Irons in the Fire

I'm starting on a new set of projects.  And, goodness, I'm starting two of them at once (and have a third on the drawing board).  What am I getting myself into?

My last cross stitch was in 2001.  I haven't been motivated to start another epic project, but I stumbled across a kit that was up for grabs at our last Tea.  It was cute, looked fairly simple and no one else took it, so I brought it home.

I'm looking forward to working on it.  It will make sitting in front of the TV at least a little productive.

It was a rough start, though.  I had to fight to get it in the frame!  The fabric was too wide to fit my normal dowels and the longer dowels were every so slightly fatter than my other set.  I struggled to get them into the frames without splitting the wood.  Twenty minutes and two splinters later I finally got it set up to go.  Whew!

Night Jewels

Along with that, I am starting the twin sized quilt I've been meaning to do for at least five years for my spare bed.  I bought the batting for it years ago, which has been sitting patiently in the bottom of my sewing dresser.  I found this pattern online nearly three years ago, called Night Jewels.  I didn't have the instructions attached to it, so it's taken a while to work out the block and get up the gumption to tackle the project.  Each block has 21 pieces, all with a variety of shapes and angles.  And I love the effect of the overall pattern.  Well see how much I love it when I'm halfway into piecing the thing.

Of course, I'll be modifying it.  The final size is smaller than what I need for the twin bed.  So now I'm debating whether to resize the blocks to be larger (which is less piecing, but not quite the right shape), or to add additional rows and columns (which will give it a bit more blue in the corners and make it a bit more stretched out from top to bottom).