Stitching Everyday!

Kathy, our Slow Sunday Stitching organizer and cheerleader, keeps a journal/calendar where she documents what she sews/knits etc.  each day.  I decided I would track my stitching activities each day this year on a wall calendar which I will keep in my sewing room. So far, I have stitched and/or knitted every day this year!  We will see how this goes.  I don't have a goal of how many days each week I want to stitch--I'm just going to track my activities.  

I added more stitches to my counted cross stitch Christmas project.  This will continue to be my winter stitching. I have actually added more of the purple borders already and will be working on a reindeer next--to the right of the wreath. 

Christine and I got together to sew on Friday and I put my Rainbow Scrap Challenge pineapple log cabin blocks together.  I had to use a lot of pins to keep all of the seams matched up.  The seams are pressed open because each block is foundation pieced on fabric so there are lots of layers.  I'm not sure how I'm going to quilt this yet. 

I added the new binding to my daughter's quilt and noticed that the batting is getting a bit bunchy--this quilt has been washed many times.  My daughter loves how soft it feels and doesn't care about bunchy batting. The new binding is a light blue Kona cotton and should be more durable than the flannel binding that I took off.  It is the same colour as the previous binding.  I got three sides of the hand stitching done in the car when we took Finn and our daughter home after the holidays.  The quilt is at her place and I will finish the hand stitching when I am there in February to visit.  I also repaired a few small holes and covered a larger area of wear on the back of the quilt with a new piece of flannel. 

The moose hat is done and my husband wore it today when we went for a walk.  I like how the crown of the hat swirls into the middle. (This picture was taken before I worked all the yarn ends in). The hat goes well with his navy blue coat as you can see in the second picture. 

I took a zoom class today with Maria Shell on Half Circles and Lines.  Here is my fabric pull for the class.  The dotty fabric is leftover from two RSC quilt backings.  I only have a 5" strip of it left--enough to inspire the colours I chose for this quilt.  Maria showed us how to piece an improv half circle into a block.  I have done lots of quarter circles in Drunkard's Path blocks but never a half circle.  Her tips and tricks made it fairly easy.  I made three blocks during the class.  There are other types of blocks that she showed us in the class so I will be making more to add to this collection.  It will eventually become a quilt.  (I have not trimmed the blocks yet, so, yes, they look a bit wonky.)

I got a new iron for Christmas and it matches one of the fabrics I used today in my class!  My old iron bit the dust in November so I sent a note to Santa requesting a new iron. 

Finn is up to his usual displays of cuteness.  Belly rubs?  Yes please!

Finn is sitting on the quilt I made him for his first Christmas.  He often lies on it while my daughter is working. 

My daughter ordered herself a sweatshirt with a picture of Finn. (short for Findley). She had to send a photo in and then they made the image for the shirt.  She had shirts made for her two cousins with pictures of their two dogs and cat on their shirts.  Very cute!

I will link up with the RSC group and with the Slow Sunday Stitchers.  Happy New Year!

A Whole Lot of Binding!

This was my week for hand stitching binding, among other projects.  I finished hand stitching the binding on these three placemats for Meals on Wheels last weekend.  I now have 12 made for the Elgin Piecemakers donation and three for the Oxford Guild donation.    

Next up, this quilt was pieced by a member of the Elgin Piecemakers who sadly passed away.  It was given to the guild by her family and we decided at a recent meeting that it would be quilted by one of our long arm quilter members and then bound by me before donating it to the local Women's Shelter.  It is queen sized.  The three placemats above were made with some of the leftover fabrics from this quilt. I think R would be very pleased with how it turned out. 

I plan on doing some more binding tomorrow on a baby quilt which I quilted today.  While cleaning up my sewing room this week, I found that I had 9 quilt tops (baby/lap sized and a couple of wall hangings) waiting to be quilted.  Some were even pin basted already!  Yikes!  I need to get these to the finish line! Today, I picked the easiest one, my blue colour block quilt, to do first.  I had already decided on a quilting design and the backing fabric was all ready to go.  

 I am using a navy blue solid for the binding. I just have to do the hand stitching now.  Maybe I will get another couple of quilt tops quilted this week...

I took a Maria Shell class on Zoom this past Wednesday--the reason for the cleaning up of the sewing room.  The class was titled "Riffing on a Block".  Maria had all of us cutting our fabric without using rulers, something I have done before, but not it quite the same way.  We each had to make a sample of our chosen block and then make several more blocks based on the sample. Here is my sample block, made without rulers. 

And here is my first block, based on the hashtag sample block. The wonkiness is intentional. I did not originally add the dark green strips on the sides of my pieced sections, but decided to add them to make them pop a bit.  I love the result!  I have more ideas percolating in my head for more blocks. 

I am participating in a round robin with the Toronto Modern Guild and made these three 6" blocks to mail to the next person this week.  Unfortunately, I messed up when reading the chart of who I was supposed to mail them to and sent them to the wrong person!  It has been sorted out now and they will be sent to the correct person this week, thankfully! 

Love Birds had some stitches added this week when we were in the car. I've started on the next large cream coloured flower. 

Munich is just a few stitches shy of being finished by my daughter.  She hopes to finish it tomorrow. 

Our patio and porch pots are all planted and growing nicely.  The perennial gardens are looking good too.  We finally had a bit of rain today which should help bring the flowers on.  Clematis, Columbine and Thrift:

This daffodil is a new one I planted last fall. 

My husband and I went for a couple of hikes this week.  This was my favourite picture from our hike on Monday...Trilliums in full bloom. 

I will link up with Kathy and the other slow stitchers in the morning.