Saturday 21st October

 Dawn at 0734 hours, sunset at 1957 hours, and don't I know it. Especially this morning, which began grey, overcast, and wet. Very wetly wet, in fact. 

The day ended similarly in reverse, going from dark leaden clouds to dusk to darkness.

In-between, however, there were some brighter moments, and luckily these coincided with when we were out and about on various trivial errors.

Otherwise the day was consumed in sewing (but not cross-stitch!).

I have always made huge a fuss about having to take up trousers, sighing, procrastinating, leaving them lying around stuck full of pins for days, even weeks...

In the last month I have shortened three pairs - two for my father and one for me - and a fourth pair for my father is waiting for its turn. Actually, it's really not too much hassle. Once I have marked them up, and summoned the courage to wield the scissors it's quite quick. It's just a question of settling down with a cup of tea, and needle, thread and thimble;

I use a leather thimble as I just couldn't find a metal one that fitted comfortably. All my metal thimbles (I kept buying different brands and sizes, but to no avail) are heading for the next charity bag.

I've ordered a second leather thimble, as this one lives in my 'general sewing' tin, pictured above, and I need one for my patchworking tin;

or rathet, tins; the little tin holds needles, thread, etc and just fits nicely inside the bigger tin with pieces waiting to join the main piece.

I made a prototype pukka 'quilt-as-you-go' patch today;

Front, with a simple row of quilting round the edge

Back, with the right side folded over to the wrong side and hemmed (and cobbled where the backing fabric was threatening to escape)

Sewn in place into the quilt - front

And the back. It's more usual to fold the back over to the front so each patch has a border, but I'm not doing that this time as I've already pieced about 40 patches.

The back will look a bit rough and ready because of the retrofitted patches and then the bordered patches, but hey, it's the back, innit!