Stitching Recap For March

I seem to have had a rather productive month in March this year.  I managed to complete five UFOs and three projects that were started this year. My goal this year was to completed twelve UFOs and I have already completed eleven.  I’m pretty happy with that.

Let’s have a look at what I did.

Firstly, I completed the three RSC project sections in the colour red.  I only had to make one crumb block, which speeded things up.

Next, I completed the final two coloured strips for Betty’s rainbow quilts.  They will be delivered to her at Baradine.

My next project was the little quilt in a day to try out a new level of the quilting program on Elly May.

It was then time to work on some hand stitching and I managed to complete the little slow stitching pouch. 

Back to Elly May, I quilted the two bright fish quilts. 

While playing with fish, it was time to prep the remainder of the batik fish blocks to take to Baradine to work on.

I needed more prep to take to Baradine, so cut out the quilt using the solid fat quarters I bought from a market stall late last year.

Back to Elly May, I bit the bullet and quilted my hexy flower quilt.  I’m so happy with how it turned out.

In the background, I had started knitting the second cabled beanie, this time in blue for Mick.  It was finished in the last week of the month.

On a stitching day, when I had nothing ready to work on, I pulled out the donation rug and found yarn to complete the final three squares.  They are now completed up to the last round, which is joined to the rest of the rug as you go.  I have to learn how to do that, so it will be a home job at some time in the near future.  Then it will just be the final border to add to finish it off.

My main monthly goal was to finish the little pouch designed by Anni Downs that was our Scrub Stitchin’ project from 2024.  I kept putting it off, but managed to finish it on the last day of the month.  Phew!

Towards the end of the month I had nothing ready to take to my stitching morning, so started another Corner to Corner rug.  That was opportune, as it was the perfect thing to work on during two Chookshed Zoom mornings last weekend.  It is such a brain dead thing to work on while chatting away.  It will probably be my stitching days project for the next little while.

Also, in the background, I have completed a secret project, which was a lot of fun.  All will be revealed before too long.

And that about sums it up.  Phew.  I don’t think the next month will be quite as productive, but I must say I am really enjoying getting projects finished and working on others.

In all of that, I only managed to empty two spools of thread.

The pretty jar is still looking rather empty.

So, how did I go with my 15 minutes a day?  So, so!

March =  26/31

Year to date =   77/90 = 85.56%

I’m now looking forward to seeing what I can get done in April.

That Wasn’t Expected

On Friday I realised that I had no hand stitching to work on at my stitching morning.  That’s not technically true, but there was none that I could work on for my projects that I am currently concentrating on.

Time to have a dig into the other projects and the one that surfaced was my Slow Stitching Pouch.  This was started back in June 2025.  You can read about it here.  I completed the slow stitching part in August, while up at Baradine.  You can read about that here.

I had left it at the stage of having to have a think about how to proceed.  That seems to be the theme of why things stall with me.  Anyway, I had stitched everything down onto a very light weight pellon and felt that the pouch would need more structure. 

This project was to be completely made by hand.  No sewing machine on this one.

Last month I had made a frankenbatting to use and I had previously selected a pretty fabric for the lining.  Time to lay it all out and work out how to join the layers together, as I felt they would be a bit loose otherwise.

I decided to use invisible stitching to attach the lining to the wadding and then flip it over and do the same from the front, as I didn’t want to detract from the stitching I had already done.  Looking at the above photo, the stitching really is invisible.  I fortunately had the perfect matching thread.

The pin is pointing to a stitch.  I just took a teensy weensy stitch and then threaded the needle through the middle of the layers as far as it would go, about two inches, before taking the next stitch. They were so hard to see that I actually sewed over them at a couple of spots.  

I had the lining and half the outer stitched down while at the stitching morning.  As I was enjoying myself so much, after lunch I set myself up on the back verandah and kept going.  The weather was perfect.  The sting has now gone out of the heat.

A lot of slow stitching projects have raw edges just whip stitched or blanket stitched, but I’m not really a fan of that style for me.

I had thought to bind the two short ends in different fabrics, but looking at the size of the lining, decided to just self bind by turning it under.  It worked well on the first end, with some additional running stitch for texture.

I then trimmed the sides of the piece and the other end………flush with the top.  Sometimes I really don’t know where my brain is.  Oh well, it looks like that end would be bound with a different fabric….back to Plan A.

I used the blue fabric I had originally thought of using.

Now to actually construct the pouch.  As this was to be completely constructed by hand, initially I just whip stitched the sides together.

Then I bound them.  Time to see what was lurking in the binding scraps tub.  There was one that would work quite well and there was enough for both sides……..except for 3 inches.  That would be right.  What else is there?  I found a scrap of a green fabric that I had used in the body of the pouch that would work OK, so I just added it onto the other binding. This was then added by hand and then slip stitched down.

Before long it was completed.

It is just the right size for an iPad, not that I need a pouch for my iPad.

Having said it is completed, I may add a little more to it at a later date.  I haven’t added any closure and the inside of the flap looks a little bare.  Maybe somewhere to put some needles if using as a project bag? 

 

I’ll mull over it for a while. It is  “slow” stitching after all.