The Treehouse

Some Kind of Wonderful Part 2 and 3

I finished stitching together parts 2 and 3 of the Some Kind of Wonderful Quilt this morning. Also stitched together were the top and bottom borders which were part of these 2 months schedule. 

 

Not brilliant photos. It's so long that it's getting quite difficult to photograph it. I ought to have taken some individual photos of the blocks as I finished them  -  I'll do that with the next blocks that I make. I am itching to start on the house block but I think I'll work on a couple of other things first of all. 

 

Linking up with BOMs Away at Life's a Hoot.

2 new starts and 2+1 WIPs

I started the year off with the intention of NOT starting anymore quilts! I'm determined to work on my WIPs - after all, I started them because I loved the design and I would dearly like to see some of them complete. I did commit myself to a couple of new cross stitching projects.

The first one is Outrageous Owls by Glendon Place. I spotted this last year and when I showed it to the girls at our Cropiday (crafting holiday) in November they were so taken with it that we decided to stitch along together on it. We're stitching an owl per month plus a bit of branch.

This is what the finished stitch will look like...

and here is my progress so far...

Sorry for the terrible photos today, it's a rather dark and dreary day. This was a real treat to stitch - there are quite a few colours in each owl, 6 possibly 7 so I'm glad that we split the threads between us!

My second cross stitch project for the new year is the new series of monthly cottages from Country Cottage Needleworks. These are so pretty that it was just impossible to resist them - Carole also had the same resistance problem so we are stitching along together again :D My only problem was deciding whether to stitch them separately or all on one piece. I liked the idea of individual cottages but then wondered how to display them - I didn't really see myself changing the picture in a frame each month. I had a little sort through my stash and found a rather large piece of the called for fabric in 32 count and that decided me - I'm stitching them all on one piece. I think it will turn out too big to frame but a wall hanging will be lovely. Here's my progress so far...

I would have been futher along but for the quandary over whether to stitch on one piece or many!

Last year I started stitching Leanne Beasley's Vignette mystery quilt. I don't think I've shown a picture of my progress on this at all. I fell way behind with it once my elbow started being a nuisance and then once it was better I was SO behind that I didn't feel inclinded to stitch on it at all - how silly. I was inspired by Sharon at Lilabelle Lane to get going on this beautiful project again. I had already completed the first part...

and made a good start on the second part...

The majority of the stitching on the blocks had already been completed but I hadn't started anything on the border. Last week I dug it out and made a start on that. I have most of the stems stitched now and am taking a little break from them by stitching the teal flowers at the moment - love those, they're in tiny chain stitch. It's my intention to sew the rest of the blocks together this month and mark out the stitchery designs so that I can just keep on stitching when I eventually get to the end of part two. My lovely DH called in at the copy shop on the way home from work last Friday and got the copying done for the centre so I have no excuse now - it's time to catch up! 

Here's a project that I am up to date with - Some Kind of Wonderful. I love this quilt and the fabric that I've chosen to make it in (Fig Tree Buttercup) and I'm really enjoying stitching the blocks. The schedule for this month is two blocks from the second column - the daisy and the chocolates. My daisy is almost complete now - just the leaves to stitch on and I have the chocolates prepared and ready to stitch down. I cut out all of the pieces for this quilt before starting any of the blocks so I decided that I would make up all the little patchwork blocks and stitch them to the top/bottom of the blocks. I worked on that last week and have just two left to complete. 

I think that will be a big time saver and I am thinking of stitching together the borders so that they're ready to stitch on when I get to the end of each column but that will be after I've done some more stitching for Vignette. 

Another project that I'm slowly plugging along on is Gail Pan's Berries and Bluebirds. I'm still on the first block - there are a lot of pieces to applique!

So worth the effort though, it's a gorgeous quilt and I have my eye on her new design once this one is completed.

I've seen a lot of lovely new projects around blogland this last week or so, they're all so tempting but I really want to make some progress on my WIPs. I have given in to purchasing the Full House pattern for A Year of Schnibbles as it's one that I've wanted to make for a while. Whether it gets completed this month or even started is another matter entirely! The pattern hasn't arrived yet so I don't have any distraction from my current plan just yet!

 

I've linked this post with Lynn at What a Hoot and her BOMs Away Monday.

Some Kind of Wonderful and Autumn

I finally finished the backstitching on the last block of the first part of the Some Kind of Wonderful stitch a long. Part one is now all stitching together and it's looking very nice indeed. Here's the little suitcase block...

and here are is the first column stitched together with its border on...

I've also been working on the Autumn part of the Blackbird Designs Loose Feathers mystery - it's just as lovely as Summer and I'm enjoying stitching it. Not quite sure why I started stitching the bird from the bottom up - must have been that my hoop was down there and I couldn't be bothered to move it, lol! I'll be reattaching my hoop at the top when I do some more on this - hopefully over the holidays. I'm hoping that the postman will visit today with my order for CCN January cottage. I've been stitching again on my Berries and Bluebirds applique by Gail Pan - haven't a picture to show yet, I keep forgetting to take one so that's definitely a job for the new year!

 

I doubt that I'll get chance to post again before Christmas now so I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a very happy, healthy and stitchy New Year :)

 

 

Some Kind of Wonderful - part 1

I decided to take a little break from stitching Wildflower and carry on with my blocks for the Some Kind of Wonderful stitch a long. I had stitched the first two blocks a little while ago and had only 3 blocks to stitch to be up to date with the schedule. These little blocks are hard to stop stitching - very addictive indeed! Here are the first four completed blocks - the fifth one, the suitcase, is almost done I'm in the middle of stitching the words on it.

  

I'm stitching the little patchwork sections on as I go and then stitching the blocks together - just the suitcase to finish and I'll have the first column complete and can stitch on the first two borders.

Here's where I'm up to with Wildflower...I've two large flowers left to do, a couple of words and the coloured stitches in the large leaf. Might stitch on this at the weekend at our crop but then again, I might stitch some of the Autumn Blackbird Designs instead :)

 

I mentioned to Carole about the new CCN monthly cottages. Looks like we'll be having a little shopping spree sometime soon :grin: I asked yesterday and Karla at Patchwork Rabbit has the January chart just waiting to be ordered up!

Coffee Menu by LHN

Last night I put the final stitches into Little House Needleworks' Coffee Menu. I've been stitching along on this one with Carole - it's the first in a series of charts that we decided to stitch together. I think I enjoyed every stitch on this - well, maybe not the ones that I had to unstitch but it has been a lovely design to stitch and the colours are lovely. I corrected the mistake that I mentioned last time - I had stitched Dark Roast one stitch to the right. I suppose I could have left it as was but it would have been screaming out to me from behind the glass once it was framed so I took it out and restitched it! 

Our next stitch is going to be Wildflower by SamSarah Designs. I've not stitched anything by this designer yet and I'm looking forward to starting this with Carole in November...it has some very sweet buttons on it and the colours are lovely.

I am also going to be joining in with the Some Kind of Wonderful Stitch a Long on the Stitch a long blog I'm so glad to have been given a place on this. I bought the book back in July and there are so many lovely things in it that I didn't want it to sit on the shelf waiting forever! I'm going to use some of my Fig Tree stash for the quilt and have begun cutting out the cream backgrounds into strips. Next job is to cut the cream backgrounds for the applique blocks.

I'm hoping to prepare the first blocks and start sewing on them soon and perhaps take some away with me in November when my friends and I have our second crafting weekend of the year.

I noticed this morning that the sign ups are ready now for this month's Friday Night Sew In. I wasn't able to join in for the last few months but hopefully I'll manage to do so this month - it's the day before my birthday! You can click on the link in my sidebar to join in with the fun.