A Summer full of Crafting Loveliness

So many crafts...

Crafting is really such a panacea when the world seems such a difficult place to navigate. The past few months have been a time of calming the mind with lots of lovely crafting projects and events. So let's have a look at some of the things I have been up to.

Tour de Fleece 2022 Team Spindler

 One of the highlights of Summer each year is to follow the Tour de France cycling alongside spinning each day. This year I joined Team Spindlers on Ravelry and I am really enjoying learning about different fibres from their general pages as well as sharing what I spin each day on the Team page. I very sadly had to say goodbye to my spinning wheel recently because she had come to a point where there was more repair than spinning time spent on her. 

That meant I would have to do the Tour using my spindles and I looked around for a suitable team to join and came across Team Spindlers which has members from all around the world with a great deal of knowledge and some absolutely stunning spindles. If only we could get some more interesting spindles here in the UK.

The Tour goes on through July and I hope to have a lovely amount of yarn at the end. I am spinning Falkland at the moment which is a joy to work with and, thanks to all the advice from my fellow spindlers, I am planning to make the yarn into a pair of winter mittens. You can see from the photo below the beautiful fibre from Friday Studios (sadly no longer selling fibre).

Gnoming Along

I've had such a lot of fun joining in with Sarah of Imagined Landscapes and her Gnome Alongs. This time we were making a gnome which included stranded colour work. She is called Gnocci based on season three of the GNetflix programme "It's a Chef's Life". I used Lucy Locketland's Woodland Foragers set of minis which she made specifically for this gnome along. What do you think, isn't she cute? I know she has a beard!

She joins my other Imagined Landscape Gnomes, Gnombleberry with Gnewt in his backpack and Gnorwen who looks like an ice cream.

Dandelion Designs Redwork

I have been sewing along with Mandy Shaw's Secret Society of Redwork Stitchery and Crafty Loveliness for the past year. We have been making an Alphabet Quilt and I am so pleased with the result and have made it my own by adding some of Mandy's fabrics left over from past projects. I also made one of her cute kits for a watch pin cushion which is proving very useful.

Cross Stitch

Here in the UK there have been celebrations for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee and I stitched these three designs by Carol X Stitch which I put on display on the table in my entrance hall. 

I also stitched the very pretty "Red Bird Sampler" by Brenda Gervais of With Thy Needle and Thread. It fitted on a spare piece of 40 count linen using the called for colours of thread which at first I thought were a bit out of my comfort zone but now she is finished I am absolutely loving.

Well I am going to leave this post here and I shall be back soon with some more of the crafting I have been enjoying during the first half of 2022. I will leave you with a lovely photo of my seven month old Grandson enjoying the fireworks for the Jubilee. Going up and down to Yorkshire to spend time with him is so wonderful.