Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Look Mom, I'm Paper Piecing!

A few months ago, I thought I'd like to try something new, so bought three little paper piecing patterns to make as birthday/baby/friendship gifts for people who like owls, foxes, and elephants respectively.  But nobody told me to start small and work your way up with paper piecing, and none of the helpful websites had the same, crumpled, mismatched and sad looking items that I had.  So, I threw them into a drawer and went away to sulk.

To my horror, this month my Wee Bee Canadian wanted us to make flying circle of geese blocks with the dreaded paper piecing.  Not only did I have churn dash issues last week, but this week my knickers were definitely in a knot just thinking about starting to paper piece.  So, I looked at the approved web site (http://chasingcottons.blogspot.ca/2011/10/circle-of-geese-block-tutorial.html), picked up my papers and started one step at a time.  I have to say, that it was an excellent tutorial.

To show how inept I was, it hadn't occurred to me to number the pieces on the wrong side too, so no wonder I got frustrated.  This time I cut my pieces really big to eliminate the constant "wrong size,


wrong angle" issues I'd had before.  Strangely, it all seemed to go well! Then I got cocky; I started eyeballing instead of checking and then, of course, my very last piece was wrong, very wrong.  So, I threw it across the room and went away to sulk.

Next day, same place, different time.  I do own a seam ripper, so I was able to repair the offending piece, but then I was on a roll and nothing went wrong the rest of the morning.  I made four squares, sewed them together and ended up with an actual flying geese block.


The only problem was removing the paper, when I realized that I should have anchored some of the starting points to stop them loosening up.  I was able to fix that before sewing it all together and I'm mighty pleased!  I might actually dig out the owl, fox, and elephant patterns and give them a whirl.



So that's it for sewing this week.  Yet again we were hit by a massive snowstorm with high wind and drifts, so we were housebound for one whole day, then digging out another.  My husband is very fed up with plowing the yard!




Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Dashing Off the Churn Dash

I didn't expect to have anything sewing related to share this week, but yesterday turned out to be a day of puttering in sewing world.  This month's block for the Wee Bee was a mini churn dash, which seemed simple enough but caused me lots of frustration.  There are so many seams that the smallest inaccuracy ended up with a block that was ever so slightly off size.  Now, you might think after the first off size block I might smarten up, but no, it took me THREE to stop and analyze what might be wrong! I've never been one to worry about perfection, but this was ridiculous!

So, I narrowed it down to zipper foot, ruler or pencil line.  (or all three) I measured the zipper foot and all was well there.  Then I took out a newish ruler and held it against my beloved 3x18 one and lo and behold, it was a hair different.  So I backed it up just past the line when measuring and found that all my blocks were right on size.  Who would have thought that over the years a ruler would wear down on the cutting side.

The requested format was "scrappy-happy" with purples, blacks and burgundy.  I realized yesterday that aside from solids, I have not bought any fabric for six months, and am finally getting to use up all the bits and pieces on my shelves.  What's left now I don't much like and don't know why I bought it, but will donate it to a craft circle for them to use and now I can buy some more!




Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Snowshoeing

My daughter came to visit on the weekend, so any thoughts of sewing or knitting went right out the window!  As anyone with adult children knows, it's a joy to have them visit--it means they actually want to see us!

It was one of those picture perfect winter times with fresh snow and dark blue skies, perfect for being outdoors.


We did the traditional snowshoe trek, but found it was hard going.  We usually put on our snowshoes at the back of the barn, but Emma made one step too many and ended up in soft snow past her boots, so had to back out quickly to get her gear on!  It was fine going across the fields where the wind polishes and hardens the snow,




 but in the woods, it was soft and powdery and even with snowshoes, it was up to my knees in places. That's when it's useful to have a big stick for balance!


Sadly, it was too hard for my faithful companion, so I had to break off and make a trek to the road.  Her hind end doesn't work like a young dog any more, so she was struggling to get going forward with the deep snow.  I had to take three steps for every one step forward to tread it down, making it solid enough for her to walk on.

Once we made it back home, she spent a lot of time snoozing to catch up on her rest!  Neil always makes fun of her with her "dolly" as a pillow, but I find it adorable.