WiP Wednesday: Changin' It Up

 This week has presented so many challenges in the way of craftiness.  I tried a few new things and failed at some of them while I exceeded my expectations at others.  I am about ready to throw in the towel on one project as it ignites my fury every time I work on it.  Thus, I decided to change it up.  I worked on many different things this week as you will see from the post.

I crocheted this octopus for my mother.  Isn't it awesome!  I love the little button eyes!  I found the free pattern here.  It was mostly easy although I didn't understand why she was having us do the legs the way she did and I changed it up not disconnecting the yarn as I was told.

So my mom has a tree that she keeps up in her house all year and changes the decor for the season/month.  For her birthday she asked me to crochet things to go on this tree.  I had a blast trying out all these new patterns and I was amazed how easily they came to me.  I'm sure getting to be an expert!  All of these patterns were free and the links are here... fish, octopus, starfish, butterfly, and swimsuits.

As part of the Mario Brother QAL I'm making a Luigi block.  I decided to use Quilter's Grid and I was pretty excited about how easy it was going together.  Of all the squares I ironed on to it only four needed to be pinned.  These two only fell off after I caught them with my fingernail and pulled accidentally.

Here it is after I sewed all the vertical lines.  I was in love.  It was so fast and easy and all of my lines were really straight.  It was at this point that I emailed a lot of people my opinions on the quilter's grid and its use in this quilt.  Little did I know that will all change...

Here's the final Luigi block.  Now the picture really doesn't do justice to how horrible it is in real life.  The whole block is 1.5" too small.  The seams are HORRIBLY wavy and the 1" squares are more like rectangles.  This stuff was impossible to sew the other direction.  It was so slippery and kept shifting all over the place.  My seams kept getting horribly off and the "lines" somehow completely disappeared when I needed them even though they were very difficult to see in the first place now they are non-existent.  I'm ready to quit the whole Quilt Along and just throw in the towel!  I know I can sew a straight line!  I have made 38 quilts in my 29 years of life and I'm pretty confident in my abilities but this is just the biggest source of my stress right now.  Should I give up?  Should I just cut the squares down to size and forget the original plan?  Should I take a break and come back to it later?  Should I keep going but work at my own pace and not try to keep up with everyone else?  I just don't know.  The problem is this is a quilt for my little man and he's so excited about it but I'm so frustrated!  Advice or help please!

Now for the progress on my Tetris QAL.  LOVE!!  Seriously I worked on this after the Luigi debacle and it totally restored my faith in my sewing ability.  The seams lined up like a dream and it was so fast and easy!  To see this week's full post click here.

I've also been doing a bit of scrapbooking.  I miss this!  I've been so busy quilting that I haven't taken much time for my other crafty loves lately and I think I should.  I made five two-page layouts from pictures back in 2010.  I feel horribly behind but a lot of people say two years isn't that bad in the scrapbooking world.

Here's more crocheted hats for NICU babies.  I've been having so much fun with this!  They are so cute and fast and easy.  Plus, they make me feel good that my craftiness is going to a good cause.  The tan ones on the top need edging and accents but the bottom ones are all finished.

I'm linking up all this hard work to the WiP Wednesday Posts at Freshly Pieced and Ambassador Crochet.