In which I realise I might have bitten off more than I can chew

Sometimes deadlines are just impossible. Was it Douglas Adams who said he like the sound of them whooshing past?  

Knowing that my parents visit was fast approaching, I spent a couple of evenings last week diligently cutting fabric into pieces and then stitching it back together again - trying to get the quilt top for my mum into some sort of order. 

I chain pieced and I pressed, and I now have 100 finished blocks. I ought to be ready to stitch these together into rows, but eeek. The blocks aren't quite perfect.

Some of them are a bit smaller. Some are a bit bigger.
Some are (gasp) a bit wonky. Turns out, my cutting wasn't always as accurate as I thought. And, um, neither was my sewing. 

#alwayslearning

So, I'm sort of stuck. I don't know whether to embrace the wonkiness and just sew the darned thing together, or spend time fiddling and trimming and trying to square things up before sewing the darned thing together. 

My parents are here now too, and as my mother doesn't Know about The Quilt, I'm not going to spoil the surprise. 

Sigh. 

A half plan is forming in my head, but it'll have to wait. 

Enjoy the bank holiday if you have one. I'm at work, the kids are at school, so it's not a holiday here #justsaying.

Two!

Happy Birthday Little Bean!

Another day, another blankie (FO)

Me again (don't faint with surprise)

After the raving success of the first stash-busting blanket I cobbled together another one, using up absolutely all of the weird textured yarn I used in the first one. 

It's not my finest creation evah, in that it's not very rectangular - something about the textured yarn made it difficult to keep my edges straight, but it's okay. I tarted it up a bit with some nice bold blue around the edge (4 ply held double) and gave it a wash. One end has stripes, and the other half is just plain because that's how the yarn worked out. 

Just like the last one, this will be donated to local charity: the Pregnancy & Parents Centre. They've got a nearly new sale coming up on Saturday (16th May!) Just in time. 

Sew

Howdy chaps.

Just back to report on last week's sewing adventures. In the midst of the rain, I got an annoying sewing job done - involving replacing a zip on my husband's hi-viz bike jacket (I broke the zip, so I really had to fix it!) It is a major cobble - I broke two needles in the process, unpicked a lot of very wonky stitching but managed in the end to return the jacket to him with a functional zip. And, he was happy with that. Phew.

Once that was out of the way, I moved onto other things. I refashioned one of my old hoodies into a sweatshirt/hoodie for the bean. He's got lots of sweaters that are almost too small, so I hacked apart one of my sweaters to make something for him. I cut the sleeves off, the hood off and cut along the side and shoulder seams. Then I narrowed the back and the front by several inches (taking things in at the sides) and lopped a chunk off the top of the sleeve, using one of his other sweaters as a guide. After rejoining the shoulder seams, I set in the sleeves and joined the new side seams. The neck was very wide  - much too wide for my 8 yr old, and I couldn't find an easy way of reducing this because of the logo on the back and the kangaroo pocket on the front. [Note to self: these features make refashioning much more tricky!] I opted to reattach the original hood - just tucking a wee pleat in the centre back to make everything line up. The neckline is still super wide, but with the hood attached it's not very noticeable. 

The best bit. He loves it. A photo will follow at some point - but each time I try and take one he has covered the sweater in milk, or mud, or something splattery.

Just so you have something to look at, here is a stack of freshly stitched squares that I am making into a quilt top for my mum. The fabrics all came from my grandma, and a duvet cover she made for me when I was a teenager. 

The duvet cover was made from vintage fabric scraps from clothes and other household textiles in my nana's house. The duvet cover disintegrated a long time ago, and I've been trying to decide how to make the remnants into a quilt top for some time. Last week I finalised my design/approach, cut the squares to the right size and started to stitch. There are 100 patterned squares, and I chain pieced the lot while the children ate their supper the other night. Wowzers that was fast! Who knew?

There might just be a deadline with this one. My mum's birthday is at the end of the month, and they are coming to visit. Maybe I can get it done before then?

Leaving

Hey chaps. I'm on leave this week, although the rest of the family are doing their normal things (apart from 2 days off school, *sigh*). As usual I have made myself a massive list of things to get done.

Today it was Dig the Allotment. The plot has been much neglected over the last few months - so I've been doing my best to sneak in some visits here and there to get things tidied up and ready for sowing. There's still a lot to do, but I managed to get a few rows is seeds in today, and I've dug over the potato patch ready to get some spuds in later in the week.

Tomorrow the forecast is wet, so instead of sowing in the garden I'm planning to do some sewing in the house!!