Happy Christmas! I’ve had time to do some festive cross stitch!

Each New Year, I plan out how many stitching projects I think I’ll be able to fit in during the coming year. Each year, I overestimate enormously!!

Spirit of Christmas Carols cross stitch angelThis year, things got thrown out of whack more than usual, mainly because I hurt my back in August whilst gardening, and since then I’ve been giddy on and off (almost sorted now, though), which did mean that I couldn’t do any stitching at all for a while, as bending my head forward made the room spin  😦

Spirit of Christmas Carols cross stitch angelHowever, I have now managed to get one project completed in time for Christmas, and it’s this lovely Spirit of Christmas Carols angel on perforated paper, designed by Brooke’s Books. I bought a bundle of the angel charts a few years ago, and so far I’ve made three – still got about nine to go though. They are lovely projects, as they are quite simple to do, but very original. The main body of the angel is stitched on one piece of 14 count perforated paper, and then the other accessories and the wings are stitched on various colours of perforated paper to add interest. It’s not all cross stitch – there is some back stitch, plus beading, and a few surface stitches as well.  They always remind me of those paper dolls that I used to have when I was little, where you could change the clothes of the basic doll. The various pieces are all stitched or glued together to make a stand-up figure that is quite dimensional. I stiffen the back with a piece of mount board, and display them on one of my bookcases at Christmas.

Spirit of Christmas Carols cross stitch angel
I hope everyone has a good Christmas, and that 2025 gives us all lots of peaceful opportunities for stitching   🙂

A Scandi quilted advent panel

I haven’t done any quilting for ages, so when I saw this quick project on Etsy, I thought I’d give it a go. It’s a Scandi advent panel by Makower (the 2023 one – they seem to bring out a new design each year). Several Etsy shops were selling them, at various price points, but I liked this one from Fabricochet because they sold the co-ordinating backing fabric as part of the bundle, so I didn’t have to hunt around for something to back it with, and obviously it goes really well with the panel’s colours. As I wrapped the backing fabric round to the front to make the binding, and used off-cuts to make the tabs, too, it’s not just a hidden bit of fabric on the back – it is integral to the design.

The panel is a clever design, with the instructions printed along the selvedge of the fabric, so separate printed instructions aren’t needed. You fold up the fabric to make the pockets, and then stitch along the vertical red lines to hold the pockets in place. Before starting to quilt, I tacked across the whole piece, to hold all three layers together.

Then, you just quilt any other areas that you feel like doing. As I wanted this to be finished quickly, I didn’t do as much quilting as I could have done – I mainly stitched just along the outside edges of the houses and roofs, and a bit of the scrolly corners at the top, and then all around the very outside edge. I used Mercer 40 Anchor crochet cotton in a bright red to do the quilting, with quite large stitches – I don’t really ‘do’ tiny quilting stitches – it’s just a big running stitch to hold the fabric layers together and give the traditional quilted ‘puffy’ look.

I trimmed the front fabric and the wadding up to the seam allowance of half an inch, and then trimmed the backing fabric to be an inch bigger all round, so that I could fold a small hem and then bring the backing fabric round to the front, making it look like a separate binding. I slip stitched it in place with cream sewing thread, which worked really well. I tried to mitre the corners, but that bit wasn’t too successful, but it’ll do.

I made four hanging tabs from a strip of leftover backing fabric lined with thin Vilene. A piece of 14mm dowel makes a good hanging pole.

6mm narrow red ribbon is strong enough to hold the weight of the panel when attached to the dowel ends, and then hooked over the top of the door and looped round a coat hook on the other side.

Each pocket will be filled with either 2 chocolate coins or 2 wrapped chocolates, so that my husband and I can treat ourselves every day in the run-up to Christmas.

My stitching plans for the next few years!!

Now that I have retired, I want to start making a dent in my huge stash of embroidery projects, and actually get some made. During the past three years, since my husband and I moved from the Peak District to Cornwall, I’ve hardly had time to do much stitching at all.

In about 2001, I bought this 1930s china cabinet, and gradually filled it with all the smallish 3D projects that I stitched (not including anything for my business of dollhouse needlepoint kits though – they are kept somewhere else!). It is getting a bit full now – so many little things in it!

So, I decided that on my retirement I would get a second china cabinet, and keep it in my newly designated ‘craft room’ (it used to be my office), and start again. The first china cabinet was £245 back in 2001, when this kind of thing was desirable. Fast forward to 2024, and people don’t seem to want wood – coloured furniture any more, so I was able to get this lovely narrow cabinet for just £30. It does need the silk backing fabric replaced, as there is some water damage, but that’s easy, and then I can start to fill it.

I’ve got quite a stash ‘ready to go’ – I kit up designs from books and magazines that I’m sure I will make, and store them in little bags, with all the threads, beads, etc., in an Edwardian chest of drawers in the living room. The bag also contains a note of where the chart or tracing, plus the fabric, can be found, elsewhere in the house, in case I forget! I’ve got about 35 little bags in this drawer alone.

This is an example of the contents of one bag – this one is to make the Victoria Sampler ‘Gingerbread Bakery’ 3D building.

These are my embroidery books, which contain a lot of the projects that I want to make – I’ve got almost all of Jane Nicholas’s books, and several of those published by Inspirations magazine.

This is my collection of Inspirations magazines. I’ve been collecting these since about 2008, when I bought all available back issues, and then had a subscription for several years (not cheap, as these had to be posted from Australia). But they are the most gorgeous magazines. All those Post-It notes sticking out of the tops of the pages are marking projects that ‘I might make one day’ – these are IN ADDITION to the ones I’ve already kitted up!

Also, I’ve got two box files of chart packs for counted cross stitch, especially by Thea Dueck of Victoria Sampler in Canada, who is my favourite designer – quite a few of the kitted up bags are to make her designs.

So, I’m certainly not going to be bored in my retirement….!

I’m back! (Well, I will be soon….)

After a gap of almost three years, I’ve decided to start writing my blog again. A lot has happened in that time, so this post will be a quick catch-up, and then we can get down to crafting business, as before, hopefully!

The main thing that happened in the past three years is that my husband and I moved from the Peak District in the middle of England, to West Cornwall. My husband had been brought up there, but had left when he was eighteen. I’d always loved holidaying in Cornwall, but never thought we’d be able to live there. We moved in July 2021 (when lockdown travel restrictions were still in place, which made things tricky!). Property is more expensive here than ‘up north’, so we bought a house that needed renovating so that it was affordable – then we spent the next year making it habitable, whilst living in it. For example, this is the living room in the middle of having the ceiling replastered:

 

And this is the same room when finished:

Once the house was done, we moved on to having a conservatory built, and creating a garden from the overgrown mess that we had when we moved in. This was how it looked when we took it on:

This was the worst part, when we had absolutely no plants in the garden for a while:

 

But after a year, it was like this, which was much better:

 


Not being people who like to be bored, we then took on an allotment. Not surprisingly, I suppose, it was overgrown when we got it, on a frosty day in December 2022.

So, we sorted that out as well, and it looked like this six months later:

So, having been so busy for ages, we then got back to a more organised way of living for a while. We did manage to get out and about in Cornwall, and see some of the beautiful places within a few minutes’ drive of where we live, such as Porthkidney Beach at Hayle:

Porthminster Beach at St Ives:

Poppies in June at Polly Joke beach:

And Kennal Vale wood:

….and so it goes on!

I have had little time for crafting of any kind, but I’ve made a few things, which I’ll feature in the next few posts  🙂

Oh, and I have just retired from running my dollhouse needlepoint kit business, but I think that deserves a blog post all of its own!

 

 

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