Jacket Frustration and a New Visitor to Carolina Beach Lake

Well, a Little Blue Heron is no great rarity but it is the first time I have seen one at Carolina Beach Lake.  Usually I see the Great Blues and very often the Tri-Colored Heron.  He posed nicely for me as he gathered food.

There were quite a few Grebes as well but they run for the reeds anytime they see me coming and hide until I leave so no good pictures.  The ones I took, however, have some strange coloring so may have to evaluate again.

My normal wintertime ducks have not arrived (Scaups, Red Heads, Scoters, Shovelers and Mergansers), so will have to do with this picture of a Starling.  I do think they are really pretty in the winter as there is a lot of iridescence in their coloring.

My primary deed for the day was getting the two sleeves of the jacket finished.  You will notice that I covered up one of the blacks as well  on the one on the right. I will applique a piece of the lighter purple shade so that it looks more balanced on the left hand one. It is not obvious if you don't use a really strong gradation  However, then the problem....

This is what one side of the front (or back) looked like when I set it up on the design wall having arranged it according to the pattern directions (a black and white picture that showed the gradations).  It looked a bit peculiar to me as the zig zags seemed to go nowhere, unlike the sleeves where they meet in the middle.  I realized that the pattern directions were basically wrong.  Thank goodness for design walls and looking at things before jumping to the piecing.  

This is what it should look like to match both the picture of the garment on the pattern envelope and also to match the sleeve.  It makes the v-pattern in the center.  The other way would have been interesting but would not have matched the completed sleeves. 

Well, I wrote to the pattern designer and she sent me back a very nice note saying that she would never again hurry a pattern to publication before having someone test it out.  She had been in a hurry to go to printing as she was coming to my home guild in Rochester coincidentally!  Luckily my note caught her just as she was going to have it reprinted so she is busily updating the pattern as this blog goes to publication!  (She is sending me two free patterns as well!!)  Nice!!