Hexies Colouring In Pages

As you will have seen over the past couple of weeks, mostly on Instagram, I've got a Hexie project on the go. It's seemingly just happened after a very and so I really haven't a clue how its going to turn out. 

Rough doodle..

And this seemed to help get some clue as to where I was heading but the need to work out steps for further down line prompted me to whip up a quick colouring in page, and I have to say it's helping a treat. Whilst I still don't know what the outcome will be, at least with the colouring in pages it saves a whole lot of unpicking!

Want to play about with your own hexie design, or like me just love a spot of colouring in, you can download the templates here:

A3 Page

A4 Page

A for Alphabet, B for Birthday....

C for Certainly been a full on fortnight between birthday, now Easter and projects. So here is a little round up of what I've been up too. 

• You know my sneaky shots from my last blog post, well heck I finished it! I am so super happy with how this Alphabet display piece turned out. 26 individually stitched letters. Yes, in my favourite trailing stitch, think I need treatment for this addiction. Loved making it so much so that I want to do another one, and I will because I've already purchased another display rack. Thinking a different colour way and different stitch. Interested in purchasing, head over to Etsy. 

Q for...uhm...Queue? Qwerty...

Now you know your A, B, C's...next time...

• Who knew about laminating fabric could be so much fun...now have a fab new mousemat! Go on, crack out that laminator.

• What did I do for my birthday? Lots of hanging out with my family, yay! And double yay, as I went to the freakin' Harry Potter Studio. Cue feeling like a massive kid, and I was, so many small people...still it was so much fun. And totally worth the ticket price. Totally rode a broom, wore a Slytherin cloak, and bought a chocolate frog.

Sort of loving the pink ombre tiles...

Squee, Dumbledore's Office...

• Enjoying the Easter break! Not one to like keep still or anything, I've been flicking between decorating my bathroom, which I can now say is finally complete! Huzzah. I do not want to see a paintbrush for a while. Eating chocolate has been the order of the day, as has drinking copious amounts of tea (duh), and stitching. Just flitting about playing about with things half finished. Like rather large 1 1/2 inch hexie's I had the fabric cut out for an age, and I really couldn't remember what the plan was, but heck I thought do something or put it away. So out came the lovely rainbow coloured threads again. When it's spring time, you just need to bust out the colours even when it's a grey, April day. Tomorrow there will be more working on this random project, and if it looks good I'll give you more of a heads up on how you can make a totally random hexi thing too! 

• Think also get the Wonderland piece back out to see about getting that a little closer to finishing.  
• Oh! I managed to give my website a little bit of love. Updated pictures, and tweaked the little store that's on that site too.

For now my dearies, I need tea and some more chocolate! Happy Easter xx

The Three F's and a T.

A hodge-podge sort of fortnight, full of threads, fabrics, flour and family. 

• A random little patchwork project for no other reason than I fancied doing it. Started as a doodle, and then ended up as a near 12" square. Rather pleased with it too. If your wondering it's a quote from the Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland. A quote I can get behind "It's Always Time for Tea". Here, here!

• More thrifty finds - Went in search of shelving units for the bathroom and instead came back with some cheap reels of Sylko thread for my aunt, a rather lovely plain white linen table cloth for £9 and a thimble rack; no I haven't started collecting I have other plans for it.

• I love, love, love Nigel's Lazy Loaf - Lives up to it's name. Second week I've made it now. I have found I had to play about with the amount of flour as Sainsbury's only sell Buttermilk in 300ml not the required 350ml. And I don't like to buy more than I need. So chopped down the flour to 175g and I think it's worked even better this week. Either way, it's super yummy....and toasts nicely too.

• More adventures into Wonderland - The quote that I featured on the little patchwork piece is back again, and this time I've decided to embroider it. Currently work in progress. 

 

Can never find my white tissue paper, so pale pink was used. I tend to find it easier stitching a rough outline on linen that can't be drawn onto, rather than using the prick, pounce and paint method. It's quicker, well for me, and less messy. If your interested in the other method, my good friend, Jen Goodwin, has an excellent tutorial. 

Of, course my favourite stitch is back, trailing for the win! And there is going to be quite a bit of it. Can't help it.

See, I told you there was going to be more! You can just make out the start of a clock, with multiple hands. 

• Giving child marriage the finger! And you can too. Let children, be children. I have recently supported this campaign, and you can too. If you can't donate, but have a social media account, a blog even. Post a link to it. Spread the word. 

Biscuits, Quilts and Tea

Another week has flown by, I was rather caught up with last minute decorating ahead of my carpet being fitted, more on that later. Feeling a little bit crook but at the same time determined to finish a longstanding project. I feel more energized of late to stitch and well do things. 

Get things done! 

• The sheer relief of finishing a quilting project! Having started it, or at least gathered together all the fabric back in 2013, the quilt for my bedroom was completed last week. Can't say how bloody awesome it is to actually finish such a long project. The hand sewing the binding certainly took a lot of patience, as I was so ready for it to be done. And can I say why did I not get the Clover Wonder Clips sooner! But it is, at long last now adorning my bed. Which means I'll be getting ready soon to getting that room decorated. Speaking of decorating....

I love my little red and clear wonder clips, they are so freakin awesome and totally limit the amount of times I am normally stabbed with pins whilst sewing on bias binding!

Bob, I can see you.

• My hallway is finally finished! Talk about a relief. The carpet was fitted, along with the laminate in the bathroom, yesterday morning. Knowing that one room(ish) is complete, and that I am now keen to crack on with the next project, which will be the bathroom is really great, and I think I have to say the spring sunshine is certainly helping with the motivation to get on. 

• Other decorating based news. My biscuit collection is ever growing, the lovely designing talents of Nikki McWilliams has extended to these lovely range of foil letterpress designs, Jammie Dodger, Custard Cream and recently a copper Bourbon biscuit. Hard to resist. These will eventually be framed and will go on display in the livingroom. Hoping that there will be a party ring on the horizon. 

• Watch the process of handcrafted quilts. Simply stunning.

• Got the idea for my next embroidery project, follows on from a mini quilt/patchwork which I am going to post about during the week, once I've properly completed (nearly there!). Let's just say, tea is featured. 

• Things I am thinking about a lot lately: changing direction, closing Etsy store, getting rid of Facebook (company page) love Instagram more, focusing on making things for me but perhaps looking in more detail about what is I am making, and how I do it. Essentially, figuring out do I want to make to sell or simply just make? Perhaps the sunshine had woken up long dusty brain cells. What are you thinking about at the moment?

Sun = Motivation

It was very much a weekend of doing...

- Learning to Drive continues on a pace. Reversing into a parking bay, think I've got that mastered.

- The hallway woodwork is nearly complete...yeah, slight issue with the paint has meant a slight change of plans, plain white gloss as apposed to grey (actually looks better), though that wasn't quite as simple as I had hoped, issue with the primer has seen me having to yet more sanding and prepping.

- Finally taking photographs of a finished piece of work. The colourful patchwork banner is now hanging up in my study, when the bedroom is done I think it will go in there, to match the patchwork quilt...

- Bedroom Quilt is near ready for binding now! So excited. Ordered two colours, as I couldn't quite settle on either pink or mint. But heck, I might do both. The machine quilting is near complete, a few more bits but by the time the binding turns up next week I  hope to have it all done. Just itching to get the binding on and done! Then...well I can start thinking about the next one, right?

- I've done my February page for 12 Pages for 2015 project. The theme for this month was Boat, Broken with the bonus extra of using Watercolours. Spot of mucking about and I came up with a floating pinkish red watercoloured chipped teacup, floating on rough sea of torn paper. Simple, but fun. Added extra is that you can move the teacup about!

Cake was baked, housework was done, plenty of tea was drunk. Wistful thoughts on what projects to work on next, Mother's Day card made, and motivation to get myself going again. All in all a bloody good weekend. I have to say I think the sun that made it's brief appearances helped with the above.

People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily

Zig Ziglar

Patchwork WIP and 2015 Projects

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope you all made it in one piece. 

I thought I would skip over a review of 2014 and just crack straight into what I've been stitching, cause frankly getting back to stitching and mucking about with fabric has really gone me into a happy place and got me in the zone for looking forward to 2015.

It feels so good to get back to stitching and working on projects that have had to put aside for months in order to concentrate on deadlines and so forth. The quilt I started last Christmas was brought out once more and I cracked on with putting together the last four blocks, tidied up the size so they were all an even 12" square, and then..finally started to add sashing! It really is satisfying that before I return to work next week that the major part of the quilt is finally, finally complete!

Working out the placement of the blocks...but changed it again before I machined the sashing on.

And as you can see the border is now on! Love, love it! It's not an overly complicated design but it's tested me for the first proper patchwork quilt I've put together. Really looking forward to sorting out the backing fabric, as I have so much of Petite Street Fabric and white left over there might be another larger patchworking on the back. Then I can get the wadding and then...then I can do some quilting. So excited. Okay, I know I wanted to get it done before this Christmas just gone, but still I feel fairly accomplished that I've got at least this far and from here on it's at least likely to get done by winter 2015 now.

It's not the only patchwork piece I've been turning my hand to, because I have a stupidly large stash of scrap fabric from the embroidery work last year, the quilt and so forth I like to every now and then just do a little hand sewn scrap quilt. No plan to it just going with the flow. In fact what started as a small square is now looking likely to be a long panel which I think might go in the bedroom to compliment the quilt. You can follow the progress of this here and over on instagram. 

I've also decided as this is the year to being creative as possible. Being creative makes me happy, and keeps me focused on that. So one thing I signed myself up for as a bit of a mini year long challenge is a project my friend Nini of Made By Nini has set up 12 page in 2015. I didn't stop and think as to whether or not to do it I just signed myself up and so not to backtrack on it I set about making my little 12 page journal. Rather cute if I do say my self and made completely from one box. The first prompt has been announced, 'New Beginnings, Friends and with a bonus of Washi Tape. I look forward to spending an afternoon working on my page. Again keep an eye on instagram. Oh, and if you are interested in participating, not to late to join, lots of folks from around the world are taken part.

Got a project your working on or planning to start?

I have some doodles in mind for future embroidery projects, as I am nearly ready to get back to doing some more intricate stitching.

Oh, and one final thing I have the sale still going on!

Heading to Farnham Xmas Fair

Christmas has properly arrived at Mason Bee HQ...as the new Christmas bee bauble has been designed, stitched and made up, well the first very batch at least. More will be made over the coming weeks, all the way on the run up to Christmas, reason being because I'll be at Christmas fair this year, not done one in...well a few years now.

I've just paid for my stall and with that bit of admin sorted, I can now announce (for sure) that I will be at the Farnham Malting's Christmas Fair this coming December. Which will be exciting and a touch nerve wracking as I do now need to start upping the anti with the making of stock, without getting too worked up over it. So...no pressure then. Thankfully, as mentioned previously I've been doing a little bit of planning over the last couple of months, and will be mainly concentrating on small items. Which was the reason I forked out for this little bundle of fabric. Can't beat the plain colours of Kona fabric. It's enough to make you smile.

So it's a short post today, mainly because I must crack on with the day, not only to get on with stock making but with the change in season, god I love autumn, I feel more in the mood for cooking. So lots of large vat sized portions of stew, soups, pies are on the horizon. Good, simple, tasty fare. So I hope everyone is snug as a bug this weekend. Do let me know what your up too! Also if your on instagram let me know, and I will be sure to follow you.

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!

Hexies a Plenty

Hi!

Yes, I am still here. 

I was going to write a post on Wednesday, I was mean too and was going too but then things sort of got in the way, was busy with family and life in general. But I am back. Today I actually sat down and did some proper stitching, feels so good. 

It's not to say I've not been stitching, if you follow me on other social platforms you'll see I've been somewhat suckered into the sweet life of Hexies. I think there must be some sort of medical condition for the compulsion to make hexies...

and keep on making them....

all the time and still not get bored??

Now these aren't just ordinary hexies, these are my uber cute hexie pouches. Originally made one for myself to hold my gum and mints in. Somewhat sick of the mint packets falling a part in my handbag. Also to curb the boredom of my commute. Then when with one made, another followed, then another and now I've made six, and put some up for sale over on Etsy, and now onto making a prototype pouch for a mirror....SEND HELP.

No, it's all right really. I really do love making them. It's nice way to break up a journey or two. It also helps to make a dent, albeit a small one, on my quilting fabric stash. 

As I said earlier I did also do some proper stitching, and that saw me return to working on the dragon embroidery. I have cut out, again, the felt pieces that will make up padding for the body of the dragon, and started the satin stitch on the shield part of the design. 

Body is in there somewhere.

It took five attempts or more, to get it to a point where I was happy with the direction of the stitching. I was in a very, very fussy mood today.

I now have a couple of weekends free so I can get cracking on it some more, in-between decorating the flat (hallway still not finished). My aim is to get the shield completely stitched, at least the areas I have padded. There will likely add more detail to the shield beyond what's been padded out but that's still to be worked out. I'll keep you posted!

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.

All About the Flowers

I hadn't realised till I dropped various images into this blog that there was a inadvertent theme to my Bank Holiday weekend. As it turns out it was all about flowers, in some shape or another. I've really come to love flowers more and more since moving to my current abode. I love nothing more than buying a bunch of flowers to brighten up the hallway or add a bit more life to the livingroom, aside from Hamish. And yes, whilst I do suffer from hayfever, thankfully its more from grass than flowers. 

Anyway, the Friday kicked it all off. I've lived in and around Surrey for well over a decade now but had never been to RHS Wisley, passed it on many trips to Kent, or driving home late on Sunday back to East Molesey ready to begin another week at the RSN as part of the apprenticeship. But aside from saying should go and have a look, never have that was until last week.

Thinking of a way to celebrate my mum's birthday we decided to hit several things with one stone, to see the gardens, attend the Contemporary Craft and Design fair and to have a spot afternoon tea. The weather wasn't exactly on our side for walking about all day, it was frickin cold and I wasn't entirely dressed for it. Still we were thankful we didn't get wet, even though it was threatening to do so all day. There was some interesting items on display at the fair, some amazingly draw dropping and others not entirely to my taste but still it was a good mix. Also taking place at Wisley, but not part of the fair, was a mini silver exhibition called 'Festival of Silver' held by the Goldsmith's Company. Needless to say the work was utterly jaw dropping. My inner magpie was drooling.

Oh and the flowers were pretty too...

I'll certainly be going back to Wisley, this time to venture out into the gardens and to do some drawing and painting. Something I've not done in a rather long time. Despite always having a sketchbook with me, I didn't take it on a Friday. 

On a non-flower related note, just wanted to share a wee shot of the finished monogram that I've been working on for the past couple of weeks, it is now all packed up and ready to wing it's way to my friend in the States. After a small discussion it's been mounted into a round, wooden hoop, and I've attached the embroidery in a way that if she wanted to paint the hoop she can, without damaging the fabric. Managed to get it all finished before a friend of my came down for the weekend. 

Which was how I came to have these rather wonderful flowers, which was rather thoughtful and are looking blooming lovely in the livingroom, pardon the pun! The coral coloured roses are becoming my fave. Needless to say little in the way of stitching was done for majority of Saturday and Sunday, as we were mostly consuming lots of yummy food, drinking plenty of tea and watching silly flicks added with our own commentary. Which comes easy when your watching Disney...

But of course, I always end up reverting back to stitching. So once I cleaned up, sorted out the boring chores and did some more painting (at last the walls are all finished, oh god just the woodwork left...GAH). I played about with quilting fabric for a design I doodled last week for using with the bag handle. I started it last night and had originally thought about using Liberty fabric to make the flower shapes but by this morning with a little help from my mum who had briefly popped by to pick something up, and my own thoughts on it, the flowers changed from...

...this.

Granted didn't mean I toned down the colours, rather opted for a slightly less detailed fabric, and one that I had originally purchased with pink and lilac fabric. It's not entirely like the design I had doodled, and I realise now that the completed paper pieced flower is bigger than I had originally planned...but I still love it and it will be interesting to see how it turns out when complete.

I've got a busy month ahead with work and family commitments, I also have the next season embroidery pattern to sample to stitch but I hope to make some time for finishing it because I really want to get it hung up on the wall!

Did you find you had an unexpected theme to your weekend? What lays ahead for your May?