2022 Christmas Countdown - Retreat Cottage

Day 20 of my Christmas Countdown and it's the Retreat Cottage from the Gingerbread Village.  

I love the thought of stitchers having their retreat in this log cabin covered in snow.  

I love the little annex or porch out to the side, the railings on the balcony and how the roof overhangs slightly.  And the lacy curtains on the windows where the ladies are stitching.  There's just so many cute details. 

I'll be featuring all the other houses from my Gingerbread Village in my 2022 Christmas Countdown, but you can also read more about my Gingerbread Village in the tab at the top of my blog.

Gingerbread Retreat Cottage

My latest addition to my Gingerbread Village is finished - it's the Gingerbread Retreat Cottage. Isn't it cute?

I've wanted to make this cottage for a few years now, so I'm very pleased to finally have my own version of it to sit on my bookcase at Christmas.

I love the hardanger on the roof.  Thea's patterns are really good and explain how to do hardanger if you haven't done it before.  Don't be put off!

I added my name and the date to the base as I always do.

Even though the pattern didn't specify a base, I always make one to close up the cottages and keep them neat and square.

Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of all the cottages together before I put them away.  But this is my last group photo taken January 2019.



This time I documented all of my finishing tips and you can read them in my earlier blog post here .

Lacing the sides together neatly

Using a curved need to attach the porch roof.

In fact I have a whole page on my blog dedicated to helping people wanting to make their own Gingerbread Village using the patterns designed by Thea Dueck of The Victoria Sampler.  You can read all my tips and advice on the Gingerbread Village tab or by clicking here. 

Now I only have the Flower Shop left to do to catch up with all the cottages currently available.  I've got the pattern and all the supplies, but just need to start the Flower Shop.  It's going to be so cute!!!

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  What have you been up to this week? Feel free to link up a recent blog post and tell us all what you've been up to.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Weekly wrap and the Peacock Party

I feel like I've dabbled in many things this week, and not got very far on any of them.

Two nights ago I pulled out my Gingerbread Retreat Cottage.  I'd really like to get this one finished before Christmas, and then it can join the others on the shelf. I'd already started the brown roof  months ago, but this week I started the front panel. 

I have an embroidered Gingerbread Village that I bring out each Christmas.  The patterns are designed by Thea Dueck of the Victoria Sampler.  You can find plenty more photos and information on the Gingerbread Village tab at the top of my blog. 

I took my Kim McLean Giraffe cushion into Nancy's Stitch Studio to get it turned into a cushion.  They do such a great job of stretching the canvas and turning it into a beautiful cushion.  I'm going to use that gorgeous piece of Kaffe Fassett fabric on the back. 

Speaking of Kaffe Fassett, look what my mum made for me! Some hand knitted woolen socks, and matching fingerless gloves, all from Kaffe Fassett wool.  It's till winter here, so both gifts will be well used over the next few weeks. 

My socks even match the rug (blanket) that I crocheted a few years ago. 

I posted a photo of the pincushion online, and lots of people wanted to know where to get the pattern from.  If you're interested, it's an English Paper Pieced pattern from a small New Zealand company called Tis the Season.  Here is the link to the Vera pattern. 

I've also spent a fair bit of time stuggling with velcro this week.  If you're a Kiwi, you'll know what that means.  Yes, I've had a quilt accepted into our national show at Quilt Symposium Auckland.  Some of our exhibitions use velcro to hang the quilts, rather than hanging sleeves.  Don't ask why, because I don't know why.  I hate putting velcro onto my quilts, but it has to be done if you want your quilt to be hung.  I am delighted to have a quilt in the exhibition.  This is the only show open to everyone in New Zealand. 

I've also just finished my silver hexagon mini quilt for the Aotearoa Quilters' 25th anniversary challenge.  These quilts will also be on display at Symposium, and they also need velcro.  I'm not going to post any photos of my silver quilt until they are all on display.  I was determined to enter this challenge after seeing all the pink ones at Palmerston North. Making a hexagon shaped quilt wasn't easy!

So, I'll have two quilts in the exhibitions at Symposium.  If you live in Auckland I hope you can come and view the exhibitions, even if you're not taking any classes. 

Now for the Peacock Party.  What have you been up to this week? Feel free to link up a recent blog post. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Gingerbread Retreat Cottage - and the Peacock Party

When I was choosing a name for my blog, I wanted something that reflected my love of embroidery as well as my love of quilting.  Five years ago I probably spent more time on embroidery than I did on quilting.  Now the tables have turned and quilting takes up the majority of my spare time, but I do still like to do embroidery, knitting, tapestry, and crochet etc.

This week I was finally putting away my Christmas presents, and I thought that I may as well "kit up" (and embroidery term I discovered on Instagram) my two newest Gingerbread Village patterns.

I've had the Retreat cottage pattern since April 2018, but hadn't made a start yet.  I split the bundles of threads, and put all the threads onto pieces of cardboard with labels.  This what is known as "kitting up". 

I then cut out the required pieces of linen and zig zagged around the edges so they don't fray while I'm stitching.

Then I couldn't resist the temptation of starting the pretty roof sections for the Retreat Cottage.  I haven't done hardanger for a while, so I was a bit nervous about cutting the threads. But everything was fine, and I remembered how to do it.

I'm using brown linen for the roof sections because I want the white snow to show up even more! I'll put a piece of fabric behind this section once it's finished.

I've also got the Flower Shop pattern waiting for me now! It's going to be a busy year! You can read all about my Gingerbread Village on the tab at the top of the page.  The patterns are all by Thea Dueck of The Victoria Sampler in Canada. 

Now for the Peacock Party.  What's everyone else been up to?  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.  I'm enjoying visiting new blogs each week.  Thank you to everyone who has been taking part.

Inlinkz Link Party

Christmas stitching

With lots of stitching over the past few weeks I've managed to complete the main scene on my Christmas Village embroidery.  There's still another row of fancy lacy stitching to add at the bottom, but I won't do that until closer to the end in case it catches on something.  There's also back stitching and beads to come yet, but I always do them at the end too. 

Here's the full design.  There's a lot more stitching in this scene than I realised.

So, completing that section opened up thoughts of starting something else!  Terrible, I know. 

A few months ago I showed you the Gingerbread Retreat cottage.

But I always feel guilty about leaving projects half done, so I've decided to revive my Gingerbread Needlework Shop. 

This has lain languishing because I dreaded all the fancy finishing that would be required on the inside of the removable roof.  I did make a removable roof for my very first Gingerbread House, but I don't want to do it again.

So, I've had a bright idea, and I'm going to adapt the Needlework Shop pattern slightly so I can sew my roof down and not have to finish the inside of the shop and roof.  That decision has provided great momentum, and I've now made two sides of the roof.

Stitching on blue linen is quite difficult, but there's not a huge amount of stitching required on the roof.  It's worth it because the white looks so good against the blue. 

So I'm off and enjoying my needlework again.  It's very cold here at the moment, and stitching snow seems appropriate on these cold winter nights in New Zealand.

Finally - there's a problem with Blogger at the moment that means comments left on blogs are not being sent to the blogger.  I do still read all the comments, but it's difficult to reply at the moment.  Hopefully they will fix it soon.