What I'm up to

Gosh, lots of comments from my last post, and I mean that most sincerely! It always seemed easy to get responses from usenet, you post in a new newsgroup, and there is the satisfaction of knowing it is read. For a long time, with blogging I felt like posts are going into a vacuum. If I had chosen an easier to spell blog name, it might have helped.

I haven't been getting to S'n'B, because things keep cropping up for alternative Wednesdays. If I'd realised just how many of them it would have been, I'd probably have re-arranged the ones I could, but I really didn't realise how many it was going to be. I should be able to come to the next one, and thanks for asking after me, Yvonne.

All my current knitting is stocking stitch, but they will all soon need a decision. They aren't mindless enough (because of the decision) to do while watching TV, and I haven't set aside time to make the decisions. My sock won't fit right, I've lost track of where I am in my Limbo jumper, and I need to decide where to start the armholes and v-neck on the kiddy jumper.

Sewing wise: well, I've been messing round with four patches so I can use the idea I mentioned here. So I haven't been doing any sewing together of leaves, because I'm waiting until I've cut out some pieces for shaded four patches, but I've not been getting round to experimenting with them. I did discover that if you cut a 6 inch square from a charm patch pack into the exact shape of the shaded four patch square you want to make, you end up with an embarrasingly bad patchwork block. Never mind, I've another 29 blue charm pieces to play with.

The mystery quilt is nicely in its bag, awaiting its turn at the sewing machine.

Ferret has been telling me it would be a Good Thing for me to enter quilting competitions, in spite of my lack of experience. Popular Patchwork currently has a competition to make a 15" quilt on the theme of "Charmed I'm Sure". They talk about using charm patches, and the obvious addition is to sew on some little dangling charms. However, in my material stash (the stash you've seen is only my yarn stash) I have two pieces which seem entirely appropriate. One has pictures of a friendly dragon, a boy playing with the dragon, a castle on a summer's day. The other has a fierce dragon, a forebodding castle, a wizard. Can dragons be charmed? How safe is the boy?

I haven't decided to enter for sure, but I have just been scanning a collection of material which could be used to create a picture. The plan is to print it, so I can play with a possible design before I cut the material, and then work out how to make fabric collages, and then maybe make one.