Dang. And It Was Going So Well...

Another evening in, another opportunity to spend a few hours in my sewing room. Companionably, even, since my daughter is sitting on the floor in my sewing room with her computer (a long story having to do with hitchy wireless and ethernet cables), the two dogs are here, and my son's voice is coming to me out of my computer speakers since tonight's his DJ night on campus radio and I was streaming his show.

I was merrily cutting along to my son's music, not always my taste but I generally find it mostly entertaining. Everything was going swimmingly. His show ended just about as I finished up my last cut. I shut off my computer and went back to my cutting table to neatly stack all the pieces inside labeled plastic bags, when I decided to review the pattern instructions to see what I needed to cut next.

Wait....what? TWO 6-1/2" strips?? I had only seen that I was supposed to cut one of each successively longer size rectangle off of each set of 2 1/2" strips. But apparently I was supposed to cut two of one size, and I hadn't caught it.

I had leftovers of all of strips, of course, so at first I didn't think it would be that big a deal. Pull out what I thought had been scraps, trim it to 6 1/2", call it a day. But darn if five of those scraps weren't too short. Several more have some selvage showing at one end but it's not the white part--it's the part that would pretty much blend in, especially considering seam allowances. I could probably get away with it. But those five, there's no help for it. Even steaming the hey out of them wouldn't get them close enough for horseshoes.

So now I have to decide how to problem-solve. I've got some ideas but, frankly, ran out of steam. My daughter's school woke me up way early this morning with a robo-call to tell us school was closed so I'm about ready to head to bed as it is.

As my Dad always used to say, "Get a good night's sleep...it'll feel better in the morning."

Ok, Dad. Good night.

The Vacation is Over ... Report

My vacation officially ended yesterday--I had Friday back in the office. I'm very proud of myself, however. Typically I suffer complete amnesia over the holidays and it usually takes me almost a full day just to remember where I was on all my projects, track down which emails I was supposed to be responding to when, and figure out what I'm supposed to do next. This time, though, I did such a great job preparing myself for the break--leaving myself all sorts of bread crumb trails and scheduling pop-up reminders for myself for when I got back, that not only did I catch myself up in about an hour, I was actually able to make progress! Woohoo! Yay, me!

Unfortunately, not so much in my sewing world. Friday evening I pressed some fabrics. That was it. Not insignificant given that some of them had creases in them the size of the Grand Canyon after being in my fat quarter drawer for several years, but still--not particularly exciting. There is something very relaxing about pressing, though. I don't mind it when it's fabric. Hate it when it's clothes, but that's another story.

Today I did somewhat better--I got the background for my niece's wallhanging pieced. I did 6" (finished) squares--5 across and 5 down. I'd originally thought I'd use five fabrics in all, too, but then I realized that would mean I'd have little bits cut off several fabrics rather than using up most of a couple--so I switched gears and only used two fabrics. I think it probably works better, anyway. Tomorrow I start on the hard part. I'm paper-piecing a foundation pattern I had to design myself, my daughter did the math for, and I then tweaked the results. It still doesn't look quite right to me, but I think I can fudge it.

Hopefully, if I get some good time at the project tomorrow, I'll have some pictures to post.