Eight-pointed strippy stars

I finally got all of my eight-pointed stars for Eldon sewn together, and here they all are on my design wall.

I had only made up one set of log cabin blocks (which is what I'll be working on next for this quilt) before I finished the last of the stars, and here I've just laid them up on the design wall around one of the stars I finished sewing up today. I was afraid before that the dark logs might be too dark/bright, but I really like them around this block! Lots of 1 inch strips to be sewn in the future! :)

With the month only half-gone and a few staycation days in my future, things are really looking bright for all of this month's goals to be accomplished on time. I may actually get to work on some other projects as well before the end of the month. Woohoo! :)

Oh, and I managed to talk my new eye doc into letting me get a prescription of just-for-stitching glasses that have an additional +1 magnification. Got them Thursday, and they are perfect! Keeps me from having to try to work around a magnifier or use an additional set of +1 cheaters on top of my regular reading glasses.

Enchanter progress

I really do want to make sure that I stitch on every one of my cross stitch WIPs by the end of 2013. I am counting all of the ones I have already stitched on this year, so I'm not starting from scratch. Here is the first of "the rest" of them, Teresa Wentzler's Enchanter. I'll include a before and an after picture, because I think I made quite a good bit of progress (considering how many fractionals, blended threads, and different colors are used).

Before


After

So far, my verdict on this one - I still love it and want to finish it one day. The colors are amazing.

Fall Frolic, block I

Here is my Fall Frolic block of the month for June, completed, plus the final 3 of block M for this quilt, so I only have 3 more months of appliqué blocks to receive and stitch. I also began working on my half-square triangles that will be used to set the blocks together. Each one pictured represents two so I have 20 done so far out of nearly 200 to do. Next month, since I have no more of block M, I may ratchet it up to get more of those stitched together in time to put the quilt top together at the end.

This is going to be such a warm and fuzzy quilt, and it's definitely mine, all mine! :)

A little sewing finish

I stitched this little "Happy Hostess Gift Box" up over the weekend. Used my little 40% off coupon at Joann's to get some Pellon fusible interfacing, picked a couple of scraps off my cutting table, and voilà, nice little happy dance!

The pattern is from the Sew Mama Sew! blog, and I will probably make a few more of these when I'm finished with my goals for the month.

Of course, I'm using mine as a little ort box - it's a decent size (4 inches square), and the heavy interfacing helps it stand up.

White-on-white can be a little hard to see

I've made a little more progress on Aurora, but it's a little hard to see some of it, because it's white on white. First, the whole design so far, then a closeup of the area I've worked on the past couple of days.

I am working on Teresa Wentzler's Enchanter now, and am really hoping to touch every one of my cross stitch WIPs by the end of the year.