Time to Mention Christmas...

I know, I know! 

It's the middle of September and here I am talking about the one word that even makes me twitch. But I have to do it, I have to break it to you that alas I really do need to start to think about it. Like others in craft land its time to think about Christmas. Those who are better at working out that schedule have already started, and are well into their preparations.

Me?

I've dipped my toe in over the past couple of weeks and now it's time to cannonball into the pool of Christmas making. There is a good reason for this, I've got a fair in December, more on this soon, my first in over three years. I think? Memory fails me. Anyway, so whilst I am doing my utmost to remain calm and collected I do have to pull my finger out now. Now whilst I was in the States, I took the opportunity to purchase a few items (coughalotcough)...

Not only for playing about with, but to use for the fair in terms of decorating the stall to using to make stock with. I had a great time purchasing lots of lovely new quilting fabric (I will seek out a fabric store where ever I am), And I came to visit a couple of times, Flash Sew and Quilt store in Naples, Florida. It was lovely and holy crap there was a lot of fabric I wish I could have purchased. Next time, I'll bring and even bigger case...

I made a few notes about what I thought was realistic to make in the time and what I wanted to take. A few new ideas were jotted down, including a design for a Christmas card. It had to be stitched now so that I had time to get it photographed and printed in to cards. It was nice to do a spot of stripy trailing again. 

And it didn't take me that long either, which was nice. Was a bit worried I had gotten a bit rusty...

Anyway with it stitched I can now start working on the other bits and pieces on my list. I have two test pieces to try out one is the new Christmas bauble bee design. Last year it was a Queen Bee and this year? Well you'll have to wait and see. The other is just small little keyring idea, there will be bees...again.

Didn't start this weekend as it's been a bit busy as for most of today for instance I attended The Handmade Fair, with massive thanks to We Make London for my ticket. I entered a little comp they were running to win a ticket. And low and behold I only gone and won. Now, I'll talk about that adventure with the one I will be undertaking next weekend when I pop along to Threads, with Laura Howard aka Bugs and Fishes.

I hope everyone had a lovely fun, and crafty weekend.

Post Holiday Clarity

It’s been over a month since I last sat down with a huge of mug of tea and wrote a decent blog post. A lot has gone on over the last month from a special family wedding to a long, overdue holiday. And as mentioned in my posts from late July and early August, I’ve been in a bit of a funny place when it came to my motivation and inspiration to stitch, which meant blogging wasn’t so easy for me.

I have to be honest it still isn’t. Can’t tell you how many attempts it’s taken this morning to write this post. I realised whilst I was away, doing absolutely nothing for over 8 days, that it’s time I focused on what makes me happy and to go easy on myself. So if one week I can’t write a full post then I’ll just share a picture with you, and if I want to share a pattern with you…then it will be no more building up to it or scheduling it as a fixed date. I’ll do it when I am ready. Sure I work well with deadlines but I have plenty of those at work, so I think I can cut myself a little bit of slack when I am at home.

Because everything I stitch, design or make, I do it because I love it not because I hope to garner fame and money (though the latter would be nice to feed my addiction to quilting fabric..) which is probably why I will never earn oodles though my online shop, and you know what I don’t mind. Really, don’t mind.

Yeah, I know something I should have perhaps realised many moons ago, but it does take having a proper time out to make you have that moment of clarity.

So folks, I am back and I am starting to feel that I am in a good place again. I have lots to share with you over the coming weeks and months, so I hope you will enjoy my somewhat meandering path. 

Home Sweet Home

Last week I talked about getting back to using mood boards, and that I spent some very happy hours putting my two boards together, well when I wasn't cutting out paper I was also mucking about with fabric. Sometimes when I can't focus I just grab out my fabrics, usually the scraps I've got stowed away and just play about. No clear goal in mind just see what happens. Which was what I did in between watching the Tin Man on DVD, and in the evenings after work. 

Most of the fabrics chosen are scraps from the quilt I am working on for my bedroom, which post holiday break I'll be getting back too. That's the plan anyway! The fabrics you might recognise were from the Petite Street collection, by Dashwood Studios. I don't like to waste pretty fabric so the worthwhile sized scraps were kept for a rainy day. 

So I cut and placed...

and I pinned...

and I hand sewed the pieces together.

 Cracked out the threads and stitched lettering, flowers and a teeny, tiny house.. (you might recall the house from past work. Might have to do some more soon!)

...and I kept going till I was happy with the final result.

Then I trimmed and added bias binding. On the back I stitched on a couple of brass rings and stamped my little bee. I loved every minute of it. There was no pressure for what the result might be like as I hadn't a clue what I wanted it to be when I started. I really do like improv patchwork. I really recommend it if, like me, your feeling a bit 'argh' get out your stash of scraps, come now I know you have some! And just piece them together. I didn't do any quilting on this one but I am already itching to make another, how else am I to get through my scrap bag!

Around the World Blog Hop

Chrissie of Chrissie Crafts invited me to take part in this blog hop. The idea is to answer a few questions about your work and then you in turn invite others to do the same. See below whom I have passed the questions on to...or in my case who I follow.

What am I working on?
Like most folks who are creative I have multiple things on the go, nothing like breaking up projects with having several more projects to work on.

As of yesterday I started the preparation work for my next complex piece, a stumpwork dragon, based on the idea of Medieval illuminated manuscripts. 

I'm also stitching a project for myself, the Pretty Little San Francisco design by Satsuma Street. I work on it a little bit at a time in the evenings, so the progress is really, really slow but that's fine by me. I have a feeling though I'll be taking it on my holidays at the end of August to finish it!

I also have the quilt for my bedroom, which needs one more row of blocks for me to cut out and stitch together then it will be the sashing. I'll get all the fabric out again in the coming months to do it.

I know whilst I am working on the dragon I'll be wanting to work on some other new designs that have yet to be thought up. I'd quite like to do another typography piece, just not narrowed down the quote I want to work on next. 

How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I don't think I have a genre? I have a style I think? And I have a craft // technique that I use but don't think i have a genre. So I'll focus on the craft itself to answer this question. My embroidery is different from others because it's me doing the designing. Sure I was taught the same way as my peers that went to the RSN (before they dropped the Apprenticeship) but the way we stitch is different from each other. I'm quite certain if we were given the same design to stitch, and even limited the choice of materials and colours, we'd still work it differently. Put our own little stamp on it. Or even if there was no deviation from the design, materials, stitches and colours and we were forced to do it exactly the same way it would feel a little different. I'm not talking about experience of our stitch work, I am talking about the way we impart a little bit of ourselves into the work we do. Like to think of it like a stitching fingerprint. 

Why do I write/create what I do?
It keeps me sane.

No, really! It's my go to when I am not at work, though I think about stitching all the time. I always carry a notebook around with me so that I jot down an idea, or make a note about how I would do a part of a project. Being creative is a part of me. Take it away and I am not sure I'd be the same person. 

And you know, I have to doodle new designs all the time, otherwise I'd never have an excuse to buy more notebooks:

Just the tip of the iceberg folks, just the tip.

How does my writing/creating process work?
It starts with a doodle. If I can't stop adding to the design, or have already started to figure out how I would stitch it and what materials I'd use then then I'll progress it to tidying up the design and if by the end of that stage I really, really itching to stitching it....THEN I do. Sometimes I can get to this stage and either I am not thrilled with the design as much I thought I was, or I'll do it bit by bit over a longer time or leave it for another day.

Now this is where I should list the next folks to participate and this is where I have to hold my hands up, I've not had the head space to chase folks and by the time I did alas some of them have already done it or couldn't do it. And in some instances I felt a little embarrassed to ask them because I've never approached them before. Very silly I know! So, I don' t like to admit defeat instead I am just going to pick a few folks that I follow and encourage you to go and look at their work, and follow their blogs and you know offer them a cookie or something.

Spirit Cloth - I've been following her work for a couple of years now. I just love not only her style, her ethics and her craftmanship.

Materialistic - love her embroidery designs, and use of colour.

Jen Goodwin - super lady, who frankly works flipping hard. Always stitching, always designing new kits and always teaching. The latter she's really good at.

So there are a few for you to have a look at, and hopefully follow.  

All about Family and Quilting

Another week at work goes by at a rate of knots whilst also at the same time dragging it's itself towards the weekend. Weird how that happens even for a four day 'working' week. As you may gathered from my weekly posts I am very much a homebody, always looking forward to times when I can have time to myself or spend it in the company of friends and family, without the worry of deadlines, unexpected phone calls, the bombardment of emails, and the daily commute.  

I can happily spend the weekend pottering about my flat or even popping to the shops to run an errand and I'll be quietly content. As much as I was equally content spending a rather all over the place Saturday with my family.Seeing pretty much all of them over the course of one day. From a multi-generation visit to the crematorium to lay flowers in memory of my nan too seeing my sister's new abode. A brief visit to Tenterden was also on the cards, along with dinner with my mum and a late night journey back to my flat  in order to save a very early journey this morning. 

It might have been stupidly windy, with crazy on off showers and downpours but it was great and loved every minute of it, especially the mad singing along session on the various journeys on the way to and around Kent with my mum. 

Needless to say little crafting was done yesterday. Though I did get the chance to visit Hoop whilst in Tenterden, been on my 'to visit' list for a while now and picked up some rather lovely grey hue, 32 count linen for me to stitch the Pretty Little San Francisco cross stitch pattern onto by the fab designer Satsuma Street (finally caved). Also purchased another French cross stitch pattern book, have a bit of a thing for there designs, along with Japanese embroidery books and magazines.

Well I couldn't spend a little bit of money whilst I was there...

I would say if you are in or around the area you should totally pop in it's so bright, fresh with great collection of stock and the owner, Vanessa, is super lovely too. Me and my mum were trying persuade her to open another branch in Farnham....because like me she's surprised there isn't one already in the town. There was but they've all since closed. 

Also couldn't resist taking this little fella home too yesterday!

As for today well it was the usual catching up on household chores, trying persuade BT to give me a better deal for the new contract...man I hate haggling. And finally finishing off the mini quilt! 

Ain't it cute. I wasn't sure I was going to like the way it turned out as it's not entirely like the sketch but now that it's hanging on the wall I am rather smitten by it's bold blocks of colour, and the use of the bag handle to hang it. I look forward to coming up with another design. 

And that my friends, was my weekend in a nutshell. The coming week is going to be a nutso with work commitments, and my best friend's little boy's baptism. So there will be a break in the usual weekly blog posts, but never fear I'll return for the Bank Holiday post, probably showing off my new hallway lighting, and fingers crossed the next seasonal pattern will be done by then too!

I hope everyone is safe and well, and happy.