Month: August 2024

August

Eight months down, four to go. Each month seems to vanish faster than the last.

August, daily stitching

As always, no plan, no design. Just pick up a threaded needle and start stitching.

August, daily stitching

In the traditional Celtic calendar, autumn begins with Lammas on the 1st of August. The weather presenters will have us believe it’s still summer because it’s warm and the sun is shining. But weather is not season, and here in the UK you can see the light changing throughout August, and by the end of the month you can smell and feel autumn as well as see it.

August, daily stitching

I really like the softer muted colours that come with autumn and winter, and I’ll enjoy choosing some of them for the rest of the year.

August and July, looking back

Thread winding is still very much ongoing in preparation for the shop update some time next month, and the advantage for me is that I get to replenish some of my own threads too.

dyer’s perks: new threads

I also like to road-test them to check the quality. I’ve got a couple of new suppliers this time so I need to satisfy myself that the threads are up to it. Very happy so far.

end of August – road-testing new threads

August wouldn’t be complete without a view of the other side. The side we don’t show the world, the side we don’t choose to look at, the side that makes us what we are. Whether we like it or not, it’s there and it’s got nothing to hide. As always, I like some of these marks better from the back. One of these days I will turn the stitch journal over, stitch on the back and let the ‘wrong’ side be on show.

August – the back

We’re having our bathroom renovated next week. I’m kind of dreading the upheaval, the noise, the mess, the dust, etc but very much looking forward to a long soak in a hot bath when it’s all over. I’m not sure how much the disruption will slow down the thread winding, but I’ll do my best to keep up.

Threads on sale

While we all wait for me to wind the latest batch of newly dyed threads, there are a couple of special offers in the shop right now.

**EDIT/UPDATE – now all sold out, thank you. Your threads are on their way.

These are the perle 8 silk skeins that are discontinued, and are reduced to clear. When they’re gone they’re gone forever as I won’t be buying this particular thread again.

Please read the full post before heading to the links – thank you.

There are some beautiful perle 8 sets here:

silk perle 8 sets

And there are some single skeins (not dyed by me; please read the shop listing for full details) here:

single skeins, perle 8 silk

Please, a caveat if I may – if you are in the US, please check that you’ve picked United States in the drop-down country menu and not United Kingdom. If you accidentally pick the UK option the system will charge the UK postage rate rather than the correct overseas rate, and this causes extra work and stress for me as I then have to email you to explain. Overseas shipping is expensive. I only charge what it actually costs, and I often make a small loss on international postage. The difference between UK and US shipping costs is about £10. This happens surprisingly often – several times a week, sometimes – and I simply can’t afford to lose £10 every time I ship goods to the US because the correct postage hasn’t been paid. It really isn’t fair to make exceptions.

If this continues to happen then I will have no option but to consider – with immense regret – discontinuing overseas shipping altogether.

Also – if you’re in Europe, please be aware that your country will charge import duties. This is an unfortunate consequence of Brexit and nothing to do with me; I have no control over the amount charged and I don’t profit from it in any way. You can use an online import tax checker to estimate what the additional cost will be.

Apologies for the ranting. Of course I could vastly inflate all my prices and call it ‘free’ shipping. I’d be interested to hear your views, particularly if you’re not in the UK.

Catching up

Operation Restock the Shop continues apace and is keeping me more busy than I thought it was possible to be.

Here’s what’s been happening this week:

A few are dry and ready to wind:

It will take me at least a few weeks to sort and wind everything here. There are some positively scrumptious colours, and they’ll be in the shop as soon as I can get them there – optimistically the second week in September, realistically probably a bit later.

As always, I won’t announce the shop update – I prefer to sidle everything in quietly – but keep an eye out if you’re interested.

For now I’ve got my eye on some of those delicious threads. Dyer’s perks, I call it. Looking forward to a colourful weekend.

Creative English Paper-Piecing

After weeks and weeks of work, play, and production, I think my new course on English paper-pieced patchwork is about ready to be let loose.

new Teachable course

There’s a free preview, so make sure you watch that before committing – just so you know what you’re letting yourself in for.

Mostly what you’re letting yourself in for is me trying (and occasionally failing) to keep my hands in shot where you can see them. I think it’s probably – mostly – good enough though.

Many people think English paper-piecing is hexagons. Not the way I do it. In fact there are no hexagons here, apart from a few accidental or antique ones.

So, what do we cover in this course?

We start with English paper piecing (EPP) for absolute beginners, where you get to make a little box like this out of simple squares:

patchwork box, 3″ x 1.5″

Then we make a paper-piecing sampler where you can practise piecing triangles, curves, and irregular shapes:

EPP sampler

We get creative with fabrics and paper:

getting creative

And we do some colourful sketchbook work:

sketchbook page

Before you know it, you’ll be branching out unaided and doing your own thing.

patchwork circles

And as if all that wasn’t enough, we do a (pretty brisk) overview of making a patchwork cover for your sketchbook, we have a whistle-stop look at how quilt-as-you-go works, and we see how to turn a pretty square of patchwork into this:

little hanging bag

Do I sound as if I’ve recently taken a course on Basic Marketing for the Self-Employed? I promise you I haven’t. But here’s the thing about being self-employed. You have to do All The Jobs, including all the marketing and self-promotion, which is my least favourite thing. My second least favourite thing, by the way, is video-editing – as you’ll see if you embark on the course. It’s all very informal, as usual.

OK, enough self-promotion and advertising.

In other news, I’m now setting about trying to restock the shop somewhat as all the fabrics are sold out. More on that later.

hand-dyed fabric packs coming soon

In the meantime did I mention that I have a new course out…?

😎