plenty of sewing time

Just popping in with a short post …

Mum is doing well; she has improved physically in the week she has been here which is a good sign. She is no longer stooped and shuffling; being undernourished will do that to you! Instead, she is eating very well and has regained her usual stride. Yesterday she even worked out in the garden with WM for a couple of hours.

Her biggest interest is reading and she spends hours absorbed in books. This frees me up to be in the sewing room so I am getting quite a bit done.

A couple of weeks ago, my quilting teacher donated a partially completed quilt to Caring Hearts Community Quilters – all I had to do was finish the quilting, make binding, attach it and sew it down. I have done all but the last task, so no photos until I show you the finished project!

My Jacob’s Ladder Goes Barn Raising is quilted. Life is so much easier when I think about the quilting before I pin baste; then I can position the pins out of the way of stitching lines. The quilting was done in no time but it seemed to take almost as long to sew in all the ends! You can’t see it here (because the photo is pre-quilting); I sewed diagonal lines about 5” apart through the centres of the squares that make up the diagonals.


The binding is cut and waiting for the strips to be joined.


I have also been knitting! Shock of shocks!!

In the past three days, I have worked on Crinkles Hoodie by doing a three needle bind off on the shoulders and starting the first sleeve (the photo, which is of the back, is really not worth showing but I know you like pictures! LOL)


Last December, I started knitting Charley Bear for my great-niece who will be two next month; I began on the train on 16 December and haven’t touched it since. On Monday, I stuffed the body and head. I am so not enjoying this! There are so many fiddly little pieces to come, of the type: CO 4 stitches, K 2 rows, increase either end of next row, knit 1 row. Bind off! I have no desire to be a toy maker! The head is on the left; it seems proportionally too large for the body!


And I’ve finished a pair of small women’s socks which were started on 21 February. The second sock was cast on 6 March.


My current reading is varied, but includes 100 Days of Real Food by Lisa Leake. She started a blog a few years ago and it led to a book! Our copy only arrived yesterday so I’m not really in a position to write a review just yet. It certainly is an interesting read.

There are some advantages to having had to cut back on my away-from-home activities, at least for a few weeks! ;-)

Linking up with WiP Wednesday and Yarn Along when they go live.
         


PS Is anyone else having trouble with Firefox working very slowly or is just us?