Afternoon Plans

I finished the shorts and I'm pleased with them, although not so pleased with my legs. Ugh. They are definitely not in summertime shorts shape. After making three garments out of this ribknit fabric, I am tired of it and decided not to sew up the 18 inch doll shirt I'd cut out of the scraps. Another day perhaps. Instead I turned my attention toward making a Christmas gift. It's a small quilted wall hanging, done using a paper piecing technique. I'd never tried this before but I do have a book (or two) that have paper piecing projects for miniature quilts. The technique is fairly simple and is sort of like quilting by numbers. The pattern has each area numbered in the order you sew it. You place the first and second pieces of fabric together underneath the paper pattern and stitch on the line, trim the seams and press. Then you sew on piece three, trim, press, etc. The only problem I had was making sure that the piece of fabric was placed right. You have to make sure that the seam is on the correct side and that the new piece covers all that it should. The areas are very small so paper piecing would be the only way you could join them.

There's a sale at Hancock Fabrics today. They have what they call a truckload sale, where they bring in a lot of fabric they normally don't carry. I think they get it from mills because sometime it's on 60" rolls instead of bolts. They also are having a 50% notions and a pattern sale, although not on Kwik Sew patterns. They never have a sale on those. I have all the notions, patterns and of course, fabric I need but I may still check it out if I go out later. It would be good if we worked on the hallway floor today. We need to finish sanding and then stain and seal it. I thought maybe when it was stinky with the stain smell it would be a good time to go out and run errands. And perhaps visit Hancock Fabrics. We also need vacuum cleaner bags, which means a trip to the vacuum and sewing store where I bought my sewing machine. I don't need any more embroidery thread or designs. I just ordered a design package online. It's a discontinued one that was at a very good price. I hadn't actually been waiting to buy this one but you know how it is when there's a sale. Suddenly you want it.