A Whole Week......

..... has gone by since my last post. I am so workshy it's appalling! In my defence I have been working on a project that doesn't look very interesting as it grows. My Jada is now almost 2/3rds completed, but it doesn't look like much, except a great big flat piece of knitting.

See, its big and its flat. It does have a tiny bit of shaping.

See, there, about half way up the left hand side? Yup, that's it, though it is on both sides. In a couple more inches, I get to decrease on both sides again. Here's another picture so you can see the scale of the thing, using my ball of yarn as a reference.

That's pretty much all I have been knitting for a couple of weeks. It is surprisingly soothing to knit, and I really want to wear it before the summer is gone. That is why it is the only thing being knit right now. However, I am doing other things.

I have started patchwork, at last! I have wanted to do this for months, and have picked up bits of fabric and read up on it and bought a couple of magazines. I have finally started. I bought a great big cutting mat. It's an A2 size I think, with the inches marked on it and different angles. It is great and I love how I can slide it under the sofa, so it doesn't take up valuable space in my crafting cupboard. I also got a patchwork ruler, which is immensely helpful. I spent some time on the internet. The most useful places were here and About.com/quilting. I ended up using the pattern for Comforts of Home. The tutorial is here.

I cut out all the pieces that the tutorial called for and put them in neat little piles. In hindsight, I think this may have been a mistake, but more on that later. I sewed the strips needed for the centre nine-block square, using the sewing machine, and then chopped them up. I then moved to the more comfortable location of the couch and started hand sewing. (Basically I couldn't sit at the dining table any longer. At the end of yesterday evening, I had three nine-block patches.

I love my little blocks, but knew I had to start building the outside bits. This was a lot more tricky. It involved triangles. It is also when I discovered that cutting all my pieces at once may have been a bit daft, for an inexperienced patchworker like myself. You see, not all my pieces are quite the right size. This has made piecing a little difficult. However with some fudging. I finally have a completed 12" block. T'dah!

If you look closely you will see where my fudging took place.

However I am quite proud of the one place where everything went right.

I do have plans for this patchwork. I will share them when I get the strength to the do the other block.