Pop-Up Picnic

Earlier this week, I finished off the appliqué for the second sun corner block for my Coming Home BOM.  The points got easier as I went along! This morning, I prepped the clouds as well as doors and windows for the houses. 

This afternoon, the London Modern Guild hosted a Pop-Up Picnic at the Marsh Store in Coldstream.  A dozen of up brought our lawn chairs, our snacks, and our hand work projects for an afternoon of relaxing in the shade of a large tree as we stitched and knitted the afternoon away. Of course, there was an opportunity for some stash enhancement at the store as well...

I brought along two rows of houses but only managed to stitch on one of them...the other three are all prepped and ready to stitch when I have the time this week.  First, I did the doors and windows on two of the houses.

I started working on the cloud in this border as well but had to pack up to go home before I finished it.

There are still kites, birds and stars to add to the borders as well.  I'm still a month and a half behind where I should be but it is not a race so I will get it done when I get it done.

There were lots of people at the store this afternoon for the July Shop Hop.  Several came over to see what everyone was making.

There was sock knitting...

counted cross stitch...

Binding...

Embroidery...

Appliqué...

And English Paper Piecing.

It was a fun afternoon and I hope we can do this again!

I will be linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning.

Framed!

A few weeks ago, I took 4 of my completed counted cross stitch pictures in to be framed.  This week, I had a call that three were done.  The frame for the last one is still on order as I did not make the final selection until later for that one.  The first picture is a Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass window called "Tree of Life".  The original window is in the Darwin Martin House, in Buffalo, NY.  My husband and I did a tour of that house in 2013 and I bought the kit to make this picture in their gift shop.  This will hang in our living room. 

The Fountain Art Glass window was a pattern I bought online.  The original window is in the Susan Lawrence Dana House in Springfield, IL.  I have seen this house from the outside but it was not open for tours the day we were in Springfield...we will need to take a trip there someday to take the tour.  I will be hanging this one in the living room as well.

I bought the kit to make this snow people picture many years ago and started it but then it got put away...waiting to be found again when I was cleaning up one day.  I finished it, finally, and it is framed and ready to hang on the wall next winter.  The snowflakes in the sky are little white seed beads.

 I made a little progress on my current Frank Lloyd Wright cross stitch project in the car last weekend.  There will be more stitches added this weekend sometime.

Miami is coming along too.  My daughter collects Starbucks mugs from various places she has visited and this morning, she was drinking her coffee from her Miami mug.  It makes a great prop in the picture of her Miami cityscape cross stitch!

Finn likes to keep an eye on her at all times!

 I also did some appliqué on my Coming Home BOM this week.  There sure are a lot of points on those suns!

My daughter thought the picture below made the sun look sad... LOL!

The second sun is still in progress.

I have also been working on some secret projects this week.  I will be able to show them after they are gifted. There has been lots of activity in the sewing room this week.

It is stinking hot here this week and so last night I made a cold supper, which included this beet and goat cheese salad.  Yum!

I will be linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers tomorrow morning. 

A Little of This and a Little of That

I have worked on a variety of hand sewing projects in the past week. I finally got back to working on my Coming Home BOM designed by Sarah Fielke.  There is a lot of applique to do for the next couple of steps so I am making an effort to get caught up.  There are two crescent moons and two suns in the current border.  I did the moons last weekend and this weekend, I am working on the suns.   I appliquéd the circles onto the yellow sun rays today at the London Modern Quilt Guild meeting. 

Both suns are now ready to appliqué onto the corner blocks.

I was going to make the circles yellow and the sun rays magenta but my daughter gave me the idea of doing it the other way around.  I like it!

I finished off the last moon out in the gazebo one evening earlier this week.  It reminds me of that old song...Blue Moon...

The London Modern Guild is having their first ever quilt show in September so I spent some time this week adding hanging sleeves to my quilts for the show as I watched a movie.  All three quilts are now ready for the show. 

Last weekend, Christine, my husband and I went to see the Nancy Crow quilt exhibit at the Mansfield  Art Centre in Ohio.  I had seen some of her quilts in Toronto, Ontario and Muskegon, MI in the last couple of years and jumped at the chance to see more of them in Ohio.  I wasn't allowed to take any pictures of the quilts but did take a picture of the poster. The quilts were amazing...I recommend you see them if you can!

We also toured the Weltzheimer/Johnson House in Oberlin, OH.  Frank Lloyd Wright was the architect.  My husband and I have toured several of the houses/buildings that he designed and jumped at the chance to see another one.  This one is owned by Oberlin College and is open for tours one Sunday a month.

The house was build for a family of 6 and has an interesting ball detail around the entire roof.

I immediately noticed that the ceilings were a courthouse step pattern...

While in Mansfield, we briefly walked around the gardens at Kingwood (until we had to race back to the car because it started to pour rain!) and I took this picture at the lily pond in one of the gardens.  It was my favourite picture of the day!

I did some more stitches on Frank in the car on the way to and from Ohio last weekend.  I need to do more cross stitching before I add some more outlining.  Christine did some knitting in the car but I did not get a picture.

My daughter also did some cross stitching this week...I think the palm tree gives away the city she is working on...Miami!

Finn did not want her to do any work on her computer today...

I will be linking up with Kathy and the other slow Sunday stitchers in the morning.  Take a look at the other blogs for fun and inspiration!  The link is in my sidebar.

Slow Stitching Report

Frank Lloyd Wright continues to have more stitches added this week--both outlining and cross stitches. 

My daughter has also spent quite a bit of time this week working on her cityscape while Finn napped.  The sun in the sky makes me think this is a warm place... Hmmm....

Finn likes to keep an eye on my daughter and if she leaves the room, he follows her. 

My Prickly Pear Cactus is blooming this week.  It is such a pretty shade of yellow.

My husband and I saw this butterfly when we were out for a walk one evening this week.

I anticipate some more stitching time this weekend.   If you would like to see what other people are working on, head over to Kathy's blog where I will be linking up with the other Slow Sunday Stitchers on Sunday Morning. The link is in the sidebar.

The Five Year Project

2014.  That's when I took a stitch and flip class with Jacquie Gering.  

It was my first Jacquie class and thankfully, there have been several other classes with Jacquie since then.  At the end of the class, I asked Jacquie to sign a piece of fabric for the label for my quilt, and somehow, I managed to keep track of it for 5 years until I finished off the quilt this week. 

My biggest hold up in getting this quilt done was deciding how to quilt it.  I finally decided to take it to Cathy at Eagles Wings Quilts to see what we could do to get this project to the finish line in time for the London Modern Guild Quilt show this September. I brought along Jacquie's book, WALK, for inspiration.

I took the top, batting and backing out of the bag and we laid it out to look at it and discuss quilting possibilities.  When I took the book out, it fell open to this page...

Perfect!

Cathy was able to have my quilt done in a couple of days and I went to pick it up.  On Thursday night, I put the binding on and Cathy came over for some slow stitching time in the gazebo after supper.

Cathy worked on an EPP star,

while I hand stitched the binding.

I finished off the rest of the hand stitching this afternoon in the comfort of my air conditioned house.  It is stinking hot here and I was much more comfortable sewing inside today.

I took some pictures of the finished quilt outside in the backyard.

You can see the leaf quilting design well in these pictures.

The binding is a green Kona solid from my stash.

There are lots of fun fabrics in this quilt. The background is Essex Linen.

The quilting adds great texture.

The backing fabric is fun too.

 Now, just the hanging sleeve to go...

I will be linking up with Kathy and the other slow stitchers on Sunday Morning.