A New House!

A lot has happened since my last post. Well, it is nearly a year, but still a major change has occurred! I sold my flat and bought a house! I lived in that little flat for 13 years, and am loving the sense of space in the house - there are three bedrooms - one for me, one as a craft room and one for guests.

The house is big enough for me to have hosted 12 people for Boxing Day lunch. We all fitted around my new dining table with ease. The kitchen was big enough to manage all the food and dishes. And the rest of the house was big enough for my 5 year old nephew to run around and play hide and seek with his older cousin without disruption. Perfect!

I am still doing up the craft room. I've stripped off the wallpaper, scrubbed off the glue and now have to patch up the cracks and paint. Will post pictures later. The craft room is taking longer than anticipated as I'm spending a lot of time in the garden! Loving the garden... So many plans, so little time... Will post more about that later too.

Remember this quilt? Well it is finally done. Quilted by the Quilted Crow ladies, and taking pride of place in my new bedroom.

This is part of my hallway with a map garland I made just before Christmas. I can see more garland making happening over the summer holidays.

A collection of flowers - some from my garden and some from a friends'. I'm so excited by the possibility of planting lots of roses and other flowers, and arranging them in the house.

 

And finally, some roses from my garden. I took this photo in the bright light of the morning, and the camera serendipitously overexposed the photo. It has the quality of a painting. If I had the painting skills, I'd try and replicate it on canvas.

Hoping to blog more very soon about house, and craft, and garden!

Ahoy, there!

My four year old nephew was wearing a pirate t-shirt the other day and it gave me the idea for this embroidered badge. I'm really pleased with the way it's turned out - I hope he likes it!

This brooch has been sitting half done in a bag for a couple of years now! It's been nice to get it finished. For both badges I used recycled linen, crewel wool and a felted wool back.

The clasps are from Spotlight and I hope they last. They feel a bit cheap, but were the only ones available at the time.

The yellow flower brooch was completed a few years ago and I had forgotten all about it. I quite like the format of these pins. There are quick and easy to make, and would make great presents - especially for children. I start out by making a gathered yo-yo from the linen, reinforcing it with a circle of cheap felt inside, then doing the embroidery through all the layers. The felted wool back is stitched on using blanket stitch, and then the clasp attached last of all.