Diseased

I've spent the entire week being sick so crafting time has been pretty lacklustre.

This is where I've been living since I tottered in from work on Tuesday afternoon, after two days of bravely soldiering on /infecting my colleagues.

As you can see, surrounded by a tidemark of warm blankets, medicine, tissues, knitting, sewing and rugmaking.  It's just been a particularly nasty cold virus and I do feel like I am finally on the mend, although I'm not sure I'll be fit by Monday. All's I can say is thank god for Netflix and for the Amazon Fire Stick I bought earlier in the year when they had a deal on, which has kept me entertained for endless hours slumped in the living room this week.

Wednesday and Thursday were the worst days, and all that I could manage was some applique, which involves minimal movement or thinking, and some plain knitting in the round.  The knitting was to add some more length on to the Leaf yoke top down sweater so I can fine tune the fit.  I did take the stitches off onto waste yarn last weekend, when I still thought I just had a little head cold, to try it on.

It's a lot roomier than I thought it would be, and I love the rich red colour. I'm also glad I moved the button band to the front.

The applique was the next block in my 25 block applique quilt. Under the circumstances, I finished it in a couple of days. It's not entirely symmetrical but I'm going to live with that. The background block is seamed because when I originally cut out the 25 background blocks using specially chosen fabric from America, I ran out. So I ended up having to seam some of the leftovers into the last few blocks. The seam won't be so obvious when the project is quilted. (ha ha ha like that's ever going to happen...)

After I finished the applique block, I needed something else to do which involved minimal thought or movement, and remembered my ancient hooked rug project - which is probably about 20 years old now.  I clamped it to my Lapman cross stitch frame so I can do it on my lap while I watch TV, and I've managed several rows.  It would be nice to finally finish this.

Yesterday afternoon I started feeling a little less comatose and also quite fed up with my cluttered throne in the living room.  So I dressed up warmly with extra layers and wobbled down to the sewing room and sewed up a pair of pyjama trousers that I had cut out last weekend. These are very quick to sew as there are only two pieces (two legs) and I do the seams on my serger.  This is using the altered pattern which I had slashed to add more tummy room.  These are fine but I decided I had overdone the alteration so I reduced the amount of ease and cut out a second pair.

Today I sewed up the second pair. I think the fit on these is about right now, or as right as it is going to get with a simple one piece pattern.  So now I have a pattern that fits, and I can make more pairs in future with just 2m of cotton.  It would be nice to learn how to make a matching soft t-shirt top to go with them.

Also yesterday I finally felt up to doing some bobbin lace. There was only about an inch to go before I finished the outer circle.  So I moved the pillow into the dining room and made the final stitches, and connected the threads back to the starting point.  Remember that when you look at lace on a pillow, you are looking at the back of the lace. So the front is facing down out of sight.  The ends will all need to be darned in but first I need to do the little star thing in the middle.

Our cat has kept me company in a way this week, spending most afternoons snoozing on the sofa next to me as she is not a lap cat. I was amused to see her climbing a little tree in the garden one morning, despite the branches sagging under her weight. She eventually made the leap onto the brick wall.  She also woke me up from a nap on the sofa one morning by making a lot of noise and banging in the basement, but I felt too rubbish to go and see what she was doing. When I eventually made my way down there to feed her supper, I discovered a dismembered small bird and a lot of feathers at the foot of the stairs. She's not much of a hunter but obviously succeeded this time and decided to drag it inside through her cat flap. So that was something for DH to clean up when he got home. The feathers reached halfway up the stairs as if she was trying to bring it up to show me, so I should be grateful for small mercies I guess.