Attic24

Making the Seasons :: March

Now that the season is finally showing signs of shifting from Winter to Spring, this past week we've ventured back to our allotment. Our main tasks right now involve clearing up the winter mess (sadly, a storm damaged tree which fell right across our plot), admiring the wildlife (huuuuuuuge frogs and a mass of frogspawn in the pond), and sitting quietly on the bench at the top of the sloping site to take in the view (it's a south-facing sun trap). Behind the bench, our plot becomes a wild kind of shaded bank beneath a very large tree. It's covered in ivy and honeysuckle with bluebells that will flower in early May, but right now it looks extremely pretty with primroses, primulas and narcissus planted by the previous plot holders. There is blossom in abundance too, as the tree I told you about in last month's Making the Seasons post is flowering it's heart out. I popped up there yesterday to pick a few blooms to bring home, and it delighted me so much to do this simple thing. They are slim pickings as I wanted to leave plenty flowering at the plot - I gathered just enough to bring into the house so that I could create a little spring/Easter visual celebration.

A few years ago, I saw a photo in a magazine showing a small spring flower arrangement where the stylist had used painted eggshells as miniature vases. It was so simple, beautiful and inspiring that the image made a lasting impression in my mind, and I knew that at some point I would love to try doing this for myself. It's taken me a while to bring the idea to reality, but I can tell you that it was worth waiting for! 

I usually buy my ordinary brown free range eggs from the local butcher, but this week I happened to have some gorgeous "Bluebell Auraucana" eggs in. I deliberated about painting them (the magazine eggs were painted in soft chalky pastel shades, perfect for an Easter display), but in the end I decided that I really loved the natural blue shade of the egg shells, and actually I was feeling far too impatient to carry out the whole painting/drying waiting game. So I simply chopped off the tops of my egg shells with a small sharp knife and emptied out the eggy innards to save them for some baking.

I went down to the cellar to dig around for a suitable vessel and found a vintage cake stand that I bought a few years ago from the local collectors centre. I wish I'd photographed it to show you before I covered it in moss as it has such a pretty floral design in the middle. Speaking of moss....................

................isn't it an absolute delight??! Also from the allotment, I seriously love this particular green colour - it's so vibrant and fresh looking and it's pleasing me on a very deep level to actually have some real live moss in the house. I L♥ve moss so much! I used some blobs of blutack to secure the eggshells on their ends, but the mossy hillocks also work to keep them nestled in place. Also, note the kitty feet in the background, she is always so curious about the things I do here in the Attic.

I really, really, really, really enjoyed arranging my little spring flowers in their eggy vases, only the process just didn't last long enough! So I took them all out and did it all over again, just for the sheer pleasure of doing it. I think possibly I overdid it in my typical more-is-more way and maybe I should have used less flowers as it all looks a bit jumbled. But honestly? I simply don't care - I love the sweet exuberance of it all.

I plucked a few beautiful deep purple violas from the hanging basket at the front of the house to add to the yellow and white.....

...... and added some little feathers from my extensive feather collection too. 

I thought it would be a nice touch to add some foil-wrapped easter chocolates which I'd bought for the Little People.  I always enjoy Easter for the opportunity it gives us to enjoy sneaky bits of chocolate whenever we feel the need - I don't think this is something I've ever grown out of actually.

Whilst I was photographing and faffing with my flower arrangement, it occurred to me that something felt like it was missing. A little crochet bird perhaps, to nestle amongst the feathers and moss?

You might remember my mini chicklets from three years ago.................

well, I found some duck egg blue yarn and started to crochet a mini chicklet to perch on my table decoration.........

except that instead of adding wings.......................

I added...................................................................

EARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yup, my chicklet decided it wanted to be a Bunny instead, so who was I to argue??!!!!

I scribbled down the pattern as I made the ears, just in case you might feel a pressing need to hook up your own mini-bunny.

I used DK weight yarn (Stylecraft Special DK) and a 4mm hook.

I'm writing in UK crochet terms.

You make the body in exactly the same way as described in the Mini Chicklet pattern. 

MINI BUNNY EARS (make 2)

Using pink yarn, chain 7; work 1 dc in 2nd chain from hook; 1 dc in next stitch; 1 htr in each of the next 4 stitches. Fasten off.

Change to same colour yarn as used for body of bunny. Insert hook in beginning dc and pull through a loop; chain 1 in same stitch; 1 dc in each of the next 4 stitches; 3 dc in next stitch.

Continue working down the opposite side of the ear, putting your hook under the single loops of the foundation chain, as follows: 1 dc in each of the next 6 stitches; slip stitch into beginning chain-1 to close round. fasten off, leaving a tail end for stitching.

Stitch the bunny ears to the top of the head, then use scraps of yarn to embroider eyes and nose, plus a little flower if you fancy it.

I made a little bunny tail by creating a miniature pom pom - I wound a length of white yarn around two of my fingers, then pulled the yarn-wrap carefully off my fingers and secured it around the centre with a tight knot. I trimmed the loops with sharp scissors to form a pom pom shape, then stitched it securely to my bunny's bottom.

I think my bunny secretly wants to be a mouse actually, as her face looks suspiciously mouse-like.....

.....but with bunny ears and a fluffy white tail, I think she passes the bunny-test.

I really love my table flowers and mini bunny. And of course I adore the moss too. I'm wondering how long I could keep a plate of moss going indoors if I watered it, do you think that could be a thing? I could decorate it with daisies and butterflies in summer....little toadstools in Autumn.....

Well anyways......enough gushing over the moss. Would you like to see the rest of my Easter decorations?

I always decorate the dining room fireplace for Christmas and Easter, it's one of those little rituals that makes me insanely happy and properly in the mood for the holidays. I treated myself a few days ago to a couple of lovely little papier maché birds from a local shop, I just couldn't resist them. I'm pretty sure that I won't be packing them away in the Easter Shoebox as I'd like to be able to look at them all year round.

I bought this greetings card earlier in the month as part of my quest to have cards for every season. It's a triple fold-out card called "Nest" by Mark Hearld. I'm a big fan of Mark Hearld's prints (I'm sorry I couldn't seem to find a website to link to, but if you google his name, you'll see lots of his amazing work. )

The rest of my easter decorations are all things that I've collected over the years, things that get stored away in the Attic eaves and which I very much look forward to seeing each year. There are painted eggs, a little decorative nest, some hand stitched felt egg cosies. My jug of twigs stays on the mantel all  year, but the twigs really work especially well at Easter time.

I kept my twigs simple this year, hanging my small collection of little hand painted wooden eggs (you can find similar ones on Amazon), and my crochet blossom from 6 years ago (SIX YEARS????!!!!!!!)

I made these little cotton flowers in 2012 and if you click on the link, you'll find the pattern for them at the end of the Easter Blossom blog post.

Little Lady came in from school yesterday and squealed with delight when she saw the mantel (a happy Mum moment!), but the boys haven't batted an eyelid or made one single comment. That's OK - I feel certain that I would decorate to celebrate the seasons purely for my own delight if I lived alone, so I know deep down that I do this sort of thing for myself rather than expecting the Little Peeps to be grateful for it. But I do hope that in some small way they will absorb their creative home environment and remember it fondly, even if those memories are just hazy, nostalgic snippets of their childhood in years to come. Crazy ol' Mum and her Seasonal Mantels.....remember that?

I'd love to know if you decorate your home for Easter - do you make an Easter tree? Decorate eggs? Make an Easter display on your table?

Whilst I was searching for Eggshell vase ideas, I found a few lovely random images that I thought you might like....

Putting a weeny bit of earth into egg shells and actually growing little plants in them - I seriously love this idea (and there is moss!)

These egg heads with their cress hair made me smile, and I think would be fun to do with Little B. I also love the simple painted faces on these eggs too.

And how about using egg shells to sow seeds in? What a fabulous environmental alternative to plastic pots.

♥

I find so much happiness in seasonal creativity, even just thinking about all the possibilities makes me completely giddy with excitement. I'm all set to do some seasonal baking tomorrow - I've got speckled candy eggs to go on top of some chocolate crispy nests, and I'm going to have a go at making Easter Biscuits  too. We always had Easter biscuits when we visited my Mum at this time of year, they are a true taste of the season for me.

Hoping you have a fabulous weekend doing things that you love - please do pop over to Gillian's blog and catch up with her Making the Seasons post, it's choc full (literally!) of creative inspiration. Enjoy! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ps all my Seasonal posts are tagged in the Making the Seasons category so you can find them. Gill and I also created a #makingtheseasons hashtag on Instagram for you to tag in your creative makes for us to find - it's a visual feast!

 

 

 

 

 

Adventures in Cross Stitch

photo credit : SatsumaStreet

 

I wouldn't say that I'm a particularly impulsive person, and I'm not somebody who feels the need to have lots of different projects all going on at once. So for me to see something and be so smitten that I dive head first into a completely new creative adventure is unusual. But that's exactly what happened when I came across some cross stitch designs on Instagram (on Valentines Day no less), it really was love at first sight. I did question it for an extremely small number of minutes......will this stitching thing make me happy (very likely), can I justify spending money on new materials (absolutely, I'm worth it), have I really got the time to give over to a new hobby (probably not, but I'm way too excited to care).

 

As you can see from the above photo, the thing that caught my undivided attention last month was a cross stitch project created by Californian designer Jody Rice. Jody's company is called Satsuma Street and when I read that her tag line was "Cross Stitch for a Happy World", well I figured that I would probably be really happy taking a stroll down Satsuma Street.

 

You can follow Jody on Instagram (her name there is @craftnik), and you can read more about how she came to be a cross stitchin' lady on her website (https://satsumastreet.com/) 

 

 

Much like yours truly, Jody's signature is her joyful use of bright colour and as you can probably imagine, I instantly fell head over heels in love with her style. I think she has become most well known for her "Pretty Little Cities" designs, but it was her Zodiac designs that captured my heart.

Satsuma Street cross stitch designs are beautifully photographed for Jody's Etsy shop, which is an absolute delight to browse through. With each listing, Jody explains the type of fabric you will need, and the finished size of the piece. Etsy makes this kind of online purchase an absolute doddle - you click on the Buy-it-now button, pay your money, and as if by magic a PDF file appears for you to download to your computer.

The only information I found that was missing was the total number of different colours needed for each project - I kind of wanted to know this in advance so that I could calculate the cost of the project. So I simply messaged Jody via Etsy to ask her and she told me that the number of colours varied with each design but that on average she used 20 - 30 in each one. Now that's quite a lot of thread to purchase if you are starting from scratch, but well......who can resist the lure of a fistful of thready colour???

The downloading of the cross stitch chart is pretty much instantaeous, but there is an inevitable delay when ordering up supplies. Oh, it was AgOnY waiting for them to arrive!!!! I kept looking at my printed out chart and itching to stitch, and I am not known for my pateince when it comes to the Creative Urge.

I bought my basic supplies on Amazon, as follows :: 

Fabric - black 14 count aida

Scissors - duck egg blue polka dot

Needles - size 24 tapestry 

I was a little scared of the black aida when it arrived - the holes looked awfully close together and very hard to see, but actually it wasn't nearly as tricky as I feared.

The threads are DMC brand "stranded embroidery threads", and I went to an independent online retailer for these. I was recommended The Patchwork Rabbit on Instagram so thought I would check it out (always nifty to get good advance info on these things) and I found their threads to be extremely well priced, all in stock, and super-speedy with the delivery too. The website makes it easy to order - you simply type the colour number code into the "find it easily" search box, and the listing pops straight up with no messing. So I guess there are hundreds of places you could find DMC threads online, but I can certainly recommend the Patchwork Rabbit. 

Now I am not new to stitching or embroidery by any means, having been an avid stitcher for most of my life. But following a counted cross stitch chart was something I'd never done before. Jody's charts are in full colour, but also have these little symbols to make it a bit clearer. In a nutshell - one little symbol in a square = one cross stitch. It's all pretty self explanatory really, although when you download one of Jody's charts you also get an additional PDF file which contains some basic cross stitch know-how.  

The first thing I did was to grab some white sewing thread to mark out the central lines (vertical and horizontal) so that I would know where to begin stitching. Jody advises finding the centre point on your fabric (also marked on her charts) and begin stitching from there, working your way out towards the edges. 

The Zodiac design I'd chosen was made to fit inside a 6" hoop, so it all felt very achievable for this newbie x-stitcher. None of the areas were too big or too complex to count, and Jody's designs use frequent colour changes worked over small, detailed areas so I  never felt bored of the stitching, not once.

In fact, I very quickly became mesmerised by the whole process of slow stitching and absolutely loved being able to see the overall design gently emerge as if by magic. I particularly appreciated all the little design details - being able to stitch highly decorative flowers and leaves as well as the larger areas kept me completely addicted for hours and hours on end.

I couldn't decided at first whether to stitch with my fabric stretched in a hoop, or to keep the fabric floppy and free - there seems to be some debate about this when I looked it up online. In the end I kept my fabric stretched in the flexi-hoop which would eventually become the frame and I enjoyed stitching in and out of the taut fabric. Flexi-hoops have a little metal hanger screwed into the top of them, so before I began stitching I unscrewed it and put it somewhere safe. That meant that my hoop was completely smooth all the way around and there was nothing for the threads to get caught up in. I much preferred it to a traditional embroidery hoop which has the tightening screw at the top.

Flexi-hoops come in all different sizes and finishes - the one I'm using is Woodgrain (although it's plastic of course), and 6" which is the finished size of all Jody's zodiac cross stitch pieces.

{6" flexi-hoop on Amazon} - also easy to find in abundance on eBay.

I popped all my cross stitching paraphernalia inside my best-favourite project bag, a treasured gift hand made for me by my lovely friend Sandra-Cherryheart.

I must confess to you that I really did become obsessed with the business of making weeny crosses onto this black fabric. The above photo was taken just 3 days after I began my adventure - I know!!! Yikes!!! I started out on a Saturday morning, and by Tuesday I only had the birds left to stitch. 

I deliberately saved stitching the birds until last, oh I did SO enjoy creating them! It amazed me how much character and charm could be created using a load of simple little crosses - Jody's designs really are an absolute joy.

The other pleasing thing about the finished piece is the overall supreme neatness of it all. There is a precision in counted cross stitch which I thought might possibly get on my nerves, but actually it was the opposite. I found I loved the necessary concentration, the methodical counting and changing colours in exactly the right place. It gave me a sense of calm to follow each tiny little symbol on the chart, producing so many hundreds of regimented rows of crosses. It was just delightful to know that someone else had carried out a huge amount of design work so that I knew for certain that my picture would work out and become a wonderful finished object.

My cross stitch isn't without it's mistakes mind you. There are a few places where I completely miscounted but had gone too far ahead to be able to unpick my stitches. So I had to tell myself it was ok to leave the mistakes and nobody would really know except me.

I finished my first ever cross stitch within a week, and I am completely in love with it. In case you aren't familiar with the zodiac signs, I'm a Libra which is the sign of balance and harmony, represented by weighing scales. When I think about a set of weighing scales, absolutely nothing inspirational springs to mind at all, so full credit to Jody for designing something so pleasing and beautiful. She is a true artist, and if you delve into her Instagram feed you'll catch glimpses of her design process in action. It's genuine (paper and pencil!), and every finished design of hers is stitched and photographed so that you get a real good sense of the completed piece. Almost every other cross stitch design I have come across online is simply a computer generated representation - it's absolutely not the same as seeing a photo of the real thing.

I thought you might appreciate getting a look at the dirty back side of my cross stitch - ha!!! I didn't use any knots when I started a new colour - I either stitched over the end or carried it under existing stitches....I'm rather proud of it!

I can't remember where I read about finishing off a piece of stitching in a hoop, but I found some general instructions online somewhere. I made sure the design was exactly in the centre, pulled the fabric nice and taut, then trimmed it around with about a cm overhanging. I then used a strong black thread and made a running stitch all around the circle, pulling it tight as I went so that the fabric was gathered in neatly. I finished it off by painting over the raw fabric edge with a little white craft glue to stop it fraying. 

I absolutely love what I made, I love every single little thing about it. I even love the black background, and the way it makes the colours sing. I love knowing that the hours I spent quietly stitching during a cold, snowy week in February turned into something so lovely.

I always intended for my Libra hoop to hang on the wall in my bedroom - it somehow seemed the perfect place for it, and I look at it every single day when I first get up in the morning, and just before I snuggle into bed at night.

The wall looks a bit bare at the moment but I'm hoping to build up a little collection of pictures and pretty things to add over time. Little B made me the hama bead heart, and the pictures are just greetings cards stuck on the wall with washi tape.

So what's the next chapter going to be in my cross stitch adventure??

Well...................................................................................................

photo credit : SatsumaStreet

 ............I'm already started on a second zodiac design, this time it's Pisces which is J's sign. Aren't the fishes amazing?

I found that I only needed to buy 6 additional colours to add to the ones I already had for the Libra design and I was good to go full steam ahead with the fish. I'm still loving the whole cross-stitch process, although I sometimes find the lack of good direct light a bit of a problem. I've found that if I keep the white paper chart on my lap whilst I'm stitching, I can more easily see the holes in the black aida fabric, but good lighting is essential for this kind of close work.

I would love to hear if any of you are on your own cross stitch adventure, and if you have any good recommendations for modern designers. I haven't dared look too far into the world-wide-web just yet, but boy, I'm tempted. There are probably some amazing stitchy bloggers out there, just waiting for the likes of me to tumble fully down their stitchy rabbit holes. But first - the fishes are calling..................................

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Emerging

H ♥ E ♥ L ♥ L ♥ O !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've tried to be here a good few times in recent weeks but for one reason and another it just wasn't happening. Thank you for all your kind messages, so very much appreciated I can tell you. S0 here I am, emerging from what has been a slow, slow time of laying low in recent weeks. I'm doing OK, feeling the heavy grey fog lifting a little more each day, finding my energy levels slowly but surely returning to something resembling close to normal. I've one more month of hefty iron supplements to come through, and I'm hopeful that with some other interventions in place that I should be able to put all this behind me very soon. My spirit has felt low to be honest, but I am super-relieved to recognise that I am most definitely over the worst and feeling very much brighter again. Phew.

I just spent a while looking through my photos from February and early March, and really I am quite surprised by them! I had forgotten so much of the past couple months which have felt like a blur of fatigue to me, and yet there is much photographic evidence to remind me that there was indeed lots of all round good stuff. I see woodland strolls, hilltop views, flowers, yarn, sunshine, coffee, cake, stripy wellies, a purring kitty, a blanket den and the most gorgeous looking moss. I see the comforts of home and family, warmth, creativity and love - all that is good in my life. I wish I had had more energy to blog about these things as they happened over the past days and weeks, but it's still good to look back, to recall the little snippets of those days and feel a rush of gratitude for it all. I can't quite seem to spin the dialogue to go with the photos in my usual wordy fashion, but I'm hoping the images will give you the jist of things and tell you that I'm doing OK.

I've not stopped being creative in my time away from the computer, although I've felt quite erratic and weirdly unfocussed with everything of late.  I finished my first cross stitch project and immediately started another (yes, I will show you very soon I promise). I went full tilt through another obsessive mandala making phase, designing a new pattern which I am thrilled with and will be sharing here on my blog very soon. I was away for four days last week taking a much needed short holiday, and I packed a bag of yarn scraps to take with me. As you can see from the bottom photo, I made a whole heap of little solid granny squares which I began stitching together today. This is a fun project, I'll show you more very soon (it's not a blanket or a cushion or a bag, are you in shock?!)

It was my bloggy-birthday last week you know, on the 12th March. I quietly celebrated a whole decade of Attic24, and feel a little sad that I didn't have it in me to write about it at the time. It all felt so overwhelmingly emotional, and my brain wasn't up to articulating those feelings into words. I've been thinking a lot about my blog this week though, and there is definitely a ten-year-something that wants to be written......but I have a mandala tutorial to make, cross stitch finery to share, 38 more solid granny squares to crochet and stitch together and all sorts of other things grabbing for my attention. My current to-do list is approaching epic proportions, but I'm OK with that. I'm emerging from my low-slow phase and I am so very, very glad.

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Snow, Snow and More Snow

What a week! I'm sure that unless you've been completely hibernating under a palm tree somewhere tropical then you will all know about the winter storms which are battering the UK right now. We're experiencing exceptionally cold temperatures as high winds howl through the landscape, but that's nothing compared to the snow we've had this week - it's been amazing, if not a little unreal. Here in my patch we had around 7 inches laid on the ground yesterday after it snowed almost continuously for three days straight. This is a lot of white flakes for us, and it was enough to grind the roads to a halt and close all the schools for four whole days. The canal froze over and snow settled on top, making the whole scene seem strangely odd.

I've felt so grateful to live somewhere that allows us to walk ten minutes to the shops for food and fuel without needing the car, and for us to have a local park nearby where we can go and do childish things on brightly coloured pieces of plastic. I never sledged as a child as snow was an absolute rarity on the south west coast. But living in the North I have discovered the joys of it in my adult life, and have absolutely no hesitation in fighting the children for a turn, or pleading with them to let me ride on the back (so much more fun with two - the extra weight adds a fair bit of extra va-va-voom!). It's the best fun I can tell you. 

Today though, I've not felt like venturing out at all, it's as if all my snow excitement suddenly evaporated and all I've wanted to do is sit quietly by the fire and flick through the  beautiful seasonal pages in my magazines. The Little People have been mostly ecstatic about the unexpected break from school routine, but today I noticed a weeny bit of cabin fever setting in. Mild bickering, a wave of boredom, general lethargy.

I baked a lemon drizzle cake as much for the heat of the oven and the scent of baking as for the cakey end result. I've drunk far too much hot milky coffee. I've woken up in the mornings not having a clue what day of the week it is, or what I'm supposed to be doing. I've sat wrapped in my blankets with a hot water bottle tucked up against me as I've crocheted and I've cross-stitched. Today I've found myself longing for some peaceful silence, just a little teensy bit, but on the whole, this week has been absolutely magical, a snow week to remember. In years to come, we will say "Do you remember the snow of twenty eighteen when you were eight/thirteen/fifteen? The schools were closed for fours days! Imagine that!"

Stay cosy, whatever your weather - I hope you've got a crochet blanket to wrap around you.....

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