Brief relatively unimportant note: I previously said I would be posting a final, fourth “everything else” category for my Round-Up posts, where I fit in my crafts that weren’t quilting, knitting and crocheting, or cross stitch. I’ve since decided not to write that post. There are so many projects I have laying around that aren’t in those categories, some big but most small and relatively unremarkable enough to formulate an entire post. Trying to write that post and figure out what I had was just a mess. So instead, I will just be sprinkling whatever projects I wrangle up and work on throughout the year into my YOF posts. They’ll still get any attention I pay to them, but they just won’t have a starting post.
Now, onto your regularly scheduled programming…
Hey hey! So here we are, one month into the year 2022 and into Year of Finishes. Unlike years past, I actually hope to try better to do update posts as close to the end of the month as possible. 😉
I’ve got a lot to share this month, so let’s just get into it, shall we?
Finishes
To start off on a great note, I have a finish!
Right around the start of the year, I finally finished this bag I made for a friend of mine. I had finished the crocheting several months ago but since it was a crocheted bag I felt it really needed a lining so things wouldn’t start falling out or trying to push through the stitches (even though it was a tightly crocheted fabric). But with my sewing machine not running in very good condition, I hadn’t been able to do that. So once I got the hang of my machine, I finally got on it. I absolutely despised the fabric – it was poly-cotton from Walmart so it wanted to pucker in my machine and it was an absolute nightmare. But thankfully I managed to get it done in just one night, including hand-stitching the lining to the bag. It will be winging its way to my friend in the next few days along with a few other things I have collected for her – if I can manage to remember to get it there, that is. (I’ve been meaning to for days. :lol:)
Frog Pond
Several things headed off to the Frog Pond this month.
It’s a bit hard to tell here because I had the light off due to a migraine, but almost everything that ended up in the Finish or Frog category of this post, ended up being frogged. The only thing that didn’t end up frogged was my Malia bag – didn’t want to commit to not finishing it…yet. Everything else went. Naira will be restarted eventually (I think), and as far as Grey Gardens I’d love to maybe restart it (or another entrelac pattern) eventually but in a different yarn. That was mostly to practice with and I thought I’d love it enough to finish, but I just didn’t.
Sadly, the beautiful quilted snowflake tree skirt has found itself in the “maybe permanent UFO” pile. That is not a decision I make lightly because I hate to waste good materials (especially beautiful fabric), but unfortunately I can no longer find the free online pattern that was used for this one. Since I still have to make the necessary cuts that make this a tree skirt, I can’t really do that without a pattern (never done a tree skirt before, not comfortable winging it). Yes, I could make it a pretty wall hanging still, but…honestly I just don’t love it enough to do that. And my time – and especially energy – is in short enough supply these days that I’m realizing life is too short to work on projects you just don’t love anymore. I’m keeping it around a while to see if my feelings change, and if they do it will still be waiting for me. For now…consider it in the Frog Pond. I think one of these days, I’ll make a different tree skirt from different fabrics.
WIPs
Onto WIPs!
Technically this should be in the “New Starts” because it wasn’t in my original post, but I’ve worked on it so much this month it just honestly feels like a full-fledged WIP by now – especially since I completely forgot it wasn’t even in my original post. This Chandelier pattern is one I ran into around the beginning of the month when I got the flu (over my friggin’ birthday :mad:) and was just too sick to work on any of my quilts so I just browsed YouTube for quilting videos. Those who can’t do, after all. I ran across the quilt pattern in one of the videos I watched during that time I believe, but I can’t remember which one it was. Here is a video that Jenny Doan did on this quilt – although I’m 99% sure it wasn’t her video I watched, I can’t seem to find which one it actually was, and her video of it is great as well.
I’m a good way into the quilt. The cutting and piecing actually only took me a couple days total (I would not however recommend for spoonies to do marathon quilting like I did – I nearly killed myself). I got the opportunity to sandwich it last week. I’m using a light floral patterned gray fabric for the back, and a purple in the same pattern (ordered for curbside pickup in the app, didn’t realize it until later :lol:) for the binding. As you can see in a couple of the photos above, I’ve decided to try out straight line quilting to make the colored blocks into diamonds to mimic an actual chandelier. Since I’m doing the quilting on my domestic machine with a smaller throat space, it’s proving challenging. We’ll see how it progresses as I go.
I was able to make quite a bit of progress on “Everyone Has Their Own Stars”. I’m still not feeling the strongest urges to cross stitch, so I only do it every now and then and only for as long as I’m feeling it, but that’s enough. I still have plenty of time to work toward my goal of finishing this one this year.
For the 2022 Block of the Month quilt, I hit a snag mid-month when I realized that my background fabric was not going to work – I did something really dumb and cheap of me, and I chose a solid poly-cotton (again, the poly-cotton from Walmart…in my defense, it’s cost-effective when you’re trying to do a large quilt). So in the middle of the month (and after I’d done nearly all the work on all my blocks to keep me caught up) I decided to replace fabric for this and another quilt I’d gotten the poly-cotton for. As you can expect, it was a setback – mostly financially. Oh well, something to think about next time I decide to try to go the cheap route – especially considering it didn’t cost that much to get a decent quilting cotton for the quilt to begin with. Anyway, I’ve managed to remake my January block, and I have all the pieces cut for my Irish chain blocks (not shown) and part of them pieced together. So for February, I’d like to finish getting all my Irish chain blocks pieced together – and of course, get February’s block pieced, after it’s released.
I think I tried to work on my Animal Crossing SAL earlier in the month. In fact, I’m pretty sure I worked on it toward the beginning of the month, and one of the days I tried to work on it was the day I really got hit hard with the first symptoms of my flu and ended up having to put it down. This is as far as I’ve gotten right now. I’m unsure if I’ll pick it up again this month, since I seem to gravitate more towards my Stars project right now – we’ll see.
Again, this month I hit the same snag with my Exploding Hearts quilt as I did with my Block of the Month, having to replace the background fabric. But thankfully, I managed to get back on track pretty quickly by cutting my background squares out the second time, and I got enough B blocks pieced together that I got my first row sewn together! I wish you could actually see the pattern a bit better from what I have now – but I look forward to next month being able to show off even more.
New Starts
A few days ago when I was picking up a couple things at the store, I found this cross stitch that I just thought was really cute. And how can you beat a cross stitch kit for $4? So I picked it up. This past weekend, when I had a lot of computer work to do while transferring a ton of data over to an EHD we finally replaced, I decided to start it while I waited between downloads/transfers. As you can see I didn’t get much done at all because I had a busy weekend. But it will be nice to have a new one to pick up.
Another new project I’ve started is this cute quilted tote bag for myself. It has not come without struggles either – this was not the fabric I had intended to make this bag out of (but that’s a story for later). You can’t see much of it now but I hope to have this one finished this month to show it off and start using.
And finally…another product of being sick for a week…a new hobby, of sorts. When I was sick this month there were several times I found myself sick enough that I couldn’t bring myself to pick up any of my projects at all. And I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I have anxious hands who need a project almost all the time, even if I’m just sitting and watching TV. During that time what I really missed was playing with fabric, and I realized it’d be nice to have some kind of quilting project I could work on in bed. That’s when I realized I was finally ready to take up English Paper Piecing. It was so easy to learn, and it’s one of the best “bad pain day” hobbies I’ve ever found. It’s small enough that I can keep almost every tool in this box right by my bed – and I don’t even have to get up to grab it. Unlike most of my other hobbies (aside from knitting and crocheting) I can recline in bed to work on it, when my back needs significant TLC. And the best part is that I have so many scraps from other quilts and sewing projects that I can piece together this adorable scrappy quilt and so far I haven’t had to buy a SINGLE new piece of fabric. for this quilt project AT ALL! We love cost-effective and resourceful no-waste craft projects! I likely have enough – or near-enough – scraps from past projects that I can make an entire quilt from what I already have. And getting started with the whole hobby was fairly cost-effective as well – the basics that I needed to get was pre-cut hexagon pieces, good old Elmer’s glue sticks, and needles. I also chose to buy some thread specifically for hand-piecing to get me started off on a good foot, because I don’t have a large stash of thread I keep on hand and wanted the “right” stuff, and I’ve been trying out different thimbles – but I’ve been using bandages instead with the padded center, because none of the thimbles I’ve tried have worked for the way I find I sew by hand, and the search for a good thimble continues while I use cheap bandages. I love EPP and it’s my newest obsession; I find myself pulling it out at random moments to work, and one of these days I’m sure I’ll travel with it. I’m even planning future EPP projects, from more themed hexie quilts to EPP with other shapes.
So, that was my January in projects and progress. I originally felt like I didn’t get a lot accomplished, but now I realize I did quite a lot – from letting go of older projects I didn’t love to working on WIPs to starting a few new ones and finding new projects to love. And I’m even happier with my progress, considering I was down ill several days and couldn’t bring myself to do much. So join me in saying goodbye to January and a big hello to February, with the hope that it brings with it an equal or greater amount of progress despite being a slightly shorter month!
Are you playing along with me? Let me know how you did with your projects in the comments!
Floss and Fibro 