Mixed bag!

Well, this week's stitching has been a bit of a mixed bag, mainly due to the tedium of unpicking my tragic medallion quilting.

Though it must be said that Fry's chocolate cream did help a little bit as those rows and rows of stitches had to be undone in a rescue bid.

When my eyes started crossing over unpicking white threads, I took a break and picked up my chevron crochet. The main body of this little throw is now finished - woohoo - but, I think it needs a simple border now just to tidy up the edges before I can truly call it a finish.  I'm waiting for one more ball of yarn to arrive and hopefully I can push this over the line in this FAL quarter.

I've also been piecing these grey and aqua retro butterfly blocks for my class with Just Jude Designs.  I missed class this week because hubby was speaking at an evening conference for work but I worked on my blocks anyway to keep up with the class schedule.  Missed my friends and the fun chatter though, hope hubby isn't working next week.

Eventually, all the nasty stitching was removed from the medallion top and on Friday I started my third attempt at quilting this medallion quilt.  I think that this quilt top is the elephant I will simply have to learn to eat piece by piece.

As you know, quilting is not my forte and is certainly my least favourite part of the quilt making process, but rather than balk in fear of ever getting it right, I am approaching this quilt one step at a time.  So, a little bit of star outlining and lots of quilting in the ditch has been the way to start over.

A bit more outlining of geese and stabilising of borders with ditch quilting yesterday morning and she is beginning to look a lot healthier than she was last week!

I know the top is hanging low in the picture, but you can see that the awful distortion of my second quilting attempt has been redeemed.  I need to tackle the tippecanoe border next, but I'm pleased to report that I am feeling a little less overwhelmed at the prospect than I was 10 days ago.

Little Spring Mandala, pattern by Made in K Town, measures 7" diameter

Finally, this morning I used the scrap ends of yarn from my chevron to make up this bright little sunshiney mandala.  This was really quick to crochet using this great tutorial (just note it's written in US crochet terms).  It's one of the mandala suggestions made by Lucy of Attic 24 for her Yarndale Mandala challenge, so soon it will be off to join the other pretties in this year's Yarndale displays. (If you are interested do check out Lucy's posts, but note she is looking for only ONE mandala per sender.)

Not too shabby a week all in all!