Cross Stitched Jockey Silks

As I alluded to in another post S is a big fan of horse racing. This year I made him the jockey silk cushion covers and last year I did a jockey silks inspired cross stitch. I am posting about it now because over the weekend his parents brought them back framed and I couldn’t be happier with the results.

The ten silks were chosen because they are the winning colours of the horses for the Champion Stakes which was held at Newmarket (until last year when it moved to Ascot). S went to Newmarket every year from 2001 to 2010 so I did the jockey silks from these years, last year we went to Ascot and plan to go again this year. This is a close up of some of the silks:

As can be seen, thanks to S’s hoarding of race cards we managed to put the horse details alongside the jockey silks. One of the main reason that the framing took so long was because we could not locate the race card from 2002 (if anyone has any bright ideas about where I could find one, please let me know).

 

Creative Slumps

I read a lot of other crafting blogs and have read about other people being effected by craft block/low sew-jo etc. and these past few days I have found myself somewhat afflicted with this dreadfulness, hence my period of quiet.

I think I have usually got around my loss of interest in creating stuff because I have projects in knitting, sewing, crocheting and cross stitch running concurrently, so if I lose interest in one I have another three to bury myself in. However this week I have had two projects hit a bit of a wall and this has knocked me somewhat.

So in true honest style, here goes, incident on project one – Sewing:

Remember I was making those trousers for Si? The ones I actually did my first ever muslin for? Here they are:

 

And from the back:

 

I finished these off whilst Si was away and literally the only thing left to do was hem them. When he returned I asked him to put them on so I could get the exact right length and horror of horrors…they were about four inches too big around the waist!!! ARGHHH! I was very upset with the whole thing, I spent ages on them and can’t believe that they don’t fit. Prior to this project I have never made a muslin in my life but I did for this one…and it fit! This all happened last weekend and I haven’t touched my sewing machine since, that is how upset I am with myself.

Now I have had a few days to reflect, here are my thoughts:

1) I followed the craftsy class and even though the trousers do not fit I have learnt a huge amount

2) At least they are too big, I can alter them, better than too small

3) I brought the brown cord material as a test fabric for the moleskin ones he really wants, thank goodness I did this

Incident on Project Two – Knitting:

I have been merrily working away on my paperdolls jumper, getting it ready for my self imposed deadline of the 18th September. I have now reached the top of the dolls and have actually started working on the ribbing. That’s right on the collar…final stretch!

On Monday night, after the knitting group I go to I decided that I would try it on.  All was going fine, the body fits beautifully (Kate Davies’ designs are very flattering) the lenght is perfect and then oh no, the arms are too small/tight. Currently the underarm bit is on safety pins (my stitch holders) until I sew the ends in, but if I sew them up as the are I’ll never get my arms into the jumper. The main issue with this is that to sort out the arms I have to frog the paperdolls and they have taken me months and months to finish.

I’m now at that point where I know I have to frog but just can not bring myself to do it, it is all quite upsetting. I will do it eventually because I love the jumper and the colours of the wool are beautiful and very “Me.”

Yesterday I cast on a new project to work on whilst I come to terms with the disaster with the paperdolls. But fret not, the paperdolls WILL get finished and hopefully before 18th September 2014.

 

K is for Kilowog

I have continued to work on the cross stitch superheroes alphabet sampler and this evening I finished K.

E is for Electra

I haven’t worked on my superheroes cross stitch sampler for a while, mainly because I miscalculated where to start the A and then ran out of room for the E which should be on the same line. I have now done quite a bit of measuring and re-jigging and have figured out how I can carry on without unpicking everything I have done so far….phew!

Here is E for Electra

Here are all the letters so far…note the E in on the next line (fingers crossed my calculations work out).

Home, Snow and an Award

I am now back from my holiday, Chicago and New York were both absolutely amazing and it is somewhat of a shock to the system to be back on UK time. I managed to buy some beautiful fabric from my travels, which I’ll blog about in the next couple of day, if you have never been to the garment district…go!!

We landed in Heathrow to a beautiful covering of snow (feel quite lucky to have made it considering all the cancellations) and as soon as I saw it, I couldn’t wait to take Little One off to Epping forest. Here she is enjoying the snow:

 

Also I have returned to find out that I have been nominated for The Very Inspiring Blogger Award, thank you so much to Avis at Oh Sew Tempting for nominating me, such a lovely thing to find out upon logging on today. It is very nice to know that people take an interest in my little blog and I am therefore going to spread the blog love and pass on the award. The rules of this award are:

Here are the rules:

1. Thank the person who nominated you.
2. Add The Very Inspiring Blogger Award to your post.
3. Share 7 things about yourself.
4. Pass the award on to nominees.
5. Include this set of rules.
6. Inform your nominees by posting a comment on their blog.

Here is the award logo:

Seven things about myself:

1. Sometimes I can’t sleep at night for thinking about what I want to sew or knit

2. The first item of clothing I ever made myself was a pair of sequin flares (I have no idea why!) when I was fifteen. I added about six inches onto the waist because I didn’t trust my measurements. I didn’t make clothes again for another twelve years

3. I drive all over for my job, I use it as a handy excuse to go to different fabric shops…just to have a look

4. If I decide to take the train I take a portable craft with me, cross stitch or knitting is perfect

5. I have a ridiculous passion for maths and numbers.

6. I dream of going to Madagascar

7. My guilty pleasure are books by Cecelia Ahern (no telling my book club!)

I’d like to nominate the following blogs. These are all blogs that I love reading and have found beautiful and inspiring in their creativity:

Kim-ing

DressesandMe

A Conversation With Moo

Sew Busy Lizzy

Lizzy Likes Cake

 

Guess What Arrived This Morning

This may sound bizarre but I have been excitedly waiting for the arrival of this package for a few days. I ordered it over the Christmas period but it has taken a while with the festive post.

Here is what I opened up:

This is the 18 count aida and all of the coloured embroidery floss needed for the Superhero cross stitch Alphabet Sampler that I am making as part of my Make and Do 2013. This means I can now get started on the sampler, can’t believe how excited I am at the prospect of making that first stitch.

Wedding Gift – It was so Late

On Sunday I saw my sister who got married in August this year. I was at the wedding and I didn’t manage to have her gift ready on time (such a terrible big sister), however all has been forgiven as I gave it to her on Sunday. This was the finished gift and she and husband both commented that they loved it and it would go beautifully with their wedding photos. Here is the finished gift:

It is a cross stitch and I honestly did this in all sorts of places, including the train from London to Leicester and back again, some on the Central Line and some on the lunch break when I was delivering training at work. I love that cross stitch is so transportable.

Quick Craft – Week One

Today I started my first ever quick craft, this had a couple of advantages; firstly it was nice and easy to fit it into my study day without it impacting too much and secondly I had half a chance of completely finishing it.

Today I worked on a Pac-Man inspired book mark for S. Prior to starting I got out all of the materials I would need.

This included some blue cotton material, 14 count aida, embroidery floss, needle, fusible fleece and the stop watch on my phone. I also threaded up my sewing machine and set up the ironing board.

After ten minutes this is how far I had got, I had cut out two pieces of the blue fabric and one piece of the fusible fleece. I ironed the fabric and then attached the fleece whilst I had the iron on. I had also managed to cut out three pieces of the aida and sewn four rows of the pac man (cross stitch)

After twenty minutes I had completed the pac- man and started the blue ghost (see below)

After thirty minutes the blue ghost was completely finished and the pink ghost was started (needle threaded and two stitches done)

At forty minutes all cross stitching was completed and I had placed them onto the material that did not have the fusible fleece attached ready for sewing on.

At fifty minutes I had sewn on the ink ghost, pac man and about 3/4 of the blue ghost. I used a simple blanket stitch to do this.

At sixty minutes, it was not complete. I had completed the sewing on of the blue ghost, then placed the two pieces of material right sides together and attached them on the sewing machine with a straight stitch, clipped the corners and turned it the right way out

I then pressed it and then top stitched the whole way around which also closed the seam

The project over ran by nearly three minutes. I also wished that I had placed the ghosts and pac man on the vertical as opposed to the horizontal, although I am pleased with how the ghosts and pac man came out (I designed them by counting the pixels from a still shot of the game and I think pixels work very well for cross stitch).

Make and Do 2013

I started this blog at the beginning of 2012 so I thought that for 2013 I would use it to document some of the aims I have for 2013. This is mainly a  mixture of crafty bits and some life stuff thrown in. I will be editing this page regularly to update my progress on what I have set out to do.

Craft 

Complete capsule wardrobe challenge

Make my first ever quilt – I started one in 2012 but never quite got around to finishing it

Make an Alphabet sampler – I brought this stunning pattern from Wee Little Stitches which is a  superheros alphabet sampler, it will look great on the wall in our office/sewing room – Started, currently I have completed up to L

Make Simplicity 1882 dress – This has been inspired by Karen of Did You Make That? , her two versions are absolutely stunning

Make Madeleine Skirt – I was brought this pattern as a Christmas Present from my parents and can not wait to use it – Completed I have now made the Madeleine skirt and absolutely love it

Make Elderflower Champagne

Finish my paper dolls jumper and make a Kate Davies Puffin jumper

Make macaroons – the food (and the dress too – inspired by Punkmik) – I love macaroons and have never made them

Finish the year with 75% of my wardrobe being made by me – this excludes underwear and shoes obviously!! I have just done a calculation (July) and I am currently at 35% of my wardrobe being made by me (I started the year with 5%)

Life

Qualify as BCBA – I have been studying for the past eighteen months towards becoming a board certified behaviour analyst, I am aiming to sit the qualification exam in May – Results in (July)…I have passed!!!

Live completely out of my overdraft – being a perpetual student has meant that by the end of the month I am constantly dipping into my overdraft, By the end of 2013 I aim to not be using my overdraft at all.

Learn to swim – I can kinda float and occasionally propel myself forward but my method is so exhausting I can only do about five meters!

A Holiday and New Craft

I have been very quiet over the last week or so because I have been on holiday, it was my 30th on Monday so S took Little One and I away for the week. We have had a lovely holiday in Nailsworth in the Cotswolds.

Once we had settled into the cottage we stayed in we went off exploring the local area and the first shop we stumbled across was Mother Goose, much to my delight (and S’s dismay). We spotted in the window that they do workshops in knitting and crochet, upon venturing in an chatting to the shop owner it was agreed that an individual workshop could be run for me the next day. I was so pleased with this because I have always wanted to learn to crochet and had brought myself a child’s kit with the aim of teaching myself:

I previously used a child’s knitting kit to learn the basics of knitting (with the aid of S’s mum) which worked nicely but I could not understand the instructions in this kit, I think this is mainly due to me being a leftie and not being able to rotate the instructions in my head.

My individual workshop was run by Sophie Buckley and we aimed towards making some baby slippers. In Sophie’s studio are some gorgeous crocheted bags which are simply beautiful. I have never progressed beyond chain stitch before so aiming to produce a finished item that I could give as a gift gave me some focus. I choose to complete the slippers in red so that they would go with the jumper that I have been making.

We started off by cutting out the soles:

Add the punching the holes into the soles. I then proceeded to doing my first crochet stitch:

This is the slipper with more crochet work:

I have found out that I crochet very tight and I need to work on loosening my work so that I can get the hook back into stitches. During the four hour workshop i managed to finished one slipper completely and did the bottom part of the second slipper. I then took the materials back to the holiday cottage and completed the second slipper whilst it was all fresh. Here are the finished slippers:

I loved making these so much that I immediately brought some wool and sheepskin from Mother Goose so that I could make a pair for myself. I had taken the crochet kit away with me on the holiday so I proceeded to make some granny squares over the remained of my holiday (post to follow), I am so pleased that I have finally got the basics of crocheting because I have wanted to have a go for ages.

If you ever find yourself in Nailsworth I definitely recommend a trip into Mother Goose and if you find yourself with the opportunity to participate in one of their workshops (and they have tons) give it a go, Sophie was really clear with her instructions and pointed out bits to help me along  (for example in triple stitch I tended to alter the direction of wrapping my yarn half way through).