Canada 150 Pillows

On Saturday afternoon, after cleaning the windows, I went down to my sewing room to finish off my two Canada flag pillows while my husband made supper.  This one is for my daughter. I picked the fabrics in the white section and she picked the red fabric.  We will bring it to her when we go to visit later this month.  The back of it is the same red fabric. 

 This is my pillow.  I took these two pictures out in our gazebo.  My pillow will live on the bench in my front hall for the summer.  I did not have enough of the red flower fabric for the back so I used two maple leaf fabrics on the back. Both pillows have a zipper in the back so the covers can be taken off to be washed.

The pattern for these pillows is available from Christine here.   This is a great time to show our pride in being Canadian with July 1st being Canada's 150th birthday!

Here is the back of my pillow:

And, here it is on the bench in my front hall. 

Happy 150th Birthday, Canada!

Reviving a UFO

I used to do a lot of counted cross stitch pictures.  Then, I got more interested in quilting and the cross stitch went by the wayside.  You may remember "Frank", the CCS picture I did in 2015 for slow Sunday Stitching.  This year, while looking for something in my sewing room, I came across a snowman picture that was started many years ago--the pattern is from 1997, but never finished. I decided to try to finish this picture.  I had to find a hoop and a CCS needle as well as getting the pattern enlarged because my eyes are not quite as good as they used to be...

Here is how the picture looked last week...

 And here is what I got done today while sitting outside in my gazebo:

Snowman number three is starting to take on a bit of shape.

Last weekend, we went to visit my MIL so I did some EPP in the car on the way there and home again.  The plus sign fabric is a recent addition to my stash and is perfect for my EPP plus sign project!

Here are all three plus signs made in the car:

I have 27 plus signs made now.  I'm thinking of adding some grey and yellow plus signs as well.  I'm still not sure exactly what I am making with all of these yet.  So far, I am just having fun with the EPP!

My husband and I took a cooking class this week.  We have done this a few times before and come home with new recipes, handy tips and ideas as well as full stomachs.  Here are some pictures of some of the dishes we had to eat.

The class was themed on vegetables you might grow in your garden...tomatoes, zucchini, potatoes, fresh herbs, arugala, eggplant, green beans, etc.  I can't wait to try out some of the recipes the next time we have friends or family over for supper!

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

Canada Pillows and Cross Stitch

I made the Canada Flag pillow in my header photo for one of my nieces for Christmas.  She is off to university in the fall and this pillow will be used to decorate her dorm room.  My daughter and I both decided that we need Canada flag pillows to to help celebrate Canada's 150th birthday this year. When Christine and I got together to sew this week, I worked on the pillows. This one is for my daughter.  I tried to pick fabrics that would mean something to her...she wears glasses and lives in a place where there is lots of snow in the winter, tulips in the spring and many places to ride a bike.

Here is a close up of some of the fabrics.

This one will be my pillow.

Again, the fabrics have some personal meaning for me.  Do you see the fishing bobbers?  I used to go fishing with my dad and my brother when I was little.  I remember catching lots of sunfish and then letting them swim away.

While looking for something in my sewing room, I found this old Cross Stitch UFO.  I decided to work on it this summer for one of my slow stitching projects.  I will need to enlarge the pattern so that I can see it better....

There are 4 snowmen in the finished picture so I am half way there.

On my way to work this week, I stopped to take another picture of a barn quilt. I love seeing these on the drive.

My garden is bursting with new growth with the warm weather we have been having. My husband and I spent the day in the backyard yesterday, doing spring chores.  We will be working on it again on Monday.

The lilacs are beautiful and smell like spring.

 I will be linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching.  Take a look at what everyone is up to today.  There is always lots of fun inspiration to be had!

Christmas Quilt Block and some Slow Stitching

Today, another block pattern was released by Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts for the Holly Jolly Christmas sew along.  This one is called "All Wrapped Up."  There were not as many pieces in this ones as some of the previous blocks.

Here are the eyes and noses...

Pretty soon, I had the block finished.  I had only used the blue dot fabric once so far in my blocks so I was happy to use it again.

Here are my 9 finished blocks on my design wall.

It was a beautiful sunny day today so my Dad and I ate lunch outside.  There are quite a few blooms in my garden this week.  This is the inside of one of my Canada 150 tulips.

This one is called a Mickey Mouse tulip.

This one is on our fothergilla bush.

The seed heads of the Pasqueflower are interesting and I love the green glow from the middle.

For my Slow Stitching this week, I am making more plus signs.

I finished two and have fabric cut out for two more.

I'm still making bean bags for the weighted blanket too.  I have over 2/3's of the 140 bean bags I need done.  I hope to finish those off this week. Each one is filled with plastic pellets and hand sewn shut.  The blanket itself has 140 pockets which hold the bean bags. There is velcro at the top of each pocket to hold the bean bags in.  Weighted blankets are used by people with anxiety, autism and sleeping issues to help them to relax and get a good night's sleep. 

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms!  My daughter was home last weekend so I celebrated early. 

Three More Blocks

Tonight, Christine and I got together for our weekly sewing time.  Christine has decided to jump in and make the Sew Fresh Quilts Holly Jolly Christmas quilt that I have been working on and I worked on comfort quilt blocks for the Elgin Piecemakers charity project.

First up...September's block made with red and turquoise.  I found some scraps that were hanging around in my sewing room to make this block. The original pattern was from the Aurifil sampler for 2016.  I changed it slightly by making the star points wonky.

October's block colours are orange and navy.  I found the orange pieces in my 2.5" scrap bin.

November's block colours are grey, black and turquoise.  I still had my turquoise scraps out so I just needed to find some gray and black fabrics to add to make the block.  I found this pattern in a magazine.

We don't meet in December so there is no block for that month.  I have May's block done already and one of our members will be supplying inspiration fabric for June's block at our next meeting so I am all caught up for now.

It's fun to dig through my scraps to find fabrics for my blocks for the comfort quilts.  Here are my four blocks on my design wall.

My Canada 150 tulips finally bloomed this week.  Several people have found that the red and white tulips they bought and planted in the fall to celebrate Canada's special birthday have not been red and white, but other colours like orange or yellow.   I am pleased that mine are red and white like the ones on the package label!

Flannel Vortex Flimsy

While sewing with Christine this week, I managed to put together my flannel vortex baby quilt flimsy. I love seeing the wide variety of scraps and can tell you where most of them came from!  I used to make PJ's for my daughter and my nieces and all the leftover bits and pieces were fair game for this quilt.  I also have cut offs from various quilt backs in there and some other flannel pieces given to me by my quilting colleagues as well.

Once I had the top together, I found that I had a bunch of spare parts--they will be put into a bag and saved for another flannel vortex quilt sometime in the future.  I see this bag as a starter kit...sort of like that sourdough starter that I used to have on my kitchen counter.  I just fed it each week and baked something with it using a collection of recipes that I had.  My quilt starter kit has a lot fewer calories than the sourdough starter did!  I will just keep adding to the basket of scraps to feed it...there is never a shortage of scraps to add around here!

I will be linking up with Crazy Mom's Finish it up Friday.

Arrows

I am trying to get ahead of the game by making a few charity blocks ahead of time.  Each month, the Elgin Piecemakers make a comfort quilt for adult cancer patients at our local hospital from blocks made by the members of the guild.  Last month, we were to make a pinwheel block using navy, white and lime green.

The March blocks have already been made into a top, ready for quilting.

I saw a pattern on the Internet from Whistlepig Creek and decided to use it for my May block, using green, gold and cream.  

The pattern included paper templates but I managed to figure out how to use my rulers and strips of fabric to cut out the pieces for my block instead.  

I'm hoping to make the blocks for the rest of the year shortly.