... I sat in my arm chair in the living room and read a book with my feet in the sun.

... I spun yarn without locking Abby out of my sewing room ... and she didn't even try to eat my wool.


... I brushed enough fur out of Zeke to make a fair sized kitten. The spring shed is under way.

... I let Abby in and out of the house a million times. She usually came back inside with a lump of carefully chosen ice from the porch.


... I bought bird seed for our returning feathered friends.


... I walked around the house taking random pictures of things because I wanted something to post about (even though I've got lots of things to post about from earlier this week).




... I read about the socks I'm knitting on Ravelry and realized they would be more exciting and go faster if I was knitting them instead.


... I made a pot of tea. Murchie's Afternoon if you're curious.

... I need a second cup to try and write some proper prose.

I said the pouch idea would have to wait but it didn't have to wait very long. By Saturday night I'd picked out a new group of colours and a piece of batting the right size and started in on my second adventure in string quilting. I think it turned out pretty awesome.

The snap frame is one of a pair I ordered from Goodness last spring. My pouch is about 3 1/2 inches wide and 3 1/4 inches deep. The snap frame was really easy to put in; I looked through the pictures in this tutorial (from the Small Object) before starting.

The fun of patchwork is always looking at what I've got when I'm finished and remembering where the larger pieces of these fabrics are: here I see a quilt for Rob, presents for sisters, cousins and friends, and my circular needle roll. The lining fabric is a scrap from making up one of my favourite Regency dresses (which it seems I've never blogged about - I'll try and fix that sometime).

Inside my pouch lives a charm bracelet I bought from Wisecraft's shop a couple of years ago. The string patchwork somehow made me think of this bracelet and I'm very glad it finally has a proper home; I'm always so worried about it catching on things in my box.

I discovered something new this weekend.

I love it when that happens. You're cruising along reading all your favourite blogs, you click a few links and there you are at some new and wonderful place. On Friday night I was reading Anna Maria's post about her new voiles (which I'm dying to actually touch but must wait a bit longer); she mentioned how good they'd be for doing a string quilt and I put "string quilt" into Google to learn what that meant.

I found a few basic instructions and pictures of diamond patterns and then I discovered mairuru's tutorial for a string quilt pouch (be sure to look around the rest of her blog - she has loads of cute tutorials for all sorts of things). Too cute! I loved the colours she chose. I loved the texture it made. I loved the way she did the whole thing by hand. I went immediately into my sewing room and pulled out my scraps box. Another quick look into my pile of leftover batting and I plunked myself down on the couch in the family room and quilted for the rest of the night.


I finished and trimmed my block Saturday morning and realized that I'd cut my batting piece the wrong size and was going to have a very shallow wide pouch. The pouch idea would have to wait. But I loved my block - that sweet wrinkly texture and the teeny bits of print - and I'd loved making it. So it's the beginning of a quilt ... not a fast quilt and probably not a big quilt but definitely a quilt.


I spent the rest of Saturday morning cutting little strips of fabric until my shoulder hurt.