The Needle is still busy!

The last pattern of the year is up in the shop, little hare getting on with his winter business...

I've taken a rest from cross stitching and have been exploring other worlds, such as applique with soft tweeds in country checks and colours, and wool felts in pops of solid earth shades.  I discovered the phenomenon which is the 'penny rug' quite recently.  To my knowledge there isn't the equivalent in UK history, perhaps the closest is just a crazy quilt, if anyone knows, please feel free to enlighten me! I'd love to know.

So I enjoyed putting this 'rug' together, choosing colours that work for me 'just so' and of course, raided the embroidery floss stash for light and dark neutral shades to bring it all together.  Some pennies are quiet, some are loud, all fit together nicely :-)

Raiding American history - was something similar made in Scotland I wonder? or were we all too busy spinning and knitting?

And so, after the penny rug, I broke out the dusty crochet needle for some cotton and wool snowflakes.  This particular pattern and helpful video if you are rusty, can be found here.  I've ordered some proper crochet cotton to try these out at a smaller scale, possibly make a garland.  I'm drawn to the crochet thread made of linen in a natural shade... so many good things to make in this arena!

On to the 'country hearts'!

I made a template from freezer paper with circle stencils and ruler in the style of a Scandinavian heart, the long thin type.  These are a mixture of wool tweed on one side and quilting cotton on the other from my stash of civil war era fabrics.  I made a feature of the stuffing hole by patching it over, sometimes adding other little patches, occasionally going wild by adding a trinket, bells and jute twine to hang.  Some have been given away, some will hang up all year in the home.  They are a very 'homey' item, especially the red ones.

a little bit country, a little bit festive

It's been nice to stitch at a larger scale than cross stitch requires, the pennies were so relaxing to make as there was no paper pattern to refer to and I like a wonky stitch or two.

some of the recent needlework, I like to expore

Well, I end with another photo of hare, tricky to get any bright natural light up in the north here, in a couple of weeks the days will start to lengthen again, it always comes so soon!

Peaceful times!

~Goodflora