Slow Sunday Stitching and Knitting

Hello!  We had a glorious sunny day yesterday and much of the day was spent outside, cleaning up the gardens, walking Finn and reading in the gazebo.  We even ate out lunch outside on the patio for the first time this year.  There was no stitching or knitting of any kind yesterday, but, today, it is raining, a perfect day to stay inside and do some slow stitching.  

I finished my basket weave dish cloth this week.  You can really see the pattern created by the variegated yarn, now that it is done.  I have a new knitting pattern for a face cloth which involves seed stitch that I am going to try next.  I spoke to my knitting friends about how to make it so I think I am ready to tackle this new pattern.  I hope to start that today. 

I worked on the March ornament for the Linen and Thread sampler for 2020 this week.  Here is how it looks right now.  I am not happy with the black bars and will likely remove them and the swag under the left tulip.  I will likely not do the outside border on this one and just call it finished after taking these stitches out.  Time to move on to April!

I try to spend at least an hour at my sewing machine each day, but, sometimes, Finn has other ideas.   I managed to get the sashing and cornerstones made for both of my Farm Girl Vintage (block patterns by Lori Holt) wall hangings and one is put together.  Here is the last block that I made earlier this week.  I did not have very many red 30's prints so I used the other red fabrics in my stash. 

Here is my first set of cornerstones... 

And, here is the first top, all together, except the final border.  My friend, Christine, has some fabric in her stash which I am going to use for the borders on both quilts.  I will give her something out of my stash in exchange.  

I have a long arm quilter lined up to do the quilting on these two wall hangings and my snowflake quilt.  I will be doing a porch drop off to her this week.  

One rainy day this past week, I made some minestrone soup.  I love homemade soup!

My pasque flowers are blooming this week.  I love the feathery leaves. 

During this time of staying home and increased anxiety and worry, I am thankful for hobbies to occupy my time.  Stay safe and healthy.  I will link up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching crew. 

Slow Stitching and Some New Blocks

How are you all doing?  I'm trying to keep busy--I walk Finn every morning and sometimes in the evenings too.  In between, I read, knit, cross stitch, sew and do odd jobs around the house.  My husband is working from home so Finn and I can't have any wild parties...LOL!  

The basket weave pattern is showing up more on my dish cloth this week. I am getting better at this pattern now and it is going a bit quicker. I may need to make a couple more cloths this way to get it into my muscle memory!

I added more stitches to my counted cross stitch ornament as well.   I am trying to make each star a mirror image of the one in the adjacent corner.   There may have been some unstitching a couple of times this week when I did not get it quite right.

I started a new quilt this week by making a few blocks from Lori Holt's book, Farm Girl Vintage.   First up, a milk can...

I dug into my bin of 30's prints for these blocks. Next, a chicken.

Then, a couple of barns and silos: (the red on the barn is a small scale check print that I found in my stash--it's not a 30's print but it goes...)

The gray in these blocks is leftover from the turquoise, gray and white top that I showed in my last post. 

I made the basket blocks years ago and dug them out to use as barn quilt blocks.

The canning jars are fun to look at...The purple on in the middle of the bottom row is made from a real 30's print that was actually made in the 30's.  It was given to me as a gift from a friend.

The last block is in celebration of homemade baked goods...something a lot of us are doing more of lately!

Sometimes, when I sit down to read or knit, Finn sits on my lap--he thinks it's time for a belly scratch. 

Finn is pleased to announce that he has a new cousin!  Kindle is a new addition to the extended family...Skye is happy to teach Kindle the ropes, including how to sit on the stairs and chase a ball. Finn can't wait to get together to play with his cousins but for now, pictures will have to suffice. 

The daffodils are putting on a great show in our gardens right now.

I will link up with Kathy and the slow Sunday stitchers in the morning.

Happy Easter!

Another week of staying home.  Another week of hoping and praying that the COVID-19 pandemic will soon be under control and the worrying and anxiety can ease.  I spent some time this week on adding stitches to my March Linen and Thread ornament. I don't plan ahead which colours are going to go where--I just wing it as I go along, and so far I have been pleased with how each ornament has evolved. 

I was getting tired of making the same dish cloth pattern over and over again so decided to try something different.  I had a dish cloth in my collection that someone else had made for me years ago and wanted to try to copy it.  I discussed my plan with an experienced knitting friend, and then got started.  I am not that far into this dish cloth yet, but it is coming along.  I have to think more as I do it to keep the knitting and pearling from getting mixed up.   Here is a picture of what I have made so far as well as the dishcloth I am using as my pattern.  It doesn't look like much yet but I think I am on the right track.

I finished all the blocks for the lap quilt I showed last week and then laid them out in different layouts to see what I would like the best. I ended up with 25 blocks--this one used 20 blocks.

This one was interesting, but I was not sure I wanted a square quilt.

I finally decided on a zigzag pattern, using 24 blocks, which made the quilt long and skinny.  I added a pieced border on the sides to make it wider and then narrower borders on the top and bottom.

 It was a windy day when we went out to the front porch for pictures. The side borders remind me of the filmstrips we used to watch in school.

I will be quilting this one myself but do not have any backing fabric for it right now.  I will work on ordering some this week so I can get it finished.

More scrub hats were made for health care workers at the hospital.  There is an army of volunteers making these hats and hundreds of them have been delivered to the hospital.  I plan on making more next week. 

Earlier this week, it was recommended that we all start wearing masks in places where it is hard to physically distance from others, such as the grocery store.   My next door neighbour works at a local grocery store so I found some food fabric and made her a couple of masks for work.  This one features peppers and the second one had apples on it.

I am working on masks for family members now, including this one for my MIL.  I put elastic on hers so it would be easier to put on and off.  She has sheep on hers.

The others will be finished early next week.

Finn and I enjoyed some time in the backyard this week when it was sunny and warm.  Friday morning, we woke up to snow on the ground so we did not sit in the backyard that day!  The snow has melted now--we are hoping for more backyard time next week.

Even though it looks big in this picture, this is a tiny flower on a tree in our neighbourhood.  I am not sure what type of tree---I will wait until the leaves come out to figure that out.

I will be linking up with Kathy's gang of Slow Stitchers in the morning.   Happy Easter everyone.  We will get thought this, one day at a time.

A Variety of Projects this Week

Last Sunday, I brought up this week's sewing projects from the basement sewing room to the dining room table where I have set up my temporary sewing space while Finn the grand-dog is here.  The first order of business for the week was to finish quilting this table topper, started 7 years ago.  As you can see, the binding is on and it is done!  The blocks are Bonnie Hunter's Boxy Stars. 

I don't know about you, but I am finding it hard to stay focussed on one thing for very long these days and tend to flit back and forth between projects.  I did some counted cross stitch on the March pattern from Linens and Threads.  I have to decide how I am going to use the other colours in this pattern...I have a few ideas floating around.

I started cutting and piecing the units for a new quilt that will be a gift.  I only had .5 yards of the bird print so that limited how many blocks I could make to 51 four patches.

The other unit is an HST using white and a gray print. I am aiming for a barn raising layout which may or may not be asymmetrical.  I need to make more HST's...

One day, when feeling quite rattled by all that is going on in the world, I picked up my knitting and made another dish cloth.  I find the repetitive process calms me down and gets me back on track.

And, another one to add to the growing pile!

A friend from church is organizing the making of scrub hats for our local hospital staff.  I dug into my stash and found some fabrics that I could use to make some hats...first up:  Elvis!

My SIL purchased this fabric for me at Graceland many years ago and I could just never think of anything to make with it.  I am sure it will bring a smile to someone's face when they see a doctor or nurse wearing this scrub hat!

My first batch of hats were delivered to the hospital today and I am in the process of making more.  The pattern is from YouTube and can be found here.

We have been having some beautiful sunny spring days here this past week.  Finn loves to go outside and sit or lay on the porch and watch the birds, squirrels, people and dogs go by.   I read a book and said hello to the people walking by. 

Today was Finn's 2nd birthday!  No cake but he did get some apple pieces and peanut butter for his birthday treat.

My daffodils are popping out today and should be fully open tomorrow, I hope.

I will link up with Kathy and the slow Sunday stitchers in the morning.