July SAL Update

It’s time for an update on the Christmas Stocking I am stitching for my son.  I had discovered a pretty significant error when I started the second set of “windows” and started looking ahead to the toe part of the stocking.

That looks pretty good, right?  Well… when I started this project, I wanted to start in the top left hand corner instead of the center.  I like to go from left to right, top to bottom and lots of the color was the same in the beginning – to me it just made sense.  I counted, recounted, counted again.  Did some math.  Counted, recounted and did more math and was pretty certain everything was good to go.  Then I started the stitching.  Those of you who have been part of this SAL know this has been a very long term project for me.  I am not a quick stitcher, I am quite slow.  That does not bother me – I love stitching.  This project has gone on timeout and come out of timeout more times than I can count.  I have stitched and un-stitched.

Well…  this error is not something I can unstitch without scrapping the whole stocking and starting over.  The toe of the stocking is on the left of the stitching.  In other words, I am too close to the edge of the fabric on the left – WAY too close, 3 inches too close in fact.

Once I realized that, my stomach sank and I sat there looking at the stitching for awhile (probably longer than I want to admit) and then had a really, really good cry.  Then I set it on the table (not back in the bag where I keep it to be safe) and walked away.  I went out to garden, took a shower and made dinner.  All with that piece of stitching on the table.  My kids and husband knew something was wrong.  My youngest son (15), kept coming up to me and giving me a hug telling me that it would be ok and I would figure it out.

I left that stitching out all night on the table which is unheard of.  We have three cats and a dog.  I did not sleep well at all.  Then, I did have an idea.  Because I started close to the left hand side, I had quite a bit of “empty” fabric on the right side.  I decided to try something out (something I still don’t know if it will work right).  I measured, counted, did some math (we all know how that works for me).

And cut my fabric at the top right of the project.  A big enough piece to overlap on the left with enough to stitch the toe and have a margin.

Then I pinned it to the right section.  Pinning was not enough so…

I added basting stitches to hold everything in place all lined up.  That looks pretty easy, but it was really a bear and took HOURS.  Originally, the holes didn’t want to match so when I put the needle down from the top, I had to flip the fabric and make sure the needle went into the correct hole on the bottom.  And then I had to repeat the process again from back to front.  All in all, it seems to be working ok now.

Stitching on the double piece is still a little fiddly.  Even though it’s all lined up and held together with those basting stitches, I still have to flip and check to make sure I’m on target for almost every stitch.  It’s really SLOW going.  I am hopeful that this “patch” will work and wont’ look too wonky when it’s complete.  Only time will tell.

There are lots of more talented and creative stitchers who are a part of this group.  Please take a look at their projects if you get a chance:
Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Sue, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda, Helen