Stalking the Mailman, AKA “79”

A week ago (Nov. 16-22), I was happily stitching away on my last of the M&Ms quilts.

It’s Beth’s. (Here is a link to the quilt pattern) It’s paper pieced. It’s the most labor-intensive and time-heavy of the eight quilts. And all of the fabric was provided. Most importantly, all of the background fabric, 80 triangles worth of the same black batik per person, came along with the quilt.

While watching Sweeney Todd, I diligently counted all of the triangles while “gluing” them to my freezer paper templates in order to use Judy Mathieson’s utterly freakin’ brilliant paper piecing technique. (scroll down if the link doesn't work there)

80 triangles. Brilliant. I was on my way. I laid out my colored fabric strips and was cruising along, no problem (well, brief periods of brain freeze, but nothing major). I get to Friday night, I’m zipping along. I’m ready to add the last layer of triangles to the last 20 sub-blocks. All of a sudden? Ruh-Roh Shaggy!

I’m one short. I only have 79 freakin’ triangles.

I text message Beth, who apologizes and says she’ll mail the much-needed triangle. It got in the mail before Turkey Day, but didn’t arrive over the weekend, so I’ll be stalking the mailman over the next few days. The Big Reveal is at Sandy’s house on December 8, so I need to get it in the mail as soon as I can. It’s as done as it can be until I get that triangle, so I’m hopeful I can get this thing headed west before I get into the busy second half of the week. We have theater tickets on Wednesday after having seen Spamalot last Tuesday, then we’re doing a holiday festivity thing at The Frick on Thursday. It’s a busy week.

I’m cruising on the socks I showed you last week. They’re Sheep Shop Sheep Feet. I really love the yarn. It’s a lot like Socks that Rock Mediumweight, but the company did a stupid thing with the yardage. Too much for one sock/skein. Not enough for a pair from one skein, but I’ll get into all of the details for the FO post, which should be SOON.

Oh, and I still owe you a FO post on Kermit. I’m hoping for a good non-rainy, non-work day so I can get a couple of “on the hoof” shots. Hope all my American readers had a wonderful long weekend. I love Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite holiday! :-)