Tah Dah!!!! Well almost...

There are a few 'Tah Dah's!!'.  Firstly our door has finally been fixed, so now we can look into the garden and actually see the flowers and birds again rather than the itsy bitsy glass crystals that made up the exploded door.  Mind you when the sun shone on that shattered glass in the door it did look beautiful.

I also went to Jan Shepherds workshop and have now added one border to my quilt.  I am now not sure where I should go with the quilt.  I know it needs to be a bit bigger, but I am not sure how I want the next borders to look. If I was being really good, I think I should do some hand quilting, but we don't want to do that do we???????  So I am just in the planning stage....Yep! planning how to get those magical fairies in to do the work.  I suppose I can't get a full 'Tah Dah' for just adding the one border, but.........

Socks are finished and I love them.

I just love that 'Fair Isle' look

The only other thing I have been working on is a bit of smocking.  I am making a gift for a friend, and it will be what I would call an 'Armchair Châtelaine'.  I have started by working a double honeycomb stitch across the fabric.  Honeycomb stitch in smocking will give a lot more stretch to the fabric, and will be much more of an open pattern which is just what I need as I am going to embroider over the stitching.   I thought I would show you a few of the steps, but you might get this over the next week or so.

 This first photo shows my beginnings, but let me tell you I usually finish each row before starting the next, and I have no idea why I stitched like this....

Not sure if you can see but this stitch does travel over two rows --hence Double Honeycomb

Next step is blocking the piece.  Once blocked properly your smocking should keep its shape.

Pinned and steamed to block

I now needed to cut the smocking into two pieces to make pockets in my Châtelaine.  I have stitched two rows of machine stitching down the centre, and chopped it in two...

Now I am ready to embroider.

More next time.....

I am off to Yarndale at the weekend YEAH!!!!  My daughter lives a few miles north of Skipton, so I get two treats...Yarndale and a weekend with S and her family DOUBLE YEAH!!!!!