Well sorry for the lack of posts recently – been very busy with work and have been away the last two weekends so have not been in regular posting routine. Lots of stitchy goodness to catch up with including the wonderful Knitting and Stitching Show last week at Harrogate.

34 of us went from our Embroiderers’ Guild club on a coach and had a wonderful day out. And yes I did succumb to the lure of Christmas stash even though I do have just a little bit of fabric already!

Who could resist - so pretty!

 I also bought some more bits to go on Xmas baubles and some more cute little charms to go on my stitched gifts and exchanges. My justification is that though I have almost finished ornies for this year I have to start next year in about Sept and that is well before the next Harrogate show so I really needed to buy it now!

The two polystyrene cones at the back are a new idea from Sue Schofield of Springwood House designs – the very talented lady who sells the patterns and supplies for the baubles and cones I make. These she turns into Xmas trees using the same ribbon folding technique as for the pine cones. The instructions come from her new book  Fun with Ribbons.  I may just have time to try these for this year – we shall see. I had a very nice chat with her and told her all about the fundraising for Nepal I had been doing.

In the middle of the pic above are 3 very cute little knitted puds which are covering Ferrero Rocher chocs – I thought these would make a lovely table centre for Xmas lunch.

How cute!

It was once again a feast of textiles with some of my favourite designers and suppliers there. I once again really enjoyed looking at Sue Hawkins, Jane Greenoff of the Cross Stitch Guild, The Historical Sampler Company and The Viking Loom to name but a few of the wonderful stalls with kits.

I am adding these people to my blog roll so that there can be permanent links as I know that lots of people access this blog looking for needlework info and these designers offer fabulous products to get started with historical stitching.

Have loads of other pics of the exhibitions at the show so will save those for another post. They were of course brilliant and once again made me want to give up the day job and be creative full time – or go and do a degree in embroidery and textiles like all those lucky students at the show. One day when the kids are through college maybe!

Also was able to give Barbara her blogaversary giveaway goodies – three ornaments with a holly theme and some Silk Mill threads in flower colours as I know she loves stitching bright flowers.

Barbara's ornies

Silk Mill threads in very pretty colours

I really love using Silk Mill  threads and despite having loads of Anchor and DMC in my stash I very rarely use anything else these days. They are so smooth to stitch with and so beautiful when finished and in so many colours – go check out their web site!  Am just about to go there now to stock up on more greens for ornies as have run out of a particular shade.

Enjoy your stitching – thanks for visiting!

I just love the internet! When it was first invented I can remember saying that I didn’t really see the point and didn’t think I would use it – how wrong I was! I just love discovering new blogs and interesting sites and thought that I would share a couple of my new treasures with you today.

I found this first one in an old article from the Guardian Online Life and Style section about the rise of new domesticity – how baking cakes and knitting has become trendy amongst the ‘younger generation’. Personally I have always done these things but then I had a traditional girls only grammar school upbringing and could do five kinds of pastry by the time I was 15 so I think it is great that people are enjoying making and creating things whatever their age.

The blog is called Yarnstorm  and is run by a multitalented lady called Jane Brocket who does all manner of household crafts and has some fab pics on the site – lots of lovely garden pics which I really like as well as all the crafts.She has also published a few books and one in particular will have to go on my wish list – Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer - a collection of recipes taken from childrens’  books of the sort I used to love reading . I am currently watching Little House on the Prairie on DVD and am having huge nostalgia moments for all those wonderful books I read – next I will go and find Susannah of the Mounties!

Most of the books I loved as a child were about adventures and people living or visiting  quite remote places and I am sure these very heavily influenced me to want to travel.

It was the description of one of her visits to Kew that led me to look at a link she had to a botanical artist – an amazingly talented woman called Susannah Blaxhill. I hope that Susannah will excuse me using one of her pics but I just had to share with you some of her work. In keeping with the unofficial ‘theme of the month’  this is one of Susannah’s illustrations of some pumpkins from her web site. Go and visit and marvel at the detail. These are amazing works of art and I am going to add a book of her illustrations to my wish list.

Susannah Blaxill's amazing pumpkin picture

I have a busy week coming up with work but hope to have finished all of my Xmas ornaments by the end of it. I have done very little the last few days but stitch as have had the tail end of horrible flu so have got loads finished off.

Thanks for visiting and I will be back soon.

Have not been very busy the last couple of days textile wise as am still feeling rough from flu so have just been finishing off some items – one of which is an Xmas ornie for my ASOE  partner which I cannot show until I have posted it later this month.

The other finish is a little needlecase for a friend from Knit and Natter. I used the same set of patterns from New Stitches magazine that I used for the card for Stefon’s Mum a couple of weeks ago – just did a different flower this time again in blackwork on some of my sparkly aida fabric. This fabric has a gold fleck woven into it and is part of a stash from one of the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Shows  a couple of years ago.

Blackwork flower design in black DMC and gold metallic thread with gold seed beads

I finished off the needlecase by lining it with gold silk and putting a thin layer of wadding in between with ribbon to fasten.

Silk lining and gold ribbon

Sorry that I did not post the giveaway winner last night but I did the draw from all the comments and the winner is Barbara. Barbara is a very talented textile artist (no blog unfortunately so that you can see her work) and does the most amazing crazy patchwork tea cosies. So I will be sending a little gift package to Barbara of stitchy things very soon. Thank you very much to everyone else who commented as well and said such nice things about my blog!

Am hoping to get a load of stitched Xmas ornies finished this week – have the backing, stuffing  and ribbons to do on the things that I have been doing bit by bit all year. Then I can start on a couple of new Xmas gifts.

One of the things that I really wanted to do from my Creative Textiles class was to be able to do things without patterns that were just truly creative and I am pleased to say that today I have been doing just that. I have previously done some crazy patchwork when I made a bag for my Mum for her birthday earlier this year but that was still a very planned project where I did buy many of the items rather than just have them to hand.

I have been making Xmas ornies as you know and have been saving all of the small fabric scraps with a view to making something with them.

A selection of left over scraps

Every year I buy some mini poinsettias to decorate the house and so have been left with very pretty little pots when the plants die.

My little golden plant pots

I had seen on someone’s blog a while ago (I forget who) little fabric trees so decided today to combine the idea of crazy patchwork that we have been looking at in the Creative Textiles class with my little pots to make some table decorations for Xmas.

First I made a tree template by drawing round a plate on brown paper then wrapping this on itself to make a cone shape and cutting the excess paper to give me a pattern. I then cut this shape out of some spare red fabric I had.

The tree template cut out in red fabric

I then ironed the same shaped piece of bondaweb onto the fabric.

The bondaweb layer

Once I had peeled off the backing paper I then laid my fabric scraps on top of the bondaweb then when complete ironed the whole thing.

Scraps on top of the bondaweb

This makes them stick to the bondaweb apart from a few bits where they overlap but gives you a robust enough fabric sandwich to cut off the excess.

The trimmed piece

I then machined the pice to cover the joins – I have a very basic sewing machine that jams a lot so the stitching is not perfect and I had to go over each seam a couple of times to even up the stitching. I used the zig zag stitch as it was the best looking stitch for the job. I was tempted to hand embroider these this being my preferred technique but am trying to expand my repertoire so did use the machine though did only get one tree stitched due to jamming! The other one will be finished at a later date!

The zig zag stitching along the seams

Then I folded the right sides together and stitched the seam by hand as the fabric was a bit thick to go through my temperamental machine!

The side seam of the tree

I then turned it right side out and voila!

The completed tree shape

I had originally planned to stuff the tree with wadding and sew a felt circle onto the bottom but once I had sewn it to this stage realised that it was stiff enough with the two layers of fabric and bondaweb to stand on its own so just trimmed the bottom with some gold braid from my stash and then added one of my little brass charms sewn to the top.

The finished tree!

I am very, very pleased with this – I do need to buy some florists’  foam to put in the base of the pot as at the moment this is held up by a pencil stuck in blu tak but this is an orginal idea made by me which has not cost anything at all as it has all come from my stash!

I am going to take it to class tomorrow to show it off.

I am posting this primarily for my Mum in Spain to show her some pics of lovely granddaughter Ellie celebrating Halloween with her friends at Uni. Thanks to the miracles of Facebook I can see lots of pics of her (these were posted by her friend Danni) and as Mum does not use Facebook I thought I would share them here.

Ellie looking fab as always with a scary looking friend

Ellie with Beccy and Sarah all dressed up

All the girls in Chandler Hall ready to go out and scare the locals!

Ellie will be home this afternoon for a week of Mum’s cooking and being looked after! There is nothing like moving out of home to really make you appreciate it!

We are not really celebrating Halloween here – Jake thinks he is a bit too old for a party and since he is over 6 foot tall now Trick or Treating with the little kids is out but we will be lighting the pumpkin lantern and I have a load of lovely Halloween sweets for any kids who call on us.

We did very well with the fund raising for Breast Cancer Awareness this week at work – all my little pink fairy cakes sold and we had lots of raffle prizes. I won two of them which was very nice – wine and chocs which are waiting for me on my desk at work. Thanks to Tracy and the people in the office for organising this – so far £370 pounds has been raised.

My baking this week - pink fairy buns

Am off to continue some more Xmas knitting now – am getting a bit more adventurous and am making an item  that uses waffle stitch which seems to be working ok. I am starting a Beginners’ Knitting class at the wool shop in a couple of weeks which will be very good as I have never learnt properly and can only do a limited range of things. I have some lovely books but sometimes you need to be shown how to do things rather than see static diagrams. I would love to be able to tackle shaped garments , lace work and more complex patterns such as this lovely scarf.

April Showers Scarf by Whitney van Nes

This scarf is a free pattern from the fabulous Ravelry web site. There are loads of lovely knitting and crochet patterns there as well as people’s pics of the things they have knitted. I have been spending a lot of time browsing and if you register with the site you can save all your favourite patterns and post pics of your own projects.

 So off to the sofa with my kneedles and more episodes of Little House on the Prairie – which of course is very good for spotting knitting, quilting and dressmaking!

No that is not a description of how I feel (though have had the usual early winter cold/flu bug so have been a bit fuzzy!) but the name of the lovely new shop that has recently opened down the road from me where I have been going for Knit and Natter sessions.

I have always wanted to have a LYS (Local Yarn Shop) like all those fab US blogs do. We do have a stall in the local market that sells wool but Ellie and I were most excited when one of our local vacant shops became a wool and bead shop with added tea shop. Ellie has not had the chance to visit yet as had not opened before she left but she is home for a week next week so I will take her along.

Helen the shop's owner

Helen is a very lovely lady – very friendly and welcoming and she is running Knit and Natter sessions on Weds and Fridays from 1 – 3 pm. There is also a Yarn group that meet to knit one evening a month (second Thursday) 5-7pm – next meeting is 12th Nov.

As well as lots of lovely wool there are beads, patterns, gifts , bags, cards and knitting accessories.

The pattern browsing area

Very lovely Maggie's wool from Ireland

Look at all that lovely stuff!

The tea shop does lovely food – soup, sandwiches, paninis, baked potatoes, lots of fab cakes and very nice lattes served by Lydia, one of the friends I have made at Creative Textiles class!

The tea shop with Lydia behind the counter

So if you are in the area the shop is on Westbourne Road, Huddersfield  (park round the back of the Croppers Inn pub). If you visit tell Helen you have been reading my blog!

I thought I would use a bit of alliteration for the title of this post as I am very relieved to tell you that the ASOE Exchange piece I sent to Wendy Jo  in Iowa has arrived! I posted it nearly 3 weeks ago and was getting a bit worried that it had gone walkabout as hers arrived in just over a week.

Wendy Jo said she liked the colour red and as it was an Autumn/Fall exchange theme I chose a design of blackberries done in blackwork stitches using a Silk Mill dark red thread.

My first pinkeep!

The design comes from on old edition of New Stitches magazine edition 53 and it is stitched on my favourite sparkly evenweave – am running out of stocks of this so that will be a definite for the shopping list at the Knitting and Stitching Show in Nov!

This is the first time that I have finished an ornament as a pinkeep – I found some very helpful instructions on how to do this on Heidi’s Stitching Together blog.

On the reverse of the piece I stitched Wendy Jo’s initial using a design from one of my Lesley Wilkins’  blackwork books and added a little thimble needlework charm as well. I have just ordered some more of these charms from Stitch Direct but they will also go on the shopping list!

The back of the pinkeep

In knitting progress I have now completed one of a pair of something I have never tried before! It was a bit of  a struggle involving much unravelling but I am very proud of myself. Cannot reveal any more as it is a present (or will be when I finish the other one!) The first post after Xmas is going to be massive one showing you all of my recent creations!

I am going to be doing a big baking session this afternoon as I am making little pink iced buns to take to work tomorrow for our Think Pink Breast Cancer awareness  fund raising efforts this week. This is a very important issue for all women and I, like many of you I’m sure,  have had friends affected by this. So not only (hopefully) lovely cakes but am important cause as well!

It has been a very wet and windy weekend so I have spent most of it indoors creating ornaments and cooking. I did venture out yesterday as there was a vintage clothes and textiles fair on in town. Lots of lovely things – mainly 40s and 70s clothes but some lovely beadwork and embroidered bags.

I was looking for textiles I could use in my stitching and got a bargain with these two sets of old textile samples that I will use as backing on small ornaments/ pincushions etc.

Christmas is coming ......

My lunch - pumpkin soup served with olive ciabatta roll - how nice!

My children will probably be rolling their eyes in despair at me posting pictures of food but I am also going to post my breakfast as well. Have discovered a fab new blog (was a link off someone else’s – forget who – that I found last night) and is one on the theme of breakfasts. There were some really lovely ideas so thought I would try one of them today – this is a multigrain bagel and pesto topped with a  fried egg with Lee and Perrins Tomato and Worcester sauce – lovely!

Sunday's leisurely breakfast

The blog is called Simply Breakfast  and belongs to Jennifer Causey. I plan to try out some more of her lovely ideas – she has a total of 457 posts so that should provide some variety to my mornings (don’t worry kids will not be posting pics of them all!).

Please do go and leave a comment on the 100th post (scroll down the page) – I will be doing the draw in a week. Thanks to everyone who has left comments already.

I have had a very rare occurence these last two days as I have been here all by myself! Ellie is of course in Worcester and Jake has gone to London on a drama and media trip. He left very early yesterday morning and is due back very late tonight. He was going to see two shows, visit an art gallery, have a tour of the sites and go to Covent Garden – there was also Pizza Hut for tea which he was very pleased about!

So I have been on my own for the first time in a long time – I think the last time this happened was about three years ago when everyone else had been invited away for the weekend and I was ill so couldn’t go. The house has been very quiet and it has been strange not having to make any meals. This is good preparation for Jake leaving home in a few years – what will I do with all that extra time!

More textiles of course! I can now post pics of the item I have had from Wendy Jo  in the US as part of the autumn exchange. As soon as she has posted pics of the ornament I have sent her on the ASOE  blog I can post pics of that but in the meantime here is the lovely pumpkin cushion she sent me.

The cushion being modelled on a pumpkin!

It is a really gorgeous pattern from JBW Designs – I have admired their very detailed work for a long time but never stitched any myself. The back of the piece is equally lovely.

Cute oak leaf and acorn backing fabric

Thank you very much Wendy Jo. It is  a very appropriate design as at this time of year I always buy a pumpkin for the kids to turn into a lantern and to make what has become a traditional recipe for this time of year – a soup that I really love. It is from Delia Smith’s Winter Collection  recipe book and is called ‘Pumpkin soup with melting cheese’ - recipe is at Delia’s site via this link.   It is heaven in a bowl and one of the things worth putting up with soggy Autumn days for.

I shall be making the soup this weekend once Jake has cut out his lantern. He doesn’t actually like the soup though – which just means more for me!

The Winter/Xmas exchange is up next for a new partner Marlene (no blog) . I have hundreds of Xmas designs to choose from but think I know which one to pick. That has to be finished and mailed by 5th Dec so I have a while to work on it.

I have made good progress with my knitting – the second Xmas piece is now finished and I am starting the third piece tonight. Will be posting soon about the lovely new knitting shop we have here that hosts Knit and Natter. In the meantime have banana bread (have added cinnamon to the recipe this time) which smells like it is ready to come out of the oven!

Bye for now.

Well here it is at last my 100th post complete with giveaway. Please do leave a comment if you visit and I will put all comments into a draw to be picked on Monday 2nd Nov. Please let me know in your comment if you would like a stitchy gift or a non-stitchy gift.

I started this blog about two years ago and in that time have met (virtually)some lovely people through blogging and my recent foray into exchanging through blogs. I find fantastic inspiration from reading all the blogs I visit and am constantly finding new ones (note to self – must add more to Blog Roll) to enjoy. So thank you to the wonderful blogging community for all the happy hours I have spent reading your work. Special thanks to the people who have added me to their blog rolls as I know I get lots of visitors that way.

The first post I ever put contained my Xmas ornaments so I thought it was fitting that I start off with a pic of one of this season’s batch.I have still got a huge stash of lovely stuff from when I first started making these to fund raise to go to Nepal so am making them again to raise money for the project.

Addicted to buying Xmas fabric - who me ?

This was my dining room table yesterday – I just love getting out all the fabric and beads, braids and cute charms and just going for it.

The first bauble of the 2009 season

I particularly love the little brass charms which I pin to the sides of the baubles – I get mine from Stitch Direct  by mail order. If you are interested in details of where to buy the book that shows you how to make them then this web site is where to go. Springwood House Designs is run by the very talented Sue Schofield and the book ‘Decorations to Dazzle’ contains patterns for far more complex and wonderful designs than I can manage at present!

Am doing very well with Xmas crafting for presents but sadly cannot post pics here – unless I create a page marked ‘family do not look’ ! However have been doing a few other bits in between gifts.

At Stefon’s request I made a card for his Mum whose birthday is in a couple of weeks. This is a pattern from an old copy of New Stitches magazine (which is available from Stitch Direct site above).

Blackwork flower card

I have also been venturing into unknown territory with my Creative Textiles class and trying machine embroidery! I use the machine for costume making though was always a bit unsure what to do but was experimenting the other week with my transfer painted flower and is has turned out rather nicely.

The appliqued flower with machined detail

I now plan to sew the organza petals over the top and hand stitch and bead onto them.

The organza petals pinned in place

Also finished quilting the fish we did by transfer printing on the first week. I have been doing some wholecloth quilting for one of my WIP gifts and am really enjoying it.

Am also rediscovering my inner domestic goddess and baking. Partly inspired by watching Economy Gastronomy on BBC which reminded me how much I really love cooking.

I did an O and A level in it but many years of providing family meals (and trying to remember who wouldn’t eat which food!) kind of dampened my enthusiasm. However it was one of the things I was always determined to do again when I had a bit more time. So here are two of my recent bakes.

My very first banana bread!

Good old gingerbread - everyone eats this!

Am off now to make more baubles – happy crafting everyone!