Slow Stitching

 I’ve been feeling a bit better this week and so have been able to get more accomplished. I finished the stitching on the fourth Noah’s Journey block just in time for the new one to come out. Here’s the fourth, 
kangaroos and monkeys. The fifth has a couple of moose, perfect for Canada, and some hippos one of which is delightfully pink polka dotted.

I’ve also made progress on my The Night Forest sweater. I’m up to five inches done on the body which makes it much easier to get a picture of the colour work around the yoke. I need to do 4 1/2 more inches on the body and then there is more colour work to do before the final ribbing around the bottom.

It’s a lovely sun shiny day with cold blue skies. So I am going to spend the rest of the day resting and stitching by the window enjoying the light. I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Stitching

 There hasn’t been a whole lot of anything happening in the stitching department in the last week or so. I’m in the middle of my annual November fibromyalgia flare up. It seems to always happen at this time of year. Probably a combination of the time change from daylight savings back to regular time and the resulting lack of day light. Add to that seemingly endless days of overcast grey clouds and here we are. So energy for doing anything other than watching stuff on TV or computer is sorely lacking. 

At some point I did get the colour work on the yoke of my The Night Forest sweater designed by Casapinka finished and the sleeves divided off. But nothing has been done on that since. 

I also got a little more done on the Noah’s Journey camels block. But again, that has stalled too. All that’s left to do is the ribbon on the camel’s hat, the monkeys and a little bit of grass.

Oh yes, I also made myself a new winter hat. I had some Aran weight 100% wool in a couple of complementary colours. Enough to do a hat and a pair of mittens. I really feel the cold, especially in my fingers, so I think I am going to do a pair of thrummed mitts. I already have the roving here, purchased years ago and discovered while cleaning out my yarn boxes.

I’m going to link up  to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Stitching

 How did another Sunday come around so fast? It seems like each week goes by faster and faster. It’s the middle of November already. Didn’t we just start the summer a week or two ago? It’s quite disconcerting how fast our days go by. It’s good to have these blogs to keep track of just what happens from week to week and see what is accomplished. I got the fourth of the Noah’s Journey blocks all coloured and the stitching started. 

I’ve also done some more on my The Night Forest sweater. The colour work for the yoke is almost finished. Six more rounds to do and then I’ll be able to separate off the sleeves at which point it will go faster. 

I’m planning on changing the colour of thread in my sewing machine to white so I can sew up the seams for Abbie’s Paw Patrol sweater. Then I’ll be able to pick up the stitches for the zipper band and do the duplicate stitches for the Skye picture on the front of the sweater. I really do have to get that done before she grows out of it.

So with that in mind, I’ll post this and link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then get at the sewing machine.

Slow Stitching

 I gave in this past week and started a new sweater. Is anyone surprised? Somehow I doubt it. And no, I haven’t finished Abbie’s Paw Patrol sweater. I did get the shoulder seams sewn, if that counts as progress. After I did that I tried it on her and it seems to be long enough, so I can go ahead and get the rest of the seams sewn. Then I need to pick up stitches to do a button band and also do the duplicate stitches for the figure of Skye that she wants. I think I need to start alternating projects again so that it will get finished. I’m also going to try and sew the side seams and the arm seams using the stretch stitch and walking foot on my sewing machine. 

So the sweater I started is by the designer Casapinka and it is called The Night Forest. I am totally enjoying this one. I love doing colour work like this.

I’ve also finished up the 3 little stitcheries for the third month of the BOM Noah’s Journey, just in time for the release of this month’s pattern. I traced out this month’s release on Saturday and got a start on the colouring. Another day should finish that portion of the process. 

Not much else to tell about what’s happening here. I’ll post this and link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Stitching

 I haven’t been doing a lot of stitching this past week. I’m too tired by the evening to focus. I’ve been working a little bit on Abbie’s Paw Patrol sweater but it isn’t all that interesting at the moment for photo shoot purposes. The back and the 2 fronts are finished. One sleeve is to the decrease portion of the top of the sleeve and the other is yet to be started. I much prefer doing seamless in the round type sweaters than those that are done in pieces. I’m doing the Skye version of the sweater, a picture of which can be found here. 

I’ve done a little bit of embroidery for Noah’s Journey. These two little turtles measure less than 4 inches square. I’ve started The grass under the geese. I’m leaving the pigs until last, just because they are so cute.

I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and perhaps at least finish that first sleeve.

Slow Stitching

 First off I want to wish everyone in Canada who may be celebrating thanksgiving this weekend a very happy and safe one. We have scaled way back and are only meeing with the people here in the house. I am continually thankful for our happy multi generation household here. 

I have 2 slow finishes this week. I participated in Casapinka’s mystery knit along that began a couple of months ago now. It had 6 sections of clues all written from the perspective of one of her cats, named Sharon. It was so much fun to do, not only because of the wide variety of stitches but also because of the way it was written. It’s hard to tell the size of it from the picture. It blocked out to 20 inches wide by about 72 inches long. Wide enough and long enough to make a nice shoulder wrap type shawl.

The second finish is the second block of the Noah’s Journey BOM by Crabapple Hill. The third block has been released. I have it all coloured and the colour fixative applied. It is drying now before it gets heat set and I can start stitching on it.

In the meantime I started a new embroidery project since I know the smaller ones from the Noah’s Journey BOM will only take a week or two. I am on a quest to make myself some seasonal pillows. I have one for spring/summer and one for Christmas so I decided I needed one for fall. Actually, I should clarify that statement to say that those stitcheries are finished. The actual pillows have yet to be constructed out of them. I found a lovely colouring page that I transferred over to fabric and then coloured in. I’ve started the outline stitching. The apples, pear and peach are finished.

I’m also working on a little Paw Patrol sweater for our grand daughter, found here on Ravelry. It’s still in pieces so there isn’t much to take a picture of as yet. And if that isn’t enough, I indulged and bought myself some more yarn. I love Casapinka’s designs and while working on the mystery found another sweater design of hers that I fell for. It’s called The Night Forest. These are the colours I’ve chosen. Close but not exactly the same as the designer’s.  I love the dark purple. I’ve done the tension swatch but past that I have promised myself that I will get Abbie’s sweater done first. So with that in mind, I will post this, link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then get back to working on Abbie’s sweater.

Slow Stitching

 I finished off the last stitches in the main Noah’s Journey block last night at about 10. I am so pleased with it!

 It needs a good pressing. Here’s a close up of the front of the elephants and some of the bunnies. 

Next up are some kangaroos and more bunnies. As soon as I’m finished here I’m going to get the next block cut and traced and coloured. 

Since there isn’t a whole lot new going on around here, I will post this and link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then get started on that next stitchery.

Slow Stitching

 I am beginning to put my version of Crabapple Hill’s Summer Kitchen quilt together. It is a slow process, even if this part is done by machine.

 Our family has decided to keep our grand daughter home this year rather than send her off to junior kindergarten, a decision I fully support. However that means we are doing some of the schooling with her which gobbles up time. But it is time well worth spending. I squeeze in a bit of machine sewing here and there.

In the evenings I am continuing to stitch on my Noah’s Ark BOM, also from Crabapple Hill. 

The ark is finished, except for the anchor and a few of the flowers. I’ll continue with it after I post this and link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Stitching

 I have finished all the stitcheries for my Summer Kitchen quilt. There are 8 different blocks that go in the outer border. Here are 7 out of those 8. The 8th is a jar of Strawberry jam that has been temporarily misplaced so it didn’t get into the photo. Here it is on its own.

Since I have finished all those I had hoped to get some time on Saturday to start putting them together. However the first day of the London air show was today and my husband wanted to go, so off we went. I figured it was a fair exchange for all the quilt shows and shops he’s done with me over the years. Getting the assembly started will have to wait a bit longer. They are all trimmed down to their correct size which is at least a start.

In the meantime I have started the new Crabapple Hill Block of the month Noah’s Journey. This central block is large..... 24x24 inches when finished, so it will keep me occupied for a while. It took me 3 days just to get it coloured. So far I love it!

I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’m working on a couple of hand stitching projects at the same time. No surprise there. The embroidery continues and I also got sucked in to a mystery knit along by the designer Casapinka. I have done at least a couple of  her sweater designs and loved them so when I saw that she was doing a mystery shawl knit along I jumped in. I dug around in my stash of fingering weight yarn and came up with four colours that contrast quite nicely with each other. The clues to the mystery come out weekly. I’m a week behind, but that’s ok. It’s quite a lot of fun. Each clue section is presented as if written by her cat so there are quite a few giggles interspersed with the knitting. It’s a 6 week knit along and I’m just starting on the 3rd week. 

I have almost finished the last bit of the embroidery for the last row of the centre of my version of Summer Kitchen. This will go at the top where the original design had the embroidered tea towels. 

Here’s a couple of close ups.  

These were colouring pages found on various free sites on the internet.

Once the last bit of the tea pot and creamer are done I will get tracing and colouring on the blocks that go in the border. I need one more fabric for actually sewing this all together. I’m hoping that I might make it out to a store sometime this week to pick something out.

I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then will get back to my stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I have finished up all the tea cups for my version of Summer Kitchen. I am keeping the layout of the original version but am replacing a lot of the graphics they used with things that mean something to me. The long swag of tea cups is done. And so are the last two of the four tea cups with flowers. 

The last section to do is the top where I am going to be doing a series of baking pictures using free colouring pages that I found on pinterest. I’ve got the printed and arranged to the size and place I want them. But I still need to get the fabric prepared to the right size and the the designs traced and coloured. That is this afternoon’s job I think.

I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching

 Last week I finished off the row of cupcakes for my Summer Kitchen quilt. Immediately after that I got to work tracing out and starting in on the tea cups. I continue to be amazed at a couple of things with this project - how much I am enjoying the process anyhow quickly  they stitch up.  I have 2 out of 4 tea cups done: a cup of pansies. 

And I think these look like phlox.

 I have 2 more of these little floral arrangement cups to do. They  will eventually get trimmed down and framed with fabrics before being sewn into the quilt. In the meantime there is also another row that will measure 5 inches by 48 inches that needs to be done. I found a free vintage embroidery design that also features tea cups which I think fits quite well with what  I am planning for the over all look of this quilt. There are 5 cups across this section. The cups are all the same design but are different colours. This is what it looked like when I finished colouring it but before any of the stitching went in. And here’s a close up of the first section finished.

I’m going to link up with Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then get back to more slow stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching.

 I’m almost finished with the cupcake row. I have a little bit left to do on the cupcake paper on the last one. After that I have to do across the ground line and it will be done. I’ve taken the picture showing groups of four which makes it easier to see them.

These have been a lot of fun to do. 

For the next section I’ve been searching around on the internet for free designs add to this quilt. I have found some vintage tea cups with flowers in them which I think I will do next. Here’s one of them.    It will be done in a 6 inch square. Once I finish the row of cupcakes I’ll trace out and colour in the cups and flowers. I think there will be four different cup and flower designs.

I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching.

I’m continuing on with my current obsession with embroidery. I am so enjoying every single stitch watching the designs come to life. I love the combination of crayon tinting and floss. All of the projects I’ve been doing are Crabapple Hill designs. I finished up the floral stitchery I was doing last week.

 At the time it hadn’t decided what it wanted to be. The original design in the pattern was intended to be part of a stitchery bag, but I don’t really want to do that. This is the original pattern concept from Crabapple Hill for the Project Bag. But I think it is going to become a pillow cover. I’m thinking it would be fun to have a series of pillow covers all the same size to switch out for various seasons. I have the stitching for the Christmas Tree Lot all finished but still need to do the piecing around the edges. I’ll need to do some playing with size and borders to get the floral stitchery up to the same size. 

So while all that is pondering around in my head I’ve started a new set of stitcheries. These too are all from Crabapple Hill and are part of the Summer Kitchen series. I didn’t order all of them, just the ones I like that fit with my style of what I think a summer kitchen should be. I like the overall look of the finished quilt so I think I will do that but add in some of my own pictures in their places. Perhaps some tea cups and cupcakes and things like that. These are amazingly fast to stitch up. Here’s the bowl of cherries. 

If I get uninterrupted time this afternoon I think this will be done today. I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching

I hope everyone has a great first day of summer. It seems like it was such a long winter, so this is very welcome. And happy Father’s Day too. 

I’ve finished my embroidery folder project and I love it. This is the outside of it. 

 

 I found some odds and ends of leftover bindings that I sewed together and finished the outer edge. I like the additional colours. It took a bit of fussing to get it all cut to the right size so that it would fold up without anything bulging, but it got done. Here’s a close up of the front. 

The inside is divided up into three pockets, stitched in place where the folds lie. 

 And I have my first new project that uses the folder started. It’s the manger scene I showed last week.

 It is stitching up quite quickly. I have at least two more embroidery projects waiting in the wings. Both need to be traced out onto fabric and both need tinting with crayons before stitching. I have threads for them coming from the Crabapple Hill shop. I’m linking to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching

I’ve set my knitting aside for a while. My right wrist was starting to really hurt while knitting so I’ve decided it give it a rest. I didn’t do any stitching of any kind for a couple of days, but then decided to do something, but I wasn’t sure just what. But last Sunday all the posts about embroidery caught my eye and I remembered a project that I’d started for a needle work carry folder, so I dug it up and have been working on it fairly steadily for the last 3 or 4 days. It’s almost finished now. I’m working on the french knots that go across the top of the embroidered lace motif and on the words.  After that all that will be left to do is a bee above the pink flowers and I’ll be able to trim the piece down and make the folder. 

I have a few more embroidery projects I’d like to do, but my supply of floss is running low. So I ordered some Cosmo Floss from the Crabapple Hill Studios to go with the projects. It will likely take a couple of weeks for that to arrive which will give me time to finish up this embroidery and get the folder put together. If it hasn’t arrived by then, I can work on a small project that if found for a Christmas pillow. Yes, I said Christmas. These things take time, after all. And it’s so cute! It is a manger scene picture and it has little buttons for the figures. I’ll find a colour that I have enough in my thread stash in order to do the manger all in the same colour.

I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching