Ma'am, Step Away From the Machine!

There are days you are not meant to sew. But if you are stubborn like me you persist, to the detriment of your own sanity. I was determined to finish my Stitch Tease block today though. And I did. Only it took me way longer than it should have. Way, way longer.

I spent more time with this than the actual sewing machine -

Things just didn't go right. My brain seemed to be on holiday. It started okay. I managed to get the first bits joined up in a fairly logical way.

But the block was too narrow. I needed another big chunk down the length of it. And I needed to include some Sunkissed fabric in it. I forgot to tell you the other day, when I was writing about Stitch Tease, that we are each to choose a yard of fabric and use some of it in everyone's blocks so they have a unifying factor. I picked the Sunkissed you can see in the upper right hand corner of the photo below.

I tried to choose a fabric that worked with everyone's mosaics. Only I forgot to take my own into consideration. All that white background with the pale grey and small red dots does not work for my own quilt. Too pale! That was when the unpicking began and it continued for the remainder of the afternoon, or so it seems.

My new yard of choice for the quilt was one of the Bliss aqua fabrics. I pieced some into the block.

Yes, that great big chunk of blue on the right hand side. Even himself told me it was too big. And he was right. I just hate that. When my own husband is giving me better quilting advice than I am giving myself things have gone horribly wrong. I unpicked and I chopped and changed.

I am hoping I have the balance right now. Because I have stepped away from the sewing machine. I think I just might be a danger to quilting today. I am satisfied with the final results of my battle and that was more than I hoped when I was muttering and grunting earlier on.

I have dumplings to make - the traditional British kind that you cook on the top of a stew. And I have two girls to bring home from a birthday party. I will leave any further sewing until tomorrow. Probably for the best.

Susan