Story telling through fabric art.

 

Winter is the time to cherish a cosy chair with slow stitching and a warm drink.

Hello and welcome to a long overdue blog update please make yourself a warm drink and cosy up in your favourite spot and settle down for a vintage update, so pleased you can join me.

I am so sorry it has been so long coming, what with life and Christmas I honestly do not know where the weeks have gone to turn into months.  Welcome to you all and I wish you a very happy and healthy New Year.  Lots of exciting things are  hopefully happening this year and so It would be so helpful to connect to my other apps if you can.  You Tube and Instagram. Instagram is one.tiny.stitch and You Tube is Threads of time studio.  I would be so grateful to you all if that is possible and you would like to keep up to date with me.

So I have to say that not a needle was picked up in December with all the things going on and having a friend stay from Australia until the end of this month.  However I do need to and she fully understands that so I am here firstly on a catch up.

Well in November here at Thimble Cottage we had lots of snow at the end of November, I remember waking and opening my bedroom curtains and all was normal and it was 7am.  I had packed my cases to make the drive up to near Manchester where a friend lives and from staying there for a while I was to pick up my friend from Manchester airport.  I had planned to leave at 9.30am after all the work traffic
for my five and a half hour journey including one stop only.

I brought down my cases and of course a basket of stitching and my book to read.  I did all the normal things that we do before going away, shower, breakfast, making bed and checking windows etc.  As I got ready to go to the car to pack it I could not believe my eyes.  Large flakes of snow were falling my black car was now white and I could not see my path from the garden!!   I went outside and my lovely neighbour said to me " Oh you are not driving in this surely?" I however assured her I was but should the journey become difficult after say 25 miles or so I would turn back.

I loaded my car and tried to clear my screens which was almost in impossible as the snow was just falling from the sky.

Anyway I got my 25 miles with nothing on the road but snow and decided with the heated windows on and my seat warmer and provisions I was doing ok and to continue. What was so funny is I reached the beautiful town of Bradford upon Avon and there was NO SNOW..... people were pointing and staring at my car which by now had on the roof and bonnet at least eight inches on it.  Children were pointing and the confusion on faces was comical..... Just outside this beautiful town I joined the M4 to go to M5 and M6 and towards Manchester with no snow at all.

In the fields when I came off of the M6 there were signs of snow but that was it.  It was an exciting journey I can tell you.

What I will just tell you is, is that my friend brings me coffee and it is wonderful, what will I do when working when she goes back home!!!

As you know I love to design and write down in my journals ideas for future stitchery projects and of course I have a journal for sayings and quotes as I love adding words to my work or even one word only which can evoke all sorts to our imagination.

Journal keeping is very much part of my life and is very important to me and I have enjoyed this morning  threading needles and getting ready with new designs. 

 One of the things I had for Christmas from my Sister is a jar of old spools of thread, the excitement when I opened it ... later that day she said I hope you like it, I bought it in a charity shop and I didn't even try to knock them down on the price!! It made me laugh as my sister is not a stitcher but finally she gets me!!! 

I also had packs of tulip make needles which are my absolute favourite things and not cheap but so worth the money.  They keep razer sharp for much longer and are happy to be sharpened in a needle sharpener too.  All in all it turns out to be cheaper than purchasing cheap ones that really do not last at all.

So I am going to be adding to my designs and to my journal of quotes.  Sorting through my beautiful fabrics and laces, threads and projects and enjoy slow little stitches.  As I said above some exciting things are in the pipeline and I would love to take you on this slow stitch journey with me.

The cosiness of lighting candles and the fire and sitting with the thread pulling through fabric is almost hypnotic  and with the weather at the moment too.  We have had more snow this last week and floods by the river which has turned to ice with minus 7 degrees at night.  With the wind chill factor just going out to fill the log basket makes my hands so very cold, so thawing by the fire with journals and stitchery is a real treat and productive too.

Story telling through fabric and words and working on antique and vintage fabrics with all the history they contain is such a wonderful thing.  Designing and making things of beauty and adding to its story
is a delight.  I am so happy to be back and creating.  

One thing I found in a charity shop in Cheshire was this incredible tin and I keep my orts in it ( little bits of threads to long to discard but to little to put back on a spool or skein of thread.  I love this little tin of possibilities. It is so much fun sorting through for a little red, green or neutral thread for the tiniest of stitches to finish something.

In addition to that I found some wonderful green velvet ribbon too and I know it with be stitched with love on something.  I can not believe that 20p would buy this treasure.  wrapped up in tissue now and in my ribbon drawer and labelled waiting for its turn to be used and loved and repurposed.  

Truffling for treasure remains a favourite pass time of mine and still amazes me what some discard as not useful amazes me but oh so glad they do.  

I am still keeping on with my little English paper piecing and I am really looking forward to making some pin cushions to sell.  I have made mine and I love it as it is filled with crushed walnuts that smell of lavender.  It evokes Summer and the beautiful heady smell of warmer times to come.  It helps sharpen pins and needles and is all hand sewn.  Its a labour of love and with precious antique paisley fabrics back and front.

If anyone reading this is interested please let me know I will be making only 8 of them.  They are fiddley and time consuming but oh so worth it and would be a wonderful gift to your sewing basket or as a handmade gift for someone.

I hope where ever you are you are safe and cosy, certainly in England with our winter we are having right now.

Getting on with creating and sharing more tales from Thimble and the tales from the cloths that I am creating with. See you here soon.

Happy Stitching!!

Sarah XX