Orange Month for the RSC

Orange is the colour for June for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge so I dug into my 2.5" squares bin and pulled out all of the orange squares.  I cut a few from my orange fat quarter bin to add some variety before making 6 orange hollow nine patch blocks. I am getting quite a stack of these blocks!  When I run out of the centre squares, I will put the blocks together to make a quilt. 

I continue to knit away on my scarf when the mood hits me...Maybe it will be done in time to wear it next winter.  It is now 51" long. 

Ten years ago, I bought myself a Sashiko kit and completed the hand stitching.  Since then, it has been sitting on a shelf, waiting to be finished.  I recently purchased some Japanese woven fabric to use for borders and binding.  I added one border this week and would like to quilt this to make a small wall hanging.  My question--do I just machine quilt the border or should I quilt the hand stitched part too?  The hand stitched part is 12" by 12".  

I finished off the last two selvage strips for a scrappy flannel baby quilt this week. I will work on getting my scraps sewn this week to fill in the middle of the diamond and the corners.  This will be a square baby quilt.  Of course, the flannel scrap and the flannel selvage bins don't even look like a dent has been made in them.  

My husband's birthday was in April.  His gift from me was a three night getaway at a bed and breakfast near Orangeville.  There are several places to hike in the area and we chose two ...Mono Cliffs Provincial Park and Island Lake Conservation area. Mono Cliffs is a popular hiking spot and can be quite busy on the weekends and during the summer.  Since we are retired, we were there on a Monday and there were very few other people around.  Such a beautiful spot and the breeze kept the mosquitoes at bay.  Island Lake was formed by damming the Credit River to control flooding downstream.  There is an accessible 8 km trail all the way around the lake which we hiked on Tuesday morning.  Here are some pictures from our hiking adventures.  The highlight was a close encounter with a porcupine beside the trail at Mono Cliffs.  He quickly climbed a nearby tree when he saw us. 

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The next few pictures are from Island Lake.

Don't you just love the spring green colours this time of year?

We found some interesting local restaurants for dinner after our hikes and indulged in these decadent desserts at Mrs. Mitchell's restaurant in Violet Hill. My husband had carrot cake and I had tartufo.  Both well worth the splurge. 

When wandering around Orangeville, we came across their library and went in to check it out.  It is in an older building--a Carnegie library--which has been completely gutted and renovated into a beautiful, accessible hub for bibliophiles.  The local theatre created some giant books to create an entrance to the story room in the children's department.  We were very impressed!

Speaking of bibliophiles, here are our daughter's crocheted book squares and books for the month of May. 

Finn and our daughter had some great weather for being outside this past week.  

I will link up with Kathy, Frederique and the RSC folks this weekend. 

This week's activities

In a previous post, I was lamenting the thickness of the pitcher plant stem in my rug hooking project.  A couple of hooking friends suggested I try hooking  a single line of stitches with two strands of yarn.  This looks so much better!  If you look at the part at the lower end of the stem where the green leaves are hooked around the stem, it looks to be the right width now. You can see from this picture that I got almost all of the leaves done this week.  I hope to move on to the flowers this week. Then, the background and borders will take a while...

The flannel improv scrap blocks are coming along nicely.  Sew, iron, trim, repeat.  The blocks get bigger and bigger. I'm aiming for a baby quilt with these. 

For the past six years, I was encouraging local quilters to make quilts for our new hospice which will be opening this summer.  The building of the hospice was delayed by a few years due to COVID.  I had a goal of 20 quilts for the 10 beds at the hospice--two per bed so if one was in the laundry, the other could be on the bed.  I am happy to report that my local quilting colleagues really stepped up and 21 quilts were donated!  The quilts are to be presented to the hospice in mid June and the quilters who worked on them have been invited to come and participate in giving the quilts over to the hospice.  Nineteen of the quilts are in this pile--the other two are still with the quilters but I have seen pictures.  Twenty one beautiful quilts to help the patients at the hospice and their families know that the community supports them in a difficult and sad time in their lives.  Over the time that I have been storing the quilts in my spare bedroom, I have unfolded, refolded and moved them around so that they don't have permanent creases.  It is time for them to be laid out on the beds at the hospice!

 

I just finished this book. Sonia Day is a Canadian author and lives within a couple of hours of where I live.   I particularly enjoyed The Newfoundland Lunch Party as we were in Newfoundland almost two years ago for vacation.  Many of the places mentioned in the book are places we visited when we were there.  There are recipes in the back of the book for the food mentioned in the story.  A fun read!

My daughter and Finn have been working on the last bits of the crocheted Christmas Blanket.  There are 22 pink "candies" in the gingerbread border that she is currently working on.  Then, there are lots of ends to weave in for each of the 88 candies and also for the final borders.  Finn is an expert at side eye. He is sure that this blanket is for him. 

Our weigela bush is just starting to come into bloom.  It blooms two or three times over the course of the summer. 

The bees are loving the deutzia bush which is in full bloom right now 

On a walk this week, I noticed someone had left some birdseed out for the birds but the squirrels were also enjoying the feast. 

The Mayapples are in bloom too.  The flowers are underneath the leaves which form an umbrella shape. A sure sign of spring.  

Three friends and I are doing a round robin.  Each of us supplied a centre block and some fabrics and the parcels get passed around each month.  Each quilter adds one border to the project before it is sent on to the next person.  I received this block.  I have added my border and it is on its way. There will be a grand reveal in three months.  

Here is the link to the last time I did this with some friends 11 years ago.  

I will link up with Kathy and Frederique.  Have a good week!
 

Baby Quilt Done!

A few months ago, I dug into my flannel scraps and made a flannel vortex baby quilt top in an effort to tame the flannel scrap bin.  I ended up with a quilt top and a still full to overflowing flannel scrap bin.  Sigh...  This week, I finished off the quilting using this nifty attachment to keep my curved lines equidistant from each other as I sewed.  It worked really well!  I found some red Kona to use for the binding and now this quilt is in my baby quilt storage area, ready to give away when a baby comes along. 

The back is flannel chunks from another bin of flannel leftovers from pj's I made many years ago for my daughter and nieces.  

I worked on my secret project this week too. The back is pieced and I am ready for the next step in the process--pin basting.  

The lupins are getting some back stitching done on them most days.  Today's stitching was done in the gazebo. 

On our weekly hike with the hiking club we saw lots of wildflowers including this thistle. 

My husband and I went for a 21 km bike ride at Rondeau Provincial Park on Friday.  We ride mostly in the shade of tall trees at this park.  Of course, I stopped to take a few pictures along the way. This is Jewelweed.  

The maidenhair fern was so pretty!

We went to the garden centre today to buy a bush to replace one that was dying.  Everything was on sale...so we ended up coming home with 2 bushes and 5 perennials for the garden.  After supper tonight, the mosquitoes "assisted" us in getting everything planted and watered.  

This is called a Spigelia "Little Redhead".  I had never seen one of these before. 

We had a guest one night for dinner as we ate on the patio. Very shiny!

Finn has had a good week with lots of pets and snuggles.  

The pink phlox in my front garden started blooming this week. 

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

A Busy Week

Ta Da!  My Put a Ring On It is done!  I took this class during QuiltCon Together in February 2021 with Latifah Saffir, using her clammy rulers.  I had the top done reasonable quickly but could not decide how I wanted to quilt it.  This quilt kept telling me to hand quilt it, which I ignored until this Spring.  By then, it was screaming to be hand quilted so I got to work.  I used 28 wt Aurifil thread in green for the big stitch quilting.  I'm really happy with this project! I will be hanging it on the wall in my front entrance.  

I started machine quilting this flannel vortex baby quilt this week. Please ignore any wobbles you see in the quilting!  I am doing this one with my DSM walking foot. 

It seemed I had something major on every day this week so very little cross stitching got done--just a bit more outlining.  I hope to make more progress this coming week. 

There were lots of visitors in my garden this week. The swallowtail butterfly flew away before I got its picture. Look at all that pollen this bee has collected!

I'm not sure why this blue butterfly is called a White Admiral.  We also had Red Admiral butterflies in the garden this week. 

This is Finn before his haircut...

And after--so nice to see his eyes!  He'll be cooler now with all of the hot weather we have been having. 

My daughter finished her first crocheted Wooble--a gingerbread man. 

Her next one will be an elf.  

The mystery cross stitch project has had more stitches added this week. 

The hospice quilt top made with potato chip blocks is all together.  I will be adding a light coloured border and then will take it to the long armer for quilting. The backing fabric is not quite wide enough so I will be adding a strip of a contrasting fabric to make it big enough. 

Christine and I spent a day in Toronto this week and went to the Royal Ontario Museum to see their display of Canadian Antique Quilts.  This one was my favourite.  There are over 8000 tiny HST's in this quilt.  I wonder how long it took to make?  The quilts are on display until November this year. If you are going to be in Toronto, they are certainly worth seeing!

Unfortunately, no one knows who made this quilt.  Label your quilts so when they are in a museum someday, it won't say maker unknown!

I will link up with Kathy and Frederique.