A Carrot or a Stick?

The last week has been pretty busy with music things: rehearsals, both quartet and trio, and performances, both quartet and trio.  On Saturday afternoon the trio (violin, viola, cello) played classical music at the local museum open house "Pioneer Days".  It was sunny and hot!  I'm so glad I thought to wear a straw hat as I was facing directly into the sun.  It was also quite breezy, so we were all grateful for the many clothespins I took along.  We had our music clipped down top and sides, and some pins hanging off the bottom to keep the pages from flipping.  We could have used some more practice, but it was fairly good.  The folks listening got to sit on benches in the shade.

Then in the evening the quartet played for a fancy dinner at a local church.  We played Handel's Water Music, and it was just a very good fit.  We enjoyed doing it and they enjoyed hearing it.  The bonus today was that we actually got paid for playing.  Usually it's more or less community service, so it's nice to have some income to pay for the purchase of music.

But all those rehearsals, and the time I had to put in practicing to learn my part, really cut into sewing time last week.  Although I wanted VERY much to sew on the log cabin quilt (and I'm learning to appreciate how good a pattern log cabin is, with lots of possibilities) I used the sewing time I had to catch up on some old projects that I unearthed when I cleaned and reorganized.  

First one up was to take apart and then reknit the cuffs of a lovely wool tweed sweater that I knit for Jim in 1990.  I still had a little bit of yarn from that, and was able to save quite a bit from taking the old, worn cuffs apart.  Now I should really reknit the waistband ribbing, as that is quite stretched out.  The yarn is a brown and mossy green tweed, one strand of each color.

Next up was to put new webbing handles on a black quilted tote that I find very useful.  I just should have bought a little more webbing so that it would hang

 on my shoulder.  

Then it was time to finish a skirt I started the week before.  It's a 6 gore flared skirt.  I checked the size on the pattern and thought I'd better add a bit to make sure it fit.  Well, the thing was huge!  I ended up taking out about 5 inches around the waist and then had to gather it slightly onto the waist facing. But it turned out well, and is very comfortable.  The fabric is a polyester crepe.  I bought the material to match a blouse I had recently bought.  It's just nice to have a new outfit!

Since I was in such a groove I made a muslin of a new pants pattern, but that was way too small.  It also had very long darts over the fanny, that didn't work very well.  So I hauled out my much used pattern that has been adjusted over the years to fit the changing size and shape of me.  Made a muslin of that, and made some adjustments.  So now that's ready to go, and will be made of some striped material that matches the same blouse. The short-sleeve jacket in the back is from a simple suit I made a few years ago of silk noile.  It matches the blouse well, better than in the photo.

So today was reward day--working on the log cabin.  The second batch of 24 squares needs only one more round of strips and then it's finished.  Then it's decision time.  Do I make more squares and make the quilt larger?  The pattern is only 40" x 50", or do I use the rest of the cut strips to make a table runner or placemats?  Time will tell.