Monday, April 26, 2021

It’s been a long time coming but today was opening day. We haven’t stopped in or gone through the drive-thru but we’ll be big supporters (big in more than one way) soon!

I ran a few errands today but for the most part I’ve been finishing up another row of That Fairy Tale Quilt. This pattern is very poorly written; I know that because even I am finding cutting instructions that are wrong. This is the last row that needs to be added but the borders will be brutal – sky, ground, Rapunzel’s Tower and Jack and the Beanstalk.

Sunday, April 25, 2021

I’ve been working on That Fairy Tale Quilt today. Finally Hansel and Gretel are done – far from perfect but done.

As I stitched and restitched, cut and recut I couldn’t help but think of the actual fairy tale. Hansel and Gretel were lost (or abandoned depending on what version you read) in the forest and discovered by a witch. She may have had good intentions to start with, giving them shelter and food. But along the way maybe Hansel and Gretel just got too mischievous and the witch was driven mad. Granted planning to eat them goes a bit too far but I can understand the frustration if that is what happened.

I started out with the best of intentions. I had Gretel done and a head made for Hansel. But then I decided to switch the head around so the brother and sister would both be looking at the gingerbread house (yet to be constructed). All was going well until I added legs to Hansel and realized that his body would be pointing in a different direction from his head (and that is more like the movie The Exorcist) so I decided that they would face each other as the pattern showed. Fortunately I had a head that was going in the right direction in my scrap bin (and that brings out a definite horror-movie feel) and I managed to get them both finished and good enough.

And just as I was about to put them away I noticed that Gretel had removed her shoe and put it back on upside down. I fixed it but that was the last straw (are you thinking the Three Little Pigs?) – no gingerbread house today!

Saturday, April 24, 2021

I wasn’t able to finish my cards last night. It turns out I can knit and watch subtitles but I can’t sew and watch them. I finished off a scarf and thought my knitting basket was empty but when I looked today I see that I have enough in there for another scarf and a hat. I was looking forward to finding a new project but I’ll wait until these two things are finished.

I had to (emphasis on had to) go out to the quilt shop this morning. They have been collecting money for a farewell gift for one of our quilters and I’m responsible for creating the gift certificate and transferring the money to the quilt shop in Castlegar. I’ve been working on the gift certificate and once I knew the amount I was able to get it sent to Staples for printing. In cases like this I really miss having a colour printer. But I had quite a few quilting pages that were waiting to be printed so I sent them along too. I’m way behind in keeping up with my project book but maybe this will get me back into it.

I finished off the morning by stitching the binding on the cards. They will be ready for the mail next week or, in some cases, the following week. I decided for the rest of the day I would do some sorting out and tidying up in my sewing room. I got about half-way around but now that I’m at the cutting table I have more than a day’s worth of fabrics to sort out, trim up for scraps and put away in various bins and cupboards.

It looks like I’ll be at it most of the day tomorrow.

Friday, April 23, 2021

I thought I might have a short day in the sewing room but it hasn’t worked out that way. I was working on cards again; getting the quilting done on the five of them was quite quick.

I usually do an envelope backing on the cards but I decided after my last batch that I would go back to putting a binding on the cards. The envelope is a bit faster but the quilting is more difficult when it has to be done after the card is more or less finished. And I haven’t been terribly happy with the look of them – it is harder to keep the pattern centred.

I was part of a Zoom meeting recently and the presenter was making small landscape cards. She used various textured yarns around the edges rather than putting on a binding. I wanted to try it but I used all my textured yarns in my recent scarves and afghan. So I wondered if ribbon would work.

I found a wide enough ribbon but I didn’t get very far before deciding it wasn’t going to work. The ribbon wasn’t soft enough to do a good corner and I felt like even if I had the ribbon on the front and back the unfinished edge of the card would show through the top, bottom and sides. The ribbon wasn’t wide enough to do an extra seam to close those edges all the way around. Lace might be easier to work with but I think I’d have the same issue with the unfinished edge showing unless it was a wide lace. I may experiment with the idea another time but for now I want to get these cards done.

I still have three cards to stitch the binding on and there will be lots of hand stitching but I have all evening.