Catch up time.

This week has seen very little sewing for a number of reasons. I've been working very hard with my hand stitching trying to complete the white round of the Grandmother's Garden quilt. There is a lot of hand stitching involved. First the fabric is tacked to the hexagonal template, then the hexies are whip stitched together to form the flower and then the flower has to be whip stitched to the main quilt. With so much stitching and most of it using the same action I set up pain in my right wrist, a mini repetitive strain injury. Mini, because as soon as it started hurting I stopped the stitching. Whilst allowing my arm to rest John and I had planned a couple of walks, one local and one out in the Surrey hills. Unfortunately on the hill walk I got bitten twice on my right wrist by insects and it became very hot and swollen. By yesterday it was feeling OK and the redness had gone so I decided to complete the wrap over skirt. The back of the waist band is hand stitched using a slip stitch so I decided that would test out my wrist as it wasn't a huge amount of hand sewing. The skirt went together quite quickly and I had it completely finished before the end of the afternoon. The pattern had two errors in it but I was aware of that from the first read through. They had forgotten that you need to make a button hole to thread the tie from the under wrap through. This allows the tie to lie flat against the waist band at the back as it goes to meet the tie from top front wrap. I'm pleased with the finished skirt. I need to give it a good press and it's ready to wear.

The second error was that the pattern tells you to cut both ties the same length but one tie goes all the way round the body and the other just across the front. That was also easy to fix by cutting the front tie shorter.

After that I worked on some more of the bag ladies. I finished the three ladies with the purple border. Millicent is top left, Gertrude top right and Constance is the one at the bottom. Constance feels she is a little superior to the other ladies.

Then I did the green border. Mildred is top left, Ernestine, my current favourite is top right and Earlene is on the bottom. 

I stopped at that point because trimming the embroidery down to size was stressful. I used my frixon pens to mark the cutting lines so I could double check I had measured properly and that the angles at the corners were right angles.

After I finished sewing for the day I decided to sort out some of my patterns. I pushed my folder and patterns to one side because I wanted to use the computer and while I did that Picasso came along and made himself comfortable. The silly cat would be more comfortable if he didn't sleep on the hole punch.

Last night John and I spent the night at older daughter's flat. She is away on holiday this week and so we said we would feed Rothko her cat. After he'd had a run outside he decided to play with my yarn. Before he'd finished he was really tangled up. Thank goodness it was only the small end of a ball. I disentangled him and he settled on my lap for a nap.

I wasn't so pleased with him at 5:30 this morning when he decided to nibble my toes to wake me up! Rothko is now a couple of months over a year old. He's black like Picasso but whereas Casso has long legs and a slim body Rothko is of a shorter build and not as slim.

Today I'm going to make a start on sewing the binding down on the baby quilt. Katy is back at work on the 1st September and she wants to gift the quilt then as she isn't sure when her colleague is going on maternity leave.

I'll tell you about our walk in the Surrey hills tomorrow. I need to sort out a couple of chores before we head out for Sunday lunch at a restaurant.  I'm linking this post with Kathy from Kathy's Quilts for her Slow Sunday Stitching I love this link up and seeing what hand work other people are doing.

Take care

Lyndsey