Old crock

 I managed to do my back in while gardening this morning. I was bending down patting the re-installed drip hose into place when suddenly something popped or snapped in my lower back and it was game over. I have spent the rest of the day being very carefully upright and taking ibuprofen.  I blame lockdown inactivity.  I've had a weak lower back since I damaged it in 2003 with inappropriate lifting, and I guess for the past year I've mostly been sitting down apart from my daily walk and using the stairs in the house.  It just adds to my general sense of physically falling apart, or as DH supportively said: "You're an old crock".  He did make me lunch though when I was trying not to move too much, and brought tea to the sewing room later.

This week I've been sewing on the little Japanese house box that I am making from the Yoko Saito book.  The designer pieced it all by hand, which as well as being a huge amount of work, would just be begging for gross inaccuracies if I tried it.  So I drew out the pattern as a foundation piecing pattern and did it that way instead.  Still some inaccuracies but overall a better result.  This is a picture of the four walls joined to the base and ready for machine quilting, which I've since done, and the lining piece.

Next the wall spaces get trapunto-stuffed with yarn for some definition, but before that I sewed the lining to the quilted front piece.  My sewing machine scared me by suddenly refusing to sew the two parts together.  I'm still not sure why, because the bulk wasn't that great.  I started out re-threading, then graduated to replacing the bobbin/needle/thread, then rewinding bobbins and trying other threads, and more needles. I was starting to panic when it finally decided that a gigantic size 100 needle would allow it to sew normal stitches.  It's a pretty new machine so I hope it was just having a moment and is actually okay.

Another thing I did this week was to harvest a drawstring from my very old winter coat to re-use  on my brand new Land's End super duper squall coat.  Which despite being advertised as able to protect you through pretty much any kind of weather, lacked any means of pulling the enormous hood in around your face.  It did have a sort of useless horizontal drawstring to make the hood cup the back of your head - which wasn't going to help when you are trudging headlong into a cutting winter wind.  I found some quilting cotton which was a good match, and sewed a little casing into the hood for the drawstring.  I don't think it looks like an add-on, and should help a lot next winter.

The autumn hand-painted yarn socks have continued to re-transform.  I got almost to the heel on the faceted rib pattern before deciding that it really wasn't making me happy, it didn't look that great with the yarn and, once on the foot, disappeared altogether.  So I pulled the sock back to the ribbing, again, and just started knitting a simple twisted cable pattern which looks much better.  However, since I started with the 72 stitches that I had increased to for the slip-stitched rib pattern, when I tried the sock on after a few inches, it was way too loose.  So I pulled it back completely (so re-start #5 - I am getting my money's worth out of this yarn) and reverted to 60 st which hopefully is now going to become a sock.

Also this week I set up and worked a few repeats of a simple Bucks Lace edging re-using some bobbins that still had thread on them, just to get my hand back in before I tackle the much more complex Butterfly Mat again.  It came back fairly quickly once I looked up a few stitches, muscle memory is definitely still there.

Still haven't received my Empress Mills order so still haven't been able to finish the Hope handbag with bag feet nor start sewing the second version I cut out.  I telephoned them to see what was happening after 12 working days, and apparently they were out of one of the interfacings which was why my order hadn't been filled. So we agreed they would substitute a different type and my order finally shipped a few days ago.  In the meantime, I also ordered some bag hardware and fusible fleece from Sew Hot, who are much more prompt and delivered within a couple of days - that's in preparation for the March Bag of the Month pattern which will be released the day after tomorrow.  That will be the last month in my special rate subscription - I'm mildly tempted to sign up again at the full rate because it has been fun so far and I have learned several things.  There is something very satisfying about a relatively quick win of sewing a bag or pouch - compared to a years-long quilt make for example  - and to have a functional end result. Although having said that, I have so many bags and pouches now that I'm not actually using most of them, I just display them :)