Working towards another finish

 

 

This is my project for the week.

 

I have no idea what the actual name of the kit is called, I know I bought it when I had just gotten back into stitching. It's been kicking around my house since 1999, maybe 2000 at the latest.  I thought it would be lovely to wrap one of the babies I thought I would have with my then-boyfriend in, but obviously we didn't have kids together. I finished the stitching years ago, but didn't know how to finish it without a sewing machine at first, and then it was a pretty intimidating project to attempt to finish. I am not good at tying knots, and the idea of tying the knots all around the aghan was distasteful. So, it got put away and forgotten about.

 

In the meantime, I did two afghans: Santa's Journey, from an old issue of the UK Cross Stitcher, and this cat afghan from the American Cross Stitcher. I had done a freebie tabletopper from Dutch Treat Designs that used nun-stitching to edge the finish as well and I liked it. It seemed like a more pleasing option to finish. So to find out you could edge an afghan!  But it's not a quick technique, so I still didn't use it.  I probably wouldn't have used it on the other two except they were fair entries.  So it stayed in the drawer.

 

When I found out I was pregnant, I remembered it was there, and what I wanted to do with it, so it came home, where it spent the summer by my couch . . . Do you see where I am going with this? 

 

Anyway, now that we may be starting to get closer to the end of our NICU stay, I really want to get this done to cover Lolo when he comes home. I started working on the edging a while ago, but I miscounted threads, so all that came out and I restarted it. So far it seems to be moving along. There are 24 block-lengths to do, I have 9 completed. I should have it done by mid week, then I will have this washed and ready to go when we need it. I am not planning on backing this one. I find putting the batting in makes it stiff, and I can't find a flannel I like, nor do I have time to put it on correctly. This project is far from perfect, but it's intended to be used. It was stitched with love and hope, so it needs to be useful.

 

I have found out that this is not one of the more commonly-known stitches, so I have included a diagram tutorial on how to do it. One of the tips I picked up through the year is to take the threads that are going to be pulled off the sides to do the stitch--it matches the afghan, you're using threads that would be thrown away, AND it costs nothing extra. I like the look of it. Just don't pull them from close to where you're stitching til you are done that side.

 

So that is all that is going on here. I hope everyone is having an enjoyable stitching week.