The blanket is all joined up!

Here is the blanket as it is at the moment.  I will be adding to it in rounds as this bed is a queen sized one and ours is king size.  I am just happy to have it all joined up, I can add to it at my leisure now as we won't need it until winter.  It has taken nine months to get it this far just working at it in the evenings.

The colours are a bit richer than this looks, I took the picture in half light with a flash and it doesn't really do the colours justice.

A lot of WIP

Since my last post I have been  working on my crochet blanket, getting it all joined up. I had to undo about 4 of the squares which had mistakes but I have it all nearly all joined up now, just one more sitting and it will be done.

I dislike this process a lot, I much prefer making the granny squares to joining them up even if it still a crochet process to do it.  I will put a chain stitch border around it then decide from there how much bigger I will have to make it.  I found some yarn that matches pretty well two of the colours so I purchased some and will just do rounds on it until desired size is reached.  I do not want to do any more squares and a border will be nice.

Also I started on the baby dresses for our newest grand baby. I reviewed the pattern, pinned on the pattern pieces and have most of it cut out.

The pattern is for a sun dress with a flounce and a pocket.  I originally bought some plain yellow seersucker just to make one dress but decided it needed a bit of a contrast. I thought I would do the flounce, pocket and shoulder straps in the said contrast fabric.

So I found some fabric out of my stash but it wasn't enough so I had to buy some more and whilst browsing for it the brainwave hit me!

Buy enough for a second dress, cut two dresses out at the same time and swap over the flounce, pockets and shoulder straps.

Now I will have a patterned dress with plain contrasts and a plain dress with patterned contrast.

Pretty clever eh?......well I think it is.

Oh, there is another story to go with this.  The $10 thread!  We were in Columbia at the hospital for an appointment and I wanted to get some orange and yellow variegated thread. I had seen some previously at a sewing shop in Columbia but didn't want to drive all across town just to get one item so I went to a closer sewing shop.  Well, I knew the minute I walked through the door that this place was much above my pay grade but thought I would browse anyway.  I found a similar thread to what I had seen at the other shop but it was like $10 plus. What the heck!!!!! I didn't want to look like a cheap skate so I bought it but I will not be going back there again, that's for sure.

As you can see Maggie was not very interested in all the goings on

The fabrics and that $10 thread!

Pattern pieces ready to pin on fabric

That doesn't sound like a lot to have done in 10 days but we have had such a busy time of it lately that I actually feel like I got a lot accomplished considering.

A mixed bag these past couple of weeks

First of all I purchased a 32 piece set of sewing feet from Amazon.  It was my Mother's day present. I have looked at these for a long time but kept putting it off as being frivolous as I probably would only use some of them occasionally.

Well I looked again on Amazon and the had a set for less than $22.  There were more expensive ones but I took a gamble on these and they were available on Prime so 2 day shipping at no extra cost.

I can say that I am very impressed with the quality of them and have had fun trying some of them out on my newer Singer sewing machine.  This machine came with the easy change thingy for the feet.

My older Singer has an easy change thingy too but it is different so I have ordered one for it that will take these feet too.  This was the princely sum of just over $2 from Amazon but it is winging it's way from China.  Free shipping too but of course, a lot longer to get here.

(The description of the feet is on the bottom of the box so I just took a copy of it so I don't have to keep turning the box upside down to see what's what).

I love my older machine, it sews so nicely so I will be happy to be able to use these feet on it.

My newer machine has a few quirks when doing plain sewing and I can't seem to sew nearly so well with it.  It tends to move the fabric left.  But when doing the fancy stitches it is great.  So happy that I have both machines set up to use and can do all I need to with them.  #3 machine is sitting in it's case awaiting a turn and I will get it out and give it a run soon.

I have done a few more repair jobs on the machine, JET seems to be getting a lot of holes and splits in his working clothes lately.  I expect we should replace them instead of keep patching them up but where is the fun in that eh?

I also made another Christmas tree ornament and have been working on my crochet blanket.

I am joining all the squares up now.

You would think this would be simple, and it is, until I find a square that isn't quite correct and doesn't match up.  So I have had to unpick a couple and re do them out of the twelve I have joined up so far and that takes more time.

Eventually it will be all sewn together.  Then I will wash it and see how much it grows before I do any more to it.  If it needs to be bigger i think I will just add a continuous border around it until it gets to the size I want.

And then there were three!

Sat yesterday and made another Santa ornament.  I call him Talladega Santa as I made him while watching the Nascar race.  He is the one on the right.

He will be going to his new home tomorrow as a thank you for the Giveaway that I won. Talking of which, here it is:-

I know what I am going to make with them, some gift bags to send off for the grand kids presents that we send from Amazon.  It will beat paying to get them wrapped every time. Their parents can keep them and pop the presents in when they get there.  I have already made Christmas bags for them and this fabric will be perfect for the birthday bags.

Thank you Babs