Final cushion finished

I finally got round to finishing the "Trip Around the World" patchwork cushion which has been waiting since January ... this is the seventh - and last, as I don't have more of these fabrics left. It's also slightly bigger than the first ones - but the fabrics all match.

I've also made another block for my sampler quilt - I now have five done. This was the "Maple Leaf" pattern - hand pieced then machine quilted.

Two complete

Two items finished off this week - one is a lap blanket (which will eventually be a SIBOL gift) - made with the yarn left over from the jacket I finished recently. On the photo it looks like there's a dirty mark on it - a strange trick of the light! The centre is a square from a pattern found on Ravelry (Sweet and Fair Afghan Square), then I just kept adding rounds of (UK) trebles until the yarn ran out! Fortunately this made it about the right size for a lap blanket.

The other piece is the baby blanket which I was making as a practice piece using different stitches of Tunisian crochet. The last time I mentioned it on here was because I couldn't find it! This was because I was looking in London and had actually left it at my French house. As with the lap blanket, I was using up leftover yarn and again ended up with a practical sized blanket when the yarn ran out! A border of white yarn made a neat job of the edges.

I bought a couple of children's playmats - the foam jigsaw ones - to use for blocking the pieces.

My French stitchery group has a one-day workshop next week - we'll each be making a quilted tote bag - so I've started work on that - quilting a couple of pieces ahead of the day. I went shopping with one of the other group members to buy fabric for her bag - and ended up adding three pieces to my stash too.

My sampler quilt progressed to the stage where I now have four blocks complete - but I need at least twelve even to make a quilt for one of the bunk beds - so that won't be done in a hurry. I'm trying to do a bit of work each day on the hand quilting of the group quilt too - and still have a cushion to finish - patchwork done in January, backing added and cushion pad bought a bit later - now needs zip and piping to complete.

Best-laid schemes

Less than a month into the New Year and I've already started several new projects despite the good intention to clear up the old ones. There's a good excuse for at least two of them - I always have a good excuse! Two days ago friends became parents for the first time - so something has to be made for the baby; yesterday I joined a crafting group at a local church - and couldn't join in without agreeing to take part in their current project. So, I'm crocheting a baby blanket and also having a go at appliqué using fusible interfacing. The baby blanket is straightforward - I've made the same design before, for another friend's first child. The appliqué is something I've never done before. So far the fabrics are all fused together but now the embroidery needs to be done - I'll leave that until the group meets again next Thursday.

I have finished something off this week - but it wasn't a UFO - it's a child's jumper which I only started last weekend. I knitted it as a favour to someone who asked on impossible.com for test knitters for her new pattern. I've completed it and sent her my comments - but not yet had her reaction back. Here it is - I really need to find a 4 year old to try it on for a better photo!

Meanwhile I've also begun work on something which I didn't list as a "UFO" as all I had done previously was buy the fabric - it's to make a box cushion to sit on the blanket chest in our bedroom. This evening I've made a cotton cover for the foam pad, and now need to get going on the cushion cover itself.

Also this week I used up all the leftover fabrics from my patchwork cushion covers to make a final one using the "Tour Around the World" design. The patchwork is done but I won't be able to complete the cushion cover until I go back to France next month. I'm quite pleased that I managed to stitch the 1" squares together neatly. Unfortunately it will always be an odd cushion as I've now used all these fabrics up; the other cushions in these fabrics are in pairs - two each of three designs.

A round cushion

Some time ago, we were visiting friends and I admired a crocheted cushion on their sofa. Our friend had made it herself many years ago - so long ago that she could no longer remember how it was constructed. I searched Ravelry for something similar and came up with one described as a "pinwheel pillow" - it wasn't the same design as my friend's, but a similar idea was used, so I determined to have a go at it... got the crochet work done, then bought a secondhand round cushion to use as stuffing... and then forgot it for a while. Today I have finally got around to making a new inner (from the stuffing of the secondhand one and using some leftover curtain lining fabric) and adding a couple of buttons from my stash - so another UFO becomes a FO:

Three in one day!

Today's been a great "finishing" day... three items off my UFO list. Firstly, I completed the sixth of my set of patchwork cushions. I'd made five some time ago, then realised there were enough fabric strips left to make another; the patchwork had been done but not the making up. However, I'd forgotten the order in which they were put together so had to search out again the website from which I'd learned the techniques of piping and inserting a hidden zip.

The crochet beret started on my last journey has also been completed:

Finally, the odd square of patchwork which I'd put together from scraps and was using as a practice quilting piece has been quilted and bound to make a table mat:

Nothing else in my UFO collection will be quite so quick to finish off as these have been!