More sewing with friends and a blackout

Another Thursday and another gathering of our sewing circle. Have I mentioned I love Thursdays? And yesterday was special because we had our friend Mariangela back with us, albeit for only a few weeks because she will be returning to Italy before Christmas.

We are grateful, however, for whatever time we are given to spend together. My kids tease me that the real reason why I took up teaching was precisely for this: to have a group of friends I could sew with. Hmmm… they might have a point.

The three friends who are working on the Christmas Dove are moving along with their projects. It sure is fun to see how each project is developing differently, due to the choice of fabrics and even the different appliqué techniques each one has chosen.

Susy, for example, prefers to lay down the main dove pieces first and then appliqué the smaller decorative elements. She’s very much into pastels and a Shabby Chic look:

Bachita has broken her work down in sections and is appliquéing all the elements on before she stitches each section onto the background block. She is a perfectionist (I guess everybody in the group is!) and along with Luchita (see below) is basically a hand stitcher and avoids the sewing machine. She prefers blanket stitch appliqué over other methods and is what she is using on this project.

Bachita’s stitches are incredibly tiny and uniform!

Luchita is also working in sections. We have dubbed her the “appliqué queen” because of her love of the art and her skill with tiny pieces. She alternates between using freezer paper and traditional needleturn.

All in all, it was a fun and very productive morning. The surprise came in the late afternoon and evening. The lights went out quite suddenly around 5 o’clock. I didn’t think much about it because we do have these “glitches” every now and then and they don’t last long. As the minutes grew into an hour and then two hours I started to wonder and realized I needed to find some candles. I cooked my supper by candlelight – actually quite nice. And then assembled as many candles and a couple of lamps to enable me to knit (I find it impossible to stitch without better lighting) while I listened to the news on one of the kids’ old CD player. The bad news is that the country is facing an energy crisis and it looks like we’re going to be having daily blackouts for a while. Which means I need to get organized for those hours without electricity!