Sunday stitchings..the grey goes on

A little here a little there and so it grows, one of the subjects covered in today's talks at Church was the same concept towards making the world a better place.

We may not be able to change the world all in one go, but we can start small with ourselves and little by little...things can change, just as stitch by stitch a cross stitch grows (although the speaker did not make the sewing connection!

Sunday stitchings on 29th

Sunday stitching progress

More grey filling in amongst the black.

Sunday atitching

Sunday stitching going grey

At first I felt a little uncomfortable still posting after the shocking events in Paris, then I mulled it over and decided that acting as normal (on a certain level) is the best way to thwart the intent of those who committed the atrocity. 

So here it is.

King Arthur and Guinevere

My brother did not provide me with any lead in time to his wedding.  So no wedding sampler however I did want to make them something.

There is always the scary moment of choice, what to do, will they both like it. So do I ask what they would like and end up stitching something I dislike or something that will take forever while they wait and wonder?

One day when they visited I just happened to have a cross stitch catalogue out on show, introduced it as a topic of conversation, persuaded them to flick through and took note of the designs they paused at or commented positively on.

Later I reflected on their choices and from them made mine..

Arthur and Guinevere

        

   I was in a hurry to get it finished for Christmas and the metallic elements had taken longer than I had anticipated.

The intention was to have it framed professionally but professional framers get quite testy if there is not a good few inches of material around the design and I miscounted and ended up with a very scant amount on one edge.  So I had to frame it myself.

I traced round the edge of the design on some greaseproof paper to work out were I had to add curves to get it to fit.

In retrospect I think that this counting error was serendipitous as the adjustment resulted in a more interesting framing solution than would have been the case had I got it properly centered.

I rather enjoyed stitching this , metallics and all, occasionally I think I may do it again. 

More grey this Sunday

A touch more grey.

Sunday Stitching into the grey

Second session into the grey, today at Church was a memorable day.

Halloween Trick or Treat blog hop.2015

Welcome to my post for the 2015 blog hop, I do no't at time of posting know the order of the hop. If you arrived here randomly then I recommend a visit to

  serendipitousstitching 

(the link to that wonderful blog is on the right hand side of my page)

to see what the hop is about.

This year I made something just for the hop. Here she is my 2015 witch. Not quite sure what to do with her just yet.  As you can see I did not quite get myself started in the middle, room for some very small letters perhaps?

Moon Witch

The pattern is from this book, I bought it a good few years ago when I succumbed to a glossy flier for a craft book/supplies club.  Those starting offers were always so tempting .  Anyway this book is one of the more used rather than just looked at occasionally purchases. The many little designs in it have come in very useful over the years. They are detailed enough to be special and at the same time easy to modify the colours to make use of little bits of thread or fabric.  I think it is focused more to the American market as it has a whole section on the State Flowers and it patriotic section is also for the USA with the stars and stripes ext, not a Union Jack in sight.

Anyway back to the hop and the letter you came here with a burning desire to find.

Good luck with the hop and your next destination is

Kittenstitching

(and hey I finally learned how to put in a link)

Sunday Stitching first past black

I was beginning to think that there would be no post for today.  Not because there was no stitching but as I was having technical difficulties getting the picture to attach.

So if you were waiting for a bright colour after the black was done, sorry starting the not black with dark grey.

Here it is.   

Sunday stitchings double day

Now normally I stitch on a Sunday at Church during the talks, see my earlier Sunday stitching posts for details. Conference gave me a little longer stitching time.

This week I doubled up, normal 45 mins at church got me to here...

 Once home, after lunch we decided to enjoy more conference via the internet, so more stitching time leading to...

The black is all finished, I think the image is coming into focus just from the black.  Next week I will have to decide what colour to do next and will I try and work all of that colour before moving to the next?

The Castle, a Quilt

The latest of my applique quilts for my friends children.  Sadly I don't mean that it has just been finished but rather it was the one that the recipient had to wait the longest for.  It was not completed until after his 8th birthday.  Although in mitigation I offer the following:

• His sisters quilt  "Willow Fairy" took much longer than anticipated.
• On this occasion the parents did not have any preference for the design. Leaving me for too much choice.
• I lost a year, nothing drastic I just somehow managed to make him a year younger than he actually was. (If I could really do that for people I would make a fortune) so in my mind I was well on track for a before his birthday finish.
• My original simple thoughts got a bit more complicated, I do that sometimes.

As the young gentleman in question was fond of the Harry Potter books I originally planned to do an owl design.  Similar to the one carved into my Halloween pumpkin.  A slight variation, to add a scroll into the owls claws to make it more Potterish.. I had the design sized up the background material picked however, the material for the owl was just not coming together and I started to have second thoughts.

In an earlier post I described a toy castle I made (with help for my father) out of a bought plastic portcullis,  a cardboard box, bits of wood and pipe lagging . That castle was a gift for the same boy this quilt would be for.  His father assured me the castle was still popular some years after that initial Christmas unwrap so I started to think about castles.  "Castle toy post"

Much as I generally dislike repeating a design I could not get The Castle by T.W out of my head.  The finished cross stitch now hanging on my wall kept it at the forefront of my mind. Finding the pattern used for the duvet cover and the  remains of the watermark material sealed it.  A second applique inspired by the T.W design started to take shape. 

The Castle 

There were of course some changes from my first homage. The moon in this case is white satin giving an nice sheen.  I had by this point started including wadding in the applique (the previous one was flat) and of course there was the added dimension of the quilting both on the central design and out onto the quilt as a whole. 

Circles to emphasise the moon and waves to set the island into a sea.

As with his siblings quilts the back had a simple geometric design into which his initials could be included.  Although admittedly this quilt with the addition of a bit more padding is less reversible than the other three. 

Here it is held up by the recipient, only his fingers on show (pending at some point his permission for the full picture, he was smiling).

I made him a matching cushion, as I had for his siblings, it was a bit slow in reaching him and therefore made it, as a last thought entry, into the local show that year.  And it won, it had his name on one side and a small silhouette of a dragon in flight, the other side was log cabin.