Saturday Catchup

 Welcome and thanks for popping in - not really en enticing title to my blog today so I hope you find something to enjoy.

Nearly halfway through the month already, I have been keeping up with the Christmas theme for my Stitch Journal and here are the latest additions.

I have been knitting frantically this week and now have a finished pair of socks to show.

I think this is the first time I have managed matching toes! Very happy with how they have turned out and they are going to keep my feet nice and cosy.

Also this week I finished up the last of a batch of Field Journal hexagons - there was not much to finish, just hemming over the backing but it has been hanging round for a while. I usually work on these when I go to my patchwork group but have not been much lately.

Anyway, good to have these done and now I can mark up another batch to keep me going in the new year.

It's been a quiet week with a trip to the seaside cancelled due to bad weather - storm Bram. We have rescheduled for this week so hopefully the weather will treat us kindly and we will be able to meet up with friends. I shall be busy wrapping presents this week I expect as most of the shopping has been done. I hope to get some time to carry on with quilting my Dresdens quilt too.

I hope you have a lovely week.

FNWFs December

 Many thanks to Cheryll for organising our Friday night get together. Sadly she is now moving to Facebook only - Facebook and I do not see eye to eye - so I will no longer be joining in but it has been fun over many years.

As usual I started my afternoon with my Stitch Journal and added a Christmas tree as that was what I did next. Here is my SJ week.

And here is my tree complete with lovely new tree skirt!

After that I moved on to some relaxing knitting. Earlier in the year I spotted this ball of yarn in a tiny shop in Cornwall and fell in love with the colours.

Not bothering to read the label I snapped it up. Of course I later realised that it was going to knit up in wide stripes which is not my favourite😢but I still love the colours and with some bamboo in the mix it has a lovely sheen and a soft feel.

And what about the other Ryegrass sock I hear you ask? Well I realised that I needed some new socks PDQ and the Ryegrass were taking too long, hence the new start. I can knit these while watching television and I did all that stocking stitch last night so hopefully I will soon have these finished.

Otherwise this week I have been working on the bag to store my Stitch Journal in at the end of the year. It is now finished. The stitching did somewhat distort the fabric....

                                              

......however the bag looks fine when it has the stitch roll inside and I am calling the slope on the flap a 'design feature'. The stitched fabric has a lovely feel to it.

That is all from me - back to getting out decorations and writing Christmas cards now. Have a great week.

Frosty mornings

 We have had a couple this week. I had to pop out to the car first thing this morning and found these beautiful feathery shapes on the windscreen.

Aren't they gorgeous!

This week I have mostly been using some accumulated oddments of thread in my Stitch Journal - those bits of expensive thread that are too long to throw away!

And as it is the end of the month, a view of the month in stitch.

You may remember that I am using what I think was a nightdress case as the background for my roll. I unpicked the case and cut it into three 6" x 48" strips and have stitched on two of the strips. It seemed obvious to use the third strip to make a case for the finished roll. I have doubled up the strip and sewn it together and am now embellishing it before I fold it into 3 and make it into a small bag.

I plan to work my way along the strip in a rainbow of colour.

The tree skirt is finished. I used this Hatched and Patched pattern.

It is 19" across although the pattern gives dimensions of 20". However, it would be easy enough to extend the segments for a larger skirt. This will be perfect for my small tabletop tree.

Also finished this week is my first Ryegrass sock.

Not the sock I am most proud of although I do love those colours. I got bored with the slowness of the pattern halfway along the foot and you can see I finished it off with stripes. You will also notice the colour mistake when I swapped from pattern to stripe - I spotted it as I started the toe and was not about to undo it! I have done the rib for the second sock - maybe I will start on the pattern tghis week. I need to get in the habit of doing one 8 row pattern sequence a day.

I have also done some more quilting on the Dresden quilt - no pics though as you have seen enough.

We picked up a job lot of garden pots at our local house clearance depot recently, for a very reasonable price. Included was this welly boot pot which I gave a good wash and planted up with Cyclamen and ivy. Love it on my front door step.

And finally it is Advent Sunday and my Advent calendar is in position poised for tomorrow morning. The first of my Christmas decorations - the rest will come out of hiding later this week.

Happy Advent to one and all.

FNSI November

 And I have to admit that FNSI completely passed me by - but then I don't join in on Facebook so probably not surprising. Facebook is something I check first thing in the morning to see if anyone has a birthday and then I move on to more interesting things!

Anyway, my Friday was productive. After a little Christmas shopping in Taunton's Independent Quarter where there are some delightful shops including a new cheese shop which I made a beeline for, I spent some time with my sewing machine.

If you remember, I have been embroidering a little Christmas roundel each month this year and now is time to make up my Christmas Tree Skirt. It all went together pretty easily yesterday afternoon and in the evening I started appliqueing the roundels. Here it is so far.

I do like how it is looking although if I was starting again I might use a variegated blue thread with a little silver for the embroideries. Finished pictures next week.

My Stitch Journal picture for the week.

Now that the ripple blanket is finished I have started quilting my RSC Dresden Flower quilt which is nice and warm on my legs these chilly evenings. I ditch quilted around the blocks earlier in the year and am now just adding some hand quilting to the flowers. These work up quite quickly.

Also making a reappearance this week are my Ryegrass socks although I have no picture. Am hoping to have the first one finished by the end of the week.

We had two beautiful frosty but sunny days this week. Such a lovely change after all the grey and rain, which we are sadly back to today. Should have taken some frosty pics, the car was covered in white which sparkled in the sun.

We had a couple of days out this week meeting friends but nowhere photo worthy although we did have a nice couple of lunches. Maybe next week, hope you have a good one. 

A Wet November Week

 Yes, it has been pretty damp and gloomy here this week although still mild. However colder brighter weather is on the way thank goodness although I shall now have to move my fushia pots to the greenhouse to protect from frost. They have given lots of pleasure after the last weeks though.

There are still lots of leaves to fall from the trees although quite a few are now bare. I have continued my leaf theme on the Stitch Journal this week.

Have also been playing with leaves in other ways. Spent a happy 10 minutes yesterday afternoon with a leaf and some Aquarelle crayons. Dip the crayon into water then stroke over the leaf to get these delicate leaf prints.

Last weekend I was playing with laying damp leaves onto wet watercolour paper and then dripping on acrylic inks. This was the best section of my first attempt. A subtle print and some blotchy ink!

This was the result of my second attempt with more water and more (non blotchy) paint.

Much happier with this. Also a few sponge print leaves onto a scrap bit of watercolour paper.

These also made it into a couple of sketch books and onto some collage papers.

I had my sewing machine serviced at patchwork on Tuesday. A very nice man comes along with lots of fabric to sell and then sits and services sewing machines for the day. I was very impressed to learn that my lovely Bernina 1008 is worth more second hand now than I paid for it 20 years ago! She is not going anywhere though.

So on Wednesday out she came to be put through her paces and she purrs along beautifully. Remember the tea towels I bought a few weeks ago? Well, they are now two padded and quilted tray mats and very pretty they are too. If I get a chance I will be heading back to the garden centre for another couple.

And finally, I have finished the ripple blanket!

I finished off the edge with two rows of DC giving a neat and tidy, unfussy finish.

It will be heading off to the Care Leavers group later in the week.

So, that was my week - hope yours was a good one too and I will be back next week.

FNWFs November

 It does not seem to have been a very productive Friday for me, mainly because I spent the afternoon sorting through family photographs, newspaper cuttings etc for my family book. I think I made some progress, found out that my Grandmother was one of 10 children and that the house they lived in, in Ipswich, was not far from where I lived and worked for some years! But she never mentioned it as she fell out with her family but I have never known what over.

I did work in my stitch journal, I am adding leaves at the moment.

And here are my October entries.

My evening consisted of some crochet and the ripple blanket has surfaced again this week. Making good progress at the moment.

I think I need to add another 12 or so inches to this, hopefully the wool will take me that far!

The reason that the ripple blanket surfaced is because I finished my crochet jumper. Considering how many false satrts I had I am now very happy with my finished jumper.

I finished off the edges and the neck with a simple shell.

It's been a grey, damp week here but this morning the sun was shining so off we went to the coast for a lovely walk along the prom at Blue Anchor. So mild for November. Stopped off at a favourite butcher on the way home for venison and boar sausages which are our current favourites. We do like to try different butchers sausages when we are out and about.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Chookshed Challenge 2025

 I am so pleased that I joined in with the challenge this year as I have some great finishes that may still have been languishing in a drawer or cupboard! Many thanks to Deana for organising the challenge this year and I am looking forward to joining in again next year.

So here are my finishes for 2025.

And well the first one, January, was not a finish but good progress was made and I now have more blue fabric to continue putting together these yellow flowers next year.

February's challenge was to make a bag using my selvedge stash and this has been so useful for transporting quilts to my patchwork group sessions.

I had a few kits tucked away in a drawer and this was one I made up in March. A very simple lavender bag that I picked up in a charity shop.

In April I worked on another kit - Sue Hawkins this time and if you know me you know I love Sue Hawkins! This time a scissor point cover and matching needle magnet.

In May my challenge was to turn an orphan quilted applique block into a cushion. Another straight forward task which I could should have done years ago.

June and I was putting these Japanese folded squares together - another task that should have been done years ago.

In July I put together all my Stich Journal pages that I had worked on in 2024. I knew I wanted a zigzag book and I am pleased with how this turned out.

August was a project I had been looking forward to - making a cover for a little sketchbook I made many years ago.

September was another kit that had been lurking for a few years. Glad this one is finished but I can't say that I am overly enamoured with it!

Finally in October I worked on another Sue Hawkins kit which I picked up at Festival of Quilts. I had put a covered needle magnet on my original list so added to it this little thread cutter pocket.

Lovely to look back at 10 months of completed projects - next year I WILL remember to put the photographs of each months work into a separate folder as we go through the year!