WIP Wednesday: Guest hosted by Jenelle of Echinops & Aster

I have two true statements for you: It's Wednesday, and that means it's time to link up those projects you've been working on this past week. I am also in fact not Lee. She has faithfully entrusted to me the keeping of WIP Wednesday this week (oh man!) and I am hoping to not make her regret it do a fantastic job. ; ) Who is this "me," you might be wondering? Well, let me introduce myself! I'm Jenelle and I blog over at Echinops & Aster. I'm a sewist and quilter with a hand-stitcher's heart and a modern aesthetic. I design embroidery patterns, love hiking, am a bit of a plant geek, and live in the Emerald City (aka Seattle) with my husband and our little siamese/ tabby, Cleo.

Fun fact: if you took a peek at the list of labels most used in my blog posts, WIP Wednesday is the winner by far. I've been linking up with Lee almost since the beginning of this party (definitely since the beginning of my blogging career) and boy has it kept me on track! I'll be needing this linky more than ever this year as I've dedicated myself to really finishing my WIPs and to becoming generally a better finisher than starter.

One of the projects that I've recently picked up again after a long hiatus is my Hope Valley Swoon quilt. This past month I tackled four more blocks to bring my grand total up to five finished. Last week I really hit the ground running and finished both the blue and black ones. Now that I've gotten back into the groove with this project, I hope to get the remaining four blocks wrapped up soon so that I can try a QAYG technique on this one.

I also began a new project this week that I am totally excited about finally getting to share! I've been planning a stitch-along project for over a month now behind the scenes, and with the release of Honey Honey by Kate Spain, I can finally get started on my sample project and the tutorials.

I designed this large throw pillow project to be a great way to practice a bunch of hand-stitching techniques like EEP, needle-turn applique, hand-quilting, and embroidery. It has little bite-sized components of each technique which makes it less daunting in my opinion to get started learning a new skill. I just began the EEP portion over the weekend and was stitching and photographing the tutorial steps in between the plays of the Super Bowl. Here's my progress so far:

I'm going to be moving along on this project quickly to share finished photos ASAP, but in the meantime I'll be kicking off the planning stages of the stitch-along this week by posting materials lists, the tutorial schedule, and the list of prize sponsors that are going to be making this event extra fun. Please feel free to stop by my blog and follow along if you might be interested in joining me in making this great sampler project!

Finally this past week I also had the chance to crochet a couple more fusion charms while traveling to Portland on the train. I'm happy to see the growing stack, as this blanket is going to require quite a few squares to make it lap-sized. I'm also toying with the idea of throwing some granny squares into the mix to add some variety and to stretch the spacing of the fabric charms a little bit to get a slightly bigger blanket. It might be time to buy some more yarn. :)

Thanks for linking up and for helping me to do a great job guest hosting. And special thanks to Lee too for allowing me to jump in as host! I can't wait to see what you've been working on.

So what are you working on this week? Whatever you're sewing, link it up here! Just remember the rules:

1. Link up any post from the past week that features at least one unfinished work-in-progress (WIP).

2. Somewhere in your post, you must link back here to my blog. (Or grab my WIP Wednesday button for your sidebar.)

3. Comment on at least a few of the other WIP Wednesday links. Because what fun is a linky party without comments?

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NOTE FROM LEE: There were some problems with the linky earlier, but they should be resolved now. Let me know if you still have any problems linking up. And please note that I am now using InLinkz's paging widget, so you may have to scroll through several pages of links to see yours (the newest links appear at the end, on the last page). Thank you for your patience!