FNWFs October

 Storm Amy is passing through and from where I am sitting I can see the trees on the green swaying in the wind. We had rain most of yesterday, Friday, and a lot overnight. So yesterday was a perfect day to stay home, bake, paint and sew.

As always the first thing on my list was to work on my Stitch Journal and Friday's contribution was the red black and yellow woven crosses centre right. This picture shows my work for the week

and these the month of September.

After the hot dry summer, our fuchsias now have a new lease of life and the flowers are fabulous. I started a small watercolour of the flowers on one of my plants.

These flowers need more depth of colour and then I shall move on to the leaves. Time passes quickly when concentrating on this.

Then in the evening I was working on my Chookshed Challenge which is coming along nicely. I am having to pace myself here otherwise it would be finished in no time!

Philip has been clearing out the greenhouse now that the tomatoes have finished  and I was asked! to remove 4 solar dye jars which I had forgotten about. So far I have emptied 2 and these are the results.

Sambucus berries. Looking a little washed out in this picture, the silks have taken on a delightful purple colour while the other fibres are a pale purply green. Unusual but pretty.

Rosemary leaves. Again slightly washed out but the silks are a lovely pale yellow.

We had a lovely day out earlier in the week. We were given vouchers for the West Somerset Railway last Christmas and finally got around to using them. The train starts at Bishops Lydeard, just a 15 minute drive from home and the line goes out to the coast at Donniford and then along the coast to Minehead. This is the engine that pulled our train, the Odney Manor.

All the stations are beautifully looked after and most of the work is done by volunteers.

First glimpse of the sea.

We decided not to do the full journey to Minehead but to get off at a favourite place - Blue Anchor. Although we have visited Blue Anchor many times we had never walked up onto the station so it was nice to get off there and have a wander. There is a small museum showing the history of Blue Anchor and the railway line.

As always the station was beautifully kept and the flowers stunning.

It was a lovely sunny day and we had a good view across the Bristol Channel to Wales and three ships queuing to get into Bristol Docks. Here is the view left to Minehead

and this to the right towards Watchet which is around the headland.

As is traditional lunch was a bacon sandwich - not photogenic but delicious.

On the crochet jumper front, I have made another start with a larger hook and the next size up but I can see that it is not going to work so my next move is to measure up a jumper that I have which is a simple shape and make something the same. Maybe I will have something to show next week. In the meantime, happy stitching.

FNWFs August and Chookshed Challenge

 Many thanks to Cheryll for organising our Friday again - you can see who else took part here.

I spent Friday visiting Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham, a 3 1/4 hour coach trip which meant I spent more time on the coach than at the show, but it was worth it!

I have lots of photographs to share but will do that in a separate post.

On the way there, once on the motorway, I was able to get on with some knitting and did most of what you see here. Too tired to knit on the way back - I read instead.

The first sock was finished earlier in the week.

No Stitch Journal on Friday, I had to catch up on Saturday - here is my last week.

And the whole of July

This months Chookshed Challenge number is #7 which for me is to make a cover for this little sketchbook.

You can read about how I made this book back in 2017 here. Since then I have been working, on and off, into the pages with a mostly butterfly and middle eastern theme.

I plan to take some of the shapes and patterns from the pages and use them on the cover - but need to get my thinking cap on!

Finally some purchases from FOQ starting with some blue fabrics to use with the yellow hexies I worked on for the Chookshed Challenge back in January.

A Sue Hawkins kit - my thread cutter is always getting lost so hopefully this will help me keep track of it.

a selection of threads

some vintage bits

and some lovely eco dyed fabric.

If you are still with me then thank you! And I will see you soon with some FOQ pictures.

FNWFs July and Chookshed Challenge #9

 Many thanks to Cheryll for our get together last night - the link is here to see who took part.

I of course, worked first on my stitch journal and earlier this week I started on a new one. The fabric I am using is something I picked up from a charity shop and is probably cotton. It was a bag 18" wide and I am not sure of the other dimension however when I got it apart - it was very firmly stitched together -  it is over a yard long. I am wondering if it was a nightdress case. The flap is embroidered with thickish white thread which I plan to work with/over when I get to it. I purchased online another spool - not as nice as the previous one as it has been smartened up although it is old. This one holds a strip of 6" fabric which was convenient as I was able to cut my fabric neatly into three. Anyway, less waffle, more pictures!

and a close up of this week

Bottom right is todays stitching which was inspired by our visit earlier today to the kitchen garden at Knightshayes.

The rest of my Friday was spent watching cricket - test match followed by T20 - and so sock knitting was ideal and I am now making good progress on my second sock.

This months Chookshed Challenge no is #9 and on my list that is to make last years stitch journal pages into a book.

These are the pages

and the plan is a zigzag book. I have it in my mind, and hope it will work in practise! Anyway, I have made a start on the front and back panels. The first one will will have 2024 embroidered on it but so far all I have done is the border using Reversed Buttonhole Bar starting with a fairly random row of buttonhole.

This is as far as I have got with the back panel

I mentioned earlier that we visited Knightshayes today and I will leave you with a few pictures from the lovely kitchen gardens. Have a great weekend.

FNWFs June

 Lovely to be joining in with Cheryll and friends again yesterday evening - not much time to sew during the day as I am decorating.

So as usual I started with my stitch journal and here you can see my progress over the last week with the blue buttonhole variation and it's cretan stitch filling being last nights contribution.

Then I moved onto sewing a few more Japanese folded squares. I cut these out earlier in the week to add to the bag I already had. I don't remember sewing these before but I am glad I am not making many more as some of them are proving tough on my hands!

These are the ones I have made this week - that pinned one is proving to be particularly tough so I am leaving it til the end incase I can do without it. Still trying to work out when I first made these but I know it was a long time ago as I was using polyester batting and I have not used that for a very long time!

I have embroidered my Tree Skirt roundel for the month - this was a simple one.

And I have done some sock knitting and am nearly to the toe now - hopefully a finish this week.

So that was my Friday night, and my week.

Hope you all have a great week.

FNWFs May and other things!

 The car was booked in for a service on Friday afternoon so I went along with some quilting to do and sat in one of their comfy chairs drinking their very good - for a machine - coffee. Two hours later, all was well and I had completed quite a bit of quilting. Sadly I cannot show you as it is 'secret stitching'!

In the evening I worked on my stitch journal - that last lollipop tree was my Friday stitching.

And my stitch journal pictures for April

Many thanks to Cheryll for getting us together on Friday - always lovely to see what everyone is doing.

This week has seen a couple of new starts, first up a new pair of Winwick Mum basic socks. And by the way, if you have knitted a pair of WM basic socks over the last year then there is a great giveaway - this is the link Winwick Mum you need to read through the post for details.

I am using King Cole Zig Zag yarn which I have never used before so am looking forward to seeing what pattern emerges as I knit.

Another new start this week has been a Ripple Blanket using Lucy's lovely pattern I aim to use up some of my autumnal DK wools. No hurry with this one, just as and when. Maybe not so much over the summer should we get any warm weather!

On the subject of which, it has been a warm week here with temperatures of 26/27 degrees. Most un April/May like. Cooling down now though but it has not rained for a while.

Completed this week was my tree skirt roundel

these sew up nice and quickly.

I just had to initiate a major search for my Chookshed Challenge #8 as it was not in the box I had expected it to be in! However, having found it I now also know where #5 is, when we get to it!

So this is my #8

and it just needs making up into a cushion cover. It's just under 18" square so a decent size. I made it many years ago when I was trying out applique and never finished it because I didn't have a home for it. But I think I may have found one now. The fabrics were all Procion dyed with hand applique and hand quilting.

That quilting looks amazingly neat and tiny but the fabrics were all cotton lawn which makes for easier stitching.

So I think that is all I have to tell you this week - hope you all have a good week.