The itch to sew something, anything actually, but preferably clothes for me really soon has gotten stronger and stronger. Oh I have been in the sewing room occasionally with a few minutes here or there, but not enough time to proof a pattern, alter it and cut anything out, or just late at night when I am so tired that just trying to figure out how lining up the pattern paper seems like a major challenge.
These are not good conditions for perfect sewing. So I have played. I did a little messing around with coat pattern. I still need bigger shoulders and haven’t finished. I suppose my heart has not been in it, but time has been an issue as well.
I set up the embroidery unit on the Bernina and played with that too, trying different techniques. It was fun, but I wasn’t making something that I wanted to be making so it didn’t have the thrill. Perhaps I should find something I really want to do and start playing with that goal in mind, working my way up to the perfect garment.
Perhaps my brain has just boiled into mush.
So last night I decided I had to make something, and it had to be something easy. I want to make a couple of skirts. I showed you the fabric back in June. No progress yet. But skirts require measuring and proofing the patterns. I don’t have a TNT skirt pattern right now. Last winter’s skirt pattern is miles to big. Last summer’s skirt pattern is almost right; I can fit into it but it will be more comfortable in about two weeks. That is probalby close enough that I can probably use it as a base. In that sense it is probably good that I dilly dallied a bit on the cutting out. Now I will be cutting smaller than I would have been a month ago.
But back to last night. What to sew? Well, I could sew the baby blanket. The fabric was prequilted, all I needed was the binding.
Of course your realize that sewing the binding on the quilt took far less time than cutting the strips, turning up the hem edge and pressing everything so it was perfect don’t you? I got the cutting, hem pressing and pinning all done before dinner and dinner was a little late as G went to the gym after work. All I had to do after dinner was sew it up, but I didn’t finish. I was too tired I got about half way around and the corners were starting to get difficult so I thought it best to go to bed.
Instead it was finished this morning.
I can’t get the whole thing in a photo, but you get the idea. That stripy fabric is quite puckered, like a stretch seersucker, and it pulls up at that point. The blanket is square and holds for a few minutes after pressing, but then the stretchy parts pull up again.
Here is a detail shot of a corner.
I’ll ship the whole thing down to Knoxville today along with some more baby clothes. And then I think I will cut that skirt.
But first I have another picnic and concert to get ready for. Tonight we are hearing Mendelssohn’s Elijah and I am really looking forward to it.