thornberry

Somewhere over the past few weeks I slipped in a little bit of stitching time.  My Brown Owls tote bag embroidery is now complete!

It was lots of fun, and quite relaxing.  Embroidery takes a really long time though to cover a small area, doesn’t it!  I don’t think that I will become addicted - I’ll just do a little every now and then, when deemed necessary.  The tote bag will eventually get some fabric trim to match the rest of my “uniform” (an apron - still existing only in my head).

Nicole Mallalieu finally has a blog!  Yay Nikki!  Go over and have a look - it’s a great way to see what she is up to and she’d also love feedback.  I have SO MANY of her bags all planned in my head waiting patiently to come to fruition.

We were away in the country visiting my parents for the long weekend, and you know what that means - car crochet!  I’ve finished a few more 9 inch blocks, and a school beanie for Clare.  I’ll hopefully photograph them and blog them over the next couple of days.  Thanks also for the lovely comments about the cardigan - Clare wore it all weekend.

Lucky lucky me!  I won the Blog Roll made by Kirsty during her week of pillowcases on Meet Me at Mike’s.

Lovely soft fabric, cute buckle, and best of all, look at the embroidery inside!

Kirsty, you are SO GOOD at embroidery!  The stitching is so perfectly done.

So now I have a spot to keep my camera, notepad, pen and inspiration!  Thank you for your generosity.  There are some other terrific embroidery designs for a Chick O Roll, Rock N Roll and Stitching Roll on Kirsty’s blog.

And speaking of generosity, huge thanks go to Pip, Kirsty and Brooke for creating and running the wonderful crafty club that is Brown Owls!  We had a marvellous night last night with crochet as our theme.  Kirsty’s great-aunt Pat was there with her amazing crocheted dresses that once won a place in the top ten at “Gown of the Year” and shared her years of crochet knowledge.  Jess did a great job of helping out all those new to crochet.  I took along a few of the things I’ve crocheted and a pile of crochet books.  There are photos of what we got up to on the Brown Owls blog.  A big hello also to all the crafty bloggers and non-bloggers that I met (or met again) - it’s great to put a face to a name, and to many of the blogs I lurk around!  I also picked up these little pieces of fabric that will work nicely into a scrappy quilt that I am planning on making.

We were away (again!) over the weekend, so not a lot of crafting was done.  I have been reading these magazines which arrived over the past couple of weeks:

I subscribe to all of these!  Interweave Crochet only arrived yesterday, and as usual it has some stunning projects!  While visiting my parents I managed to do a teeny bit more stitching on my Brown Owls tote:

I have a few plans for lining the tote with complementary fabrics and adding them to the handles.  I’ve finished my name embroidery and just need to make a top to sew things on to!

But more importantly, I had a visit from the lovely quiltingmick from Canberra!  Lucky me - she had a few days visiting Melbourne and we were able to coordinate for an hour and a half.  It was the first time we’ve met “in real life” - and we had a great chat!  So much in common, sometimes it is spooky!  She gave me this gorgeous crocheted flower brooch, which looks absolutely huge in this photo!

Thanks so much Michelle - great to finally meet you and next time we might be able to go fabric & yarn shopping together!

Remember this pair of pants?

Embroidered by me, worn by me quite a few times about ten years ago.  Not at all in style or my style anymore, but I couldn’t bear to get rid of them.  So finally - they’re a skirt!

I cut both legs off, cut them in half vertically, squared them up, then sewed them together to form a skirt with an elasticised casing waist.

So much better on Clare than on me!  And the left over “shorts” have now become running shorts for my husband (since they’re not worn for very long and he’s not too embarassed to wear bright turquoise shorts in public - what a tolerant man)!

Embroidery of my past, actually.  Mum came across this one recently and returned it to me - it was completed when I was twelve years old.

Then I realised that there are a few pieces around the house that I have made over the years.  I would have been in my late teens when I did this cross-stitch:

And I bought this in Scotland and completed it on a train from Luxembourg to Paris:

This is about my only effort at ribbon embroidery:

I rarely do embroidery now.  It seems like so much work to cover such a small area.  I subscribe to “Inspirations” magazine though, and each time an issue arrives I marvel at the superb craftmanship within it.  Maybe one day when I don’t need instant gratification so much I’ll return to embroidery!

Thanks very much for all your well wishes on my wedding anniversary!  Hubby was really chuffed.  Thanks also for the enquiries on how Clare was getting on at school - she loves it!  It seems as though she’s grown up just in the past couple of weeks.  I’m so glad that it has all gone smoothly.

I’m still working on Christmas presents, but have a few other bits and pieces that I wanted to share.  I embroidered these Christmas ornaments when I was in primary school.  The little house is still waiting for a ribbon to hang it with!  Clare found them today when we put up the Christmas tree.

These fabrics are all by Lara Cameron of Kirin & Co.  They’re original designs hand-screened here in Melbourne, on beautiful fabric.  I’m saving them to use in something special.

And lastly, I am working on some crochet.  I started this little dress for Stella some time ago, but I’m getting a bit stuck in the textured pattern used for the skirt.  It is easy to lose where I’m up to due to the yarn texture - I think I’ve introduced a few increases where there shouldn’t be any.  The pattern is the Baby Blues dress from Crochet Today.  Once the skirt is done I’ll work an edging around the neckline, sleeves and hem.

It’s probably a really bad choice of colour for a red-head.  I keep on forgetting Stella’s hair colour when buying yarn/fabric - at least she doesn’t have much hair yet, so will be able to get away with it!

Someone else’s craft!  My non-blogging friend Jane made these fantastic beaded cushions for each of her three girls.

We saw a similar cushion in a shop some time ago.  Jane got inspired, and designed her own!  She used Word to write each name in a large font (part of the challenge was choosing the best font) and printed it off, then traced each letter onto white cotton, leaving plenty of room around each one to applique it later.  She used a mixture of five bead colours and sewed each bead individually onto each letter.  Here’s a close-up:

Once all the beads were embroidered on, she cut each letter out and appliqued it onto the pink PVC by gluing them into place then carefully stitching the base fabric to the PVC.  The next step was to attach the cord trim around the outside, then sew the front and back together.  Turning them to the right side was a challenge, but she managed it!  The opening was slip-stitched closed after stuffing with fibrefill.  It is difficult to see in these photos but the cushions are actually pale pink, the twisted cord trim is light purple, and the beads are a mixture of pink, blue, purple and metallic.

Jane’s girls adore their cushions, quite understandably, and my daughter is pestering me (to the point of tantrum) to make one for her.

Well done Jane!  I think that you’ve done a brilliant job (especially considering that the bead embroidery alone was about two hours per letter).  You should be very proud!

I don’t have anything new to show you.  I have started the embroidery on the baby dress, but it will take me ages.  I think that I might have to break my vow already and start a few other projects to do at the same time.  Maybe there isn’t a valid reason to finish one project before starting another - different projects meet different creative needs, so maybe it’s good to have a few different things on the go at once!  Well, that will be my justification anyway.

I embroidered and constructed these pants for myself some time ago, following an idea in Inspirations magazine.  The original outfit was pants and a top for a little girl.  They did get quite a bit of wear, but aren’t really my style now.  They look a bit too much like pyjamas (possibly because I did use a pyjama pattern to make them).  Gee, it would have been a good idea to have ironed them before taking the photo . . .

They’ve been in the op-shop bag for a while, but somehow I just couldn’t bear to get rid of them - probably thinking of the time spent doing embroidery!  Now I think that I will refashion them into something else.

Possibly a couple of simple tote bags?  One from each leg?  Using the rest of the fabric for lining and handles?

While many of you have been reading Harry Potter, I’ve been browsing these books and magazines over the past week or so.

I wonder how many of the projects within them are likely to come to fruition?  “Designer Smocking” has the most adorable children’s clothing - but I’ve never done any smocking!  I figure that since I can embroider (although I don’t do it often) I should be able to smock.  We’ll see!  I still have two unfinished embroidery projects from “Inspirations” sitting upstairs waiting to be completed - one started while Clare was still a baby - if I don’t get a move on soon Stella won’t fit into it either!

“The A-Z of Crochet” is an excellent crochet resource.  I am certain that it is going to be well used over the years.

And I love “Threads” and “Australian Stitches”!  I subscribe to both, and find that they often have excellent advice, tips and hints that assist in the quality of my sewn projects.

I’m enjoying browsing through these, although I’d love to be reading Harry Potter . . . but that would require extended periods of time and concentration . . . not likely to be found in this household at the moment . . .

This was made about five years ago, while I was pregnant with Clare.  But I thought that I’d share it anyway!

It is embroidered onto sweatshirt interlock (fleecy lined on the inside), with ribbing around the bottom for easy nappy change access.  The zip doesn’t quite match, unfortunately.  The yoke is lined with floral lawn and piped with satin piping.

The back yoke also has a little embroidery.

I was quite impressed with my own efforts!  The pattern comes from an old issue of Inspirations magazine (for those of you who don’t know it, it has exquisite embroidery projects - I subscribe and generally just read and admire, but every now and again I make something).

This is Clare wearing it - and Stella will fit into it very soon.  I’ll be keeping this as an heirloom.