Wow! I have been A.W.O.L for too long!!

Wow! I cannot believe how much time has flown by! My goodness, where do I start.....

As a lot of you may remember, or not?! September 2017 I started university!! Eeeek!! I could not believe it, me going to university!! Doing a B A (Hons) in Textile Design.

I am so pleased and happy to say that I have completed my first year! That literally passed very quickly! I have loved every minute and cannot believe that a whole year has passed!!!

What have I been doing?? Oh, my!! LOADS!!! Ha ha creating my own fabric designs!! Print screen techniques on fabrics, heat press techniques on fabrics, Lino printing, mono printing, free motion embroidery, hand stitching, drawing, painting, mark making, essay writing, knitting, machine knitting, various fabric manipulation techniques, flocking, designing and generally having a wonderful time!

I set up an Instagram page as a kind of visual reference for myself to help me remember what I get up to! Feel free to go check out what I get up to whilst at university ..... HERE Lots of photos too!

Something interesting I did throughout the year was to take photos of my desk space...

Quite funny how it's constantly changing.

Oh yes! There is another place where you can view the projects I have done too ....... HERE please go see what I have been up to as I have really enjoyed it all.  |If I had to choose |I think the Gift Project has to be the one I especially liked doing as I saw my print and designs on actual items!! Surreal moment!

I have had such a great time, here is me and my helper Sue in the dye lab.... Sue is amazing, she is basically my physical needs aid, and to be homest I would not be at university without her help!

lol this is what happens in the dye lab! ha ha

And here is Boris, my pack horse! I use him every day to get around university.

Here is another photo, this one is of one of my peers, Amy, she is such a kind hearted individual .... oh and she loves pink!

Other news.....

I am still stitching for Hands Across The Sea Samplers as one of Nicolas model stitchers, I absolutely love stitching reproduction samplers.  Bringing a small part of the past alive again is rather special and I am enjoying my journey with HATS.  I have updated the TAB on my blog with the new samplers I have stitched.

I have the summer to draw, creat and stitch then its back to university in September.

Sorry for staying away for so long....

Hello! Yes....it really is me!!

Hello happy friends.... WOW! Where do I start? So much to tell you all....

I bet your all wondering what on earth my header is? Well something rather exciting happened....quite by accident too!  You all know me, how I love to create things, always doing something with my hands!! 

I shall start at the beginning! 

Unfortunately my glasses broke! Yes, they did...rather spectacularly too! 

How on earth I managed to snap the frame I just don't know!? So this happened and the opticians did not have another 'same' frame in stock..they ordered them in. Bearing in mind I cannot actually see without my glasses! That meant no stitching! 😧😕  I have been working really hard On the HATS design.... A little peek, this was me stitching watching my favourite box set! 

So no stitching meant I had to occupy myself with something else! I love doing wool appliqués, so thought I would have a go designing something! It's so much fun! I designed a Cacti and Succulent series, five designs!! And I offered them to lovely stitchers in two of my wool groups... Everybody really likes the first 2 I have launched so far. Want to see some? Ok!!

Here is 1,2 and 3! Little sneak peek for you! Hee hee 

They were a lot of fun to design and make up..... I have each one available in PDF.... That was fun! Ha ha Han and Kevin had to help out a lot!! As I am offering my designs free in the two wool groups I frequent on Facebook, I wanted to give something back..... To make fellow stitchers/crafters happy. If you would like to make these, I would love to send you a PDF! Just message me and put free PDF of cacti succulents! The last two designs are really interesting too 😊

Oh yes!! 'Jacqueline's Studio' - how did this come about?? It took me ages to pick a name, I wanted one I could use through uni too.... Do you like it? I mean Jacqueline is actually  y name after all!! Ha ha isn't it funny what I get up to!?

I have been working on some more designs, fitting that inbetween stitching HATS :) 

What else have I been doing? 

My tutor said if I do anything, to carry on drawing....so this is what I have been doing! I love drawing, love painting... So much fun. This was from when I had my uni interview! I am counting the days down until I start at uni!! It's currently 109 days!! Ha ha 

Just got my water ready to start painting and look.....Lancelot fancied the water! It's alright he's not up on my desk her! This was on my bed! 

Here is my desk! Me being creative...

This is out and about in our favourite coffee shop in town. I was savouring my oat milk coffee before drawing! 

I adore cacti and succulents...

Even drawing at the bingo with my dad! 

I found this plant, really liked it, not sure what it's called? Maybe it's a weed? 

Here it it....rather large! Do you know what it's called?

I have squeezed a little 'other' stitching in, just a small project....been meaning to do this for ages now! It's a Kathy Barric design called 'Good Intentions' ..... I stitched it 1over 1 on 32 count Belfast line in rue green.

A little perspective whilst stitching...

And my own personal touch ...

I have been out and about too.... Yes to the local coffee shop in town, I seem to be frequenting there a lot! It's the coffee!! The only place in town I can get a coffee, oat milk capacchino mmmmm!! 

I also went on a mystery tour with Han and Kevin....a lot of traffic on route

Ended up here! A huge yellow and blue place.....

Yes!!! IKEA!! I love it there, could visit it everyday if I lived closer.

Also went out to Brigton on the 12th...Hannah's birthday 😊

Jon came too, so we decided to make a day of it! 

Loading up the car with mine and Jones scooter....fun!

Thankfully our car is MASSIVE! so we know they fit! Han and Kevin do an amazing job fitting them in....

Happy birthday for Han.... Can't believe she 22 now! Where has the time gone? 

Here I am! I wanted to share with you all my ever changing face! Lol and my dark eyes from not sleeping very well! If your wondering ....yes those are decorations on the walls! Han refuses to take them down, she wanted to leave them up all year!! So why not?! 

I think that rounds everything up? I will try hard to pop back again soon but I am stitching loads to get this HATS design finished. We are all going on a short break (one week) to Cornwall soon..... So exciting as we have not had a holiday in so so long, it's going to be brilliant.  AND!!.... I am going to drop in on someone for a little visit!! Nicola Parkman, the person behind Hands Across The Sea Samplers.... Eeeeeekkkkk!!!!! I actually get to meet her!! How awesome right??! Soon!!  Will tell you all about it! 

Ok.... Thank you for popping in... Take care until next time 😊

Did I miss Easter?

It appears I missed Easter :( 

Belated Easter wishes to you all.  As you know with my dairy,egg and soya allergies I did not think I would be getting any chocolate, or Easter eggs this year!! Ha! I was so wrong! My sweet jon went to town (not literally! He shopped online!) and look what he got me! All dairy and soya and egg free!!! 

I was gob smacked when this parcel arrived! It will take me ages to work my way through this lot!  I hope you all had a lovely Easter 😊

Unfortunately I am still not well... I had taken two weeks of antibiotics and well I still have a horrendous cough and no voice! Today my doctor has asked me to go for a chest x-Ray, we shall see what this shows! And guess what, more antibiotics to take! A different one though! Just until my doctor gets the results from the chest x-Ray.....then he will decide what to do with me! 

It's literally only been two days I have had a clear head, and boy in those two days I have made up not being able to concentrate stitching! Yes! Plodding on with the beautiful HATS sampler, enjoying this again now I can stitch it again! 

I also wanted to make a scissor fob as I kept losing my sewing scissors... Looked in my stash and found an adorable Lizzie Kate design called Farm Fob! It came with ric-rac, beads and fabric so just sourced threads in my stash. 

It's the first time I have finished a project using beads with ric-rac like this....it was fun and now hopefully I want lose my scissors! 

I have been busy with wool whilst my head has been cloudy.... I did not have the patience to concentrate on cross stitching. But I found I could work with wool, so I did! I could not do nothing so pleased I found something I could do! 

I joined in on a free BOM with Buttermilk Basin....AESOME designs! I caught up, done all the first 4 block! Got to wait now until next month for the next block! 

Block 1

Block 2

Block 3

Block 4

That was so much fun. Talking of fun....I made a rather cute pin cushion! But I like it a lot and cannot stick pins in it! So he just sits on my desk now! Ha ha

This is how he started... Oh the pattern, it was in one of my 'old' magazines! 

Awe, yes! Dogs.... I took this photo of Lancelot, he's adorable! 

Looking at me, sat on my bed watching me cough! I bought him a new toy.... A crocodile! He loves it! 

Oooooh yes! Trying to recall what I have not told or shared with you all! Eeeek! Yes! Han drew one of her cute characters and I said, ooooh! I can stitch him! Ha ha so I did! Han loved it! I made it into a badge and it's on her bag now! 

When Han was out the other day she brought me back a pack of Moleskine journals to sketch in....lovely!! So today as I was feeling up to it I decided to try and make a cover for one of them! Something different and new for me to try! 

This is what I came up with....

I measured the bits I needed to, added 3 cm more and voila! I also tried(kind of failed) at adding a packet to the front.  It's rather untidy, but functional so a win I guess!? 

Yes! The hand stitching in the front is a design Hands Across The Sea samplers showed in a tutorial guide. It's called 'Fearless Freehand',  the instructions and photos are brilliant, I followed it fine! 

Here is the completed design.. Yes! Me being me changed the fabric colour and threads too! Ha ha

I really enjoyed challenging myself and the new adventure of freehand stitching 😊 if you too want to challenge yourself or just want to take a look at the tutorial.. Pop along to HATS, there is a quick link in my side bar. 

I think that's pretty much covered what I have be up to whilst being poorly! Hopefully on the mend now? Fingers crossed!! 

I will be back soon! Until then, keep smiling 😊