Roundup of the year

It's the end of the year and my last roundup of challenges too.  Not much was done!

Needlequest

December was miniature work which doesn't really float my boat so I sat this one out.

Something New for 2014

I think this is the first month that I didn't have anything to link up!  Bad show Crafter's Apprentice, get apprenticing.

A Lovely Year of Finishes

The Mackintosh inspired wall hanging has been my ALYOF goal for months.  And it finally got finished!



Craft Book Sew along

I did no reviews in the December, but I did make a beaded ornament from Spellbound Festive Beading.



Rainbow Scrap Challenge

The challenge finished for the year in November, I had hoped to finish my scrap buckets but it didn't happen.

Smalls SAL

I failed to join in with this too!

2014 FAL Q4

I managed to finish two whole items from my list of 9 in December, I amazed myself!

1. Placemats to match my chair cushions from these scraps

2. Flower Patch bag using this kit

3. Hessian reindeer, bought many moons ago and now it's time

4. Mackintosh wall hanging, here's a photo of the pattern - see above

5. Circle of Geese mini.  Remember this top?  I want to make a mini out of it.

6. Quilt And Sew On

7. Cuzco quilt - so close!

8. Applique cushion.  I'm going to FMQ this and make it into a cushion.

9. Mustn't forget the latch hook rug!  I will get it finished this time.  I said that last time too!

So not a successful month for challenges, but it was December.

As for next year, I've decided to just stick with 2 challenges.  I'll continue with the 2015 Finish Along as I like the quarterly check in time frame.  I'm also going to continue with the Smalls SAL as I have so many smalls I want to stitch and it's nice to have a finish.  I would join in the craft book challenge if any pops up as I always plan to craft from my books, so do let me know if you hear of any.  Apart from that, I want to continue plodding along with all my crafts and learning lots of new techniques along the way.

Happy New Year to you all, I hope 2015 brings you everything you wish for.

Presenting: our kitchen!

This story begins a long time ago and is a long time waiting to be told.  When we bought our house in 2007 it had been a student house for 20 years and it showed.  The plan was to do it up, which is taking a lot of time as we don't have the cash, time or inclination to spend every weekend plastering and sanding!

This is how our kitchen looked.

See the 80s kitchen cupboards?  The big patch on the wall where the boiler used to be?  The burnt oven which must have been 30 years old at least?

There was a nice bit to the kitchen, my white painted shelves with the bunting!  The open door is the door to the dining room, the closed door is the door to the cellar, it was a real squeeze to get down there!

That's the back door with the lovely exposed pipes and the wide drawers which were too big to be organised.

Not forgetting the gorgeous lino, torn and stained all over.

And then, in April 2013 it was time for a new kitchen.  The dining room was full of the new cabinets, delivered and waiting to be fitted, so we moved our kitchen into the living room.  This was day one when it all seemed like an adventure.

Slowly the kitchen started coming apart.  Appliances removed.

Down came the cabinets.

On day two all the units were removed and the kitchen in all its beauty was exposed.

And that's when the discovery was made.  The plaster wasn't coming away from the wall above the door, the wall of the house was falling down.  Marvellous.  What followed was months of hell arguing with the insurance company, who in the end refused to pay up, then full building works for 2 weeks whilst our house was put back together.  The entire time we lived without a kitchen.  I will never ever eat another ready meal.  This was also the catalyst for my depression, so it sparked an extra year or so (please don't let it go on much longer) of hell.  All because of this innocent looking patch of bricks.

November 2013 the new kitchen was finally fitted.  So why am I showing you this over a year later?  Because I'd been waiting for kitchen curtains!  It turned out that they weren't going to sew themselves from the fabric I bought back in November 2013 and I had to do it.

We went with white units, black counter top, black floor, then injected colour with the multi-coloured tiles.  That meant I could use any of the colours in the tiles (all colours except purple) for accents.  I chose yellow for the curtains.

Unfortunately the exposed pipes remain, a year later I'm still waiting for them to be boxed in!

So ta-dah!  These cafe-style curtains herald the end of the nightmare that was our house falling down.  I love my new kitchen.

cushion

Following hot on the heels of my Art Deco wall hanging finish is yet another finish and one from my Finish Along list!

My 2014 FAL goal setting post is here.

I appliqued this cushion top back in April, you can see my original post here if you are so inclined.  It's taken me 8 months to finally finish it into a cushion and it only took an hour or two to do.

I free-motion quilted swirly loops and little hanging hearts all over the top, avoiding the applique pieces. I also chose to leave the vase unquilting, though it doesn't make it pop out as the quilting is not very dense.

I used two co-ordinating greens for the back, no idea what they are, sorry, they're from my stash and I suspect they were from the Stash club I was in.

I sewed right sides together and turned out, creating the envelope back at the same time, as I couldn't face binding this.  I really don't enjoy binding and I'm very rubbish at it.

I quilted in a light green thread, then struggled to get decent photos of it!  I think you can make it out in this photo, very basic but not too bad.

It's nice to get this off the list and onto the chair in the living room.  I'm now officially finished with cushions as we've ran out of room for them!

It's finally finished!

After being on my A Lovely Year of Finishes list for about 4 months running, and after being in the  2014 FAL for at least 2 quarters, I've finally finished my Mackintoshesque Art Deco inspired wall hanging!

My FAL goal setting post is here and my ALYOF goal setting post is here.

Kerry persuaded me that the best way to finish it was with faced binding.  She sent me the link to this tutorial by OP Quilt which worked really well.  OK, it's not perfect, but I was working with the edge of a 1/4" bias binding rather than a whole quilt.  As you can see it's not perfectly flat at the edges.

But, quite frankly, I don't care!  I also don't care that the back is an absolute mess.

I am very happy with the way the front looks and that's all that matters.  Now I just need to get this baby on the wall.  How the hell do I hang it up?!?



  


Related Posts
reverse applique
bias binding on
the quilting

beaded ornament

I only have one photo to show you of the beaded ornament I made.  I took about 10 but they all came out really badly.

This is the Georgian Bauble from Spellbound Festive Beading by Julie Ashford.  I've had the book a while, but always thought it was a bit hard, now was the time to try.  The bauble is 40mm so it's pretty small. I used size 11/0 and size 8/0 seed beads along with bugle beads and crystals.  

I'm really chuffed with how it turned out and it looks great on our over-crowded Christmas tree!

Speaking of which, I'd like to wish all of you who celebrate it a very merry Christmas and a happy new year to all!

I'll be back on Boxing Day with more crafty stuff.

Does this count as vintage blackwork?

I embroidered them a year ago, so surely that counts?  I did the blackwork portion of these sachets/ornaments back in November last year! You can read my posts about them here and here,  For those that don't know, blackwork is an embroidery technique done on even count fabric, such as Aida (as I've done here), or evenweave that you'd use for cross stitch.  It's made up of a series of backstitches which form patterns.  Traditionally it should be double sided.  Mine isn't and is a right mess on the back!

At some point over the past year, I sewed them up on the machine and all that remained to be done was the stuffing and closing the gap.  It took me about an hour to do all 10!  Why do I put these things off?

They are stuffed with lavender and backed in bits of old clothes, though the purple one above is quilting cotton as I couldn't find any old clothes suitable.  As you can see, they're pretty badly sewn up, very strange shapes, so I was obviously in a rush that day!

I hadn't shown you the one above in the original posts.  I finished embroidering it just after I wrote those posts and this picture has been sitting in a draft post ever since!  I did this one for my mum as it is Mackintosh-esque.  You can find the free pattern at Imaginesque

See what a strange shape this one is!  3 rounded corners, one pointy corner!

The Christmas ornaments are stuffed with a bit of fibrefill and shakily sewn up as before.  I'll put some on my tree and see if my mum wants to pretend she likes them so I can give a couple to her!

Backing these ones we have flannel pjs, quilting cotton, old top, old shirt of Mr CA, flannel pjs.  I have so many old clothes to be used up and this is the only thing I've done with them in about 3 years!

purple bracelet

And the winner of the Most Descriptive Blog Post Title is...   me!

Yes, it's a bracelet.  And it's purple.

And I have two identical photos of it.

I used this free tutorial, but only did one row of the repeat.  It's made using Superduos and size 11 and size 8 seed beads.

That is all I have to say on this subject.

A half-baked notion

The morning of my birthday, last month, I had the urge to crochet whilst waiting for Mr CA to get ready to take me to Jamie's Italian.  I was dressed and ready, just waiting for him which is always the way in our house.  I picked up 200 Crochet blocks by Jan Eaton and started working on a square.

This is no 197 - Fretwork.

As I was crocheting I came up with a half-baked notion of making a sampler blanket, using my stash of left-over oddments and this book.  A blanket made up of each square in the book, and maybe some more from other books or the internet.  

Later that week no 16 - Waterlily was born.  This is left overs from the wrist warmers I posted earlier in the week.

I'm not sure if my half-baked notion will come to fruition, but I might just keep crocheting a square as and when I feel like it and see what happens.  It will be a rainbow blanket, out of necessity, so I think if I keep the colours similar within squares (and add neutrals apparently), it should work out.  We will see.  Or not.

edited to add.  As I was adding the tag to this post, I saw there is already a tag for "granny sampler blanket".  It would appear this is not a new half-baked notion.  I have a vague memory of some other blocks from this book.... I'm off to investigate.

A couple of cards

It's hard to imagine now, but I used to be an avid card maker.  I spent all my free time making cards, but these days I hardly ever make any.  The silly thing is, that when I do make them, I enjoy it.  I think what stops me making more is having my craft room upstairs.  When I was at my card making peak, I lived in tiny little flats where I used the dining room table as my craft room.  With them being tiny little flats, the table was in the living room, pushed up against a wall with towers of storage on top.  I miss those days...

The quilled cherry blossom was made into a card in record time (for me).  I sent this off to Mr CA's nana (would that be Nana CA?) as a thank you for my birthday present.  I simply layered it up and added some brads in the corners.

This card was made from die cuts and a birthday cake candle and found its home with my dad for his birthday.  I needle-felted a card for my mum's birthday but neglected to take a photo.  I'll have to ask her to take on as I know she will have kept it.

Save the Stitches SAL

It's check in time for the Stitch ALong.  I'm stitching along with 9 other ladies, though we're all stitching on different projects, the SAL is to keep us motivated and moving along.  So am I and have I?

Here is where I was last week, this was block 13 on Elizabeth Almond of Blackwork Journey's Save The Stitches blackwork sampler.



And here is where I am now:

I have done half of block 14 and half of block 16 which is the row across the bottom.  When I've finished the pattern you can see I'm working on, I'll complete the metal thread stitching for these areas, then I need to move my QSnap to the right and carry on with blocks 14 and 16 and get block 15 done too.  I'll take a picture of where I'm at then too.  I seem to be averaging a block every 3 weeks so this is going to take me forever as I'm only half way through!

You can go and see what the other participants have been up to here:

Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea

Claire at Claire93's blog

Gun at Rutigt

Kate at Tall Tales from Chiconia

Carole at A Slight Obsession with Books

Eleanor at Sun and Cake 

Alison at Minerva Handmade

Jule at From the Boudoir

Elizabeth at Stitch 4 Therapy





Related Posts

block 13blocks 8 - 12
blocks 8, 9, 10, 12
blocks 4, 5 and 6
Block 3
Block 2
block 1 finished
Block 1
The tiny version

Wrist warmers

Guess what I made?  Yes, some wrist warmers!  When I get in my car in the winter, the steering wheel is always cold to the touch.  I could wear gloves but.... ladies and gentlemen, I know this always comes as a shock... I'm a smoker and you can't smoke in gloves.

Enter the wrist warmer...

The little holes are for my thumbs and I don't do all those buttons up every time I put them on, I just slip them on.  I used this free pattern by Sandra Paul of Cherry Heart and it worked out great.

I used the only buttons I could find a set of, which was these mismatched painted ones.  They don't match, but they do sort of go together.  I'm not sure I like them on these wrist warmers, but they're covered by my coat sleeve anyway.

I'd love to tell you what yarn I used to crochet these, but I honestly can't remember.  I do know it was superwash, so I can put them in the wash.  I make a point of never having a photo of me on my blog as I hate photos of myself, so this is all you will see of me.  Don't I have odd thumbs?


p.s. comments about how I should quit smoking are not welcome!  I am fully aware of the dangers and what it does to me, but right now, with my mental health the way it is, it's not the right time to put myself through quitting.

orange peel qal

I'm still chugging along on the Orange Peel QAL.

I managed to get all my peels appliquéd and I even avoided a hole in my finger by finally getting used to wearing a thimble.  I have to wear it on the ring finger of my left hand (I'm left handed) as I find myself pushing the needle through with the side of my nail.  Without a thimble, the needle eye sinks into the space between nail and flesh.  Gross and painful.

The next task was to trim the blocks down and sew them together.  We deliberately made the blocks oversized at 6" so they could be trimmed down.  I read the instructions, then took this project with me to the next meeting of the East Midlands Modern Quilt Group where I promptly forgot the instructions and cut them all down to 5.5" which I think is a shade too small. 

Some of them took some major trimming down and were often sewn on at a funny angle, so I'm glad we did it that way.  I thought sewing them together would be a nightmare, and it was.  I had to unpick and sew loads, though I was only aiming for workable and not perfection!

The finished quilt is pretty big, for a mini.  If the blocks are 5" finished, there are 6 rows and 6 columns so that means it must be 30" square?  Give that girl a prize for her maths there...  Next stage is to quilt it.  I might attempt some FMQ in the backgrounds, not sure what I'll do for the actual peels.  Any suggestions?



Related posts

first update
appliquéing peels

How a mistake can be a design element

A while ago I made a little dragonfly pendent from Swarovski elements and crystals.  I needed a necklace to hang it on and decided to attempt the Russian Spiral  from Seed Bead Stitching by Beth Stone.

I messed it up.  The design uses size 8/0 and size 11/0 seed beads.  Size 8/0 is the larger bead.  I got them confused and so my spiral turned out larger, and less spirally...  I noticed about a third of the way in, so thought I'd have a go at doing it the right way round to make a kind of focal point.

I really like it!  I prefer the smaller spiral, both the way it looks and the colours (I know they're the same colours, but the white stands out more in this central part), but overall I like the change between the chunkier spiral and the more delicate one.

My only issue now is that I don't have any clothes that gold goes with!  Why did I choose that colour scheme?



Linking up to the Craft Book Sew along