It's the second week of January and it has been a cold one. None of the predicted snow arrived here although there is plenty of it around the country. We can also see some sitting on the hills around Taunton.

So it has been a hibernating sort of week although we did venture out for lunch on our Wedding Anniversary.

My Stitch Journal is slowly building and I am enjoying my daily visits. Here it is as of yesterday.

I shall add todays stitches later while the FA cup football is playing in the background.

Working with these threads and fabrics reminded me of the Slow Stitch book that first got me started on solar dyeing and so I pulled it out for a browse.

One immediate benefit of this was that I found a dearly loved bookmark which I thought I had lost!

It was lovely to browse through the book again, and I am inspired to dye some more fabrics this summer for next years stitch journal - I need to be held to this!

I also found this lovely quote which I thought I would share.

This week also found me pulling out my Chookshed Challenge no 6. It is to use some of the hexie flowers that I have received in swaps over the last few years.

Here they all are - 41 of them.

I have decided to add a blue pathway around them as I join and they will either be a lap quilt or tablecloth - decision to be made at some point in the future.

So far I have cut and basted a batch of blue hexies and started adding the flowers together.

But I have parked this now for a week while I crack on with quilting Wings - I would like to complete another outer border by the end of the month. No pictures but I can assure you I have started!

I had not intended starting any more knitting for the time being but along came the annual Winwick Mum KAL and I was tempted. There is a free pattern - use the link just above - which I thought would be ideal to use with this yarn which has been sitting in my knitting bag.

It is not necessary to use the pattern to join in - just something using any Winwick Mum pattern or yarn. See here for more information about the Winter Haven KAL. I am planning to get some stitches cast on this evening.

Well, I think that is all I have to tell you for now - hope you all have a great week.

Friday Night with Friends, June

 June already and summer is here. Well at least it feels like summer as the sun has been shining and it has been several weeks since we had any rain.

Good to join in with Cheryll and friends again for FNwFs - pop over to Cheryll's blog here to see who else took part. Thank you Cheryll.

I spent an hour in the afternoon working on my Boro panel which I have started embroidering onto. I finished adding the twigs to my tree and started adding in some blossom.

There will be leaves added and possibly more twigs as I go along. The plan is to fill the rest of the panel with lots of flowers but I can see that I could be some time working on this tree!

Earlier in the week I needed something simple to work on during a zoom chat and wanted to start on my RSC hearts. However, Angela's suggestion of dark and bright blues I have already made this year so I decided to go for red. In the end she suggested adding in some green for teal but I will do that when the red month comes along! Anyway Friday evening saw me watching T20 cricket - Somerset are doing brilliantly so far this year - and sewing down the second heart. So here they both are.

Nice to have these done early on in the month and I can press on with a few other projects - I may just have been led down the garden path to another new project!! More next time.

Have a great weekend.

Friday Night with Friends

Many thanks to Cheryll for getting us together again last night for FNwF's. We were 17 last night stitching cyberly together and you can see what everyone got up to here

I received the next part of the Red Manor House BOM this week and this month we have three borders to add. The first red border is on

and so yesterday I was working on the Irish Chain border which comes next. This is where I started

and this is where I ended up!

Now to get them attached.

Cheryll has invited us all to join her again next week - a coronavirus bonus FNwF's!

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The Community Stitch Challenge this week was set by Cas Holmes and was this

·         In response to social distancing and self isolation, Cas is asking you to find a meaningful object from around the home that evokes memories as a starting point for a textile project.

·         Next step is to create a small collage background using simple straight stitches to attach bits of fabric and paper from your stash to a base.

·         Then using the object you’ve chosen as inspiration cut out a shape in fabric and apply it to the background you’ve created.

Finally use hand stitch techniques to embellish and bring your piece to life.

This was the piece that I worked on

I based this on my home and garden which have many special memories for me. I used some of the slow dyed fabrics and threads from a couple of years ago that used stuff from the garden and my pantry and stitched them down onto a piece of batting so that there would be some extra texture. I then added our house number, the sunflower that welcomes you to our door and some flowers to represent the garden.
I loved working on this.

Have a good week - stay home and stay safe!

FNSI May

Yesterday was Friday Night Sew In - many thanks to Wendy for hosting us. You can see what everyone got up to here

A few weeks ago I came across Jennifer Clouston's Boro Inspired Sewing Caddy and I immediately thought of my solar dyed fabrics from a couple of years ago.

I pulled out my box of fabrics and had lots of fun choosing the fabrics for the outside of the caddy, working the little embroideries and then 'boroing' it all together. Sorry - no work in progress pics! On Friday afternoon I was able to sew the drawstring bag into position and add the ribbons. So here it is.

The yellow side - fabrics dyed with rosemary, walnut husks and onion skins.

The blue side - fabrics dyed with black bean soaking water, morning glory flowers and elderberries.

The inside

I still need to find a suitable cord to cover and then attach around the outer edge of the bag - it also makes the loop for a button closure. So far everything was from stash but I think I am going to have to go out and buy some suitable cord. I love this little bag and - it goes beautifully with the log cabin pincushion I made last year which sits very neatly inside the drawstring bag.

I have also recently acquired a copy of Anni Downs 'A Gardeners Journal' and have been looking forward to starting on one of the embroideries. I am not planning on making the quilt but the designs will make super minis for gifts - and me! I decided to start with the Dovecote and here is how much progress I made yesterday.

The sun has been shining here for the last few days which has made a pleasant change - last weekend was awful! So I am off outside with my embroidery - hope you have a great weekend.

Sunshine and Solar

It has been a beautiful, sunny day here - warm enough to sit outside after a week of grey, damp weather.
The sunshine reminded me that I have not updated you on the results of my solar dyeing. You may remember that here I told you about the book I had been reading called 'Slow Stitch' which included instructions for slow/solar dyeing.
It's been a lovely, sunny autumn overall so I was able to play with lots of jars of fibres and natural dye.

Each jar contains a half a teaspoon of alum, to help the dyes take, the matter I am using to take the dye from plus an A4 piece of linen or cotton fabric, a skein of cotton or linen thread, some lace and some ricrac. The contents were covered with hot water, given a good stir and then left in the sun for at least two weeks.
I have had some really good results which I have documented in a little record book.

It is interesting to see how the different fibres take the dye.

So here is my collection of fabric and threads - a pleasing variety of colours.

These are my lace's and ricrac.

I plan to start again in the spring trying some different ingredients, in the meant time I want to make a start on slow stitching my collection so far.

A Nice Surprise!

My copy of STITCH arrived this week and it was a nice surprise to find a picture of my work inside the back cover in the readers Gallery section. I had completely forgotten that I had sent in a picture!

I have not had much time to sew this week but did spend an hour finishing off this piece of work.

I lined it and then turned it into this little sewing bag.

Somewhere to keep my Slow Stitching kit.

We have had visitors this week and so have been out and about. First to Brantome.

To St Emilion

and home via St Aulaye to see their Felibree decorations.

We enjoyed a visit to Chateau de Puygilhem which had a brilliant exhibition about the curiosities wealthy people collected on their travels in the 16th and 17th centuries and how they displayed them.

It was a busy week as our visitors also helped us to move this delivery of wood which is now ready for us to use over the winter.

So when it does turn cold we should be nice and cosy.

Friday Night Sew In for September

Twenty-five lovely ladies got together last night to sew - thank you very much Wendy for hosting us and you can visit Wendy's blog here to see what everyone was doing.

I have been reading this lovely book by Claire Wellesley Smith.

Slow Stitch means working with recycled or organic fabrics and threads dyed with locally sourced, natural dyestuff and working slowly and rhythmically with the seasons. Threads and fabrics are solar dyed over days or weeks and fabrics might be left outside to weather in sun, wind and rain. Now, I don't think shall be throwing out all my fabrics and starting again but I shall be having a go at dyeing some threads with fruit and leaves foraged from my garden. I was also keen to have a go at some of the simple stitching ideas shown in the book and made a start with this simple piece of dyed wool felt and some strips of my own dyed fabrics left over from my Rainbow Log Cabin.

I love wonky log cabin and I stitched these down by hand. You can see I have drawn in a line to mark my first row of stitching.

Here is the finished piece - it is about 7" square. I love the way this has turned out and also enjoyed slowly stitching along with everyone else.