Cross Stitch

I'm helping out a friend at the moment as I am in between projects so not much to report this week.

Have you all been enjoying this hot and sunny weather?

We have had lots of bbqs with friends and lazy evening drinks out in the sunshine.

My treat
I popped over to Paignton the other day and had a gorgeous walk along the beach, paddling my way from one end to the other.  It was just beautiful in this sunshine and so lovely to see everyone enjoying themselves.  My daughter was on the beach with a group of students so I even stopped to have a short chat with her :)  This was my treat for having just been to the dentist!

Train Cross Stitch
As I mentioned at the beginning, I am helping out a lovely elderly lady that I clean for at the moment. She has done cross stitch for years and I have seen many of her very beautiful finished articles. Unfortunately though, age is catching up with her and she is finding it a little more challenging now.

Recently she began a rather detailed train scene.  She has completed all the interesting bits beautifully, but the variety of blues, greys and whites in the sky had her pulling her hair out!!!  So I offered to do this bit for her!!!! (Why oh why did I open my mouth!!!)  I now know where she was coming from!! I could quite cheerfully have thrown it out the window - but I was outside at the time so this would have proved difficult :)  Anyway I'm persevering and with a little artistic licence I shall get there!

Here's a couple of pictures showing how far 'we' have progressed so far ....

As you can see it is very nearly finished.  Not much sky left to do now, thank goodness!  Then, just an incy wincy bit (I wish) of out line stitching and it will be complete!

I'm off to sit in the garden and do a bit more 'sky' now!! Look forward to seeing you all over on Handmade Harbour, just in time for Handmade Monday :)  Have a good week everyone :)

Crochet Baby Dress

Don't we all love babies?  They look so cute and smell so sweet (most of the time!!)  Recently friends of ours have become proud grandparents, when their daughter gave birth to a gorgeous little girl.
 I'll call her baby E :)

Well I needed no more encouragement than this to get the crochet hook out!! To be honest I've been thinking about it ever since we found out she was pregnant but as I didn't know whether it would be a boy or girl I left it until she was born.

My friend wanted to make something for her grandbaby but had never crocheted before.  So I set to, teaching her the basics!  We made simple crochet circles and turned them into teddy bear bunting to hang in the nursery.  Here is a picture of one I have made in the past ...

....but unfortunately I forgot to get one of the finished article my friend made (doh!).

As soon as we had the news that baby E had been born I hunted around for baby dresses to crochet. I found this one called Camille by Teresa Richardson.

There are lots of instructions for beginners and even a video.  The most difficult part was deciding on what size to make.  I knew how much baby E weighed but not having very much experience of babies for a long time, I had no idea whether what I was creating was anywhere near right!  I didn't want to ask (which I know would have been the sensible thing to do!) because I wanted it to be a surprise!  Anyway I took the first one out as it looked way too small and decided if the next one was too big, at least she could grow into it!

Here is my finished dress

These four pictures show you the features in a little more detail.

To finish off, I made a tag to attach to the present out of a recycled card and crocheted all around it in the same yarn as I used for the baby dress.

Here it is all wrapped up and ready to go, just in time as I was popping down to see baby E and mum that afternoon!

Over to Handmade Monday now to see how creative the sunny weather has made you all!

See you there

x

Patchwork Throw

Well hello again!

I am so, so, sorry, I have been absent for a couple of months now and I have really missed 'talking' to you all.  I will try to rectify this from now on!

We went on a 3 week touring holiday of Scotland in April and this was the beginning of why I have been away for so long.  I took a little bit of simple embroidery to keep me occupied and this is another part of why I've been missing.  Well it's finished now so I thought I would share it with you (actually it's been finished for a while but I just haven't got around to writing the post - but let's not dwell on that, I'm here now!!!)

We changed our sofa covers recently and whilst they were starting to look shabby there was still a lot of good fabric in them so I decided I would have a go at my very first bit of patchwork.  I wanted a throw to cover the new covers to keep them clean for at least a little while.  I think you all know how it is!! TV dinners, wine, crafts etc. they all take their toll :(

So I cut up 25, 12" x 12" squares to make a 5 x 5 square throw (it's just under 60" wide now it's finished) and embroidered a simple outline embroidery on each square.  Here is the finished article.

I chose to make a rag throw so allowed the seams to show on the right side.

Here are the top six squares.  Top left is a design taken from a pot a friend has, and the bottom left and right designs are taken from the wallpaper in the bedroom we stayed in at our friends' house at the start of our Scotland tour.  

Can anyone guess who the two famous people are in the top centre outline?

We visited the place one of them came from on our way south, just after leaving Scotland and my husband had his photo taken by his statue!  Any ideas?

Squares on top right of throw.

I like the poem 'Owl and the Pussycat' so hence the centre top design and of course I had to have a wine bottle in there somewhere!!!

The central square of the throw is a number 50 with 2013 embroidered below as both my husband and I have celebrated our 50th birthdays this year, and are having a great time doing so I may add!!  Bottom left is A Rennie Mackintosh design as I have a soft spot for his work and top right some fuchsias as they are one of my favourite flowers!

Centre bottom square is a thistle depicting Scotland as that's where I was at the time!

The bottom left square is taken from a photo of the viaduct used in the Harry Potter film that we visited when in Scotland.  My husband turned it into a line drawing for me (he's clever like that!)

Bottom left square is my own interpretation of a 'wee highland coo' copied from a little crosstitch coaster kit I bought on my hols.  I'm not very good at drawing and couldn't quite get the back legs right so I used a bit of 'artistic' licence and covered them up with grass instead!!  It doesn't do it justice on this photo but looks a lot better in real life :)

I really enjoyed stitching these outline embroideries.  I used Planet Penny Cotton as there are lots of fantastic colours to chose from.   Some of the designs were taken from this book and others were free off the internet.

Ooh, almost forgot!  This is the pretty fabric I used for the reverse!

and here it is in situ,'thrown' on the sofa!

Thank you for reading folks and I hope you like it.  Why not have a go yourselves?  It's a great way to recycle fabric, such fun to do and something that will be so very personal to you.

I shall endeavour to make sure my next post is not so long in coming next time!

See you soon
x

I have finally got around to linking up to Handmade Monday over at Handmade Harbour for the first time in months.  Hello everyone :)