A delicious dilemma

Block 5 is  was coming along nicely, but on Monday I had the chance to visit Bendigo Woollen Mills, and bought an assortment of purple-ish wools for a new cardigan. Five colours, perfect for a six row rolling repeat. This cardie will be worked side-to-side, starting at the centre back.

Spent most of Tuesday setting it up, and was pleased with it, until I discovered that I had some more purple wool stashed away.

Four 50g balls of lovely, deep, dark purple. What to do?
I could use it for bands on the cardie,but it's rather loosely spun, and probably not durable enough.
Add it to the mix? Substitute it for one of the other colours?

This is how it looks with the new colour added in - not sure if I like it?

Oh, and yesterday I just happened to be in our new local wool shop, and I just happened to fall in love with

this ball of Noro sock yarn, which will make a gorgeous shawlette, methinks...

Block 5 is calling me, and as soon as I get these crochet projects set up for car trips/TV watching/coffee outings, I WILL get back to it!

block 4

Finished the fourth block today -

 The chookies in the middle don't show as well as I'd like, but there are some good patches

Don't you love the ants? and the flowers above are based on an Indian embroidery I saw online

The dragonfly turned out well, and the ribbon flowers also (those leaves are painted Vilene)

and the nest is exactly how I'd imagined it - pretty cool, eh?

The next block is waiting  - I have lots of ideas for it!

Block 3

Block 3 is finished, and I'm pretty happy with it -

It's well balanced, I think, the bird turned out well, and there are a couple of nice details. The mauve daisies on the left were hand-painted, my first attempt at shading. (If you look back at the un-adorned block, you'll see that I have replaced the centre patch with a more subdued purple.)

a bunch of cherries and some pretty paisleys

a sweet little mouse, and a very "sixties" daisy.

It's easy to create a "pretty" block, with lots of flowers and butterflies and scrolly bits, but more challenging to work in some pictorial motifs, like the cherries and the mouse. I think it will make a more interesting quilt though.

and here's the next block, all ready for embellishment -

Should be done in a couple of weeks - at this rate, I calculate the quilt will be finished sometime in August...