I was a little worried when I settled down to start machine quilting Nature’s Notebook this morning. I really didn’t know how my Madeira rayon thread would work for machine quilting. I’ve read so much on the web about the Bernina 820 being really temperamental about the threads it will accept, but hey, you never […]

Things seem to be calming down on the home front, at least for the moment. School breaks up tomorrow, so I’m taking full advantage of the quiet right now. We seem to have got our heads round the school situation and I think we’ve got some tutoring almost organized for my daughter next year, with […]

Sometimes life just doesn’t turn out how you hope it will. Despite her best efforts – and she really did work hard – Daughter No1 didn’t manage to pass the year at school this year – it came down to an average of 3.74 instead of 3.75 in French in the end. Couldn’t have been […]

Tadaaa! Here it is! Otello by Louisa Harding. Arms extended by 2 1/2 inches and now just about the perfect length. If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s sweaters and cardigans with short arms. Otello’s arms already looked short on the pattern, so I took drastic action…and paid the usual price…worrying that I would […]

I love knitting, but what I absolutely don’t love is sewing together all the pieces once the knitting is done. I’ve finished the knitting for Otello (by Louisa Harding) and now am just doing the finishing off. Does anyone else have the same problem? Even though I’m strictly following all the instructions I somehow get […]