Have spent a very pleasant hour mooching around various cross stitch blogs, seeing others' work in progress. It has been truly inspiring to see what people end up doing with their finished projects. I only ever put mine into frames although sometimes, when the design allows, I leave them in the hoop, put lace around it and simply add a hanging loop.
Also, I find it hard to keep hold of any embroidery for long. I always seem to be giving it away! I started a spring sampler that had lovely flowers, butterflies and bees on it, intending it to hang in my hallway. But then a friend had a birthday coming up, so I changed the verse from being about spring, to: "A friend is like a flower in the garden of lfe" and it became her present. Another time my Mum ended up with a 'Home is Where the Heart Is' picture, because everytime she came to my house, she would say how lovely it would look in her kitchen. I finally caved and put it in her bag one night when she was leaving. The really funny thing is, while my Brother and I were clearing her house, I thought to myself that I should take the picture home and put it back in my hallway, when he asked if he could have it!! I told him that I would stitch him one of his own, but I think as a surprise, I will give him the other one too!
But now I see that embroideries can become cushions, needlebooks, etc I shall certainly be broadening my horizons.
Thursday 19 May 2011
Thursday 5 May 2011
Crafty Update
Been quiet for a while. Well not exactly quiet inasmuch as my life is concerned, just haven't been blogging. There's quite a lot going on right now: decorating, work worries, health matters, preparing Mum's house for sale and somewhere in the midst of it all, our gorgeous son turned eighteen. Now I thought that once he reached that age that my worries for him would subside. I have found instead, that they are simply replaced by other, bigger, worries. I guess I will worry about him always.
I managed to get a nice pic of the embroidery that I started for my Brother and his wife, but had to put aside owing to crook fingers. The steroid injection definitely helped and I feel ready to pick it up again this week and crack on. Here is what I have done so far:
Just a smidge over halfway :-) And below is the pattern I am using. The sharp of eye of you who also embroider, will no doubt recognise the pattern as one of Jo Verso's. I have simply changed the colour of the flowers so that they represent daisies (for why this is significant, see earlier post) and put a heart in the middle instead of 'September'.
And that's not all I have been up to! I got inspired by Mum's old button box. This is an old biscuit tin where Mum kept all sorts of odd buttons. Before any article of clothing was thrown away, it was stripped of it's buttons which were then squirrelled away in the tin. I'm sure that Mum's of a certain age up and down the country have similar tins stashed away. Occasionally Mum would buy new buttons, for she was quite a prolific knitter and these were added to the tin also. Every now and then she would rummage through the tin, extract a handful of buttons and apply them to whatever item she was knitting. Usually a cardigan for me. But mostly the buttons would keep me occupied for hours. So many ways in which to sort them: colour, size, prettiness ... OK, you probably need to know that I was brought up in the late 60's/early 70's when we didn't have Xboxes, computers etc and the TV had three channels which didn't even go on air until around 5pm!
Anyway, Mum's button box is one of the things I decided to keep when we were clearing her house. Now I think I am a little old now to play sorting games with the contents, but I thought that I should do something with them. So I decided to sew them onto a bag. You're probably thinking this is a crazy idea. My husband would agree with you. But I liked the idea of having something unique which was also a reminder of Mum and of happy, more carefree times.
I spotted this bag in a charity shop in York. It's basic, but I liked the shape and since it is made of thin material it will be easy to stich on:
And here is the start of the 'buttoning':
I managed to get a nice pic of the embroidery that I started for my Brother and his wife, but had to put aside owing to crook fingers. The steroid injection definitely helped and I feel ready to pick it up again this week and crack on. Here is what I have done so far:
Just a smidge over halfway :-) And below is the pattern I am using. The sharp of eye of you who also embroider, will no doubt recognise the pattern as one of Jo Verso's. I have simply changed the colour of the flowers so that they represent daisies (for why this is significant, see earlier post) and put a heart in the middle instead of 'September'.
And that's not all I have been up to! I got inspired by Mum's old button box. This is an old biscuit tin where Mum kept all sorts of odd buttons. Before any article of clothing was thrown away, it was stripped of it's buttons which were then squirrelled away in the tin. I'm sure that Mum's of a certain age up and down the country have similar tins stashed away. Occasionally Mum would buy new buttons, for she was quite a prolific knitter and these were added to the tin also. Every now and then she would rummage through the tin, extract a handful of buttons and apply them to whatever item she was knitting. Usually a cardigan for me. But mostly the buttons would keep me occupied for hours. So many ways in which to sort them: colour, size, prettiness ... OK, you probably need to know that I was brought up in the late 60's/early 70's when we didn't have Xboxes, computers etc and the TV had three channels which didn't even go on air until around 5pm!
Anyway, Mum's button box is one of the things I decided to keep when we were clearing her house. Now I think I am a little old now to play sorting games with the contents, but I thought that I should do something with them. So I decided to sew them onto a bag. You're probably thinking this is a crazy idea. My husband would agree with you. But I liked the idea of having something unique which was also a reminder of Mum and of happy, more carefree times.
I spotted this bag in a charity shop in York. It's basic, but I liked the shape and since it is made of thin material it will be easy to stich on:
And here is the start of the 'buttoning':
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