Rainy days and sewing

Rainy days off mean sewing days because I’m not much into playing in the mud anymore. I had most of Monday off work, so I was going to clear the spot for my new greenhouse, but it rained all day. And all night. And into Tuesday morning. I suspect it will stop once I leave for work this morning and will be beautiful for the rest of the week. Hmmmph!

It would be perfect weather if my vegetable garden was planted, but my little plants are still sitting in their little pots, waiting for my partner to plant them. At least I shouldn’t have to water them today. Fortunately, I planted strawberries last year, and we’ve already been reaping their juicy deliciousness.

I’ve been working on a few things in the past week – which is odd for me, because usually it takes me a week or two after one project to settle on the next. Maybe it’s the rain. Or the full moon. Or the piles of fabric that are building up almost as fast as I can use them. I look at some of the “stashbusting” posts on other sites and the bloggers chat about the fabric they’ve used that week as if it’s actually gone, but it’s not gone. It’s just part of something they’ve made now. Which is good. But it’s not really gone unless it leaves the house, right? Anyway, one of my little projects I’ll show you when I’ve made one that looks better – I need to adjust the pattern first. But this little Dumpling pouch turned out not too bad. Recognize the practice material? I’ve seen other “dumpling” patterns around, but this is the one I followed. It almost didn’t survive when I closed the zipper too far in order to match up the ends so I could sew them together and then couldn’t unzip it to turn it right side out. I tried that for a couple of hours before I finally unstitched the end, pulled the zip back and restitched it – which took me considerable less time than I spent struggling with it. The lengths I will go to avoid doing something twice.

So, for my next number… Hey, not so fast. Maybe you can figure it out from the pictures. I got out my scrap bags for this and threw together some random strips. I cut out two 11.5-inch squares and sewed them down in paper piecing fashion. Then I took the tape measure out to the kitchen and measured all of my plates and bowls to find the one with the closest circumference. Turned out to be an aluminum mixing bowl. Perfect! I’ll give you a hint – this month is Purse Palooza 2012 over at Sew Sweetness and I’m thinking I might have something that I can contribute before it’s over. If it doesn’t stop raining, I may have lots of things to contribute.

Until next time,