Good projects

I'm very happy with all my WIPs these days.  I'm doing the next mystery shawl for the Light and Dark Lace Club (the next edition is probably in Oct.) with lace yarn, and loving every minute of it.  Even the occasional tinking doesn't bother me.  Can't show you pics because it is a mystery, but trust me, it's pretty and very pleasant to knit.  I'm knitting on this in the evening while we're watching Castle on DVD.

Then I have my crochet afghan.  I'm at the crocheting the border around each square part of it.  Not exciting, but pleasant donkey work.  Again in the evening while watching Dr. Who or Lost.  Since I really pay attention to the tube, I can work on this pretty mindlessly.


Sewing!  I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying this, and how much I'm learning.  This week I learned that lengthwise grain barely stretches as opposed to crosswise grain.  I read this in a book by Marti Mitchell, but me being me, I had to find out the hard way.  That was the Chicken and Eggs bag of the previous post.

I finished the top to my latest Schnibble.  There is a serious goof here.  I bet you can find it, too.  I was thinking about taking out a few sts and redoing the messy part, but then I realized that it's close to the stitching line, and when I finally quilt it, I'll make sure to fudge it with my stitches.  Yep, I can do that.  I did embroidery for centuries.  In fact, when I was in 5th grade and in a boring summer, my mom taught me how, and I've done it for years and years.  Not these days; but probably at some point again.

Can you see my goof?  It's in a pale green section.  Embiggen to really see it.  Oh, piffle, I can see it even this small.  Growl.

What did I learn from this little quilt?  I think it would have helped had I starched the fabric first, at least my own cuts, and not the charm pack ones.  That green was a devil to work with.  Kinda floppy and now I wish I had starched it.  I've not done starching before, but I'll try it out the next time.

I also learned about getting those teensy little points to come together.  Man, that was hard.  In fact, I found the whole piece to be hard.  It got easier as I went along, however.  Good learning project, and now I'm not so afraid of little points matching up.  OK, I'm still scared of them, but I've done it a bunch of times on this piece, so I think I could do it again.

Doll clothing?  The girls are nekkid again.  The clothing is going to Miss Rose when we visit her the next time.  I'm alternating between Pen and Rose to make things equal.  Plus, Miss Rose tends to like girlie stuff, while Miss P likes black backgrounds.  It's nice for me 'cause I can work with different fabrics and enjoy myself.
I made a pair of pants yesterday from an old pair of twills that are totally out of style.  I never realized just how heavy twill fabric is.  Duh!  Jeans are twills, so why I didn't think of it is beyond me.  I was going to put on pockets.  Made them, but the fabric is so heavy that I couldn't turn them right-side out.  So no pockets.  Like the doll cares.

And today I'm going to get brave and start the Farmer's Wife Quilt-a-long, AKA fwqal.  I have the book, but out the patterns for the second block, picked out the fabrics, and in a little while I'm going to start to work on it.  Wish me luck.

scrapperjen - It's there.  Look at a light green block with white polka dots in the second row about a block or two in from the left.  See that little bulge, pleaty thingie?  That's it.