Finishes and New Beginnings

First up a few finishes from the beginning of the week and my final stitch journal page is complete!

I have really enjoyed working on these pages over the year and look forward to putting them all into book form later this year.

I also completed another Field Journal embroidery - this was the one with bullion knots which actually turned out OK I am pleased to say!

And now for the new year. I have started on my stitch journal roll which I shall be working on every day this year (and posting daily to Instagram, link in sidebar). This is how it looks three days in.

A flower to brighten a few chilly days, but at least the sun was shining. Grey again today and possible snow later.

Another new start for this year is this Hatched and Patched tree skirt that I fell in love with last year.

I plan to embroider one of the little roundels each month and then put it all together in October. Here is the first embroidery complete and waiting to be trimmed and turned ready for appliqueing later.

Since the New Year another Field Journal embroidery was completed.

I wonder why that corner is missing!! This is my last FJ block for now as Wings and Pretty things will be coming out again soon.

I think I mentioned before that I had started some crochet but had no pictures. Well the crochet has progressed over the Christmas period and this is how it is looking now.

I bought a skein of this gorgeous handspun yarn in a local craft shop while searching for Christmas presents and just had to have it. I love those smoky sunset colours. I had no idea how far it would go so started out with the premise that it would at least make a cowl but that I would carry on with it as far as it would go. So I am pleased that I am going to have a reasonable length scarf. Just a little more to go but I do love how this pattern is working up - just simple chain and little picots which are easy and quick to work. I got the pattern from this delightful book which is full of lots of simple craft ideas.

So far I have not got around to my No 6 from the Chookshed Challenge which is to make something/s with the swap hexie flowers I have received over the last few years. I shall be getting them out for a play this week.

Well I think that is all from me for now, I hope you have a great week and I shall be back again next Saturday.
 

September catch up

 I thought I would keep back all my sewing and crochet progress to make a separate post from our Cornish travels.

First up some completed Field Journal hexagons and the latest embroidered one.

My RSC hearts for September

I am going to have to lay them all out again to see what colour I need for October because light neutrals does not excite me!

The crochet blanket has come on a lot quicker than I thought it would - that's because I couldn't face all that satin stitch on the FJ panel in the evenings!

However, it has now been put away for a bit as some balls of sock wool arrived this week from West Yorkshire Spinners so now I am knitting socks. The first pair I am knitting uses this lovely Green Woodpecker colourway.

Very appropriate for a birder I thought.

So that is it for now and I am all caught up. See you soon.

FNwFs September

 September 1st and the start of autumn, haha. It has been autumnish here for the last week or so but this week summer is set to return with temperatures possibly reaching the high 20's. Well that will be very pleasant, thank you.

And thank you too to Cheryll for organising our Friday evening ( and afternoon) again. Pop over here to see who else took part. Gosh, we were a select few, where was everyone? Hope to see a few more next month.

I stitched for a while in the afternoon and again in the evening working on this Field Journal stitchery. Nearly finished now.

I also spent about half an hour crocheting and I will show a picture of that in a minute. 

I do seem to have a few things to show you that I have been working on over the last couple of weeks.

This Jumper is now a finish.

This was a stash buster hence the varied colours. I had a pattern for a jumper like this - it was Rowan - which I knitted up a couple of times and was my favourite shape. Unfortunately I seem to have mislaid the pattern so I had to adapt and improvise. The neck is not exactly right but it will be fine - nice and cosy with a shirt for the winter. Now as we all know, stash busters never seem to knock much of a hole in the stash and so I still have a bag full of this colour combo lurking under the bed. So knowing how crochet eats wool I have started a ripple blanket (Attic 24 ripple pattern) to try and tame that stash. And that is what I spent a little time on yesterday.

I have decided one or two rows a day will be enough to make this grow quickly.

I have two more FJ stitcheries ready to frame

I tend to wait until I have four ready and then finish them off.

The garden has done really well this summer with lots of flowers and colour right the way through. It has been nice to have it buzzing with bees and full of butterflies. I thought it would be nice to record the varieties of butterfly we have seen in the garden by sketching them and at the same time playing with my coloured pencils. Here are the results.

I still have one more to slot in - possibly on the first page bottom left as it is one with it's wings closed. Anyway, I enjoyed working on these.

So that's it for now, have a lovely weekend.

Friday Night with Friends

Lovely to join in with everyone once again - thank you Cheryll for getting us all together again. You can see who joined in here.

It was a busy day with shopping and the  market in the morning. Then our WDP service in the afternoon. For me it will always be the Womens World Day of  Prayer service but I suppose times must change. Our prayers for the women of Zimbabwe will be appreciated whatever the name of the service I know.

So it was the evening before I was able to get to any sewing, and I needed to get my swap hexies made for the month. A result.

We will have been home from Spain a week tomorrow, Sunday. And apart from today, it has rained every day! Yesterday the river flooded and all the way along to Riberac the fields are flooded. The water is still there today. Tomorrow we are expecting more rain.

So, plenty of time indoors to finish my crochet sampler blanket.

I added an Indalo to a black section on the blanket in cross stitch to indicate that I had worked most of the blanket in Almeria. The corners are a bit too full but then this was a learing experience and I shall know what not to do next time. Overall I am very happy with the border and I managed to use most of the yarn I had in those colours.This was a great holiday project over two years.

There is a new Janie Crow crochet pattern about to be released which I have fallen in love with! It is called The Fruit Garden and is based on the embroideries of May Morris. But, I have promised myself that the next crochet project I do will use my stash. Watch this space!

FNSI for February

Good to be back with Wendy and friends for a cyber Friday get together. Thank you Wendy.

I picked up a cold earlier in the week but fortunately on Friday I was feeling much better and was able to get my crochet hook moving again! I started Friday with my sampler blanket looking like this

and managed three rounds of the border - well I did do the last side on the third round this morning! One round of green crossed treble and two rounds of black trebles.

Next up I think a few rounds of pink shells would be nice. It is reasonably square considering that I have not blocked anything - a miracle I think!

Since my last post we visited the guns at Mazarron. This site was built in the early 1900's overlooking the Bay of Cartagena to protect the military arsenal at Cartagena. 7km of windy track takes you up to the site and the views are spectacular. It was a bit misty so my pictures are not as good as I would have liked.

In the first emplacement there are two huge guns - you can just see one peeping over the rocks in the picture above.

About a km further along the point there were four more guns - there are only three there now as one was moved to Almeria. These are not so big but still large.

Well worth the visit for the amazing views.

Another amazing view was of the murmerating starlings near to where we are staying - I am particularly pleased with this picture.

Friday Night with Friends

Good to be back working with everyone again - thank you Cheryll for getting us all together..

I have been quiet on the blog front as we are back in Spain for our annual winter dose of sunshine and warmth. We managed to get here with storm Gloria chasing our tail and the first few days of our stay were wet and windy. But once she moved on the sunshine returned and we have been having beautiful weather.

Whilst not out and about I have resurected the crochet that I was working on last February and that is what I was working on last night. This is how far I had got at the end of last years holiday.

The blocks are all different - free patterns from the internet. I worked another 10 blocks then started putting them together. Here is where I was yesterday.

I was working on the strip on the left for FNWF's

Today I have made and added another strip so just yesterdays strip to add in and that final block then I can square off.

I plan to add a border using a variety of stitches in keeping with the 'sampler' theme.

I had a lovely day out last weekend when I joined five other ladies on a one day silver jewelery making course at https://www.castellondebedar.com/ Bedar is a small hill town about 20 minutes inland which has an amazing view of the coast. This was our lunchtime view.

Clare took us through all the processes of making a ring and we each went home with a completed ring. Here is mine.

What a great day out and Clare's and partner Shane kept us well fed and watered with a delicious lunch. Here we are busily working away.

As usual we have been up and down the coast visiting favourite places. This beach was new to us though - Playa de Monsul. Its reached by driving about 7km's along a dusty track from San Jose.

Very beautiful. On the way back to San Jose we passed these goats munching away.

Happy Stitching from Spain!

Persian Tiles - a finish!

I have been busily crocheting away every evening this week and finally finished my blanket on Friday. I have to say I am really pleased with it!

And I was happy that yesterday was a nice, dry sunny day and perfect for taking photographs.

The last block of My Vintage Kitchen came from Jenny of Elefantz on Friday so I now have that sewn up.

I need to get the borders machined around my last two blocks then my mini quilt is ready to assemble. Meanwhile I have gone back to basting hexies for 1797 while watching TV.

I have had a little box of water colours for many years now and a selection of 'how to' books picked up from charity shops but which never seem to quite show me how best to use my paints. However, last week a new video from Design Matters TV did exactly what I wanted. I downloaded the design they used and followed along with Linda and hey presto I seem to have a vaguely respectable watercolour of some rudbekia.

Just the scary bit of adding the background now! Next up I plan to have a go at some winter iris that I have a photograph of!

Well, the clocks changed here last night, so for a few weeks I shall be back to getting up in daylight again until winter creeps in.

I'm off to the cinema this afternoon to see Downton Abbey - can't wait!

Friday Night Sew In

The months are rolling by and another Friday night has passed in the company of friends. Many thanks Wendy for getting us all together again. You can catch up with everyone here.

Well, I have very little to show I am afraid as I spent my afternoon working on some secret stitching and then in the evening I got out my crochet and made these.

The Persian Tiles crochet project that I kept in UK to work on while visiting Mum and Dad came back to France with me this summer and has been sitting in the cupboard.

As I have finished all the tiles and just need to make the joining pieces I thought that it was about time that it was completed. So this is my evening task for the coming week.

In other news I have completed another round of my 1797 Revisited.

And I have the next round of turquoise cut out. So if I get fed up with crocheting tiles together I can always baste a few hexies!

Hope you are having a good weekend.