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23 June 2023

Let’s see how the jacket is getting on!

Well here it is.  If you look closely at the left sleeve you’ll see that I still need to sew up the end.  I added more fabric to give me enough to turn under and sew back onto the fleece inside.  One sleeve is half sewn up but the left still needs to be ‘dealt with’!!!

In the second picture I’m showing you the inside.  Because I took the zip pockets out and used the inner part to become part of the body it left an ugly inside.  Now this shouldn’t be a problem as nobody ‘really’ looks at the inside of a fleece - do they?  Well in case they do I had a rummage in my fabric stash and found some black cotton fabric and there was ‘just’ enough to line the body.  I didn’t have enough to do the sleeves and had already decided they just didn’t need it.

Jacket finished - almost.  BUT I have another plan!!!  There’s always another plan when crafting, isn’t there?  Do you see those plainer squares?  Particularly the yellow ones?  What do they need, I asked BC3 and he said, of course, TATTING.  So I need to go through those ‘boxes in the cupboard’ where all my finished items finish up and see if there’s anything suitable to go on the jacket. 

I’ll be back when it’s finished!!!




21 June 2023

Temptation

Well the title should be ‘trying to resist temptation’!!!
I occasionally shop at Hobbycraft now that we have one nearby and they’ve ‘found out’!!!  I know that because I have one of their loyalty cards and they occasionally send me a voucher for five pounds!!!  

This results in a walk to the store to have a look around.  It’s not a big shop so they don’t have any tatting related ‘things’ so I go with knitting and sewing in mind!!  A few months ago I spent my fiver (well I spent more than five ‘as you do’) and came home with two balls of this yarn. 

The idea was to knit a scarf for a present and that’s what I’m doing.  I found an ‘easy’ pattern from Ravelry and added an icord edging to it.  Really easy pattern to take to groups and that I could do while I chat.  BUT, of course, the best laid plans of mice and men meant that it’s taken me much longer to knit as I keep going wrong!!!  My BC3 just doesn’t always work properly!!!

Here’s the progress so far.  I’m over halfway through now.  See those stitch markers green and pale pink?  They mark the halfway point!!! 



19 June 2023

Monday moan - iMac

First of all I want to say that I’m delighted that most people understood last week’s moan. 

My moan to MYSELF this week is that I sometimes regret not charging for my patterns.  Why?  Well I could really have done without a big unexpected bill at the moment.  
The bill was for my trusty old iMac which died.  Died dead too.  I went to use it and nothing happened.  It had closed itself down and wouldn’t re-start.  I read all I could find about how to get past this problem but nothing worked.  Not even the one where you have four fingers on keys (which needs both hands) and then (whilst they’re there) you also press the on button!!!  Thank goodness Nick was around to press the on/off button!  

Next decision was ‘what to do’ and I had two options.  Buy a new one (this one was ‘born’ in 2015) or repair it.  I looked at the current prices of new iMacs and Mac minis and nearly fell over.  Repairing Apple ‘stuff’ is so specialised that I knew it would need somebody who had those skills.

So a trip to the shop in town to talk to Tom (this is his outlet).  He said it was the hard disk that had failed and he brought his ‘ambulance’ round (his car, actually!) and took it into his hospital.  He performed the operation and restored my data from my separate hard disk and after a while in intensive care the same ‘ambulance’ brought it home.  

If ONLY I had decided to sell my work things wouldn’t have been quite so traumatic - or would they?!?!?