At last, 300+ little leather circles have been hand stitched into place using the wonderful neon threads I have such a stock of. The leather’s mostly red but there are scattered small amounts of magenta and orange. The stitching is mostly neon green but in places I’ve brought in a little red, orange, yellow and pink. In this pic you can see that for all the thread showing on the front, there’s a lot more on the back:

I’m now hand quilting, and as it’s a while since I did any quilting by hand, it took me a while yesterday to get my hand in again, so to speak, but by by dinner time yesterday I’d done about 10%.

Out on the shaded patio, the light’s inadequate for the black on black hand quilting I’m doing, so I’ve retreated up to my sewing room again with the table reading lamp focused on where I’m working. I’m listening to Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and then Persuasion to go now in my rather lengthy but wonderful recorded book, so will soon need to order another …

At last 300+ little leather circles have been appliqued in place using the wonderful neon threads I have such a stock of. Pictured are parts of the back and the front, showing the mostly red but a few scattered magenta and orange leather. The thread is mostly green but I also used small scattered amounts of red, orange and pink and yellow. The reverse side shows that for all the thread showing on the front, there’s much more behind the scenes.

I’m now hand quilting, and as it’s a while since I did any quilting by hand, it took me a while yesterday to get my hand in again, so to speak, but by by dinner time yesterday I’d done about 10%.

Out on the shaded patio, the light’s inadequate for the black on black hand quilting I’m doing, so I’ve retreated up to my sewing room again with the table reading lamp focused on where I’m working. I’m listening to Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and then Persuasion to go now in my rather lengthy but wonderful recorded book, so will soon need to order another …

Most days it’s really pleasant to be out stitching on our beautiful patio (Mike’s the one with green fingers) but today it’s raining, as it has done fairly regularly this summer.

Some members of the animal world use bright colouring to signal danger to wood-be predators, a biological feature called aposetism. With this in mind, I’m using bright colours as a kind of warning about the dangerous virus that has enveloped our world in the past year. I’m continuing the Pandemic Pattern series with #4, below, for which I have a specific title in mind, but with many hours of working time still ahead, I have time for something even better to come to mind as I stitch on. I’m well supplied with audiobooks through my kindle and sometimes listen to music.

Shining brightly on the table are the cones of neon thread I’m hand stitching with. These are topstitching weight, synthetic (nylon or polyester) and too strong for me to break by hand. I hand cut mostly red leather circles which are mostly appliqued in green, but occasional colour changes in leather and thread represent the variants popping up almost weekly around the world.

When I’d covered perhaps 1/4 of the background, it became obvious I’d need more neon green or the piece would have to be far smaller. I went to the internet and found some cones pictured of similar sounding thread in neon green, neon yellow and orange/red. On the order form I checked one of each colour, and then thinking how fast I was ploughing through the green, added an extra of that just to be sure I had enough. When the package arrived a few weeks later, I was a bit surprised to find each cone carried not 300m but 1500m! 6000m or 6km of neon topstitching thread will last me quite a while!