zaterdag 2 februari 2019

I've been down with flu like symptoms for more than a week now, and yesterday I was still ill: muscle aches, headache, bad cold and sooo tired. I do have a bit more energy than last week, so I did some sewing, as I figured it would help me feel better, and it did. Well, all the symptoms are still the same, but getting a little bit of sewing done did cheer me up a little. And I found myself enjoying those small, repetitive tasks that sometimes make me impatient.

I like where this is going!
I prepared all of the leaves for the baby quilt for appliqueing. I'm using the freezer paper method I found on the interweb. I needed about 50 leaves in all. They are now all prepared and pinned to the top, ready sewing them on by machine. I'm using a small zigzag in a cream Aurifil thread. Maybe I'll do that today.

I just managed to squeeze a size 40 out of my coupon. Hopefully, if I stitch a narrow seam, it will fit...

I'm using model 105 from the Knipmode Knit Special of May 2011, with longer legs.

I also finally decided what to do with a coupon I bought a while back. It's a fine knit, with a print of a little girl playing the flute. I had wanted to make a PJ top from it, but needed some coordinating fabric. On Friday I thought this flu was clearing up, so I decided to go to market in Tervuren, and went into the Fairy Tailors while I was there. Obviously the flu was not over and after 2 hours I was dead tired and still needed to get back home. I ended up having a hot chocolate in MiJoya to perk me up a bit, and found my way home on the bus. I spent the rest of day in the sofa. Anyway, at the Fairy Tailors I bought another coupon, of a blue knit, thinking it would go with my little flute player. It's obvious I wasn't thinking clearly, because not only does the colour not match at all, but it's also a much thicker, sweater like, knit. I can't believe I bought it without noticing that! Anyway, now I had two coupons that I didn't know what to do with. And then I decided to just make something, anything, and cut the pattern for a legging for the little flute player, and the pattern for a sweater from the blue knit. The legging was a really close fit to get it cut from the fabric I had, so I hope it fits when it's done!

The full extent of my stash (there is a little pile up there, too).

After starting yet another garment, I was feeling overwhelmed by all my projects, spread around the house, so I spent an hour tidying my fabrics cupboard. I ended up with a tidy cupboard, one basket of quilt projects and one with garments to be sewn. I don't have a big stash by any standard, but I can still get overwhelmed. And I do have a lot of WIP's! Now that I have an overview, I feel confident I'm going to get a lot of them finished in the coming months.

These are being used for the baby quilt, so they live in this basket for now.

One area where I still feel out of my depth is scrap management. I have a plastic bag of scraps which contains leftovers from garment sewing in all shapes and sizes, tiny snippets of cherished quilting fabrics and pieces of fabric that I don't like anymore, or that don't fit in with my stash. It sits in my "creative cupboard" in the living room. Over a year back I started a scrap quilt, in an attempt to reduce the amount of scraps, but the bag is full again! Maybe I have to be more ruthless and just discard a lot of fabric scraps. But on the other hand, sometimes a scrap comes in really handy. I also have a wicker trunk full of large cuts of fabric I don't really like in the cellar. Sometimes knowing it's there weighs on me, but sometimes I actually use it, for making a muslin or for some dress up thing for the children, so I can't seem to chuck it either. As I'm writing this, I'm thinking I should just move all the fabric that is not part of my small but beloved stash into the trunk in the cellar. And decide that if the trunk becomes to small, I have to get rid of some fabric. And allow myself to do so guilt free! I did start cutting 3 inch squares out of scraps, to make a simple quilt of scrappy squares alternated with a background (most likely simply white). I've found that it makes it easier for me to handle offcuts of garment sewing: I simply cut as many 3 inch squares as possible and chuck the rest (usually a triangular shape, hard to use later). It feels nice to know that a little bit of all these previous projects will be "documented" in this scrap quilt to be.