1. Please introduce yourself – name,
where you are from, family, pets etc.
My name is Sheryl, born in Kent U.K.
and now living in Gijon on the north coast of Spain. I have a son
who lives nearby and a daughter and three grandchildren who live in
Madrid. I retired from ESL teaching last year.
2. How long have you been stitching and
how did you start?
I remember learning embroidery stitches
and making a samper while still at Primary School and my mum taught
me how to knit, crochet and sew. I must have been a super boring kid
as I can remember taking my knitting to school and in the photo below
I´m sporting my first Fair Isle sweater made when I was 15.
3. How long have you been blogging and
what inspired you to start? Is there a story behind your blog title?
I started my blog three years ago with
the idea of just creating a permanent record of my needlework as
other girlfriends were doing but I got caught up with the fun of
meeting and chatting to other crafters about our shared hobby, seeing
what they were making and enjoying the wonderful tutorials and SALs
available. I pondered about my blog name for ages endevouring to
conjure up something ingenious and memorable but everyone had got
there before me and so I opted for `Sewing After Seven´ which is
when I do most of my stitching.
4. How would you describe your stitching
style? Are you a serial starter, a rotator, a OAAT (one at a time),
highly organised, random and eclectic, etc.?
Organised and eclectic. I jump from
one technique to another as I´m interested in everything fashioned
with a needle, whether hardanger, whitework, crochet, applique,
knitting or patchwork. I always have two projects in the making,
embroidery which I do in the evening and sewing at any other free
moment during the day. I very rarely work on a pattern without
knowing what I´m going to use it for and have a dangerous tendency
to adulterate patterns and change them to add my own touch of beads,
lace, applique, crochet or somesuch with the sometimes disastrous
consequences that result from such deviations from the original and
result in the entire project being abandoned and banished to the
Dreaded Drawer aka UFO cemetery.
5. Do you have a favourite designer or
style of design you are drawn to?
No favourite designer. I love
embroidery in general but Hardanger, whitework, reticella and schwalm
embroidery always draw my attention, as with samplers including
speciality stitches and crazy quilting stitches and stumpwork. Also
I love fine crochet work.
6. Which piece are you most proud of in
your collection?
A quilt I made for a grandson and
based on the illustrations by Petra Steinmeyer in the story book The
Bremen Town Musicians. I felt very proud when Petra complimented me
on my work and asked for more photos of the said quilt.
7. What has been your worst stitching
disaster?
Not exactly mine but while attending
patchwork classes years ago, I was making a cushion cover when the
teacher said my little applique houses needed windows and doors but
not to bother with embroidering the tiny details as they could be
done with a permanent marker pen which she then procured from out of
nowhere and proceeded to draw on my cushion making what I considered
a horrible mess. Although the cushion is very old and faded you can
still appreciate the disaster in the photo.
8. Which new technique would you like to
try, either stitching, finishing or another craft?
Definitely whitework, reticella or
schwalm embroidery which would make a nice challenge or bobbin lace
making. I also need to learn free motion quilting.
9. Do you have a box of
finished-but-not-fully-finished pieces? Or is everything FFO'd?
What's your favourite way to fully finish a project and what do you
do with them?
The aformentioned Dreaded Drawer
contains mainly completed patterns which for some reason or another
lost favour during their execution and where a lot of the considered
substandard experiments have ended up. Sometimes I look at that
drawer and rescue something like the tiny design below which when
stitched a couple of years ago I found annoyingly unsymmetric but
which just this summer I made into a pincushion that I now really
like. I don´t have a favourite way of finishing a project but
prefer to make a design or pattern into something original or useful
and not just framed.
10. Which of your projects most represents
"you"?
Perhaps my little embroidered pouches.
I love working with rich fabrics, velvets, silks and satins etc, and
mixing applique with speciality stitches and a splash of beads,
sequins etc. perfect.
11. Tell us a secret about yourself. Or a
joke. About anything!
It taken me a week to think about this
question and I still can´t think of anything intriguing. But
rather curious, I suppose, both my children were born the same month,
the same date and the same day of the week although born five years
apart.
12. Anything you would like to add?
I have found that the stitching
community is very friendly and if you are stuck with a particular
project or technique, there is always someone to ask or a tutorial to
follow. I´m grateful to Jo for including me as a Blogger of the
Week and to those who visit my blog and take the time to leave a
comment.