Wednesday, April 28, 2021

I was up early this morning and spent some time at my desk catching up on some of my own paperwork as well as some for the Guild and the Hall. By eight I was ready for breakfast and my coffee but I was back sewing before nine.

I have the centre portion of That Fairy Tale Quilt finished – far from perfect but I’m celebrating the finish. The borders (four of them) still need to go on. Jack’s beanstalk goes on one side and Rupunzel’s Tower goes on the other side. There are five pages of instructions for putting on the top border (the sky) and slightly fewer pages for the bottom border (the ground). I won’t get back to this one again before the end of the month so, as far as my UFO Challenge goes, I’m done for now.

I needed to get a few cards in the mail today but when Pat called me at 11:45 to see if I wanted lunch I realized I needed to be at the letter box before noon. I thought I’d make it in time but it was raining so I decided to wait until after lunch and I drove to the post office. I needed more stamps so I feel like I justified the trip. Of course when I got home I had a message from the library that I have a book ready for pick up. I guess I’ll go out again tomorrow.

I’m going to make some Brownies this afternoon and after that I need to find a new knitting project for tonight.

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

It’s been another day of That Fairy Tale Quilt. I put the last row together and was excited at the thought of stitching the centre four rows together. I put it all out on the floor across the hall from my sewing room and noticed that the top two rows were just a tad shorter than the bottom two rows.

I took another look at the pattern and realized that on both of those rows I had missed a 1″ border piece. Whew – no ripping out and fudging seams (at least at this point).

I also noticed that I have to put a sashing between each of the rows and, of course, those sashing rows are made up of three or more pieces so there will be a lot more stitching required before any of the rows come together.

I had hoped to get back to some cards tomorrow but I’m determined to get the centre of this finished before moving on. It is my April UFO Challenge project and although it will be far from complete having the centre put together will make for a good stopping place until I pick it up again.

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!