There's been some sewing going on

Gorgeous Girl has been sewing by sitting on my lap and pushing the stop start button on my new sewing machine. but she has been nagging, whining, pleading, begging, asking to sew more independently on her own. So yesterday I set her up with my old sewing machine. By placing it on a kid’s table she was able to operate it all by herself.

We went through how hard to press the foot pedal to make it go and keeping her fingers away from the needle. She learned about putting the right-sides of the fabric together (there is one piece of fabric sewed wrong side up).

My contribution was limited to trimming the ends of the fabric once it had been joined, pinning the longer pieces (she was very good about stopping and taking out the pins before they got to the needle) and squaring up the quilt. We stopped once she felt it was getting a bit too big for her to manage under the machine.

The edges are a bit wavy, but I’m pretty proud of her first attempt. I’m going to let her try and machine quilt it later this week, if we are still in PNG (our travel plans to Australia for Christmas are complicated right now). I just need to get it basted. Love that I had some of my scraps pre-cut so that she could use them when the urge took her.

I’ve also managed to sneak in a bit of sewing. Some orphan blocks turned into coasters. This is the last of the sewn Christmas presents I had set myself.

These orphan blocks are at least 4 years old and I recognise some of the fabrics from the first quilt I made which I started in 2003. Guess it shows that I never throw anything out. I think they’ve turned out well. They are a little over 3 inches. So not great for huge cups, but should serve a purpose.

I also made another clutch.

These go together so quickly. I may be a bit addicted to making these. Let’s just pretend that the closure is in the middle of the clutch. Obviously I have a measuring problem. The outer fabric was a gift from a former student when I ran a language school in South Africa. She was a fashion designer who passed on some of her offcuts to me. I’ve held on to it for a while waiting for the perfect project.

Because it’s been so hot, (hotter than it has been if that is possible) and I’ve been Christmas sewing,  there hasn’t been much knitting going on. The advantage of this is that I am starting to see a dent in the fabric stash. I’m thinking of taking progress photos of the yarn and fabric stash reductions monthly next year.

In foot news. I managed two short easy walks earlier this week, with no major repercussions, though I did too much today and feel a bit sore now. But it looks like I’m hopefully, on the way back to normal.

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