Darn It!

Today has so far been a very busy one. We knew we would be in for another lovely day, so the washing machine went on early, and there were still spots of frost in shady areas when the sheets went out onto the line. Then it was time to deal with those chilli.

I worked with three varieties today.

On the left, those long red fingers are our own home grown wildfire chilli. I quite like them, not too hot. 

Then in the middle, the orange habanero chilli. We also grew those. They're a little hotter, more to Tonys taste than mine.

Last of all, on the right, the wrinkly, evil looking ones are reaper chilli! Not me at all.

Once I had cooked up a batch of evil chilli chutney I scraped the last bits from the side of the pan onto a cracker and fed it to himself.

He did well, very well. There were almost tears....

Some puffing and blowing, then sighs of relief when the next cracker came, smothered in cooling cream cheese.

He says he won't be spreading this stuff as thickly as my usual offerings. 

LOL

Chilli dealt with, it was time for the Louise cake.

I'm sure there were more than 6 slices.

I think he likes it.

He also requested a bacon and egg pie for lunch.

I eventually got to sit down just after 2pm. Time for a little mending.

Some time ago I ruined one of my favorite sweaters, I was being lazy and leaning against the kitchen worktop, unfortunately the button on my jeans rubbed/ wore its way through the front of my sweater, more that once. At one time I thought I may make it into a cushion cover, I've seen that done with old sweaters, they look good. But I just never got around to it. Then the other day on pinterest I saw someone darning a damaged sweater. She made the repair look like a pretty flower. I don't think I am up to darning  a pretty flower but I thought I might manage to have a go at plain old darning, it couldn't make the sweater any worse and I would still have the cushion option.

 Last time I tried darning was waaaay back in my 20s. I had worn through the palms of my woolen gloves pushing my daughter Kaiy around in her pram, the rest of the gloves were fine and I was very fond of them and pretty broke at the time. I'm not sure where the too thick lilac purple yarn came from, (Possibly left overs from a tapestry kit?) but it did an ok job of repairing my black and white gloves! LOL

 I used a much finer yarn this time and a pretty good match too. It is obvious that I have repaired my sweater, but it's ok. I can live with my effort.

I know darning is usually done on a darning mushroom, I don't have one so tried various items from the kitchen and as you can see I settled eventually on using my small embroidery hoop. That worked, it gave me plenty of room for weaving the needle in and out, under and over threads. 

I shall endeavour not to ruin any more sweaters in the same way, but it's nice to know I can slap a band aid onto them if I do. 

It's nearly 4pm...

Shall I stay here and cross stitch?

Or shall I go play in my other room?

It's the first of June, so a new I stitch block will be sitting in my mail box waiting for me.

It's pink for RSC this month.

I need to start a new secret Christmas ornament.

Those mini charms are calling to me.

And Kaffe is still fun to work on.