It is hand appliqued, hand and machine stitched, hand quilted and measures just under 100" per side.. And I LOVE it. But, I don't think I'll let a quilt take me this long to finish again. I am much better at applique today than I was 26 years ago when I was just starting. Looking at some of these blocks up close makes me cringe.
Because I have been focused on getting the Iris quilt done (Entitled "My Fantasy Garden"), I have not worked on other projects. I wanted to be focused and complete this before I started working on other things. I did one small knitting project between the time I finished the quilting and started the binding.
I wanted to knit a cap for myself and took a few days to knit this up.
I used double pointed needles because I didn't want to spring for circulars to knit this, but I should have bought the circular needles in the correct size, too. There were just a bit too many stitches on my DPNs and I dropped a few stitches before the cap was completed. I found them and fixed the cap, but it would have been easier to just use the correct tools.
I also tackled an upholstery project in January. This chair was a rescue from a client when we were doing the remodeling business. The chair it replaced was in much worse shape and this chair has 'good bones'. The plaid fabric we chose was not my first choice, but the $5.00/yard price tag for the plaid compared to the $25.00/yard for the print that I would have preferred made this an easy choice. I had to buy extra to match the plaid and the process to do that took more time, but I'm happy to have spent $60 in total for the supplies to make this chair look much better.
Now that the Iris quilt is complete, I am moving onto all sorts of other projects. But the next highest priority on my list is to get my craft/quilting closet cleaned out and organized. I have started that and am working at it a little every day. My plan is to have it complete by the end of February so it doesn't feel like an overwhelming task.
