2012: A Year of Challenges - week 5

I thought I was clearing the decks of WIPS this week --- I had completed every challenge item waiting on my work table except "Beach Mat Frame" from Stash Buster's Club and "Sewing with Mama!" when Tuesday rolled around and more challenges came in the door!

So I am behind again: there's a new Stash Busters Club piece (I've kitted it out); a new Bargello Club piece (I'm waiting for the canvas to arrive in the mail); a new Color Palette/Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal Project Challenge (I've pulled the fabric, beads, threads and embellishments and gridded out the foundation) and "Kimono-revisited" is officially started (although I haven't! I still need to search my stash for my stretcher frame and am waiting delivery of some metallics to do the outlining).

I did get the fifth week of Take A Stitch Tuesday 2012 done, which also means page one of my "stitch book" is ready to go as well, and found more fabric so I can start page two next Tuesday.

Limited progress on "Beach Mat Frame". It's a slow mover because it's just not interesting to stitch row after row of satin stitch! Oh well, it's finish is in sight:

And I did get a Finishing Frenzy piece done --- I "finished" the curtain tie backs I embroidered on linen bands back in 2009. I lined them with white felt (if I decide later that I want a fabric backing on them, I can do that, but lining was imperative since the linen was pretty much "see through"), attached some rings to each end and:



Pull the small ring through the large ring and you get this:


Replace the current white cotton tie backs, which have a nasty habit of sliding down and untying themselves:


with this:


These were stitched to match my spring/summer quilt so now I need to look into something that goes with my winter quilt.  I have enough banding (one dark green and one white edged with dark green)  and two possible patterns in mind... but that is some time in the future. I have enough on my plate right now!