Pennies in Progress

If you are sensing a Winter Theme here in Sewtopia this week, you are probably correct. There is something enchanting to me when photographing falling and fallen snow. This is a panorama from my front doorstep of the field across the street with a rising sun casting a peculiar shimmering light. I am sure there is some grand meteorological term for this but not in my vocabulary.

OK, now to the subject at hand:

 So I have been working on my first Penny Rug. For many reasons Primitive style suits me.  Remember the needle case seen on the left of the photo? That was my first project made from a pattern in one of my favorite magazines, Primitive Quilts and Projects.  I use it all the time and am planning another type soon. Back to the Penny Rug. Well, one thing for sure there are a lot of things I will do differently on the next one.

 In this photo you can see that all the pennies have been stitched small one to larger one and larger one to the black mat. So what is wrong with the picture? 

See the white circles, the little devils! These are some of the remnants of the Steam a Seam 2 that have fallen off during the stitching.   I know, fell right off! I mentioned before that I was not that keen on the product and now, for sure, not on WOOL! Time wasted. Precious time I might add. I call them Ghost Circles.

So here I am stitching away with my very textured 50% wool 50% poly thread, adding all kinds of Primly texture and these little buggers are lifting right off the wool. And I did read and follow all instructions because my prior experience with the product was mixed but I had not ever used it on wool. I even added some 'wonky' stitching to make it look more Primitive. ( did you actually believe that? Not true, just some sloppy work:)

I will need a re-do on that. Mainly I wanted to show you the strawberry. I did some pinch stitching to make it look over ripe. I know, geez! Anyway, the directions state to trim the excess backing away from the black mat, outline stitch all around and then use Fray check all around to reduce raveling. Like I said, next one will be different. Not keen on a raveled edge but since most of the edges should be bias it might not be so bad. Let you know during the summary.

• I really like working with wool.
• I need to bring up my little Ott light for my evening hand work. I was really having trouble seeing my stitching. The blue thread is photographing very light here but it is dark and blended too well against the black background. I need more light. Old eyes.
• A cuddle-up in my favorite chair, quilt in place, crackly fire and a cup of tea, a little wool project in hand, now that is as good as it gets on a very cold and snowy evening.