Needlework Tuesday New Projects

Needlework Tuesday is open to all readers looking for inspiration, encouragement or who want to share their recent needlework project. Introduce yourself in the comments and be sure to leave a link to your current post. Feel free to grab the cute little mouse for your post.

The beginning of July, my family will be vacationing and I want to take a gift for my friend.  Last year I crocheted an afghan for her daughter and now I want to make one for her.  It was a few month ago when I decided that I wanted to make one using Bernat Mosaic.  I couldn't find more than a single ball in a local store, so I went to Listowel to the outlet store.  According to the pattern for Mitered Motifs Blanket (its the one in the top left, if you want to download the pattern you need a free membership), I would need ten balls.  I selected the colour called Optimistic.  In the first photo are the seven miter knit squares for the first row.

Start of row two. Adding a square to the right of the right of row 1.  Cast on 19 stitches and then pick up twenty stitches.

several rows completed in motif one of row two.

Adding motif two to row two.  Pick up 19 stitches on the left side of motif 1 from row one and then 20 stitches on the right side of motif 2 of row 1.

End of row two.  Pick up 19 stitches on left side of the last block of row 1 and then cast on 20 stitches.

Each block knits up rather quickly and you can get a lot accomplished if you don't do anything else such as cleaning, laundry or feeding your family.  In this photo I have stitched four squares of row four.  There will be fifteen rows in total .  I didn't originally plan the colouring since this is a self stripping yarn.  When I ended a ball, I went and found a ball that started with the colour I was ending in and it kept the established pattern. It looks good that way so I decided to continue with it.  Only problem is that I will need twelve balls and there were only ten in that dye lot.  This is the second time I have stitched an afghan from Bernat, only to find I needed significantly more yarn.  will go back to the outlet this coming weekend and get more, even if the dye lot doesn't match. What can I do at this point.

Since one new project is not enough, what the heck, I should start another.  This one really is not that big a reach.  It is a miniature quilt.  The squares are all in the 3-4 inch range.  Joanne at Thread Head hosted a quilt along for this mini sampler.  It's an eight part series and I have linked to the first.  First thing I did, after deciding that I would use orange fabrics, was to cut each step and put them in individual baggies.  My own little kit.  Then I followed step by step sewing each block.  I really didn't like the job I did with the first block, the flying geese.  I was way off and all my points were too close to the edge and they were too big.  I drew the pattern on paper and stitched them again.

Paper stitched row on the left and traditionally pieced on the right.  I'll use the extra one for a fabric post card one of these days.

Here's the final arrangement of the pieced units.  I photographed it on the cutting board so you can get and idea of how small it really is.  Now I need to select a border fabric and then on to the quilting.  It was a fun project.  Thanks Joanne.

Have you stitched a sampler quilt?  Send a me a link or the photo and I'll add it here.  I love to see how others put together their samplers.