Chookshed Challenge 2026

 It has been good to get a few more UFO's out of the way this year. Many thanks to Deanna for organising this again. I have found the monthly challenge a great help. So here is a round up of what I have achieved.

January - this was a Sue Hawkins kit given to me by a friend at my quilt group. She had started it and given up, but knew I would love to do it. Which I did.

February - was the embroidered rabbit that I had been planning to make for some time.

The March challenge was to make a Retreat Bag but once again this one went on hold (next years list possibly)  and I made this crochet cardigan instead.

I thought this would be useful for chillier days over the summer. Humph, what chillier days! I didn't wear this or any other cardigan as we had such a hot summer. Oh well, it's there ready for next year.

April was snap top bags and I made these (very) early Christmas presents which have been sitting on top of the wardrobe ever since waiting to be filled.

The May challenge was to use some eco printed fabric but that went by the wayside when I started on a crochet bag to hold my crochet/knitting projects.

I also basted a load of hexagons in preparation for #5.

In June I worked with my rusty fabric and added to my rusty scroll.

I also made a good start on this picture which got me a first at the local Flower and Produce in August.

Not easy to get a picture without reflection or shadows so here is one pre framing.

In July I worked on my swap hexagons. This is now ready for straightening up and finishing next year.

August saw me working on small flower embroideries to fill some gold oval frames I bought at a brocante in France some years ago.

And finally in September this little embroidered kit.

October was a failure as my final challenge is on hold until I can sort out some sashing fabric - it might be on next years list!

Anyway, a profitable year and I am glad to have joined in again.

The End of October

 It has been, apart from Cornwall, a quiet month. Have been watching the trees change colour and the evenings draw in. The heating is on and the kitchen is producing warming and filling food again. Christmas cake made - mincemeat next month and then of course Christmas pudding on Stir up Sunday. Lots to look forward to in November.

But looking back for a moment on a month of stitching and my Stitch Journal for October reflected the changing and falling leaves outside.

No Chookshed Challenge for me this month - the last item on my list was the RSC/Jenny of Elefantz log cabin blocks from a few years back. I want to assemble these into a top with sashing and I don't think I have quite the right fabric. Will pull them out at the end of the month when I shall have a chance to audition them with some fabrics. I plan a separate post showing all my challenges for the year.

Meanwhile, I needed something to work on at my Quilt group this last week and pulled this UFO out of the cupboard.

The large Dresden flowers have all been quilted and I made a start on the centres of the border flowers but am awaiting the delivery of some dark grey thread to quilt round the outside edge of the border flowers.

The blocks were all ditch quilted by machine which has kept everything stable while I hand quilted, but I am wondering now if I ought to quilt a simple shape - flower/circle - around each intersection. Any ideas/thoughts will be gratefully received.

I shall be back soon with my Chookshed Challenge post, in the meantime have a great weekend.

One of those nothing weeks!

 Not sure where it went but certainly not a lot happened. Even my pilates class was cancelled as several people were away or ill.

Definitely not a lot of sewing happening, in fact only my Stitch Journal has been worked on. Seems like I do need the Chookshed Challenge motivation to get me moving.

The weather has not really been conducive to getting out and about either.

I have mainly been working on my family album. I started it last year adding pictures of my parents wedding and all the cards etc that Mum had saved for 69 years. I think I have now finished adding pictures so it's just a matter of going through and labelling them all up.

My knitting needles have been busy in the evenings and progress has been made on my top - I think I am halfway up the body. Maybe something to show next week. Also I have been reading. I finished this book

the first in a series of five books about the Cazalet family. I am not usually one for family sagas but this was brilliant and I ordered the next two books as soon as I had finished it. The first book is set in the two years before the start of the second World War.

The first named storm of the season came through yesterday, storm Austen, with rain and strong winds although fortunately we didn't get the full force of the wind. It was however strong enough to cause this tree on the green outside our house to lose a large branch. 

It is always the last tree out there to lose it's leaves so it is still full ofvery green leaves making it especially vulnerable to catching the wind. Just have to hope that the powers that be don't decide to take down the whole tree because it 'could' be dangerous. There is another storm passing over today, storm Boelo, but the strong winds are passing over the north of the country, down here it is just very wet. But we can not complain as we need the rain to fill our reservoirs.

So tonight we turn our clocks back an hour and move onto winter time. An extra hour in bed tomorrow morning and lighter mornings for a week or so. Dark earlier in the evening though. 

Back next week. Happy stitiching.

October Whizzing By!

 Over halfway through the month already! Dark mornings and evenings and we have had the heating on a couple of times. It is definitely getting more autumnal after a warm few weeks.

My Stitch Journal for the month is filling up - with leaves.

No other sewing has been happening here. But I picked up some yarn from my favourite yarn shop The Saltwater Yarnery while we were in Cornwall and have been knitting. But it has been a busy week since our return so no huge progress.

It will be a sleeveless v neck tunic and after I have knitted the two 'flaps' they are joined together and the body up to the armholes worked in the round. The yarn is lovely and easy to knit with.

We were very lazy whilst away but had a lovely relaxed week. Lots of reading, catching up with the friends we shared with and showing them a couple of our favourite places.

We took them to Godrevy where usually it is very windy when we visit. But for once it was still, misty to start with but that cleared to lovely sunshine. We walked up to view the cove shown here bottom right.

Getting closer

and zooming in - yes, there are seals!

I was very happy. I have seen seals bobbing about in the water before but never a whole seal basking on the beach like these. We thought there were about 30.

Walking round to view the lighthouse we spotted these Choughs (pronounced chuff).

They are only found in the west of the UK and Republic of Ireland and are doing well in Cornwall but not so well in other areas. They have distinctive orange red bills and legs which makes them easy to spot and a distinctive call. Great to see these on the ground and 'posing' for photographs.

The lighthouse was looking good with a calm sea and the mist moving away from the coast.

And I can never resist a picture of this stile.

Wednesday was very windy and we spent most of it watching the waves through the window,

but struck lucky on Thursday with a calmer day on the south coast when we visited The Lizard.

You can just see in the above photo bottom right, the archaeological dig on the point. You can read about it here. Five more bodies had been found that week - the website has not yet been updated with these.

As always plenty of birds to see from the point and we were fortunate to catch a glimpse of three Blue Fin Tuna out to see. We were watching Gannets and just spotted them popping out of the water underneath the Gannets.

Lovely to have the sunshine back - this is the slipway for the old lifeboat station.

And some kayackers out taking advantage of the calmer waters and sunshine. There were seals following them, probably hoping for something to eat.

Lastly a picture I took from the garden our first night in Cornwall - tide coming in and with it a fishing boat heading for Hayle harbour.

See you next week.

September Stitch Journal

 

Not much to share this week - pictures of Cornwall next week!

Giving a Sampler New Life

 About 4 years ago we bought a sampler from our local car boot - 'you will be able to clean that up' said my dearest!

As you can see there were a lot of 'foxing' type marks in the fabric. It sat on the floor in our bedroom behind a pile of other pictures we had no room for, for about a year before I plucked up courage to open it up. Unfortunately Jane had neglected to add the date to her sampler so the only clue we have to it's age is from the framers label on the back and the 1817 scribbled on the bottom.

The frame was not meant to be opened with ease!

When I had prized off the back board I discovered that it originally had a different purpose.

And then the next problem revealed itself.

The picture was tacked to the frame with tiny and well embedded tacks which were never going to come out without damaging the fabric. I put it all back together and back against the wall it went!

However it was nice to get some close up pictures without the glass and to admire the tiny stitches. They are by no means perfect - not all the arms cross in the same direction! But there are 24 crosses to the inch so they are tiny tiny. You can also see that the fabric has discoloured and I wanted to be able to clean it up which I could not do when it was on the frame.

So eventually I plucked up some courage and cut it away! I knew that I was going to end up losing some of the stitches when it was reframed but it was either that or spending the rest of it's life against the wall. 

The linen fabric was very fine and so I thought - I will loosly tack it to a backing fabric to stabilise it while I clean. Not a good idea as the linen shrank when I put it in water and I had to do a rapid bit of unpicking! Anyway, I made a shallow bath of Retro clean and laid in. It did a marvellous job and removed a lot of the staining, seemingly without doing any damage other than the shrinking. I rinsed it well, patted dry in a towel and left to dry flat. I then re-tacked it to the backing fabric so that I could stretch it over card to frame it again.

And here she is!

And framed although it's difficult to get a picture without reflections sadly.

I am happy with how it has turned out and will soon be finding it a special place on the wall.

We have not been able to trace Jane Cole sadly and the picture framer's no longer exist although there is still a framing gallery at 20 High Street, Beckenham and I had a very nice reply from the current owner. Sadly she was unable to give me any helpful information. We shall continue to search though.