WIP Wednesday – October 11 2017

Once again I missed my WIP post last week. I’ve trying to be consistent, but work is ramping up and sometimes I just don’t have the energy afterward to sit down and write a blog post. I will try to be better in future.

I have quite a few projects that I haven’t updated in a while. They are not forgotten, just waiting for me to pick them back up. Due to my neck issues, I think I mentioned before, that I tend to put projects down for a while until I feel up to working on them. Lately the crochet projects have been suffering and I’ve been picking up some of my other projects.

My first update this week is regarding my Pins and Stripes quilt from the quilt along I joined with Tracey at It’s a T-Sweets Day! back in June. The last time I posted, I had the quilt top pieced, but still had not added a border to it because I needed more material. I made a trip to my local quilt store and had a bit of trouble finding material that matched the colours in my quilt so I was unable to border it in the dark pink that I had been hoping for.

Still, I did get lucky because they had the remainder of the two floral prints from my quilt in their bargain basement section, plus it was on sale for an even further reduced price! There was enough of the cream floral to use for the backing (I hope), so I bought what they had, and I bought all of the mint floral as well because there was enough there to make the border and binding.

Because the mint floral is already in the quilt, and because some of the pieces would have been up next to the border, the lady who helped me suggested that I do an inner border in another colour. Other than the two floral fabrics they didn’t have any of the materials I had already used, so the hunt was on for another material for the inner border. We finally found a fabric in a light pink print which fairly closely matched the pink in the pale pink print I had already used.

And here it is with the outer border added. I kept the overall width of the border the same as the original design (3 inches finished), but the inner border is 1 inch, and the outer is 2 inches, or it will be when finished.

This project will probably be on hold for a while now, until I get some practice quilting some smaller projects. When I asked her opinion, the lady at the quilt shop told me I should definitely try to quilt it myself, but she did not recommend trying to stitch in the ditch. Instead she showed me a free motion pattern that she said is more forgiving for beginners, so I’ll be practicing it for a while before attempting it on my quilt.

While I was at the quilt store, I picked up more material to make a wall hanging pattern I found in a magazine, but I think I will save that for another post. I’m not sure when I’ll get started on it, but I am excited about it!

I also worked on my cross-stitch over the last week or so. As you can see from the before and after, I filled in part of the sky around the bride’s head and am continuing to work on filling in that area so that I can place the hanging plants a little easier. I’m finding that I need a better light to work with in my apartment, so I’m on the hunt for something. Until then, progress may be a bit slow on this project.

As you can see it’s been a slow couple of weeks. I do need to get back to some crochet. I am going on a cruise in February with The Crochet Crowd, and every cruise they do a homework assignment for the cruisers to bring along to donate to Project Linus. We just got our assignment this week, so I need to decide on a pattern (or patterns) to make nine 10-inch squares. I would like to get my squares done early so that I’m not scrambling at the last minute!

What kind of projects have you been up to? Do you have any suggestions for 10-inch square crochet patterns that are not too open or lacy?