fo: Birch-Newsprint-Clocks-Whatever Quilt : finally done!

So uh, do any of you remember the quilt I planned out and quickly sewed up back in, oh, March 2015?  The one that I stated in this post that only needed to be bound by the bias binding I'd already completed?

I just finished that sucker last night.  Oops.

To be fair, the mostly-finished quilt got tucked away for one reason or another ::coughIhatebiasbindingcough:: and then forgotten until I moved into my new place.  And then I got into a fight ::coughinstigateditinafitoffrustrationandheartachecough:: with the Ex and basically cut him out of my life while I heal before I could claim the blanket I bought in Mexico.  This meant I had no blanket for the couch in my often-chilly basement suite.  AND THEN I started using the unbound quilt, so now my couch is full of wee little threads of yarn that came off the edges of the quilt, and the thing was starting to get a little ratty.

Obviously it was time to bind that sucker.  The moment that the sewing machine was unearthed, I did so.

Guys, don't look to closely at the binding.  I vaguely used this tutorial and completely machine-sewed the binding on.  But instead of neatly stitching the final side down, I triple-stitch zigzagged that sucker down.  To reflect the triple-stitch zigzag that I "quilted" the blanket with. Yes.

Whatever, I don't care how ugly the edging is, because I now have a cozy and bright couch blanket to snuggle under on my evenings off as I knit and watch unending episodes of Last Week Tonight on youtube and read shoddy Star Trek fanfic.  :D

My life is obviously complete.

Mending Slippers, Mending Hearts

We're nearly a week into March and I still keep thinking it's January; I feel like I've lost February - where did you go February?  Nearly a week into March means that I've been in my new apartment for that long, and while I still feel like I'm couch surfing, it should feel more like mine soon.  I'm hoping to get the majority of my Stuffs packed up and moved to the apartment, and I'm looking forward to getting settled in here.  Some stability will help immensely.

I've been plugging away on some projects, but the best one of late was mending a pair of slippers.  Guys, my new apartment - while awesome! - has cold floors, and the slippers I have with me had a couple of holes in the left slipper.  :(  Last night, I grabbed some spare wool yarn and a needle, and fixed that sucker right up while listening to my favourite audiobook (World War Z).

I've never mended socks or slippers or anything in this way before - in a cross-hatched woven technique.  I've duplicate stitched a lot of small holes in knitting before, but these were too big to get away with that.  It's a bit rough and probably should've been woven tighter, but I'm proud of how they turned out.  I have a set of leather patches to add to the bottom of theses slippers...somewhere, so I'm not overly concerned about how these will hold up since they'll be covered.

The mended patch works for now though, and my feet are snuggly warm in my newly fixed slippers!

I don't think I've blogged about these before.  They're a cute pair of bunny slippers from this pattern here, knitted and felted a few years back (my Ravelry project page with no pictures tells me summer 2014).  I never got around to finishing them - the poor left-footed bunny never even got a nose on her.  Maybe once my Stuffs are here, I'll dig up that pink yarn and fix her right up.  Maybe give them both some eyes.

It's a little thing, but it's nice to have these in use again.  It's one of the few personal items that I have at the apartment that I haven't had to go out and purchase nor moved around with me from couch to couch these last 6 weeks or so.  A little touch of home in my new one, and it's amazing how much better that makes me feel.  :)