Spelling Bee - Progress 5

 

I managed a few more blocks for my Spelling Bee quilt in March.  

And these ones too.  

I have a few of the little picture blocks cut out for my next stitching session - very cute!

March 2021 WIPGO Goals Review

Little bit late sharing March's WIPGO review with you but I did meet my goals in the month so another big smile on my face for that!  My WIPGO focus projects were numbers were my Bee Happy Needlepoint and the Shine On Sampler cross stitch.

I'm pleased to show you the before and after of my 10hrs progress on Bee Happy (a needlepoint kit from Historical Sampler Company).

   

Before March I hadn't quite finished the border.

Ten hours of WIPGO goal focus later and the border is filled out and I've made a good start on the central background stitches.  It's lovely to see this progress and in order to keep seeing progress, I've decided to make Bee Happy my Daily Thread project for April.  (My Daily Thread is a new to me motivating initiative whereby I will try to stitch at least one thread length into a given project every day of a month.)

The Shine On cross stitch sampler from Bonnie & Camille's Quilt Bee book was a completely new start for me since my book hadn't arrived at the beginning of the month.  It showed up a few days into March and I was able to make good progress in my 10 hour time goal, even catching up to the third week of the Fat Quarter Shop SAL.  I'm still up to date with that but just haven't managed any more recent pics.

WIPGO might seem rather arbitrary, but there are no WIPGO police and I have set the "rules" of my board, so I can change them if needs be.  So far, so good though.  I am managing the 10 hours goals on two projects a month and am still finding ways to stitch other things besides.

This weekend will be the first of my 10 hour focus sessions for April's numbers.  I'll share that with you soon.

Spring Baby Quilts

Last month I got to play with a pretty spring fabric palette to stitch up two baby quilts for imminent arrivals.

For my cousin's baby I cut some charm squares from my stash and whipped up a Charm Pack Quilt.  You can find the details for this quilt here on an earlier post.  This is a great stash buster and given that I've not been doing much fabric shopping it was great to be able to use three different white on white prints from my stash for all the various borders because I didn't have a big enough piece in just a single print or solid.  I do love being able to raid my stash and still coming up with something pretty.

Believe it or not, I still haven't finished this one yet.  It's currently taken up residence on the back of a dining chair waiting for me to finish hand-stitching the last section of the binding.  So close!  I'll pop up a pic when I finally do get it over the line.

The other baby quilt is for someone who has made a BIG difference in Miss CT's little life.  Susan, CT's habilitation worker from Guide Dogs, is expecting (may even have had) her own first little bundle of joy.  I think everybody needs a Susan in their lives.  She is such a ray of sunshine and just what any family adapting to life with their child's visual impairment needs.  We have been so blessed to have her support for four years now, so I really wanted to make a special quilt as a way of thanking her at least a little for all she has done.  

Given that Susan is a complete ray of sunshine, what better quilt to make her new arrival than Lori Holt's 'You Are My Sunshine' quilt?  This is a pattern in Lori's Spelling Bee quilt and I'm delighted to have had a very lovely excuse to stitch it.  You can see it got some wavy line quilting treatment.  I'm not sure who was smiling more when I handed it over, me or Susan!!

So you see, it's not all cross-stitching around these parts.  It just looks that way ;-)

More Project Bags

What seems like an age ago, and almost is, I was a guest of the Brit Bee 2014 retreat.  During the weekend we screen printed little memento panels which Mr Flying Blind of a Rocket Cycle had designed especially for the occasion.  

I found my panels recently and decided they really need to be put to use instead of skulking in a box. So, I paired them with some Priory Square fabrics and started to turn them into project bags.  Doesn't Priory Square work perfectly with the screen print ink colours?

In similar vein, I used my Chat Dans L'Aiguille Lotus Flower SAL embroidery as a smaller bag front, and I chose some Christmas fabrics to whip up a couple of bags for festive projects while I was at it.  In for a penny....

I'm really chuffed with how they all turned out, but I think the Brit Bee screen prints were particularly successful.

So much better to have the panels in use, don't you think?

Spelling Bee - Progress 4

I forgot to share my latest Spelling Bee progress here with you.

I stitched up L, P and the little dog.

The dog my favourite ;-)

How cute is he with his little embroidered face and red bandana?

Continuing my slow and steady progress with these blocks.  There will be a quilt one day.

Lilipopo Unicorn and Princess Embroidery

 

I embroidered this sweet free Lilipopo Unicorn and Princess design for my little Miss.

Can you tell she's very pleased to have it hanging in her little area of our living room?  She had to get her own unicorn in on the photo shoot, too, obviously.

This is a very beautiful, very generous free pattern by Lilipopo.  Not sure that my threads did it justice though.  I stitched with some off brand floss and the result is a little bit chunky for my liking - pattern specified stitching with 3 strands.  However, not every stitch is an heirloom in the making so it's perfectly acceptable for its purpose.  Her big smile proves it!!

March 2021 - Cross Stitch WIPGO

 

I was successful in completing my February WIPGO goals of working 10 hours on each project 4 - True Friends and project 20 - O Holy Night Advent Calendar.

I was quite pleased with my progress on True Friends.  As you can see, I manage all the words and the entire outline of the heart.  It was a lovely stitch and I am looking forward to filling in all the little flowers and butterflies in due course.

Progress on the O Holy Night Advent Calendar ornaments looks less impressive, but I did actually manage to complete 5 new little ornaments (except for the backstitch which I'll do all together at the end). There are certainly a very many more hours to work on this one, but that's for other times.

Having the projects on the WIPGO board worked well for February, so I'm excited to continue into March, this time with projects 10 and 24 called for.

Project 10 is my Bee Happy needlepoint from Historical Sampler Company. 

Prior to this month, I've already made a start on the border of this needlepoint.  Everything to the right and off right of the photo is complete but you can see I have some work to do filling in the orange checkerboard squares and the red bordering stitches to complete it.  I very much hope that in my 10 hour time goal for March I can finish the borders off and make a start on the centre.  I'm planning to make this a little cushion for my stitching chair.

Project 24 is the Bonnie and Camille Shine On Cross Stitch Sampler.  I can't show you anything for this one as my book (which has the pattern) has not yet arrived so there's no start yet. Hopefully, it will arrive before the end of the month and allow me time to get a good start on the sampler that I've been longing to do for ages.

I like having plans and so far appreciate the motivation that WIPGO is providing.