Time for something new?

I almost feel justified in starting a new project!

Many of my work-in-progress projects are completed or on hold till I get more supplies.

The knitted poncho is finished.  I actually finished it a few weeks ago but I never seemed to get around to getting the photos off the camera.

 The fringe was still a bit crinkly when I took the photo as the wool had just come out of the ball, but it has relaxed a bit now and looks better.  It sits nicely over my big tummy and will be useful for when I can't wear my jumpers any more and want to look a little bit nicer.

I've done the straight machine quilting on the baby elephants.  I now want to do some hand quilting in patterns and around the elephants but I'm not sure what thread to use.  Will be looking for advice and inspiration next week at the Craft and Quilt fair.  There is also a book on hand quilting I'd like to buy before I dive straight into it.

I've just done quilting around each white square and then in between each block.  You can't see it in the photo but I think I really need to practice my machine quilting!  I also need to experiment a bit with thread.  But every quilt I do is a learning experience and I'm sure I'll just perfect the art as I get sick of making them ;)

The quilt top for the coffee quilt is complete.  Now I have to get some wadding for it.  Will also be looking out for this at the craft fair but I suspect I'll be at Spotlight later to get it.  Can't do much for a week or two anyway because I'll need a weekend to lay it out on the floor and baste it with help from hubby, and we don't have a free weekend for a couple of weeks.

As you can see, I even took progress photos as I was going along.  It's just posting them that's the problem.

Despite all the care I took, I obviously still need to work on matching my seams when joining blocks.  I thought I was doing so well but when it was finished I could see all the errors.  Oh, well.  You wont notice them once it's spent a week being used on the couch!

I'm rather pleased with the finish look so far.  It's the first time that I've actually bought the specific fabric that was used in the design (namely the border print in this instance).  It really does give it quite a distinct finish, rather than just a quilt with a common colour theme.   I should remember this next time I'm trying to be frugal with my fabric costs.  Sometimes it is just worth it to spend the money and get something nice than worry about the cost.


And the little lion cross stitch is basically finished, but I wont be doing anything about framing it till I've done the rest of the animals.  I want to frame them all together.  Not sure how long that will take me to do because I've sort of lost interest now.  Maybe when we get the nursery set up properly I'll see the need for more decoration! (and just realised I forgot to take a photo of that one)

I've just sorted through my unfinished projects box and have two more things I can work on for now.  There is the fern bag that I started oh so long ago.

There is also a knitted monkey which I started a year or two ago.

I think this will become my loungeroom project until I get the hand quilting on the elephants sorted.  The poncho has proved to me that having knitting in the loungeroom while we're watching TV is a really good way to get through it quickly!

I'm finishing up work next week so hopefully then I'll be able to update more frequently, and also do more things, like actually participate in the Montly Design Challenge!