Maps at Embroiderers' Guild

At Embroiderers' Guild at the weekend we had a practical session led by the co-chair Hilary entitled "What is a map?" 

She talked a bit about maps and showed some of her projects, then explained what she had prepared for us to do.

Painstakingly, Hilary had looked up our home addresses in the A to Z and traced a square of map around where we live. We then had to transfer this to a piece of fabric with tacking stitches and fill it in using tapestry wool and chain stitch.

They will all be sewn together and displayed at the Leeds Flower, Vegetable & Craft Show this weekend.

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A craft fair

Last weekend I went to the Summer Crafting show in Doncaster with Alix and Helen.

It was a papercrafting extravaganza and we had a lovely day out, beginning with a cooked brekkie at the nice cafe on Kirkstall Road!

There were lots of free make and takes. We did two and made these ...

It did make me want to start creating cards again, but with all my stuff packed away and not enough hours in the day I don't see it happening anytime soon!

I managed to only buy a few bits: patterned paper, peacock embellies, ribbon pansies kit, sewing tidy kit, various iron-on motifs, a paper tree kit.

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Cross stitch horses update

I have been spending a lot of time on the sofa watching all sorts of random films and working on the horses in the waves cross stitch. 

I *think* I'm making progress ... 

Moves that have kept me entertained during all this fiddly cross stitching include:

Batteries Not Included (simply lovely)

Little Shop of Horrors (never seen it before! amazing!)

Soldier (bit naff but pretty enjoyable)

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (gotta love Bond)

about half an hour of The Hulk (I got very bored of it)

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Super Mario Bros QAL

This is a VERY exciting new project that I have embarked on - a Super Mario Bros patchwork cushion! 

I heard about the QAL over at Cut to Pieces and signed up straight away. Fortunately I had the foresight not to want to do the whole thing but just to do a couple of blocks to make cushion covers. Although that may be reduced to just one block!

Info for the first block went up this week so I got right in there and made a start.

Here are my "pixels".

Can you tell what it is yet?!

Mario!

He's not quite done as annoyingly I ran out of the pale blue background fabric (see bottom left corner). I needed five more squares! So I'll be off to the fabric shop this week to get some more.

It's a new technique for me as well - the squares are fixed on to a stabiliser and then you fold each line in on itself and sew all the way along. That probably makes no sense, and I've yet to try it but it should be ok!

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More embroidery

Here's another embroidery piece I made ahead of the workshop in a few weeks.

Check out the Jammie Dodger! Very pleased with that. It's all a bit wonky as I was doing it in the car on the way to Silverstone!

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An owl embroidery

A little bit of hand embroidery for you today.

I have made this cute little owl as an example for a workshop I'm teaching with Hayley next month. We are showing people how to use Bondaweb and various embroidery stitches to make up a little hoop frame picture.

It should be a fun session as there will be lots of fabric scraps and buttons to play with, and lots of inspiration.

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A revived cross stitch project

Everyone knows that crafters find it impossible to have just one project on the go at a time. We also have problems actually finishing projects. And don't even start on how we are physically unable to walk past a craft shop without going in.

I am very much your typical crafter.

In the corner of my room is a cross stitch project that I started several years ago. It has been untouched for at least a year so I have decided to revive it and make a real effort to get it finished.

This is where I got to last time I worked on it ...

It's quite a time-consuming and complex one as there are LOTS of colours and all that shading calls for endless combinations of blending threads. To complicated things still further, some stitches are only half crosses so I have to check and double-check the pattern constantly.

I have already gone wrong several times (I think that is why I abandoned it last year) but it will be beautiful when finished.

See!

 

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Wildlife in Leeds

Have you ever noticed how sometimes you just seem to spot more wildlife than usual?

This has been one of those weeks for me. There seem to be more critters around. Or maybe I'm just seeing things better thanks to my new glasses!

Anyway, here are some animal pics ...

This little birdy was sat in my back yard. He seemed to have fallen out of his nest as he couldn't quite fly properly. He managed to get about two inches off the ground and went for about a foot before he had to land. His mummy and daddy were going frantic at him.  He had gone by later in the evening so hopefully they managed to rescue him.

On Tuesday I went for a walk along the canal with Alix. We saw these duckies.

And when we came through the park on the way back we spotted this shaysho (hedgehog). He was a really big one but he was just sat there in the middle of the grass. It was about 7.30pm and still light and really hot so he shouldn't have been out. Maybe the heat had got him confused. We gave him some water and moved him to the hedge and covered him with big leaves so the dogs wouldn't get him. I went back the next day and he was gone so hopefully he felt better in the shade.

I also spotted a ladybug in the yard this week. And there are lots of bees who come to get the pollen from the tiny flowers. There was a caterpillar too but he was tiny and I couldn't get a pic.

And finally, an altogether more strange critter. I spotted this bug in Leeds city centre on Friday. It's so cool! It's made of wires and bits of plastic and pretty rocks. I am guessing it is something to do with the Ludus festival but I didn't see any others.

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