Mend and Make Do - or Repair and Renew

After many months of inactivity on the hexie front, on Tuesday this week I got out my winter quilt and began to applique the remaining 60 or so hexies around the edges. By Friday I realised I would be 3 hexies short, so I created 3 more. That evening I finished appliqueing them around the edge. This (left) is what it looks like. 

 

This is what it looked like when I originally finished it in April 2014.

In 2018 I realised that the wadding was leaking through the black edge, along the quilting, which was straight horizontal lines. I decided the best way to deal with this was to cover the border with more hexies. The easiest way to do it was to construct the hexies, then applique them to the black border. By March last year I had covered the top edge, one side edge and part of the second side edge before I ran out of hexies. I spent most of last Winter constructing the  77 hexies needed to finish it. Meanwhile I used the quilt on my bed with one and a half sides still not covered.

When the quilt came off my bed at the end of Winter  I had 75 hexies ready to apply - but other projects took priority and it remained waiting reproachfully in a prominent place in the linen cupboard. This week, when I finished the Remembrance Poppy, I bit the bullet and got the quilt out - it is, after all, only a couple of months to the return of Winter.

The appliqueing of the hexies was the easiest of the required tasks. The most tedious part was removing the tacking and the papers before they could be appliqued. Aside from the paper hexigons, that task produced lots and lots of tiny threads that refuse to budge from the hexie, or cling to the black background, or litter the carpet. 

My ort pot was put to good service! 

Fortunately, because these have been folded for ten months, they hold their shape when the tacking and papers are removed

meaning I could place them on the quilt with a couple of pins to get a layout without them coming apart.

While the actual stitching on of the hexies is easy, and a task for doing in front of TV, the manipulation of the fairly heavy quilt, with hexies pinned to it, was more challenging.  It's also not a project to carry around with you!

All in all, I'm pleased to have it finished. Originally, all the black hexies had either a red or a purple hexie in the centre. This is more difficult where I have appliqued the hexies, as the remaining black background is not always perfect hexagon shape. I also need a bit more red fabric and possibly some purple too. I am not worrying about this at the moment. I will look into it and count the numbers needed once I have the quilt on the bed for Winter. That might be an improvement for next year.

Ort Pots Galore

On my recent trip to the NSW Southern Highlands, I took the makings of three more Ort pots. I thought the two friends with whom I was travelling might be interested in the concept and I had also promised to make one in the fabric I had used for my third Basics and Beyond project - a bonus accessory to the suite of products in the B2B course.

My friends were intrigued, then wrapt. They both wanted Ort Pots for their knitting threads!

Robin chose this one, from Liberty fabric given to me as a birthday present by a cousin in London.

Pat went for this Morris Meadows fabric left over from a skirt I smocked a few years ago.

I had done some fussy cutting to get the rose on the bottom of the pot - both inside and out.

This left me with my own one to finish in front of our wood fire before I came home and added it to my B2B suite of accessories.





Everyone is happy and I still have the makings of three more to meet the needs of my SitnStitch friends, who are still keen and one of my daughters who has put in an order.

They really are a lot of fun to make and use.

Embroiderers' Guild of SA class: Ort Pot

I recently attended a most enjoyable one-day class at the Guild to make on Ort pot. Orts are the left-overs, for embroiderers mostly bits of thread or small scraps of fabric. The word derives from Middle English 'orte' meaning food scraps, which was, in its turn derived from either Dutch or German. 

Gay Sanderson, a long-term member of our Guild, has come up with an ingenious design for a small, personal, portable ort bin to carry with you and collect those annoying threads such as I leave all over the house - and anywhere else I go.  Gay has enlisted her husband Peter to cut the rings of polythene pipe that are an essential part of the kit for this project. I had purchased a kit for one of these some time ago, but hadn't got around to making one. When Gay offered a class, I figured enrolling was a way to tick off one more project on my list.

My kit came with this attractive fabric all cut to size. Since I purchased it, Gay has modified the size a little, so I needed to do a tiny bit of cutting.                                                                                  There were eight of us in the class, and we had a really enjoyable time, adapting, cutting, stitching and watching the pot emerge. Gay is a relaxed and flexible teacher.

By early in the afternoon I had my completed pot.

The big attraction is the way it folds up to fit in
a work box, bag or basket. It takes up less space than scissors.
















As I finished with time to spare, I embroidered an initial on the base between the folds.

I have actually been using mine at home while working on my Jenny Adin-Christie roundel from my recent embroidery retreat.

Of course, at the end of the class I was so enthusiastic about my little ort pot that I bought another 4 sets of rings and circles so I could make some more with friends, or as gifts, so ticking this project off my list does not reduce my list at all. They are, however, objects I can make while travelling, talking or watching TV. I don't actually need any more projects for travelling, talking or watching TV.  They were such good fun to do that I'd like to share them with others - perhaps my SitnStitch group will be interested.