Chez Budsmam: Fettling

Not bad at all!! Some of these are quite large projects. Considering I ticked off three things in the first half of 2025 I'm pretty chuffed with this list.

I haven't added too much to the fettling list, really only any new stitch alongs which come along. I might add I a few more Seasonal things from the waiting list as the year moves along. I'll be keen to see how many things I have had waiting for a while Ticked off by the end of the year. I'm really pleased that most of the things ticked off have been waiting for a while to be done.

I hadnt thought of adding reading to my fettling list. I tend to keep that separate i have done a midbyear round up of that here.

I'll add this stat about my reading here for brevity 😊

Ok 156 books so far 🤣 many of these are very short stories I think my average daily read is 186 Pages which is fine I think, I see my listening has gone down a bit, I think this reflects that im sitting up most of the day now which is good.

Wednesday, 1 July 2026

Stitching my way to happiness

This was the January 2025 subscription box from Historical Sampler, I love Emma Congdon so snapped it up

Needle minder from Wimperis embroidery

I had to tip out a lot of the purple because I was several stitches out

Back on track!

I absolutely adore this one it will hang in sewing room

Monday, 29 June 2026

Fettling 2026 mid year round up

So it's been a good 6 months of fettling. A lot of embroidery but also a fair amount of machine sewing too which is lovely to see. All helped by my new sewing room which is so good to see.

Ticked off in 1st half of 2026

Temperature embroideries 2023

Temperature embroideries 2024

Cherry blossom sashiko

Redo construction of 2021 and 2022 temperature embroideries

Large mandala

Medium mandala

Small mandala

Redo bunny pixie basket

Pressing mat from ironing bag

Pages read 2025

Floral Alphabet sampler

Dragonfly embroidery

Sunday, 28 June 2026

Temperature embroideries 2024

I recorded the local temperatures from 2021 - 2024 this was the last time I recorded them. I switched from my previous template of spiders Web and started using Little light stitchery year in embroidery fabric. I love the swirl. Nicky also has these hoop butts which go in the back of your hoop, but im not using a hoop so I stitched it on the back instead. Im pretty chuffed with this! Its the final page in my temperature embroidery book 😊

Temperature embroideries 2023

This marks a real moment. For 2 years this pile has looked at me. When I was upstairs and still not able to sew i saw this every time I went to the sewing room which was every day. These are the temperature embroideries for 2023, paired with a monthly cross stitch from Victoria Sampler. I stitched those cross stitches when I first got long covid. There was a long long time I thought i would never be able to do these but here we are!

Now I have 12 bordered and trimmed cross stitches!

All pages sewn together, got to add inner sashing to leaves then join leaves

And here they are all made up!

I did a video of all my embroideries together, I dont think ill go back to recording temperatures im quite happy at the moment recording pages read 😊 but i really enjoyed these

Sunday, 31 May 2026

Cherry blossom sashiko

I bought this kit over a year ago from Japan crafts, at the time I never knew if or when I would be able to make it. Turns out that is now!

I wanted to use my Miffy needle minder it's just too cute

The threads are silk and jusy wonderful to work with

And here is the finished piece! I love it so much this was a joy to stitch

Monday, 4 May 2026

Redoing temperature embroideries 2021and 2022

This was my first attempt at making a booklet for my temperature embroideries. It was all a bit organic and I was never quite fully happy with the result

I loved the outer part of the booklet I put old embroideries into the cover and sashiko samples in the back cover

But I made the inner parts too big, I like the vertical sashing but it and the part at the outer edge made the pages too big

Also I made the center sashing far far too big and even when it was "pinched" in it was still too big

So nothing for it but too rip out the whole lot 🤣 I also put the 2021 and 22 Temperature embroideries into two different booklets I could have combined all the 4 years I've done into one booklet, so that's what I'm going to do now!

Ripping apart and reconstructing!

I loved being reunited with these mandalas

On the inside was the sal quilt embroidery sampler i made, the embroidery on the right hand side is decades old, pre 2000!

I decided to go with the booklet cover i made for my 2022 embroideries. It has enough room for all 4 sets of temperature embroideries i made. I paired up my 2022 temperature embroideries with the mini series fpp blocks i made, I had two left over for the cover

Thats both the 2021 and 22 inserted. Still plenty room for the 2023 and 2024 Temperature embroideries to be added! The 2024 is one panel only as i switched to using Littlelightstitchery yearinembroidery tracker fabric.

Sunday, 3 May 2026

Mandalas

I found these downstairs, they will be pre long covid so thats over 2 years! They are printed on solvy which is still pretty sticky. I think these were from a bigger pattern and all got printed out at the same time

Seems a shame to waste them and they should hopefully come up quickly

OK they are done!

Small

Medium

Large

With the large one I took some liberties with the design, I didn't do it all and amended the inner parts of the petal

Things to remember! I hate using solvy 🤦‍♀️ it hurts my fingers to stitch through and takes a few goes to wash out. So memo to future Sheila- only use solvy as a last resort and not for anything which is very involved!