French Knots

Feeling Spring

I've been absent this last month or so as any posts would have ended up being a litany of ailments and moaning, not fun to read. I'm trying to accept my condition and health but really don't. Not at all - I am angry and frustrated with my body for letting me down. I saw my consultant last week ( I get to see him once every six months ) and the first thing he said was 'you look well'....well if he doen't know how infuriating that is to someone with an invisible illness what hope is there.

Enough moaning and woe.

I have been plannng the Spring and Summer workshops in the studio, I am holding two a week so I don't over do it but that means I have to trim my wishlist down as there are always more ideas in my head for classes than time available. I am lucky to have so many wonderful customers who want to make my projects - patchwork clocks, patchwork lampshades or crochet hangers they are all well received  and enjoyed. It's fabulous seeing their different interpretations of my ideas - I love my job and it lifts my spirits no end.

In a couple of weeks French Knots Craft Studio will be three years old and my head is bursting with new ideas for kits, ebooks, events, weekend retreats and creative workshops. I keep writing them all down on the mind map that acts as my business plan and will get to them all eventually but not just as quickly as I'd like. Trying to learn patience....well that is very much a work in progress!
 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally Finished...my long running Sampler

Well after nearly 20 years my sampler is finally finished, goodness knows why I squirreled it away for so long! It only took a few weeks to complete once I fished it out again and as you can see it was finished off on Christmas Eve.

I love the muted colours and I found a 99p frame in the chrity shop which was just the right size - hurrah! I carefully laced the stitchery round some thick card so it was nice and taught then I backed it with some brown paper which ties the embroidery colours and the frame together.

Love It!

A rather dark picture of it adorning my wall in the cosy corner where I love to sit and crochet and stitch.Roll on spring please, these damp grey days are so draining or even a crisp sunny bright spell would hit the spot! 

 

 

 

Not publicity shy....for once!

 

A while ago some photos were taken to publicise the Crafternoon Tea Parties that I run with Gwyn and for once I have a picture of me that I rather like. Probably because I am wearing plenty of make up and also because Jane is a wonderful photographer.

Gwyn and I really enjoy hosting our Tea Parties, we hire lovely village halls or unusual venues and plan a relaxing and inspiring afternoon for our guests. Sometimes we invite a few carefully chosen stallholders who sell gorgeous vintage and handmade goodies to join us too which adds to the atmosphere, though once we have a few LPs playing on the ancient record player we are soon transported back in time.

Naturally I have to sample Gwyn's fabulous baking to make sure everything is truely yummy(!) but I think the combination of a carefully chosen sewing project and a table groaning with a home baked high tea is hard to beat.

Anyway the reason for telling you this is ......we are going to be in the paper this week...not the local paper but a national paper, it's going to be very exciting to see our kitchen table business spreading it's wings!

 

My first love......embroidery

Thank you so much for your good wishes, I need to learn how to manage my life and expectations better so I don't make my condition worse - still very much a work in progress as I'm used to dashing about doing 101 things at once!

 

When tidying up some of my (many!) boxes and suitcases full of treasures I found this sampler that I started about 20 years ago, I've not done any cross stitch for years but I thought it was a shame for it to continue languishing so near to completion, so over the Christmas holidays I got stitching.

It's a really pleasing combination of muted green, ochre, stone and blue shades and I'm enjoying the feeling of completing another of my UFOs. I'm gong to keep an eye out for a suitable frame so I can finally hang it up - only 20 years and 2 weeks to finish it!

This sweet little garden embroidery is for a class I am running next month in the studio, 

 

a few little fench knot flowers, a lazy daisy or two and a sprinkle of back stitched birds. I rather liked it and got a bit carried away stitching little scenes

I made the little stitcheries up into brooches which a lovely local cafe has offered to sell for me, so I have the perfect excuse to indulge in embroidering more little pictures.

Which of your pastimes gladdens your heart?

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Monday Morning

It is a lovely bright morning here today, I hope your weather is cheerful too! I've been feeling a bit glum with my ongoing health problem and I wasn't too well over the Christmas holidays so I'm happy to see the sun this morning as it always lifts my mood.

Creating is another mood lifter  so I've been working on a few Perky Projects again

Rearranging bits and bobs to make a pretty corner and I'm rather taken with my Hexie Flowers

Tiny little hexies in dainty prints, backed with some dyed woolly blanket from a lovely lady I met at Yarndale. I am going to make a few more and fill my tiny milk bottle with a pretty bunch of blooms.

There is something so appealing about tiny, miniature hexagons in such perfect prints. Though I wouldn't want to make anything too large with hexies the size of my thumbnail !

Hope your week is off to a good start too x 

Oh dear!

The UFO finishing is in full swing

happily hooking away to finish a simple scarf until

botheration! Too much ruffly scarf edging to hook and not enough wool.

Ah well, if I unpick it and put the yarn back in the stash it wont be a UFO any more - result!

2014 A Creative Year

 

 

 

The New Year seems a time of infinite possibility, plans to be made, lists to be written and longings to be met. A whole sparkling year like the first page of a new journal, what shall we write on the new page of 2014?

 

I am going to nuture my creative self, taking a little time  for making every day, just for fun. I've been rooting out some UFOs and found a new passion for some of them and will enjoy finishing them, the satisfaction of unearthing new/old treasure is wonderful too.

 

What are you making as 2014 begins?

 

 

Pretty Stitching

Embroidery was the first creative past time that I fell in love with and it is still dear to my heart.

This is a lovely design that I bought from the amazing Charlotte Lyons of house wren studio, it has accompanied me to The Baby Brother's swimming lessons and I've stitched away while chatting with the other Mums and watching my youngest develop a love of swimming.

Sorry about the dreadful pictures, such a damp,grey day here today.

Yesterday was chilly so it was time for the first fire of the autumn, cosy and snug finishing off my stitching.

I found a frame that was the perfect size in the 50p box at my local charity shop and once it was sprayed with some matt white it made the perfect foil for my new picture. I always lace an embroidery tightly around a piece of stiff card so that it is nice and taught and I didn't bother with the glass which shows off the texture of the stitches so well.

Now for a bit more work on my Granny Stripe blanket, I'm under the weather with Bronchitis so snuggling under a jolly blanket as it grows is just what the Doctor ordered....well I'm sure he would if he was a crochet fan! 

Vintage Beauty

I got my Grandma's sewing machine out yesterday for the first time in about 15 years, languishing in the box room under a pile of fabric all that time. For Shame! As soon as I unlocked the box the familiar smell hit me and as I put some fabric under the presser foot and started to sew -  clickety click, clickety click with each turn of the handle

 So much beauty, the effort and care put into the decoration makes her special

I had a little look on the Singer website to see how old she is - 1944! Goodness what a history, so  many miles of stitching sewn and I'm going to enjoy her beauty and sew more with her.

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Prettifying

Finding pleasure

Yarndale

Like so many others I was at Yarndale on Saturday and it was amazing. Busy, oh so very busy and I'm sure it exceeded the organisers expectations by far. A friend drove and we left early but then were tempted by the thought we were only 10 minutes away from Immanuel Fabrics as we passed Burnley on the motorway....so of course we nipped in...

and a dozen metres of fabric jumped in my bag!

We arrived at Yarndale at 10am and after being directed to the extra car park we were soon inside the Skipton Auction Mart - the pens that would usually hold cattle were overflowing with yarnny delights and ladies keen to look at said yarnny delights. 

Skein Queen was the first ( and certainly not the last! ) stand to catch my eye with it's cornucopia of colour

I just wanted to take so many skeins of soft jewel coloured yarn home with me, just because they were lovely not with any knitting plan in mind.

We had our picnic lunch in the seats surrounding the workshop area and bumped into some wonderful bloggers Cuckoo Unravelled and Pink Milk. Then met a blogger who I have 'known' online since my earliest blogging days 6 or 7 years ago, the talented Lucy Locket who had an armload of covetable alpaca yarn in the most delicious colours. She was, of course, just as friendly in real life as she is on her blog. I also saw Little Tin Bird had a chat with Bunny Mummy and visited Marmalade Rose whose stand was amazing, showcasing her skill, perfect felted pictures brimming with life.

At the centre of the event was Lucy from Attic 24 whose popular blog has reached out around the world through her enthusiasm for crochet. Showing the power of social media for good ,the event connected creative people from all over the country, bringing people together through a shared love of crochet and knitting, many of whom had not attended a similar event before. Yarndale was a celebration of small, independent businesses and Lucy's generous sharing of her crochet patterns on her blog was repaid by an outpouring of crochet support - 6000 granny bunting triangles sent to Skipton from 30 different countries

We all like to feel we belong and belonging to a community of creative bloggers feels pretty good to me.

Even though I was flagging we wandered down through the park in the sunshine, looking at the yarn bombing to have a look at Skipton.

So much effort had been put into decorating the walk into town, as we were photographing the crochet a local lady told us how delighted she was with it, how it was great for Skipton and even though she didn't know Lucy she thought she had done a lot of good for the town. She also recommended a cafe for a drink and some cake so we headed there for a rest and a refuel - Wild Oats Cafe was just what we needed and a slab of carrot cake gave me the energy to get back to the car.

For me Yarndale was a brilliant mix of meeting lovely like-minded people and an opportunity to buy luscious wool from independent makers, all thanks to the power of the internet.