Heatwave Incoming!

 It's pleasant here today, even a sprinkling of rain but from tomorrow temperatures are set to rise to the mid 30's during the week. Thankdfully not the 40 degrees plus that our friends in France will have but still a tad too hot for us. It is going to affect the whole of southern England with London and the East getting higher temperatures. Our new conservatory roof is going to get a good work out.

This last week has been pleasant and some tidying has happened in the garden. I have picked the first tomatoes (cherry), cucumbers and mange tout peas - plenty more to come. I suspect that anyone who visits will be presented with a cucumber (no sniggering please) as there seems to be a glut forming already.

I have been working on my Stitch Journal of course. Here are this weeks offerings.

And the socks are finished.

These were made using Stylecraft's Head Over Heels, Colours of the World, Sacred Earth and I do love these colours. I have completed the cuff on my next pair - there is a lot of cricket and football around!

I have dyed the white panel I showed you last week.

I think I was a little over ambitious and used too much tea and rust but however it's fine and will probably (thanks Julie) fade in time. I dyed it flat sandwiched between some sheets of paper which I had not tried before and found on this video which is excellent.

So, the results.

This piece of paper went on the bottom with a few leaves scattered on

and I will definitely repeat without the rust as there are some lovely prints in there.

Next the fabric and then another layer of paper with the butterfly and a snowflake on.

Then two thinner sheets of paper with a few screws in between.

These will be cut to page size and added into my sketchbook. For the time being though I need to stitch into my panel and have some beads and threads ready to go.

I finally got to the Roger Fry exhibition in my local museum this week. Roger Fry Which I enjoyed very much. I think this was my favourite painting because of the colour and design

but there were many different paintings in differing styles from throughout his life.

I am ashamed to say that after 4 years here in Taunton it was my first visit to the Museum of Somerset but I shall definitely be going back! The gallery where the exhibition was held was excellent, plenty of space and air con (might be worth another fiver to go back for the air con next week). Good lighting and plenty of information about the artist and the paintings. The whole place looks very swish so I will be back again soon to browse their collections.

Well, I think that is all for now, have a good week.

The middle of June

 And just another week until the longest day! Always a bit of a relief to me as I don't like these light mornings although I am happy to have daylight until almost 10 at night! Especially when the weather is good and you can be outside. We have not had much of that this week although has certainly bucked up a bit today with lots of sunshine.

The one day that we ventured out this week turned out to be the wettest, of course. We arranged to meet a friend at Crowcombe Heathfield Station for coffee. Famous for being featured in 'A Hard Days Night', it is a very pretty and quiet little station and would have been perfect for a few photographs. But. Crowcombe is on the edge of the Quantock Hills which were covered in mist and it was cold and wet at the station. We enjoyed our coffee and chat, saw a train come and go - diesel sadly, not steam - browsed the bookshop and then moved on towards the coast to Williton where we stopped at an excellent butcher for sausages and where it was dry and almost sunny! However, we had no plans to visit the sea and headed home to enjoy a fresh pasty for a late lunch.

The Stitch Journal has grown again - here is my work from the last week.

I have been working on my rust pieces this week. This is the sample I showed you last week

and here it is after rust and tea treatment.

I have added it to my original sample and you can see the differentce.

I used stronger tea for the first sample and may have left it for longer although I don't remember keeping notes so can not be sure. I like both samples and it is good to be able to see a difference.

I did a small sample with a rusty butterfly that lives in the garden. It is difficult to see the two butterflies but again, I could have used stronger tea and left it for longer. 

I shall add this sample to my roll and stitch into it I think.

Also this week I have started on another piece which is now ready for some tea/rust treatment.

This piece is aproximately A4 size. I layered scraps of linens onto some light weight interfacing and stiched across the whole thing 1" apart to hold it together.

I have then appliqued pieces of linen to form the flowers and leaves. I plan to dye this flat with some strategically placed rusty items before adding more embroidery, beads etc. Hopefully some progress this week.

A few pictures from the garden. Philip grew some teasel plants last year fron seed and these have shot up over the last few weeks.

I am looking forward to seeing these flower - a blue/purple I think.

And this lovely small tortoiseshell came for a visit.

Have a good week everyone.

Chookshed Challenge and first week of June

 Deana and RNG came up with #7 for June, and on my list that is rust.

Some of you will remember a few years back that I followed a short online course with Deb Cooper who works a lot with rust. I produced this small sample - neutral threads on neutral fabrics, all natural fibres.

The piece was then wrapped tightly with iron nails etc inside and soaked in hot strong tea for a few days which gives this lovely effect. Well, I think it's lovely - opinions differ!

Anyway, at the time I started on another piece to add to this, got so far and then it was tucked away in a box awaiting another day to shine. 

Well. that day has come, so I pulled it out this week and added some more stitching, as below.

I wrapped it all up and stuck it in a jar jar this week with its nails and tea and it is now residing in the airing cupboard to brew. I shall share the results next week. In the meantime I am planning to prepare a fabric background to stitch onto that will eventually reside in a small frame. Hopefully again, more next week.

June's Stitch Journal panel has started nicely - here are the first five days.

Here are the pictures of May's stitching.

Also this week, I have completed the embroidery of the white crazy panel that I put together last week.

You should be able to pick out the heart shape which is stitched in blue. This is now waiting for a sewing machine afternoon.

And finally, it has been a busy cricket week so lots of knitting happening - this is the second sock of a pair and I am at the point of knitting the heel flap.

It's been a damp week here, windy at times, so apart from a couple of appointments we have not been out and about. The big news is that on Tuesday we had the roof of our conservatory insulated which should mean that the room will be cooler when it is very hot and warmer in the winter.🤞Anyway, it looks very nice and has eliminated the nooks and crannies inhabited by spiders so all good for the moment.

Happy stitching.

FNSI October

 It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon here after a night and morning of rain - storm Ashley, the first of the seasons named storms. Fortunately for us it was not as fierce as expected although more rain on top of what we have already had will be looking for somewhere to go.

Friday was a dry day and we had a few errands in town in the morning. I spent a couple of  hours in the afternoon catching up with friends so not much sewing happened. But I did of course do my Stitch Journal leaf for the day and the page is filling up nicely, if a bit too quickly!

I also cut the backing fabrics for my Magic Lantern runner which is now almost ready to layer up - just some little black feet to add first.

It does rather resemble a Dalek at the moment though!

In other sewing news I have been working away on quilting Wings and Pretty Things and have turned the first corner of the wide border.

And have been dipping into another white sampler piece destined for the tea and rust pot!

It will eventually be attached to the first piece and I am on the lookout for a suitable piece of driftwood to wrap it round.

So that is me all caught up, thanks to everyone else for their company and I will see you again soon.

A mixed week

 And I don't just mean the weather although it is just warming up again after a cold spell. But I have had a varied week of sewing which is just how I like it.

I removed my sample from it's rust and tea bath after 24 hours and I am glad I did as my finished sample has turned out darker than I expected. It took a couple of days to dry out and then I had to rinse it and leave it to dry again. So here it is - the undyed sample first.

As I said, it is much darker than I expected and I would have preferred something a little more subtle, but it is a sample and I really like the effect. So more of this to come I think. Next time I will try just tea and maybe another sample with just rust and water to see what happens. Lots to try and I also want to try Susan's salt dyeing. This is something I have done on paper but never thought to try on fabric.

On Tuesday my quilt group had an all day session and I took the opportunity to layer up this RSC top from a few years back.

I then joined with some of the other ladies in making some decorations for our Christmas stall later in the year.

We also had a very interesting talk from a couple of ladies who work for the local council's Care Leaver's department. We have made quilts and blankets for Care Leavers in the past and it was good to hear how they are put to use. We were also given a list of items that they would be grateful for to give the care leavers - as well as a blanket or quilt, cushions are welcomed as well as gloves, hats and scarves. So plenty for us to contribute.

This months RSC is complete.

I got the sewing machine out for an afternoon and completed this Christmas cushion cover which has now been put away - hopefully, come Christmas, I will remember where!

And while I had the machine out I made a start on ditch quilting the RSC Dresden quilt between the blocks. I plan to finish the ditch quilting and bind the quilt then put it away for hand quilting at a later date.

I then had a hankering to do some drawing and got my Inktense pencils out to have a go at a Gaillardia that we had flowering in the garden .

Very happy with this so then I started to add water. In the next picture you can see the petals that have been brushed with water which look much darker.

I need to finish these off now and add a few leaves. Maybe darkening off some of the petals in the centre.

We are almost halfway through the month and so my stitch journal is also nearly halfway.

If you can spot the silver thread you will see that it is very messy and a mistake - the rest of the skein has gone in the bin! A horrible thread. But I have left it in place as a reminder.

Well that's all from sunny Somerset, see you next week.

Friday Night With Friends

 And here we are in September! Autumn is beginning and we are starting to clear the garden of plants that have gone over. Thinking about planting bulbs for the spring and feeling thankful for the rain we have had over the last few days and moistening our very dry ground.

Lovely to join in with everyone yesterday for another Friday of sewing. Thanks to Cheryll for organising and you can pop over here to see what everyone was working on.

As usual I started after lunch with my Stitch Journal. We have these little 'pebbles' to fill in this month and I am enjoying working in the round again. I especially love the ones that have finished up with a dimensional look, like shells or urchins. Black (and grey and silver) is of course this months RSC colour.

No work on my Boro flower panel this week - I got side tracked by a Stitch Club video from Textile Artist.org. They usually do a freebie in September and this one really interested me. It is by Deb Cooper who creates beautiful work using recycled fabrics, plant dyes and rust. Well, I do love a bit of rust so how could I resist.

Basically the technique uses fabrics and threads in natural fibres and neutral colours. I have spent this week putting together a small sampler - aprox 6" x 12" - using cotton, linen and silk fabric scraps and threads using a variety of stitches. Deb includes torn papers and found objects too. I must say I loved doing this and also love my sampler - so much so that I had to be really strong and strict with my self to move on to the next stage! Here is my completed sampler.

Next stage was to bundle it up with some rusty nails and a small lump of rusty metal I found in the garage

sorry about the poor lighting! And it is now soaking in hot strong tea for 24 hours.

Well, we were told 48 hours is better but I can't wait that long especially as you have to leave it to dry out before unfolding! Come back next week for the results.

Next up I needed to make a start on my RSC log cabins. The strips are cut but first I needed to embroider the little Joy in the Ordinary block from Jennifer. Here it is today after I pressed and trimmed it.

Tonight I shall be sewing log cabins.

Also this week I managed to complete two socks.

Now, I don't usually knit two socks at a time but when I started the ones on the left (which use Amethyst and Wildflowers yarn from West Yorkshire Spinners) they were going to be in this Treasure Socks design. However, after knitting the leg I decided it was all too tight, even though I had knitted very loosely. So I went back to my usual basic sock pattern. Meanwhile I had also started the sparkly sock on the right as light relief from the pattern. Anyway, that is the story of these socks, two down, two more to go.

So I think that is me all caught up and I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else worked on last night.

Have a good week.