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.

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?

Baby blanket (FO)

Tis done: one vintage blanket rescued and repaired.

I decided in the end to be honest about my contribution, and didn't try to replicate the original stitch pattern. I did emulate the thrifty feel by using up some odds and ends from the depths of the stash.

I think it works quite well, and once it has been washed, it'll be straight into the basket of baby things.

Itchy fingers

I'm trying to finish off some old/ existing projects, but my fingers are itching for something new. This morning I got this blanket out of the basket, and started some repairs....

As it's all about repairing and stashbusting then clearly. It. Does. Not. Count...

Make do and mend

When we visited my parents at Christmas, before we left, my mother pulled this blanket out of a drawer and said: 

"Your great nana made this for you when you were small. Now you can crochet, I thought you might be able to do something with it..."

I've washed it and put it in my knitting basket. It's a mixture of wool and other fibres; it flares a bit at one end, and it makes use of a nice crochet stitch which I don't recognise (my great nana was a great stitcher - she crocheted lace in vast quantities and I have a few tray cloths and things which she made). Repairing the blue edge at the one end seems straight forward enough, but I'm not sure about the other, bigger hole. 

I'm wondering about taking the non-woolly beige/pink stripes off and adding a new border around the remaining, mostly woolly stripes. But I'm not sure... any suggestions? 

Ready

The bags are now ready for gifting: washed, ironed, ribboned. Tonight they will be filled with a few small chocolate gifts, ready for the big day.

Stash bags (FO)

It's a big week this week. 


On Friday our son - the bean - has his last day at preschool. And, a new big scary chapter in which he starts school, begins. He is most definitely ready for this, but I am not. As the yarnharlot might say: it scares the snot out of me. 


Anyway, that's all for another day and another post, and this is meant to be about the fruitful stash diving and sewing that went on over the weekend. So, as I was saying - the bean finishes preschool this week, so I have been wondering idly about the best way of thanking his teachers. Of course, whenever there is idle wondering, there is idle googling and reading of blogs. 


Kelly at handmade at home hit the spot with her post about fabric bags. I half read the tutorial, and let the idea marinade for a few days. I talked to the bean. He thought it was a good idea.I went diving into the stash and pulled out some likely bits and bobs. The bean  had a look, and made his preferences clear.


So, Saturday evening, I unpacked the sewing machine and the cutting mat and set them up, along with the ironing board and iron. I folded, measured and cut fabric - enough for 8 bags. And then I sat down to sew.


At that moment, that very moment, the planets aligned themselves in a most unfortunate, er, alignment. It was now after 9pm, and the jelly bean - who had snuck a 1 hour nap that afternoon - was not sleepy. Not. At. All. No sir. She was as far from sleep as a 2 yr old can be. So, she was wriggling and getting in and out of bed and generally making us aware that she was wide a w a k e. 


While that was going on, my cousin rang to talk about our Olympic trip and meeting up and life with twins and parenting and Boris Johnson (London mayor) and all the other things that cousins talk about when they don't see each other from one year to the next. It took more than an hour...


It was now near to 10.30pm, and not a stitch had been stitched, and the jelly bean was still very awake. Surrender was the only course of action possible. We made our bed (sheets stripped and washed and hung out to dry at the first glimpse of sunshine earlier in the day) and offered her the chance to sleep with mummy. It was 11pm. I climbed into bed next to a wriggling jelly bean and wondered what sort of useless parent I was for giving in like that. 


It was gone 11.30 when the wriggling finally stopped and the warm feet on my belly could be gently moved away. Asleep, at last.


Sunday morning was slow and gentle and full of sunshine. We pottered about, reading books, eating, giggling. I caught up on my missed sewing session - sitting in my pyjamas at the table, while people around me drank and ate and dressed themselves. I consulted the bean on progress. He seemed happy, so in the evening after they went to bed (exhausted by swimming and cycling and lots and lots of fresh air) I sat down to finish things off. By (my) bedtime, there was a pile of 8 little bags. Start to finish in about 24 hours. Not a bad days work. 

Something old, something new (FO)

Some French friends of ours were married over the summer; announcing the nuptials only after the event. We saw them recently, and thought we should give them a little something to mark their new life together.

We looked in a local craft gallery for a suitable present, but nothing was quite right. So, I set to with my sewing machine instead, and made two placemats, two coasters and two napkins.

I used linen (a charity shop bargain) plus some scraps of vintage fabric from my grandmothers house. Since both bride and groom are tree geneticists, the leafy motifs of the fabric seemed to fit perfectly. In addition, I quilted a leaf motif onto the back of the placemats,which you can just see here ...

You never quite know how such gifts will be received - (I have a relative who never acknowledges the handmade things I send) - but I am pleased to report that the happy couple were happy, and so was I! Another gift gifted, and made entirely from the stash.