2019 Needlecrafts Review

One last annual catch up post: We've made it to 2019!  I seem to have photos of all the finishes from this year, except one super chunky knit cardigan, which photographed very badly indeed.

The first one, above, was a wedding handbag I made for my bestie when she got married in June, just 6 days before our 20th wedding anniversary.  I designed the floral embroidery myself and painted the appliqued silk, all based on the floral design on her bridal gown, but in the colour of her afternoon dress.  The bag construction wasn't stellar, but it did the job and I was pleased to see her using it.

And now, after being in progress for around five years, we present:

The completed Paradise Island cross stitch!

I was really pleased with how it turned out, especially as I'd had to design quite a bit of the lower sky myself (it was designed on blue Aida, but I'd done it on black Jobelan instead).  It looks great in a gold frame with a white mount.

For the above mentioned 20th wedding anniversary, I made this card for Sir, which he was pleased with.  Each part was cut out and the fabric stiffened before being glued to the paper sky background.  It was something quite different for me to do, so it was enjoyable - even if the kite tails didn't quite behave as I'd hoped.

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This last cross stitch piece for the year is one I'd been drooling over since I saw it sparkling in the lighting of a stand at the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate a couple of years before.  I finally bought the kit and stitched it up.  I haven't framed it yet, but I'm thinking a small silver frame with bright white mount.  The fabric is actually a pale lilac.  It would have been the perfect match for the early February weather, no?

Part cross stitch, part hardanger and part other counted thread stitch work was this rose cushion.  This was a quick stitch and I'm pleased to say it took first prize in the cushion class at the 2019 Bingley Show.  It now lives in our bedroom.

The final stitchery piece for the year was the 'Hardanger With Bling' bellpull that now stands out nicely against the red of our living room feature wall.  This is only the top section as I don't seem to have any full photos to hand, but I will share some more later on.

If embroidery is your only interest, then this is where you exit as we now move on to knitting and no less than seven adult garment completions this year, although two were begun (including one almost finished) in 2018.  The five chunky jumpers are worked in my favourite King Cole Tweed Chunky, three of which were for friends.  It's virtually impossible to get actually warm woollens, so I take orders from close friends.

My first adult DK finish was the  lilac shoulder cable jumper for me.  I love this one and wear it a lot.  Some of it was a challenge to do, but I love that I learn something new with each garment.

The grey cardigan was worked in Brett's Chunky with Merino and, again, was for a friend.  Jenny had admired my black cardy I was making with the same yarn and kept stroking it, so I ran her one up in a colour I was sure she would like.  It made a nice surprise for her when we met in the summer.

The dark green here was one of the woolies for cold friends, as was the cream one below and the violet one near the top of this section.

That's all for the catch up posts.  The next annual needlecrafts review will be at the end of this year or the beginning of next.  Hope you've enjoyed seeing some of the things I've been busy making.  Some will be featured in their own right with more detail, so look out for some of those in Friday Finish and Sunday Yarn posts, as well as ongoing projects in Work in Progress Wednesdays.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2021

2018 Needlecrafts Review

2018 saw one more embroidery finish tham 2017 with a grand total of six, but some of them were definitely  more labour intensive than those from the previous year.

I had two needlepainting finishes, again from the Trish Burr 'Beginners' book.  I changed the designs slightly in each case (the shape of one rose leaf spray and the purples of the pansies) and I was flattered that my husband told me that my shading skills had improved when he saw the leaves on the pansies.  Do you know, I think he may even be right.  Both pieces ended up in special cards.

Another special card was this window 'look through' one that was my own design for our 19th wedding anniversary.  She didn't have windows like this, but the garden was my idea of what mum's could be like when we'd finished renovating it.  Unlike a few of his cards to me, which contain photo collages of the previous year (and are great!), this one was meant to be a year forward.  Of course, the garden didn't develop to this point, but it was a fun project anyway.

I can't remember who got this card with the ribbon work in, but it was a kit from Crafty Ribbons.  It was quite hard work to stitch and I had to pad the backing in order to make it an even finish (the ribbons bunched up behind somewhat), but I thought it came out well.  I have a red one somewhere.  Poppies, I think....

This last project was these two lavender bags below - one for me, one for my mum.  To be honest, I have no idea where they are now.  Seriously, you can tell I've gone through the change in recent years as my previously flawless memory is annoyingly patchy!

Moving on to knitting, which is all adult garments this year, but still rather lacking some decent photos - or any at all of two projects.

Above is a Brett Marble Chunky cable knit I sized up from a girls' pattern and wear myself.  It's all acrylic, so it's good for mid-seasons rather than winter.

The one you see Sir modelling here is wool blend and this type of yarn has come to be a personal favourite.  It's King Cole's Tweed Chunky and it's 25 or 30% wool and is machine washable.  Both warm and easy care.

Both of the above ended up with sleeves slightly too short, but Sir doesn't mind as he says it's more jacket length and looks good with a shirt.  Later in the year I made him a matching scarf in double stocking stitch, which he gets good wear out of in the very cold weather.

I also did a new black cardigan for myself with simple, directional cables like the lemon baby one I did in 2017.  Again, the sleeves are too short, but it's very usable nonetheless.

This last piece was done for my late mother at her request.  During the last year or so of her life, she wore it as often as she could and loved it.  Medical visitors would often exclaim, "Oooh, I love your waistcoat!",  which was nice for me to hear.  As was her proudly explaining, "My daughter made it for me."  As you can see, it was made from oddments left over from the marble jumpers, and the edgings came from the purple jumper and black jacket that I mentioned in the 2017 review.

During this year I also ran up a couple of simple scatter cushion covers and finally hemmed a black/rose print raglan sleeved t-shirt I'd done most of at a sewing with knit fabrics workshop from the previous summer.  I'd put it off so long as I'm not good at sewing in a straight line, but I finally took myself in hand, but my double needle stuff in order, drew a line on the fabric as best I could and got on with it.  It waggled only once - right front and centre, where the dip actually looks like it could be part of the design!  

Look out for 2019 next Monday.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2021

Review of the stitching year 2020

Well, hello! Here I am, still alive and crawling out of an almost 30 month silence to present a mammoth needlework year review.  I may not have been blogging here, but my needles - of various types - have been busy just the same.

I managed to complete 27 things over this last year, but it's not quite as impressive as it sounds when you realise that 14 were fairly quick sewing tasks, such as finally finishing up 3 of those Lizzie*Kate 'Button Up!' seasonal cross stitch pieces as hangings which are changed with the natural season and hung on our coat rack (and are a lot bluer than they seem here):

The other 11 were 4 Bible covers:

4 quick cushion covers (not the white one, that comes later) - the black ones don't even have zips:

A padded, drawstring bag for my hubby to take his visualizer to work safely in:

And 2 pillowcase liners, which aren't shown here as they're on the pillows!

Knitting was productive too, with 4 adult garments done and 2 small girl's cardigans. 

I'm also half way through the last piece of an Aran jumper for Sir, but that'll obviously come in on next year's list.

Embroidery finishes were 5 cards, all for wedding anniversaries:

One picture that I'd started in Germany on World Embroidery Day 2019:

And, finally, one hardanger scatter cushion cover:

I'll try and get back in a few days to start sharing projects from mid 2017 to the end of 2019, so you can catch up with what I've been working on whilst my tech was sub-functional.  Afterwards, maybe I can get back to periodic updates on current projects as before. I can't promise prolific posting, as I'm really out of the habit now and building up a blog is no longer a priority as it used to be back up to 2015, but I'll try my best. :)

In the meantime, look me up on Instagram, which is much more up to date.  You can click on the link at the top left of the blog, or search @sew_in_love_stitch_art from your IG account, if you have one.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2020

Third Baby Jacket

Here's another baby cardy - a 'regular' one this time, as I selected the 3-6 month size.  After putting in loads of work on making a 0-3 months layette for a Chinese baby a few years ago - thinking an Oriental baby was bound to be nice and small, and her being big enough for 3+ months clothes at birth, I decided that I wouldn't be making tiny things for friends again.  I usually do something for when the little one is a few months old.

This one was a new pattern for me and I enjoyed it.  It was meant to be part worked in size 6/5mm needles and part in size 8/4mm, but I felt that the larger needles left the lacy part just too open, so I did the whole thing on 8s.  (Yes, I'm still using the old English sizes, partly as I have a bag of needles from my mum which are mostly in the old sizings).  As the little girl will be mixed race - half Philipino, half Serbian and therefore a little darker than average, I thought cream would be better than white and so got 2 50g balls of cream Sirdar Snuggly.

I found some lovely peach coloured buttons and decided to embroider a bullion rose design to match, as you can see in the drawing.  Multiple problems ensued.  For one, I'm still not confident with bullions, despite having experienced success on the wedding gift bellpull and a few previous projects, and so I delayed it, and procrastinated, and put it off.

Eventually, I realised I was actually getting stressed out by tiptoeing around it and just made myself get on with it.  The results were not good.  Not good at all.  For one, the thread was far too fine and I didn't have the right sort of colours in thicker types, so the knots didn't show up well at all, nor did they sit well. So, I abandoned the whole bullion idea and did a design in whatever suitable shades of pearl cotton #8 I could find.

I have almost a whole 50g ball of the yarn left, so I'm going to have a go at the matching hat.  Look out for that soon.

I've almost finished my black cardy now.  I've knit all the pieces and am working on the button band.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2017

Some Trimmed Up Baby Jackets

Today I'm going to share two of the four things I've stitched since my monster wedding projects series.  They're both baby knits and, yes, I knit them myself too.

I've got really into knitting lately, which partly explains the absence of embroidery projects shared on blog.  I've also recently completed a scarf and am well on with my first adult sized garment - a blanck chunky cardigan for me.  More on those another time.

The first two are premature sizes and were done with a view to entering the completed items into this year's Otley Show as there's always been a category for premature baby clothes before (afterwards to be donated to a local hospital's premature baby unit ☺).  However, when I saw the Show schedule for this year, they'd actually changed some of the categories and, with 10 weeks or less to Show date, the charity knitting class was changed to 'baby blanket, max 1m'  So, the two tiny cardies I'd knitted were no good as far as exhibiting there goes this year and the only other category that I'd something almost ready for, a scarf, was also dropped in favour of a knitted household item, so I decided to scratch from the Show all together.  I felt much better afterwards too as it would have been a fair strain to get all the pieces ready in time, as I like to enter enough to get myself a free ticket.

Anyway, I have two pregnant friends at the moment, so I decided to keep hold of these preemie knits just in case one of them arrives early and then later on either put them in another Show that has this sort of charity class or send them to a suitable unit or organisation myself.

This first, blue one is made to my usual go-to girl's pattern in beautifully soft cotton DK (King Cole Cotton Soft yarn) and stitched on in various Anchor & DMC Coton à Broder #16 shades.

The second one, in white Sirdar Snuggly DK was a tricky one to knit as it was more or less a one piece construction - but a good learning experience.  I decided to trim it up very simply so that it could serve for either a boy or a girl.  It isn't exactly what I'd hoped, esp. as I had to use Coton à Broder #25 instead of #16 (lack of colours in the range), but it's slightly more interesting that just plain white.  I also managed to mess up the buttonhole spacing, but I dare say the little mite who wears it won't mind in the least.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2017

Needlecrafts Review of 2016

I can't believe I'm actually doing this 4 months late - I would have preferred it to have been posted on 31 December 2016, but here it is today - on the first day of May 2017 - the summary of my needlework year 2016.

I think it's safe to say that 2016 was Year of the Wedding for me.  I made stuff for 4 weddings, some of which ran in succession and kept me busy for quite some time.  I'm still wondering if the 'must get on with it' for so many weeks in a row is part of what's kept me away from embroidery most of the time since....??  Maybe I burnt out a bit.  May also be that I work better for a reason, rather than just for the love of the process and/or a lovely design.  It's in my make-up, I doubt I'll ever be any different in the way I work.

Here goes with the stats:

I made five cushions/cushion covers ('pillows' if US English means more to you.☺) which were:

- Two scatter cushion covers for us made with red fabrics, woven braids bought in Taiwan back in 2010 and machine metallic threads, both backed in black.  (I didn't get a decent photo of the completed braids one - they all bleached out.)

- One scatter cushion cover in hardanger: white and variegated peach on white and backed with peach and beige coloured fabrics.

- Two small wedding souvenir cushions, worked silk on silk to 'design specs' given by the couples (the grooms of which happened to be brothers.)

I also did two bellpulls, both as wedding gifts:

A wedding dress modesty panel:

A wedding card and an anniversary one:

Made a new Bible cover for my hubby:

Knit four baby cardigans (one still needed trimming up at the end of the year) and made two baby quilts:

And a 'finishing up' project where I mounted nine previously worked things (eight by me (including one I actually did in May), one by a friend) into cards and frames etc:

I also worked on one more knitting project - a scarf for me, and two embroideries, one of which was started in late 2015 (and finished in February 2017) and the other begun in August 2014 and is still dragging on ad infinitum.

Total number of full project completions was 16, plus the eight finish-ups of my own, makes a total of 24 for the year and 4 projects to carry over.  That's not too dusty, is it?  In fact, I think it may even be a record for me!  Even if I am a bit late.....

I'm adding no goals for the current year beyond that I hope that I finally finish the Paradise Island cross stitch and make that up into another scatter cushion cover and I have three small embroideries that I've prepared the fabrics and two of the sets of threads for.  I have another, quite major project underway at the moment and I'll be sharing that with you later this month.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2017