tiny happy

My son Arlo turned 15 this week, and I promised to make him a new hat for his collection. In the first photo above you can see where I've got to with that, which is not terribly far. I'm using Quince & Co Chickadee yarn and this Purl Soho pattern. It's knitting up beautifully so far… I hope to finish it in time for his football game on Saturday.

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I found a stack of UK Embroidery magazines in a second-hand shop – someone's entire collection from the 1960s-90s had been donated. I bought one from each decade. It's the magazine of the UK Embroiderer's Guild and it's lovely to see that they are still going strong with the ethos of encouraging original work. In the 'Summer 1966' issue there are articles on embroidered camel harnesses, Romanian religious iconography in textiles, embroidery as a career, inspiration from Māori carving and free-form stitching for texture.

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The hexagon patchwork quilt I started working on back here is still growing, albeit very slowly. It's nice to have a really long-term project like this on the go, I reckon. For the hexagons, I've mostly used old clothes such as shirts that have worn-out collars or pasta sauce stains but the cotton fabric is still in good condition. Some of the hexagons are cut from pillowcases and scraps leftover from other things I've made.

I don't work on it very often, but I'm always so happy when I've found an hour or so to sit quietly listening to a podcast and doing some hand sewing. I've now started sewing the hexagons into long strips which I then attach along the edge of the large piece, to help keep it manageable. 

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Have you read good lately? I've just finished two books by Zadie Smith: Swing Time, which I thought was excellent, and a collection of her essays, Changing my Mind.

I've also recently read Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard which I also enjoyed, though parts of it were a little silly, I thought. I'm going through a non-fiction/essay phase in my reading at the moment. Next on my list is Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness by Rebecca Solnit.

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