A weekend of happy dances

Wow, this week has just flown by! I worked far too late every night this week (leaving at 6.50 was early????), but made up for it over the weekend. On Friday night I set myself a little challenge - to totally finish three crafting projects before going to bed tonight - and despite spending most of the daytime running errands or gardening, I achieved it!!

On Friday I pulled out the lace Christmas decoration that I made at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching show in Harrogate. Last November. All I needed to do to finish it was to sew in and tie off the ends... which I finished just as True Blood was coming on.



Yesterday it was the turn of Holiday Holly biscornu by The Sweetheart Tree. By bedtime I'd got it to the stage that it needed stuffing, and I finished it early this evening. It's my first ever biscornu, and I really enjoyed it - apart from the fact that the floss for the back stitch border and whip stitching was so close in colour to the fabric that I had trouble seeing the stitches. I see more biscornu in my future...





After that I put the last bit of sewing into my lovely blue cardigan, and added a pretty handmade button by Stuart Johnson, which I picked up at the lace event last weekend. The cardigan is lovely and warm (possibly a little warm for the current weather, but never mind - there's always a cold day not too far away!!). It fits brilliantly, but the sleeves are a little long. Not that that's a problem - it keeps my hands warm! The pattern is by Twilleys, and I found it very simple to follow. This is the first garment I have knitted since I was in secondary school.



In the garden, we planted most of our veggies, generally tidied up after the weekend, planted some primulas and I attacked (and beat) the snowberry bush that I hate in the front garden. RIP bush - you'll be replaced by a lovely rose next year, once we are sure you are totally beaten ;)

I can't believe it's April already. I'll pop online tomorrow and deal with goals and the TUSAL. I hope everyone else had as relaxing a weekend as I did.

Bedfordshire flower

It's done!!! Yesterday I finally sewed in the last thread on the Bedfordshire lace flower I was making. Quite a few people commented on my last post about this lace piece about the huge mound of bobbins, and how I keep them in order. So I thought I'd try and explain... and show how the final furlong of this finish panned out!!

First I should say that the photo in my last post (and here again) is a little misleading...



Most of those bobbins had been 'thrown out' or discarded when they were no longer needed - more pairs of bobbins are needed to make the leaves and petals - so you add pairs in at the start of the leaf, and throw them out towards the end! It's figuring out where to do that as invisibly as possible that's the tricky part. Anyway, this is how many pairs of bobbins I needed to finish that last little bit:



As you can see, they are all carefully organised onto large safety pins which are threaded through the spangles (beads). This means I can move any sections of bobbins I don't need out of the way, without them getting muddled up. You rarely, if ever, work with all of those bobbins at once!!



If they do get muddled up I look at the threads to make sure they are running in order - in cloth stitch (the outer border) the passive threads should all be parallel to each other, with no crosses or twists.

Anyway, at this point I just needed the bobbins on the left of the piece - so I moved the other two groups of bobbins out of the way, took the bobbins I needed off the safety pin and grouped them back into pairs:



Once I'd finished the bit of lace, I joined the ends together, and cut all of the ends off:



Once I'd taken all of the pins put I was left with a huge pile of loose threads:



Usually I make lace face down, so I could have cut the ends off close to the work, but this piece was made face up. So to make sure none of the cut ends showed, I carefully sewed each one through to the back of the work, and cut it off there... which needed a small sharp needle, LOTS of light, and even more patience. Hmm, I think I'll try and stick to face down pieces in future!!

And here is the final piece:



There are some areas which look so neat I can't believe I made the lace, and other areas I'm less happy with in comparison - but this is by far the neatest piece of lace I've ever made... I learnt so many techniques and tips on Christine Springett's course last year - I can't wait for the next one in May!

Happy Stitching :)

Erm, knitting...

I'm having a lovely week - taken wed-fri off work, and monday next week too. Apart from the occasionally flurry of housework and food shopping, I've been busy being crafty, and enjoying food with friends.

I've finished making the lace for Krista's garter, and am busy joining it:


Heidi asked about the 'magic threads' - ordinarily I'd use either a fine crochet hook or a lazy susan to make the sewings in to join the 2 ends, but this time I'm using magic threads. When I started the lace I added loops of coloured thread looped through each pair of bobbin. Now I'm at the end, all I need to do for each sewing in is find the right magic thread (sometimes easier said than done), pass one bobbin through the loop, pull the magic thread and voila, the thread on the bobbin makes a loop through the start of the lace, ready to pass the other bobbin of the pair through, and then tie off. So no poking about with a crochet hook, which I'm dreadful at. I also tried to use magic thread to neatly sew the loose ends back through the lace, but found I'd not perfected my technique yet - so I gave up on them, and will have to use a needle and thread for that once I've got it off the pillow. This doesn't sound very clear at all... maybe I'll take some photos for an quick tutorial!

When I've needed a break from the lace, I've been working on Sunflower Charms - I'm about 1/2 way now, and am loving the wonderful summery colours. Shame the weather here hasn't been warm and sunny to match!


Today Margaret came to stay - we picked her up from Leeds station at lunchtime, and had a sandwich at a nearby cafe. After a short shopping spree, where I got a fabulous pair of trousers in the sale at Monsoon, and Margaret bought an AMAZING black jacket embroidered with cream chrysanthemums for a wedding we're going to in January, we headed back towards home - but carried on to Texere yarns in Bradford. I've been trying to get Margaret - who is a keen knitter - there for years. After much oooh-ing and aaah-ing, Margaret bought a pattern for a cardigan and some beige cotton yarn for herself, and Pam Allen's 'Scarf Style', some double knitting wool and knitting needles for me. Yup, I'm dabbling in knitting again.... I can knit, and made a wonderful cable knit jumper as a teenager... but I don't knit much now. A couple of years ago I made some dressy scarves using fancy wool, but it was all just plain knitting - and I wanted to try something fancier... having Margaret here meant I could ask questions when stuck.


So I'm knitting a scarf in feathers and fans (although just after taking this photo Margaret noticed I'd made a mistake, and missed out a row of knit. Hmmm, maybe I need to concentrate more :)

Food-wise, Sonia and Louise came over on Wednesday (allegedly also for lace making, but we didn't really do any) - we had green beans and potatoes, a lovely Greek dish; Thursday Sarah and Kat came over - we had chard paneer (our version of sag paneer, but with swiss chard, not spinach) and chana marsala (chickpea curry - our neighbour's recipe); tonight we had Moroccan chicken and Moroccan vegetable casserole. Best of all, each meal included some veggies from our garden.

Thanks for popping by, and happy stitching.

Not quite 20 inches!!

If you've read my last post you'll know I'm determined to make great progress on the lace garter I'm making Krista - so much so that I've vowed not to pick up Fantasy Triptych until I've got 20 inches of lace made...

It's quite tricky to measure lace in progress, as you work on a diagonal, but I think I've got 19 inches done. The lace is living on my lace table, I put a tea towel over it when I'm not working on it. Here's a pic of how the whole pillow looks:


I use large safety pins through the spangles to keep the bobbins in order in the areas I'm not working on currently.

This is a close up of the actual pattern - much better now it's long enough to photograph on the blue cloth of my lace pillow, rather than on top of the pattern!!




We're about to watch a movie (Revolutionary Road - our latest rental from Lovefilm), if I really work well tonight I might hit the 20 inches mark... just another 8-10 inches to go!!!

Weekend fun and weekend stitching

Last week I took 3 days off work, and ended up being about as busy as I would have been if I'd been to work - but busy doing fun things!!!

On Wednesday I pottered around the house, did some stitching and lace making, and cooked a lovely asparagus tart for tea (Louise came over to make lace). Thursday Eddy was also off, and we spent much of the morning in the garden and at garden centres - I bought (and planted) 3 parsley plants, a potentilla, an achillia and a lovely new rose (Lichfield Angel - a lovely creamy colour). Eddy bought us 2 (small) trees - a rowan and a silver birch - which are being delivered on Thursday (another job for the weekend). That afternoon I went to Leeds for a much-needed shopping trip. On Friday morning, not being able to keep up with our raspberry canes, we made a moderately small batch of raspberry jam (yum). We then headed off to Hardwick Hall, near Chesterfield, and looked around both the old and new halls - something we've been meaning to do for years - the tapestries and embroideries in the new hall were simply STUNNING.

We continued down the motorway to Birmingham to stay with Eddy's parents. Regular readers of my blog will know that Paul has dementia, and Margaret is very busy caring for both him and her father, who is blind. Saturday was Margaret's birthday, and we wanted to make sure she had some fun, so we went out for lunch in Aston Cantlow (where we did the lace making and bobbin turning course back in May) then spent the afternoon at Mary Arden's Farm - the home of Shakespeare's mother on the outskirts of Stratford. That evening it was Eddy's cousin's 30th birthday party, and I drove to make sure Margaret was able to have a drink - this having the added bonus that I could slightly keep my weight watchers points in check!!! We had a nice evening, but dealing with Paul at a party with lots of strangers was a little tricky, even as a team effort. Some of the people he went and talked to certainly looked very bemused!! On Sunday we went to see Eddy's Grandad, had lunch, watched the Grand Prix then headed home.

Although we were pretty busy, we did spend quite a bit of time sitting chatting - so I made great progress on Sunflower Charms:

Sorry, the photo is a little dark, and the lovely yellow colours are a bit washed out.

This week I'm attending a conference in Leeds (and working from home when the conference is dull)... and in the evenings I'm doing my best to progress Krista's wedding garter - I really need to get a wiggle on. So sadly my TW is being neglected, even though it's shouting to me... it's too big for a travel piece and when I'm at home I need to focus on the lace... Hmm, I'll treat myself to some TW as soon as I hit the 20 inches point!!

A lace happy dance

Last week I finished the small heart motif I started at Christine Springett's lace course:



I've also taken a photo of my first few stitches for Coffin Buzz:



I'm about to leave for a quick research trip to London, Coffin Buzz is in my bag in case I get bored of marking essays on the train!

Lacemaking in Aston Cantlow

Last weekend's lacemaking course was great fun. We drove down to Stratford on Friday after work and had a lovely meal at Bella Italia. Saturday we drove to Aston Cantlow (a very pretty little village) along some lovely country lanes with lots of 'hedge-froth' - Hawthorn blossom, cow parsley etc - I love this time of year. We also saw lots of lovely deep blue bluebells in the verges.

Aston Cantlow is very pretty, and it was fun to do a lacemaking course in a timber-framed village hall. How very English!!

I was taking a Bedfordshire lace course with Christine Springett, and Sonia was learning how to turn lace bobbins with David Springett and Stuart Johnson. The latter was exceptionally dangerous, as I love Stuart's bobbins, and have a habit of buying lots of them...

Christine's style of making Bedforshire lace is non-traditional - she's adopted ideas from Cluny lace, which essentially mean that the passive pairs in a trail continue in the trail all the way round - they don't enter and exit at will to make leaves, plaits etc - so this finished effect is more 'perfect'.



I started with a fairly simple piece, to get the hang of Christine's way of doing things, and did about half of it. I have to say I've never managed to get such lovely fat leaves before!



The coloured threads in the photo are 'magic threads', which are used at the end to make the finishing simpler, and the knots neater. We'll see how that goes when I finish the piece!

It was soon clear I'd undersold my abilities when I answered Christine's questionnaire before the class - the patterns she sent me were very pretty, but not very challenging. Luckily I was determined enough to try something more difficult to bring along a second pricking (the card pattern you make lace on) of a butterfly, designed by Christine, and most of the necessary wound bobbins. I started it with an hour to go on the Saturday, then worked on it exclusively on the Sunday - I'm really pleased with my progress, and even attempted rolled tallies (which you can't see as the are rolled UNDER the lace you are making. Won't know how successful I was until I finish... There's the tip of a wing under and amongst all of these pins:



I should say that Sonia had great fun turning bobbins, and came away with 3 lovely pairs.



In other lace making news(!), Louise finished her Bedfordshire lace project when she was at a different lace making course the previous weekend. She went to Knuston Hall wither her mum, where the class is taught by Barbara Underwood - a big proponent of making lace in the traditional way - it'll be fun to swap notes and compare pieces, but last night I was far too tired to make our usual lace making evening. Anyway, here are some photos of a lovely cuff that Louise has made. I think she'd started it when I first met her... so it took quite a while really! She took an old pricking and had a go to see how it turned out. Very pretty, but she's not tempted to make a pair!

At last - some stitching!

I have a stitchy photo to share:



As you can see, I'm not going to get the border finsihed this month, but at least it's moving in the right direction. I've also done about 1/3 of my TOP SECRET PROJECT.

On Tuesday night I hosted a Stitch and B**** evening. Chrisse was teaching Emma and Jo how to crochet:



Everytime she told Jo something I got really distracted - on some occasions I even jumped. Both Emma and Jo did a great job with the crochet, I'm sure they'll be creating all kinds of exciting projects soon!

Sonia was busy working on the waistcoat she's been making Terry for years - the end is definitely in sight:



This weekend Sonia and I are off to Stratford. I'm doing a Bedfordshire lace course with Christine Springett, and Sonia is learning to turn lace bobbins with Stuart Johnson. Tonight I need to wind another 50 pairs of bobbons and pack my things - we'll leave immediately after work tomorrow! So soon!!!

What a difference a month makes...

...thanks to everyone over on the wagon for their encouragement and support during TW October - as anyone reading my (very few) posts this month will know, I took the opportunity to focus on Fantasy Triptych, and as of yesterday, I have finished the castle (complete with bs), all of the xs on the rocks, and done a fair amount of the trees - probably abut 1/4 of the infamous green! So here's a photo:



This month I also did a little more on Dracolair's Phoenix:



It's stitched on Stitches and Spice 28ct cashel 'tundra', which I really love.

All of this means that I met my two goals for October, particularly the goal of 'impressive progress' on FT - well, I am impressed!!

So, it being November now, I need to set goals:

1) stitch ornies for TWCOE, presents and (hopefully) my tree too...
2) continue with FT, especially on Mondays
3) make progress on Phoenix
4) pick up Las Vegas again...
5) don't go too mad at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching show - there's only so much stitching time in one lifetime...

And speaking of shows, I never mentioned the Pudsey 'not just lace' show, which was 2 weeks ago. Most of our S**** & B**** group came along, even though not everone makes lace, and we met up with Phyllis. I was very proud that I didn't spend the most money (Sonia now owns a lovely Richard Gravestock workbox. If that means nothing to you then wait until December...). I did buy some lovely new bobbins (as I really don't own enough...):



I especially love the Phoenix one - had to buy it in honour of my current WIP! I also got 4 Gravestock bobbins, after all these will become rare objects once Richard retires in December (like workboxes...).

Best of all, I signed up for a lace weekend with Christine Springett (it's full, but I'm on the reserve list) and had a lovely chat with Stuart Johnson (it's worrying when a bobbin maker who you only see at fairs while buying bobbins greets you like an old friend - but I do like his bobbins best - his are the unspangled - ie non-beaded - bobbins at the top of the picture. The photo doesn't do them justice, and their best feature is that they feel wonderful...).

Fantasy Triptych Progress

Over the last week or so I've been focusing on TW's fantasy Triptych, so I thought I'd share a progress photo:



Last night there was no lace class, so Sonia and Louise came over to mine - we had a good laugh, ate some wonderful Dutch syrup waffles (thanks Sonia!) and made some lace. The Milanese piece I started last week progressed well. I taught myself how to do a 'Meander in Braid', including a turning stitch (new to me) using the book, and we were all impressed with the results. I am intrigued where the pairs go, and think it would be fun to try a short bit using coloured threads to track their progress. Anyway, here is a photo of what I've done so far - not bad considering it's only c.4 hours work and the technique is new to me:



The good news is that I've only snapped 1 thread so far....

Milanese lace

Well I started my new piece last night - it was fun to be something different, although so far I've mostly been doing a cloth stitch trail, so not that exciting. It's using a finer thread that I usually use (100 Brok cotton), and when I got to class 2 pairs which I had winded on ready for the start had already snapped - urrrgh, this doesn't bode well....

I learnt a new way of starting a trail though, and also how to do a blind pin. Best of all, there was some visible progress in just 2 hours... Hopefully next week I'll get some more done and at that point I'll post a picture - it's just a white blob at the moment!!

Lace Happy Dance!

Last night I completed Margaret. I still need to do the finishing - sewing in all the loose ends (I usually don't bother and just cut them close to the reef knot, but as this is a gift...), and find a suitable bit of fabric for the centre. Hopefully I'll find lots of time to do this before Ed's mum's birthday in July. I've added a close-up photo to show the stitches used - rose ground, spiders and cloth stitch trails and fans. It was fun working the trails in a different colour.



I did take Assisi knot garden to our S&B last night, but I didn't touch it - instead I had a go at crocheting. Chrissie was busy sewing the ends into a fantastic blanket of squares, and she inspired me to pick up a crochet hook for the first time in about 15 years - I haven't crocheted since my grandma died. She (Chrissie, not my Grandma :lol) offered to give me some pointers, but I wanted to see what I could remember. I think we were both impressed (I did make a few mistakes initially - it took me a couple of minutes to work out how I should hold the yarn). After 2 false starts (nothing fundamentally wrong, just not quite 'right') I finished a small square. The best thing of all is that it is so easy to pull out something you aren't happy with! Hmm, maybe I need to invest in my own crochet hook and some yarn... Chrissie's stitch & bitch happy hooker book had some great patterns in!



Tonight it's my lace class. I've decided it's time to try a different kind of lace, Milanese. I'll let you know how I get on!

Stitching update

I've been busy working on Fantasy Triptych for the last 2 nights. I've just finished the central tower (well, one 'floor' of it anyway), and have started the castle wall. I'm really enjoying the blending and the confetti stitches - clearly I've been away from TW stitching for far too long!



I've also taken a progress photo of Assisi knot garden, which I've been working on (on and off) for the last fortnight. As you can see, I've almost made my May goal of getting the third quarter finished.



Tonight we are having a stitch and bitch at Chrissie's. I'll take my lace, as I have almost finished Margaret (hopefully there will be a happy dance and photo to share), and also Assisi knot garden, just in case I do finish Margaret!!!

A crafty weekend

This weekend Ed had a conference in Sheffield, so we stayed with our good friends, Phyllis and Richard. Phyllis taught me bobbin lace making, so I packed prepared for a crafty weekend!

On Saturday moning I had a long overdue visit to my hairdresser - it's a little mad to still go to a hairdresser 1 hours drive away from where I live, but I've never found anyone as good locally.. 3 hours later I left the hardressers with a new haircut and highlights.

That afternoon, Phyllis, Richard and I went to Bakewell, so I could go to Wye needlecraft. I was very good, and only bought what I needed - fabbie for TW's Fantasy Tryptich - I decided on 28ct antique white Quaker cloth - it felt so wonderful it was worth the extra £2 or so. I also got a 27" scroll frame, as I didn't have one big enough for this piece, and some Weeks Dye Works floss, as I've never tried it before. We had tea and scones with my friend Helene - her mum lives in Bakewell, and it was a happy coincidence that we were both there on the same day.

In the evening I started a new travel piece, a V&A pin cushion with a pink tulip on it, but it was on Sunday that Phyllis and I managed to get out our lace pillows. I was working on Margaret, and finally turned the last corner.



Phyllis started on her new piece for the Sheffield Lace Makers 35th Anniversary competion, with the theme 'coral'. She's making a collage coral reef, hopefully with the help of everyone who comes to her Tuesday night lace making group (I won't call it a class, as Phyllis doesn't consider herself a teacher).



Eventually I conviced her to pick up her amazing Bedfordshire piece, which she started on a weekend course with Christine Springett:



She'd not touched it for ages, and it took a while for her to get into it. I took a few photos of Phyllis' lace projects, which can be found in the same Webshots album as the other photos.

On Sunday afternoon Ed finally escaped the conference and the 4 of us had a lovely walk in Ecclesall Woods - and I saw my first ever treecreeper.

It was a lovely weekend, and the best part is that I will see R&P again next weekend, as it is a Sheffield Lace Makers working day.