Crafting comfort

Today I was all set to do a review of Cute & Easy Crochet with Flowers. But it will have to wait until tomorrow.

I lost my mojo this afternoon. Something about the dreary greying of the skies, the chill-to-the-bone wet weather, combined with the early darkness of evening...around dinnertime I suddenly felt like a deflated balloon. And I’m talking about the balloon that is all lovely and buoyant when all of a sudden it’s let go and the air comes fizzing out of it, then blah. Blah.

Never mind. I’m sure all will be well tomorrow. Just a bit ho-hum now. So I’m going to take solace in some crafting.

I’m nearly done with the bright and happy floral placemat from Crochet with Flowers. The mat whipped up so quickly, mainly because I’m using the T-shirt yarn and a 9mm hook. It took one evening while watching a film. A set of four could be a quick gift for someone...

I haven’t blocked the mat or sewn on the flowers yet. The blossoms are so dinky and cute; the pattern calls for 16 of them, which won’t take long at all. I’ve adapted the flower, though, because the yarn I was using was leaving a big hole in the centre of the flower.

This is your typical chain and join with a slip stitch, but then the pattern calls for 14 double crochets into the circle – this large number can stretch certain yarns. I’m using remnants of cotton yarn I used for another project, and I wasn’t about to buy a new ball of yarn for these little flowers. So I changed the chain circle to a magic ring, with much better results.

So I’m off to crochet more flowers. Time for a big hot chocolate, my cropped poncho I made a few months ago to keep my shoulders warm, and the Great British Bake Off – things are looking up already!

Chrissie x

P.S. Quick tip: When you’re just too tired to finish the cookie-cutter sugar cookies for kids’ lunchboxes, the gourmet writing pens really come in handy...

peepo!

Stitching Sunday: Outlines and Fillings

My apologies for the tardiness of today’s Stitching Sundays post. We woke to autumn sunshine, so we popped out for an indulgent breakfast and made an impromptu visit to Petworth Park...

Petworth House

Little Flower gets a piggyback from Bunny, the South Downs in the distance

Clouds soon rolled in, and it’s due to be quite stormy all afternoon, so I’m glad we all had this time together this morning.

Anyway, back to the task at hand! How is your stitching? I am over the moon with the comments and participants for Stitching Sundays. Do check out everyone’s link each week – there is a wealth of talent to be found!

As well as sharing a few tutorials and showing my latest embroidery, these Sunday posts serve as a forum for us to share ideas and tips. Feel free to join in whenever the mood strikes; there is no deadline. And I’m focusing on basic embroidery at the moment, but tell us about your cross stitching, whitework, Hardanger, anything!

Last week we focused on transferring designs, and I want to share two great tips from fellow bloggers. Joy from Joyjinks Creations wrote about an iron-on transfer pen that she uses, so I’ve ordered one and will test it out as soon as it arrives – Joy’s embroidery design is stunning! And Wendy commented: “Use a Frixxon pen, you don't have to worry about covering up the line with stitches as it disappears when you iron the fabric.” I’ll be trying that technique, too, thanks Wendy!

So you’ve chosen a simple design and have transferred it to your fabric. Most often you’ll want to stitch some sort of outline next. Running stitch and back stitch are two of the simplest stitches, but I want to show you stem stitch – it works wonderfully with curvy lines (such as flower stems), and it gives a lovely outline.

Here is my quick tutorial: I’m using two strands of floss. First, bring the thread to the front of your work. Take the needle down one stitch length, but do not pull taut.

Keep the excess thread below the stitch line – you have to do this throughout your stitching so maintain consistency of the stitch. Then push the needle back up through the fabric at the halfway point of the stitch.

Again, keep the thread below the line, and push the needle back through the fabric, the same stitch length as before. Do not pull taut.

Now bring the needle back up at the end of the first stitch (this is where a lot of stem stitches go awry – not every tutorial makes this step clear, so for a while I was bringing my thread up in the middle of the stitch each time, not at the end of the previous stitch, and my resulting stitches were rather large).

Oi! Move that thread below the stitch!

Then repeat the process – push the needle down a stitch length ahead, then bring it up at the end of the previous stitch.

Now I want to fill in the beehive door. Long and short stitch is a great filler, and isn’t nearly as daunting as I thought when I first started embroidery.

First, make a row of, you guessed it, long and short stitches. You can vary the length as much as you’d like, I just kept mine fairly consistent because the area I’m filling is very small, and it’s easier to illustrate it to you this way.

Then simply repeat the process, filling in more long and short stitches – but each time you bring the needle up through the fabric, make sure you split the thread of the previous row. The needle must come through the thread to ensure a good fill. This may be tricky at first, but stick with it!

Charcoal grey isn’t the best colour to illustrate this, but hopefully you get the idea. I’ll show you more intricate long and short stitches later on – I had my rite of passage with this stitch when I filled in Sam...

There is a technique to filling in curved areas to maintain a sense of flow with the thread...and I’m still learning!

I hope these two techniques make sense and offer some inspiration. Please share your experiences in the comments below or link up your blog!

Next week I plan to add the bees, the grass, perhaps a flower? And I have to start thinking about what I’m going to do with this little hive...

Thanks for reading, welcome to my new followers, and happy stitching!

Chrissie x

Mama got a brand new bag!

Ta dah!

I finally finished my Blossoming Bag! I started the band for the handles yesterday afternoon, then I stayed up late after my chamber choir rehearsal so I could get the second handle attached (getting to the end of a WIP is like the final chapter of a good novel – you simply must finish it now!). Whipped up the two little dangling blossoms today and voila!

I thoroughly enjoyed this project, from Cherry Heart. The instructions couldn’t have been clearer – I even used the crochet diagrams, which I normally shirk from because they look confusing. Not so here, and now I’ve learned another skill!

The join-as-you-go technique made this crochet together quickly, and the double-sided lining was sewn up in no time.

I’m pleased with my lining, as I’m still a novice with the sewing machine. The inner lining is the ditsy floral, the outer lining, which peeps through the holes between the flowers, is a plain light green linen.

I had quite a spring in my step as I carried this on the school run today, forcing everyone I passed to stop and admire my handiwork...

Now it’s on to the next crochet project

I’m very keen to start working with this T-shirt yarn straight away so I can do a review of this book!

I know a lot of you already have Cute & Easy Crochet with Flowers either in your hands or on your wish lists...so the lovely Marianne from Ladybird Diaries and I are organising a Crochet-A-Long to get us all working on some flowery projects! More on this project very soon...

Happy crafting!

Chrissie x

P.S. Thank you to everyone for your comments on the Monday Cake! I've heard from a few of you who tried it with other jams; it seems to work with every kind...yum!