A New Wool Project

Several years ago, I bought a kit to make a small wall hanging.  I've pulled it out with good intentions to start it several times, but it always ended up getting put away again. 

This week, I found the kit again, and decided that it was time to get going on this project.  I have seen lots of wool projects on some of the blogs I read and was inspired to stitch along with them.  I put the background together and hope to cut out the wool pieces today in preparation for hand stitching.  

I am linking up to Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching.  

Fireflies

We are well past firefly season in my backyard but there are two colourful fireflies on my design wall today!  I made this turquoise one last night...

 

 

and the purple one was completed today.

 

 



There sure are a lot of pieces in these little block!  Once again, some unsewing was required in the assembly of these blocks.

I now have all my blocks finished for a baby sized quilt!  There is sashing between all the blocks so that will be next on the agenda.  The animal blocks were fun to make.

This is one colourful quilt!  I will be quilting this one myself. It will get put into line behind three others that are ahead of it. 

Weekend in Haliburton

My husband and I spent the weekend in Haliburton ...this is cottage country but the friends we were visiting have built their home beside the lake and it was a lovely spot! 

The sunset on Saturday night was beautiful!  

We went for a walk on Sunday morning.  It was chilly, but the sun was shining and Jenny the dog was happy to join us.

Lots of quilty inspiration in the pictures I took...I love the colours in this picture. 

I made the hosts a table runner and it fit their table and their decor perfectly.

I did the hand sewing on the binding in the car on the way there.  I used bias binding on this one to get around those curved sections at the ends of the runner.  This runner was started 5 years ago and sat in a bag on the UFO shelf for a long time before I finished it last week.  I'm not sure why I waited so long to finish it. 

I have more sewing on my agenda for this week.  Thanks for stopping by!

Progress on some projects

What glorious fall weather we have been having!  I have been going for a walk for an hour most days and the colours are gorgeous!

I am soaking in as much of this as I can because we all know that cold weather and snow are coming!  

I love how the sun was shining on these trees as we walked through the woods. 

This one was taken on yesterday's walk. 

Meanwhile, in the sewing room, I have been working on some more snowman pillows...

I tried to make each one unique.

This one needed a bow tie, instead of a scarf.

Someone asked if I was using a pattern for my pillows.  I am making them up as I go along...I made a whole bunch of string snowball blocks in different sizes and I am building the snowmen and adding embellishments to personalize them.

These blocks are for comfort quilts.

I needed a hostess gift and found this 5 year old UFO in my sewing room, just waiting to be finished and gifted.  

Everything was cut out...

The background fabric is Essex linen.

I fused the pumpkins and leaves to the background...

And then used matching thread to button hole stitch them to the background fabric.  

I will be quilting this today and doing the binding. 

I am going out for lunch with a friend and then I will be delivering these to the venue for the London Friendship Quilters' Guild show in London.

Here are the details in case you want to come to the show!  I will be volunteering in the tea room at some point.

I hope to have a finished runner to show you soon!  

Pillows...Fall and Winter

I made these pumpkins and made them into a pillow top a couple of weeks ago.  This week, I finally had time to finish the pillow off.  

I quilted it organically with orange thread.

I think Orange is my favourite colour!!!

I put the finished pillow on my new live edge bench in our front hall.  

Last night and today, I made a snowman pillow.  I used my neutral scraps to make the snowballs.  This pillow is quilted organically with light gray thread.

The scarf is a piece of grosgrain ribbon that I had in my ribbon stash.  I added the fringe using the blanket stitch on my sewing machine.  The nose is a piece of wool, machine appliquéd with a blanket stitch.  

The eyes are two little beads and I found some red star buttons for the body. 

I embroidered little x's for the mouth.  He is a happy snowman!

Here are both of my pillows.  I don't think I will display both at the same time!  

More Owls

As usual, Christine and I sewed together last week...this time it was at her house and we had a supervisor.  This is Daisy.  She kept a close eye on us as we sewed!

We both made our second owl blocks.  These went together a little faster than the first ones.  

The red one is mine and Christine's is pink.  

We had lunch outside on the deck.  Tomato tortellini soup and strawberries for dessert.  Yummy!  Christine gave me the recipe so I could make it at home. 

We got together again this week and I helped Christine finish off her civil war broken dishes blocks for the Fun with Barb swap.  They all went in the mail yesterday.  We can't wait to get our packages back from Barb with all of the swap blocks!  

Pumpkin Pillows and Some Slow Stitching

I have been working on some Fall pillows this week.  I have made two pillows so far and have a third one underway. I used some of my orange scraps to string piece the pumpkins. Alas, I still have lots of orange scraps left...

These pillows have removable covers with zippers on the back.  I plan on making different covers to use in the winter and other seasons as well. 

The zipper is hidden under a flap.  There is a tutorial at this blog about how to do this on your next pillow project.

Tomorrow is Slow Sunday Stitching day over at Kathy's blog.  I will be linking up with all the other hand stitchers as I will be working on adding hanging sleeves to four quilts for the London Friendship Quilters Guild Quilt show in 3 weeks.  The other two quilts that I have entered into the show already have their sleeves on.  I recycle my sleeves so earlier this week, I had to search around to find the quilts that were in the last quilt show so that I could remove the sleeves.  I think this is at least the 4th or 5th time I have used them.  I want to get these done in plenty of time so there is no pressure in the days leading up to the show.