I had a plan for this month's FNSI - finally get round to hemming my jeans for the first time, put the final borders on the mini pumpkins and then use any time before bed to work on the Hue Shift Afghan.
One jean leg had been pinned to the correct length by my mum so I firmly pressed a crease to indicate the correct length (this is an important point) and then spent a fair time making sure the other leg was the same length and pressed another crease on that leg.
I then carefully lined a ruler up with the crease, double, triple checked it was the pressed crease and not a wrinkle and cut.
You can probably see my major mistake at this point. With a howl I realised I had cut across the crease for the finished length not an inch or so below to allow for the hem.
These are my first pair of Levis, and a reward for losing a chunk of weight, so throwing them in the bin was not top of my list of options.
After a bit of thinking...
I signed the raw edge to try and prevent fraying and then turned the smallest hem possible.
The second hem was much more conventional...
And the finished effect was ok.
At least until they're washed. Luckily I'd asked my mum to pin them slightly longer so it's not too noticeable (I think) that they're too short.
After all this drama, and not wanting to risk cutting anything else, I moved onto the afghan and licked my wounds.
Not wanting to be a Pollyanna, but I can now see some positives from this:
1. My Janome had no issues sewing the properly rolled hem.
2. I've finally managed to zigzag a fabric edge, previously the machine ate the fabric.
3. I now know how, and how not, to hem trousers.
Hopefully everyone else's FNSI was less dramatic. Pop over to Wendy's Blog to find out.
I thought I'd share an update on the bits and pieces I've been working on over the last few weeks. No big finishes but lots of pleasing progress. I've also been out and about a bit too.
My main focus has been my hue shift afghan, the number of squares left to do is rapidly decreasing.
This was the final quarter as of Wednesday evening, a little more progress has been made. (Un)fortunately finishing this off will require finishing my Floozy cardigan as they need the same needles, although it will mean I can justifiably put off sewing the quarters together.
As a reminder here are the other quarters...
Truthfully I'm looking forward to sewing this up to see the overall effect.
When I've had time at a sewing machine I've been working on the mini pumpkins quilt from Cluck Cluck Sew.
This has been so much fun to make that I've already started collecting fabric for another! My accuracy seems to have improved since the slam dunk quilt (same designer) but a little was in was require get the vertical washing to fit. Four narrow borders to go and I get the fun of quilting it, this may involve my quilting rulers.
Last weekend we went to London and did the museums, specifically the Science Museum and the Museum of London.
We expected to pay a short visit to the Science Museum but we were there over 5 hours and I finally saw the actual Soyuz space capsule Tim Peak returned to earth in (I'm a bit of a space nerd).
For some reason I expected it to be bigger, three people fitted in there. The Apollo 10 capsule (also in the Science Museum) seemed bigger.
The Museum of London (covering the history of London unsurprisingly) was a quicker visit as it hasn't changed much since we last visited but I did spot this knitted sock from the 1500s...
Love the fact knitted socks haven't changed in 500 years, it even has a reinforced heel.
We also paid a visit, or two, to one of our favourite pubs The Masons Arms in Teddington.
A really cosy, friendly place with some much stuff to look at, what's in the picture is barely any of it.
