Archie The Wonder Dog

*gropes around for light switch*   *gasps in horror at the dust*  *flicks around a tickle stick*  *shows age* Hello! Today the Q1 finishes link opens for the 2017 Finish-Along and I thought it was high time I started catching up on blogging about my (sort of) recent finishes. My Q1 FAL list can be found here , and this blog is all about item one, the big blue and white quilt. I started the quarter in my usual manner: like a greyhound out of the traps.  I then continued in my usual manner: having a lie down about quarter of the way round.  This time, it was more pronounced because I wanted this quilt finished in time for my mam's birthday in early January. At the start of the quarter, the project looked like this: I don't know what that ball of perle is doing there, I certainly didn't use it to sew down the binding! and I just needed to sew down the binding to the back. Here's how it looked when I finished it: I started this project in ...

...but I don't know why it's been an odd week so I'm going to blame the clocks going back!  I also don't feel like I've got anything done, so let's see what I can pull out of the hat, eh? I reached a couple of milestones on the blue and white quilt's hand quilting.  Here's Mini Archie helping me celebrate the first one: Three quarters of the way there!!! And here's Archie wondering whether he'll get his tea before I reach the next milestone: I'm sure it's teatime.  Tell me it's teatime.   A while later, after Archie's tea, I hit the milestone! One hundred stars quilted!  (Just 27 to go!) I've even bought the binding fabric, as I had a discount code for Simply Solids and wanted to use it before it ran out.  It arrived yesterday and I think it's going to work well: I'm now aiming to get it finished for either Christmas, or Mam's birthday in early January.  I was doing two stars a day during ...

Hello! (I know, I'm here again!  I can't quite believe it...) This week has been a week of dithering and hand quilting yet more stars.  I've quilted just over two-thirds of the stars on the blue and white quilt, here are the latest two: I started cutting the hexies for my first Christmas cushion, and discovered I was eight hexies short of a cushion (a phrase I'm hoping passes into common usage!): so I set about trying to work out what to put in the gaps, which is where the dithering started.  First of all I removed the plain hexies: which I liked, but something's going to have to go in the gap so I searched through my stash and found some options: and the only thing that helped me decide was that I'd use the stripy fabric for the binding.  (Thanks, Clare !) I thought that laying the hexies over the options might help (that was less fun than you might think!, but it didn't: but it didn't stop me trying again: Still no dec...

I've done it again!  Yes, two weeks on the trot see me sitting in front of my laptop with a pot of tea by my side, ready to think about what I've done in the week.  It must be a miracle! First up is my second finish from my Q4 FAL list (item 26) , socks for me: As you can see, they don't quite match.  I think I used a slightly tighter tension on the heel flap of the second sock and that's why they're off.  I'm going to ask Father C. for another set of dpns (and a matching set of a smaller size for 4ply yarn) so I can knit the next pair in tandem in the hope that I'll be better able to keep an eye on the colour matching.  I used Adriafil Knitcol in Kandinsky, which is a dk merino yarn.  I used the basic top down pattern which came free with Regia sock yarn many years ago (and probably still does!) with the addition of a reinforced heel (S1 K1 on the knit rows, rather than all knit).  When the time comes, I'll be linking up with the Finish-Along ...

Hello! I did it!!!  I've actually kept my promise to myself that I would blog at the weekend!  I'm going to try to write a post on either a Saturday or Sunday to try and keep up with myself.  I found that doing the Summersville posts (yes, I'm still adding stories to the page - there are 21 up at the moment ) each Saturday or Sunday really helped so I'm going to try going back to that way of thinking.  Wish me luck! This week has been one of mainly hand quilting the blue and white quilt (or the blue and white bu**er as I think of it) and, as of last night, I've quilted 58 stars (out of 127): This is not star number 58, but as they all look the same (or I hope they do), I thought I'd share one which has my supervisor in! I've also started putting together my pinafore version of the Kate dress ( pattern by Sew Me Something , I've adapted it to be a pinafore).  I've made the pockets: Next time, I'm going to make a cardboard template of ...