Every Inchie Monday - Spider and Squirrel

What a couple of weeks!  Grandchildren to stay as it was half term and so many things going on in the house anyway I finally managed to get my squirrel inchie finished on Sunday when everyone had gone and did my spider today.  I had to cop out a bit with the spider as I am so short of time and it is the only one I haven't drawn out before I've stitched it!  I found two beads which I thought placed on an inchie with black legs embroidered underneath would work and I tried to do a web with silver thread.  It only took me half an hour to do as opposed to the two hours for the squirrel!!  But I think they both work.  Anyway I am up to date and sorry I missed posting last week.  Can't believe we are already up to number 44!!  Christmas is looming!  Anyway hold that thought we still need to get through Halloween tonight so great choice for the inchie to be spider.  As it so happens my smallest granddaughter of 3 is dressing up in a spider dress tonight to go trick or treating in.  She loves spiders and is always doing "Incy wincy spider ..!"  When she sees my inchie I think she will want to take it home with her!!

 and here is my squirrel from last week's challenge:

Happy Halloween and thanks for dropping by.  Make sure you check out the other wonderful inchie spiders by clicking here.

Every Inchie Monday - Starfish

Well we are just coming down off of our high of Italian food!  Our lovely Italian lady has gone back to Italy having cooked every day for a week and her finale was escalloped chicken in breadcrumbs with roasted veg and a chocolate pear cake - so scrummy!!  We are still living off left overs!! In fact today has been nothing but sheet torrential rain and tidying up indoors and Sem did us gnocchi (from the freezer hand made by his mum) with a ragu sauce she did also - so you could say we are still eating Italian!  I managed to get my starfish done - I hadn't realised how many beautiful starfish there are - in fact I found a gorgeous purple one and one with more than 5 legs!  I did do one 4 years ago in orange peel which was rather lovely but I wanted to do an embroidered one with beads this time, however I didn't do a purple one as somehow it just didn't look right and I had this gorgeous orange variegated peach thread which I think has worked well with some two tone grey and orange beads and so here she is:

I wanted to make Silvana a little something to remember us by and so decided to make her one of my flower embroidered lavender bags with organza.  It's funny I haven't made one for a couple of years and I thought it was going to turn out horrible but once I started embroidering and then putting the beads on it turned out as pretty as the others I've made - I was very pleased and so was she!  The lavender I put inside was from France and was picked in 2013 but is still so strong in perfume - so much more potent than our own English lavender - must be the sun!!

 

The flowers bonded between the organza layers are lobelia, lavender and oregano with ivy and fern leaves.  I emphasised the oregano flowers with purple beads and the lobelia with blue beads.  Well that's all from me today, please visit the everyinchiemonday blog page, by clicking this link, to see the other inchie makers fabulous starfish.  Thank you so much for calling in and also many thanks for the comments you leave.  Have a fab week!

Every Inchie Monday - Butterfly

It seems I am never destined to get my inchie done by Monday!  This week's challenge word on Every Inche Monday is Butterfly and I nearly finished him yesterday but more haste less speed made me go wrong so this morning I had to unpick what I'd done in haste and do it at a more leisurely and organised pace!  I really enjoyed doing last week's ladybird in stumpwork so I thought I would stick to stumpwork and try a wired embroidered butterfly as I have always wanted to try this technique.  A bit fiddly to begin with as the item was so small and would obviously be much easier in a larger version but it came together despite the fact that I used flower arranging wire and an old pillow case as the base material which was more old than anything.  As I started embroidering the weave was parting rather disturbingly but it has given the wings a sort of filigree look! I soldiered on as I had already invested too much time in the wings and having assembled it I was a bit conscious that it is slightly overlapping my inch base square but with the wings bent a bit it fits!!!  On the whole I am rather pleased - I used a variegated thread which has given each wing a slightly different look but I think had I used a straight colour it might have looked a bit flat.  It was based on a Common Blue but I rather liked the purplish hue of thread I had to do the body so it's my version!!!

 

Thank you so much for popping in and for any comments you leave and many thanks everyone for the lovely comments you gave me last week for my ladybird.  It's always encouraging when your peers approve your work.  Have a lovely week despite this cold spell dropping in - we had snow on the car this morning!!!

Every Inchie Monday - Ladybird

Hope you all had a very Happy Easter - kids are all back at school today  - well I should really say the grandchildren are all back at school today!! so peace and quiet again!!  This Monday's challenge word on Every Inchie Monday is Ladybird and we have had a few hatching in our bedroom!  I keep seeing them climbing up the curtain!  So I have tried to do a stumpwork ladybird and followed a tutorial I found on the internet however I didn't have a lovely dark kreiner thread for the legs and the beads I had, which I thought were a mix of black and gold, turned out to be all the same - half black and half gold so it was quite hard getting them to sit with the black side facing!!!  But it was a lovely inchie to do this time and I really enjoyed it.  Hope you are all enjoying this lovely weather we are having and thanks for stopping by and any comments you leave.

Every Inchie Monday - Crow

This week on Every Inchie Monday the subject to do a one inch square of marvellous art is - Crow!  We have so many around here where I live but to do one in embroidery on an inch for me wasn't very inspiring and I chose a black felt crow which then was quite difficult to sew on to highlight the wings etc.  In the end I had to add "tail feathers and wing feathers" by adding embroidery thread as the black bit of tail felt broke off!!!!  Also the beak doesn't look as large as it should because I had to sew inside the beak.  Oh well you can't win them all and to be honest I'm up to my eyes in getting the house ready for the influx of family for Easter.  Hope you all have a very Happy Easter and enjoy the long weekend and thanks for looking and any comments you leave and make sure you check out all the other crow inchies by clicking the link.

Every Inchie Monday - Peacock

What a beautiful bird the peacock is and it is the subject for this week's challenge at Every Inchie Monday.  Such gorgeous colours to work with and I wanted to bring the lusciousness of the feathers into my inchie this week but unfortunately I couldn't find my rayon embroidery threads which have that beautiful lustre so I have had to work with cotton but I still really enjoyed doing this one.  I had it already to sew on Saturday but my daughter turned up unexpectedly with her 2 year old so you can imagine everything planned went out the window!!!  I was expecting her anyway for Sunday - for Mother's Day - but she came for her husband's mother on the Saturday and as they were busy she decided to leave them to it and bring Milly to see me - only ten minutes away!!  So I got a double whammy which put paid to Sunday as well and then her cousin arrived with her 2 year old and it was the first time the two 2 year old second cousins have ever met so it was wonderful seeing these two little blonde girls the same height skipping along holding hands!!  A truly magical family weekend with my sister's-in-law family who stayed for Monday as well! Plus the weather was stunning - not so today as it is overcast and grey now and we started with a low lying mist that hasn't been burnt off by the sun.  It truly feels like Spring now that the clocks have gone forward as well. Anyway here is my Peacock:

Thanks for visiting my page and for any comments you leave and may you have a lovely week till next time.

Every Inchie Monday - Dog

Hi - I thought I would love doing this one but I have so many dogs to choose from because we've owned 13 in the 42 years we've been married, 6 of which we rehomed, and going down memory lane was lovely but hard too.  I must have penned five different inchies but then my daughter came in and said why don't you do Jeff's signature?  Hmmm!  Jeff is our latest rehomed dog, a collie and he really belongs to my daughter although since she lives with us he does too - so he belongs to all of us really!  However when she signs cards she signs herself, her dog with a little doodle and her cat Django with a little doodle.  So here is Jeff's little doodle signature and a picture of himself! 

Thanks for dropping by and any comments you leave, make sure you stop by at everyinchiemhttp://everyinchiemonday2012.blogspot.co.uk/onday and view other inchie makers work by clicking the link.

Every Inchie Monday - Hamster

Late again!!  - That should have been last week's start for Rabbit!!!  This week the challenge word on EMI is Hamster!  I had such great aspirations for this one including a bit of stuffed technique from behind which didn't materialise - I keep forgetting how small an inch is!  Plus I went  down with one horrendous cold, flue, cough - whatever I seem to have had the lot with no sleep for two days through coughing fits! And it's still not gone but I have summoned enough energy today to actually try and make my little hamster which didn't go as well as planned but now I quite like the little fellow.  I probably should have made him from felt but the colour I wanted was downstairs in a project I'm working on and I was in the attic!  So I opted for cotton and decided to sew it on rather than bondaweb it so that I could stuff his cheeks but in cutting him out his ears got lost and his mouth went wrong and well I just ended up sewing and sewing until he looked like a hamster eating a bit of lettuce!  Then I photographed him went to put him on my blog and realised I'd forgotten his whiskers so had to correct that and take another photo which was then out of focus!!  Oh back and forth and the light is now fading - what a palaver!  Anyway here he is and thank you for dropping by and any comments you may leave - I really enjoy reading them and being part of this group.  Don't forget to check out the other Inchers ( I think that was your word for us Wendy!) work by clicking here.

 

 Oh and by the way, I think I wrote on someone's blog that my New Year's Res was to finish some of the many projects I'd started over the past 20 years!  So I thought I'd share with you my first finished project of 2017 which I started at Christmas 2014 having got a little kit for a bookmark in my stocking that year.  It has gone with me all over the place over the last two years ready to bring out when I was bored or stuck in a hotel with nothing to do.  So having finished the crosstitch part which is always the bit I enjoy it was the putting together that was my onus and which I'd been putting off so I sat down on 3rd January and made myself finish it and I am now using it in a book I am reading!!

Every Inchie Monday - 42

So here we are Week 49 on Every Inchie Monday and this week's challenge word is 42. As every word is from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy I can tell you that 42 is the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything from the supercomputer, Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to compute and check the answer, which turns out to be 42.  However I didn't want to do the obvious and embroider the number so I sat (in Deep Thought my own computer!) and pondered what makes 42 and came up with 6 x 7 so I started doodling and made a star shape with 6 spokes and ended up putting 7 little lines on each spoke and ended up with this!

A snowflake!!  So I thought I'd do it in beads and the only reason I am showing you my doodle is that the "snowflake" is a bit more precise than my beadwork!!!  Here she is:

Quite hard to fit all those beads in but there are in fact 42 of them !!  Thanks for dropping by and your lovely comments - I always enjoy reading them.  Have a good week - shopping?!  Good luck!

Every Inchie Monday - Question

I thought and thought on this week's challenge word at Everyinchiemonday as I didn't want to just do a question mark.  My husband suggested making a little book with Quiz book written on which I thought was brilliant but I have already done a poetry book so I wanted something different and then I thought of the most famous quotation about question from Shakespeare's Hamlet so here it is - I hope you can decipher it!!!

Hope you have a lovely week - by the way we had a brilliant Christmas decorating weekend with all the kids and grandkids and now have two beautifully decorated Christmas trees!!  Thanks for dropping by and any comments you leave.

Every Inchie Monday - Story

The title of this Monday's Inchie on Every Inchie Monday is Story and I thought immediately of my daughter's favourite - Cinderella!  I felt that a glass slipper, a pumpkin and a wand would portray this story, but how to achieve it!! - on an inch square!!  I strated with a piece of pure white fabric as I always think of Cinder's ball gown as being white - although it looks pale blue in the picture! Actually having laid out the beads to try and get a slipper they sewed on pretty well but the pumpkin was a different matter and the green thread to portray tendrils and wheels of the "coach" as an after thought actually made it look so much better.  Sewing the word Cinderella was fiddley but having drawn a wand on in my sketch I didn't think I'd have room to sew one on but it looked lost without it so I threw caution to the wind, loaded my needle with gold thread and went for it!!  I really like it now!