Sunday, December 13, 2020

I was enjoying working on a new hat pattern the last few evenings but I worried that I didn’t have enough yarn. Sure enough I was seeing the end of the spool and I still had at least half an inch to knit plus the decreases for the crown.

My first thought was to take it apart and find a new pattern but I thought I would start the decreases early and see how it worked out. I did that last night and if I keep it a bit shorter than the pattern says I will have enough to finish the hat.

But as I finished it off I noticed a couple of problems with the decrease. I’m not sure if it was the pattern or if I made a mistake. Tonight I will try to reverse knit back to the error and see if I can pick it up again. If not, I’ll take it all out and start over, knowing that I have enough yarn to make a slightly smaller version.

I spent the morning in my sewing room. I decided that rather than just clean up I would do some rearranging. It is pretty much done now, except for one corner, and I like the way it looks. I haven’t tried it out to see how it works when I’m actually sewing something but I’ll get to that tomorrow.

I’m going to relax with some cross stitching for the rest of the afternoon.

Saturday, December 12, 2020

I didn’t have much planned for the day and, in my mind, I even thought i would finished off the border on my pinwheel quilt.

I made an Alias Grace block this morning. It was one that I had to design on my own based on the picture in the book. It worked out well and the three blocks I have finished are now up on the design wall (the door across the hall from my sewing room). There were a lot of half-square triangles involved in the block and I sewed some pinwheels together as a leader and ender project.

After lunch I moved on to the November block for the Guild. It too involved some half-square triangles and I was almost finished the stitching using the magic eight method when I realized I had the right side of one fabric against the wrong side of the other fabric. I have reverse stitched that and got it right this time. The last seams of the pinwheels were my leaders and enders and they are done now.

I’ll go back to working on the November block but if I make one more mistake I’m going to quit for the day.

Friday, December 11, 2020

I’ve been making pinwheels for probably a year for a scrap quilt that I designed. It seemed like the two-and-a-half inch blocks would never been finished but I finally got the right number made last week. I had been trying to work at sewing the rows of pinwheels together while working on That Fairy Tale Quilt but I was finding keeping track of the order for the pinwheels was just too difficult. But today my calendar said it was time to work on something scrappy so I went back to the pinwheels with them as my only focus.

I had the two rows put together (48 pinwheels per row) but when I put them on my design wall (the floor) the rows were way too long. I had made twice as many pinwheels as I needed. So now I’m back to my sketch book trying to find a way to make a border to use up some of the extras. I have an idea of something but I’ll have to wait and see how it works out before I’m sure. I need to take a couple of seams apart but if there is anything I’m particularly good at when it comes to quilting it is my reverse stitching techniques.

Elizabeth sent Pat and I a Gingerbread Tree-making kit in our Christmas package. It wasn’t wrapped so we didn’t feel bad about putting it together this afternoon. I was originally in charge of the icing bag as Pat was building the tree but my wrist was hurting so Pat took over when it came time to decorate. At one point he had more icing on the counter than he did on the tree or in the bag and, of course, I was laughing so hard I wasn’t much help.

When I thought we were done Mr. Perfect told me we had to have two lights (small light-shaped candies) on each point. It may not be a work of art, but it certainly turned out better than the few times I’ve tried to make gingerbread houses with homemade gingerbread!

Thursday, December 10, 2020

I allowed myself to be totally self-indulgent today and I’ve had a marvellous time. This month I’m working on That Fairy Tale Quilt and today I made the Three Little Pigs and some mushrooms. I’m not sure where the mushrooms fit into the pig story but the ones I made look like magic mushrooms so anything is possible.

I’ve started working on the three houses now – straw, sticks and bricks. It took me a long time to get the first row finished (Little Red Riding Hood) and I wasn’t particularly liking the process but this row is so much fun. I have a Zoom meeting tonight so with the camera and audio off I can get a little more done.

I’m not having as much trouble with the templates today. To be clear though there has been a good share of reverse stitching along the way. One little piggy was almost sent to market!