Slowing Down Summer

 

Summer seems to be sneaking through and we are nearly in August already without feeling like we've had lots of sunny summery days. I haven't spent nearly as much time sitting out on the balcony stitching into the evening as I wanted to - in fact I think this photographed occasion was my only one this year so far! I must get out there again. I love watching the sun go down, it is absolutely the best bit of our flat with the tremendous view from the window. 

Even when I'm not sat out on the fire escape, I'm usually positioned on the sofa where I can still see the fiery show through the window (ignoring the little grubby handprints left on the glass during the day). 

Here I was working on the Lakeside Stitchscape Swap cards as I'd been inspired by going camping with the Guides the weekend before. We took them for two nights and it was absolutely horrendous weather! The poor things managed, just about, to cook a breakfast of eggy bread and bacon on open fire but it rained the whole time, took two hours and we used up so much wood to keep the fires going. My raincoat is still imbued with the smell of wood smoke. Of course on the day we were packing up to go, having endured leaking tents and high winds, the sun came out and it was beautifully hot and sunny - but it was a shame that the fine weather hadn't arrived earlier! 

I've taken lots of artistic license with my cards though and made beautiful white felt tents, with not a rain drop in sight - more on those in another post. 

In the height of summer the sun sets behind the tree as you can see in the above photo, but in winter it doesn't make it that far and sets much further to the left of where it does now. Which means that our living room gets bright golden sunlight at about 4pm in winter. Currently we get deep red light at about 8.30pm if the conditions are right and it honestly makes my heart sing. 

My Guides and Rainbows have broken up now for the summer holidays which means I get a bit of a break and my Tuesday evenings back. We still have a few activities planned - an activity day for the Guides in August to help one get her gold award (the highest award you can get in Guides), a carnival making day to make decorations for our District carnival float, plus the carnival itself in September. I love being a Leader (apart from the admin and training side) and really enjoy seeing the girls grow and make friends and gain in confidence - we've just said goodbye to six of them who are moving up to Rangers who have been with us for the last three years. They joined us at the tail end of the Covid pandemic and started out their meetings online over Zoom! So that was slightly bittersweet as they are such a lovely bunch and I will miss them at Guides. 

It's still nice to have a break from it though. 

We've been trying to take advantage of the better weather days and go outside more and take Baby F on adventures. We've been to Pevensey for a friend's birthday party and played at the seaside. He was not at all keen when the sea swooshed in and he ended up sitting in a wave but got over it when we changed him and set him off to play cars and digging with his little friends.

The water was so calm it was like a pond!

My uncle mended my wooden floor stand for me as well which was very exciting! One of the dowels that held the head of the stand on snapped several months ago and I was going to take it to the tip but Reece said he'd fix it so it was sitting in a heap for a little while (one of those jobs you just don't get around to) until I mentioned it to my aunt, who mentioned it to my uncle, who went and bought metres of dowel (the smallest piece he could get!) to fix it. I like to have two projects on the go, usually a smaller piece that I can take on the bus, and a larger one which sits in the floor stand for the evenings. 

This chicken Stitchscape has been coming around with me on the bus whilst I didn't have a stand, but really it didn't appreciate the travelling and the fabric ends are a bit scraggly so I'm pleased it has somewhere to sit whilst it waits its turn to be finished off. It's nearly done, I just need to add in some plants and scrub I think to help with the perspective and push some chickens back into the landscape.

And a few weeks ago we welcomed a new member of the family to our home - little Arlo! He's fitted right in with us, although it's taking him a while to get used to Baby F's excitement over having him here. Each week sees an improvement in his confidence though and he'll now go right up to Baby F if he's sitting quietly so hopefully in a couple of months they'll be fast friends. 

Arlo is definitely a little goofball though and it's hilarious to watch him have the zoomies around the flat in the evening - he definitely likes to get himself into mischief and squishes into all sorts of places, but he's an absolutely sweetie and we love having him around. 

What are you up to with your summer?

Easter Saturday

It's a funny day, the Saturday between Good Friday and East Sunday. You almost want to give it a title to make it seem more of a part of Easter rather than just a stop-gap. So far, this weekend has been glorious; a real sense of summer! The cat has been loving it and spends pretty much all day wandering between sun spots and shade spots depending on how hot he gets. The best position seems to be half and half on the patio but, in the evening sunshine, a comfy chair is the preferred option! Sooo comfy.

Everything was looking lovely this evening. Our Bluebells are coming out and turn a fabulous shade of purple when the light hits them. There is a mixture of both Spanish and English Bluebells throughout our garden, and the English ones also come in pink and white colours which is rather nice. Almost makes me want to start another Bluebell themed Stitchscape, especially with the blue Forget-Me-Knots mingling in with the general woodland vibe we've got going in this flowerbed.

I was actually out and about in the garden trying to photograph these Stitchscape pebbles which I've just finished off. I'd started them as an example for a pebble class I taught last week but I can't leave hoops unfinished so they've been my bus commute project for the last couple of days and are a great, almost mindless project that you can just play around with, trying out new combinations of colour and stitch. I do love the Ladybugs in a pebble!

I also enjoy using the garden as a prop to place and position my pebbles - as you may be able to tell!

We are very lucky to have a bit of a wildlife haven at the very bottom of our garden. It is an intentionally neglected space on its own level (we have a split level garden going down a rather steep incline) where we have let tall grasses, wild primroses, dead nettles and dandelions grow as a nature reserve. Branches and some of our old fence panels have also been left down there in a corner to provide shelter for anything that wants to live there and we have loads of birds, frogs, toads, mice and goodness knows what else coming in and out of the garden. Last year we had a pair of foxes move in and they had a couple of cubs which we enjoyed watching grow. This year they are back again and have five cubs! They are so sweet to watch as they chase each other around, leaping in and out of bushes and between ours and next door's gardens. Our neighbour leaves out food for them so they are often tearing around on her lawn chasing whoever has a mouthful of food. It can be quite noisy but such a pleasure to watch.
Have a very Happy Easter everybody!

A Trip Down Memory Lane

I'm afraid I have to do a rather major catch up as I have neglected to update my blog for over five weeks!!! Everything has concentrated so much on churning out little pieces to sell and add to the display at the Wealden Times Midwinter Fair just gone, that many other things got set aside. Hopefully it will settle down now and I can get back to blogging and other fun stuff.
I've turned to my phone for these images as it's so easy to snap an image with it whilst out and about, especially as my big camera is so bulky I don't carry it around with me. The quality of these images isn't fantastic and, since the clocks have changed during this time period (from about the 10th October), the lighting isn't always great either so I am very sorry about that! A lot of my sewing is done in the evenings by the glow of my daylight lamp which reminds me a little bit of a dentist's treatment room, bright and blue.
So, let the catch up commence!!

❤ I managed to make about 19 of these little 10cm Christmas hoops, all different and unique, with sparkles and metallic threads. It turns out that I have more fabrics in my Christmas stash than I realised so it was great to be able to really mix things up. They are relatively quick to make as they are little with only four fabric layers but so festive! I had photo shoots at the studio, trying to think of ways to display these little pieces at the Wealden Times show. My white Hobbycraft tree comes in super handy and I'm wondering whether or not to get another one so that I can spread the hoops out a bit more. Something to ponder on.

❤ We carved pumpkins for Halloween. Quite a few pumpkins in the end actually and we still have one left over because The Mother has a thing about pumpkin muffins so kept bringing pumpkins home as a subtle hint. I also made a few apple loaf cakes as she brought home two bags of the most enormous apples I have ever seen! We had so much crumble, stewed apple and apple cake!! (My diet is going super well!)

❤ I went into mass kit-making overdrive! Stocks of The Naked Stitchscape Kit, Stitchscape Pebble Kit, Summer Sweet Kit and the Christmas Decoration Kit were replenished, and sheep appeared in the packs of mixed fabrics as it was so requested at my last big event. I have yet to update my Etsy shop with these new fabric collections but it is on my list. Cutting the threads take the longest time and I was taking boxes of threads, a ruler and a pair of scissors on the bus with me to cut them to length during my commute to work and in my lunch breaks, then threading them onto the cards in the evenings and on Dotty Textiles work days.
I was very pleased to have a request come through from the-stitchery in Lewes, to say that they had completely sold out of both the Orange Sunset and Spring Ladybug kits and could they have some more?!! Unfortunately there isn't enough fabric for more of the sunset kits and I am working on getting some replacement fabrics sorted for that but, as of last week, there are five more ladybug kits now for sale in store. These are designs exclusive to the-stitchery (you will find them no where else in the entire world!) and they can only be purchased in the shop, but if you are out of town just give them a call for other solutions. Click on the link to their shop for their details.
To add to my own collection of kits, I am super thrilled to say that my Button Mountain Felt kit for young stitchers is now ready to go!! You can find it in my Etsy shop, here, if you would like to encourage your budding embroiderer to have a go. These kits are very colourful with lots of texture and only three simple stitches. I have suggested them for children aged 8 and up but do recommend adult supervision for the younger ages. These would make fantastic stocking fillers- all you need is a 15cm hoop and your own needles, and you are away!

❤ I also managed to update my sketchbooks with some new photos as they were quickly getting behind. It's very soothing to organise the pages and play with washi tape. These are a great teaching tool for me as it helps to inspire my students with composition and colours, and is something that I can refer back to when I'm trying to explain a technique used so it's worth my while keeping it as up-to-date as possible. They aren't sketchbooks as such as there are no sketches, it's more like a photo album of past work and work in progress- my Instagram account in print.

❤ Whilst printing my new sketchbook images, I also put together and printed some little books titled, The Little Book of Stitchscapes. These are based on a printed book that I put together for personal use last year but it got so much attention by those I was showing that I made up some slightly different, versions for sale. They are only tiny little things, full of images of my Stitchscapes but have been purchased for inspiration by parents of children working on their GCSE Textile exams and those who want it as a quick reference book once they start their own Stitchscaping journey so I am really chuffed with where these books have been going to. It is very humbling to be a source of inspiration to others and I hope that I can live up to it!

❤ I went slightly overboard with purchasing these little miniature hoops. I think it's because they take so long to arrive, most of them coming from China, that I get bored of waiting for them and start looking at others so the parcels just kept coming and I ended up with all sorts of shapes and sizes, trying different eBay and Amazon sellers. I haven't managed to fill all of the hoops yet but gave it a jolly good go, and am really pleased with these floral lovelies. Several of them have already sold and now live in America, and others went to their new homes at the WT show. It's interesting hearing people's plans for them- some were going to keep them on the ribbon I'd threaded through the ring at the top, others were going to change to a chain and wear it, some securing a safety pin and wearing it as a brooch, and one was going to frame it in a box frame!
It is easier to embroider multiples of these at a time so the hoop was also coming with me on the bus to work (my poor colleagues have had to put up with all sorts of strange stitchy activities during the lunch break) and anywhere else I went. I draw around the inner wooden shapes onto the back of the fabric, making sure to leave a couple of centimetres between the shapes so that I have a seam allowance to draw up the fabric to enclose the wooden shape. They really are super sweet little things- the smallest being only 2.5cm in diametre! I've now started having a go at some Christmas holly themed ones, but have realised that there is no space for a ring to attached to the screw so they are just little random hoops. They will probably end up as magnets I think.

❤ The cat has been doing his regular cat-like things. His mood is linked to the weather so we are noticing a distinct change in his demeanour, lots of moaning and winging and turning his nose up at the food we offer him because it's less sunny and warm these days. He leaps at every change to bask in the sunshine, getting comfy in all sorts of sheltered sun traps to improve his mood. We barely see him during the summer, then in Autumn he starts hovering around a bit more demanding evening cuddles, and then in Winter he's constantly underfoot wanting snuggles all day long. It's very sweet but can get frustrating when you have plans!

❤ I have been hugely inspired by recent visits to National Trust properties. In one day, a friend and I visited Sheffield Park & Garden (above), Wakehurst Place (below) and Nymans Garden (bottom). The colours in these lovely places were amazing! Sheffield in particular was stuffed with artists and photographers all trying to capture the essence and colours of the autumnal trees and scenery. As it has been so mild recently there were also still quite a few late summer flowers in bloom, like Cosmos, Dog Roses and Dahlias which only added to the colour and beauty of the gardens. We are very lucky to live near these big open breathing spaces.

❤ These colours appear a lot in my little framed pieces that have been worked on since our National Trust visits. Lots of oranges, reds, yellows, maroon, ochre, gold.... I really enjoy making these little frames, and because I tend to use such deep concentrations of colour, they form a colour burst collection, and the three black framed pieces look particularly powerful together in a row! I've been experimenting with some new stitches in these as I have recently followed a new account on Instagram called @moony.crafts who collect really interesting images and videos posted by other embroiderers on Instagram, and re-posts them so you can see all of these amazing images in one place or trace them back to the original poster. In particular, the cacti in the bottom right image above are a new stitch to me and I have no idea what it is called. You wrap thread multiple times around the needle whilst it is tucked into the fabric and then pull through, securing both the top and the bottom of the loops. It uses a lot of thread in one go but looks really cool! And the really puffy firework-esque flowers in the middle left image are also from this account where you trap wrapped threads, over sew at the bottom then cut the loops. It's so effective!

❤ In the studio I have been experimenting with a new way of framing the #inthehoop stitchscapes to try and make them more accessible to punters. They make such an impact framed this way I think, although they are devilishly fiddly to attach to the mountboard as I have been stitching them on rather than gluing in the hopes that it will make them more secure. I have bought special circular mounts to help bed the hoops in and I really love them! Only a few have been framed so far but I have more mounts and frames to be able to work my way through them and do some more. What do you think?

❤ We have recently had our Remembrance Day parade and I had to take time out of sewing to attach together all of these bottle poppies, which had been made by my Guides, into a wreath to display in the church. It's a very clever idea (thank you Pinterest) where you take big plastic bottles, cut the bottom part off and cut petal shapes at the edge, make a hole in the bottom and paint the inside red, then use the rest of the bottle to cut big leaf shapes to be painted green and a circle to be painted black. You thread them all together onto wire and then melt them with a heat gun so that they look more natural. Somehow I volunteered to then wire them onto a big wreath ring and our girls paraded with it up the highstreet with the rest of the Remembrance Day parade, and laid it right a the front of the church. Well worth taking the time to do.

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I have more to catch you up on with the Wealden Times show but I think this post is long enough and you will all be dying to put the kettle on for a cup of tea by now! I hope you enjoyed the trip down my memory lane, and see you soon!

The Great British Weather

Hasn't the weather been glorious?! These photos were taken at some point last week but the weather hasn't changed one iota. Well, apart from today which has clouded over rather with some very ominous looking clouds above. The garden definitely needs a good watering, everything is looking slightly parched and singed around the edges now, and there will surely be a hosepipe ban any second.
The cat, however, is loving it! He spends long hours in various places around the flowerbeds, and really enjoys being able to walk through any door into the house. We have all of our windows and doors open nearly 24/7 during the summer which gives the feeling that the garden is just another room in the house. It's been a little while since I last showed you images taken in our garden so I hope you don't mind this blog post which has nothing creative in it other than things created by Mother Nature herself.

I have also been using the back garden as a second studio as I had a lot of sewing to get done last week in the run up to the Kent County Show (which I will write about in a separate post) and the light is, ahem, much better in the garden. It's not an excuse as such, the angle of the house means that my normal sewing chair doesn't get sun until late afternoon and there are lots of dark corners. It's not the best room for sewing in and I regularly have to use my DayGlo lamp all through the day as well as in the evenings. Sitting in the garden helps me think and plan and generally makes me feel better so it's a win win situation!

Being surrounded by so much colour and texture helps as well. There are lots of different colour combinations going on with the Roses, Clematis, Cosmos, Lobelia, Nasturtiums, Jasmine, Poppies, Lillies, and other unidentified plants. I would highly recommend garden stitching if you have such a space.

The sky has been such an incredible shade of blue these past few days, like something out of a story book or a child's drawing. It always makes me think of being on holiday when the trees and buildings are so definitively outlined and crystal cut against a solid blue background- the sort of weather you expect in Spain or Greece.

There have been lots of sewing projects going on that I will shortly be able to tell you about I hope, and of course I have to update you on Mrs Heggardy's Windmill, the Kent show and some other bits and pieces I have been working on! Have a wonderful week!