Whew, it’s been a wee while there! I got back from nice, relaxed holiday last Tuesday night to find the heating wouldn’t come on (first time since it was turned off in the spring), I had about 20 wasps commit suicide in my kitchen/bathroom and when putting a few things away in the fridge, I managed to break one of the door shelves *sigh* I spent Wednesday waiting in for a plumber that never turned up and was back at work on Thursday, which was a work day from hell, but the heating did spontaneously turn itself on on Thursday morning and has worked since. I did get a guy to look things over on Friday, but after poking about he decided it was an issue with the electrics in the control panel. Now they’ve kicked in they’ll probably work for a while, but who knows when they might go on strike again…
Anywho, I did get a little making done when I was away – no sewing, partly because in the first holiday cottage the table was far too small, even for my Featherweight, and in the second I just didn’t have an appropriate seat/table, plus I thought with the wood fire everything would smell a bit too! I did learn to ‘knit’ though, with big loopy chenille yarn that you knit together with your fingers, and learned 2 patterns. They’re so soft and squishy! I managed to get some sewing done at the weekend, and launch myself into another big project, just in time for a workshop this weekend, which will no doubt generate yet another project or two…
Finishes This Month:
The scarves! They’re long enough to go round my neck twice, which leaves me looking like the Michelin Man (or more than usual) but they’d so nice and warm! The yarn is Bernat Alize Blanket EZ and I got it in a couple of variegated shades, plus for the one on the left I alternated blue and cream sections (the blue, which is the Denim colourway, has some cream in it too) The patterns were free online and I watched a couple of YouTube videos to get comfortable with the technique, then I just adapted and went for it (the scarf on the right is my first attempt, while the one on the left was adapted from a cushion cover pattern to become a scarf)
Finally, after 15 years, I retired my old wallet last week, when I found a new one in a luggage shop near my mum and dad’s (where I stopped for a couple of days on the way home, even though it wasn’t at all on the way!) The only thing is, the new one has a bit less space for cards (ie it’s not as stretched out of shape!) so I made myself a simple wee snap purse to hold the lesser used ones:
I made a couple of blocks for a secret communal quilt for a friend:
In Progress This Week:
I got asked by a number of people I met when I was away what I was working on at the moment (I knew most of these people, random strangers do not just come up to me in the street, or at least, not about that!) I couldn’t tell them as I hadn’t had a big project in progress when I came away, but I decided it was time to dig out my Gingiber Christmas project. I started this when her first Christmas line came out a couple of years ago, but soon after I started work on my ‘plan’ I realised I didn’t have enough of the accent fabric that went with the panels. And when I say ‘plan’ I mean, I was completely flying by the seat of my pants! After glaring at it for a number of months, it got taken off the design wall in favour of other things while I pondered how to deal with it, but then when I was at FOQ I got her latest Christmas line, and much more accent fabric, and now I think I’m all set! This is what I had of the original fabric (I tried getting a photo once I’d prepped the new line, but the lighting in my living room is not very forgiving, plus my design wall is quite small!) You can see from the polar bear a rough idea of what I’m intending to do, which is to sort of log cabin a couple of corners with 2-3 different accent fabrics on each of the panel sizes (I have large and medium on the wall here for the first line, and I have the same number again for the new line, while the small ones are in a pile to the side) and then I’ll sort of jigsaw puzzle it together.
To Be Worked On This Week:
- Workshop with Nick Ball on Saturday
- Maybe some more Gingiber stuff on Sunday, now that I’ve starched all the new fabric (I find it easier to starch fabric that’s being cut into narrow strips like this, as well as the panels, as it tends to avoid the edges getting wavy)
Hope you have a fab week all!
