Friday 18 May 2012

Friday

I've been feeling a bit sad this week. My lack of progress with stitchy endeavours is getting me down. My house is still very much a work in progress. My studio should be done by now but the little details drag on. I'm actually really really happy with that room, even given it's flaws. Current problems awaiting solution include a swollen door that doesn't close (and neither of us thought to check this before painting it!) and rust spots repeatedly sneaking through white paint. I am hopeful that my Expedits will be arriving (and possibly assembled) this Sunday though, and having somewhere to stash my fabrics will make things much better. I've also sewn the tabs for my patchwork curtains, so I can hopefully get those finished without much delay.

Dan is helping me so much and I feel like such a pain lately. Just can't seem to pull myself out of my flump. All I want to do is sew but I keep hitting the limits of my current abilities and it is really getting to me. I desperately want a new sewing machine (which of course I believe will make most things better). I have my heart set on a Pfaff Smarter, hopefully in the not too distant future.

What I'm (slowly, very slowly) working on right now...

Thread basting on my Patchwork Prism pillow.


Quilting lines marked and hand quilting in progress.

I'm using Faber Castell water soluble markers for my marking. Just the cheap ones for children's drawing. I find them a bit more stubborn to remove that water soluble markers specifically made for quilting, but they are so much cheaper and I can buy them locally, so I'm much happier to use these. On my Siblings Together quilt I did find marks on a Kokka linen blend particularly hard to remove, but a gentle scrubbing with washing up liquid fixed the problem. I only ever use cold water on a quilt until all marks have been removed.

I mostly thread baste my hand quilting projects. I can have my basting stitches installed before marking my quilt, and I find drawing with markers much easier on a basted quilt than just a top. Removing safely pins is too much of an interruption while I'm hand quilting, and I never have anywhere handy to put them. Particularly if I'm hand quilting outdoors.

For this project I am using Aurifil 12wt no. 1248 Stormy Sea, purchased here. It's a bit finer than size 8 perle cotton, I might actually prefer it to the perle. Not sure yet. The slightly finer gauge means smaller knots which are a lot easier to 'pop' into the quilt without causing fabric snags.

2 comments:

  1. I'm so happy to have found your blog after admiring your work on flickr.

    Sorry to hear you're feeling down; with so much work underway there are bound to be huge drains on your energy and creativity, and inevitable low points. I usually have several enormous projects on the go (for work as well as my sewing) and I find that I do have to weather blue periods...with the confidence that the more joyous part of the energy cycle will, eventually, recur!

    Hope you feel better soon. The prism pillow is looking gorgeous!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much. I read this comment yesterday, on my phone, while queueing at the post office, and it made my afternoon :)

      Delete