. I thought it was time to make a start and have been enjoying making the Dresden plates for it. I have one stitched down with the other one left to do. I love this cushion and can't wait to have it on our bed along with the rest of the cushion family that live there! I've a plan to make some small quilts for the bedside tables with pointy Dresdens also using Butterscotch and Roses - eventually!

A new project arrived in the mail this month from Bev at Fobbles. I had been eagerly awaiting it and started cutting up the fabric almost immediately. It's Lynette Anderson's new BOM, called In Full Bloom and Bev provided a lovely kit of Lynette's fabrics. I had some nice sized scraps left once everything was cut out and distracted myself from the quilt by making yet another cushion as I couldn't bare to throw them out. It's almost finished and I'm just dithering over whether to add a little embroidery to it before calling it finished.

You can see why I couldn't throw away the scraps can't you? I have the first two blocks traced onto the fabric which is a gorgeous linen type of fabric and I'm itching to get started on the stitching of them. I'll need to keep on top of this project as the new button club - 'Fernhill' is due to arrive anytime soon and it looks adorable.

Speaking of the button club - I haven't yet finished off Christmas Fun and in spite of having kept up with the stitching of My Garden, the first button club, it has sat in my sewing room for almost 12 months waiting to be quilted. Last weekend I decided that it was time to stop fretting over what quilting to do on it and just get it finished. I went with what I know best and stippled the outside borders and stitched in the ditch for the rest of it - didn't take very long at all and I'm thrilled that it's finished and ready to hang on the wall.

It's just as well that there's an extra day this month - I'm hoping to have my 'scrap' cushion completed and also my February owl all stitched up before March makes an appearance :)

 

Some Kind of Wonderful - part 1

I decided to take a little break from stitching Wildflower and carry on with my blocks for the Some Kind of Wonderful stitch a long. I had stitched the first two blocks a little while ago and had only 3 blocks to stitch to be up to date with the schedule. These little blocks are hard to stop stitching - very addictive indeed! Here are the first four completed blocks - the fifth one, the suitcase, is almost done I'm in the middle of stitching the words on it.

  

I'm stitching the little patchwork sections on as I go and then stitching the blocks together - just the suitcase to finish and I'll have the first column complete and can stitch on the first two borders.

Here's where I'm up to with Wildflower...I've two large flowers left to do, a couple of words and the coloured stitches in the large leaf. Might stitch on this at the weekend at our crop but then again, I might stitch some of the Autumn Blackbird Designs instead :)

 

I mentioned to Carole about the new CCN monthly cottages. Looks like we'll be having a little shopping spree sometime soon :grin: I asked yesterday and Karla at Patchwork Rabbit has the January chart just waiting to be ordered up!

My Garden...in the garden!

It's a beautiful sunny day here today. After getting the necessary jobs done quickly this morning I got down to stitching together the blocks and borders of Lynette Anderson's My Garden quilt. I've thoroughly enjoyed receiving the little package with the button and pattern each month - the blocks are so pretty and don't take a huge amount of time to stitch and applique. My favourite blocks are the beehive and the tree but I like all of them. I took my completed block out into the sunshine to photograph...quite tricky as there's a little breeze. I'm glad I signed up for this BOM and hope that the next one is just as enjoyable because yes I did - I filled in the form and posted it off on Saturday to reserve my place for the next Button Club quilt!

Now to contemplate the quilting...something simple is all I'm capable of and I've saved the buttons to stitch on once the I've done the sandwich so that they hold at least a part of the stitchery blocks to the back (I won't be quilting into those).

My Garden block 9 - Crow Cottage

the final block! It arrived on Saturday morning and I've managed to snatch a few stitches in between birthday parties and football etc. and just finished it off this afternoon. Can't wait to stitch the quilt top together now.

Consider the Lilies part 1 and My Garden block 8

After I had sworn not to begin anymore BOMs until something was completed, I happened across Val Laird's lovely BOM called Consider the Lilies and was instantly smitten! I could have used stash but...I'd been looking for a reason to buy some of the lovely Robin Pandolph fabric! It took a while to arrive and I was in the middle of making the birthday pillow when it finally landed so it had to patiently await some attention. This is the first part of block 1, the 2nd part was released on 15th February so I have time to get on track with this one before part 3 is available.

I also managed to get the stitching and borders done on the 8th My Garden block - definitely one of my favourites. Only one block left of this quilt to arrive now - I don't think it will be too long before it's here. The new button club begins in April I think - with a Christmas theme! I'll be getting mine from Bev at Fobbles again, hopefully with some fabric.

We've two discs left to watch in our week long marathon of 24 -season two viewing...no wonder I got so much stitching done this week! I took a break last night and did some sock knitting for a change.

It's another self patterning yarn, this time in my favourite colour :D there is nothing quite like the feel of hand knitted socks - shop socks although a fraction of the price and far less time consuming just don't come anywhere near this level of comfort!

Friday Night Sew In - February

I had a lovely FNSI and got up to date with the courthouse steps part of the My Garden blocks. I had only put the steps onto two of them...and on one of those I had started on the wrong side! I contemplated leaving it but I knew that once it was on the wall it would stand out (to me) like a sore thumb. So...I cut out all the bits for the other blocks and undid that one. After that was all done I traced the latest block and prepared the applique for it so I'm ready to get that stitched next. Didn't get around to doing any cross stitch - I was ready for a glass of wine and a few chapters of my book. 

I've laid the blocks out here more or less as Lynette has them on her blog - only one block left now and I think it won't be too long before that one arrives. I'm looking forward to seeing this on the wall but need to think about some quilting ideas...not my favourite part of the process! I wasn't going to do the next button club - I may even have said that on here somewhere but...I like getting the little surprise parcel with the button in each month so I signed up again. I'll just have to get John to build more house for all the Christmas things I keep making to display on the walls!

Friendship Birthday Pillow

I finished the secret stitching project yesterday just in time for Wez's 40th birthday celebration crop. I hope she likes it :) The stitchery design is taken from a friendship project by Helen Stubbings The original idea was that you stitched the centre design yourself and then 3 friends would stitch and add the borders. When I was thinking of what to make for Wez's birthday gift I wanted something special that celebrated friendship and this design came to mind. Instead of making a wallhanging, I've made the finished stitchery (minus the final border) into a pillow. I picked the thread colours from the fabrics that I chose for the little hexagons - I think they really add to the design, I'm always happy to be including hexies in something.

*Happy Birthday Wez*

Secret Stitching and a New Start

I'm busy working on a secret at the moment - hoping to have it finished very soon. I've been taking a little break from my other blocks in order to get this completed in time. Here's a little sneaky peak...

 

Last Autumn I was fortunate to be able to take a class with Jeannette Douglas at Fobbles This was my first experience of any counted thread work other than cross stitch. It was an intense but enjoyable few days in the presence of a lovely and very talented lady. I decided to build up my skills before pressing on with the class project - a beautiful sampler full of different types of stitches and below is a small beginning on one of Jeannette's other designs.

This particular part of the design has only cross stitches in it and will be used to make a lavender bag when done - the finished design is a thistle. There are several other items to make in the set - scissor keep, pincushion and little pillows which all have stitches in them that are new to me. I've been itching to make a start on this project (on a cross stitch project in general really) since it arrived and I finally got going on it last week. I'm having a very hard time leaving it alone while I race to complete the secret stitching!

The colours don't show up too well in this picture, the larger crosses around the thistle are in a deep purple colour and are done over 2 threads, the smaller crosses in the lovely green are over 1 thread (another challenge for me...they are tiny compared to anything else I've made.)

I'm looking forward to stitching some more of this as soon as I've completed the 'secret' and I have plenty of other stitching lined up for this month as well - the new Henrietta Whiskers block, block 8 of My Garden, block 1 of Consider the Lilies and whatever else I can squeeze in!

I read my first book for the Transworld Crime Caper at the weekend - Mistress of the Art of Death by Arianna Franklin and am now pondering over the words for my review. How I've missed reading this lady's books before I do not know - historical detective stories are my favourite!

 

More Hearts and Flowers Progress and a Homecoming

My Tailfeathers quilt came home from being quilted on Tuesday. I've been looking at it ever since! The quilting has been beautifully done by Christine Marriage of Father's Heart Country Quilting It's lying on top of our bed at the moment and just needs its binding stitching on - that might be a job for today. I've taken a few photos, they're not brilliant as it's a dark, cold day here - it's actually trying to snow.

It came home with all the edges beautifully trimmed - I'm relieved about that as trimming isn't one of my favourite things to do.

A couple of close ups of the quilting next.

I've made quite a bit of progress on the Hearts and Flowers centre this week. The squiggles are finished - I'm not scared of those anymore! I've also appliqued the next two layers of the heart on top of the squiggles. Progress will most likely slow down on this now as there are choices to be made and I'm a fine procrastinator!