MarmaladeRose

The Garden Wall. Embellished Felt.

2012-01-24T21:58:00.014Z

Hello all, it's been quite yukky here in Wensleydale today, snow on the hills, low mist, and wet, wet, wet...So I thought I'd bring you a taste of summer in the shape of my latest felt picture. It started life as a very rough pencil sketch from a little magazine picture. I add a few splodges of colour and scribble a few notes down in the margins.

Next I make my base fabric by wet felting Merino wool. You can see how this is done in my felt tutorial from waaaaay back in 2008! This is always a bit hit and miss as you only have a certain amount of control over the felting process. You can never be totally sure where your fibres will have moved to during all that rubbing and rolling!
As I'm quite a control freak I think it does me good not to have complete control. It makes me have to find ways to work with what I have rather than what I would have liked, which in turn stretches me and makes the whole piece more organic, it has to grow rather than be designed and just made. Once the felt is dry...
the good bit starts...the embroidery! I always have a little panic at the start though, it's that blank piece of paper syndrome; where shall I start, what colour and type of thread shall I use! You wouldn't believe how long I put this bit off sometimes!

Once I have a few patches of embroidery started and I've 'tasted' a few colours, I'm ok.

All these tiny little flowers are made from pure silk which I hand dye myself and then shape and individually stitch into place.

I try not to use too many different embroidery stitches as I don't want the piece to be an 'embroidery' as such. I just need the stitches to add texture and accentuate the shapes and colours already in the felt.

I absolutely love the dry stone wall in this piece, and the little clump of trees in the background, I think they worked really well. I've never done anything 'hard' like the wall before, I've only ever done soft vegetation and flowers so every time I see it I want to dance a little jig while my heart does a little squishy thing in my chest.

So.....

Here it is, complete and in all it's glory!
A true Ta daa! moment.

Till next time

love fi x

1930's style patchwork cushion.

2012-01-21T22:18:00.010Z

Ooo...you are a lovely bunch, thank you for all the Granny Pilley quilt love and Sally...get your great granny's quilt top out and make it into a quilt anyway you can! I'm sure if your great granny had a sewing machine at the time she would have used it. You need to give it life so that it can be loved and used as it was meant to be. Go on you can do it, we're all behind you.
After my first little experiment with joining hexagons by machine I thought I'd have another go, so I used some lovely 1930's style fabrics that I had left over from a previous project.

As you can probably tell by the photos, it's a little bit fiddly, but still certainly quicker than piecing by hand.

This the front before I pressed it.

There we go, pressed and a border attached basically so I could see the hexys framed. I only had a few squares of the 30's fabric, that's why it's only a small patch of hexys.

Not sure what to do next or even what I was making, I cut little 1 x 2 inch rectangles from the scraps of fabric left from each one of the squares that I'd cut the hexys from. (I hate to waste anything, lol.) And then I stitched them together and attached them around the edge. Once I done this my piece was almost large enough to make the front of a cushion cover, so another little trip to my fabric cupboard and another round of edging and I was ready to quilt my piece.

I chose to quilt the patchwork as I don't like to have all the raw edges of the patches inside my cushion cover, I like to have a backing on it so that all those raw edges are hidden away. So as I was putting a backing fabric on I thought I might as well put a piece of wadding in between. I laid my patchwork on a slightly larger piece of wadding and then laid these both on a larger piece of muslin. It's done this way because your work will shrink up slightly as you quilt it and you don't want to find that you're loosing your backing behind the edges of your front!

Once I'd finished quilting the front I trimmed off the excess muslin and wadding and stitched on a simple envelope back, and Bobs your uncle!

A 1930's style patchwork cushion, lovely in the kitchen or perfectly perfect for a little persons playroom, very soft and snuggly.

Now then...Folksy shop or Etsy shop? Hmmm...Etsy's turn this time I think.

Next time we really must catch up with some felting before I forget about it completely!

love fi x

Granny Pilley's patchwork finished at last!

2012-01-18T21:30:00.017Z

Do you remember many moons ago I found a box of treasure in my local charity shop? The unassuming brown cardboard box had the words 'Granny Pilley's embroidery' written on the side. Words that made my eyes twinkle and my heart race. I could hardly hand over my pennies quick enough to secure the box as my own.

And do you remember this higgledy-piggledy chunk of patchwork hexagons that I found inside that unassuming cardboard box? See... I told you it was a treasure box.
You may even remember that I unpicked and restitched the hexagons adding a border made from fabric I'd also found in a charity shop and a backing made from my Mums old sheet that I dyed pink.Well I have to say if you can remember all that you must have a memory like an elephant! I've just had to check back and I originally showed you 'Granny Pilleys' embroidery box way back in this post in October 2009! How embarrassing that it has taken me sooo long to get it finished. Yes you heard me right I've finally finished the quilt, HOORAY! I did have difficulty quilting it though. I started off quilting by hand and ended up quilting it on the machine and even then I got bored with that too! lol.

I've spent the last few days stitching together strips of fabric for the binding.

Look! How neat is that join? A pleasure to behold for sure!

I pressed it all in half along its entire length, this is the only kind of ironing I do, teehee.

I then pinned the binding to the edge of the quilt.

And stitched it in place moving the needle position on my sewing machine to the right so that I could run the fabric up the edge of the presser foot giving me a 1/4 inch seam. If you can't change the needle position on your machine you can buy a 1/4 inch foot or as you can see in the picture (the grubby beigey patch), stick a strip of masking tape on the foot plate 1/4 inch away from your needle and then use that to guide your fabric against.

I carefully stitched along each edge stopping one 1/4 inch from the end to make a neat corner. (I'll give a link at the end to a fab tutorial for binding quilts) Finally I stopped leaving a gap of about 10 inches and here comes the really clever part.

You trim your strip so that it overlaps exactly the same amount as the width you cut the edging in the beginning. So my edging was 2 and a 1/2 inches wide, so I overlap the ends by 2 and a 1/2 inches.

Then you overlap the two ends like we did when we joined the strips together and stitch at a 45 degree angle. Don't worry the tutorial makes this far simpler than I'm making it look.

Voila!

Isn't that just perfectly perfect! It's at this point you can dance a little jig if you wish.

Now comes my most favourite part of all! OH how I love doing this bit!

We flip the edging over and...

hand stitch the binding in place allll the waaaay around. Yummy! Don't forget to neaten your corners and stitch them in place too.

Ta daa!

My totally thrifted quilt!

Well where ever Granny Pilley is now I hope she's pleased with what I've done.
She can rest safe in the knowledge that it will have a very happy and useful life here in the MarmaladeRose household and is already loved very much. As promised here is the tutorial I use to bind my quilts, beautifully written by a very talented lady who's blog is called 'Don't look now'.

Till next time

love fi x

Patched Hexagon Pot Holder Tutorial.

2012-01-11T16:11:00.017Z

Hello all, here we are at the start of a new year and I don't know about you but I'm really quite excited. The Christmas decorations have been packed away, hooray and the last of the festive food has been finished (apart from the obligatory handful of left over toffees). #1 has returned to uni and #2 is back at school. Visiting relatives have been hugged, kissed and waved goodbye, all that's left to do now is a bit of 'start-as-you-mean-to-go-on' tidying and sorting. Starting with my fabric stash, well part of it. My lovely mum helped me sort and refold the bottom 3 shelves of my fabric cupboard; so previously I was forcing fabric in willy-nilly now it looks like there could even be room for some more! ;) My first bit of stitching of 2012 was a little experiment joining patchwork hexagons by machine. A little bit fiddly but certainly quicker than by hand. I think I'd need another practice session before I made anything larger.Here's the back looking pretty much as you would expect the back to look. Over all a pleasing result to my experiment but what shall I do with this little piece of patched hexies. While I was wondering what to do with it I turned under all the outer seams and machine stitched them in place.I know lets make it into a pot holder!

Would you like a little padded pot holder tutorial?

Good. I shall proceed.

This will be a round pot holder, padded and decorated with our hexy patchwork. Firstly place 2 pieces of cotton fabric right sides together on top of some thin wadding or wool fabric or something like that, I've use a piece of acrylic fleece fabric left over from making my christening cake.

Draw a circle on your fabric slightly bigger than your hand, mine was about 8 inches in diameter. You can't see it here but I've tucked a little hanging tab in between the two top fabric layers so that it gets sewn in. Stitch around your circle making sure to stitch over the hanging tab but leaving an opening for turning.

(I have no idea why this photo is on it's side. It wasn't before I downloaded it!)

Trim closely around your stitching line leaving a little more fabric at the opening as you need to turn this in and it will be extra fiddly if you don't leave a good half inch of fabric. Trim the fleece into a nice circle though, you don't need the extra fleece at the opening.Turn right sides out. Here you can see our fleece padding neatly sandwiched inside and the little hanging tab...well...hanging.

Next tuck in the fabric around the opening and pin.

I chose a dark pink thread as it's quite nice to see the stitching on patchwork and we're going to make it very neat. Fill the bobbin with the same colour.

Sew around your pot holder quite close to the edge to close the opening and to help hold all three layers together, it also gives a neater flatter finish.

I then went around and did a second row of stitching between my first and the edge, but one row would be enough.

Centre your hexy patchwork on top and 'stitch in the ditch' around the centre hexagon and along the seams radiating outwards. Stitching (quilting) through all four layers of fabric will hold the layers together so you have no baggy, loose areas of fabric when you grab something with your pot holder.

Lastly stitch very close to the edges of the patchwork all the way around.Now because we've stitched very neatly in the 'ditches', the back should look like this...almost as good as the front...

which looks like this! This is the fourth pot holder I have ever made. Here is the first. I made this when I was 12 as I wanted to have a go a patchwork. I cut up an old three tier gypsy skirt I had been given by my auntie. I had no idea what I was doing but I carefully stitched the little squares together by hand and it turned out ok if a little bit thick but hey!, 30 years later it's still going strong!

This was my second go at hand stitched patchwork. I did this at a little sewing class I attended on a Friday morning while the children were at nursery. As you can see it's very grubby and well used, in fact I use it every day as it's nice and thin making it easy to grab lid knobs and handles.

Dosie Rosie may recognise my third pot holder as she won a giveaway quilt I made of the same design. This little square was printed on the fabric to show you what the large quilt would look like when finished. Well I couldn't waste it could I!

I even patched the back. This one was machine stitched.

Well, there you go! One pot holder pressed into action. The pan full of chilli is curtesy of Wonderful Man. It's his signature dish! lol.

love fi x

Makes for 2011

2012-01-01T00:20:00.013Z

What did I actually make last year?

Hmmm...let me see...

Cushions, crocheted, embroidered, pieced, patched, quilted and gathered.

Button jointed bunnies.

A variety of vintage linen lavender hearts.

I made bunting from old napkins. I stitched community bunting in the garden and made bunting for boys.

A bevvy of brooches were, embroidered and embellished for the ladies.

I flirted with felt flowers, stuck sticks in crochet flowers and even yarn bombed in public.

I crocheted tea cosies and stitched Christening cake.

I designed, stitched, printed, cut and stuck my own range of greetings cards and made a patchwork chair pad tutorial that is still to be posted, oops!

Springtime bags were sprung, and crochet purses created.

A little dress designing and making took place.

A new woolly hat was designed and made. Cutesy baby boots were knitted and aprons were fashioned.

Some festive goodies came into being at the end of the year but the pieces I am most proud of...

were my fabric pictures and wall hanging.

First is the hand felted and embroidered wall hanging for Tilly Rose, the most darling patient lady in the world. Then came my fabric applique of the Old Sweet Shop in Hawes. Swiftly followed by a gift for my Mum, a fabric applique of her house and garden. And lastly one I don't think I've posted about yet, a piece of hand felted and embroidered art that has already been snapped up and gone to it's loving new home. That's obviously got to be an early post for this year.

All that's left to say is

I wish all of my lovely blog readers a very Happy and Peaceful New Year and thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the support friendship you've given me over the last year.

Here's to the new one.

Cheers!

love Fi x

Was it good for you?

2011-12-27T20:20:00.010Z

Seasons Greetings.

I hope it was good for you. This was my applique Christmas card design for those special cards I needed to send.

Our snow finally melted, Hooray! Here you can see it on top of the fells where it always lingers.

Preparations finally got underway, oranges studded with cloves. The orange on the right is last years that has been sat on the top of the radiator all year long. It has totally dried out but still faintly smells.

Gifts were wrapped. I luuuurve brown paper. A little bit of ribbon and a home made gift tag makes it all very special.

A little home made baking was accomplished, after all it's not Christmas in our house with out a sausage roll on Christmas Eve.

Our local butchers shop always has a lovely window display but at Christmas time it looks very 'traditional country' with pheasant, rabbits, duck, and partridge. Well I think it was partridge, I'm not very good at poultry with it's feathers still on.
I know it's a bit gruesome but it did actually look quite beautiful.

Wonderful Man and I attended our local auction mart on Christmas Eve morning for the annual auction of 'dressed poultry'. I really wanted to take some photos but I felt a little conspicuous as it was full of 'locals' mostly in wellies and flat caps, with ruddy weathered cheeks. We've only lived here 5 years and still quite often feel like tourists, (they say you have to have 3 generations in the graveyard before you're classed as a local!) lol. There were some real characters there, it was wonderful, I wanted to photograph them all and make sketches but I really felt out of place. There were tables and tables of turkeys and geese of all shapes and sizes, all locally reared and the largest being 36lb 8oz!
That's bigger than sneaky dog.

Talking of sneaky dog, here she is with her gift from Santa.

She's keen to make sure no-one else get their hands on her bone.

Best give it a big lick so no one else wants it!

All the best

Love Fi x

Christmas Treasures Craft Fair.

2011-12-05T21:15:00.015Z

Well this was my practice run at setting up my craft stall on Friday evening up in the attic. Everything is precariously balanced on half of the double bed as that was the only piece of furniture that could replicate the length of a 6 foot stall. Even if it was a bit bouncy and wobbly.
And here is the real thing.
Can you see a pair of beady eyes peeping through my dangly snowflakes?
Lets take a closer look.
The beady eyes belong to Wonderful Man. Actually they're rather lovely twinkly blue eyes but I'm getting sidetracked.

Starting from the left we have, crochet hanger, cushions, bunnies, crochet purses and Christmas Danglers.

In the centre we have felted and applique pictures, a handbag, fabric cupcakes, fabric mince pies, crochet flowers, crochet mitts and Christmas wreaths.

And on the right we have Wonderful Man eating pork pie, crochet snowflakes, packets of floral bunting, lavender hearts, embroidered brooches, greeting cards and shopping bags.

PHEW!

Now you know why blogging has taken a bit of a back seat of late.

I'm not quite sure what Wonderful Man made of it, him being a craft fair virgin. I think he rather enjoyed it. I know I did.

Having a dummy run certainly paid off as I had time to have little wander around while everyone else was setting up their stalls. I have to say Addingham Memorial Hall is rather a splendid venue. Nice and bright and warm with a further room at the far end used as a cafe area with a little kitchen. Yes very pleasing.

Wow look! Action shots!

People whizzing around getting ready.

Isn't this pretty. This is Carols Cupcakes. They were so perfect I thought they were soaps to start with but no, they were the real deal.

This is the lovely Tea With Martha. The ladies were a little shy and I was rather jealous of their fairy lights.

Shabby Chic Designs, they've obviously posed for photos before. Nicely symmetrical, looking towards each other, yep definitely done it before.

This was part of Sally and Sophie's stand, Throstle Nest Treasures. Sally organised the whole thing, making us all feel very welcome. Lots of lovely gifts and shabby chic with a country feel.

I seem to have missed a couple of stalls with the camera, there was a lady with gorgeous French soaps, another selling Phoenix cards. A gentleman who made lots of scrummy chocolate goodies. (I purposefully kept well away from him, one nibble and that would have been it, move over Dawn French I'm going in.) Another nice lady who had been very busy stitching nice bright quilts (lovely to chat with but I have no idea what she was called.) and then only just turning up in time, 'While Isla Sleeps', two young mums who made lovely personalised cushions and bags for children.

And lastly a very, very lovely lady who sells vintage pretties in the Cakewalk in Ilkley. I intend to take a look next time I'm in the area. This should have been a picture of the hoards of people who flooded into the hall the minute we opened the doors. Unfortunately the weather didn't play it's part and was absolutely foul for most of the day. Consequently the hoards stayed at home where it was cosy and although I did quite well converting 1 in every 8 customers into sales. I would have liked a few more 8's to convert!

So instead I photograghed Addinghams rather splendid wall hanging. (I spent rather a lot of time admiring it while waiting for my 8's to come along!)

But

on the bright side.

It didn't snow!

No it saved that for today!

Nearly alllll day!

Not that I mind I have plenty to do. I have lots of goodies to upload to my Folksy shop over the next couple of days...

love fi x

Crinoline Cushions.

2011-12-01T14:54:00.011Z

Today I am thanking you all on behalf of my Mum and Dad who were very touched at all the lovely comments you left on the previous post. My Mum emailed me and said...

"Please thank all your lovely bloggy friends and let them know how great it was to read all those very lovely comments, it makes you feel really special . They don't know how much that cheered me up after all the formal form filling etc. that has had to be done recently... seems to be no end to it!!!"
(My Gran died a few weeks ago so Mum and Dad have had a lot to sort out.)

There you go ladies, don't underestimate the power of a few kind words here and there. You really made their day, but I know all about that. After all you make my day, most days!
Oh! Nearly forgot...Rachael. I believe the Hardanger pattern that my Dad is embroidering is inspired by a picture but he makes up the pattern himself. (He quite often does his own thing. lol.) The crinoline lady cushions have been made by moi for a
Christmas Treasures Craft Fair
that I'm attending this
Saturday 3rd December
at Addingham Memorial Hall
near Ilkley.
It would be lovely to meet you if you are in the area. The last craft fair I attended, the lady who organised it said she'd been excited the night before because she was meeting someone famous in the morning...she meant ME! lol. Gosh! I do hope she wasn't too disappointed. I was very flattered and quite lost for words.

Here's something else that I have finally finished this morning, and I must say I'm quite glad as I have no intention of making any more. 3 fabric holly wreaths for the craft fair. They've been way more fiddly and time consuming than I anticipated when I eagerly started them but as I had already invested so much time in cutting out and covering 6 wreath bases, I felt I really had to finish them. Well 5 of them anyway. I'm afraid the last one got the better of me and will be consigned to the back of the 'cupboard-of-doom'.

And lastly I thought I'd share a little bit of the design process for a new project with you. Don't laugh... this is where I scribbled an idea for a cat softie. It's very glamorously squished at the bottom of my shopping list. Well I found myself waiting for an hour in the doctors surgery and you know what it's like, your mind just wanders sometimes. lol.

love fi x

I will be closing my Folksy shop for the weekend as all my goodies will be coming to the fair with me. Hopefully it will reopen again on Monday, or maybe that should be the opposite... hopefully it won't be open on Monday because I'll have sold everything! teehee.

fingers crossed. x

Giveaway winner.

2011-11-24T23:03:00.010Z

Hello, I'm just back from spending a couple of days with my parents in East Yorkshire. You can tell what we spent most of our time doing can't you, lol.
This was my little area of the dining table. (well actually I took up most of the dining table.) Yes most of the stuff on that table was mine, I don't travel light when it comes craft stuff, lol. I had the most lovely couple of days, just my parents and me (wonderful man was at work) catching up, sharing our news, just spending time together. This is my Dad working on his Hardanger embroidery. All the centers of those little squares will be cut out at the end leaving a lacy open effect. Not bad for a gentleman in his 70's. My mum is completing a cross stitch height chart for new a baby so sssh, don't tell anyone it's a surprise. Beautiful isn't it and such a lot of work.

While I was hand embroidering some new brooches. But I'll show you more of those another time, we've got more important things to do now like... finding out who has won my giveaway!

And the winner is...Luthaisea who will receive one of these pretty brooches.
Congratulations sweetie and thank you to everyone who left a comment, I wish I could send you all a brooch but I think I'd need a second mortgage for all of the postage, lol.
Instead I think I'll try and squeeze in another giveaway before Christmas.

I can't say fairer than that can I.

There are still a couple of brooches available in my online Folksy shop if anyone needs a little stocking filler for someone special.

Love Fi x

A little round up with a giveaway at the end.

2011-11-21T15:21:00.014Z

Today we need to have a little round up, a little regrouping session as I have found that I am creating faster than I am blogging. That sounds very industrious doesn't it but what it actually means is that my blogging is a bit sporadic, but I 'm working on it honest.
Firstly there are the photos of my finished Christening cake. All made from fabric just in case you were wondering.
This was commissioned by a friend who lives a couple of doors away and I'm glad I have it finished ready for the coming weekend.
I do hope she likes it. She's not seen it yet.

Staying with the food theme. I have just uploaded a few fabric mince pies to my Folksy Shop in case anyone needs a calorie free version for the festive season.

They make your special cake plates look pretty without you feeling the need to stuff your face with the real thing and pile on the pounds before the big day, lol.

Ah now the bit I've been looking forward to showing you.

I've finished my latest batch of brooches,

and I'm mighty pleased with them,

so I thought I'd share a couple of them with you and ...

see what you think.

Actually I've just this minute decided, as a thankyou for telling me what you think I'm going to have a giveaway!

YAY!

As a token of thanks from me to my lovely followers and occasional readers (all welcome here), because you are all lovely and I do really appreciate the time you take to comment on my blog. And I am very aware that I don't have as much time as I use to, to pop by all of you blogs these days.

So I will offer up one brooch of my choosing (similar to the ones shown here)to the first name out of the hat on...er...

Thursday 24th November.

Not long then!

Only a couple of days!

All you have to do is leave a teeny tiny comment or a whopping big comment the choice is yours, at the bottom of the post. That's it, no jumping through hoops I don't agree with all that having to become a follower and add a link on your blog, blah, blah, blah.
Just make sure I can contact you for your postal detail if you are the lucky winner.

If you would like to purchase a pretty brooch you can do so here at my Folksy shop and that would make me very happy indeed. Thank you to Lynne who has already snaffled two up!

Love Fi x

Edited to add....Please note I had the date for the giveaway as Thur 28th but Sue kindly pointed out that it was wrong so I have now corrected it to

Thursday 24th November, as it should have been.

So spitspot, quick sharp everybody!
thanks Sue.

GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED

THANK YOU.

Bunnies ready for rehoming!

2011-11-16T16:31:00.005Z

I've done it!

4 pretty, vintage, linen bunnies all finished and now sitting prettily in my Folksy shop!
A backstage shot of them waiting for their photo shoot, lol.
Oh the glamour of it all!

Yesterday I finished embroidering tails...

and bunny faces. (Ouch! It looks painful doesn't it?)

I stitched on buttons...

and ears.

This has to be the fiddliest part of all as I stitch from one ear to the other, through 13 layers of fabric, wadding and a button for each ear!

(Gosh! I wish I hadn't worked that out, I've still got 2 more bunnies to make!)

But it's all worth it in the end.

They look so cute sitting next to my laptop as I type this...aaaah.

love Fi x

Body parts and chocolate crumbs.

2011-11-15T22:45:00.009Z

Ssssh!

Hello...it's 11.15pm and I'm sat in bed blogging and trying to eat a bar of chocolate without getting any chocolate crumbs on my white sheets. Failed already with the chocolate crumbs and I'm only on my second square! Don't tell anyone. Wonderful Man is downstairs watching telly. I've also got a can of Barrs Shandy but I'm going to save that until tomorrow. I know how to live it up don't I! lol.

I have a dear friend who swears that the best way to eat an M&S Colin the Caterpillar chocolate birthday cake is to eat it alone in bed with a pot of tea. When questioned about the crumb problem she said it was no problem at all as she eats it at her husbands side and then moves over to her own! Smart girl, I like her style!

Back to blogging.

I've been very busy making bunny body parts over the last few days. Here they all are up in the attic awaiting arms, ears, faces and bobbity tails.

At the same time I've been making a Christening cake that I was commissioned to do earlier in the year.
(see, I can multitask with the best of em!)

There's a lot of stuffing goes into a cake.

My bunnies have been travelling around the house with me in this little basket. During the day I sew up in the attic, doing all the machine sewing so that I can sit downstairs on an evening doing any hand stitching that needs to be done.

And I must say, there is a fair old amount of hand stitching on these bunnies, not to mention stuffing. I'm not a fan of stuffing. I think I'm rather impatient when it comes to stuffing even though I know the best results come from teasing out tiny amounts at a time and carefully poking down little bits until each little body part is nice and firm.

Back downstairs again, we're a little bit further on here. See, two completed bunnies and my cake just needs the wording embroidering on the top and little bit of fancy around it. Yep, my little fingers have been very busy over the last few days.

On the other hand some members of the family have been taking things easy.

Spreading themselves out and taking up far more space than is polite.

And then to cap it all, when politely asked to budge up a bit...

Take offence!

Hopefully I will be restocking my Folksy shop with embroidered bunnies tomorrow, photography allowing. (not my strong point) I'll let you know anyway.

love Fi x

Re Cushion Recipe

2011-11-14T10:02:00.003Z

This is the back for those who asked (Claire). I actually put this picture in the original post but took it out at the last minute as I thought no one would really be interested, lol.

Luckily the embroidered linen was the perfect size to fit neatly over the top of the cushion making the perfect envelope back. I like plenty of overlap, I can't be doing with cushion backs that gape open, yuk! This one also had it's own pretty lace trim already on the edge.

I'm off to gift wrap it now as it has already flown off my Folksy shop shelf!

Yay!

love Fi x

Cushion Recipe

2011-11-13T20:33:00.008Z

Take a piece of delicious vintage floral fabric.
and a slice of scrummy embroidered linen.
Add a length of luscious lace.
and a snippet or two of velvet ribbon.

fiddle and faff for a little while.

Carefully smoothing and stroking until...

you have one totally tasty cushion ready to serve lightly plumped on your favourite sofa.

Will keep fresh if stored for a short while in MarmaladeRose's Folksy Shop!

Percolating Ideas.

2011-11-07T23:33:00.006Z

I'm not sure I should tell you this but I've been brooch making today, when really I should have been making bunnies...ssssh....don't tell anybody.
I've been experimenting a little using paper as well as fabric and hand embroidery. It all started with an old copy of the book 'Little Women' that I found in Wonderful Mans office (don't ask). It had the most beautiful illustrations in it which I though would look lovely cut out and stitched onto something. Well being the kind of gal that I am, there was no way that I could cut up a perfectly good book... any way to cut a long story short; one thing lead to another and that's how I ended up with some vintage style script stitched onto my brooches instead.
Isn't it wonderful how ideas percolate through us and come out as something quite different but with a little bit of 'us' in them.

The pink fabric above the heart is a piece of silk that I hand dyed myself to make the tiny flowers.

I really enjoyed making these. For a while now I felt as though I've been making things just because I can but they've not had any 'me' in them, do you know what I mean?

I think I lost my creative way for a little while.

I did escape for a short walk to the post office to post Macavertycats bunnies. Yes plural, the lovely lady couldn't resist buying both bunnies in the end.

So tomorrow I shall clear my brooches away and get into bunny making mode for everyone who has requested a little embroidered friend of their own.

As for little friends... here is mine. Sneaky Dog...

trying to snooze while someone kept sticking a camera under her nose!

Bunnies for Macavitycat

2011-11-03T23:18:00.005Z

These bunnies are for Macavitycat to take a look at, normal bloggy activity will resume shortly ; )

Bunny 1

-------
Bunny 2

Bunny 2

I do hope you like one of them Macavity.

You can email me with your decision here

fiona@marmaladerose.co.uk

So sorry for the mix up.

love Fi x

Craft Fair

2011-11-02T21:48:00.011Z

Hello once again from Wensleydale. I hope you haven't given up on me!

I know it's been a couple of weeks since I last posted but life's been getting in the way again. There has been a craft fair and a trip back home due to a family bereavement. I don't think we'll mention the latter again but here are my preparations for the craft fair.
This is the double bed in the attic, acting as a practice stall for the craft fair.

And although it looks quite organised, I have to say it took me hours to set up! I'm so glad I did it though. I wanted to know exactly where to put everything on the day and just to physically see what space every thing would take up. You think you'll never be able to fill at 6 foot table but when it comes to it...

it's a bit of a squeeze. Here it is at the Town Hall in Northallerton. The two picnic baskets came in very handy as I packed stuff into them to travel and then used them open for display. The fair was organised by the lovely Wendy in aid of Parkinsons UK charity.

And here is the equally lovely Anne from Ash Creativity setting somebody straight by the look of it, lol. Anne spins her own yarns using British wool, makes beautiful hand quilted quilts and creates the most delicate encaustic art (pictures created with a hot iron and coloured wax).

You may have spied the Christmas wreath on my craft stand inspired by the one in the book 'Sew Fabulous Fabric'. This is the original that you all very kindly gave me your opinions on a couple of posts ago.

And this is what I did after very carefully considering what you all said. Firstly I took the original wreath apart and then put it back together again with a little bit more holly and different beads. I also added ricrac and some lovely green shell buttons that act like extra large sequins, making for a bit of shimmer.

The picture above is the second wreath. I can't show you the original wreath as before I had time to take a picture I sold it (HOORAH!)

thanks for sticking with me.

love Fi x

Designing Christmas Danglers

2011-10-15T21:12:00.001+01:00

Hello all.

Yes that is Christmas ribbon in the picture and a Christmas tin. Now lets make something clear; I don't do Christmas until December. I don't want to see it or hear about or even think about it until the 1st December. I think it stems from working for Marks and Spencer for half of my life. You certainly see plenty of Christmas if you work there I can tell you. I suppose you could say I have an aversion to it normally but... I have been invited to take part in a couple of craft fairs and although I don't usually make many Christmassy things, I thought it might be a good idea to include something a little bit festive on my stall.

So on went the thinking cap and out came the sketch book. Last year Karen at Milkchurn Cottage asked me to make some Christmas garlands for her shop, which I did; some little housey ones and some little hearty ones but I really wanted to make some little robiny ones but I just couldn't get my little robin sketch right! (top picture) Now I'm the kind of girl who secretly likes a challenge and really doesn't like to beaten by said challenge. So I thought I'd have another try this year (picture above) and whip-de-do! I've cracked it! Hoorah!

This little robin is perfect. Just what I wanted, all fat and fluffed up. Feeling I was on a bit of a roll I had a go at a Babushka doll too. Not bad at all if I say so myself.
Out came my felt stash, mostly donated by my best friends mum a couple of years ago, thank you Mrs B.
Hey Presto! One little, fat, fluffed up robin.
Four, little fat, fluffed up robins.

OO! a whole flock of little fat, fluffed up robins.

Ok I'll stop now with all the f's now.

Here's little Miss Babushka.

And her sisters.

I luuuuurve these toadstools. Not necessarily Christmassy I'll grant you but I didn't want to make the usual green felt Christmas tree with buttons stitched on. I thought these would still look good hanging on a Christmas tree but were a bit different. The same with the Babushka dolls.

All in all a nice little distraction from my Christmas wreaths. I'm still having trouble with them...

I'm thinking I might pop some of my Chistmassy makes into my Folksy Shop, just incase.

Till next time.

love Fi x

Our Journey to School.

2011-10-14T15:48:00.010+01:00

The photos are gloomy snaps of our 16mile journey to school yesterday evening as it was starting to get dark, so apologies for the blur.

Yesterday evening was on one of my least favourite parental responsibilities...parents evening. I hate them with a passion and as my youngest child is now in the 6th form, it came as a bit of a shock to me that I still had them to attend.
I didn't think to start taking photos until we were about a third of the way through our 16 mile journey, but I thought you might like to see what the Yorkshire Dales looks like on a gloomy October evening about 6pm-ish.

We'll be driving right down that valley in front of us, from Wensleydale in North Yorkshire to the little town of Kirkby Stephen in Cumbria. This is our nearest school with a 6th form and #2 does this journey there and back every weekday on the school bus.

My objection to parents evening is that they seem to be a waste of time, both mine and the teachers. I've been enduring them for 12 years now so I'd like to think that I'm entitled to my rather negative opinion of them. Now then my two beautiful children have always been shall we say average at school. They've neither particularly shone at anything or on the other hand particularly had difficulties with anything. They have never been in any trouble or caused any trouble. So I really don't see the need to be summoned to school in my time to queue up to see a teacher who's appointment system never works, only to spend 3 minutes sat on a plastic chair being told that my child has no problems and is doing fine and all is on track. Thank you for coming.

AAAAAARGH!

'Ah' I hear you say, 'What if your child did have a problem or was having difficulties'.

Well dear reader in that case I would expect the school to contact me immediately not wait until the next available parents evening (which is sometimes several months into the school year). The same would apply if my child was found to be excelling at a subject and needed extra work to stimulate them. It all feels too much like they're just going through the motions. I wonder if it would be better if the parents evening was reserved for those who really need it, parents of children who do have problems and difficulties or ones who are minor genius. They would surely benefit from an extra 3 minute 'appointment' with the teacher... they could have mine!
The nobbley bit behind the tree is Pendragon Castle, you can see a post about it here if you so desire.

The river is on the left just out of view weaving it's way alongside the road. In the summer there are usually people camping here. We drive through 7 tiny hamlets on our way, Appersett, Garsdale Head, Lunds, Aisgill, Mallerstang, Outhgill and Nateby.

Kirkby Stephen at last! Its getting quite dark now. Thank you for enduring my parents evening rant. I hope you weren't too bored. I resisted photo taking on the return journey as it was pitch black and we don't have street lighting out here in the sticks!

Oh! If you were wondering. The outcome of our hour long (including the 3 minute sit on a plastic chair) 33 mile round trip... #2 is doing fine and has settle in well in her new school. Thank you for coming!

A little something I forgot about

2011-10-09T22:06:00.002+01:00

Well I knew I could rely on all of you. Thank you for your advice and input with the Christmas wreath, I'll keep you informed as to my progress and what I do with them. I've already decided to alter the width of the wreath. It's a bit narrower now. I'll show you soon.
Here's a little something I prepared earlier and totally forgot to show you, doh!
Gosh! It's so darned hard to photoghraph a string of bunting! Got to be far enough away to get it all in yet be close enough to see the applique.

A little something for the boys.

Big, bright, boys bunting!
Or girls, if tractors are your thing.

Filling the gap.

2011-10-07T00:27:00.009+01:00

Well it looks a little sad doesn't it?

This is Jacks new home at uni, a tiny back bedroom with a bed, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a workstation and a chair... I took this picture quickly before we left him there to come home. I just needed a something tangible, a little link with him all those miles away.

I must say, you'd all be very proud of me, I didn't cry at all. In fact there were more tears when I read all of your lovely heartfelt comments! I felt like I had dozens of bloggy arms around me giving me a big hug and an understanding nod. Thank you :)

The nearest I came to tears on the day was at bedtime when I walked past his open bedroom door and it was all dark and empty inside, gosh that nearly got me I can tell you! Although his room wasn't empty for long. #2 was in there like a shot, measuring up wall space and calculating how many kilos of Blue Tac she'll need for all of her posters! Needless to say she's now well and truly bedded in.

I on the other hand feel a little lost up in the attic on my own. I need to have a good sort out and re-organise my textile stuff.
Organised chaos, that's what it is! How I manage to work amongst all this clutter I really don't know. Looking at this you wouldn't believe that really I'm quite an organised and methodical person. Maybe that's it! Maybe the organised me is battling with the creative me and visa versa.

I hope the creative 'me' wins. I know exactly where everything is, it's just that where it is... is not very tidy!

It's no good I've been trying to avoid saying the C word but I can't put it off much longer. You see I've been invited to take part in three craft fairs this week. I don't mean the craft fairs are all taking place this week, no, the invitations all arrived this week.

What do you think?

I'm not sure. I think it maybe needs something more...

Edited to add. It's been 12 days. He's ok. Getting on fine with his housemates, not missing us yet, not eaten any fruit or veg yet, but will do soon (at mums request). Asked for a net curtain for his window (neighbours are much closer than they are at home) All's well.

Flying the Nest

2011-09-24T23:20:00.003+01:00

We'll be leaving this behind tomorrow to take child #1 to university in the big city. (sniff, sniff)
He's the first one in our family to go and we're very proud of him. (sniff, sniff)

Though we only see him briefly when he ventures out of his room to forage for food at about 2pm and 6pm; I shall miss him terribly (sniff, sniff)

I'll miss the aromatic fug that meet you as you near his room. I'll miss his sparkling conversation that usually starts and ends in one sentence, "How long till tea?" I'll miss seeing the light shining under his bedroom door at unearthly hours of the night with accompanying sounds of explosions and gunfire.

So I've posted tonight as I will be a snivelling, sobbing wreck tomorrow night.
(sniff, sniff)
.

Good luck Jack.

I hope with all my heart that this is the start of a wonderful life.

Enjoy every minute.

Love Mum x

In my youth.

2011-09-13T15:56:00.010+01:00

Yes it's me again already, after I left you yesterday I was very brave and ventured into the loft to look for some craft stamps. I say 'brave' because the sound of the wind in the attic was bad enough but under the eves in the loft it was even worse but needs must and all that. Anyway there I was on my knees in the loft scrabbling around in boxes when I came across my old sketch books from my time at art college some 25 years ago.

Well sketch books are just like old photo albums, once you find them you can't help but open them up and take a look and before you know you've lost an hour or two!

I only attended art college for a year doing a foundation art course and lodged away from home with a friend from school.
I was always sketching, usually in pencil and always portraits from pictures in magazines.

Colour wasn't really my thing. This one was done with watercolour pencils.

I'm afraid Hilda is looking a little worse for wear, the pencil now looking very smudged and faded. I think I actually did this one while I was still at school. (So it's very, very old)

A very rare landscape. The deckchair stand on Cleethorpes seafront.

Another in coloured pencil. The inscription reads Charlotte Lewis (what ever happened to her?) I think the year said 1986!

Sharron Gless

and an unfinished Tyne Daly.

Ah! This one has a little story with it. This one must have been a year or two later after college, I'd be about 21 and not long married. I occasionally did commissions for work colleagues, portraits from photos. This one was a workmates parents on their wedding day and I don't know if you can see but there is a stain right down the ladies face. Yep I nearly had this double portrait finished when I spilt a glass of Baileys down it and had to start all over again! There was certainly a lesson learned that evening I can tell you!

This one has lost some of its depth and definition, not to mention having a big crease across the top of her head. It's whats her face... er...can't remember her name...er...Shirley Maclaine! (I had to google Sweet Charity, lol)

This one is just a made up doodle. Isn't it weird how I can remember that. I can't remember what I did yesterday but I can remember a doodle I did a quarter of a century ago.

I found this one in a separate sketch pad, it's dated 2006. This would have been at the end of a year long textile course I did while the children where at school. It was only one afternoon a week but the best thing I ever did.
I must have been having one of my "I wonder if I can still do it" moments.

Keira Knightly 2006.

5 years ago.

Hmmm...I wonder if I still can?

Just to add - I didn't find the craft stamps in the loft, no they were neatly stacked in a cupboard in #2's bedroom!

Fi x

Thank you for your lovely comments. I really appreciate the time you take to tippety type them to me and I always read every single one. I know I don't get back to you all on your own blog pages as often as I would like but hopefully life will slow down a bit once Autumn is fully here and #1 is settled in at Uni. Our #2 has already put in a request for a change of bedrooms!

Aaaargh!

2011-09-12T09:50:00.006+01:00

Good morning all. I'm up in my attic room typing this today as I often am although today I'm not so sure it's a very good idea. Today the UK has a day of blustery gusting winds from the tail end of Hurricane Katia and she's certainly making her presence felt. To make matters worse we live in a 3 storey stone house on the top of a hill looking out over open countryside so being buffeted by strong winds is usual for us but today I can feel the whole house tremble (the coffee in my mug is gently jiggling back and forth on my sewing table) and the noise of the wind around the roof sound as if it's being torn off. I shall turn up the radio and sing 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' Dorothy style, teehee.
Onto gentler things, this is my current work in progress. Hand felted Merino and Wensleydale wool, machine embroidered and then hand embroidered, I'll show you more when it's finished, I didn't want you to think I'd been sat here twiddling my thumbs!

Hearts, hearts, hearts.

Shed loads of them all full of aromatic lavender.

I think this one is my favourite.

No...these are my favourites.

No these.

I can't decide, they're all quite delicious and all destined for a Wedding Fair at the end of the month. There are still more to make but I've come to the bottom of the bag of lavender now.

Remember my Twiggy Crochet Flowers tutorial? (you can find it on my sidebar) Well these little crochet blooms have all been waiting months for stems, so at last they are complete and ready to sit prettily in Karens little shop. (I noticed there was only one left in the vase last week, oops!)

That's all from me, I'm just off to check that the shed and the hen house are still in the garden and not residing at the bottom of the hill in the middle of the high street...."some where over the rainbow..."

love Fi,

in very wild Wensleydale.

The best shop in Burford and the phantom yarnstormer of Chipping Norton

2011-08-29T13:38:00.013+01:00

Hello all, do you remember I mentioned that Wonderful Man and I had managed a few days away in the Cotswold's? Well we certainly crammed a lot of places into those few days including trips to London and Oxford but lets start with this little gem. This is the beautiful little town of Burford in Oxfordshire. Even on a rainy day in August it is beautiful.
But the best shop of all was the this one!

Are you ready girls?

Embroidery threads and needlework kits...

craft books and patterns...

every available space crammed with stitchy goodness...I've never seen tapestry canvasses this big before! The largest one, which was a small rug size was priced at £1800 but it was absolutely gorgeous and once completed would certainly become a family heirloom.

At the top of the stairs this room contained sewing gifty items like pretty needle boxes and unusual tape measures and around the corner was...

YARN!

I thought I'd died and gone to heaven!

I must admit after the needlework shop I don't really remember much about the other shops in Burford but then... why would you need to? lol.

Next is Chipping Norton and keeping the yarn theme going Wonderful Man spotted this as we got out of the car (as you can see I have him well trained)...

A little bit of yarn bombing. You may remember I've dabbled in a little bit of guerrilla crochet myself in the past.

And then further along a little bit more guerrilla knitting.

and the more we looked, the more we found. Check out the duck feet at the bottom of the post.

Unexpected chunks of woollyness all over the high street.

The cheeky mistress of the yarn had even been here in this cafe window too. And do you know how I know it was a 'mistress' as opposed to a 'master' at work? Well Wonderful Man spotted her speedily stitching a piece onto a bollard!

It turns out the lady in question is the lovely PetaX who you can find on Ravelry. Chipping Norton love Peta's yarn storming after several articles in the local paper had brought the phantom yarn bombing to light. Peta's current yarny exploits had been requested by the local theatre company to guide the route to the theatre and their latest production. OO! It makes you feel all warm inside doesn't it? I must apologise for having no photo of Peta in action, I can't believe I didn't get a snap of her in action, I was so cross with myself when I got back in the car and realised.

I must just mention an absolutely scrummy little shop in Chipping Norton, RosieB's, full of the prettiest gifts and vintage gorgeousness. The lovely lady behind the counter assured me that she would have a website up and running in a couple of weeks. Now then, I'd love to share the web address of this pretty shop with you but at the moment the little card with the info on seems to have been misplaced, a bit like the 7 balls of cream yarn I'm missing!

OOPS!

Edited to add. Rosie B's website is www.rosiebinteriors.co.uk

Hooky Ta-daa!

2011-08-24T23:17:00.008+01:00

Hello all. Things have been very busy here in the MarmaladeRose household lately. Wonderful Man and I have just returned from a lovely little break in the Cotswolds. (One of my favourite places) But more about that another time. Not only has child #1 found himself a full time job but he's also passed his 2 year diploma course and earned himself a place at his chosen university, HOORAH!

I've just had an email from a Portuguese interior design/craft magazine asking to use 3 of my crochet projects in its next issue! Friends and family are queueing up to come and visit over the next couple of weeks so it's not going to get any quieter around here for a while yet.

So today I thought we'd keep it simple and have a quiet meander through some crochet loveliness.
I've had these crochet circles multiplying in my in my woolly yarn corner (it's actually 3 shopping baskets stuffed at my end of the sofa in the sitting room) for months now with the idea of making them into a blanket. Only I seem to have misplaced the cream yarn that was to join them all together. Yes friends, somewhere in my attic there is a large bag with about 8 balls of cream yarn that I have carefully stashed away in a safe place for about the last 7 years. It even moved the 120miles with us from East Yorkshire to the Dales when we moved house. Can I find it now though?
Nope! Not a chance.

Never mind. Lets do something else with them instead. Cushions!

Now I have to confess I'm not a lover of crochet cushions.

But I do love these! They've just grabbed me and given me a big warm squeezy hug! Mmmm...I'm really quite taken with them.
Beautiful soft double knitting yarn, a mix of easy care acrylic and warm soft wool... delicious.

I took a leaf out of Lucy's book over at Attic24 and used a woolly jumper to make the back of the cushion. Check out that neat hand stitching, I was a quite amazed how good it looked too, lol.

Plumply stuffed with brand new feather pads. Not bad for the side you never see.

All colourful and cuddly and soon to be residing in my Folksy shop, I just need to stroke and caress them a couple more times....

Lovely!

Colin Firths Breeches.

2011-08-07T10:10:00.023+01:00

Ah Ha! I thought that might get your attention. After my last dressing up/costumey post, I thought we'd stay on the same theme and all go on a jolly to the Barley Hall in York to visit this splendid exhibition of TV and film period costumes.

A word to the wise - if you go to the exhibition yourself, keep your entry ticket as this entitles you to revisit for free for the next 12months. Yipee!
I'll keep the words to a minimum this is definitely a visual post.
Cate Blanchett wore this one in Elizabeth in 1998.

Keira Knightleys gown from The Duchess

sleeve detail.

I found it very difficult to take photos one moment needing the flash and the next having to turn it off.

Back to those breeches. Who wouldn't recognise these costumes! Pride and Prejudice 1995.

The dress fabric here was used wrong side out as the print on the right side was too bright for the period.

Miss Bingleys hat worn by Anna Chancellor in Pride and Prejudice.

Sense and Sensibility. This is Emma Thompsons costume as Elinor Dashwood.

Gemma Jones hat as Mrs Dashwood.

This one has to be my favourite! The colour was beautiful.

Worn by Elizabeth Spriggs as Mrs Jennings in P&P.

This scrumptious hat is from the 1995 film Persuasion

Worn by Phoebe Nicholls as Elizabeth Elliot.

Cranford. Worn by Judi Dench as Miss Matty.

I'm sure you all recognise this one too. Larkrise to Candleford. Worn by Julia Sawalha as Dorcas Lane.

Now this one was new to me but absolutely stunning.

Elizabeth Taylor in Toscanini

The little white stripes around the trim on the over skirt are actually painted on!

Another one I'd not seen before. Nicole Kidmans gown from The Portrait of a Lady

A teeny tiny waist! I reckon I could get both hand around it.

Time for a bit more Colin Firth.

and Helena Bonham Carter, The Kings Speech.

Sequins galore, Claire Bloom as Queen Mary, The Kings Speech.

Detailing on the sleeve.

Downton Abbey. Worn by Maggie Smith as the Dowager.

The costumes we free standing so that you could look all around them, but it was soooo difficult not to touch!

I bet you won't get this one... Sweeney Todd. Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin.

Not to be out-done...

My mum and I...

Couldn't resist a little dress-up of our own!

I hope you enjoyed rather a loooooong post, we also visited the Quilt Museum but unfortunatley or maybe fortunately for you, lol, we weren't allowed to take any photos.

Step back to 1940's Yorkshire.

2011-08-01T16:01:00.017+01:00

I found some old photos from around about 1945 the other day and I thought you might like to see them. I believe this is the Wensleydale Railway back in the day.
And look at these lovely ladies entertaining the troops while they wait on the station platform.

This is a picture of my granny looking a lot plumper than I thought she was back then!
Ok... I'm sure you've rumbled me by now...

Yes it's me.

All dressed up ready for the Leyburn 1940's weekend. LOL. Wonderful man and I have been to the 40's weekend for the last 3 years and every time I've wanted to get dressed up. The first year we just happened to be in Leyburn having some lunch when we noticed groups of people passing the cafe window dressed in 1940s fashions and had to ask what was going on. The second year I was far too unorganised and hadn't found anything to wear. Last year I had been scouting around but couldn't find anything suitable, so this year I was determined to take part.

It wasn't easy though. Previously I've made myself a Victorian costume, collecting bits and bobs from charity shops and altering and making bits right down to the corset. I've also made myself a 'pride and prejudice' style dress from an old pair of curtains found at the charity shop again with a corset to get the right shape.

So you would think coming forward in time would be easier. Nope! It's been the most difficult costume of them all. I couldn't find the right kind of shoes (I always think that if you start at the bottom and get the footwear right the rest falls into place.) I really wanted a floral cotton dress but couldn't find one the right style that would fit over my ample boobage.

So, I ended up with a modern 'New Look' red satin blouse from the charity shop which I had to stitch up the front as it kept popping open. The black skirt was also a charity shop find which was a gorgeous 'Gerry Webber' lined evening skirt, almost ankle length and had to be shortened by about 10 inches. The stockings are an old pair of mine with a fancy line up the back that I've had since the 80's when fancy hosiery was all the rage and I was a teenager with legs up to my armpits.

All in all I wasn't wholly confident that I'd got it quite right. When I looked in the mirror I though I looked like a cross between Yvette from 'Allo Allo' and a fat Amy Winehouse, so you could image my surprise and delight when.... We arrived in the market square and immediately these two photographers approached me and asked to take my photograph! They positioned me in front of this old army lorry and started snapping away. Wonderful man took this one as they were giving me their business cards so that I could request a free copy of the photos they'd taken.Thought you might like a little peek inside my basket (kindly lent to me by my lovely friend Karen) Everything modern is hidden under a lovely vintage hanky that says 'A present from Sidmouth'. I have a vintage needlepoint purse and of course some khaki knitting wool as I'm knitting for our boys on the front line.
There were loads of people dressed up, they all looked absolutely fantastic. Plenty of forces personnel and vintage vehicles. Everyone entered into the spirit. Forget the pooch look at those fabulous shoes!
There was an old style shooting range.
My favourites, swing boats.
Here are the Blitz Sisters singing there hearts out on the platform at Leyburn railway station where there were steam trains travelling up and down the line all day. We rode from Leyburn to Redmire and back. Taking in the beautiful Wensleydale scenery, that's Penn Hill in the background. It was a wonderful day, the weather behaved beautifully, in fact it was too warm at times. My shoes gave me blisters and my clip earrings were agony but it was all worth it. I must admit... By the end of the day I was glad to unpin my Victory rolls and slip into something more comfortable.
But if I'm honest, I kinda liked the false eyelashes and the red lippy!

.
.P.S. We need to get Wonderful Man kitted out next. It'll be lovely to have a 40's escort next time!

A Mish-Mash of Catching Up and Other Stuff.

2011-07-08T15:45:00.015+01:00

Hello my little friends, long time no see. All my fault of course, nothing to do with you diligent bloggers. As a result of my very lackadaisical posting today we have a bit of a mish-mash of happenings and makings from the last month or so. A bit like the sweeping-up of all the leftover bits on the floor.
This is my very untidy work table. I always seem to be working in about 6 inches of space while the rest of the very large table is chockablock full of stuff. Very important stuff you understand but never the less, absolutely piled up with... stuff. I do get things made though. In amongst the chaos. Brooches. I enjoyed a lovely day making felt flowers with my friend Anne.
At a Wendy Chan workshop in our local museum.

Not quite sure what do with them now though.

Domestic chores have been attended to.
Daily egg collection. This is a job no one tires of. It's like finding treasure every day. Whoohoo!

And here are four of our special girls, Fudge, Lady Gaga, Margery and Cluck bobbing down to get in front. I've made another dress.

I'd added a little bit of crochet to the belt just to jazz it up a bit.

Sorry, I didn't feel confident enough for a full frontal shot! Lol.
There have been a couple of lazy mornings in bed. Sipping tea, staring out of the bedroom window watching the hens on the bank and in the distance, tiny cars pootling up the hill on the road to Kettlewell.

My latest fad,

lined crochet purses.

These are inspired by my new crochet book Cute and Easy Crochet by Nicki Trench.
I say inspired because the pattern didn't work out for me so I did my own thing. The flowers are my own pattern.

So that's what has been happening in the MarmaladeRose household. Still trying to remember all of my favourites. It's really quite exciting discovering you all again!

love Fi x

Life in a Laptop.

2011-06-21T10:11:00.015+01:00

PANIC! PANIC!

DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC!

Start breathing again...in...out...in...out.

A nasty virus took hold in my luverly laptop, my Wonderful Man worked on it for about 3 hours. I paced the floor, back and forth, chewing fingernails and boiling water! Eventually wiping his brow he put it right and said, "That was a tough one."

He's a superdooper computer whizz.

MY HERO.

But just when we thought everything was running as normal...AAAARG!

All of my pictures and photos had vanished! My little 'My Pictures' folder was empty!

And I have to tell you, that 'My Pictures' folder is my life! It holds all that is 'virtually' dear to me.

It holds all photographic records of my work for about the last 7 years!

It holds my virtual inspirations scrapbook!

It holds images I just like that make me smile!

It holds my creative life!

But Wonderful Man is wonderful for many reasons.

And on this occasion it's because he retrieved my creative life,

and gently with caring tiptappety fingers made it all reappear in its little yellow folders.

He truly is a WONDERFUL MAN.

Alas wonderful does have it's limits sometimes and at the moment I have a very blank space where my 'favourites' lists should be.
And it was a VERY long list.
My list of favourites was soooo long that I had them organised into folders. There was one for property websites, one for shopping, one for textiles, one for fabric, and most important of all THREE for blogs!

Yes I have you or should I say HAD you all organised into UK blogs, World blogs, and my '20 minuters into a Daily sewing blogs.

So my dear friends I need to make a new favourites list. I need to find you all again. So please be patient with me if I don't visit for a while, I've lost your address.

Of course it would be most helpful if you left a little calling card when you drop by to aid me with filling my new favourites folders :)

The pictures are of my last felt piece. A commission for the lovely and very patient TillyRose. If you would like to see it in person you'll can visit Karen's new craft barn which will shortly be open for craft workshops and crafting goodies check out her blog for more information.

That's all for now folks!

Rest assured 'My Pictures' folder has now been backed up and copied!
and apparently is soon to be 'burned' to a CD!

And to my Wonderful Man...

Thank you darling X

2011-06-13T22:44:00.008+01:00

Aaaah...Deep breath in...take in all that lovely fresh air...aaaah.

Hello, I'm stood in the middle of the Creamery field in Hawes, so called because it belongs to the Wensleydale Creamery where all that yummy Wensleydale cheese is made ready for Wallace and Gromit to put on their crackers!

I thought I'd better take a photo quick smart as shortly this beautiful meadow will be cut ready for the Hawes Annual Gala to take place on it.
Anyway lets go back to my house as I really am behind with my blog posts, I must have at least 4 or 5 projects that I want to show you. (not all today though, that really would be too much!)

Firstly a bit of colourful crochet.

Can you guess what it is yet? Scrummy isn't it?
I found a picture on the interweb-thingy and just had to have a go.

This is the blog I found the tea cosy on, it's quite simple. I had to do my own thing here and there as my teapot is a different shape, but I just made it up as I went along.
I enjoyed making this so much that when I noticed a friends 'naked' teapot on one of her blog posts I couldn't resist making another.

Next up, lavender hearts.

Twenty to be precise!

A very nice lady from our local posh hotel spotted one in Karens shop whilst browsing for something else and asked if we could supply 20 to hang in the bedroom wardrobes. So with only two evenings to get them made I went into a frenzy of snipping and stitching shortly to be followed by a lavender induced headache. It's mighty powerful stuff in in large quantities over a prolonged time!

I have to tell you I had a bit of a panic when I realised that the fabric pen I use to draw the heart template wouldn't fade in time. There were huge purple heart outlines on every one of them. I had to bite the bullet and soak them all with water to get the ink out, leaving them all to air dry over night in the airing cupboard. This meant I had to fill, stitch up, trim and pack them up, all in an hour and a half early on the morning they were due to be delivered. It was a very close thing I can tell you!

But they did look lovely.

I know it would make me smile to open a wardrobe door and find a pretty, vintage, linen heart dangling inside.

Well thats two projects down, we still have a felt wall hanging to look at, new brooches, new greetings cards and some felted flowers to look at.

Oh! I nearly forgot, I've made some more bunnies too!

We're going to need a serious amount of tea and biscuits!

love Fi x

Napkin Greetings!

2011-06-04T09:25:00.014+01:00

Once upon a time, many moons ago, a pretty lady (we'll call her Karen) in a pretty shop (we'll call it Milkchurn Cottage) in a pretty village (we'll call it Hawes), bemoaned the fact that she couldn't source any really pretty greetings cards to sell in her pretty shop.

Aaaaaw.

But then the pretty lady had an idea and turned to her lovely friend (we'll call her Fi) who often visited the pretty shop and drank tea and chatted for far longer than she really should,

and said, "Oo...We could make some really, really, pretty greetings cards for my pretty shop couldn't we?". (Big flutter of eyelashes and sweet smile.)

It is at this point dear reader that I must explain that the word we when used in conjunction with fluttery eyelashes and sweet smile really means Fi.

So for future reference, We = Fi.

Got it? Good.

So after lots of sleeps and many moons had passed, the lovely Fi finally took up her pencil one evening and began to sketch. She sketched and sketched until her fingers were sore and her tiny brain hurt. By the time she fell into a deep slumber she had a little pile of sketchy ideas.
The very next day (or maybe a week or two later) after eating her porridge, Fi set to work with her snippety scissors and some odd vintage napkins. She snipped and she sewed looooong into the night.
The work was hard and Fi's tiny brain was tired but she persevered until....

Ta-daa!
She had a lovely pile of napkin corners all appliqued and embroidered, celebrating the things we all celebrate! I must tell you dear reader she was mighty pleased with her work.
But this was not enough!
NO!
All these gorgeous napkin corners had to be photographed, copied, printed, trimmed, glued and positioned. Card had to folded and labels had to made!
Once again Fi toiled hard into the night. She'd heard stories of old about little elves but alas they were only stories. Maybe her very own little people would like to help, but she knew deep down in her heart, it was a task only she could complete.

The next morning dawned (a little gloomy by the look of the photo) and BEHOLD! There on the table was a big pile of....very pretty ..... GREETINGS CARDS!
HOORAH!
A selection of 10 different designs.
Blank inside (just how Fi likes them.)

And all with a little label of love on the back.
aaaaaaahhh.

Soon after the little napkin corner cards were whisked away in a magic shopping bag to Milkchurn Cottage, where they were lovingly placed in the whirly-gig-thingy to wait patiently until they were chosen by lovely, lovely customers who, in turn, would fill them with 'lots of love' and send them to the four corners of the world to spread much happiness!
The pretty shop owner was also mighty pleased and gave the lovely Fi a cup of tea.
They sat together in the pretty shop sipping tea and gazing lovingly at the whirly-gig-thingy.

The pretty shop owner smiled and fluttered her eyelashes.

"I think we need to make some more of those!"

The End.

2011-06-02T00:33:00.008+01:00

Pretty gypsy caravans have been travelling through our little town all week.
They're on their way to the annual Appleby horse fair in Cumbria.

I do enjoy seeing them but they do slow the traffic up quite a bit as there are only 2 short stretches of road in the whole 17 miles beetween us and the next town, Leyburn where it is possible to overtake safely. (It's a very bendy and winding road, bikers love it.) If we remember we try and use a back road to avoid them on our return journey.

And this is where we were returning from,

West Burton.
Pretty eh?

Aaaah thats better, no sneaky dog or wonderful man blocking my shot.

I had to snap this one.

NO PARKING ON THE GREEN!

Stitchy stuff next time, I promise.

love Fi x

A Bouquet of Crochet

2011-05-29T12:22:00.008+01:00

Well maybe not a bouquet, more like a posy but sent to say thank you for all of your lovely, funny, helpful, glorious, boobage comments on my last post. What a wacky bunch you are, lol. I must admit for years I've thought about having a reduction but firstly, I'm a big cowardy-custard and secondly a firm believer in the 'If it aint broke, don't fix it.' brigade.

Be assured I visited all the helpful links and tips you gave me and although dressmaking is on a back burner at the moment, I will return to it scissors in one hand, pins in the other, frown on face and no doubt sticky-out-tongue... well...sticking out!

But first a little thank you project for you to have a go at.

Take some scrummy yarn, any odds and ends will do. I used some dk cotton.

Grab a hook and crochet up some simple flowers.
I started with one of those loops around my finger that you can pull and tighten up when you've finished. Then I simply crocheted 5 petals each made from 3ch, 1trb, 3ch, 1sl st all into the starting loop. Don't worry about any of this just do your own thing.

Snaffle up a good friends old necklace (thank you Karen :) and take a pair of scissors to it. (Little tip, don't cut the necklace without a basin underneath it first to catch those pesky, bouncy, little beads.)

Next raid said good friends garden for suitable twiggy bits. This is far harder than it sound, you don't want anything too thick, brittle, nobbly, slimy, green etc. Karen kindly 'pruned' an Elderberry bush.

Mix all the above with some PVA glue and sticky fingers.

TA-DAA!

This idea was inspired by the two dull blue flowers with chunky white wooden beads at the bottom of this picture. Karen bought a bunch of these for her pretty shop and although they have sold well, we (this is the royal 'we' you understand) decided 'we' could make some faaaaar prettier.

'We' hope you agree?

If you don't have a friend with an abundance of twiggy stuff in her garden, wooden barbecue skewers cut down work just as well, as you can see from the picture above.

Please pop back soon to share a cuppa and my latest exciting project.

All will be revealed.

Love Fi x

Dressmaking...The Final Frontier

2011-05-22T00:04:00.017+01:00

I'm not quite sure where to start with this post so I'll just 'plunge' straight in.

I've got big boobs!

This is no boast my friends quite the opposite, without getting deeply embroiled in a moaning monologue, they make clothes shopping very depressing if not almost impossible.

I don't own any blouses or shirts, I have 2 dresses. The first was bought about 3 years ago for a wedding (floaty and far too dressy for everyday wear) and the second was bought in desperation from a charity shop last year whilst away on holiday when there was an unexpected heatwave and I'd only packed jeans and jumpers!(this one being rather Monroe-esque and far too clingy for my ample figure). My entire wardrobe seems to be made up of dark trousers and stretchy t shirts.

Now I'm really quite a girly girl and occasionally I'd like to dress as such, nothing fancy just a simple dress and pretty flipflops when its warm, you know the kind of thing.

As you may have noticed I'm quite handy with a sewing machine. I can stitch up a fabric cupcake or a pretty bunny rabbit without too many problems so I thought, why not have a go at making your own dress Fiona.

Excellent idea!

Now I have dabbled with dress making once or twice before. At the age of 12 I made a hidious brown polyester A line skirt at junior school. At about 16 I made a pair of floral baggy elasticated shorts and in my 20's I managed quite a nice v neck fitted dress, so I know my way around a pattern, notches, seam allowance, tailors tacks etc., shouldn't be too much of a problem...

With the help of my mum I carefully chose my pattern, multi sized, flattering crossover v neck, simple straps and back. I'd even thought about how to customise it myself to give extra bossom room. How difficult could it be?

THIS DIFFICULT!

Here are my THREE calico attempts at getting the bodice to fit! You can see the last one has notes written on it to help if I'm ever desperate enough to pick it up and have another try!

I altered the armholes, I added more fabric under the bust, I even made darts where there weren't any... all in vain. I tried it on, I pinned, I took it off, I snipped, I stitched, I tried it on, I pinned I took it off. On and on until I chucked it on the floor and pouted like a child.

Now I don't like to be beaten. I had set out to make a dress and a dress I was going to have. After a quick rummage in my fabric stash I pulled out a length of navy jersey type fabric that was about 14 years old. I remember buying it from a Laura Ashley remnants basket with the intention of making child #2 some leggings when she was a toddler (she's now 16 and wouldn't be seen dead in Laura Ashley). I grabbed a stretchy crossover top from my wardrobe and plonked it on the fabric and drew around it. Without any measuring or messing around I quickly cut it out and started stitching. What I haven't told you is that it was now 4pm and we were going out with friends for a meal a 7pm.

I snipped and stitched like a woman possessed, not bothering to measure, tack or mess around making sure my seam allowances and turnings were correct.

two and a half hours later...

TA-DAA!
Home made maxi dress with tie belt.

And yes I wore out to our dinner date even though I'd not had time to turn the hem up, (nobody noticed) and I felt wonderful in it. It's sooooo comfortable and girly, I can't wait to wear it again.

Don't laugh! I know it looks... well ... odd, but it was the only thing I could think to do, to make my lovely slender maniquin (Ethel Maud) more my shape. Necessity, the mother of invention and all that. This is attempt #3.

My own design again but with a stable fabric.(I told you I don't like to be beaten.)

It's NOT going well.

I'll keep you informed...

love Fi x

Edited to add...

For all of you girls out there with plenty of 'boobage' (I love that term Bibbitybob and if I could, I'd give you some) Bravissimo do a range of clothes for big boobed women called Pepperberry. A little out of my everyday price range but much better than the stuff they used to do.

A gift for Mum.

2011-05-11T21:33:00.005+01:00

This is my latest offering on the applique art front.

Inspired by my Mum and Dads house and pretty garden.

I made a little watercolour sketch to help me pick out the important features.

Plants on the patio.

Wisteria over the window.

Leaded windows and a suggestion of brickwork.

Stepping stones in the lawn and shrubs around the pond.

Finished just in time for Mums birthday!

And luckily she loved it, she even shed a few tears.

love Fi x

Guerrilla Knitting

2011-05-11T08:48:00.004+01:00

Psssst....over here...look what I did!
I've been wanting to do a spot of yarnstorming for a looooong time now.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go to google images and type in guerrilla knitting or yarnbombing.

Now I have to say I don't agree with all yarnstorming. For example, I don't think you should cover a whole tree with it, after all a tree is beautiful in its own right but an ugly grey sign post or railing...well that's a completely different matter!

Would this make you smile?

Inoffensive street art, causing no damage, easily removed even biodegradable as its pure wool. Of course it's got to be done tastefully, some of the guerrill knitting out there is down right tatty and ugly in my opinion. But with a little thought and care it can look pretty, funny, interesting, witty and inspiring.

Got to go the yarn is calling!

Community Bunting.

2011-05-01T22:47:00.006+01:00

Thank you for all of your lovely comments on my last post. I really wasn't expecting such a response to my DIY fencing, lol! You know what they say...'Necessity is the mother of invention.'

I've been busy a stitching and a sewing as usual. This post finds me a stitching in the garden, well you have to make the most of the sunshine don't you. I've been making 'community bunting'.
A lovely friend and neighbour asked me if I'd like to give up an hour or so and help sew some bunting to be used for our village gala in June. Well how could I say no, after all my sewing machine and I are practically joined at the hip, I start doing 'cold turkey' if I go a day without switching it on.
Apparently this bunting can be borrowed from the gala committee by anyone in the community for parties, weddings and the like, hence the title, Community Bunting. Luckily someone else had already done the hard part of cutting out all the lovely flags, I just had to sew it together. It kind of came in kit form...a carrier bag of precut flags and a roll of tape.

No I didn't stitch all this, lol.
This is our market place looking rather splendid as it does every summer. This year though bundles of bunting have been given to all the individual shopkeepers and businesses to decorate their frontages.

Milkchurn Cottage is no exception.

The bundle Karen received was a little on the generous side, but waste not want not. We carried it along to the nearest telegraph pole and even had enough to wrap around it.
Gorgeous, you can't beat a bit of home made bunting.

And talking of home made.

A little sneaky peek of my latest artistic offering.

All shall be revealed.

Till next time

love Fi x

Emergency Crocheting.

2011-04-18T17:46:00.006+01:00

This weekend has mostly been taken up with animal husbandry. That sounds very grand doesn't it? In other word...trying to keep the chickens from escaping! Yes those little Houdinis have been doing their best to get into the back garden and scrabble about in our beds and borders.

There has been much fence building and gate making, not by me you understand. No I just climbed to the top of the bank at the side of our house and did some over viewing.

And picture taking. All on your behalf you understand, I'd much rather have been knocking fence posts in but someone has to record everything for posterity and blog posting. Here are the girls looking a bit miffed. You see they'd discovered that the wire meshing on the gate had larger holes than the rest of the fence and with a little hop and a wiggle they could pop through quite easily. Cheeky little chickens! They cleverly noticed this on the day that Wonderful Man was at work 120 miles away, but no panic I sprang into action with my trusty crochet hook and a ball of garden twine! HA! That put pay to their little game! I crocheted across their little escape route and stopped them in their tracks!

Hope you're feeling better soon Mum. x

Till next time

love Fi x

2011-04-06T22:43:00.003+01:00

Just a little catch up.

I was going to say the weather has been lovely here in the Dales recently and it has but we've also had some extremely heavy rain! Any how on this particular day the weather was pleasant enough for me to do a spot of gardening with the hinderance...er...I mean help of the 'girls'.

From left to right we have Margery, Cluck, Lady Gaga, Fudge and Pepper. Paxo it just out of shot on the right. How they're not headless or missing a leg I don't know! They practically sit on the spade as you dig, waiting for the best worms!

Now some pretties for you. Lets zoom in a bit...

Mothers day gifts from my lovely family. A new Cath mug and a gorgeous big batter bowl! A whole 5 litres worth of batter bowl! It's from M&S before you ask, lol.

And not forgetting a huge thank you to you all for the lovely comments you left on my last post. I really appreciate your encouragement. I always read every single comment and I know I'm pants at finding time to reply to you all so I'm sending you all a big hug and super cheesy grin!

Love you all.

Fi x

The Old Sweet Shop

2011-03-25T12:41:00.006Z

For a long time now I've been wanting to be a bit more creative with my crafting. Cupcakes and bunnies are fine but there are only so many you can make without needing a change. Needing to explore your own creativity and crafting skills.

Above is The Old Sweet Shop.

A lovely little shop run by lovely people.

I knew you'd want to go inside so here it is!

Old, quirky, quaint and utterly gorgeous.

This is a page from my sketch book.

As you can see I don't do a lot of drawing these days, but it was enough to inspire me to do something I've been wanting to do for well over a year now.

The Old Sweet Shop.

I snipped and trimmed...

and stitched...

to my hearts content.

Look at the little sweety jars in the window!

I would like to do a whole series of local places and have already built up quite a collection of
photos.

Who knows maybe one day I could have an exhibition.

Just need to get the old arse into gear now!

love fi x

Apron Love.

2011-03-17T23:43:00.006Z

The above is the result of waking up to kiss Wonderful Man goodbye when he left at 4.30am for work!

Well to be precise, it's the result of me not being able to get back to sleep after he left for work at 4:30am!

Luckily he only has to do this once a week. Get up at 4:30 I mean, not go to work once a week! lol.

I've got a bit of bread thing going on at the moment which is quite nice only I wish it would go away as I'm piling the weight on...mmmmm...homemade bread and jam....mmmmmm!

Recent crafting activity...more heart brooches.

These seem to be quite popular in Karens pretty shop so I've tweaked them a little, as you do when you've made quite a few of the same thing. I'm rather pleased with these as I printed the script onto the fabric myself and I have to say I'm quite taken with it.

More hearts, one to be precise, appliqued onto...

this little utility apron.

I'm hoping this will be just right for keeping my essentials in when I'm running my next craft stall. If it's not it doesn't matter as I've found it rather useful at home already for carrying my mobile phone (which usually lives in my bra when I have no pockets) my camera ready for crafty blog photos at any given opportunity, pens, tissues the coiled up USB lead for the camera. (It's always downs stairs when I'm up and upstairs when I'm down, and I live in a 3 storey house! I should be as thin as Kate Moss really!)
The apron wasn't my idea I found it here if you fancy having a go.

More apron luuurve!

Some vintage Sanderson curtain fabric, a bit of ricrac and HeY preSTO!

Modelled beautifully by Ethel Maud.

I don't think I've introduced you to Ethel Maud before. She gets in the way a bit but I do love her so. She's very quiet and never answers back and best of all she's very obliging when you need to hang things off her instead of dropping them on the floor.
.

And lastly.

A sneak preview.

I'm sooooo excited about this, I'm almost beside myself!

Gosh! I hope you won't be disappointed after this build up. I'm just so pleased with how this turned out... but that's for next time.

Thanks for keeping me company, you keep me going.

love fi x

Time Travel

2011-03-15T08:39:00.020Z

As many of you already know I live in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales.

Right there in the centre of the picture.

A very special place to be and indeed I feel very, very lucky and privileged to live here (thank you Wonderful Man). I try to never ever take it for granted and as you know, try to share it with as many of you as I can (or some might say, foist it upon you left, right and centre, lol)

WM and I often remark that living here is like stepping back in time and to be honest with you it was one of its attractions when deciding to relocate here.

Many of our local villages have car parking with honesty boxes for payment (quite a novelty when you come from the city). Baskets of eggs are left for sale on walls with a little tin for the money. Bikes, tools, wellies, toys etc are safely left outside peoples homes. Pushchairs and cars can be parked outside the local shop without worry. Your bill from the coal man can often take a good six months to arrive, no rush.

Best of all, folk smile and stop to say hello.

Every day I see little snapshots of Dales history, times gone by.

Often taken for granted by the locals.

(we're 'in-comers', and I'm not sure how many decades you have to live here to be classed as local, lol)

but special to me and worthy of a little click of the camera.

Fungus and moss will only grow on trees where the air is unpolluted by cars.

Wild flowers surprise you on the road side.

Tuesday is always market day, flat cap, wool coat and wicker basket obligatory.

No longer the chosen mode of transport.

The village green, complete with Maypole.

Stepping further back in time, lead mines and quarries.

We truly love getting out and about and still have much to see and discover.

This is our latest discovery.

Found at the side of the road, on a quite ordinary shopping trip to one of our nearest little towns, Kirkby Stephen.

Pendragon Castle.

. A 12th century Norman Keep.

With a 14th century garderobe turret.

I've never used the words dragon and castle in the same post before.

I feel quite excited and giddy.

Must be time for a good old fashioned cup of tea.

till next time,

love fi x

We all need keeping warm.

2011-03-07T14:06:00.007Z

You may have noticed on your recent visits to my blog, a pretty rainbow up there at the top of my sidebar on the right saying Crochet a rainbow.This is a link to Sarah Londons lovely yarny blog asking for help for the victims of the recent Australian floods.

For a few weeks now I've wanted to help in some tiny way but didn't quite know what to do. I'd see other blogs asking for quilt blocks to be made and another asking for a sewing kits for the women who had lost theirs in the flood waters but I knew as much as wanted to help, realisticly I would never get around to making these items.

There were lots of good intentions but you know what it's like.

Then I discovered 'Crochet a Rainbow'.

Perfect!

All Sarah was asking for was to crochet some granny squares no bigger than 5 rounds. You don't even have to sew them together, just post them to Sarah and she would do the rest.

I knew I could fit this in here and there. A granny here and a granny there and HeyPresto a lovely bundle of grannies ready to be posted off to Sarah ready to be made in to blankets.
Why not snatch a few minutes here and there and do a bit of grannying yourself.

It feels soooooo good to granny for the good of others.

Go on...you could have completed the first round whilst reading this!

Staying on the same thread. I've been doing a spot of knitting. I must admit that's not something you'll hear me say very often as I'm not a very keen knitter, but I couldn't resist these little sandels.

And as there is a baby due a next-door-but-one how could I not give them a go. These little shoes are to fit 3 month upwards, so I decided a practical denim blue colour might be best,
but what if it's a girl?

Then I'll add some little crochet primroses.

Pleeeeeeeaaase let it be a GIRL!
.

love fi x

Guest Post from Fiona's Mum

2011-03-06T22:28:00.005Z

Fiona's Dad would just like to say a big THANK-YOU to all her lovely bloggie friends for all the lovely comments and words of encouragement.

If only you all knew how much that meant to him, as he doesn't think he is very clever at all!! He has only just started doing cross stitch late last year, prior to that it was Hardanger that had taken over his spare time.

To Anne the lady at made-and-found your comments in particular really were very touching. We were sorry about your loss at such a young age, but pleased that you have some special memories, thank-you, you touched a soft spot!

Love from Fiona's Mum

Gratuitous Yorkshire Dales Scenery

2011-03-01T21:21:00.023Z

Hello, you're just in time! Get your coat on we going for a drive around the block.

Why?

Just because the sun is shining and we're in a beautiful place.

The little village of Askrigg.

Recognise the building with the railings?

It was James Herriots veterinary practice in 'All Creatures Great and Small'.
Full of useless information, that's me!

Next stop the even smaller village of Muker, over the top of the fells and down the other side.

Nearly at the top.

Woohoo!

We're...

on top of the worrrrrllld.

There's the other side of the Fell.

That's Swaledale down there in front of us.

Nearly at the bottom.

Left turn at the bottom.

Over this bridge and there's Muker.

We'll park here next to the river and have a bimble.

This tiny building use to be the post office.

Quick! Lets catch up to Wonderful Man and Sneaky dog.

huge roof tiles.

Keep going. Can you feel the sunshine warm on your back ?

This is where we'll stop today. If you'd like to see whats further over the river check this post.

but today this is far enough.

Lets retrace our steps back to the village.

I hope it was worth climbing all those steps to hang that washing out.

Well, needs must!

Not everyone has a garden!

Goodbye Muker.

There are Snowdrops everywhere at the moment.

Back into the car everyone.
Straight on driver!

Take the first left.

We've reached the start of the Buttertubs Pass.

We're climbing higher and higher...

looking back down Swaledale, where we've just been.

We're back on the top of Fells now.

Ugh! I really shouldn't look down there!

This little bit of 'hosepipe' will keep us safe though!!!

Can't wait to get past this bit. I'm a real scaredy cat.

These big wooden post are spaced all along this stretch of the road so that the road can be found by the snowploughs when it snows.

Aaaah... that's better.

We'll stop here at the viewing piont for a few minutes.

And take in Wensleydale in all its glory.

Bored yet? Nope! Me neither!

Looking towards the East.

And towards the West.

Gosh! I love living here!

Time the drive down to our village now.

There it is just ahead of us. I hope you enjoyed that ride around the block or more correctly, around the Fells.

It's time to go home and start tea now.

But before I go... I just want to say thank you to all of you who left such lovely comments on my last post. My Mum and Dad were both very touched by your lovely words.

Actually between you and me, there were a few tears.

Time to start peeling those potatoes

see you next time.

love fi x

An Heirloom of the Future.

2011-02-22T23:16:00.005Z

I have something very special to show you today.

Isn't this beautiful?

This is Blackwork. Yep. I know it's red, but it's still called Blackwork.

Last year after exhausting his interest in Hardanger embroidery, my Dad discovered cross stitch embroidery. (He has to have something to keep him occupied in the winter months when he can't get out in the garden or in the garage.)
Well after a year of stitching the most beautiful traditional cross stitch samplers I decided he might like a new challenge, so I bought him a Blackwork book for Christmas.

I know it's only been a couple of months but I've already lost count of how many pieces he's finished. So on his last visit at the end of January I happened to mention that I would dearly love a Blackwork sampler to hang on my wall, hint, hint.

I was allowed to choose the parts I liked from the sampler charts in the new book
and the colours in which the piece would be made.

Hey Presto, a couple of weeks later my beautiful heirloom arrived.

Complete with the obligatory name, year it was made and his age.

Thank you Dad, for a true family heirloom.

Made and received with love.

xxx

A New Hat

2011-02-14T12:29:00.014Z

"I have a hat. It is graceful and feminine and has a wide brim with a red ribbon around the band. It gives me a certain dignity, as if I were attending a state funeral or something. People are generous in their compliments. Someday I may get up enough courage to wear it, instead of carrying it." From "Women Who Wear Hats Stand Heads Above the Rest" (by Irma Bombeck)

"A hat is a shameless flatterer, calling attention to an escaping curl, a tawny braid, a sprinkling of freckles over a pert nose, directing the eye to what is most unique about a face. Its curves emphasize a shining pair of eyes, a lofty forehead; its deep brim accentuates the pale tint of a cheek, creates an aura of prettiness, suggests a mystery that awakens curiosity in the onlooker." (Jeanine Larmoth)

"You cannot hide in a hat; you will be noticed, especially by men. To men, you become a lady when you don a hat--one who they rush to open doors for. To women, you become an inspiration, reminding them that they have a closet full of hats they have not had the courage to wear."
.

Aren't these 'hat quotes' wonderful? Maybe there is some truth in them too, I popped out in my new hat this afternoon and had a gentleman smile and step aside for me to walk in font of him! I'll maybe have to start wearing one all the time. lol

I crocheted this one in a single evening, making a basic beanie hat but adding a partial brim a bit like a bonnet so that it wouldn't get in the way of a scarf or collar at the back. I was after something close fitting that wouldn't be whipped away by the wild Wensleydale winds, but with a small brim to stop the icy rain from going in my eyes.
.

I originally bought the wool (Twilleys Freedom Spirit 100% wool) over a year ago with the intention of crocheting a cloche hat and then felting it in the washing machine but doing it this way is a bit hit and miss as the wool shrinks so much.

So in the end I used two strands of yarn together and just crocheted the hat and then made a fleece lining for it, to stop the wind whistling through.

.

And it's luuuuuuurvely, sooooo snuggly and warm.

I surely needed that cosy new hat when we visited Sedbergh, the next little town to the West of ours where I visited this little shop.

Would you like to go inside?

A little treasure trove of vintage pretties.

books and crockery

kitchen ware and thing-a-ma-bobs.

eiderdowns and linens.

bits and...

bobs.

Oh, I nearly forgot; apparently the word fettle is an old Yorkshire word meaning to mend.

Right I'm off now, there's fettling to be done.

love fi x

Shop, Shop, Selling.

2011-02-07T16:28:00.010Z

Here it is, my little craft stall at the Vintage and Collectors Fair last weekend. Thanks to all of your best wishes I had a good day even though it didn't start quite how I expected and I was very nervous being a craft stall virgin and all!

It doesn't look as though there is much there but golly it all took a long time to make!

Actually... if you think, I created every item on that table then...yeah, I suppose there is quite a lot there for 5 weeks prep.

Lets have a little walk around the room, it won't take long as it was only a small room. The big hall was already in use for the usual monthly Hoppers auction that takes place in Hawes, so space was extremely limited but hopes are high that it will expand over the next few months.

This is Keith with all of his goodies.
I especially liked the three black and white prints of Whitby.

Paulines table with some beautiful shell purses.

Here's the lovely Jenny's stall, well half of it,

here's the rest, look at all of those scrummy fabrics, very tempting indeed!

Can you see that gorgeous floral tapestry dangling at the front, swoon!
I must say a big thank you to Jenny for looking after me so well.

The fair went down very well even though the weather misbehaved itself very badly indeed. Gales and horizontal rain with lots of local flooding.

Actually it's no better today so I've spent the day uploading some pretties to my

Folksy shop.

Elegant white lavender bags made from vintage linens and lace.

Hippety hoppety embroidered bunnies.

A rosey round cushion

and a lovely one off piece of vintage embroidered linen, now a plumptious cushion complimented with a bit of 30's style border.

And the very popular Springtime Bags

And this...

Well temptation got the better of me...

The most wonderful length of vintage paisley eiderdown fabric just happened to float over from Jennys stall to my shopping basket.

Don't know how it happened!

Honest!
.

Thank you for all of your encouragement.

I'm glad to have you along on my crafting journey.

And to my very good friend Karen, who should have been with me over the weekend,

I hope you're feeling much better now sweetie. x

love fi x

Lolloping Along

2011-02-01T21:42:00.010Z

Things here in the MarmaladeRose household are lolloping along at a rare old speed. Well for some of us they are! Others like to take things easy. Can you believe that after 3 unsuccessful attempts at getting on the sofa (she's not allowed) Sneaky Dog winged to go out of the room. I thought she need to go out for a wee but no, she took me over to the furry bean bag in the kitchen and rested her chin on it, meaning 'I want to lay on this!'

So here she is on what is now HER furry beanbag in prime location in front of the fire in the sitting room! Anything for a quiet life.
Back to lolloping.
In 3 days time I'm taking part in my first ever craft fair, well actually it's a Vintage and Collectors Fair being held in Hawes Market Hall in North Yorkshire. By the way, you are all more than welcome. Hence the amount of frantic crafting and lack of blogging of late. (v. sorry)
Yes Friday is D day, and Saturday too as it's over 2 days.
This is a new fair and monthly booking have been made throughout the rest of the year so if any of you fancy joining in email me and I'll put you in touch with the organiser, Jenny.

So these are my little vintage style brooches; see everything I'm making has a vintage vibe as I don't have anything collectible to sell only my vintage embroidered linens. Is it all slotting into place now?

Good.

This one is my favourite.

Lots of hand stitching.

But back to lolloping...

Hmmmm can you smell it?

I've been making my own bread for the last 2 or 3 months the old fashioned way by hand.

Needless to say I've been eating most of it too.

With lots of real butter.

Well it would be a crime to put anything else on homemade bread wouldn't it!

Back to life lolloping along...

Sneaky dog knows when we're out on a walk she's not allowed through the squeeze gates before me but she just can't help herself. If only you could watch her trying back out of the tiny opening, turn on that narrow top step and then squeeze back past me coming up the steps, it's soooo funny.

.
Back to life-a-lolloping

Special events have taken place.
Where does the time go?

#2 decorated the cake, would you believe her first time with the piping bag!
We think she did an excellent job. Hmmm...who's birthday is it next?

.
Lollopy-lollopy

Old napkins!

What can you do with them?

Obviously they are either stained, holy, worn or there is never a full set, so...

bunting!

terribly difficult to take a decent photo of a string of bunting you know.

I know you can't see but every dangley corner has a different design on it, I think it would be lovely for a Summer wedding or even in room where you want bunting but nothing to girly and in your face.(I'm thinking of my bedroom here, sssh don't tell wonderful man!)

.
loll op, loll op,

much stitching of... bunny ears
hoppity lollop.

More Springtime bags...

still with a vintage vibe.

limp, limp, lollop.

And lastly...

Hens... getting a bit to daring for their own good.

They've decided to wait in the porch at the back door for us now.

Luckily I spotted them just before I let Sneaky out!

Sneaky would like a hen!

Yep, life's lolloping along at a rare old speed.

till next time.

fi x

2011-01-20T23:19:00.012Z

Well I've started this year with real gusto my friends! (Lets hope I can keep it up, lol)

I'll apologise now for the speed with which I whizz you through this post but my little sewing machine has been so busy over the first 20 days of 2011 that I'm afraid we'll get behind with each other.

So without further ado lets get this post on the road...

Do you remember this beautiful piece of embroidery? I found it dirty and crumpled in a box that I bought from a charity shop labelled 'Granny Pilleys embroidery' well over a year ago.

Gorgeous isn't it?

At the moment there is a lack of comfy sofa cushions in the MarmaladeRose household due to me having a tizzy fit just before Christmas and chucking out our old worn and threadbare cushion covers. I did of course being the thrifty madam that I am, cut off the zippers and pass on the worn almost pancake flat inner pads to Sneaky Dog for her bed. (and very pleased she was with them too) So there has been a dearth of cushions on Wonderful Mans sofa which hasn't gone unnoticed I can tell you.

Being the good wifey that I am, I thriftily (I think we'll be seeing a lot of that word this year) rummage around in the numerous boxes stashed in the loft for said piece of fabric, I gave it a wash and hey presto it looked shipshape and shiny!(and smelt much better too!)

I did tremble a bit before I cut into the fabric. It's such a fine piece of embroidery that I did wonder whether or not I should put it in a picture frame and hang it on the wall. But then I reasoned with myself that textiles are meant to be touched, lets face it how many of us can walk through a department store without fingering a garment or two as we glide past.

Any how, I'm sure Granny Pilley would rather it was adorning one of Dunnelms finest feather cushion pads on Wonderful Mans sofa rather than scrunched up in the corner of a cardboard box never to see the light of day.

And this is the back, little green, velvet button loops finish it off.
I even managed to find 3 buttons in my stash with a wavy design on them to match the fabric.
(Apologies for the very poor light, but it's been crap here, it's like living in a hobbit hole!)

Next is a quilted patchwork cushion with a vintage vibe. This one is NOT on Wonderful Mans sofa but sitting prettily in my Folksy shop waiting for someone with infinite good taste and a space on their bed/chair for a some embroidered and patched scrummyness.

No attention has been spared here. The back fastens with 2 embroidered covered buttons and coloured lace button loops. I'm on a roll now girls.

I've also made 3 bunnies for my Folksy shop, this unusual soft green one has already hopped off to pastures new though. (Just as well really as I was very temped to keep her for myself, tut, tut!)

Another Springtime bag has been carefully completed, actually there have been 2, but the pretty pink one I made was snaffled up by a friend before I could even photograph it! This one started out as a tray cloth, but life had been hard on her and she had some pretty grotty tea stains on her bottom. OO er! Notice the hobbity lack of light again!

Talking of tea, (Good link eh? My posts aren't just thrown together you know.)
Talking of tea...

I've been making padded removable liners for these vintage embroidered tea cosies.

Put the kettle on Polly!

(Yes I know they are budgies but I couldn't think of anything for a budgie!)

Now this one IS mine!
(Note to self; Must start using a teapot.)

Phew! I think we're up to date now. Well actually we're not because I know I have something else up in the attic that's finished but it is awaiting some daylight to be photographed.

Anyway... Lastly, this is my work basket today.
Can you spy those little embellished hearts?

Yep! I know. I'm a big tease...

till next time

love fi x

20 Minuters 1 Year On.

2011-01-10T12:07:00.038Z

Hello luverly, luverly bloggy friends.

Yes it has been a whole year give or take a day or two, since I mentioned those 3 little words...

NEWS YEARS RESOLUTION

and behold

was created!

If you're new to my blog and wondering what the 20 Minuters is all about, you can read my blog post that started it all here, who'd have thought!

Shall we see how we got on?

I say 'we' as right from the beginning I wasn't alone on this one.

No fewer than 67 of you scrummy bloggers asked to join in the fun!

We have our own Flickr page with 40 contributors. (Just click on the link on my sidebar to check out all the stitchy, hooky goodness, make sure you have a cuppa and a piece of cake to keep you going thought as there is plenty to see.

The top 5 contributors are

Pearly Queen with 206 photos

Marmaladerose with 92 photos

Green Rabbit Designs with 70 photos

Harmonie and Rosie with 64 photos

and

Handmadehappiness with 48 photos

::

I myself have found this hugely rewarding especially all of the kind comments and encouragement from you lot out there,

THANK YOU!

It feels like a huge pair of hands gently cajoling and pushing me forward.

It's not all been plain sailing though. I have to admit there have been days when I've not managed to squeeze in that 20 minutes. There have not been many of them though, but sometimes things happen, things quite out of your control.

Life just gets in the way!

I lost my job in 2010.

I was offered another job which fizzled out 5 weeks before Christmas.
But all this, plus the support of my wonderful man and good friends (I include you blogsters out there) has given me a kick up the bum and made me open my Folksy shop. (Something people have been urging me to do for a long time) So things are looking brighter and I'm hoping that this year my job WILL BE my Folksy shop. Fingers crossed!

So what have I achieved this year

Are you ready?

In no particular order

I've made

a snowman lap quilt

a crazy nine patch chair pad

pieced a patchwork hexagon quilt (ongoing)

several drawstring bags

Milkchurn Cottage applique picture

3 applique shed pictures

wheat bag covers

applique lavender bags

fabric cupcakes (shed loads)

crochet bunting (several)

crochet blanket (still needs the ends stitching in, lol)

5 pairs of crochet mitts

recovered wonderful mans work chair

crochet hangers (oops! no picture)

patchwork hearts

Castle Bolton felt picture

commission for Tilly Rose (embarrassingly still ongoing)

embroidered linen bunnies (lost count)

wheat filled lace hearts

lavender hearts

a gokart toy

housey key fobs

Maisie Pickles rag doll

5 fabric Xmas puds

a fabric wedding cake

Xmas garlands and

12 hand bags

Not a bad year!

But there's no time to put my feet up...

I'm on my second cushion cover of 2011 wooohooo!

Although there won't be an official 20 Minuters list this year, I hope you will all carry on with your 20 minutes crafting each day and of course keep uploading all of your beautiful items to our Flickr group. I know it's almost become a way of life to me now.

And lastly if I missed adding you to the 20 Minuters last year (things where a bit frantic and got on top of me occasionally) then please accept my apologies and please join in and upload your work this year, all are welcome.

love Fi x

PS Thank you Mrs Bobobun for taking the time to help me with mosaic making, I hope your back is better soon sweetie.

Baby it's cold outside.

2011-01-06T10:47:00.005Z

Hello my lovelies.

Thank you for all of your lovely comments you left on my last post. It was so difficult not to share my makes with you during December, lol.

This it todays view from my attic window.

I'm very glad the snow hasn't settled any lower down!
It's amazing the difference a few metres make.

This is what we had over Christmas. It looks spectacular doesn't it? We're about 4 miles from home at this point.

Aaah that's better nearly home.
I love it when I can see the 3 'bumps' on the right and 1 in front, that means we're almost home, a couple more bends in the road and we'll be in our little village.

This was part of our Boxing Day walk. I just have to show you the frozen beck. This is the bridge at Gayle in Wensleydale, the beck is almost completely frozen.

This the view from the bridge...

a closer look, the waterfalls have frozen completely!

It was beautiful.

This it the waterfall I usually show you as it's the bridge I cross to get to our lovely little post office in Hawes. Lets take a closer look at this one too.

On the far right next to the wall there is a huge arc of frozen ice with water gushing underneath it! Very strange to watch.

Brrrr... time to return to my sewing machine I think.

I just needed to share these extraordinary pics with you.

love fi x

Secret Christmas Makes.

2011-01-02T22:42:00.010Z

My sentiments to you exactly!

I wish you all a very happy and healthy new year.

And of course a very creative one!

Time to share my pre-Christmas secret makes, just so we're all up to date. We can't start the new year properly if we're all behind can we?

So firstly we have a simple Christmas Card for my parents. I find simple is usually best when it comes to Christmas cards.
A birthday card for my Dad.

Two pairs of fingerless mitts for my lovely friend Karen and another pair unfortunately not photographed for my dear friend Anne. These for day wear...

and something a little more lacy for the evenings, lol. You can find the patterns here and here on Creativeyarns lovely blog.
Actually I really fancy a pair of the daytime ones in black for myself but since I've been going to crochet myself a new hat since last year and not done it, I don't think I'm likely to get around to mitts either, lol.

Something very special now.

One of my hand felted and machine embroidered handbags for my Aunty Michelles 50th birthday. Did I mention she was 50! lol.

If we have time I'll show a bit more of this bag in detail another day.

That's if you'd like to see it ;)

A second one this time with velvet trim this one was a Christmas gift. Wow my little fingers have been very busy this December.

And lastly a pretty housey key fob for a special neighbour who has lots of keys!
.

So you see I've not really been neglecting you, I've just been very productive. Honest!

And talking of productive I think I need to check up on my lovely '20 Minuters' before January is out and take stock of all their creativity over the last year.
Still such a lot to fit in.

love fi x