A Not-So-Old UFO and Other Progress

Back some time ago, there was a group of quilters who worked on hand piecing and applique and created a mailing list (did it start out as a Yahoo group?  I can't remember) that eventually morphed into a Facebook group then fizzled out.  These things happen, but I do miss the chat of those ladies.  But, before we went on to other interests and groups, we made blocks and swapped them with a small subset of the original group.  This was done in 2015 and I was inspired by Linda, who dragged out her blocks over a year ago, to do something with these blocks.  I received 8 blocks from the other members and had intended to make one for myself using the pattern I used to make my submission to the other members.  However, I really like this lay out using only 8 blocks, so 8 blocks it is!  My intention is to have this quilt on my off-white living room couch, and this is a good lap sized quilt.  

I'm not a very practiced knitter.  I have knit one lacy baby blanket over 30 years ago that is long since gone.  I've been itching to try something that is more open-knit (not necessarily a big lace project) and this single skein shawl fit the bill.  This is one of the skeins that I got from a friend who is clearing out her stash of yarns and other crafty supplies in preparation to down-sizing into a smaller home for their retirement.  This skein is one that she spun herself.  This pattern (Lionberry) is one that I started one other time, but got confused and frogged the project.  I didn't follow the pattern exactly because I got lost somewhere towards the end plus I added some extra rows at the end to use as much of the yarn as possible.  I won at yarn chicken!  I had less than a yard of left over yarn after doing one lace repeat one extra time before binding off.  I like shawls that are relatively shallow and

long.  I would have preferred this to be longer and am learning that I probably need to look for patterns that use at least 500 yards of yarn rather than the 325-ish that this used.  I thought that using a lace pattern and slightly larger needles would make that 325 yards stretch further, but I guess it's not lacy enough.  I'm still learning.

I finished the first of the quilts from DH's maternal grandmother's UFO blocks.  I have a the second basted.  They're not large quilts, but there are 9 (or is it 10?) of them, so I'm just trying to work through them between other, more interesting projects.

I've been itching to do some needlepoint lately.  I had a project in mind - a chair seat or something.  Not that I have a chair to put anything on, but I thought it would be a great idea.  I even went as far as to start looking for needlepoint canvases on Ebay, but didn't see anything I liked.  This is a piece that was started by a friend.  She gave me over a dozen boxes of craft supplies and projects cleared out of her stash in preparation to moving to a smaller house for their retirement.  I chose a few projects and some yarn before offering it up to friends, the quilt guild and friends of friends.  This piece is probably 9" square - too small for a chair seat, but like the colors and pattern.  So, I guess it goes into my stash until I find an appropriate use for it.

The next thing I picked up is a small cross stitch project of a Patchwork Cat.  This shouldn't take too long to do.  Mostly I'm procrastinating on starting the next Ladies of the Sea block because I don't really like this block.  I know, I could skip it and do another, but I want to have this block in the finished quilt.  So, I will do this next, after this adorable little cat.

That's it for now.  Next time there will be more progress on Ladies of the Sea!