And that was March. We’ve already lost an hour today here in the UK for British summer time so time is flying a little faster this weekend.
March on the stitch journalMarch
As always, a little stitching every day. Just to catch the moments and tie them down somehow, so they don’t fly away unnoticed.
March detailMarch detail
91 days of 2024 and the top third of this vintage linen cloth is filling up nicely:
Looking back
April lies ahead. The blankness of the space for the future always startles me a little.
April
I like to keep the back of the work accessible so that I can see where I’ve been. Sometimes I like it better than the front.
the back
Next month I think it will be time to make the Janet Clare artisan apron. I got the pattern and planned to start on it late last year but the house move got in the way. I’ll have a look for some suitable fabrics in my collection and will share my progress once I get going.
Artisan apron by Janet Clare
In the meantime, today is a family day at home enjoying the rest of this bank holiday weekend.
My room is more or less done and sorted. Would you like to see?
Here’s the wall opposite the window:
work room
The map of the world is there to help me improve my geography, which is pretty poor; also I like to see where parcels of thread and fabric are going on their long journeys overseas. The music stand is supposed to encourage me to practise my flute, which hasn’t seen the light of day for about ten years. I’ve never played it particularly well but it used to be something I enjoyed, so I intend to make time for it.
Going anti-clockwise around the room:
Ikea Kallax unit and drawers
The pictures on the wall are from a Ton Schulten calendar. I find his colour palette and compositions very uplifting.
There is room to grow on the Kallax unit:
spare space
I have plans for that top left space: at some point I will make a miniature (twelfth scale) model of my work room. Just for the fun of it. I don’t know where I’m going to find all this extra time yet, by the way.
Next to the drawers I have two Ikea Micke desks placed at right angles to make an L shaped workspace. The right-hand side is for admin:
desk space
You can never have too many bookmarks, right?
pot of bookmarks
And the other side is for more creative work:
room with a view
The holly tree outside is in our garden; the conifer next to it is in next door’s garden. The trees are full of squirrels and at the moment we are engaged in a futile battle of wills trying to keep them off the bird feeders. There is a squirrel baffle en route at this very moment so we’ll see if that outwits them.
Moving around the room again, one of the fitted wardrobes has been fitted with shelves and has become a separate space for the contents of the shop – threads, fabrics and packaging materials.
shop stock
There is a lot of floor space in the middle of the room:
floor space (rug from Ikea)
I probably need some sort of comfortable chair, something to curl up and read in. It can wait.
The finished room is almost exactly as I imagined it would look when we first saw the house in October, and every time I walk in here I find myself smiling.
I’ll spend this week sifting through some ideas and thoughts to see if I can roughly plan the rest of the year.
But for today, I think I will just enjoy my new space and start on today’s daily stitching:
… and gradually finding a home for all the treasures. Almost every object on this little shelf unit was a gift, chosen for me or made for me by friends or family, and all of it makes me happy. It sits above the admin side of my desk so that I can look up from the spreadsheets and smile.
Meanwhile I’m also getting on with this:
hand-dyed cotton embroidery threads for winding into skeins
I’m still unpacking, but I got slightly distracted yesterday.
I’d found some tired cushion covers downstairs that had faded a little and were surplus to requirements. I was so excited about what was coming next that I forgot to photograph them – but basically I took the cushion cover backs off and joined the two fronts together to make a strip about 16″ x 24″ (I had to cut off some badly light-damaged pieces so not everything was salvageable).
cushion covers being repurposed
I already had a piece of foamcore (two pieces of white card with 5mm foam in between) which I covered with cork sheet and brown paper, then laid the old cushion covers over it.
I’ve mitred and stitched the corners on the back:
corners
and then roughly laced up the back as you would for preparing embroidery for framing:
securing the back
Finally I’ve covered the back with a layer of felt, tucking in some ribbon to act as a hanging loop
Felt backing
And it’s made a very convenient little noticeboard that I can pin things to:
notice board (calendar and houses postcard by Claire Henley)
Meanwhile, the Ikea Kallax unit is filling up. I’ve broadly just thrown things at it in no particular order, just to get everything out of boxes and off the floor. I’ll sort through each little cubbyhole at some point.
Work room progress
I particularly like this little quiet corner of my desk:
A quiet corner
It’s just a vintage port box laid on its side with a spice rack on top, perfect for holding small things.
I hope to have the room more or less finished next week, and then I’ll be ready to re-open the shop. Until then, I will keep going.
I’m finding all sorts of treasure as I unpack the boxes in my work room.
These are quilts I made around 15 years ago, mostly with commercial cotton fabric scraps.
glorious colour
All are hand-pieced and hand-quilted, made using the quilt-as-you-go (QAYG) method. This is where you piece, layer and quilt each block separately and then join all the blocks together. There are lots of QAYG tutorials online if you’re not familiar with it.
quilts
This block made me smile:
number 24
Made in the first house I owned and rediscovered during the second week in our new house, the number of which happens to be… 24. Not only that, but the little yellow flowers next to it suggest spring. Maybe I was seeing my own future. Spooky!
Quilt-as-you-go gives you the opportunity to use up larger scraps for the back of the blocks, rather than having to wrestle with a large piece of backing fabric. I never have enough floor space for that, so I prefer this more portable method. The backs of these 7″ quilt blocks are all different:
quilt back
Nice to find this little burst of colour on what’s been a grey overcast day.
Day 9 in our new home, and I’ve been working on getting my room into shape, as well as trying to unpack some of the boxes in the rest of the house.
My work room is the second bedroom, north-facing and about 11 feet square. The previous owners painted it peach and installed a dark red/pink/brown carpet.
work room
The walls are the wrong colour, and the carpet had to go.
You’d think peach would be quite easy to cover, but it’s had four coats of good quality white paint (yes, that’s brilliant white – it looks grey because of the light) and it’s still a little bit patchy. I think I may well just call it done and put lots of pictures up. In any case most of the worst bits are where the furniture will go.
white walls
The floorboards seem pretty good, so I’m painting them too.
white room in progress
I’ve just painted enough of the floor to get some furniture into position, because the desk and drawers are currently forming an obstacle course in the main bedroom, and then I’ll be able to paint the rest of the floor.
