Think Small!

April is almost over and today I'm checking in with my goal for the month: finishing at least six projects from the pile of small projects (most of them cross-stitch) laying around my sewing room.

I started off by making a set of mug rugs for a wedding shower present.  The registry had a number of tea-themed items on it, so some tea from a local store and a hand-made set of mug rugs tied everything together and made a nice gift!

The squares are leftovers from my postage stamp quilt (finished photos and a blog post are on my to-do list).  Both the bride and groom love cats, so the backs are the last scraps of this cat-themed fabric.

Next, I moved on to my small cross-stitch projects.  I did about one of these a week over the course of the month.  The hardest part of finishing them was picking fabrics to compliment the designs!  I've tried finishing projects in hoops before, but I just prefer the look of them in mini quilts.

  The pictures go in the order I finished them:

• Winter Wolf: The black and gray color scheme pretty much demands a black frame.  I love how spooky this black scrap looks.
• Lighthouse: I love lighthouses and I was terrified that I would ruin this by finishing it.  I used orange corners to compliment the sunset and a bright blue frame that matched the hulls of the ships.
• All is Bright: The bright corners match the four colors of Christmas lights surrounding the words and the snowflakes are just Christmasy.  The paper Santa prop was made by me in the fourth grade!
• Safari Friends: If you look closely at the picture in the goal-making post, you'll see that I was still stitching this when I made that post, meaning was a very quick stitched-to-finished transformation.  The cheetah print in the corners came with the kit, and the black fabric is a brand-new addition to my stash that I couldn't resist using right away.

The final cross-stitch project is called "Climb Every Mountain" and I really wanted to do a lighter colored frame around it.  But when I put the green on, it just looked incomplete so I decided to double-mat it and added the brown.

This picture cracks me up because I was actively trying to make all my projects look different and it highlights how similar my fabric choices ended up being.  I just like a dark frame!  I brown-bag finish everything because it's faster and less finicky than making tiny bindings.

All five of these cross-stitch projects were kits from the Caterpillar Club Box.  I really enjoy this subscription because a different designer designs the pattern each month.

Once they were all finished, I swapped out the four pieces hanging on my Chistmas-card wire for the five new ones all at the same time.  It's nice to have some new decor!  Yes, that's my postage stamp quilt that I still need a final picture of on the couch below.

Finally, a bonus seventh project that didn't quite get finished in time for this blog post.  It's a mini quilt made from a Rainbow Blossom orphan block.  I intended to use it as the quilt label, but in the end I didn't piece anything into the back.

I'm linking up my successful finish at Elm Street Quilts and Stories from the Sewing Room.