Stumpwork Hedgerow Pinwheel

I bought this little kit well over ten years ago, when the Viking Loom was still in the shadow of York Minster! It used to live in my school bag, ostensibly so that I had something to stitch in quiet moments… Hence why it was still unfinished ten plus years later.

But with a few last stitches during the Easter break and the addition of the black seed bead blackberries, I finally completed it…

…and decided to add my monogram to the back using some of the leftover threads. First the A and the H in split stitch and the start of a trailing stem in back stitch.

Lazy daisy leaves.

And poppy red french knot flowers.

Finally the making up, which took ages until I finally found the pinwheel for the centre but somewhere in the last ten years I have misplaced some of the pins, so it’s a partial pinwheel, which is irritating.

Nice to have it finally finished!

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Small finishes

It’s reading for a new show time again and so I have managed to sit and stitch through a number of small finishes. Firstly, one of the designs Ruth produced for us at November’s Embroiderers’ Guild meeting, made up into a card.

The border is in feather stitch, the centre in a spiral of split stitch, the main oval parts of the petals in Corded Brussels stitch (needlelace) and the ends in satin stitch.

Then I decided to make up a little magazine kit I bought from eBay in 2009. Simple stem stitch and lazy daisy stitch for the wheel barrow and the flowers/leaves.

Then french knot middles to the flowers and my first ever attempt at a Dorset Button for the wheel.

I was fairly pleased with it until I put the kit picture next to it for comparison…

Obviously a technique I need to work on but it has made a nice little card.

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A birthday card

My youngest will be 7 next week and after having spent for ever cross stitching her a Hello Kitty card last year (which completely reinforced my antipathy towards cross stitch) I decided to try something completely different and a lot quicker.

I’d bought this kit from ebay and it looked pretty quick to make up.

Well, that was until I decided that actually I didn’t fancy doing that part of the instructions, and I wanted to change another part, and then I decided to change the look of the little girl in the design to make it look like my little girl and basically, it ended up like this:

I love the idea of working from a starting point that you can bend, twist and adapt to your own ends. I’ve always relished the challenge of being given something that appears limiting and then having the bloodymindedness and creativity to turn it into something that I want to do.  Bending the rules, almost, but not quite, to breaking point: now that appeals!

It’s no wonder my little ‘Birthday Princess’ is dynamite on legs really, is it?!

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