Apology: Last post I talked about asking the Happy Helper to help me get .... into the family room - but I didn't proof read my post very well. He helped me with the table tennis table - my sandwiching table - and I've now pinned the music quilt. It fits lengthwise but not across, but the clamps do a good job of keeping one half steady while I pin the other half. I love it for pinning quilts - as do my knees and back.
I finished making the crocheted rag rug. I didn't make a great job of it really, but it will do fine for the floors. Too many rows had been done when I realised that I was losing stitches at the ends of rows. I certainly don't know how to crochet properly! So I Googled how to solve that problem, and to fix the trapezoid effect, crocheted along the ends - as if it was meant to be like that! Very organic but it will do. And I now know what to do to make the next one a proper rectangle. The whole thing didn't take many nights in front of the TV to finish, so that's also a bonus. Now I'm sewing instead while watching the box.
Needing more basting pins a week or so ago, I dropped in to the big box sewing store (an hour from us) and bought 220 pins - 60 silver quilt basting safety pins and 60 smaller gold quilt basting safety pins. The gold pins are great but the silver pins are awful. They wouldn't slide through the fabric and batting like the gold pins did, and I ended up swiping them through my beeswax block before basting. That helped but it still wasn't great. So cross was I, that I wrote a review about the pins on the big box sewing store's website. Hopefully that will help others avoid these pins. I'm cross that I wasted $30 and my time buying these pins.
Here's the wool quilt basted with those pins.
This is a DREAMI quilt. (Drop Everything And Make It) I really shouldn't have started another quilt, but we're meeting up with a friend this coming weekend and I had in mind a quilt to make for him, out of the wool and tartan scraps I have on hand. Since we leave today and I only finished basting it last night, he won't get the gift this weekend. However, it is closer to finishing and I will hand it over next time I see him.
The blocks are about 9.5" square and the blocks are 5 x 6. The fabrics are from two lots of wool scraps. One lot I bought from the Albury woollen mill (now closed) back in 2000 or so, mainly lightweight wools in plain colours. The other lot of tartan scraps was from an Edinburgh woollen mill, bought in 2014. I've had this person and quilt in mind for years but just haven't got around to making it. It will be a heavy quilt so I didn't make it too big. The backing is a piece of cotton fabric just the right size, from my stash.
So I've basted three quilts in the last two weeks and will spend time in November quilting them. Hopefully that will mean three finishes for my November post.
October 2022 fabric tally
Finally I have an answer to the question "should I include the rag rug fabrics in my monthly tally?" I've decided yes, since I'm making something new from the fabric, even if it is recycled. My rules, remember?!!
Finishes in September are: recycled rag rug - 2 x fitted sheets 90 x 190cm = 2m (close enough);
Fabric used: - 2 m Fabric acquired: + 0 m
2022 fabric tally so far: + 29.75 m
