Stitches...

It's all one big WHOOOSH at the moment. I am busy at work, and busy at home (but aren't we all?) and I've been busy with a little sewing related business plan up my sleeve. And so the blog has slipped again.

As I write this I realise that I've missed it. I like to blog, I do it for me. I like to see the things I have been making and thinking about posted all nice and tidy. It's very satisfying, in the same way that crossing things off a list is. I feel a sense of achievement. And as I collect together some pictures for this post I feel that same happiness.

And what have I been up to? I have clearly been teaching myself a bit of embroidery. I had not done any until recently and I am finding it very pleasing. First a little bit of study from a book (this old faithful).

And then a bit of fun to embellish the bag that I made to contain the HUNDREDS of biscuit cutters that we had in a horrid plastic tub. As you can see the bag is already mucky from kitchen fun.

Then some initials on a bag for my sisters birthday (now holding pencils for school, I've been told). And the current project can be seen in the top picture... lavender bags. I was the lucky recipient of a friends harvest and after a couple of nights of hand threshing (!) in front of the telly I have a nice lot of lavender to make some smelly Christmas gifts.

I could get used to this stitching lark.

Nanna

I went to my local wool shop for something completely different yesterday. I am in there quite a lot as there is no sewing/ haberdashers in my little city, and the wool shop is your best bet.


Whilst I was having a rummage, for it is the sort of shop that warrants a rummage, I found an embroidery thread box. Now, I have been hankering after one of these for a while and at £3.95 I was sold.

I have started doing a little embroidery, so this was very timely. My post, however, is not about this learning curve, but about my Nanna.

My Nanna was a very special lady. She died a few days before Mil was born, two and a half years ago. A few weeks after this, her descendants gathered at her Yorkshire home with the sad but necessary task of re homing what we could. One of the things I took away with me was a small sewing chest with all sorts in it.

And, in that chest was a book of embroidery threads. An old guide called 'Canada Today' published in 1954 by the Bank of Montreal. The pages had been used to keep her threads organised. All the colours ordered with 'palest', 'middle' and 'deep' tones marked out on separate pages with the colour codes recorded.


I took this book apart today and put all those lovingly ordered and referenced threads onto my brand spanking new spools, and felt like I was losing a small piece of social and family history. But I think my Nanna would have been impressed with how it all came together.

I won't forget, so there is no reason to hold on. Only reason to move forward. Yes?

Excited about needlepoint

I have been a bit absent of late up here. I have actually been doing a fair bit of crafting, but not got around to posting any of it. I will do, but I need to get this post out of my hair first.



A couple of weeks ago now (gosh time flies!) Attic 24 wrote a post that rang some little bells far away in the depths of my brain. This post was about the possibility of getting excited about needlepoint. And the cushion that she has to demonstrate the excitement is right up my street.

Before I started getting excited about sewing and knitting, I got excited for a while about needlepoint. Mainly due to one book found in a charity shop, and then another. I was living in London at the time and the repeats reminded me of the deliciousness of British Rail and London Underground upholstery fabric... surely I am not the only one?

To go off on a slight tangent here, I just did a search online to see if I could find any lovely examples of the deliciousness of London Underground Upholstery fabric, and drew a blank, but I did find a competition on at the moment to design a fabric of your very own for this purpose. You can apply through this link at Transport for London. Entries close 14/09/09. What an odd coincidence. Perhaps we have a challenge?!

Anyway, back to point. Here are the nice books, they are both currently available through Abe books:

The New World of Needlepoint by Lisbeth Perrone, ISBN 0 00 411824 3

And Trianglepoint by Sherlee Lantz, ISBN 0 670 73030 0

Such yummy patterns.