🗓where i am

Knitting

The Rainbow Sock Chronicles, which is a knit along hosted by Jooles of Sew Sweet Violet and Kelly of Lay Family yarns, has reached the end of the seven rainbow colours and starting now in October we will be able to choose our own colours.

The picture above shows the socks up to July. For September (picture below) I used one of Jooles's patterns called 'Sweet Bee Socks' using Henny Penny Yarns sparkle sock and Orkney Angora for the stripes and lace. These are definitely an indoor only, snuggle up in front of the fire pair of socks as the angora makes them a lot more delicate but so cosy and comforting.

There have been lots of test knits for Jooles of Sew Sweet Violet and one of my favourites was this Wondrous Shower Mitt which means you can put your bar of soap inside the mitt to wash and that means you don't have to buy plastic bottles of shower gel.

🪡🧵Cross Stitch

I have been working all year on two cross-stitch stitch alongs. Martha Dawson and Ann Morison both are reproduction of antique samplers by Hands Across The Sea Samplers. I am stitching Martha Dawson on a 56 count fabric using Au Ver A Soie silks and below is my progress so far.

I am actually a little further on but only have a photo of the process in the frame (see below).

I veered off the set monthly section so that I could work on the house whilst I was on holiday in Salcombe and I didn't have to think, just make crosses and it worked.

Here is my progress on Ann Morison being hosted and in celebration of twenty years in business for Traditional Stitches.

There are a lot of Algerian stitches in this project and they really take concentration and time but they do look wonderful.

Other crafts

I have been enjoying some hand stitching and recently caught up with some of Nicki Franklin of The Stitchery projects.

One of the joys of stitching this year has been joining Dandelion Designs "The Secret Society of Redwork Stitchery and Craft Loveliness". We get a red dotty package each month which includes the redwork design for the quilt as well as a different project, sewing snippets and a recipe as well as Mandy Shaw's signature joke: sweets themed around the letter we are sewing that month. There is a private Facebook Group which is great fun to join in and share some sewing chatter.

Quilting

I joined in with Lori Holt's Red and White Sampler using four of her books. We made over thirty blocks, large and small and I have still to put the sashing around mine and then I can decide on how to quilt it.

This was a little English Paper Pieced Hexagon Bee panel which I bought as a kit from Jooles of Sew Sweet Violet and it was an absolute joy to stitch by hand and display in the glass frame which came as part of the kit.

Well that's it for now, a quick catch up. There are many other projects I haven't had time to show you here but I hope to pop some in a future post including what I've been reading. Happy crafting,