Gift Quilt Reveal, Cross Stitch and Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving!  Our daughter and Finn are here for the weekend and we had a turkey dinner with my husband's family today. I put out my pumpkin decorations this week.  I even raked some leaves--it really feels like fall now with cooler temperatures and the trees changing colour. 

I'm adding another tree to the Forest cross stitch picture.  It looks a bit odd now but will look better when it is all filled in. 

Finn came with us to the farmer's market this morning and I managed to get him to pose in front of the pumpkins, but only very briefly!

We can see his eyes now that he has had a haircut. 

I have completed the 12 placemats that I am donating to Meals on Wheels.  Here are the fronts--you can see I made some matching sets which might go to a couple. The second picture shows the backing fabrics. 

Here are the two that I finished this past week. 

These two pictures were taken when my husband and I went for a walk in the park one morning this past week. 

The program committee at the Oxford Quilter's Guild has started a colour challenge.  Everyone has been encouraged to pick a block and then make it in a different prescribed colour each month.  The green block was for September and the orange one for October.  I am keeping this project very simple as I have a lot of other projects that I want to move along to the finish line this fall as well as a new quilt I want to start. 

My daughter has joined another crochet along and made one of the corners this week to check her gauge.  

Back at the beginning of the Summer, I mentioned I was working on a secret project.  I made this potato chip quilt using shirt fabric for my cousin.  He received the quilt in September and sent me a picture of him with the quilt this week.  He really likes it and was very surprised to receive it. He has already used his quilt several times--this makes me happy. 

 

One of the things I really wanted to do on our recent vacation was a trip on the Agawa Canyon train out of Sault Ste Marie.  We bought our tickets months ahead of time and although it was a cloudy day, thoroughly enjoyed our day--lots of fall colour and three waterfalls at the Canyon to see when the train stopped. If you have never taken this trip, I highly recommend it!  We were there the last week of September and the colours were at their peak. 

I will be adding more stitches to my cross stitch project for Slow Sunday Stitching with Kathy.  I will also link up with Frederique. 

More Trees and Placemats

More stitches were added to my Fall Forest cross stitch project this week. I like the transparency effect where the trees overlap. This picture is coming along quickly--luckily, I bought two Autumn themed patterns at the same time so I have something else to work on when this is done. 

My goal is to make 12 placemats for Meals on Wheels and I now have 10 finished.  The last two are quilted and just need to have the binding sewn on.   These two placemats are the same, top and bottom.  I like to make them so they can be used year round by just turning them over to see the opposite season. 

I hope a cat lover receives this placemat!

My butterfly weed seed pods are bursting open and spreading their seeds around.  

It's still quite warm here in Ontario and Finn has been outside enjoying the sunshine. He is getting his hair cut this week--we can't see his eyes at the moment. 

Here are a few more pictures from our recent trip north of Lake Superior and in Manitoba. The first one was taken in Riding Mountain National Park where we saw lots of birch trees on our hikes. 

We stayed at a cabin near the park and had three visitors one morning. 

In Winnipeg, we spent most of a day at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights.  Thought provoking displays in an interesting building. 

We toured the provincial legislature building.  There was a statue of the Famous Five on the grounds--These women were suffragettes who fought for women's rights in the 1920's. 

In Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park, we wandered through the gardens, including the sculpture garden where we saw these loggers. 

At Eagle Canyon (north of Lake Superior in Ontario), we hiked up to two suspension bridges, crossing both to see spectacular views of the canyon.  This nuthatch landed on the bridge just ahead of me and stayed long enough for me to take its picture. 

I will add a few more pictures to next week's post too.  

I will link up with Kathy and Frederique, as usual. 

Quilt Blocks Made and some Slow Stitching

Last weekend, I showed you some fabrics I purchased when we were in Phoenix, Arizona in the fall.  I had pulled out some co-ordinating solids to go with them.  This week, at the guild sewing day, I started to make some blocks. 

I am making four of each block.  Each quadrant of the quilt will be a mirror image of the quadrant beside and below/above it.  I am using one solid and one print in each block.  The blocks are 6.5" square.  Here are the blocks I made early in the week, in a possible layout.  I was trying to show the others at the sewing day what I was trying to do. 

Later in the week, I sewed with a friend and made the rest of the blocks.  We played around with the blocks on the design floor to see if we could come up with something interesting.   This is the tentative layout, although, I may reorient some of the blocks before sewing it together.  I will quilt this one myself and will hang it somewhere in our house as a reminder of our wonderful vacation. 

 

I'm still stitching the borders of the final quadrant of my winter cross stitch project. You can see I am very close to finishing them!  Then, on to the colourful parts!

My friend had an interesting way of storing her rulers...she bought this shelf at Ikea.  Hmmm.  I might need to try this in my sewing room. 

My husband and I went hiking at a local conservation area with the hiking club this week.  The snow looked pretty on the pile of next summer's campfire wood.  We had never been to this conservation area before, even though it is not far from where we live.  We will be going back to hike there again. 

I really should be quilting some of the quilt tops that I have finished already but here I am, gathering fabrics for another quilt...  I decided to try some lighter colours this time.  I'm not exactly sure what this will be yet...stay tuned.  

It's always funny to catch a picture of Finn with his tongue out. I can't touch the tip of my nose with my tongue, but Finn can.  

Finn decided he needed a snuggle while my daughter worked one day this week.  

Speaking of my daughter, she has finished three more books this week so her collection of granny squares for the book blanket is growing.  

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning and with Frederique now. 

Moving Right Along

This has been a productive week in the sewing department!  I finished quilting the potato chip quilt I made for the local hospice.  I used the cut offs from the backing to make the binding, remembering after I had machine stitched it to the front of the quilt that it needed to be machine stitched down, not hand stitched as I usually do.  Oops! This is because the quilts for the hospice will be washed and dried by machine often and the binding will stay on better if machine stitched.  I did not want to un-sew all of the binding so I just machine top-stitched it from the back. It's not perfect on the front but it will stay on when it is washed.  I'm very happy with how this quilt turned out!   

Here is the back.  You can see my straight line quilting easier on the back. There is lots of quilting to keep it together over many cycles in the washer and dryer. 

I pin basted a gift quilt this week and it will be next up for walking foot quilting.  I will show pictures of it once it has been gifted. 

I finished off two more placemats for Meals on Wheels.  I have two more to make to reach my self-imposed goal of 12. 

Lots of cross stitching done this week--I am well on my way to finishing the second quadrant of my winter/Christmas piece.  The pattern is called "Winter Woods" from Satsuma Street.

My daughter has become addicted to crochet and has started another project.  This is a Christmas crochet-along blanket.  Finn is modelling the centre square which will be a gingerbread house.  It is about 1/2 done.  Finn thinks the balls of wool made a nice pillow for his bum. 

This sleeping position is very comfortable but resulted in a serious case of bed face. 

The fall colours are peaking here.  This is the Worplesdon Sweetgum tree in our backyard. 

This picture was taken at the park while I was on my morning walk earlier in the week. 

 Here are a few more photos from our recent SW USA adventure.  We took a two hour boat tour on Lake Powell at 8am.  Turned out to be just us and the guide as no one else wanted to get up that early!  Beautiful day and not too hot at that hour in the morning. The guide was very knowledgeable and told us the history of the Glen Canyon Dam that was built to form the reservoir.  The first picture was taken from the Glen Canyon Museum and the second from a lookout above the lake. The rest are from the boat tour. 

The level of the lake fluctuates depending on how much snow falls in the mountains at the source of the Colorado River. You can clearly see how high the water was at one time in the next picture.  

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning.  I will link up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge folks and Frederique today.   Have a great week!