An August Escape

It’s about time that I shared about our recent trip to Baradine to attend Chooky’s second retreat for the year at Camp Cypress.

This was held on the last weekend of August and was a much smaller affair than Scrub Stitchin’.   

Chooky arranges everything for this event, including all the catering, hence it is kept smaller.  We went to the Bowling Club on Thursday night, with all other meals at Camp Cypress.  She did a fantastic job.

The event officially started on Friday, but quite a few arrived on Thursday afternoon, so that they could get stuck into stitching and socialising nice and early on Friday.  Mick and I actually arrived on Wednesday, so that we were there to help set up on Thursday.

There were a few quilts decorating the walls.  The gorgeous one on the top left is a Jen Kingwell pattern completed by Natasha.  The others are mine.

There were lots of industrious sewers and lots of socialising.  Here are just a few random photos.

There were some impressive projects in the works.

The purple one by Linda is a work of art and intricate foundation piecing.  The top completed by Miss Jules was from a fun fat quarter workshop she recently attended.

Natasha is working on using the scraps in her stash and is making this fun and colourful quilt.  Lynda was having fun playing with her Tilda fabrics.  Brenda was busy making prosperity hens.  So sweet and simple to make.

By the way, Brenda was celebrating her birthday in the days following the retreat, so of course there had to be cake…..be it just a weeny teeny one.

So, what did I get up to?  Not much, actually. I didn’t take my sewing machine, as I was still in recovery mode and not to use an iron or rotary cutter.

I did manage to finish the slow stitching on the panel I had started.  The bottom photo shows what it should look like once it is made up into a pouch.  It is currently sitting in its tub waiting for me to work out how I am going to proceed from here.

Once that was done I actually brought out the Anni Downs pouch that was our project at Scrub Stitchin’ in 2024. I had only made a tiny start and wasn’t happy with what I had done.  This time I made a small start on the wool applique.  I do hope to have it completed before Scrub Stitchin’ next year.

In the evenings I did a little of the crochet on my corner to corner rug.  So, for three days, it wasn’t much to show, but that doesn’t matter.  The event is all about friendship and catching up, and I did plenty of that.

Of course there was impressive show and tell.  I will share that in a separate post.

As always, we loved our time at Baradine and  catching up with all the girls.  Now to wait until April next year when we can do it all again.  Bring it on.

Stitching for August

 I’m a bit late with this, but let’s have a look at what crafting I got up to during the month of August.

The Chookshed Challenge ended up being yet another failure.  All I managed to do was restitch the little wording panel for the pincushion in finer thread.

This year has been rather unsuccessful when it comes to this challenge.  It is what it is.

I didn’t make my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks, as I was not to be dragging out tubs to get fabric.  It won’t take much to catch up.

Enough of the failures, what did I manage to actually do?

Mum’s little dog bookmark was a bit of fun to make.  A quick, colourful project.  It was nice to actually finish something.

I continued to plug away at the slow stitching panel at my stitching mornings and finished the panel up at Baradine on the weekend.  (More on that in a separate post.) It was fun to have a little play with some stitches other than straight running stitch on some sections. 

I now have to have a think about how I will construct the pouch that it is destined to become.

My corner to corner crochet rug has been slowly growing.  I don’t have a photo at the end of the month, but this is where it was up to mid August.  That would have been the start of the third 200g ball of yarn.  I was working on the fourth ball at the end of the month.  I worked on this in the evenings at Baradine.

The final project I have worked on is the Anni Downs pouch that was the project we were given at Scrub Stitchin’ in 2024.  I don’t seem to be able to get too enthused with the process of making this, but I know I will love it once it is finished.  I had a false start with this back in January, and took it to Baradine to work on.  Once again, not a lot of progress, but at least it was a start and I hope to plug away at it over the next little while.

How did I go with working on something for at least 15 minutes a day?

Surprisingly, I worked on something on 24 days.  Often that may have only been a row or two of crochet, as it takes about 15 minutes to work each row.

August = 24/31

Year to Date = 181/243, which is 74.49%, being a slight improvement over last month.

So, there wasn’t a real lot to show for the month, but I’m OK with that.  The projects will all get done in their own good time.  Now to look forward to September.

August Stitching Wishes

My plans for stitching have been somewhat curtailed, by me not being allowed to use a rotary cutter for the month.  However, as you can guess, I still have plenty of options to go on with.

RAINBOW SCRAP CHALLENGE

The colour this month is AQUA.  The plan is to make two more split nine patch blocks, but they will have to wait until next month.  They won’t take long to catch up.

CHOOKSHED STITCHERS CHALLENGE 

The number selected by Deana this month is NUMBER 7.  Well, for me that was to stitch the Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks into a quilt top.  I always knew that it would be shuffled around until the end of the year, when I had all the blocks made.  Therefore, for the second time, that project is being swapped.

As there are only three month’s worth of projects remaining, I had to swap it out with the only one that was mainly hand work.  That is the Natalie Bird Pincushion.  This was another stitchery that I traced to take to the Isle of Man last year.  

I stitched the wording, but it looked rather too chunky.  Once I looked at the pattern, when we returned home, I realised why, as I had stitched it with two strands rather than just one.  Therefore, I have to restitch the wording.  

There are four panels on the pincushion.  One consists of half inch hexies, which I have already stitched.  One is just a feature piece of fabric, and the final one is a tiny needle turned applique house with some embroidery.  That will be the fiddly part to make, as needle turned applique is not something I tend to do.  Wish me luck.  Overall, it shouldn’t be too large a job to get it done.  

I’m not allowed to iron either, so I will have to have Mick press any fabric I need.  That will be interesting, as he hasn’t done any ironing since I met him 40 years ago. Don’t judge, he does plenty of other things around the house.  I will do any cutting using scissors, as he reckons he is terrified of a rotary cutter.  This coming from a man that is a welder and works with hot and sharp metal, angle grinders and all other manner of what I consider to be dangerous equipment. Too funny.

So what else will I endeavour to work on?

I have my Corner to Corner crochet rug.  I will keep playing with it until it gets too large and unwieldy.

My slow stitching pouch is also something that will work well.

These will both be good to take along to my stitching days.

Waiting in the wings is my jumper with the lace yoke that I started last winter.  I still have ten rows of lace to knit before it starts to get a bit easier.  Now is a good time to sit quietly and get that section done.

Also waiting in the wings is the little granny square baby rug I started at the end of 2023.  I had the blocks crocheted together, but they weren’t sitting flat.  I unpicked the joins and they are currently sitting as a pile of squares.  Maybe, I can get them out and sew them together, rather than crochet them.  It sounds like slow work, which is why I haven’t done it.  Let’s see if this is the month.  It would be rather good to tick it off the list.

At the end of the month I will be once again travelling to Baradine for a mini retreat.  I have no idea what I will take to work on, but it will be hand stitching of some description.  I’m looking forward to it very much.

That little lot should keep me busy, but I will add my usual disclaimer that if I achieve half of what I want I will be doing well.

Of course, I may also go down another rabbit hole, remembering I seem to be a serial starter this year.

A Play Date

A good friend came over today for a play date of crafting.

Not a lot of crafting took place, but a lot of talking, oh and quite a bit of eating.  You know how it is.

What I did achieve was some garment embellishment for my friend.  She had bought some cute overalls to wear while tending her farmers market stalls, but they were too short and just looked a silly length.  Would we be able to do something?

I’m sure we could.  Let’s see what is in the stash that would be suitable.

Ta da!  The sunflower fabric was one of the first patchwork fabrics I bought, well over twenty years ago.  I had used some back then, but still had plenty and it isn’t something that I naturally gravitate towards.  It was, however, perfect for this project.  They will look rather fun when she has her stalls.

While I was playing with sunflowers, my friend did achieve a small amount of her crochet rug.

After the garment tweaking, I did a little of my slow stitching, and I had also done a little at my stitching morning on Friday.  This is where I am up to.  I said it would be slow progress, and it is. I am having a bit of fun with it.  No stress or perfectionism involved.

The overall piece.

Some details of the texture.  There will be some more stitching in the hexy, I just have to decide what it will be.  The little leaves are just tracing the fabric design.

The doiley section will be stitched down later.  As you can see, there is quite a bit more to do, but I think I am at the stage where I can pin on more fabric, as I have freed up quite a few of my appliqué pins.

By the way, Mick’s rug got its christening on the weekend while watching the footy.  The weather was absolutely freezing, so he was happy to have it.

Meanwhile, no start has been made on the Sew Together Bag for this month’s Chookshed Challenge.  I met a bit of a road block, but that has now been navigated, so a start should be made soon.

Finding a Squirrel Down a Rabbit Hole - A New Start

Once you finish a project you can start a new one.  That’s how it works, isn’t it?  That should be the Sew Together Bag shouldn’t it?

No, that is not how it works.

I seem to have been seeing lots of slow stitching coming up when scrolling and felt the urge to start something,  I even have a little tub with offcuts from doileys from previous projects that I want to play with.

The Sew Together Bag needs some light wadding, so I pulled out the tub.  There just happened to be a piece that was sort of the size to make a pouch, so I squared it up.  Next to get out my doiley offcuts and a box labelled “Small Scraps” as well as my usual scrap tubs and have a play.

Oh, what a glorious mess I made.  The plan was to have a faded look, but my scraps ended up making it somewhat pretty.  More so than I had originally thought , but it will still be nice……I hope.  I’m not a fan of raw edges, as in a lot of slow stitching, so lots of turning under.  It’s not Kawandi, or Boro, or Kantha, rather making it up as I go along.  My tiny appliqué pins, that I have had for years and never used, came into their own.  It has ended up bigger than I thought I would make, but I just worked with the size of the batting piece.  It will be about the size of an iPad pouch, so quite a large panel to work on.

Once I ran out of pins it was time to find some threads to stitch it all down.  Time to get out the box labelled “Crochet and Pearl Thread”.  Yep, there seems to be boxes of just about everything lurking in the deep dark depths around here……and…..shock horror……most have recently been labelled.  You never know when you may need something.  Thank goodness they don’t go off.

Time to start stitching.  There isn’t a lot of thread on these spools, so we will try to use them up first……more to add to the jar.

A little progress was made on Sunday, while chatting to Lou about her exciting fabric haul.  Just as well slow stitching isn’t required to be perfect, as mine is a bit how’s your uncle.  Having said that, I quite like the texture.  After the first couple of rows of stitching I used the Hera marker to keep my stitching lines somewhat straight.  It will be fun to decide how to stitch the different areas and then to do some embellishing,  There is also still quite a bit of batting to cover with fabric.  This won’t be a quick process, just something to pick up now and again.  Then, it is called “Slow Stitching”.