The Treehouse

Ruby Rag Squares and a Library Update

I'm still happily working away on WIPs - there are plenty for me to go at! Last week I was a bit off colour and so some cross stitch on the settee was in order. Although I was enjoying stitching the January cottage I was overwhelmed with a need to resume stitching on LHN's The Library. Now I have had this on the go for a shamefully long time. This time last year there was only a little part of one of the firs scroll of the top border done and I took it in hand and pressed on with some stitching. I didn't work on it continuously but got it out occasionally and enjoyed putting some stitches in. This was all going well until the day that I realised I'd used the wrong green thread in the top and bottom borders. Away it went into the darkest recesses of my cupboard - banished through no fault of its own because of my mistake! 

I'm glad to say that building is once again underway and some of the necessary frogging has been done and replaced. I did a little more unstitching last night and there's a bit left to do but things are definitely progressing again.

Now that the door and the steps are finished I'm returning to construction of my January cottage until it's complete. The chart for February's cottage arrived on Tuesday so I'm all set to stitch on that next month. I saw the picture of the March cottage last week and it is gorgeous - and green, my favourite colour!

In other stitchings...I had the squares all cut out for a rag quilt using Ruby flannels so I deemed that to be a WIP and have this week cut out all the squares of batting and glued them together. I'm currently free motion quilting my way through this rather blurry pile and hope to have that part complete this week. I cut the squares out for this quilt using my Accuquilt Go.

Tomorrow is the first Friday Night Sew In of 2012. I haven't managed to join in one of these for a while now so I'm hoping to stitch tomorrow night but haven't yet decided what to work on. Maybe a little work on the Ruby squares or perhaps I might make the Wildflower cross stitch into a cushion.

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.