Nelly

I have been attempting to grab some stitch time here and there over the last couple of weeks. This little lady is a motif that I stitched up for a new postcard swap that I'm in. I now just have to get round to making a background for her to sit on :)

Nothing to Declare

With my machine still at the repairers (and not likely to be back for another 2 weeks - waiting on a part) I don't really have a lot to show at the moment. I'm working on a little hand stitchery, I'm using a photo I recently took of the glorious English countryside as inspirationThere is a lot of stitching to do yet but I'm starting with some collaged fabric scraps. Apart from that I've been working some more on Birds Eye View and some crochet but generally life has slowed right down for a while I've been taking time to enjoy the little things....Like the quick 10 minutes I grabbed in my lunchbreak the other day enjoying the beautiful colours of this poppy field. It was just enough to recharge the batteries and set me up to deal with a busy afternoon in the office - a little fresh air and sunshine can work wonders.

Pumpkinheads

You may have noticed that the stitching content on this blog has been a bit sparse this week. It's been such a hectic week that I haven't really had much time to spend with needle in hand. What time I have had has been spent on these.
These heads are waiting to be stitched and stuffed and joined to the poor headless bodies that I have floating around the place. I'm hoping to get these done in the next couple of evenings so that I can work on some new stuff at the weekend.

Doodle Stitch A Long The finale

Well the last of my little coasters is now stitched. I have to say I'm in love with this last toadstool house design :)I've had a lot of fun stitching these over the last few weeks, here they are all together.The stitch a long has finished now, but I still have plenty of coasters left so there may be some more embroidery at later date. For now I have to get stitching RED

Doodle Stitch A Long Week Three and Four

Just time for a quick showing of my finished coasters from week three of the doodle stitch a long.These designs are sooo cute, I love how the little tree stump house turned out.The final design was released last Friday and I have it all drawn out and ready to go.....

Scraphappy Saturday - No More Blues

Last Saturday of the month so this will be the last of the blues I guess. Am feeling a little sad about that, was just beginning to get up some pace the month has run out, its true that time speeds up as you get older!

Never mind I'm pleased with what I did get done in the end. I'm happy to say the Kindle cover is finished, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. It's amazing what you can do with a few scraps of fabric that might otherwise have ended up in the rubbish pile.You might remember that this was the starting point, some random blue strips woven together, and just a little bit of work later and I ended up with this.I'm now going to be able to take my kindle out and about in my bag without fear of it getting damaged or scratched up.The hand stitching took a bit of time, but I think it was worth the effort. And thanks to Terri's brilliant instruction (see link in yesterday's post) the zip that I was worrying so much about went in nice and easily.And the kindle fits in just perfectly.
This has got finished just in time as I'm going away next weekend so my kindle will now be coming with me :)

If you have been reading my blog you may have seen my posting about the red and white quilt I'm working on, quite a few people mentioned that it would make a great quilt for the rainbow challenge and yes it really would, but somehow I just don't know what I'd do with 12 of them :) Anyhow my favourite part of the quilt is the chequer board block so I figured I'd make myself a few blocks each month and have a rainbow quilt just for myself at the end of the year. So here are the blue blocks.Now I'm off to do some blog hopping to see what everyone else has been doing in the rainbow challenge this week.

Still Got the blues

Hand stitching on my kindle cover continues. I am loving the fabric weaving technique and all the possibilities that it holds. Don't forget you can find all the inspiration for this over on Jude Hill's blog. As I was putting the basic block together it occurred to me that all the little squares of fabric were much like chapters in a book, each with it's own little story to tell, a piece of the puzzle. In my mind they have come to represent all of the chapters in all of the books out there that I've yet to read, some of which have yet to be written even.I thought that stitching some letters in to the chapters/fabrics would be really fitting. One side of the cover is going to be all like the above. The other has a little embellishment.

You know how sometimes you have wonderful treasures that you've held on to for years, just sat there or hidden away, out of sight maybe but not entirely forgotten, waiting to find the perfect home?This little kitty picture (sorry the photo is refusing to upload the right way!) was sent to me by the very talented Terri Stegmiller a few years back when we did a little swap of kitty fabrics. As Terri is also the designer of the kindle pouch pattern, I knew that at last I'd found the perfect project for him.

The covers of my pouch have now been finished, and I have also made one part of the lining for this I'm hoping to get the linings finished and the pouch sewn up today. Of course I'm raiding my blue scraps for the linings of my pouch.I've cut a piece of scrap muslin to size and am randomly laying out all the tiny odd shaped scraps I've kept on top, it's sort of like putting a puzzle together.Once I have my base fabric covered I'm using bondaweb to fuse the pieces in to place.Then on with the darning foot and I'm securing the pieces with some random looping meandering, nothing too fancy or neat as this will be the inside.I'm excited to have this almost done. I'm a bit nervous about the finishing though as this has a zip fastening and I've never put in a zip before.

Doodle Stitch A Long Week Two and Three

Here are a couple of quick snaps of my complete coaster for last weeks Doodle Stitch A longWhile I was stitching this one I have to confess that I didn't really enjoy it half as much at the first week. Not really sure why. The design is cute but I think it didn't appeal to me as much as the first week. Also I was in a bit of a hurry when I transferred the design and I think sometime when you know you could have done something a bit better than you did you just see the imperfections.Actually know its all done I'm a lot happier with it than I thought I would be. I think I'm going to have a fun set of coasters at the end of this.This week there are two design patterns I've had to play around a little to get them to fit in to the frame of my coasters but here they are just waiting to be stitched.

Doodle Stitch A Long Week Two

Wow its Friday again already and I just realised that I haven't spoken about this last weeks stitch along, the next pattern is due to arrive on the blog at some point today too so I'm going to be behind if I don't get a move on.Here is my hastily snapped photo of the pattern that I transferred on to my coaster earlier this week. As you can see the stitching has begun but I have some way to go yet.

Doodle Stitch A Long Week one

I finished my little gnomey stitch a long project :)It's been a while since I've done any embroidery other than cross stitch, so my stitching is probably not as neat as it could have been but hey I still like how he turned out.This week has been full of grey and rain days, I love the rain so actually I don't mind, but it does make photographing anything quite difficult so the pictures are a bit fuzzier than I would have liked but never mind.I added a circle, cut from a scrap of felt, to the back to hide all the stitching on the reverse, and attached this with a line of running stitch in the same green thread that I used for some of the actually detail on the design.I think he's so cute, and he's my first completed project of 2011 :) Am looking forward to starting on week twos design soon :)

Have you heard about ...

.... the Lark Crafts/Aimee Ray Doodle Stitch - A - Long? I love Aimee Ray's cute and whimsical designs so could resist the urge to join in. There will be a pattern every week for the next 4 weeks to stitch.

When you download the pattern it comes in two different sizes. A while ago I bought these plain cotton coasters with a crocheted edge from my local pound store, with the idea of using them to add little embroidery designs too.The smaller of the design print outs seemed the perfect size for one of these coasters so I dug them out from their hiding place and have transferred this weeks pattern.Now all I have to do is find the time to stitch it. :)