A cautionary tale

So, you know how I was sick? Well, I kept working (instead of taking my sick days like I should have) and I got really sick. Ended up with 4 days off work in total. I’m back at work now, but still not 100%

One of the advantages of working from home is that you don’t infect your co-workers while you are on the mend. I got a secondary infection in my lungs, and they are very inflamed. The infection is definitely going, but the doctor tells me it’s going to take a while for the inflamation to go down, so I’m taking things easy and trying to get used to wheezing like an asthmatic again.

On to happy things.

I’m going to be squaring, bordering and basting my quilt with my friend F. I have to wait until I’m not infectious to go and see her though, so that is on the back burner for at least another week.

I’ve been spinning.

First, I finished the orange and green sock yarn.

Then I also spun up some top from my dealer my fibre club.

Then there was the batt that also came in the package. I spun one of the batts (there were two) and plied it with white to make the colours stand out.

Funny thing is, I was trying to spin thick yarn with the last two yarns, it was thicker than I normally do, but not what I was aiming for.

All spun on my new wheel. I have a long term project going on with the Ashford.

The bowl in the last shot was a present from my MIL who recently came back from a trip to Zimbabwe. Her other gifts included (I kid you not) a 10 billion dollar note and a 100 TRILLION dollar note.

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Just needs borders

…and hand quilting.

But we won’t mention that. I started this quilt in February. I’m a slow quilter :)

I finished it up on Friday. Now I just need to square it up, add borders, and then hand quilt it.

I found what I think is the perfect border fabric today.

I’m very pleased with how this turned out.

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Duh!

So, I haven’t been posting because the cord to my digital camera died and I needed to buy a new one. Then Gorgeous Man pointed out that he had a brand new digital camera complete with cord sitting in his wardrobe (I got the spinning wheel, he got a camera – that’s Christmas and Birthdays this year taken care of)… It didn’t even cross my mind.

In my defence, I am been sick, awful cough that is so bad I feel dizzy at the end of the coughing spell. Gorgeous Man just IMed me to let me know that my latest installment of fibre for my fibre club has arrived and is in his office and instead of going down to get it I’m waiting until he gets home (it’s a 6 minute walk or 1 minute drive). Mainly because I know I don’t have the strength to walk up the stairs to his office. Yep, must be sick

Of course this means that I have not been to the gym in ages.

Before the dreaded lurgy struck though. There was some finishing going on.

This is the second batt and the second half of the top from my fibre club (October) plied together. It’s a bit redder in real life. Reminds me of Christmas. At the rate we are going I may need to knit this up for Christmas. We have had a week of solid rain and cold, I want to know where spring is? I’ve got the heater and the open fire going.

My take-along-socks are finished.

I also finished a cardigan for the local hospital. It will have a hat and booties to match. It turned out really small though.

I do still quilt! Long time ago, before I left the quilting guild, the guild had a challenge to make miniature quilts. I took out my left-over 2 inch squares and cut some squares from Kate as well and sewed 9 patches. I then cut them and resewed to make disappearing 9 patch blocks. Then I started putting them together, and the seams didn’t quite match and since my old guild was filled with quilt police who would sniff at mismatched seams, I put the blocks deep into my stash box.

A few weeks ago I pulled them out and laid them on the floor. I realised they would be the perfect size for a doll quilt for Gorgeous Girl and she wouldn’t care about mismatched seams.

This is also my first attempt at machine quilting since the dreadful class I did a few years ago. It turned out reasonably well.

The batting was from a scrap I had lying around, and the backing and binding came from stash that I was gifted by a retiring sewer. I’m pretty sure they are poly-cotton, but it suits the purpose and Gorgeous Girl loves it, and it was free. She said “Thank you” very nicely, and takes it to bed with her each night to wrap the dollies in.  I’ve got one left-over block that I’m thinking of turning into a coaster to go by my computer.

I’ve finished the last 2 rows on my fish quilt, just need to sew them on and then find fabric for the border. The pattern calls for left over fabric mitred for the border. I refuse to mitre because of the waste of fabric and the cost of fabric here. Also I don’t have enough of each kind left for that to work. So I think I’m just going to go and buy a big bit of batik blue to be the border. Hopefully I’ll have some energy by the weekend, and it will be warm enough to venture into the sewing room.

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