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

Work in Progress Wednesdays - 24 February 2021

Anyone who knows much about my embroidery work knows I love hardanger.  It's quite quick, it looks great and is deceptively simple to work.  So, when I saw this kit going on LoveCrafts.com, I instantly fell for it and bought it with my anniversary money last summer.

At first I thought I'd make the square mat up as a dining table centre or something like that, but it really didn't feel right.  So, I decided to omit the edging and make it up as a scatter cushion cover for the sofa, even though it will work out as a rather larger one than I'm used to having.

Naturally, starting out with the white diamonds and the linking segments, then moving on to the coloured work in cross and back stitching.

Below is all the surface work completed.  As you may be able to see, I changed some of the colours in the cross stitch.  I didn't really like the blues in and around the flowers, so replaced them with pale yellow and a light yellow-lime.

Beginning with the cutting and removing of the threads.  I know a lot of stitchers find the very idea of this part quite unnerving, but I'm OK with it.  You just have to bear in mind the traditional carpenters' saying: 'Measure twice, cut once'.  In this case, count twice, cut once.  It really helps to avoid mistakes if you double check at every stage of a counted thread project - especially when it comes to things that would be hard to hide, like taking out one thread too many!  It's possible, but I don't recommend it. ;)

More on this one soon.

Again, just over four years since the last Work in Progress Wednesdays post!  I can't promise them weekly from hereon in, but it may be possible, even if I don't fancy doing a full blown multi-photo post, to do a brief one with one image from the Blogger app.  It's quite basic, but will allow for that nicely.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2021

2017 Needlecrafts Review

Welcome to 2017!!

This is the year the Big Blog Break began in, so those of you who are kind enough to have taken an interest in my creations over the years will have seen some of these pieces in progress.  I don't expect you to remember any of them though, as I had a couple of surprises when I went back through my Instagram feed to see what had been finished during the year!

It was more of a knitting than a stitching year, but I'll present the 4 embroidery finishes first as that's what most visitors are most interested in, I think.  There were only four finishes, all of which ended up in cards, but at least they were all different styles.

First above is the violets thread painting from Trish Burr's 'Needlepainting Embroidery - Fresh Ideas for Beginners'.  I had some trouble with the bud on this one and put it on hold for a while (from 2016, if I remember correctly), but I cracked it in the end and it served well as a baptism card for a Chinese friend.

The green based hardanger piece I believe was a sympathy card, but I can't quite remember for whom....  Anyway, it was nice to work with this colour scheme instead of always on white.

This beaded, coloured blackwork style piece I confess to having copied from a picture I saw somewhere.  Pinterest, probably.  It was quite hard going, but it made a nice anniversary card for Sir.

This last one, a cross stitch 'Forever Friends' bear, was for friends' 10th wedding anniversary.

Onto knitting, which was much more prolific.  If you're not interested in yarn crafts, feel free to exit here. 

In 2017, I knitted no less than seven baby jackets from two in premature sizes for charity, to two 6-12 months sizes.  One had a matching hat and several of them had embroidered trims on them.

There were also three adult garments, but I don't seem able to find any decent photographs of them.  

The first completed one was for a cold friend and was a simple chunky, purple jumper with a basic double cable up the front.  Started before that one, but finished afterwards was a black chunky jacket/cardy for me.  Both were done with budget yarns, but seemed to come out OK,

The third was worked with James C  Brett's marble chunky, which hasn't photographed well so far.  I'll have to try again some time.

Last up is the bamboo cotton scarf that I made for myself, but which really isn't warm enough for winter use.  It's really only useful as a trim,  but it's a glorious colour. 

That's it for 2017.  

Catching up slowly!  Look out for 2018's review this time next week.

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

Peach hearts hardanger cushion complete!

Here it is: the completed peach hearts hardanger scatter cushion cover. =)

I'm really pleased with the finished look of this one.  It was hard to get a good picture, because of the light in our current home.  I find it either too dark or too bright to get a good shot, but trusty Photoshop Elements is at hand to save the day, so you can see it in a respectable amount of light and detail.

I wanted to do a more detailed post on how I put this cover together, but unfortunately forgot all about taking the necessary photos until I'd almost finished.  Sorry!  Next time....

This is the backing fabric I chose - a sort of peachy beige based fat quarter which I bought in Taiwan.  It's been nice to use so many of my oriental fabrics recently, although I confess to having sold the majority of them (and others) last month.  Actually, I've halved my fabric stash - what an enormous relief that was too!  More about that another day though.

I didn't have quite enough of the plain peach fabric you see through the cutwork areas, so I used it where it was needed and put a border of white around it.  The backing is also lined so as to make it a bit less flimsy, especially in comparison to the backed piece of Oslo fabric on the front, which is quite rigid.

The last step was a 10"/25cm white zip.

This was a lovely project to work.  I hadn't done a decent sized piece of hardanger for such a long time and it was a real pleasure to do this one.  I loved using the Anchor peach multi-coloured pearl #5 and also putting one of my old Six Strand Sweets to use.  Later on, when I was sorting out which threads to sell last month, I found that I actually owned the matching Anchor multicolour stranded cotton and could also have used that, but I don't think anything was lost for not having done so.

The cushion/pillow's new owners are very happy with it and recently sent me a photo of it in situ on their sofa, (which you can see on my Instagram - link in the sidebar).

What's next?  The Bingley Show handicrafts tent displays.  Roll up, roll up!

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2016

Peach Hardanger Cushion - cutwork and fillings

Hi everyone!  Sorry about the long pause in reporting on this project.  I actually finished it almost two months ago, have since exhibited it in a local agricultural show and handed it over to its new owners last month!  I just hadn't got to blogging about it until today.

Things are nothing if not mad around here these days and I'm finding myself without much chance to post on my blogs.  I can keep up with my Instagram OK, but it's a little harder to find the time etc needed to sit down, edit photos and then create posts - something that almost always takes a lot longer than one would expect.

Anyway, enough of all that.  You want to read about the project, right? =)

When I last wrote about it back in mid-July, I left it at the surface work done and cutting out complete stage.  Next stage was, of course, the filling stitches.  Sadly, I didn't get a lot of WIP photos during this stage, at least not decent, blog-able ones (one or two were OK to use on IG), as I was working on it quite intensively.  There were basically only two types of filling in this design: woven bars with dove's eye filling in the large diamond section and Greek cross fillings in the squares.
  

Here's an angled view where the lovely texture of hardanger shows up well.  I loved using a little bit of colour in this piece as well.  White on white is beautiful and so classic, but a splash of colour is always welcome, I feel.

Next time I'll share the completed scatter cushion with you. Hope you like it so far. =)

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2016

Moving on with the peach hardanger scatter cushion

Back again for the next segment of the work on my most recent hardanger scatter cushion cover.

I've loved working on this one.  It's been really quick to do and the colours - the mixed peach shaded threads - have been delightful.

The angled shot below shows the lovely texture of the pearl cotton threads beautifully, don't you think?

All the threads removed that needed to come out and ready for the next stage - the filling stitches.   Tune in for that part in my next post on this piece.

I've also been working on the patchwork effect baby knit and taking some photos for Friday's 'Where Bloggers Create' post.  Now to edit them....

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2016

New hardanger scatter cushion well in progress

Exciting!  I'd been admiring some other embroiderers' hardanger work on Instagram and wanting to be able to do another piece myself for a few weeks and now it's in progress! =)

Here's the floss toss, including a plain peach fabric which will back the actual stitching and peep through the cutwork areas and a patterned piece that will be the cushion backing.

You might remember that I showed this scatter cushion cover last week and said I intended to cut the design down as I found it too busy for my simpler tastes.  Well, here is the section I'm working:

And now photos of my progress so far taken one day apart - and showing how much time I've had for stitchery from Sunday to Tuesday of this week!!!  I was quite amused to see how much positive attention a photo of the tiny central diamond attracted on my Instagram stream, ending up as my most 'liked' photo.  It seemed strange when there was so little to see. =)

I'm now working on the final stages of the surface work - the cable stitch outlining and then some eyelets in the four 'outlying' squares.

What do you think?  Like it?  I'm loving the colours.  I don't think I've ever really done a peach coloured piece before and it makes a lovely change.  Peach was my high school best friend, Wendy's favourite colour.  Coincidentally enough, whilst waiting for my doc's appointment (nothing serious, just a persistent sinus infection), I met up with another old schoolmate who I hadn't seen for 25 years.  An 'old flame' in fact as we were an item for about a week!!!  Fun that we still recognised each other. I've been 18 again in my mind and listening to tapes I made back in sixth form ever since.  Need to wake up now, get on with the housework and be back to the present day...

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2016