A finish on one and substantial progress on another

Time to rotate projects again. I've made big progress on the second house of Cottages II starting it from scratch this rotation and getting it about 2/3 complete. Hopefully that means I can finish it the next rotation?

I also finally finished sewing Jade's flannel quilt and she's thrilled about that. I also made and finished a matching pillow to go with it.



I am so close to finishing so many projects that I'm going to go through them and give an indication of the stage each is in.

1. Cottages at Oak Bluffs (2 houses) 60% complete, 2 rotations to finish
2. Verandas of South Battery 90% complete, 4 rotations to finish (there is a lot of back stitching)
3. Chinese II 25% complete, 2 rotations to finish
4. New England Sampler 60% complete, 6+ rotations to finish
5. LaTrobe Terrace 95% complete, 1 rotation or less to finish

So with so many finishes in sight I'm considering which projects to begin in their places. I've already started The Rocks in place of LaTrobe Terrace so that's a lock. Cottages will become Jade's baby sampler and I'll start another Barbara & Cheryl possibly in place of Chinese II.

Here are some other happenings around our place:



Jade dressed for communion with her stole. She is just gorgeous in her dress!



Cat condo being constructed by the boys.



And finally our own home-grown Master Chef!

Second house on Cottages II well underway

After one week's rotation on this project I've got the second house well underway. It's coming out prettier than I thought it would with the green and pink. It will look lovely in my daughter's room. My son has Cottages I in his room.

I'm finishing off Jade's flannel quilt as well. Last night I sewed the binding on and today I've pinned it ready for hand-sewing. I also promised to make her a pillow in the same fabric so will do that. It won't take long.

Jade has a week's holiday from gym training and I'm trying to make as much use as I can of the extra time I have not driving her around. I've got 4 hours extra work correcting IELTS papers Tuesday and Wednesday, got my car booked in to fix the radio antenna and am continuing to work on finishing off projects as well.

Oh and here is our kitten Nimbus's new toy!

More photos

It's good taking photos of projects as they come along. It makes you have a good look at what you've been doing.

I just made a change to Jade's communion stole to the 'E' in her name. I flipped the E as it was upside down on the stole. It looks much better. I put the new photo on my last post.



Then I took a photo of my knitting with the NZ wool and discovered a small error where I must have gotten the row pattern out of order. I'm now going to take it out down to there and count my rows a different way so this is fixed and doesn't happen again.

As I already posted I didn't do a lot with the Sydney cross-stitch but thought I should post a photo of where it is now.



Also here is the lighthouse rug hooking all hemmed and ready to hang.

Three finishes, a knitting project and . . . a new kitten!!!!!

I have got so many things on the go that it is starting to drive me crazy! So I decided to finish off a few things and managed to finish three including a UFO--but started another!



When we came back from Sydney last Monday my sights were set on finishing the binding off and sewing of the brown hooked rug. I'd been progressively gluing the edges of the backing where it was fraying over a few days in preparation for this. So last Tuesday I machine sewed the binding on the rug and hand-sewed it. Finished! Then I put it in the dryer with a wet towel mainly to try and fluff up the older hooked wool pieces which were flattened. There were also areas where the pieces went in different directions (where the new hooking met the old hooking) and I was hoping that a fluffing would fix this up. I also wanted to freshen the rug up and remove any dust as it had been in my Dad's attic for a few years. Well the fluffing certainly freshened the rug up and fluffed it up but there are still patches where the wool goes in different directions (although the hooking is in the same direction) and the backing shows. Anyway, I proudly gave this to Jarrah to put in his room and he has it beside his bed where he puts his feet out onto the floor in the morning.



My next finish was my daughter Jade's communion stole and this was becoming more urgent as she needs to wear this for her first communion on the 17th of July. I had already done preliminary work on this squaring off the stole fabric which was quite skewed and also cutting out the felt pieces to go on it. I sewed up the stole and pressed it and then using double-sided tape placed the felt pictures and her name on it. Done!

Then to the UFO. Jade wanted to learn to knit so I bought her some chunky velour-like yarn and showed her how to knit. While she was knitting I started working on a wool and possum scarf for myself from yarn I bought in Queenstown, New Zealand in 2007. (Hence another new project started.) I also had a hot pink, brown and gold scarf made in funny, bumpy yarn that I'd nearly finished but which had problems so had been put aside. I'd tried to unravel the end of it and because of the bumpy wool had been unable to. I'd dropped stitches so there were a couple of holes, the stitches were all off the needle and it was a mess. I spent a couple of hours on it trying to find all the dropped stitches and put them back on the needle and to crochet up the holes, etc. Anyway, I did as best I could, cast off and used spare wool to close up the holes and make it look nice. It's so fluffy and bumpy that you can't see that there was any problem anyway.



I have to confess that I didn't work on the Sydney cross-stitch when I was in Sydney but it did travel with me to its home city so I guess that's something.

So where am I now? I want to finish off a couple more projects. The lighthouse rug hooking is pinned and ready for sewing. I'm not using binding on this as it's going to be a wall-hanging. I want to frame the Life is a Journey Daydreams project I finished. I want to work on Jade's flannel quilt and I want to get back into whatever cross-stitch is this week's rotation.

But we have someone new in the family and he is getting a lot of attention. We have a new kitten! He is a silver tabby, about 4 months old and he came from the RSPCA. We got him last Saturday so he's only been with us for 3 days. His name is Nimbus. He is a beautiful kitty, very playful and cuddly and loving. But he needs supervision as he tends to claw the furniture and climb the curtains. This is actually a good week to have him home as the kids are off school and have the time to play with him and watch him. We haven't left him alone in a room with furniture yet because of the clawing. This will get better as he learns and as he gets older.