Embroidery, Binding and What's on my Design Wall

For my slow stitching this week, I spent some time working on my embroidered quilt label for my Lupine quilt.  I removed the blue pen marks from the parts that I have done already.  I had to do some unstitching when I used only two strands of floss instead of three when I started stitching the black letters this week.  Oops!  I must say it is harder to unstitch embroidery than machine stitching!

I added the binding to another comfort quilt this week and started hand stitching it on the back.  This is a biggish square quilt so I anticipate another day or two of stitching to get it done.  The top was made by my friend Maureen and it will be donated to the Women's Shelter. I will show a picture of the top when I have the binding done. The spool holder was made by my friend Carol's Dad.  A tree branch fell down in his yard and he made lots of these which Carol gave to all her quilting friends. There is a magnet under my metal needle minder. The backing was donated by another Elgin Piecemakers Guild member who was purging it from her stash.  Julie from the Elgin Piecemakers did the quilting. 

Today was our Guild Sewing Day for the Oxford Guild.  The Vice President's challenge was the project...I used my Shweshwe fat quarters and newly acquired background fabric for my quilt top. I made lots of HST's this week to prepare for today.  Here are samples of my HST's. 

We were to make some irregular rail fence blocks as well to incorporate into our quilts.  I made a dozen and put everything on my design wall today.   I am going to tweak where things are over the next few days until I am happy with it. I am not sure I want the rail fence blocks in there.  I will consider some other  ideas before I sew the blocks together.  If you want to weigh in with your opinions, please feel free to do so in the comments!

I will continue to sew my binding and work on my embroidery tomorrow for my Slow Sunday Stitching tomorrow.  I will link with Kathy's blog in the morning. 

I made some raspberry scones this week.  Here is a link to the recipe.  I froze some raspberries and blueberries last summer--my husband is not a big blueberry fan so I substituted raspberries for blueberries.  Just make sure the berries are thawed before you add them to your mixing bowl.  I have made these with blueberries as well---I think they are delicious both ways!

Finn continues to keep us all entertained.  Note that he has a treat on each foot in this picture and has to wait until I say ok (on FaceTime) to eat them. 

Have a good week!

Prepping for Guild Sewing Day and some Hand stitching.

I'm not one of those quilters who cuts everything out before starting to sew a quilt.  I like to cut a little, sew a little, press a little and then repeat until I have enough blocks. This week, I started getting ready for the Vice President's Challenge day at the Oxford Quilters Guild next Saturday.  This event, usually in person, will be on Zoom again this year.  I needed several fat quarters and some yardage for background for this project.  We are to prepare a whole bunch of HST's before the sewing day.  I am using some Shweshwe fabrics for my project. These fabrics are produced in South Africa but are distributed in Canada by Meerkat Trading. I purchased my FQ's years ago when Céleste spoke at the London Friendship Guild and I'm happy to have found a place to use them.  I still have more cutting, sewing and pressing to do!

 I finished binding the comfort quilt I showed last week on my blog.  I used cut offs from the backing for the binding but was a little bit short so I added in a piece of red to make the binding go all the way around the quilt.  You can see that I used the three extra blocks on the back to stretch the backing fabric to fit the quilt. 

Sorry about the weird angle for the picture of the quilt...my quilt holder was not home!

A group of friends are participating in our own little UFO challenge for 2022.  My February UFO is my Lupine quilt.  I need to finished piecing the quilt, embroider the label, piece the backing and take it to the long arm quilters. The top is finished now, thanks to a Zoom sewing day with Carol on Thursday.  I have no place big enough to lay out the entire top so here is a peek. 

At the online QuiltCon Together 2021, I took a class on embroidering quilt labels.  I started to make a label for this quilt during the class and then promptly put it away.  I went searching today and found the label and got busy adding more embroidery.  It's not done yet, but I will work on it this week and hopefully get the backing for my lupin quilt put together once I have finished the embroidery.  This is my slow stitching project for this week. 

My husband and I celebrated my birthday this week with a hike in the woods at a local wildlife management area. 

While our daughter was watching olympic curling this week, Finn did his best impression of a curling rock. Yes--that's my daughter's mitten in Finn's bed...he likes to play with them, but he doesn't chew them. 

My husband and I have been working on this puzzle for a few weeks now and we finally finished putting it together this week.  You can see why I chose it.  Before you ask, NO, I will not be making a quilt like this!  The puzzle was challenging but fun to make. 

I will link up with Kathy and the other Slow Stitchers in the morning. 

This week's sewing report

I have been working on a few projects this past week.  These friendship star blocks are for comfort quilts for the London Friendship Quilter's Guild.  They are not entirely sewn together here today but they are done now.  I just did not take a picture of the completed blocks!!!

This is 20x20" and is for the Elgin Piecemaker's Charity project--chemo quilts for adult chemo patients at our local hospital.  We are each making one block and will hand them in at our September meeting.  They will be cut in half both ways to make 10x10" squares which will be reassembled to make a quilt.  We were told to use red, white, yellow and blue strips of fabric.  I took mine out of my scrap bins.

Last night, I make the backing for my daughter's graduation quilt and this morning, I made the label using the selvages from the fabrics in her quilt.

This one says "The big bad wolf only has eyes for L'il Red".  It is called Grandmother's Wallpaper.

Hugs and Kisses for my daughter.  She graduated from university over a year ago from university but took a while picking a pattern and fabrics for her quilt.

Her fabric choices took me a bit outside my box...

Here is the label sewn by hand to the backing which is a brushed cotton...nice and soft.  I have to take this to the long arm quilter this week.   I just need to get the batting cut off my roll of batting.

I am linking to Kathy's slow Sunday stitching link up.

I hope to quilt another quilt this week.