I I continue to work on the Harry Potter blanket, a Christmas gift for DIL. I work on it in the evenings while watching TV. I take it with me to work on during break times and lunch. This works really well to get in some progress. Unless I forget to bring the extra yarn. Two days this last week I arrived at the end of the grey yarn currently on the needle, only to discover that I forgot to throw in additional yarn. One day I can understand, but two in a row? Having been stressing out on getting the grey boarder straight, I came up with a great plan. Draw a straight line, mark it off each inch and then use a pop bottle cap to draw the curved lines. Drawing as many as would fit on an 8.5″ x 11″ piece of paper. Being as it looked pretty good to me, I made lots of copies. Cutting the “patterns” apart I pinned them all around the edge.
Using the same technique as the letters, I sewed through the paper, starting with just the straight line all the way around.
After the first lap of the boarder (the straight round), the second lap was one chain of the serpentine line.
The third lap finished the boarder allowing the paper to be removed as I went.
It looked good. In fact, it made the spokes of the clock look sub-par. Double checking with the BF that I wasn’t being overly critical. It was decided that the spokes should be done the same as the boarder. Having made way too many copies of the pattern there was plenty. Donning the “sewing eyes”, the stitches of the spokes were carefully picked out. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t accidentally cut the stitches of the blanket. As each was picked out, the pattern was pinned directly over the place that the spoke had been. Chain stitching the straight line of each spoke secured the pattern in place allowing me to remove all the s stabby-stabby pins.
This made it abundantly clear that the spokes would now be bumping into the letters. :-/ (why do I do this to myself?) I did attempt to sew the spokes with the letters still in place, having the line of stitches appear to go under the letters. It didn’t look great. The solution was to pick out the individual letters that crossed the spokes, to be added back in after spokes were complete.
Because of forgetting to bring additional grey yarn, I found myself with extra time on break. Remember the Dr.Who flour sack towels that I was making for a friend’s wedding gift? Now I had time to work on the three remaining towels. During those 2 forgetful days I was able to complete the K-9 towel.
This leaves me with just 2 to finish:
It was mentioned that Gson #2 has PJ bottoms that are too short for his legs. I figured that it would be quick and easy to get a pattern and some flannel and run some up for both of them. It was… sort of. The modern pattern required different measurements than I had gotten. Time to punt. In looking at the pattern pieces, it seemed like even the smallest size had really long legs. Still I traced the smallest size onto freezer paper and cut out the smallest size from the pre-washed and ironed flannel. The nice thing about doing pants is the long straight seams that sew up quickly. The frustrating thing about me is that I am unable to leave the seams unfinished. For the first pair (purple lady fingers) the seams were ironed open, folded over and hand sewed down.
Mentally berating myself for creating more work than necessary (making the project take much longer than it needed to), I did the second pair (green monsters) differently. To finish those seams one side of seam allowance was trimmed down. The other side of allowance was folded over the trimmed side and ironed flat. Using the MACHINE, the seam allowances were stitched up. It gave the look of two seams on the outside of the legs.
It was much faster way to finish the seams.
At this point I needed the Gsons to try them on. Not only to get the correct length to hem the pant legs, but also to check that the rise wasn’t HUGE. Gson#1’s rise was fine. Gson#2’s rise needed to be shortened by 1/2. Then it was just a matter of trimming off the excesses, encasing the elastic at the waist and hemming the legs.
They were done and delivered in time for them to overnight at Gma Cassie’s house. I don’t know if they took them, but they had them if they wanted to.
If you had to think hard to remember the Dr.Who towels, you are really going to have to stretch for this next UFO
This was started in January of 2019. My intention was that it was for the “Dress to the Nines” challenge. I’m pretty sure that I am late getting it done, and this is just the slip! With the last stitch in place, the satin ribbon still needs to be threaded through the eyelets. Hopefully the next piece will take less than 2 years. 😉
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