Stitching and Knitting in the Gazebo

I knew something was up when the garage door would not open when I got home from work yesterday...  The power was out and Christine was coming over for an evening of sewing.  I called her and let her know the power was out and that she should bring a hand work project as well as her regular sewing projects just in case we could not use the sewing machines.  I cooked my supper on the BBQ and went for a walk.  Still no power.  Christine arrived and we headed out to the gazebo to cross stitch (me) and knit (Christine).

It was a lovely evening...the sun was shining and the birds were singing.  We sat and chatted as we worked on our projects.  Christine has just started to knit a blanket. (It matches the pillows on the chairs in my gazebo!)

My columbines are in flower and these ones are right beside the gazebo.

I have been machine quilting my yellow and blue scrappy trips lap quilt this week and had hoped to machine stitch the binding on last night but since the lights did not come on until 11 pm, that job had to wait until this morning.

This quilt is a gift for someone who does not read my blog.   I used my walking foot to sew a cross hatch quilting design on it with blue thread that matches the border fabric.

I hope to get the hand sewing on the binding done this weekend and will do another blogpost when the quilt is done.

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

Nautical Baby Quilt Done

I spent much of the day Friday quilting this baby quilt that had been sitting around for several weeks, waiting to be finished.  As you can see above, I quilted wavy lines with navy blue thread through the centre section and straight lines with orange thread at the top and bottom.   The corner triangles have more wavy lines sewn with orange thread.   I added navy blue binding and finished hand sewing it today.

The orange and white fabric was purchased at QuiltCon in February.

The flannel backing has whales on it to match the whales on the front of the quilt in the centre panel.  I had to add a strip of navy fabric to make the backing wide enough.

My husband has a lot of experience holding quilts for me.

The blue binding frames it nicely.

All done!  This one will go into the baby quilts in waiting pile.  I like to have a few on hand for any babies who happen to come along.

I am ready to tackle the next quilt in the UFO pile.  The backing and batting are ready to go!

Stitching Updates

My daughter has been working on her Prague cityscape quite a bit in the last week or two and sent me a picture of the finished piece this afternoon.  There are lots of beautiful colours in this picture.

She has finished several cities now.  I may need to introduce her to my framer so she can get them framed and on display!  I am not sure which city she will be stitching next.

My Frank Lloyd Wright counted cross stitch picture saw a few more stitches added this week as we travelled in the car.  Last week, it looked like this:

You can see what has been added below:

There will be more stitching tomorrow.

Friday, I spent the day pin basting and machine quilting a baby quilt.  I made the top at a workshop a few weeks ago and then it went into the pile of quilts waiting to be quilted... I decided this week that I needed to tackle the pile and get some quilts to the finished stage.

Today, I trimmed the quilt and added the binding.  The hand stitching is just about done.

I had this flannel whale fabric in my stash for the backing.   Come back later this week to see the finished quilt.  I will be finishing off the binding tomorrow for slow Sunday stitching with Kathy and the gang.

I have another quilt ready to be pin basted and then quilted.  My goal is to be doing the binding for slow stitching next weekend.

I did a little gardening today too.  We bought flowers for our pots on the porch and patio but it started to rain before they were planted.

10 More Blocks

Since I had my fabrics out for this project, I decided to make a few more blocks this week.  Most days, I had a chance to sew for at least 30 minutes so I was able to get 10 more done.

Some blocks take a lot longer to make with lots of pieces to cut and sew together.

I am actually running out of some of the fabrics in my black and white stash which is great because some of them have been in there for a long time and needed to get used up.

I have now completed 77/100 blocks in my Tula Pink Modern Sampler quilt.  I will keep plugging away at this project and should soon be done making the blocks...Now, how to set them...?

The bleeding hearts in my garden are in bloom.  This little plant is a baby from my larger one in a different garden.  I was happy to see it survived being transplanted and is adding a spot of colour to my shade garden.

I finally figured out the fabrics for the borders on my Coming Home BOM quilt.  I have chosen the colours for the houses in the next border as well and have started construction on the roofs. I will post pictures when I get the next border finished and sewn on to the centre.

Slow Stitching this Week

I had to move the hoop up this week on my Waterlilies Cross Stitch project...this project has very little cross stitching and tons of outlining to do. I'm loving the colours on this picture. 

I finally took my 4 finished cross stitch pictures in to be framed this week.  The snowmen are going to have red matting and a rustic white frame.  Two of the Frank Lloyd Wright pictures's frames were easy to pick but the third one is giving me trouble...

I think the black frame is too stark but I'm not sure about the bottom frame.  The framer is going to look through her stock to see if there is anything else that might be suitable. I am not doing matting on any the FLW pictures.  There will be spacers between the fabric and the frame so the glass is not touching the stitching.  The pictures will be displayed in the same vicinity in my house but not beside each other. 

I made two more Tula Pink One Hundred blocks sampler blocks this week.  I need to get back to work on my houses for the next border of my Coming Home BOM quilt.  That will be this week's project, I hope. I need to make a final decision on what colour the background fabric will be for the next border first. 

Look who is visiting this weekend!  We went for a long walk this afternoon and now he is fast asleep on the couch. 

My fothergilla bush is blooming in the backyard this week.  I love this time of year!

Piles of Blocks

I have a couple of projects underway with lots of smaller blocks.  The first quilt is a neutral swap with the Elgin Piecemakers which was started last September.  Each month, 10 of us exchange 5" neutral blocks--we each make 20 blocks and everyone gives their blocks to me.  I redistribute the blocks so each person gets 2 blocks made by each person.  This gives each of us lots of variety in our blocks.

In January, I made enough blocks for 4 months.  After handing in April's blocks, I realized I needed to get back to sewing some more blocks for May and June.  Over the last couple of weeks, I made another 43 blocks...20 for May, 20 for June, and 3 as a head start for the next month.  I am using up lots of my scraps for these blocks.   Just in case anyone is wondering, the middle square is cut 2.5", the first border is a one inch strip and the wider border is cut 1.5" wide.  After sewing and pressing, the blocks are cut down to 5" x 5".   You can see my pile of blocks that I have accumulated so far below.  I have 160 blocks so far.

The pile on the left side of the picture is the Tula Pink 100 block modern sampler block collection so far...I have over 70 of these blocks made, including 4 that I added to the pile this week.

Sometimes, the cutting takes longer than sewing the block together!  I am using my stash of black and white prints as well as three Tula Pink fat quarters that I purchased at QuiltCon in February for these blocks.

I hope to make a few more of these black and white blocks tonight.  I have still not settled on a setting for these blocks yet...  I just want the finished quilt to fit on our queen sized bed.

It's fun to see the piles grow!

I'm off to the sewing room!  Finn loves this squeaky toy burrito.

Coming Home is Coming Along.

I (finally!) finished appliquéing my last two tulip blocks for my Coming Home BOM project this week. It was fun picking out fabrics for each flower and the leaves. 

All four blocks...done!

The points got easier with each tulip I stitched.

I put this together last night and put it up on the design wall for a picture.  I stressed a lot about colour choices for this part of the quilt.  It will be a queen sized quilt so there are 9 more months of blocks and borders to make.  The next border consists of little houses, some of which are pieced already.  I will be working on more of them next week.

Our azalea bush is in full bloom this week. This was a gift from a friend 6 years ago and it has more flowers every year.  I think it likes where it was planted!

I was out for a walk yesterday at lunch time and noticed these tiny pinecones on a tree.  They are about 1/2 to 3/4" round.  I'm not sure what type of tree this is...

A New Counted Cross Stitch Window

This past weekend, we took a car trip to take Finn back to my daughter.  Since I had hours of car travel ahead of me, I decided to start another counted cross stitch project to work on in the car.  I had one more Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass window pattern to do so I gathered up the threads and cut some white Aida cloth to the right size, put it all in my QuiltCon project bag and I was ready to go.

I did just a few stitches at home before we left to give myself a reference point for starting.

A bright sunny day is perfect for stitching in the car!

Finn was very happy to see my daughter and settled right back in to being home. 

He likes to look out the window at the squirrels. 

I did some more stitching in the car on the way home.  This is the waterlilies window. I look forward to more car stitching time on this project.