CCS and Some Old Slow Stitching

I added some more cross stitches to my snowman project this week. The above picture shows how it looks now.  There was a fair bit of progress since I last posted about his project...

I will be working to the right of this section next.

Yesterday, my MIL and I went to a Canada 150 quilt show at the Lambton Heritage Museum near Grand Bend, Ontario.  They had quite a few quilts from Lambton County, all of which included a lot of hand stitching. I picked out a few to show today for Slow Sunday Stitching.  This first one was made for Canada's 100th birthday and includes many signatures which are all hand embroidered.

Here is a close up of one of the blocks.

There was a second Centennial quilt which included more embroidery signatures.

The signatures are not obvious in most of the blocks until you take a closer look.

This signature quilt was made by the ladies of Bethel Church.  I was quite impressed by the embroidered picture of the church in the middle of the quilt. 

The person who did the embroidery spent many hours working on this!

Of course, there were a few hexie quilts too.  This one was my favourite--it was made in the 1930's.

Here is a close up--those are very small hexies!

My MIL is not a quilter but enjoyed seeing all of the quilts and hearing my explanations of how they were made. If you have a chance to go to see this exhibit, it is well worth the trip!

Canada 150 Pillow

My Canada 150 pillow is finished!  It was not done in time for Canada Day but the whole year is a celebration so in my books, I am happy with the timing of my finish. As you can see, I used prints instead of solids for my Canada 150 symbol.  I used a light grey Aurifil thread for the organic quilting.  I will try to put all of the unsewing that happened with this project behind me and just enjoyed the finished pillow!

The back is a red OXOX batik fabric that I purchased a few years ago.  Here is a close up...

I added a hidden zipper so that the pillow can be washed if necessary.  I also tend to change the covers on my pillows seasonally--it is easier to store the covers than to store lots of pillows.

Here are my two Canada Pillows on the bench in my front hall.  Happy Birthday, Canada!

Tonight, our family went down to Port Stanley for a walk on the pier followed by ice cream at our favourite dairy bar, Shaw's, on the way home.  These ducks were jockeying for position on a mostly submerged log.

I will be linking up with Amanda Jean's Finish it up Friday tomorrow.

A Very Shiny Nose...

Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer, had a very shiny nose!

Tonight, I sewed the 13th of 15 Christmas blocks for the Sew Fresh Quilts Holly Jolly Christmas quilt.  I decided to make my reindeer block into a Rudolph block by changing the nose from black to red.  The eyes are quite small--only 1/2" by 1/2".  Here is my completed block...

I cut the pieces out on Saturday at the Guild Sewing day. There was a tiny bit of unsewing with this block...  I think Rudolph looks very festive!

Here are all of my blocks: (The partridge block will be going on the back of the quilt...I'm not fond of the brown--not enough contrast and it looks dull with all of the other colourful fabrics I have used for my blocks.)

I had a visitor in the bush outside my window yesterday.  This female robin was eating the berries off of my Oregon grape holly bush.  As you can see, there are not many berries left on this bush.

My red echinacea plant is in full bloom at the moment.  It is beside my front porch so I see it every day as I go in and out of the house. 

I will be linking up with Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts on Wednesday.   I have a couple of other finishes to share later this week, so stay tuned!

LFQG Summer Sewing Day

Today was our London Friendship Quilters Guild annual summer sewing day.  I had all of my projects, sewing machine and supplies packed up last night and ready to take out to the car this morning.  I brought along three things to sew today:

First up, I wanted to get this block quilted and made into a pillow.  I brought along some variegated thread that I thought would be perfect for the organic quilting that I had planned...I got about 2/3's done and then decided that I hated the variegated thread.

I spent the next hour and a half unsewing all of my quilting...not a productive start to my day.

The fabric on the back of the quilt will not show in the finished pillow as it will be inside the pillow. I ended up using a light grey thread and quilting it organically.

I then put the Canada 150 pillow aside to work on my second project...making and attaching the binding to this comfort quilt for an adult chemo patient at our local hospital--an outreach project of another guild that I belong to--the Elgin Piecemakers.  

This went much smoother that project number one, with no seam ripper involvement at all!  I will be doing the hand stitching tomorrow for my slow Sunday stitching project.

I did some of the hand stitching tonight while watching Grantchester on TV.

My third project barely got started--I have the pieces cut out for my next block, a reindeer, for my Holly Jolly Christmas quilt that I am making through a sew along at Lorna's blog, Sew Fresh Quilts. I hope to get it sewn together sometime this week before the next block pattern comes out on Saturday.

I will post pictures of the finished pillow and Christmas block later this week.

Sewing Night

For the last three sewing nights with Christine, I have been working on a Canada 150 block.  It is a paper pieced pattern that I found online. Here is the link.  I found this block a bit challenging...there was some unsewing involved!  I decided to use prints instead of solids for my block.  In the end, it all worked out and the block lies flat.  I will probably not be making another one!

I decided to make a pillow with my block so I added borders to make it the right size for my pillow form.  I will quilt it and put the pillow together on Saturday at our guild sew-in day. I still have to figure out what to use for the back of the pillow.  I don't have enough of the grey.

After finishing the Canada 150 block, I made another block for my liberated sampler quilt.  This one is called Hashtag.  I am using a little bit of my focus fabrics in each block. I have seven blocks done now.  There are 64- 6" blocks in this quilt.

I will try to post a picture of all my blocks next time. 

Snow in July

Busy week at my house with very little sewing time...  Last week, my counted cross stitch snowmen project looked like this (see above).  The four snowmen are done and now I am filling in the snow in between the snowmen.  This part is not as exciting as the snowmen!

Yesterday, there was some sewing time in the car.  The black and grey blob in the snow will be a bird once it is outlined!

You can see I managed to get a bit more done on the way home.  I love these long daylight hours in the evenings!  It means I can sew in the car after dinner...

There are lots of flowers blooming in my garden at the moment.  This hydrangea bush in our front garden is loaded with blooms this year.

We planted this bright pink coreopsis last year and it is happily putting on a great show this summer.

I will be linking up to Kathy's Blog with the other slow stitchers today.  Take a look and see what everyone is up to today.

Making Blocks in the Sewing Room

I made a couple of blocks for my liberated sampler quilt this week.  This little liberated basket is made using Gwen Marston's method.  It is meant to be a bit tipsy!  I am just going to add a touch of orange here and there on this quilt and the basket handle seemed like a perfect spot for some orange.

This one is called a cross block.   Each block is 6.5" square and there will be 64 blocks in this quilt.  I still have lots of blocks to make--I have 6 done now.  I will try to make a few more this week.  The pattern is from 42quilts.com.  The basket block was my own addition to the quilt...she has a couple of blocks that I am not keen on so I will just substitute my own blocks for those ones.

On Saturday, I had a friend, Cathy, over to sew for the afternoon.  I made the most recent block for my Holly Jolly Christmas quilt.  There are only three blocks to go...

Here is my completed wreath block.  Below, you can see all of my blocks so far.

My garden is looking great right now.  We have had a lot of rain so everything is very lush. I planted this red echinacea last year.  There are lots of flowers just opening up on this plant.

The pink ones are putting on a show as well. 

Slow Stitching in High Places

Last weekend, my husband and I spent the weekend with our daughter in Ottawa for Canada's 150th birthday party! I spent my time on the long drive working on my counted cross stitch snowman project. Here's where this project was when we were over half way to Ottawa:

I sewed for hours and hours in the car.  It kept me awake and I made lots of progress as we travelled along.

On Canada Day, we watched the fireworks from the 15th floor of an office building facing Parliament Hill.  We arrived early to get "window seats" and I did some cross stitch while we waited. Here is my view as I stitched:

The fireworks were spectacular!  We had a great view and did not get wet during the rain that happened before the fireworks.

The window was wet from the rain.

I did more sewing on the drive home.

I filled in the white part, which took a while...

Then, I worked on the hat.

By the time we got home, snowman #4 was done.

The next step---adding all the snow on the ground...lots of solid stitching with this part. There is a shiny thread added to this part and I find it gets tangled easily so the stitching is a little slower.  I guess that's why we call it slow stitching...

I will be linking up to Kathy's Slow Sunday stitching on Sunday morning.