Maple Syrup Quilt Done, Progress on other fronts.

I meant to post pictures of my finished neutral swap quilt last week, but forgot, so here it is this week.  The  reddish background fabric is more of a rust colour in real life. The quilting adds lovely texture. This quilt is now on its way to its new owner. 

 I made more progress on my second charm pack quilt this week. I have the side borders sewn together but still need to piece the top and bottom borders and then sew everything to the centre.  I am definitely running out of green fabric so will have to get creative for the next border.  I have lots of charm squares left as I had two packs of the same charm set. I may have to do a bit of fudging to make the borders fit properly but I have a plan on how to do this. 

The Snow person knitting is coming along, albeit, slowly! I am decreasing for the neck on the next round. 

My daughter added some more stitches to Dubrovnik this week, purple and orange. 

My husband and I went for a hike on Thursday and saw this unusual fungus growing on a log. So pretty!

The trees are just starting to change colour in the park where I walk every morning.  The trees there always put on a great show!

Finn likes to be comfortable and use all the pillows when he has a nap!

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

Knitting and Stitching!

Last week, I showed you the block I made for one of the TMQG members for a round robin of sorts.  That block was supposed to be done and mailed by the end of July, but I was obviously late!  In an attempt to be caught up by the end of August, I made these 4 blocks for D.  She had requested black and white with a pop of colour and some words that reflected the times we are in on her block.  I found some fabric in my stash with French words on it--Bonjour and Merci were the words I wanted to share with her.  (hello and thank you in French)  Bonjour--because I have been actively saying hello to the people I meet when out on my walks each day and Merci--because I am thankful for the health care and essential workers who have kept us all going during the pandemic. 

I left the blocks whole but they could be cut up into quarters and reconfigured or into HST's or QST's.  I will leave that up to the recipient. 

I did some knitting in the car this past week.  Thankfully, I did not drop anything between the seats in the car this time!  I have added another repeat of the cables on my project. I might be the world's slowest knitter!  

Several of you have asked what I am making.  The plan is to make all three snow-people but the one I am currently working on is the snow-person on the left in the picture below.  This is a free Mary Maxim pattern which you can download here. 

I picked up my rust and brown swap blocks quilt from the long arm quilter this week and the binding has been applied by machine.  I am in the process of hand sewing it down on the back of the quilt.  I will finish this tomorrow and do some more knitting for my Slow Sunday Stitching with Kathy. 

The pantograph is called Maple Syrup and features swirls and maple leaves.  The centre square in the centre block of the quilt has jugs of maple syrup on it.  I had just enough of the rust coloured fabric to make the binding.  There is a little bit left which will go into my scrap bins.

My husband and I celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary this past Thursday with a field trip day planned by my husband.  We had lunch on a patio at a winery followed by stops at a lavender farm/winery,  a quilting store in Waterford, a garden walk and then supper on another patio in the evening.  It was a fun day.  I had no idea where we were going when we headed out in the morning. I bought 4 one yard pieces of fabric...the white fabric with the circles on it will be the backing for my pineapple log cabin quilt. 

Have a good long weekend!  Finn says hello!

Sewing, knitting and embroidery

I have been participating in a round-robin quilt project with a group of 5 other quilters from the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild over the past few months.  We each made a centre block and then everyone else in the group makes a border or another block or two for each member of the group according to the style/colours chosen by the quilter.  This month, my block is for J.  Her block was pieced in an improv style with these colours.  I dug into my scrap bins and made her a block that I hope will compliment what she made and what others have made for her as well.  This block is in the mail!  Next, I have to make a block for D, but I am waiting to hear from her with a picture of what she has so far. 

Last week, I showed the front of my swap blocks quilt.  This week, I pieced the back using leftover blocks and some more of the rust fabric.  I should have enough rust coloured fabric to use for the binding, I hope! I had to made a second row of four patches to make the back big enough. The rest of the square in a square blocks have been put away, waiting for inspiration to strike so I can use them up!  In the meantime, this quilt is off to the long arm quilters.  It should be done sometime this coming week. 

The fabric I used for the barn on this little wall hanging is a dark red but it looks brown in this picture... I will quilt this one this week. This is another Lori Holt barn pattern. I'm still working on using up my 30's prints. 

I started the embroidery on this little project today.  The instructions say to use 6 strands of floss, which makes threading the needle a bit of a challenge.  I will have to dig out my needle threader...

Earlier in the week, we went to visit my MIL so I brought my knitting along to work on in the car.  I'm using 5 bamboo DPN's (double pointed needles) and have not had any problems with the stitches falling off the needles until this week--of course one needle fell down between the seats and that was the end of my knitting for that journey!  I retrieved it when we arrived at our destination.  I did not get much knitting done but did roll all of the yarn into a ball so that it does not get tangled up while I am knitting... this was starting to be an issue.  I can use my yarn bowl now for this project!

I will link up with Kathy and slow stitchers all over the world in the morning. 

The flowers that I associate with the end of the gardening season are in bloom now--this week, the sedums were looking quite pretty. 

On Tuesday, my husband and I went bike riding and had a picnic lunch at Pinery Provincial Park. On the way home, we stopped for ice cream in Parkhill. My husband enjoyed Root Beer ice cream and I had Apple Pie ice cream.  It hit the spot!

This is Finn, out for a walk.  Apparently, someone had spilled their poutine on the sidewalk and my daughter would not let him eat it, so he laid down in protest!  They eventually got moving again and Finn did not get to eat the poutine.  (French Fries with gravy and cheese curds, for those of you who are not familiar with poutine!)

Have a great week!  I'm hoping for some cooler weather than we have had for the last few weeks so I can sit outside to knit in the gazebo. 

Another Hat and a Quilt Top

I had started the second hat last week on our way home from the cottage, and managed to finish it this week.  I will need to make pompoms for both of these hats--my friend, Christine, has a pompom maker that I can use. This yarn is super chunky and the hats are thick and warm--the bottom bands are turned up so they will keep the ears cozy on a cold day. 

 During my sewing room time this week, I finished putting this quilt top together.  The rust colour really brightens up the brown, tan and cream swap blocks.  I had over 150 swap blocks and the top used 81 of them.  

I have pieced some into 4 patches for a strip on the back of the quilt.  The rest of the back will be the rust fabric.  I will use one of the blocks for my label for this quilt. The extra swap blocks will be put aside for another project later. 

We had Finn out for a walk in Port Stanley one evening this week.  Finn and our daughter will be going home shortly. 

My quilt top is Finn approved!  He thinks some of the brown squares match his fur. 

I took a few pictures of some flowers in the garden this week.  Our clethra bush is in bloom and I took a few close up pictures of one of the flower clusters.  When I looked at the pictures later, I noticed one of my pictures was photo-bombed by a tiny flying insect.  

The wasp's nest in the tree in our backyard is huge now with lots of wasps buzzing around.  It is bigger than a basketball now. They have not bothered us but I am looking forward to when they move out for the winter and we can get rid of the nest. Hopefully, they find a different spot next year!

We have three colours of phlox in our garden--white, coral and purple.  You can also see that the black eyed Susans are putting on a show at the moment as well. 

For Slow Sunday Stitching this week, I will be starting the embroidery on this kit that my daughter gave me for Christmas.  I traced the pattern onto the material this morning. I will link with the other slow stitchers in the morning at Kathy's blog. 

Two Finishes!

 Last week, I gave you a sneak peak at a gift I made, and, now that the gift has been given, I can show you the finished wall hanging.  I used up some more of my 30's prints for this one, although the barn fabric is just from my red drawer.  I quilted the barn with vertical lines to look like barn boards.  The silo is quilted with horizontal lines.  The little basket block was in my spare parts box--I made many basket blocks years ago with my friend, Christine.  This was a good opportunity to use one for a barn quilt for the barn.  The recipients loved their new wall hanging.  I can't wait to see where they put it in their house when we can go to visit them. (The barn block is a Lori Holt Farm Girl Vintage pattern)

The second finish of the week is the zigzag quilt. I quilted it with dark green thread in the darker zigzag and with tan coloured thread in the lighter zigzag.  My kitchen floor has good light in the afternoon to take a picture and see the texture of the quilting. The binding is the last of the dark green fabric I used on the back of the quilt. 

I spent a couple of hours hand stitching the binding down for my slow stitching this week. 

The Elgin Piecemakers Guild did a swap of neutral 5" blocks a couple of years ago and I used up all my black, gray and white ones in a previous project which you can see below.  I still have about 150 beige, tan and brown blocks in a pile waiting to be made into a quilt. 

I took out the remaining blocks this week and looked in my stash for setting fabric possibilities.  I found some gold fabric which looked ok. 

Then, I happened upon some rust coloured grunge fabric that has been in my stash for a while.  I think this quilt will have 9 or 12 nine patch blocks with the rust coloured fabric in between, as shown below.  The blocks are just laying on top of the fabric for this photo. I will use up the extra blocks on the back of the quilt. 

I am going to be starting a new embroidery project this week, a gift from my daughter for Christmas.  I wanted to finish Love Letters before starting another hand stitching project. I hope to have some progress to show before next weekend's Slow Sunday Stitching link up at Kathy's blog. 

We took a drive in the country this week and saw this old barn. 

Finn is his usual cute little self...this week, he helped our daughter read a book. 

Have a great week!

Best of 2020

The end of 2020 is fast approaching and it's time to look back to what I have accomplished this year.  Cheryl is hosting her annual "Best of" party and I decided to do a post to link up with her blog. 

Since I spent a lot of time at home this year due to the pandemic, I did a lot of sewing, knitting, cross stitch and embroidery. I looked back over my blog posts to pick out the top 5 I would like to share today.  

1. My blogpost with the most views in 2020 was posted on August 22nd. It featured blocks from a new quilt started this year,  "lupins", pattern by Gudrun Erla. 

Here are my first few blocks:

I have finished all of the lupin blocks I need for a queen sized quilt and this quilt top will be put together soon so that I can take it to the long arm quilters.  It will go into the rotation of quilts for our bed. My husband and I went to Iceland for our 25th wedding anniversary a few years ago and all of the lupins were in bloom while we were there. 

2.  My blogpost with the most comments featured my Snowflake quilt which I made for a friend to celebrate 30 years of friendship.  I used up lots of red and white scraps in this quilt.  My friend was thrilled to receive this surprise gift and it is out on display in her living room for the winter months. It will keep her warm while she reads or knits. The pattern is available from Modern Handcraft. 

 

3.  I made several baby quilts this year but my favourite was this one, made as a month by month HST sampler quilt with the London Modern Quilt Guild.  This quilt was given to a baby boy born in the fall.  He and his parents were excited to receive it. 

I love the light blue seagulls in sweaters fabric in each block. 

4.  My favourite finish of 2020 was my Neutral Swap Barn Raising quilt.  The neutral blocks were made over the course of 16 months and swapped with members of the Elgin Piecemakers Guild. 

5. I participate in the weekly Slow Sunday Stitching Link up with Kathy and decided that I would like to add my favourite slow stitching project to my list.  I purchased an embroidery kit at QuiltCon in Nashville in February 2018 and completed the project earlier this year. 

Thanks for visiting. I look forward to finishing many projects and starting a few more in 2021.