Sunday 29 April 2012

Progress? Not so much.


Here it is, the end of April, and what do I have to show for it?  Not a whole heck of a lot.

Well, now that I think about it, that's not entirely true.  My Stained quilt is coming along fairly well, after overcoming the hurdle that is my sewing machine.  After some thought, I decided to use black perle cotton to hand quilt in the sashing.  This went surprisingly quickly once I got started.  And while it wasn't my first choice for quilting, it turns out that I really like it.  Now, I'm thinking about what else I can hand quilt this way.




No progress at all on my Mystery quilt, and even with the external motivation provided by the My Precious QAL, I haven't made even the tiniest snip into that hoarded fabric.

On the other hand, I have managed to turn this raw cashmere ...



into this.



You can only imagine the amount of picking, teasing, and combing it takes to get this far.  But processing cashmere is a  a very pleasant way to pass the time.  The cashmere was a birthday gift from my son, and he's made it even better by sitting with me and helping to dehair it.  He got it from Treesong Farm in Duncan and it really is lovely.   And having it so close to home means that when I get this lot done, I'll know where to turn for more.  The spindle was made by Lisa Chan at Gripping Yarn and it's amazing.  There's no other word for it.










Sunday 15 April 2012

My Precious QAL

This must be my week for joining things.  I've just signed up for Kelly's My Precious Quilt Along
We're supposed to cut into fabric that we've been hoarding because it's too precious to cut into. 

That would definitely describe my lovely bit of Patty Young's hummingbird Flora and Fauna. 
I don't have a lot of it, but I know exactly what I want to do with it--I need a cover for my ereader.  The problem is that I'm pretty sure it has some kind of force field around it that prevents me from cutting into it. 

The second project will be a quilt top that uses my yellow and brown Lily & Will jelly roll.  This is the fabric that I think about at night when I can't sleep.  I have no idea what pattern I'm going to use--that's part of the problem--I just know that I have to get it cut and pieced so that I can sleep again.  It will also be nice to have a sunny yellow quilt to help me get through another long grey winter.

So that's the plan.  Let's see if the extrinsic motivation helps.