Sewing this, sewing that, and some mending

After keeping warm and cosy inside while the snow came down after the last few days, it was time to get on with some long overdue tidying up.  On went a load of washing,  and out came the vacuum cleaner to pick up the multitude of threads on the carpet.  As I work on my shaggy quilt, loose  threads seem to migrate from the snipped seams onto the floor.   With DH on bathroom cleaning duties, all the jobs were soon done and I could get on with some stitching.  First job was to bind some wool flannel blankets for the prem babies in the Neo Natal Unit of the hospital.  These little blankets are wrapped around the babies, then one of the little baby quilts stitched by members of my quilt club, Pinestream Quilters, go on top of the cribs.  The Neo Natal Unit had been given a quantity of wool flannel and the club  was asked if members could bind around the edges -  I stitched binding on three to help out, two with scrappy binding and one with a blue and white print.

Wool baby blankets

Mending was next on the list.  Robin’s jeans needed mending so I placed some dark blue drill fabric under the tear and zig zagged all around it.  That should do it, and his jeans will now last a little longer.

Mending jeans

With those two jobs out of the way, I could then get on with some of my sewing.  I stitched the last few blue Healing Heart blocks into sets of threes, and made some sashing strips.  I’ll need some time to lay all the blocks out on the floor to arrange them, but not today, so all the pieces went back in the bag.  But this project is now one step further on.

Blue heart blocks and sashing strips

What next?  Oh yes, I think I’ll work on some more string pieced blocks for my “Roll, roll, cotton boll” quilt.  These blocks are quick and fun to do, and I am stitching the strips on a fine Vilene rather than on paper as per the instructions.  These are neutral blocks and the idea is to use any and every left over bit of white, cream, pale tan that is lying around, using only what is in your stash.  A bit of colour is fine and the strips can be any width.  I have a box full of left over strips and pulled out all the neutrals and was amazed when I ended up with a big plastic bag full.  The first strip is laid across the middle on the diagonal, then the other strips are added, stitched then pressed. 

  Two blocks all stitched

Trimmed blocks

This will probably be a long term project, as I haven’t worked on it for a while.  But never mind, I will get there eventually, I’m sure.  And to tell the truth, I quite like having a variety of things to work on, depending on how I feel.