FNwF's October

 It was a cool but mostly sunny day yesterday, and with nothing planned we took the chance to get out for a drive. We headed onto the Quantocks to visit my LQS Come to Quilt in a barn high up on the hills. Having purchased the fabric I need to finish off my table runner (and maybe some embroidery thread!) we drove a little way along the road to Fyne Court. After a browse in the second hand bookshop and a curried cauliflower pasty (delicious) in the cafe we had a little walk around. The gardens are not as developed as some of the National Trust gardens but it was nice to see that work has commenced on repairing the walls and gallery in the walled garden. Hopefully at some time in the future we shall see the beds cleared and planted.

These gardens near the cafe were looking gorgeous though.

And I do love the colours of fading hydrangea's.

This pond is overgrown but evidently has breeding Great Crested Newts which are not as common in the UK as they were in the past. I loved the carved balustrade around the edge of the pond.

From Fyne Court we headed towards the coast and found ourselves in the village of Fiddington and spotted this pretty little church

so of course we had to go in. St Martin of Tours

It was Harvest Festival last weekend and this window was decorated up for it.

These carved pew ends are rather splendid.

And the organ had pride of place.

This sturdy and ornate door handle caught my eye.

The churchyard was very tidy! and we had a nice wander round. We were surprised to find this gravestone of Tony Britton

and these lovely cyclamen

but completely missed the carving mention in the Wikipedia link!

So not a lot of sewing happened. I did my Stitch Journal leaf - yes, leaves this month very appropriately.

And perfect for my choice of brown for my RSC colour this month. I have some gorgeous, rich brown threads in my brown box which I am looking forward to using.

Other than that all I did was some knitting while we watched a film in the evening.

Well, I must go and check my washing - the wind has picked up and I can hear it blowing against the conservatory windows, so need to make sure it is firmly pegged!

Back soon with RSC news until then, happy stitching.

The end of September

 Yes, the end of the month already and so of course my Stitch Journal page is complete. It's always an exciting moment when I turn the page over after pressing, and see all my stitching without the blue lines. Another page that I love and all in black and grey.

A couple of other finishes to share today as well. First my Boro Flower Panel which is now waiting for me to devise a method of framing!!

In case you missed my first post about this panel, all the recycled fabrics and threads were solar dyed when we lived in France. I used leaves and flowers from around the garden as well as coffee grounds, onion skins and black bean soaking water. So for me it contains lots of happy memories of our garden and life in France.

I also finished this little pair of baby socks using the leftover Vintage Tinsel yarn that I used for my own socks.

Many thanks to Kate from Arts & Socks for her pattern advice - https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/baby-socks-23 for the socks, with her own addition of the twisted cuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y2epfNAYoM. I think the twisted cuff is a great addition especially in the two colours. Thanks Kate.

So, a new month and a new RSC colour - I am using brown which I have been looking forward to! It also means Friday Night with Friends and I look forward to seeing you there.

FNSI September

 Friday Night Sew In has come around quickly again! and the end of September is in sight. Thank you to Wendy for organising our Friday night again this month.

As usual I started my afternoon with my Stitch Journal which is growing nicely.

Then went on to work on my Boro flower panel. I am filling in the gaps now and waiting for inspiration to strike regarding the top left hand corner - that ricrac seemed like a good idea at the time!

Apologies for poor lighting on this one - it is raining this morning and the light is not good.

I cracked on with some knitting in the evening and this morning I finished the second Vintage Tinsel sock.

Again, sorry about the poor light!

We had some lovely weather earlier in the week and took the opportunity to visit Barrington Court. Always a lovely visit and something different to see each season. The borders were looking stunning and the White Garden full of lovely frothy white Cosmos.

I have also been distracted this week by some good reading! We found a new to us author and I have been whizzing through these books. If you like murder/detective stories then I can recommend these which are set in The Lake District.

I plan to spend what looks likely to be a wet afternoon, knitting some baby socks with the last of the Vintage Tinsel wool. Hope you are having a dryer day.

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.

End of an orange month

 And I have enjoyed my oranges, lovely to play around with some different threads and how warm and cosy orange is! Probably not appropriate for some parts of the UK which have seen high temperatures but here it's been in the low 20's. Very pleasant it has been too. Dry though and cracks are appearing in the garden and the grass is browning in places.

Anyway, back to orange and here is my Stitch Journal orange page completed and pressed ready to go away.

It is nice having different shapes to work in each month - next month is ovals but no RSC colour yet, hopefully it will come by tomorrow so I can make a start!

Over the last couple of weeks I have been working on my Boro flower panel and it has progressed nicely.

I have finally finished the blossom on the tree

and added some flowers to the right hand side.

It's filling up just as I imagined. Going to start on the left hand side next. 

I have had it in mind for some time to make a table runner for some friends. They are keen Magic Lantern collectors and I thought a lantern would make a great design for the runner. This week I finally planned out my design on squared paper and have most of the lantern put together using EPP. I just need to get to an LQS for some brassy gold fabric to make the lenses that need to go on the front. The doors also have 'portholes' which need the gold fabric too. Anyway, here it is so far - I plan to applique it to a cream background.

I have been busy knitting in the evenings whilst TV is on - football is back! Two pairs of socks on the go - I may have a finished sock or two next time I blog.

In the meantime

Happy stitching!