Stitched Up :: Nottingham Craft Group

Morsbags

If , like myself, you have fabric stashed that might never be used then this could be of interest. morsbags sociable guerilla bagging

Fannar

Some days I’m quite bright, other days I’m very stupid.  Yesterday was one of my Very Stupid days.  My RSI has been incredibly painful, but yesterday it didn’t feel too bad, so I decided I could finish Fannar.  Fannar is a jumper I’m knitting for Macuwita Sni.  It’s a pattern from Best of Lopi, using chunky Alafoss Lopi yarn.  I started it at the beginning of the month and made good progress until my shoulder and arm flared up.  It has been sitting on my coffee table ever since, staring balefully at me.  It only needed a few hours work, so yesterday evening I picked it up and finished it.  Here it is.

Okay, so it looks very nice, but even while I was knitting, I was thinking “Oh dear, my shoulder and arm really hurt”.  Did I stop knitting?  Nope, I carried on regardless, with the result that my RSI screamed blue murder all night and is agony today.  See?  Very very stupid.

So it’s back to hand sewing for the foreseeable future.

Easter playday

As my better half took off on his motorcycle on Friday heading for the first day gathering of the Round Britain Rally, I had the chance to play with some cotton sheeting that I had dyed a few weeks ago. With the help of a few skeleton leaves, fabric crayons and metallic fabric paint, I completed this small art quilt . Machine stitched.

Finished Object

I’ve taken an enforced break from knitting, as my RSI has flared up. Still, any excuse to do a bit of hand sewing eh?

I started this Cicada pouch at our meeting last Wednesday and finished it on Friday evening.

The pattern is from Kumiko Sudo’s book Kokoro No Te, although I printed it out at a smaller scale, so that I could fit all the pieces onto one 9 inch square of patterned fabric, plus a bit of plain fabric for the underwings. The fabrics are polyester and rayon chirimen crepes which I get from Fabric Tales in Japan. I love Fabric Tales because most of their fabrics are available in 9 inch sample squares, which are perfect for little projects like this, plus I can get lots of different patterns for the same money as I’d pay for a metre of just one fabric.

As chirimen is quite a brittle fabric, the pieces are reinforced by lining them with felt.

Latest Internet projects finished.

Last Wednesday night saw me trying to finish this little lady, that is without spilling my beads over the table too many times!!. This fairy developed as part of the Take it Further challenge run on the internet by Sharon B in Australia. Each month you are given a concept and a colour scheme, you can work from either or both. This months concept was :

Do you ever notice the little things, the small moments, the details in life? This months challenge is to do just that, pay attention to the tiny details. Sometimes the small things become emblematic for something larger.

The inspiration for this was a photo of a butterfly taken last year, more details here if you are interested.

This is a quiltie, 5 inch square made for the Unlimited Textiles internet swap group and finished on Tuesday, again we have a concept or word to work with, this months word being Egypt. As you can see it is a winged scarab, embroidered , painted and quilted.

For Baby Ben

Last July one of my very good friends told me that she was having a baby. What brilliant news! Straight away I decided that I wanted to make something for the baby with my new found love of crochet.

Since I only know about 2 stitches I decided that the easiest thing would be to make a crochet patchwork blanket. Well, that might have been easy but it certainly wasn’t quick. My crafty buddies at Stitched Up can vouch for that, giving me support and encouragement to keep going with the endless squares. No, I did enjoy it really!

Ben is now 2 months old and I’m just about ready to send his gift to him, a blue, green, yellow and cream patchwork blanket and a cotton bag to carry it in. Adorned, of course, with blue and white felt bunnies.

Hope he likes it!

Colwick Woods

Okay, so this is a bit off-topic, but I thought I’d share this strange sight from Colwick Woods this morning. This tree is on the edge of the field and we walk past it every day without really noticing it. Not this morning though:

Here’s a closer look at the grisly specimens:

Try as I might, I couldn’t get a decent picture of the view across the lakes, as I was aiming straight into the sun:

All that open space on one side, but move your camera slightly and you see how close you are to the city. On the right of this picture, you can see the edge of the race course, plus houses in Colwick and the Meadows leading towards the city centre:

Pip loves going to Colwick Woods - for her, it’s a new adventure every day.

Okay, better have a bit of craft content! I’ve finished another Baby Surprise Jacket for Macuwita Sni. Here it is straight off the needles:

Here it is finished: