things i did with my week: a list

1. A lot – a lot – of traveling and Real Life.

2. Some sweater.

I’m at the body now, which means the rows go faster, and also that I get to motivate myself with stripes. (There is something very pleasing and a little addictive about stripes.) I really love the navy and yellow together – the yellow cheers up the dark blue a bit, I think.

3. Some sewing.

Knowing myself, and how I have at least four craft projects in progress at any given time, I figured I’d get bored of working on the same sweater all week. So I brought along my hexagon pillowcase, which has been basically-almost-done-except-for-finishing-the-applique-and-sewing-the-front-and-back-together for months, now.

Each of the hexagons were made using this English paper piecing template. The ones in the big strip were hand-pieced together, then I hand-stitched it to the grey background fabric. I also added a few extra single hexagons in the same way.

Let me tell you, you get some looks when you pull out a hand sewing project on a train.

sewing?

So, one of the things on my Crafty To-Do List has always been to make myself a quilt. A proper, double-bed sized one, that I can use to sleep under in the spring and fall, when my big duvet is too warm.

But I’ve always been intimidated by the idea of making one – I have grown used to knitting, where mistakes can be ripped out with virtually no consequences (except more knitting), and the idea of cutting fabric and then sewing it and not being able to start over entirely if something goes wrong is a bit scary.

So I came up with a plan: last Christmas, (as in, 2010) I bought some ridiculous, deeply-discounted, oh-god-this-fabric-is-vomiting-Christmas fat quarters, with the idea of using them to make a practice quilt. The sort of quilt where, if something went horribly wrong, it would not be a big deal.

I put the top for this together in, quite literally, an evening. It’s little – 36″ by 36″ – made from six fat quarters. I sat down with my square ruler and cut the fabric into squares that were the size of the ruler, then arranged them in a pleasing fashion and seamed everything. And things turned out okay! (Also: sewing is so fast you guys, I always forget.

I brought it with me over the holidays, with the goal of finding a shop that sold backing fabric and batting, and learning to quilt by hand.

Turns out, hand quilting is kind of really, really fun.

I’m not so much in love with the process of sewing the quilt top – I don’t like having to sit at the sewing machine, and I’m still at a skill level where I find cutting fabric and working to patterns kind of intimidating.

But hand-quilting, like tiny hexagons, is something I can get behind. It’s repetitive and straightforward, and the basic technique of it isn’t very challenging. I love the look of it, and I can do it while I sit on the couch with the TV on. There is nothing not awesome there.

Anyway.

All of this is a very long way of explaining that I’ve worked through my issues with sewing for quilts, and made a much bigger quilt top.

I also figured out how to lay it out to sandwich the backing and batting together with the top (in my apartment, finding that much space is a big deal, and involves moving furniture) and that’s why my couch is covered in a half-finished quilt.

I’m very sorry.

It won’t happen again.

hexagon!

In between bouts of sweater knitting, I’ve also been working away at my hexagon pillowcase.

I sewed all the hexagons together a couple of weekends ago, and now I’m chipping away at the process of sewing them (is this applique? Is that something different?) to the fabric I want to use as the background of my pillow top.

It is going glacially, but I am okay with that. There’s something kind of relaxing about picking up my hoop and doing needlework, and it’s sort of nice doing it in small bursts of activity instead of feeling like it needs to get finished all at once.

See that little bat hexagon in the corner? That fabric is my absolute favourite, I’m sort of wishing I’d bought more. Deep in my heart, there is a cranky emokid who likes safety pins and studded belts, and that fabric is making her so very happy. I think I might need to go on a shopping trip, once Halloween-themed fabrics start to make their way into the sewing stores.