Hoppy Easter

Turns out hand stitching is not my friend - at least until my sewing arm recovers from whatever weird nerve thing is going on in there - so I have gone out and bought another bunny:

It's the blue one I considered at first, and left behind.

I even had to rip out the stitches I did last week on the poor Mr. Fawn's permanent-marker-ridden ear lining, because they were not perfectly spaced and were cramming up the ear underneath, SIGH

However, I did have a big win since the last time we met - much, much bigger than if I'd successfully sewn on the bunny ear flops. Hard to imagine that, isn't it? but It Is So.

After working for ages on this one suspensey / crimey manuscript with a funny / scary heroine, I learned this week that it's been longlisted for this year's Emerging Author Dagger from the Crime Writers' Association! 

This one is a mother-daughter story with a criminal bent and a sense of humour. The blurb: 

After a violent burglary drives her away from Oriole, Massachusetts, Lee Amato returns to exonerate herself by exposing the criminal behind it, but when one of the burglars is murdered Lee suspects both crimes implicate her mother.

It's super exciting to get this vote of confidence, because it's been a complicated story to write. I mean, look at that mood board photo - what was I thinking, stirring up a mix of my takeaways from Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, and Lee Child? Yet there it is, along with what's stayed with me from Wilkie Collins, Jane Austen, and the Brontë sisters. (Terrible of me to lump them together, but they do such a great job with Fraught.) Plus, you know, a bit of the flipside of Nancy Drew.

It's also daunting, because I haven't finished the revisions on this manuscript. AND I have given up sugar for the foreseeable, so I won't have any cake to help me along.

So I hope you'll forgive me for excusing myself from Hugs for a few weeks to wrangle with words. My goal is to be back for a check-in on May 10, and for good on May 31, hopefully with something textile-y to show you.

Meanwhile, I hope you have a lovely weekend. An Easter-y one if you celebrate and, by early in the week, a half-price chocolate fest if you don't.

See you soon and thanks as always for dropping by! 

Bunny Emergency

If it's almost Easter, I must be contemplating more bunny purchases. But something went horribly wrong when I was selecting two extra fluffy ones:

I was so distracted choosing between a soft brown bunny or a blue, I did not notice the soft brown I eventually bought had been playing with permanent marker:

 Disastre! Or... maybe Opportunity?

For various reasons that include not having taking the offered receipt following this purchase, and a lack of other soft brown bunnies in the store, we decided I would instead try to fix the marks. And I will tell you straight out, stain removal was not an option - it'd been there too long. I did consider embroidery, because with green for a stem and something else for the centre of a flower, the circular stain could have passed as diffuse petals, but I'm not good enough to pull that off. 

Instead, I hunted through my fabric stash again and was pleased to discover that this old love is as good a match as I'd hoped. Yay!

 

I also found this other old favourite I'd totally forgotten, which would look pretty awesome appliqued onto my felted sweater with the holes in it, so I'm going to give that a think for some later date.

 

I got to work cutting out some ears and liner fabric, and adapted them for the shape of each of bunny's flops...

and this morning, got out the ironing board to press and top stitch them...

(allowing a smaller bunny to try them on for size first, because I am so generous.)

This is how I expect the patches to look, once they're sewn on. You can see they won't go all the way to the top of the ear - the fabric is folded there, and I don't know how I'd get in with my needle anyway, so I am stopping them just above the level of the stain and will leave the tops open so somebody could stuff little treasures in there, or just earrings:

Naturally when I planned all this I assumed I would have it all done to show you before I go off to play for the afternoon. And just as naturally, I was wrong. So I will leave you with the first ear partly done, and best wishes for a lovely weekend of your own. You can certainly guess what I'll be doing, once bunny wakes up from his nap.

See you next Saturday, and thanks for stopping by!

I have an invisible mending opportunity

 ... or do I? Let's decide!

I bought this gorgeous felted wool sweater new, and massively discounted owing to some fabric flaws. Holes, to be specific. 

They're right down the front, starting from the neck. 

I knew this going in and thought the holes would be much worse, but I didn't care. I have the same sweater with no flaws in a brown-green-gold colour and absolutely love this fabric, flaws or not.

Check out that texture! yet, when you wear it, this wool is soft like silk. And quite thin, while maintaining structural integrity. Warm enough but very breathable. I wasn't going to turn down fabric like that over a few holes. Anyway, I'm so interested now in visible mending and looking for opportunities to try it. 

(Bet you're wondering, as I say that, whether I have taken advantage yet of my blue denim opportunities and the answer is No, because apparently I am always more excited about potential than actual work, and also, I still haven't decided whether to patch or weave that fabric, sigh. Decision-making: never my strong point.)

So I bought the sweater and the holes are quite small but there are a lot of them and they are weirdly positioned. Another view of the size:

And again, with light behind the biggest one, which is at the neck:

As soon as it arrived I started rubbing my hands together with glee because I couldn't help noticing that the scarf I'm STILL WEAVING (sorry, lil frustrated with myself there) is a very good match for this fabric...

... and I also have this thread that's pretty close.

 

Or I could make the holes bigger, then patch some fabric in behind them. The pink floral fabrics at the top of this post turn out not to be quite on the nose, so maybe high contrast patches, using raccoon faces, would be fun.

Too much?

Here's the thing though - give that this is felted wool, the holes aren't going to get bigger unless they snag on something. Which, given that the worst one is at my neck, would lead to bigger problems than torn fabric.

And the fabric is so very textured, casting shadows all over. I'm not sure the holes even show. Like, check out this other one I found on the back. Can you even see it?

Here's where it is. I could barely make it out, myself, until I knew to look for it. 

Plus, the really big hole at the front of the neck falls into this area that folds in naturally while in use (as I mentioned, I have another of these sweaters already and am cosily wearing it as I type this), such that it will be out of sight when I wear it.

The only hole I really need to worry about is the one that's sort of smack in the middle of the front.

It does show. But it's pretty small.

Maybe I should just wear this sweater and ignore the holes. If I mend them, I might just make them stand out more, right?

Ugh, now I don't know what to do, apart from wearing the sweater and enjoying the bright colour and knowing I can always mend it if the holes get worse. Or maybe, wearing the sweater to a sewing supply store so I can buy embroidery floss or similar that is a perfect match! 

Either way, I have had a very productive time hunting up my sewing scraps and thread collection so I could write today's Hug. I found some vintage tea towel fabric I'd been looking for, to fill out a curtain panel I've decided is just too skimpy. I am really piling up the sewing projects! Which makes it more urgent to finish my weaving, because I need the loom space for my sewing machine, aiiieee.

Hope you've got a lively or lazy but in all ways good weekend lined up, and thank you for dropping in again today after I took last week to nurse my sore arm. It is still sore, by the way, but less persistently so, and my doctor is certain it's not carpal tunnel, so I am just muddling along with loads of massage.

See you next Saturday!