Saturday 8 October 2016

Starting the month with a scare...

...and not because Halloween is approaching! After my last update, I happily went to prepare to start the next page on the Fire and Ember SAL...unfolded my fabric to move the hoop...when I saw IT!


Something no stitcher ever wants to see...that fabric is supposed to be landscape, not portrait! Stupid me has started the wrong way around, and those three pages are not even halfway the width...no way it's all going to fit. Needless to say, I was devasted, my mind went from ripping it all out, to immediatly ordering new fabric, to just dropping out of the SAL, because let's face it...I would never be able to catch up if I had to start over. But gladly, I'm not one to easyly fall into despair, because after a while and a little pep talk from both Felix and my girls, I got myself together and started to think about solutions. Clearly I was not the only stitcher to ever fall into that trap, and I remembered reading what advice people had for them - that with a fullcover design, I could probably get away with stitching to the edge and attaching another piece of fabric. I found to promising ways to do that, and I stitched little swatches for both of them.

The first try was just overlapping the two pieces and stitch over the edge - works pretty well, probably because it's aida instead of linen, but so is Fire and Ember. I think I will go with this one, but I still tried the second method, which is stitching on two seperate pieces of fabric and sewing them together. This would probably look pretty good when ironed, but with the small test piece I'd probably have burned my fingers, so I didn't. I still think I'll go with the first method, when it's time, and continue stitching as usual until then.



So, the 4th page of Fire and Ember was one of my focus pieces during the last week, and I almost finished stitching the first colour. Again, this feels like almost half the page, but it's probably a bit less. Still, nice progress for just under a week!


My second focus piece was my little Christmas Panda, and I'm happy to report the first finish of the month here! At least, a stitching and beading finish. I had a ton of fun with the beads, and those special-red beads (there are three of them) are really awesome as well. I'm putting of the finish-finish because I'm not sure how to do it...the kit came with a magnet, but I'm leaning more to finishing it as a hanging ornament. What would you prefer to receive? I'll probably wait until the second one is finished as well (a little Polar Bear), then finish both in the same way.


Since I was at a workshop and a few presentations for work this week, I also had a bit of time for knitting, and I took my newst Baby Jacket with me - made quite a bit of progress, I'm at three times as much as before now, more than halfways through and almost finished with the first skein of yarn.


Next up, more work on the Fire and Ember SAL and finishing that first hat I started knitting. See you (hopefully) soon :)

9 comments:

Tiffstitch said...

oh wow.... that is the worst feeling! I'm linking to a post of my SIL's epic Pokemon. She got 3/4 through and realized she hadn't adjusted the size of her fabric when she changed count. http://tiffstitch.blogspot.com/2016/05/tbt-and-wip-update.html She used the 1st method you mentioned. Good idea to continue, it's such an awesome stitch.

Bea said...

Your heart just sinks when that happens and you feel like such a twit - I know, been there done that. Good for you for continuing and working out a way to make it work. It's so beautiful. Love the yarn for the baby jacket!

Jo who can't think of a clever nickname said...

Oh no! I think the first method would be best, and Tiff's SIL confirms that! Hope you have another piece the same colour, or will you just cut the bottom off the first piece?
The panda is very cute, a fridge magnet would depend on whether they have a suitable fridge and no small children who like to remove them to play with!

Brigitte said...

Oh je! Ich glaube, so etwas passiert fast jeder Stickerin mindestens einmal im Stickleben. Ich würde auch auf jeden Fall weitersticken und den neuen Stoff irgendwie dransticken, so wie du es ausprobiert hast. Ich bin überzeugt, das klappt gut. Aber es ist trotzdem ein deprimierendes Gefühl, wenn man es merkt.

Brigitte said...

... ich meinte: wenn man feststellt, dass der Stoff zu kurz oder zu schmal ist.

Anonymous said...

Oh goodness! My heart dropped when I read this! How you were calm and lucid enough to come up with a Plan B...I'll never know haha. I'm interested to see how this will go for you. I've never heard of these solutions for the possibility of being short on fabric, but they make sense. Go you!

Stitching Noni said...

Oh no... I can only begin to imagine how you felt when you realised! But as you said with a full coverage piece it is fixable! I think the first method will definitely be the best way to fix the problem!
Love your panda finish (think I have him in my stash!). I like the idea of a hanging ornie - then he can sparkle on the tree rather than hide on the fridge!
Hugs xx

Susan said...

Yes, I have done that before. Yes, it's a horrible feeling when you realize. Unfortunately, mine was well before the internet, so no handy looking up and I never thought of either idea (I might have after I calmed down a bit). Going to watch with interest just in case I do it again. Love the panda. He would make a wonderful ornament. The baby jacket is coming along nicely.

Heather said...

Beautiful jacket and stitching :)