Sunday, January 27, 2013

Working away

An ice storm is beginning outside--it sounds like sleet right now. I'm snug inside, working on a variety of projects. I'm going to make pizza for dinner tonight and made sure early that we had everything needed so we don't have go out out into the storm.
I began a new project today. A few years ago I made hubby a lap afghan from one of those kits from Jo-Ann's--two precut pieces of fleece that you were to slit the edges and tie them together. I've made them for charity and they're nice blankets with ruffly edges, but Hubby's not a fringe fan, so I stitched his two pieces together with a blanket stitch. He loves it. But...

It's not long enough to use on the bed, which he wanted to do. This first blanket was a really cool space ship pattern and I couldn't find anything like, or anything else appealing, it in the stores.  We're not sports fans or while he's a fan of some comics, not enough for a blanket.

This year, when holiday shopping, my sister spotted this bird print and I knew he'd love it. The backing is the soft aqua blue of seen in the sky, a solid. I got two and a half yards of each so it will be plenty long. I found a DMC Perle coton that works with the colors, blues and greys, so I got several skeins. This morning I laid both pieces of washed fleece out on the bed, aligned them, and trimmed the selvedges at the sides, rounded the corners, and pinned the edges together with safety pins. I'm ready to begin stitching. 

None too soon--his birthday is next weekend. There's no way I could keep this project a secret so he's known about it from the beginning and is looking forward to his new blanket. For me, it's a great project for cold winter nights.

The smaller blankets I made have no stitching in the middle to hold the layers together.  This is large enough that I'm thinking about adding some stitching to the middle, perhaps outline the birds. I'll decide while I'm working on the edging.
Last week on weeknights I alternated working on my gray and gold tie (2" wide by 5' or so long), the zig-zag crochet scarf and the London quilt. With the quilt, I alternated adding patches to the piece and covering paper hexagons with fabric. I think its progress is more visible than the others.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is such nice fabric for the afghan and your London quilt is coming along a treat. I think 'newspaper' fabric around the edges would be a great idea and the black and white would be a great contrast to the colours in the hexagons.

lifemyway said...

The eagle print is lovely.