feeling woolly

I hope you all had a nice Christmas, I certainly did.

But I also like this quiet time after. 

With the hustle and bustle of Christmas behind me, I just like to relax and think about possible new projects for the coming year.

But there is one very, very old project which I have returned to this week.

I stared knitting a wool jacket 6 years (!!!) ago. 

I always knew it was going to be a long term project, although I never thought it would take me this long.

It is a jacket from the book "Poetry in Stitches" by Norwegian designer Solveig Hisdal. 

It is knitted using Norwegian technique - knitted the whole body in one piece on a circular needle and then cutting into it for openings. 

I bought the wool (dyed specially for the projects in this book) directly from the factory in Norway .

This week I finished the main body at last, and started knitting the sleeves. 

I really hope that 2018 will be the year I will wear the jacket at last!

I have been wanting to play with some wool applique for some time, and today at last I got around to starting a small picture.

I am using some wool felt, rather then wool fabric, simply because it is cheaper and easier to get hold of. 

Also, instead of using a wool background, I am using this black fabric, just because I like fabric and I want to see how it will work together. I stabilised the fabric with Iron On Vilene, which should support the felt better. 

I hope you'll also get some time to yourselves this week for some little crafting at least.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2017

In our house we keep Continental Christmas, we celebrate on Christmas Eve.

Waiting for the family to arrive,

  and it is all over, food eaten, presents given and received, everyone gone;

 time to clear up and relax.

Today we will celebrate English Christmas at our DD's house.

Christmas x 2, aren't we lucky!

I hope you all are having a nice time,

see you all soon!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2017

not long to wait now............

I wish you all a wonderful Christmas !!!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2017

Christmas is slowly coming to our house......

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2017

the week and FNwF

Firstly - big thank you to Cheryll for hosting another FNwF , the last one of the year! See you all in 2018!

After another mild spell at the start of the week, this winter's first snow came on Friday; 

not the nice fluffy stuff, more sleet then snow, which did not settle, but made everything wet, and which froze overnight, changing footpaths into a skating ring, with just little white here and there, including our kitchen roof.

On Friday afternoon I made a cake; 

no, not Christmas baking yet, just a simple marble cake to have with coffee this weekend.

In the evening I settled down with my  "Mystical Lanterns" blanket and made few more motifs.

Earlier this week I spent a quite bit of time rearranging my sewing room. 

You might remember that I had a bash not so long ago and tried to make it more tidy, but still it just did not work for me. Since we moved to this house and had to "downsize" my sewing room, I didn't have enough room to open fully my Horn cabinet, which seemed a shame. Not a huge issue, but there were other problems also, like not really having enough space for the ironing board. I do have a smaller, table top ironing board, but to enough "top" to have it comfortably out all the time, so I prefer to have a floor standing one. This one is smaller, not a full size one, so I should be able to have it up all the time, which is so much more convenient.

So, I decided to turn the whole room around, which also involved moving all the shelves (with DH's help). I also had a good sort out of my books and some various stash, and made a trip to the charity shop.

It is quite incredible how much difference moving few things around makes.

The floor area stayed exactly the same size of course (very small), I did not remove any furniture. But the room now seems larger, and the Horn cabinet can be fully opened.

So, welcome to my "new" sewing room.

Today started very wet and windy,
and now there is some sleet coming down, which will (I expect) freeze overnight .....

Have a safe week!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2017

Quilter's Patch quilt - 3 more blocks

Tulips block,

Daylily block,

and Dahlia block.

So that is 9 blocks so far - lots more to come yet.

Unfortunately I don't seem to spot my mistakes until after I complete a block -
but life is too short to go back and correct it, specially here, where each block is constructed from
so many small pieces. I can live with it.

I have just come across a tip by Angela Madden :

"There are no 'brownie points' in Heaven for doing things the hard way!"

How I agree with that!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2017

crafting this week - Quilter's Patch and more...

St Germain quilt has gone into storage, it will have to wait until after Christmas to be quilted.

Instead (after a long break) the Quilters Patch quilt (designed by Edyta Sitar) has come out of its box for another block,  this one is called "Petunia block", sixth so far. I need to be in the right frame of mind to work on this quilt, because most of the blocks have many pieces, this one (14in block) has over 80 pieces of various sizes.

(The quality of pictures is not great at this time of year, most of them taken in the evening light.)

Needless to say, there is some unpicking going on here, as some of the background pieces are so similar in size; 

if not paying attention, it is so easy to join together wrong bits.

But in the end it all comes together.

And I have just spotted a mistake! 

Oh well, I think I can live with that one (in the grand scheme of things 😒).

What else have I been up to this week?

My "Winter Quilt" has also come out of the storage and is hanging on the wall.

And as we are getting close to Christmas, the crochet project "Santa's Village" has also resurfaced for another block, also no 6. That means that I am nearly a half way there. 

May be in another couple of years.......

And here is the crochet project, "Mystical Lanterns" blanket.

Individual motifs are joined into strips, which will be joined together later.

I made another strip this week.

 Again, I am half way there.

Outside, despite some frosty nights, our garden is still refusing to admit a defeat.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2017