Instead of blogging

I've been stitching.

Band 9 of Time Well Spent turned out to be very labor intensive:

And here's the other thing I've been working on, the Hari-Kuyo Needlebook from Susan Elliott of Plays with Needles:

I learned a lot from this experience.  Susan is an excellent teacher, and I will take another class from her if she offers one.  She uses videos to teach--just like being there--with written directions to back up the online lessons.  Now that I've practiced on this one, I wish she would make the videos available--maybe a DVD?--and supplies--so I can make another one, learning from my mistakes. Like Pooh, I can be a bear of very little brain, so I need to watch things over and over when it's a new technique for me.

Other than learning that Susan is an excellent teacher, I learned some other things:

• Apparently I am incapable of sewing a straight line with a sewing machine.  Even if I draw the line in with pencil.
• I cannot avoid being a klutz no matter how careful I am.  You're warned to keep the ties out of the way when sewing front to back. Apparently I also needed to be warned about this when sewing the needle pages into the book--but let's keep that a secret just between us, shall we?
• The felt pages need to be trimmed so they line up perfectly, but I fear that I will start trimming and end up with nothing, despite Susan's excellent suggestions as to how to this--so I think I'll leave them for a bit. (Remember the klutz thing I have going.)
• If I'm going to do any serious sewing or finishing, it is time to put my 1948 Singer out to pasture and invest in a new sewing machine.

My poor old machine, which has worked its way through making skirts out of old jeans, a blue zillion peasant tops, maternity clothes, baby clothes, overalls for the Big Kid and sundresses for Baby Girl, is showing its advanced age. The tension cannot be adjusted so that it will hold, the foot pedal groans when pressed, and needles for it are hard to find.  The last time I took it in for service, the nice man behind the counter told me that they didn't have anybody who could work on a machine of its age--and that was several years ago.

I can't decide what I want to pull out of the basket tonight.  I need to take a day or two away from Time Well Spent, and Mary Atwood has been in limbo for far too long--but then, it would be nice to do something small so I could have a quick finish. Maybe I should just close my eyes and reach and grab.  I'll let you know what pops out.