"In the Coop" is DONE!

Finally, a sunny day and my husband was home to hold the quilt for the photoshoot!  I spent Sunday hand sewing the binding and managed to get it all done.  Yesterday was too cold and rainy/snowy to take pictures outside. 

Cathy at Eagles' Wings Quilts did a lovely job with the custom quilting.  There is wood grain quilting on the coop looks great!  The chickens have feathers and the wings have a paisley quilting pattern.  There are eggs in the chicken wire border.

Sorry about the shadows from my Eastern Redbud tree in the pictures.

My chickens are happy to be out in the sunshine!!!

I like the pebbles in the yellow backgrounds too.

It is so nice to have a finished quilt to show to all of you.  I will be taking my quilt to the Elgin Piecemakers meeting later this week for show and tell.  This fall, the London Friendship Quilters Guild will be holding their quilt show and this quilt will make an appearance there too.

Progress and Some Slow Sunday Stitching

My crocuses are in bloom so it must be Spring!  The daffodils are in bud but no flowers yet...maybe by next week.

I have spent some time most days working on my daughter's graduation quilt.  I finished the first half last week.

This week, I have been working on the mirror image which will go to the right side of the half shown above.

2/3 of the second half is done.  Only 10 more rows to go.  With any luck, I will be able to finish this off this week.  I still need to get some fabric for the backing --my daughter wants a flannel backing.  I have ordered a new 40 yard roll of batting.  I have run out again...I find it easier to just buy a roll and then I don't have to keep going out to buy batting.  This will be my 4th roll...

I took my chicken quilt to Cathy at Eagle's Wings quilts a few weeks ago and picked it up yesterday.  Today, I did a poll with some friends to see what colour I should use for the binding.

After all the votes were counted  (6 people weighed in with their opinions...), red won!

This afternoon, I machine sewed the binding to the front of the quilt. Tomorrow, I will do the hand sewing for my Slow Sunday Stitching with Kathy and the other hand stitchers.

I know this picture is upside-down, but it shows the custom quilting that Cathy and I decided on...

There are eggs quilted into the chicken wire border.

With any luck, I should have a finished quilt for show and tell at our Elgin Piecemaker's Guild meeting on Thursday night.

Sewing Day at Home

I have had a whole day to myself today and spent most of the day down in my sewing room. I worked on my daughter`s quilt most of the day. Some cutting, some sewing, some pressing and more sewing...all while listening to CBC podcasts.  Blissful!

 

I managed to make 10 rows today.  The top 10 rows were finished and sewn together earlier this week, so today, I doubled the size!

 I still have to sew the bottom 10 rows together and then join them to the top section. This represents a third of the quilt top.  As you can see, my design wall is full, floor to ceiling!   I need to do some more cutting before starting to sew the next set of rows for this quilt.

Tonight, I did some hand stitching while watching the Brier--the men`s national curling championship for Canada.  We are all big curling fans in our family.

I`m working on my pillow.  I need lots of pins for hand sewing this curved seam.

I am hand sewing the small quarter circles to the paper pieced arcs.

I will machine sew the outer gray section to each arc. Four done...only 12 to go.  Good thing the curling will be on for another couple of hours!!!

I will be linking up to Kathy`s Slow Sunday Stitching.  

Here is my stash report as well:

Fabric used since my last stash report: 20.65 yards
Total fabric used this year: 28.25 yards
Fabric added to the stash since my last report: 41.25 yards.
Total fabric added this year: 43.25 yards
Net fabric added this year:  15 yards

I have plans for much of the fabric that I have purchased recently so it will soon be in the ``used`` column!

My Daughter's Quilt

 

My daughter finished university over a year ago and I told her I wanted to make her a quilt as a graduation gift.  She moved into a new apartment last summer and decided that a new quilt would be nice for her new bed. She is pretty fussy about what she likes and does not like so it took a long time to look at different patterns, fabrics and colours. On Family Day weekend, we went to Mad About Patchwork and chose a pattern (Four Corners by Nancy Purvis) and fabric. 

You may remember seeing a picture of the fabrics a few posts back...

I bought enough fabric for her quilt and took it home. I washed it and ironed it. After cutting a couple of strips of each fabric and making some squares, I spent some time arranging the fabrics to figure out the order of the colours.

I emailed the pictures to my daughter so she could have input.

She hated the yellow fabric.

No matter where I put the yellow, she still hated it. So I dug into my stash for other options...

She did not like white (and neither did I!!)

Next up, a darker gray...the pattern was too big and the colour was too dark.

Next, I tried a mid gray with stripes in it.  She and I both liked this better.  I left this up on my design wall for a few days and consulted with my fellow quilters from the Elgin Piecemakers when we met at my house last week. They all thought the gray with the stripes fit in well.  I checked with my daughter again and she gave me the final approval. 

I only have a fat quarter of the striped fabric so I ordered a couple of yards from MAP and it should be here shortly.   Tonight, I cut some triangles and squares out of all of the fabrics and started to figure out the pattern.

Here is the first strip. 

Then I put together another strip, and another...

There are 5 strips in each section and 8 sections in the quilt.  This may take a while...

We are in the middle of a winter storm with freezing rain, ice pellets and snow tonight.  I predict shovelling in the morning!