Do-over week

So a huge amount of crafting time this week has been expended on the Great Quilt Do-over project, after the whole non-colourfast red fabric debacle last weekend.  Step one after the quilt dried out was to unpick the quilting in the affected areas of the border, then unpick the seams of the four border pieces of red fabric, and to cut off the appliqued jar lids and spatula head. Then I re-bleached and re-washed all six affected areas a few times, eventually eliminating the red dye from the border areas completely and minimising  the pinkness in the appliqued areas.  The poor quilt is looking decidedly vintage after all this washing!

I pressed out the affected areas to flatten them, then prepared new appliques for the jar lids and spatula.  I made them a little bit bigger so that they covered up almost all the pink area.  I hand-appliqued them in place then secured with machine stitching. Aside from a little bit of visible pinkness at the lower righthand corner of the spatula, I don't think anyone would notice that there had been a problem.

I cut four new border pieces from a different red fabric.  The four gaps were all orientated differently but in each case I was able to stitch one seam on the machine then hand applique down the other three sides. It wasn't straightforward because the batting and surrounding fabrics had shrunk a little in the wash compared to the replacement fabric.  Once the four replacements were securely attached, then I re-stitched the quilting lines I had removed. The repairs look fairly invisible apart from the double stitching where the old and new quilting lines join.

Afterwards I wet the new border pieces to remove the applique glue and to let them shrink up a bit to match their neighbours.  Another dry and press and I was finally back to the stage I thought I was at last weekend when I put the quilt into the bath.  I could see several small areas that needed a bit more quilting added, so I did that, and then I made the hanging sleeve and attached it.  The final step was to machine on the binding which I am currently hand-stitching down onto the wrong side.  So it's (finally) almost finished! Whew!

In the spirit of do-overs, having watched a video by Sew Sweetness about adding zipper tabs neatly to a bag, I re-visited the zipper pouch I made back in the summer using selvedge ends.  At the time, I made a real mess of the zipper installation and have never been happy with it. Today I took the pouch almost entirely apart then added zipper tabs at either end of the zipper, then re-seamed the pouch.  It doesn't look as good as hers but it looks loads better, definitely a neater way to add a zipper. The cat thinks so anyway.

Also this week I finished off the Trinity Stitch fingerless mitts in Malabrigo wool/silk blend and I wore them out a few times this weekend.  They are so soft and warm.  I knit them a bit longer than the pattern called for, and I'm slightly tempted to join back on and knit them longer still. But I think I'll leave it, I have other pairs of longer fingerless mitts and these are useful for a warmer day when you still want something to keep your hands warm.

I've finally reached the border of my crocheted giant Granny Square afghan.  It's not very big, more like a lap rug, but I decided not to add any more rows because I'm not enjoying doing it.  And I've been doing a bit of cross-stitching using a chart from The World of Cross Stitch magazine for an armrest pincushion and pocket tidy by Cheryl McKinnon -  issue 292 (April 2020).  I'm just stitching the pincushion chart and thinking I might make it into another zip pouch.  This is a picture from the magazine project. I thought the colours of the stitching are really pretty, a bit painterly.



 I spent some time out in the garden today hacking back dead growth and flinging around general purpose fertiliser and rose food - hopefully it will do some good.  I was looking for the some 20 or so hollyhocks I grew from seed and planted out in the autumn but could only find two of them, grrr. A number of other plants are looking a bit questionable as to whether they are alive or dead - time will tell.