Purl and Seam

Resting in the garden

January 26, 2011

The next stitchery for the Gardener’s Journal quilt is done…it’s called Resting in the Garden.Obviosuly it’s not my garden she’s resting in! But hopefully this will be me by the end of the summer.

I only have 9 more stitcheries to finish and then I can start to quilt. Just need to find the book now!

Multnomah – FO 3/2011

January 25, 2011

I realise that my blog posts are a bit like buses this week…you wait around for ages and then they all come at once.

It also looks like I’ve been awfully prolific this week but the knitted items were started before Christmas, so really are sneaky finished objects for 2011.

But without further ado, I’d like to introduce to you Multnomah

This pattern is quick and simple and the yarn is just luscious. It’s a joy to wear as it’s so soft and warm. Perfect for these chilly days. The bottom picture best shows the colour but in real life it is more citrussy still. The colours have a huge amount of saturation and vibrancy.

So now, I have nothing on the needles although I do have a pile of yarn to crack on with and a large parcel of yarn en route to knit a late Christmas gift for Mr S. I may browse some patterns this afternoon and cast on some of the stash yarn.

I also have the last piece of the hateful blue polyester on the table. I think the best use for it will be to make a wearable muslin of a different pinafore pattern for Button, and maybe squeeze an elastic waisted skirt out of it. That way she’ll have plenty of school clothes for this academic year and I’ll be rid of the awful stuff. Also, if the pattern fits ok, I have two other pieces of fabric to whip up into pinafores for her too. They shouldn’t take a great deal of time.

Not-quite-a-Birthday-Party-Dress FO 2/2011

January 24, 2011

Yesterday I finished the second navy pinafore for Button.I used the Oliver + S Birthday Party Dress pattern, but this time cut a size larger. She will insist on growing!

Also, because this nasty fabric really doesn’t pleat very well, I altered the front to remove the pleated section, making this a plain square necked pinafore with a button back.

Button is delighted with it and insisted on wearing it to nursery this morning.

Ingénue FO 1/2011

January 23, 2011

I’m cheating a little calling this my first finished object of the year as this was started just before the wedding in November. But it’s January and it’s only just finished, so shoot me!

Enough quibbling…here it is:

Oh, green and gorgeous sweater, how do I love thee, let me count the ways.

It’s chilly here in Northland this week. Today less so than yesterday when I shivered my way round an over priced antiques emporium, but still not overly warm. To clarify, it was the antiques that were overpriced, not the emporium itself. I’m not entirely sure it was for sale. I am entirely sure that by the time I’d reached the lovely tea service that Mr S offered to buy but which I declined (eBay…Crown Devon Stockholm…need I say more?) I was shivering like a monkey on an ice floe. (BTW I was pipped at the post for a tea pot today by 1p. 1p!!!!!!! I could spit!)

Anyway…I digress. You’ll recall that the sweater is knit in Artesano Aran from Brownberry Yarns, and the pattern is Ingenue from Custom Knits.

Today was grey but in the positive temperature range and we went to the park to try Button’s hand at riding the birthday bike in the real world. The sweater was a roaring success (I was toasty warm), the cycle lesson less so:Don’t be fooled.

She pulls a great pose, but peddles with less enthusiasm.

I think her thought process went along the lines of “don’t you know who I am…I’m pretty….and cute….look at these pads…I had Vogue on the phone….I don’t peddle…push me please!”

Sigh!!!! We’ll try again another day.

3

January 16, 2011

C’mon, own up!

Who did it?

Who stole the last 22 months?

‘Cos I simply can’t come up with any other reason than time theft to explain just how my gorgeous girl turned 3 this week.

On Wednesday we celebrated en famille with “chips and sauce” (tomato ketchup to the uninitiated) (I know, I know, but she’s 3 and she knows what she likes!)

: The pads and helmet were her idea!

Whilst the cake was greeted with dramatic squeals of joy, her gift of a very pink bicycle rendered her almost speechless and the opportunity to try it out was taken in the hallway, to her great delight.

On Saturday we donned frocks, threw open the doors and invited friends for coffee and cake (with the odd glass or 3 of wine thrown in for good measure, but obviously only for the grown ups).

I simply cannot grasp that this smart, funny, fearless little girl is the quiet and challenged girl who came to live with us nearly 2 years ago.

Every day she astonishes me with her charm, her cleverness and her ability for withering cheek!

She’s so tiny for her age but she makes up for this in spades with her personality, and I count my blessings every day that she found us and filled our lives with so much joy.

I am honoured to be her Mummy. I know Mr S is the proudest Daddy alive.

Lethargy

January 10, 2011

Lethargy is rife Chez Stitches. It’s decidedly annoying.

As someone who has spent the past 10 years either fending off crises, working ridiculous hours, or undertaking projects with specific, and, more often than not, very tight, deadlines, having a free schedule is messing with my head! I always work better to a deadline and not having one is a most peculiar feeling.

I’m running with this at the moment as I know that I’ll get the hang of this new rhythm of life soon enough, and find the enthusiasm to get to the things that I do want to do, but don’t have to do!

Things are moving forward, depite my butt being welded to the sofa. I’m hoping that just the action of doing will spark my creativity and, quite frankly, put a bit of a rocket up me!

Ingenue is off the needles and just needs the neckline stitching in place and the yarn ends weaving in. It’s been waiting 3 days already!

Multnomah is coming along very nicely thank you very much. I’m up to the feather and fan section.

We’ll ignore the siren song of the pinafore sprawled on the worktable not being sewn, shall we.

So as there is nothing particularly blog worthy happening with the needles, I thought I’d talk to you about my friends. They’ve all been mentioned here at one point or another, and, you’ve probably gleaned that they are a pretty awesome bunch. Funny, kind, generous, intelligent, talented, strong women, all of them.

But, dear reader, it may shock and dismay you to learn that there has been a concerted effort on the part of more than one of them to make me cry over the past few months.

Is that a collective gasp of disbelief I hear?

I kid ye not.

It all started with the wedding. More specifically the wedding gifts. They were all amazing and extraordinarily generous. All sorts of lovely things.

Then, upon our return from honeymoon I opened 2 boxes which hid, nestled in voluminous nests of bubble wrap, one of these:

And 6 of these:

Honestly! What are they like?

And what’s a girl to do?

Why, cry, of course!

But that’s not the end of it.

Oh no. There’s more…if you can believe it!

My Christmas present from Himmelbjerget is this beauty:

I mean, what kind of person gives their friend a vintage treadle sewing machine for Christmas.

And not any old vintage sewing machine, but a Jones! If you’re wondering about the significance of that…my married surname is Jones!

With a little TLC we reckon we’ll have her up and sewing again.

I’ll let you imagine the histrionics that ensued when I uncovered her.

Aren’t they just a big bunch of meanies?????

For meanies please read kind, thoughtful and generous. In short just old fashioned wonderful.

I suspect I might be the luckiest girl in the world.

More stitcheries

January 3, 2011

Not a lot of stitching has been happening on the Gardeners Journal quilt stitcheries recently, but over the holiday period I didn’t feel much like knitting or sewing so I picked them up again.

I managed to do the following 3:

The Garden Shed was stitched on New Years Eve accompanied by some rather splendid red wine. This accounts for the “charmingly” wonky stitching.

I’ve another one in progress at the moment and then I’m about 2/3rds done with them. Good progress, I think.

A wonderful compliment

December 22, 2010

I was recently contacted by the lovely Annabel over at Love My Dress who wanted to feature our wedding on her site.

Obviously I said “yes” and today she has featured us….you can see it here if you’ve not already seen all the pictures. The link above takes you to her site where you can feast your eyes on lots of beautiful, elegant and stylish weddings.

I’m so flattered that Annabel thought our wedding was worthy to by amongst them, and totally amazed but absolutely thrilled that people find our wedding as wonderful as we did.