Well, maybe not such big plans. More “fun to be had in the future” plans. But we’ll get there.
First, my weekend report. I’d set some goals—here’s how I did.
Finish cutting mask kits for friend: Done. I now have a total of 50 “kits” spread between small, medium, and large, in a bag waiting for either mail or personal “drop and run to be socially distanced” deliver. Phew.
Finish the unit in month 2 missing the piece: Done.
Make myself another couple of masks. Done—I now have two more. I think I now have 5 masks, although one of them was a “reject” so it’s not as comfortable to wear—it’s only when I don’t have any of the others available. Still, that should be fine for the amount I’m out these days.
In addition, I got six masks done for my son. I’d been delinquent.
And now I’m done making masks for awhile. I really hate making them—I hate wasting good sewing time on something like that. I know, I know…keeping my family safe and all that, and keeping strangers safe through the donation ones. But frankly, masks are prevalent now and at a price where, by the time I’ve counted the cost of fabric, thread, and my own time, it’s a tough sell for me to take the time out of my precious sewing time to make them rather than just placing an order. I still have the AccuQuilt dies for them. I’ve debated selling them off at this point, but I think I’ll hang onto them for a bit to see if my energy comes back to make more, or my friend needs more kits.
I never got to making the tote bag. That’s still on my wish list.
So…plans for the future.
I finished this embroidery block last night.
I have one more to go. I’m SO FREAKING EXCITED to be done with this embroidery project! I started it in 2016 (yes, I checked my blog for the first post about it). It kept getting ignored for months on end, then I’d pull it out determined to finish it and get a block or two done and then it would get ignored again.
It’s almost exclusively stem stitch with a little bit of satin stitch and a very occasional back stitch. Yes, that made it easy, but it also made it extremely tedious. And worse, 90% of it was using black thread. I also decided by these last couple of blocks I really don’t like the thread they sent. Some kits had DMC and others had Cosmos. Mine had Cosmos. I’m never using Cosmos again. It just feels cheap and I didn’t like the way it behaved. It got far more shaggy from use than DMC does but when I used thread conditioner it got hard as a rock and didn’t lay nicely. I know it’s almost sacrilege but I may be tossing the leftover threads from this project when I’m done.
Here’s the celebration point, though: I have one block left. Only one! Unfortunately, it is a more complex block, relatively speaking. In other words, there’s a lot of lines to be stem-stitched. I plan on poking away at it diligently this week, maybe even while on some Zoom calls, to just get the dang thing done. Then I have a wall hanging to assemble from it.
So I celebrated my almost-done-with-boring-embroidery this morning by going onto Etsy and placing a fairly sizable order for new embroidery patterns that are so much more interesting and will require more than just a stem stitch or, even if they’re simply stitched, have a lot more color variety. I have several Christmas gifts in mind.
I’ve been watching The Victorian House of Arts and Crafts on Amazon Prime. It’s a four episode series where six artisans move into a Welsh mansion and live and work as if they’re in Victorian times, creating their own “takes” on Arts and Crafts movement pieces using Victorian techniques. It was really interesting and I’m sorry there were only four episodes. In any case, the woman whose particular focus was embroidery just really got me re-inspired and reminded me that I really do enjoy doing it, and I’m ready to challenge myself a bit. I love Jacobean designs so I’ll be spending some time on Mary Corbet’s website looking at her tutorials and patterns and perhaps jumping in, although that’s really long-term, fairly intense work. What I keep reminding myself, though, is that embroidery travels so much better than the type of quilting I do, so when the day comes that my job returns to normal (however we define that) and I’m back on the road again, embroidery is something I could continue to do.
So that’s where I am in this current moment of time. Big plans for progress on things this coming weekend!