This Week's Projects

The neighbourhood is expanding!  I have 20 houses made now and lots of fabric set aside for more of them.  This will be an ongoing project for a few weeks.  

I also made the June and July blocks for the London Modern Quilt Guild HST block of the month mystery quilt.  There was one block for June and two for July so now I am all caught up until the next block pattern comes out in August.  Each month, we learn how to make HST's in a different way for our block that month. 

I started another knitted facecloth this week...this time with a green variegated yarn.  I did some knitting in the gazebo this afternoon, even though it was hot outside. 

I finished the hexagon lap quilt this week.  My cousin was going to visit her Dad and step-Mother this week and so suddenly, I had a deadline!  In two days, I had it pin basted, quilted and bound. My cousin came and picked it up from my porch and delivered it on Canada Day. They loved their quilt and were very surprised!  I made 4 quilts these past few months for 4 sets of aunts and uncles...the two farm quilts, the blue and gray quilt, and the hexagon quilt. Everyone has their quilts now.  

I quilted this one with red thread in straight lines. 

The front...

And the back, made with leftovers from the front and other black fabrics from my stash. 

These scrappy trips blocks are sewn together now (but not in the picture above!) and I have purchased fabric for borders and the backing.  It is being washed and I will try to get this one ready for quilting next. I have not decided if I will try to quilt this one myself or hire a long armer.   This quilt will be donated to the hospice. 

My husband and I went for a short hike earlier this week and met a couple of new, slow moving, "friends"... a turtle, and snail!

It's amazing what you see when you look down and around as you walk along. 

The flowers in our garden are doing well, thanks to being watered with the hose...we have not had much rain lately. 

Butterfly weed:

Coreopsis:

The Astilbe is about to pop open. 

My daughter finished her cityscape this week...How many of you guessed that this was Chicago?

I will be linking up with Kathy and the other slow stitchers tomorrow.  I hope to do some more knitting tomorrow.  Take care and have a good week. Be kind and wear your mask when near other people. 

Binding, Quilting, and Two New Quilts Started

Since I have finished 4 quilts in the last few weeks, I thought I could give myself permission to start a couple of new projects.  (Even though I still have lots of UFO's that I should be working on!). These house blocks are a free pattern from Cluck Cluck Sew.  I have a half yard of the lighter fabric and have pulled lots of fabrics in the colours found in that fabric to make houses and backgrounds.  I will use all of the fabrics as both houses and backgrounds.  I plan to add some words to this quilt...stay tuned. I have made two blocks so far--I will need 72 for a lap sized quilt.

I have had a red, black and white jelly roll in my stash for years and decided to make a quilt using it and some Essex Linen that is in my stash to make a hexagon quilt. Here is the first block, not sewn together yet.

My friend, Christine, and I are making a quilt for families affected by the shooting in Nova Scotia a few weeks ago.  We each made 14 blocks and then Christine sewed them together.  She handed the flimsy off to me along with some backing fabric and I did the organic wavy line quilting.

I finished the quilting last night and today, gave her the quilt and some potential binding fabric.  She hopes to finish the binding this weekend and then we will mail the quilt to the Maritime Modern Guild early next week for distribution to the families.

I hope the recipient feels the love that we put into every stitch.  The heart block pattern is from Jaybird Quilts. 

Here is the backing fabric:

For my slow stitching this week, I hand stitched the binding on two quilts which will be gifted shortly, so you will have to wait to see pictures. 

My Canada 150 tulips are blooming right now.  I planted these a few years ago to commemorate our country's special birthday in 2017. 

These blue flowers are in the garden at the side of my house.  I think my daughter planted these bulbs when she was 7 years old and they have come up every year since then.

I bought a new plant for my perennial garden last summer and it is now in bloom...problem is that I can't remember what it is called...anyone out there know???

Have a great week, from Finn and I!

You can check to see what the Slow Sunday Stitching community is up to over at Kathy's blog.

Busy Week with lots of Sewing!

I must say that retirement is agreeing with me!  I spent one day this week sewing with members of the Oxford Guild where I worked on the assembly of my Tula Pink 100 Modern Blocks sampler.  They had nice long tables for me to lay everything out for measuring the strips that go between the rows of blocks.  I could not do this at home.  I managed to get almost half of the quilt assembled by the end of the day and hope to finish the quilt top this coming week. 

I am still walking an hour every day, even when it is cold out. We had some snow this week... I had to bring my boots up from the basement.  I managed to get the front gardens cleaned up and the leaves raked before it snowed.  I attended not one, but two quilting workshops this past week.  Friday, I spent the day with Bill Stearman taking his Double Disappearing Nine Patch class.

Here are some sample blocks that I made in class.  He provided kits (for a fee) which included all the parts needed for each block.  The colourful fabric was hand dyed by Bill.

I have some ideas for baby quilts based on the DD9P method he taught.  They will have to wait until I finish a few other projects first.

Today, I took a Weight of Love class with Libs Elliott at the London Modern Guild.  I spent much of my time this week picking out 17 fabrics for the quilt and getting all of the pieces cut before the class.

Darks:

Mediums: (the blue and green solids on the left are lighter than the ones in the picture above...just hard to tell in this picture!)

Lights:

The prints were all purchased at a quilt show in Ailsa Craig earlier this year that featured quilts from New Zealand.  One of the vendors imported some NZ fabrics for her booth.  There was a lot of cutting for this quilt!

At the workshop, we did lots of block assembly first and then laid them out on the design walls/floor.

The blue sticky notes helped me keep track of the blocks.

We learned how to sew the blocks together with Y-seams.  I didn't do too badly with my first attempt!

I will get back to working on this quilt after the Tula Pink sampler is done.

I sat down to do some counted cross stitch tonight and noticed that I had a stain on the Aida cloth--likely dried blood from poking my finger.  I used some Oxyclean gel to remove almost all of the stain and then rinsed it out and laid it out to dry.  No stitching tonight.  Hopefully, it will be dry by the morning so I can do some stitching tomorrow.

I will be stitching along with Kathy's Slow stitchers tomorrow.

Catching Up

Wow..it has been over two weeks since I last blogged!  Life has been busy and I have not had much sewing time lately so there was nothing to blog about...

Today was the Janiary meeting of the London Modern Quilt Guild.  In the morning, after the announcements, one of our members taught English paper piecing.  We were each given some paper hexagons and a needle.  I brought along a couple of 2.5" charm packs to use.  

I made a flower this morning and started another one tonight when I got home.  I'm not sure what I will make with these but I will keep making them until I run out of the gray and black fabrics In the charm pack.  

After lunch, another member of the guild taught us how to make zipper pouches.  I used some camera fabric that has been in my stash for at least a year and some leftover fabric from my daughter's graduation quilt to make my pouch.  I had the zipper as well. By the end of the day, my pouch was done! 

The pouch pattern came from the  Noodlehead blog and now that I know how to make it, I may try making some more in different sizes!  

I am late to the party, but I decided to make this year's Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt.  So far, I have the neutral four patches from step one just about done.  

I'm not in a rush to get this quilt done, but will work away on it as I have time.  I have fabrics chosen out for all of the other blocks in the quilt and they are set aside.  

Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts is having a Christmas quilt sew along so I decided to jump in and make a new Christmas quilt.  It is only one block every two weeks so I hope to be able to stay caught up.  I made my first block tonight...Christmas stockings! 

I hope to get Elephant Parade back on the rails soon too.  It was put aside in favour of sewing Christmas gifts.  

Here is my final stash report for 2016...better late than never!  

Fabric used since my last stash report: 61.35yards
Total fabric used  in 2016: 122.45 yards
Fabric added to the stash since my last report: 44.5 yards.
Total fabric added in 2016: 112.25 yards
Net fabric used in 2016:  10.2 yards

At least I landed in the black!

I will link up with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers tomorrow.