Thursday, January 28, 2021

I’ve always had this problem. Even before I’ve finished one project I’ve thought of several more I’d like to do. It happened when I was knitting (hence all my yarn), it happened with cross stitching (hence all my floss and patterns) and it happens with quilting (hence all my fabric and patterns).

Today I was working on my Valentine cards; I’m on my third one and although I have to think about what I’m doing I can also let my mind wander from time to time. While I’ve stitched I’ve decided how these particular cards will be quilted and I’ve settled on my next two card patterns.

We watched the movie Shirley on Prime last night and I did some research on the author the movie is based on. I took a short break to place one of her books on hold at the library.

I’ve been knitting a scarf in the evenings; I didn’t have much mohair yarn but I thought I might get a decent-sized scarf. After knitting for one evening I took it all apart and made it a bit skinnier so I could get a little more length. But I still didn’t feel like it was going to work so I took another break from my stitching and found a scrap afghan pattern that I will use it in. I have an entire bin of “odd balls” and I’ll use all of them up in the pattern I found. I’ve crocheted a very similar afghan several times (in fact I have one on the go now) but this pattern is knitted and will suit the yarns I have better. Some of those novelty yarns are difficult to crochet with.

So I’m not sure that having my mind wander is such a good thing. The ideas I came up with just today will take me months to accomplish.

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Today was a Guild Zoom sewing bee; I often just sign on to say hello and then sign off again until lunch and Show and Tell. That was my original plan but since I needed to have my laptop open to see my pattern I stayed in the Zoom meeting all morning. I only had one issue. I had my laptop charging and was being very careful not to cut the cord while I was using my rotary cutter. All was good with my first project but when I was cutting binding for a second project I sliced into the cord just a wee bit; fortunately the computer is still working and charging!

I had so many choices for a Guild sewing day – my Guild Challenge, the January Block of the Month or the new Log Cabin Project we are working on. Since the Guild Challenge was close to being finished (well the top anyway) I decided to concentrate on that. By the time I had the top together I didn’t have time to start another project and there were a couple of things I wanted to get ready for the mail tomorrow so I concentrated on them. A couple of the ladies were working on their log cabin blocks; I thought I had planned mine out correctly but after chatting about the blocks I think the fabric I picked for the outer dark row has to move to the second last dark row. I’ll study the pattern more closely when I’m ready to start it.

I’ve just finished hand stitching some binding and I think I’ll call it a day. I have a label to attach to a project and I’ll dig out some yarn for another knitting project but after that I’m going to read until supper time.

Monday, January 25, 2021

Today was a quilting day on my task calendar and I was actually looking forward to it – now that is a huge surprise!

But first I wanted to finish up the cross stitching I was working on yesterday; I figured it would take only a few minutes. However I was at it much longer as I made some mistakes in the pattern yesterday and it took some reverse stitching (a couple of times) to get myself sorted out. I finished it before lunch and I’m happy to say I’m caught up on my stitch-alongs.

The quilting I wanted to do today was on some cards but one of them still needed some finishing. That particular card ended up being more of a wall hanging or table topper but I was having fun and got a little carried away with sashing and borders.

I did some in-the-ditch work on the larger piece and then moved on to do some ruler quilting. I got out the second ruler in my instructions and, although I didn’t follow their guide, I was able to make use of the new ruler in several spots. I still need to make the binding and a sleeve for this piece but I have another card day scheduled for Wednesday.

I tried using the same ruler for the other smaller card but didn’t have any luck. After two attempts I gave up; I think there were just too many seams for the ruler foot to move smoothly. I went back to some straight stitching and quickly finished the card with my go-to star pattern. I have the binding done for that card so I’ll have some hand stitching to do this evening.