Back to the Sewing Machine

I spent some quality time with my sewing machine this week.  The Elgin Piecemakers Guild makes comfort quilts for adult chemo patients at our local hospital so each month, we each have to make a block in a certain colour scheme.  I have my first four blocks for 2023 made.  Here they are:

January:  Blue and white.

February: Red, white and blue

March:  Purple, pink and white

April: Blue and purple churn dash. 

I worked on the last three houses for my Coming Home Quilt.  I did not have any light turquoise thread with me at the sewing day this week so I will do the door and window on the magenta house next week. 

I finished my MIL's wall hanging on our way to visit her last week.  She loves it and wanted to hang it up right away!

I finally got around to working on a blue block for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month.  I have two panels of printed pineapple blocks for foundation piecing and decided to use one of them for the RSC each month.  The gray background fabric is a relatively new addition to my stash.  It should look good with all the colours each month.  I have two more ideas in mind for the RSC for a total of three projects this year.  I hope to get my drunkard's path project from last year put together next week.  I already know how I want to quilt it!

Finn just loves this Statue of Liberty ball and was running up and down the hall at my daughter's apartment with it this week.  

Beautiful sunset when we were on our way home one evening this week.  

I will link up with the RSC folks on Saturday morning and the slow Sunday stitchers on Sunday morning. 

Finding my Rotary Cutter

 The condition of my sewing room has deteriorated over the last month or so to the point where I could not find my rotary cutter... it was time for a clean up.  I spent over an hour putting things away, folding fabric, sorting through piles, etc. and still no rotary cutter.  I tried to think of the last time I used it...then, I remembered I used it at a recent guild sewing day---it was in the bag I took to the sewing day.  Oh well, the sewing room is looking much better and I had a new project planned!  I gathered up my supplies and got started. 

My MIL lives in a long term care home. She loves to have her room decorated for each season so I decided to make her a small wall hanging for Valentine's Day.  I got out my red 2.5" squares and some other red scraps as well as some white solid for the background.  It did not take long to get the top together, pin basted and machine quilted. 

I will finish hand sewing the binding and hanging sleeve tomorrow for Slow Sunday Stitching. 

I finished knitting the pink dish cloth this week.  I ran out of yarn before I ran out of pattern, so I just made the top border much narrower than the bottom one.  By the time I wove the ends in, I had one inch of yarn to spare.  If I use this pattern again, I will have to use smaller needles. The resulting cloth is still quite usable, even if it isn't square!

As I mentioned earlier, Christine and I went to the guild sewing day with the Oxford Guild this past week. I brought along my "Coming Home" BOM quilt which I started in January 2019.  This will be my project of choice for upcoming sewing days so I can see if I can get it to the finish line.  I spent the day adding more doors and windows to this house border. Some of my doors and windows are a bit wonky but I don't mind this a bit--it gives my fabric neighbourhood some personality and charm. 

Here is a picture of what I have done so far...I am working on the fourth street which goes on the bottom.  The blue house with the pink doors and windows above is part of the fourth side. 

My husband's sister and her family gave us a mushroom growing kit for Christmas.  It has been interesting watching the mushrooms appear out of this brown blob on our kitchen counter.   We harvested four mushrooms today and added them to the sauce on our spaghetti and meatballs tonight.  Delicious!

Finn is back to running around in the snow and sticking his face in.  We are so glad to see him back to his usual self. 

Here are a few more of the circle pouches I made as Christmas gifts. 

Last week, someone asked me about my book with the Christmas ornament patterns in it.  Here is a picture of the book, published in 1991 by Carol Siegel and the Dimensions Design Studio.  This book includes the Bethlehem and cabin ornaments I showed last week.  The other patterns were from a very old crafting magazine.  

I will link up with Kathy in the morning. 

Slow Appliqué and a Quick Baby Quilt Top

I managed to get one more house completed on my Coming Home quilt this week...this is very slow progress indeed.  I guess that's why they call it slow stitching!  I hope to get the last house on this street outfitted with a door and windows by this time next week. 

I showed these tiny HST's a few weeks ago and this week, finally laid then out on the design wall.  They will be 1" when sewn into the block.  I am not sure what to do in the middle yet.  I'm not in love with the orange HST's.  Maybe I will try to fussy cut something to put there.  I will continue to ponder. 

I belong to a sewing group at church.  We sew items for the church Christmas Bazaar and in the past have made reusable menstruation kits for young women in Africa so that they can attend school.  We have not met in over two years and are slowly getting back to planning for this year's bazaar.  We went through all of the fabric in our stash of donated fabrics last week.  I brought home a couple of pieces of flannel that I thought I could use to make a baby quilt for the bazaar.  I used my Go Cutter to cut out the wedge shapes and the top went together pretty quickly after that.  I have a piece of donated minke for the back and some red fabric for the binding from my own stash.  I will quilt it myself. Here is the finished top. The white fabric has little racing cars on it. I will trim the sides before I quilt it. 

I continue to try to use up my scraps.  This week, I made two more scrappy 36 patch blocks for my rainbow scrap challenge project.  One is gray and the other is brown--these colours are not usually chosen for the challenge but I wanted to include them in my quilt.  I will have to see what colour is chosen for May so I can get working on those blocks this week. 

We celebrated my husband's birthday this week with a hike at Pinery Provincial Park.  His sister came along and Finn enjoyed exploring the trails too. It was a beautiful day.  Leaves are just starting to come out on the bushes. 

 

We saw lots of turtles basking in the sunshine but they were too far away to get a good picture of them.  Finn fell asleep quickly after supper!

I will link up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching crew in the morning. 

Take care and have a good week. 

Lots of Slow Stitching Projects Underway!

 I have been working on several slow Sunday stitching projects this week.  I added more windows and doors to the houses in the Coming Home quilt...I still have a few more to stitch down and one complete "street" to cut out and sew.  Some of my houses have extra "personality" with slightly slanted doors and windows...

I put the pompom on my new hat earlier today so it is all ready to wear.  There are still a few days here and there when I will need a hat for my morning walk.  The pattern picture showed the hat with no "turn up" at the bottom edge.  It looks better this way on me. 

I finished quilting my black and white checkerboard quilt and added some black and white striped binding by machine earlier today.  I hope to do some hand stitching on the binding tomorrow...I really enjoy doing this, although some don't. You can see that my assistant is always ready for a photo op. 

I did a bit of embroidery last week but did not blog about it.  I will add more stitches this week, I hope. 

You probably noticed that Finn had a haircut this week...

Before and After:

One final picture of Finn because he's so cute. 

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitching crew in the morning. 

Camp Kintail Crafter's Retreat Report

My friend Christine and I attended the Spring Crafter's Retreat at Camp Kintail this past weekend.  Since last week was extremely busy, I did not have anything to blog about before I left on Friday, but now, I have lots to share! We drove through some snow squalls on the way to the camp on Friday but the roads were fine.  We managed to get some walking in while we were there, in between meals and sewing.  I always get lots done at a retreat--no meals to prepare, no dishes to do...just sew, sew and sew!

 I started out with a couple of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks for April--the colour for this month is pink. 

Of course, we brought our own quilts for the beds in our room.  Christine's Roll Roll Cotton Boll:

My Friendship star quilt, made by some quilting friends for me when my Dad died 4 years ago. 

After breakfast on Saturday, I pulled out my big project for the weekend.  In 2019, I participated in the Coming Home medallion quilt along  online class with Sarah Fielke in Australia.  I managed to keep up for the first 6 months and then life got in the way. I got back at it a year later and made the large house border, and then put it away again.  I decided to bring this quilt along for the weekend to see if I could gain some momentum to get it closer to the finish line. I spent Saturday and Sunday cutting out, glue basting and hand appliquéing doors and windows on the houses.  I finished 2 1/2  "Streets" and now I'm motivated to keep working on this project. Here are some pictures:

I have the next 4 houses glue basted and ready to sew. I hope to work on them later today. Christine made a cloth book for her grand-daughter (I didn't get a picture) and made blocks for a new quilt.  I love the bright and cheerful fabrics she chose to use. She started another project as well.  Both of us are trying to use our stashes rather than purchase more fabrics (except for backings and backgrounds).  

We woke up on Sunday morning to snow falling.  Everything was white. By lunch time, it had melted, thankfully.  The roads were fine for the trip home. 

What a fun and productive weekend!!!  I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers as well as the Rainbow Scrap Challenge folks this weekend. 

Finn is 4 years old today!  Our daughter bought him two honky pigs for his birthday...He is having lots of fun playing with them!  Happy Birthday, Finn!