There are times when I want to sew, but can't quite figure out what to work on. That's where I had been the last couple of weeks and it was driving me crazy. I was still picking out stitches in the black and red quilt, so I couldn't finish quilting it, and I have a rule, only one "quilt" being quilted at a time - I'll squeeze in a small item, but I just don't have working space for more than one layered and pinned quilt in progress. I had stopped working on the Shakespeare in the Park (SITP) while I worked on Christmas items, and wasn't ready to get back to it, and I had finished all the Christmas sewing - just a few small items.
Fortunately, I finally got back to work. Last Wednesday night I pulled out the SITP. After the first round of triangles the Snail's Trail blocks were a tiny bit undersized. I had debated remaking them, but decided instead to make the rest of the rounds a bit larger to make up for it. Since then I have managed to cut and sew the rest of the rounds for the Snail's Trail block, except the last triangle on the last round.
I got most of this done yesterday, while watching "Tin Man" and "Alice" on Syfy. For anyone who hasn't seen these re-tellings of "The Wizard of Oz" and "Alice in Wonderland," they are well worth the time to watch.
I'm doing SITP with a cream background and scrappy blues and purples in the Snail's Trail blocks. The star blocks have some pinks in them, too. I think it's going to be beautiful, but it is quite a challenge with all the pieces!
I'm also making progress on the red and black quilt. On a couple of evenings when it was too cold to really work in my studio, I sat in the living room unpicking stitches and finally have it down to the last few to pull out. Yesterday I re-pinned the two sections I'd picked out, and quilted one more section. The quilting was a bit of a challenge since my Pepper cat decided he had to sit on the quilt as I quilted it. So now I have two sections and the border to go. I'd like to finish this one up before Christmas, so I can move on to some other projects.
