Hand stitching and masks

Yesterday was a little slow on the sewing front. I was working during the day and by the time I've spent the day on the computer teaching and attending meetings my eyes are tired and my head hurts. It takes a while to unwind and be ready for other activities. Having finished work for the day I spent some time sorting through papers and reorganising myself. I also needed to book a couple of appointments. My car windscreen has a very small crack in it and I needed to organise for it to be repaired. The guy is coming this afternoon and it is covered on my car insurance with no loss of my no claims bonus so I'm happy. We are away for the weekend and I'm pleased the repair is being done before we travel.

In the evening I settled myself with Scamp on my lap to complete the Shakespeare square on my millennium sampler. Picasso tried to join in but with him sitting on me as well I just couldn't stitch so I moved him onto the back of the chair. I managed to complete all the stitching on the square which was good.

The last square I need to work on is the spitfire. I started this quite a while ago but gave up as it was hurting my eyes. Trying to hand stitch whilst waiting for new lens for my glasses was rather silly. When I picked the sampler up again I decided to finish the two other squares before trying to work out where I'd got to in the spitfire pattern. Unfortunately you can only put things off for so long and the day has come for getting this square finished. You can see from the photo that it shouldn't take long. Once all the stitching is done the outline back stitching will help define the shape of the plane.

Things are moving forward at work and from October 5th we will be doing some teaching face to face. In all the communal areas we will be wearing masks so I need to get back to mask making. I currently have 2 which is fine for now as I don't go into shops or other areas where I need to wear them very often. I much prefer staying home or exercising well away from other people. I need to decide what fabric to use. I want something to make me feel happy as I go back to the office. Not that i'll be there a lot as they only want us to go in if we are teaching. 

Here is a sneak preview of the fabric I'm going to be using for part of my projects for the Fall blog hop coming later this month. I love charm packs as they're so versitile but I wish they wouldn't shed 'bits' onto other fabric

This rug canvas was also delivered today. Richard culled a lot of his T shirts and I grabbed them to make a rag rug. I have a rug latch tool so I can now start work on the rug but first I need cut the T shirt fabric into strips and then I'm ready to go.

Before I go and start sewing I have a couple of knitting pattern books for toys. There are no young children in our family and somewhere my adult children have all still got the scarecrow that my mom knitted for them. It's time to let the patterns go to someone who will use them. 

The first booklet is for the MacScarecrow Clan. In addition there is another member of the clan, Great Uncle Angus and his bagpipes and also a friendly green monster called Bobby who are not in the picture.. The dog in this clan is called Scamp.

The second pattern booklet is missing the cover. It has patterns for all of these dolls in the picture

If you would like either of these booklets, or both, please leave a comment stating which one. I will post to anywhere on the planet. If more than one person wants them I will treat it as a raffle and pull the 'winner' out of the hat. I check back on Monday to see if anyone wants them and if not I'll take them to the charity shop.

I need to go and get the masks made. A final decision on fabric I want to use and I can get sewing. Oh I need to think about how many I need to make, 2, 4 or more? I'll start with 2 as they wash and dry quickly.

Take care

Lyndsey