Mending, continued

A little cabin fever today. I definitely felt stuck in the house. Cold, lots of ice. I walk five days a week to satisfy my step counter app, but I’ve completed my five days so I didn’t need to walk today. I got it into my head that I wouldn’t, even though it probably would have helped. More snow tomorrow.

I made progress on some projects though. My couch cover mending project is taking shape. It is generally puzzling. I feel unsure a lot of the time, but I just keep going, stitching fabric together on the sewing machine. I’ve used up almost all of the bright, crisp shweshwe cloth. It looks great, but what about the rest of the quilt top?

Am I trying to make another quilt top and stitch it on? Do I keep the very random nine patches in there that no longer match the color scheme? What do I do about all the lightweight cotton that remains, some of it very close to ripping? Do I need to get used to the idea of patching this over and over again? Am I going to need to shop for more fabric, since I don’t have the right stuff?

Setting questions aside for now, this photo helped some kind of vision form. The dark gray fabric with faint stars came out of my stash, one of the few dark colors I have. It is not too flimsy and blends nicely with the khadi cloth that forms the outermost vertical strips. I can use the dark gray to make borders around the patchwork. There will be two large rectangles of shweshwe patchwork. And some new nine-patches, if I can come up with them.

Can you see Jude’s stitched “A” patch in there? A gift. If I could muster some patience, I could make a neat alphabet to go along with it, or at least a B and a C.

I need to look up kantha quilting. I keep thinking that is the model that I am going for. Continuous patching with a lot of running stitch to help stabilize and strengthen the fabric.