Labor Day Stitching Report

Friday night I stayed up way too late to get the second chamber of Frances Burwell's sampler filled in:

I love this pansy--something about the red petals really liven up the sampler.

After two days of fiddling with teeny tiny pieces, Afternoon Leisure Basket is complete:

In the interest of full disclosure, I must tell you that there's a missing piece. There should also be a darling velvet strawberry. There is not.

I very carefully cut out the piece of velvet to make the strawberry's body. I stitched the seam exactly where I was instructed to stitch it. With great care, I turned the body right side out--and the whole seam shredded.

All I could do was stare at it for a minute or two.

So I very carefully turned it wrong side out again and did yet another seam, and then I overstitched the second seam, and then, holding my breath, I again turned it right side out.  

The only problem is that instead of having a nice, plump strawberry, I now have a skinny, shriveled up strawberry that the cap doesn't fit. I am mulling over the best way to handle this--I'm thinking I'm going to have to get another piece of velvet and start over.

And here we are on Labor Day. We have a holiday from work, and you'd think that I would have had a threaded needle in my hand all day.

Not so much.

I cut a chunk our of my left forefinger with the rotary cutter late yesterday afternoon. This is the same finger I sewed on the sewing machine about 20 years ago. This hurt almost as much and certainly bled a lot more.

As I do not wish to leave excessive amounts of DNA in any project--what am I saying?--I don't want to leave any DNA in any project--I am avoiding needlework until my finger gets better. So, I'm doing some preemptive packing for the coming week-end and a workshop at Salty Yarns.

Assuming Hurricane Irma doesn't interfere.