Rain and Slow Sunday Stitching!

It is absolutely pouring with rain at the moment and it's great! Not so great are the 50 mile hour winds that are hitting the south coast though.  But the rain is fantastic.  I'm sitting in the study watching the rain lashing the windows and loving it.....give me a few days of this and of course I'll be moaning about it but I'm British and that's what we do!

What it means of course is I can spend all day doing what ever I want, so that will probably involve some sewing on the machine and some hand stitching, even as I type it I'm getting that little excitement of anticipation - which project shall I work on?

In the mean time I've been working on Cat Lovers and given poor right hand kitty a head now.  I also finished the binding on my Tilda House quilt (I just have to sew the last corner of the label in place - that will be first on my hand sewing list today)  So below is a Ta Dah picture of the finished quilt...….complete with dog!

It's an action shot, her tail never stops wagging!

I am linking up with Kathy for some slow Sunday stitching where you can see what other people are sewing today.  Have a great day!

Pansy

I finished this embroidery some time ago, bought the silk for the border and the frame back in April and put it into my 'to do' box waiting for the right moment - mainly because I thought those mitred corners were going to be tricky to do ….. and they were!

The length of each border had to be calculated as per instructions, which I did several times before cutting the silk (I only had a fat quarter I couldn't afford to waste it) and as my Dad always said measure twice, cut once (he was a wood worker, but it applies to fabric too!) And as you can see in the picture above the edges, which should match, just didn't. After some consideration I decided to chop those 'extra' bits off and then sew each corner again and hay presto it worked!!  It's not perfect but I'm actually quite pleased with it!

Quilt binding, EPP and pyjamas!

Where does the time go? It doesn't seem like a week ago that I was linking up to Slow Sunday Stitching for some slow Sunday stitching! But here we are again and its been a rather productive week.  I finally made a start on the binding of Tilda's Houses (we've had some cloud cover so it has been slightly cooler the last few days) I know Kathy, who hosts slow Sunday stitching, and others who post there regularly, really like this bit but for me its not my favourite part.  Don't get me wrong I love finishing a quilt but if I could just make flimsy tops and nothing else I would be very happy!!

 I've also tidied up the 60 degree EPP I made while on holiday in France and then did one for my last trip to China.  I just need to get them attached to the main section now so I can free up some templates!

And I made myself a pair of summer pyjamas! I've dabbled with dress making (not very successfully I might add) but its a skill I would really like to crack (I'm thinking of taking a lesson or two). But I had so much fun with these, mainly I think because no one will see them, except DH of course! they came out far too big, so I took the rotary cutter to them and then of course they were too tight, so I unpicked the seams and resewed them.  Then the neck was too floppy so I added some pleats and now I'm very happy - a perfect pair of pyjamas!

Alice in Wonderland

Not far from where we live (10 miles ish) is the village of Lyndhurst.  When we visited the New Forest on holiday we often stopped for a mooch around but since living in the area we rarely, if ever stop.  It's a place you have to drive through to get anywhere and it's nearly always heaving with visitors. Yesterday we went for a walk in the forest and found ourselves near to the village so popped in for coffee and cake at one of the many cafes. Perched on a hill above the village is St Michael and All Angels Church, built around 1860. Never having visited we went to have a look.  Its a very impressive looking building for such a small place and is lovely inside but what is really interesting is its the place where Alice Pleasance Hargreaves is buried.

Alice Hargreaves lived in Lyndhurst, after her marriage, for almost 50 years and is the child that Lewis Carroll based his classic children's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland on!  Lewis Carroll was a family friend and on a boating trip in Oxford, where Alice grew up, he made up the stories to keep 10 year old Alice and her siblings amused.  He wrote the stories down and did the original illustrations himself and presented Alice with the manuscript in 1864.  He then went on to publish his book, with illustrations by John Tenniel in 1865 and as they say the rest is history!

Cat Lover

I haven't worked on my Cat Lover cross stitch for quite a while, so it's actually been really nice to sit in the garden and do some more.  I really love the elements in this and the colours too!

I am linking up with Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching and as it's far too hot to do anything other than sit in the shade, you know what I will be doing - putting in some more stitches on this and hopefully sipping a glass of cold wine - yum!

Have a wonderful Sunday what ever you may be doing.

Black work sampler

I've made really good progress on my black work sampler project. I like it because I can sew a box in one sitting (well mostly I can!) the only patterns I'm not keen on doing are the Assisi work - that's the dense cross stitch pattern where the empty space forms the design (2nd from left top row and middle second row).  What you can't see in the photo is the variegated grey/black thread which looks really effective.

I will link up with Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching tomorrow, although I'm not sure how much I will get done, as I have guests staying for a few days.  But if it's another scorching hot day we will probably sit in the garden, have a BBQ, drink some wine and chat while I do some stitching - sounds perfect!

Ta-Dah!

I do love a ta-dah moment (but then who doesn't)! Ronald (still not sure why he's a Ronald) the Elephant is finished, mounted in his frame and had a quick spray of scotch guard! And I just love him!!! I'm keen to start a new project but as I have several UFOs in progress I'm going to try and wait (lets see how long I can hold out for shall we?)

I will link up with Kathy over at Slow Sunday Stitching because its always fun (and inspirational) to see how everyone else is progressing with their projects.

In the mean time I thought I would share some photos taken at the Silk Museum in Suzhou, China.

It was a real pleasure to visit (even my son-in-law enjoyed himself) mainly because the exhibits are well displayed with English captions.  It documents the history of silk production from its beginnings about 4000 BC to present day and the work is absolutely exquisite!

The highlight however were these little critters...…

Yes! that's real live silk worms, munching on their mulberry leaves (and we could hear them chomping away!)