Stitching the model for Extravorganza 2 I was trying to work out the best route for the woven bars; I was halfway through the first quarter when I realised I’d actually made it far more complicated than was necessary! So the route was changed and is now much easier to work, with lots of places where you can conveniently fasten on and off. This is why I stitch everything before putting it up on Mabel’s Fancies!

And this wasn’t the only change I made because of stitching the models. Originally all four Extravorganza designs had wrapped bars and spider’s webs. Then I stitched the two smaller ones and found that I had to take the needle through the wrapped bars for the necessary travel from one corner of a spider’s web to the other, not impossible but very fiddly and not something I would lightly impose on anyone but myself. OK, move the spider’s webs so we can make use of nearby Kloster blocks for any thread-travelling. Then realised I couldn’t – or at least didn’t want to – move the spider’s webs in the two larger ones as I liked the arrangement I had. So change to woven bars and square filets for those two. As it happens I could have used wrapped bars with square filets (as it is possible to work it so that there is no travelling through bars) or woven bars with spider’s webs (as you can travel fairly easily through the back of woven bars) but I’ve now completed Extravorganza 2 with the woven bar/square filet combo so that’s what it’s going to be .

And here is a little preview of what that looks like; I’m away on a family visit until next week, but after that I hope to complete Extravorganza 1 fairly quickly and make the design available on the website.

On a separate note, here I am with a perfectly good excuse for buying stash (see my previous post) and I still haven’t made use of it! There are several threads in my Sew & So basket but I haven’t hit Buy yet. Why not? I’m not absolutely sure; it may be the struggle between “I can’t possibly buy just two skeins, what a waste of postage” and “I don’t really need any threads or materials other than these”. With a bit of luck I’ll make up my mind before they discontinue Threadworx as well…