Embroidered sunflowers

Another craft post, I guess my craft room is paying dividends! Though in fairness these stick & stitch embroidery patches were a pre-move purchase from BlackbirdnBloom on Etsy. I bought them, along with some bee patches, to use to embroider over those annoying holes you get in some t-shirts, but what with everything going on I didn’t get around to doing anything more than popping them into my sewing box. I knew that I had enough embroidery threads in varying colours and even better, I knew where these where now that I’d unpacked in the new house.

They’re easy to use too, all I needed to do to get started was work out where I wanted the designs and what colours to use.

And while sunflowers are traditionally yellow and brown, I opted for the card with the dusky pinks and pale yellows (I told you in my recent crochet post that they’re my go to colours!), and then quickly realised that my choice was also probably influenced by my top!

But anyway, the embroidery finally started.

As ever I decided to improvise, with the colours, the blending and pretty much everything else. I also got braver with this as I went along, likening the embroidery thread to colouring helped a lot, and I think the effort was worth it.

Once the embroidery covering the small annoying holes was complete, it was time to wash off the excess patch.

It was magic. Cold water and a very small amount of rubbing and the white surrounds easily disappeared.

I think the photos look much more dramatic when it’s wet!

Anyway, after trying my top on to admire my embroidery skills, I decided to add more embroidery, and not just to cover the holes. Before I could back out I stuck the design in place and got my needle out again, sewing more flowers up towards the neck, but off centre - I’ve a thing for things being a bit skew-whiff, to me it’s much more pleasing.

And I’m really pleased with the results, though less pleased with my attempts to photograph them. In fact the navy blue top wasn’t photographing at all well, so there was nothing else for it but a mirror selfie.

As you can see, it’s subtle but visible - and I think it looks like it’s meant to be there. I’ve worn this t-shirt out a few times now, including to a local sewing group here, and no one has asked if I made it. I’m hoping that’s because it looks good, rather than the other!

I’ve yet to start a t-shirt with the bees, but it’s on my list - and more importantly on my workbench, rather than shoved away. But it’s behind a project or two yet, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be long before I start…

Post Comment Love 20 - 22 October

Hello there, and welcome back to this week’s #PoCoLo - a friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week, posts which are older will be removed from the linky. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here this week we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

It’s been another week here where the weather determines what we do; on the dry days MOH has been out in the garden continuing to paint the trellis around the heat pump. I’ve left him to it this week, but one day he was out there it was on the cold side and the heat pump was blowing cold air on him too for good measure. I’m glad I stayed inside busying myself!

We walked to the pub on Sunday for a huge roast dinner ahead of the rugby game, which we stayed to watch. Then it was a 30 minute walk home along the bridleway which wasn’t as dark as we expected - we had torches at the ready. It was pretty chilly, but not so bad really though I’m glad the brief cold snap was brief.

This photo I snapped out of the window, not quite believing the colour of the sky, even though we are treated to quite a few red skies up here. Isn’t it beautiful?

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Making an autumn wreath

A few weeks ago I saw a post on Facebook by The Flower Fairy here in Newark offering workshops to create an autumn wreath, and I thought why not.

I’ve tried Christmas wreaths before, with mixed results - they look ok on the table, and ok on the door for a while, but not as good as those in the shops created by professionals. So I signed up before first making sure the workshops could accommodate a novice.

The first step was to fill the wreath ring with moss, which isn’t something I’d done previously - and after a trim it looked ok - and still round!

Lucinda had provided all the materials for the workshop, including tons (probably not literally) of stems in a range of greens, oranges and whites to create the wreaths. The next step was to break these larger stems into more manageable sections, and end up with smaller pieces to create bunches to add to the mossy ring. As well as these there were rosehips, chinese lanterns, crab apples and grasses. I opted for the first two, knowing that I could use the crab apples and grasses from my own garden if I wanted to top up my wreath, or even make another at some point!

I spent the evening wiring small bunches of plants onto the mossy ring, while chatting to the women alongside me. It seems that I was so busy making my wreath that I didn’t take any more photos until it was done.

And I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.

I purposely chose not to make it symmetrical, as nature rarely is, and I like the natural look.

I’d not used moss on a florist ring before, and each bunch was secured by winding wire around the stems, using a single length for the whole way round - which seemed much easier than I remembered. Arriving home I put my newest treasured possession safely in the garage so that I could work out how to hang it the next day.

Of course, we didn’t have the right sized hook and nor did we really want to put anything too permanent on our new door, either of them. I knew that I’d be hanging this on our back door, which is the door we use - we rarely use our front door, and so wouldn’t get to admire my handiwork hardly at all.

If you look closely at the photo you can see a dark strip over the top of the door - that’s a very clever wreath door hanger, which hooks easily over the top of the door. The wreath fits into the hook, but I’ve also used the ribbon to tie it on so it’s a little bit more secure - hopefully!

I’m so pleased with it that I’ve already bought some florists wire and some large wire rings (I already had some small ones) - all I need when I’m ready to make another is some moss and some greenery. I’ve already been eyeing up the plants in our border and I’ll be keeping a keen eye on the hedgerows when we’re out walking.

But in the meantime, I’m going to indulge myself with a few more detailed pictures of the one that’s hanging on the door.