Hidden panda quilt top

Ah, what a summer! I’ve made a conscious decision to play a lot more and enjoy our final weeks of holiday before the girls start at new schools. We are being lazy, we are being playful and energetic; they fill me with happiness, they drive me up the wall; the house is in chaos, but the floor tiles are clean:

I have asked them to tidy toys, I have nagged them to clear a path through just one room in the house, but today they asked if they could mop their bathroom floor. With their feet, like ice skaters. Never refuse an offer of help.

In the midst of all this, I managed to sew together Bunny’s hidden panda quilt top.

These teeny hidden pandas are *too cute*!

You may remember when I first started this quilt in June. I used the super-speedy nine-patch technique I showed here last summer.

Yes, I know, I spy some loose threads, I haven’t got around to that fiddly thread-picking stage. I have ironed it, but it certainly doesn't look like it!

For this quilt I am trying a new technique for backing the quilt top. Instead of making a quilt sandwich, with the top, the wadding and the backing fabric, I’m using a fleecy fabric to act as both wadding and backing. This should be less tricky as I’m quilting it, as I won’t have three layers to keep together, and oh, that fabric is just so snuggly!

Last Monday evening was the local Quilting Club night. I was all ready to sew it all together, perhaps even start the binding, but as I was ironing the top I felt a little something was lacking. I love the fabrics so much, and I am pleased with the orderly fashion in which I lined up the patches (I struggle, how I struggle, to be more random! The busy-ness of certain quilt designs makes me feel somewhat agitated...). But I felt a strong need to embellish. With needle and thread.

I’m going to stitch some sweet embroideries on a few random calico squares for Bunny. Of course I had to start with a bunny, and I’ve been dying to embroider this little beauty ever since I first saw her in The Belle and Boo Book of Craft.

This is perhaps the most darling book I have; I am just besotted with Mandy Sutcliffe’s illustrations, and the projects are whimsical and nostalgic and destined to become heirlooms.

I spent Quilting Club chatting to fellow quilters and stitching the bunny. Very relaxing way to start the week!

I’ve doodled a few more designs which I will share at a later date, and I also wanted to include a few fun flowers:

Carina’s Stitched Blooms is my go-to book for stylish flowers. It is full of motifs perfect for this type of random embroidery – I mean, just look at the cover! I could fill every square just with the cover embroidery!

Heaven forbid I finish a WIP in a reasonable amount of time! I make more work for myself...knowing my schedule in the autumn, I’ll only be able to work on this quilt once a month a Quilt Club. But it will be stitched with love, from start to eventual finish...

Have a great weekend!

Chrissie x

Teacher aprons (yes, I know it's summer holidays!)

I know the last thing anyone is thinking about at the moment is back to school...but a friend of mine is a teaching assistant in the primary school’s Reception class, and a while back she had a request. A little summer project.

She needed some sort of carrier for the flotsam and jetsam of Reception class – pencils, stickers, cards (and I suspect the odd chocolate treat for mid-afternoon pick-me-up?). A little bag on a belt? An across-the-body satchel?

Then Sandra from Cherry Heart posted about a gardener’s apron she had made, and I knew I had the solution!

This is a teacher’s apron, in jolly primary colours and fabrics that appeal to 4- and 5-year-olds.

I sewed a pocket slim enough for pencils, with two other pockets for stickers and whatnot/chocolate. You can see the contrasting turquoise thread above...

Sandra’s tutorial was very clear and super-easy to follow - this apron was made in under an hour, including breaks to fetch children snacks and towels for paddling pool play. You can find her original post here.  

Late last night Bunny had a night terror; I heard her crying at 2:45 a.m. She was burning up and delirious, shaking and scared. I cuddled her and comforted her, then she came into our bed for the rest of the night. Cool washcloths and a soft breeze from the window settled her, and a dose of Nurofen helped with the fever. She woke this morning sleepy but absolutely fine, like nothing ever happened. Such a universal parenting situation; I remember cuddling up to my mother after a nightmare, there is nothing quite as comforting. I don’t know which feeling is better: being the child being comforted, or now being the mother, and knowing that wonderful, deep happiness of being the one who can provide such comfort.

But I digress because I'm sleepy...

This morning I woke weary and bleary, with a foggy mind and rattled nerves. I decided a spot of creativity first thing would sort me out and start the day on a positive note. So I made a second teacher’s apron, for the Reception class teacher, using the remaining fat quarter fabrics.

For these aprons I used an inexpensive fat quarter pack of fabrics found on eBay, which fit the bill perfectly.

I matched up some ribbon and bias binding, including a bright orange shade from my grandma's stash, which I used for the pocket trim and apron ties.

I had wondered when on earth I would ever use that orange!

This time the apron was finished in 45 minutes, including yawns and a break to make more tea.

I have some scraps of each fabric leftover – I think I’ll make some little bunting for the classroom. Little Flower will have a very colourful and coordinated Reception class!

Enjoy the weekend!

Chrissie x

Bronze fennel embroidery

After some lovely emails and kind comments on my latest herb bouquet, I thought I would share some of my favourites from my garden and their uses.

But I also have started a new, herb-themed embroidery project, so I'm combining the two in this herb + craft blog post...

I am making a set of herb placemats, using the gorgeously rough-textured linen I first used here.

This is bronze fennel, a striking statement plant in the garden. The bronze fennel in my garden is nearly five feet high, a full and frothy feature in the corner of the herb border.

 

Bronze fennel towering over the lavender

I cut it back to the ground every year, and it shoots up so quickly and fully each summer. As it matures, the leaves turn bright orange, with yellow stems.

I love the colours, from cool white-green stalks on the young shoots to the rich, burnt orange of the feathery larger leaves. Sunset colours.

The Work-In-Progress

It then turns more coppery bronze, hence the name, but I wanted to capture the fiery shades of early summer leaves.

I matched the embroidery floss to the leaves (thank you, Sublime Stitching, for such vivid hues!). I turned to a beautiful Japanese embroidery book for some inspiration:

Herb Embroidery on Linen - that's fennel under the title!

The book features the common fennel in an embroidery pattern, so I adapted it to suit the bronze fennel’s palette.

How stunning is this?

Fennel has a cultivation history spanning thousands of years, used by the ancient Greeks and the Romans to suppress hunger and enhance food flavour. It was used as an insect deterrent in the Middle Ages, and today fennel seed is a common herbal remedy for indigestion.   

My fennel grows in a bright sunny spot, and the leaves and young stems can be added to salads and fish dishes with tasty results. The flowers have a bit of crunch and add texture and gorgeously sweet aniseed flavour as well. The bulb of Florence Fennel is the variety used in cooking; I may grow some of that next year!

For my first herb placemat, I stitched the stalk with chain stitch side by side with stem stitch, in two shades of green. The young bronze fennel plant has tan-coloured flower stems, and tiny yellow blossoms – these open wider with greener stems as the summer goes on. I stitched the flowers with French knots and straight stitch.

The leaves are simply straight stitches with the occasional stem stitch to add slight curves.

I want to keep the mats very simple to focus on the embroidery. I backed this mat with a neutral vintage linen fabric I bought at a fete earlier in the summer (from Sarah Moore’s stall, read more here). I thought the placemat looked a bit stark with nothing but the herb in the upper left section, so I added a little bee in the bottom right corner, as the bees love the bright fennel blossom.

Teeny tiny bee!

I already have more wee insects in mind for the other placemats, you’ll have to wait and see!

Chrissie x