Out and about

After a month incarcerated inside our apartment, today the HD3QBEM felt well enough to go out.   Where would you like to go? I asked.   To buy buttons!   Of course.   Now why wouldn't I think of that?   So off we went to Dave's Emporium where she sat on her Zimmer frame and I counted out buttons.   Aren't they pretty?   Now the marathon of sewing all these onto the 9 finished garments commences.  I can see I will be needed for some if not all of these.

I called at Spotlight and got some wool batting as I want to make a start on lacing the panels of the Sampler Casket.

This morning I cut the card for the liner to the needlebook and am really pleased with how that has turned out.   I intended to blanket stitch around the flannel pages but decided that pinking shears made a pretty edge with a lot less work for moi!   Now all the toys for Sweet Strawberry Sampler Bag are complete.   A photo to come later when I put in the final stitches of the corded edging.

Diligent stitching on the hardanger jewellery roll this week has resulted in noticeable progress and I am very happy with how this is turning out.   What is more, there will be very little fabric left over from a fat quarter of linen and I intend to make scissor fobs with the extra "bits".  It really is difficult to photograph tone on tone embroidery.  I think I need to try in natural light.   I followed instructions and bought "expensive" Caron threads for the kloster blocks and filling stitches but you can hardly see the variegation and I'm not very impressed with those threads for hardanger.    DMC is far more durable and retains its sheen so much better. Still overall this project is giving me a lot of fun in the stitching and in thinking of the pleasure the recipient will get.

The HD3QBEM has been writing up her life story and I have had the pleasurable task of typing it into readable form.   We have wallowed in nostalgia for several evenings as we worked on this together.   I insist on details that she would happily overlook but mostly we compromise and soon it will be in final form ready to be sent off as promised to Little Brother.   She seems to have run out of puff at the moment so this is on hold.

So with chores all done I'm off to read in bed having been to the library to pick up my requested copy of The Girl With the Spiders Web.  I don't need to get up at 6am on Sunday mornings so can indulge by going to bed a little later :-)