Wedding Shower Gift and RSC purple Drunkard's path blocks

We were away visiting our daughter last weekend and did not get home until Wednesday night which meant that there was not a lot of sewing time this week. Since the end of July is quickly approaching, I needed to get my purple Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks finished up.  The colour for August is orange so I will dig out my orange scrap bin and my orange selvages this coming week. 

Our daughter is in her friend's wedding party this fall. I decided to make the bride some hot pads as a wedding shower gift.  These are the colours that she likes. The selvages are top stitched down onto the insulbrite and then I add the backing and the binding--my hand stitching project this week. 

A few weeks ago, I showed a block I was making from 100 1.5" HST's.  It has been on the back burner while I made the baby quilt and the Quilt for a Survivor of a residential school but today, I got back at it and finished the block.  It is 10" square.  I'm not even sure what I am going to do with it!  For now, it will just live on my design wall while I wait for inspiration to strike.  I'm always surprised how much the block shrinks after all the seams are sewn. 

We had a fun visit with our daughter and Finn last week. We went on lots of walks. One walk took us past Finn's favourite place--the pet store where they get his food.  He was very disappointed that the store was closed and he could not go in to greet the staff and get a treat. 

In 2019, we purchased tickets to see Hamilton in 2020...  We all know that that didn't happen in 2020, and then it didn't happen in 2021 either, but we did see the play this past week with our daughter.  It was really good--great music and wonderful acting.  The tunes have been running through my head all week! 

I took this picture of some thistles on one of our walks with Finn. Great flowers for purple month!

I will link up with Angela and the RSC folks now and with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning. 

A Finished Quilt

 Most of my sewing this past week was by hand.  I finished quilting the Quilt for a Survivor of a Residential School on Monday and added the binding by machine on Tuesday, leaving the hand sewing of the binding for several car trips we made on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  It's been hot here so having a quilt on my lap was a bit warm but I directed the A/C vents towards me and managed to finish the hand sewing without melting!  First, a few close ups of the quilting.  I used navy thread top and bottom and my walking foot. 

The blocks for this quilt were started in an online class with Cheryl Arkison--Traditional Variations. The backing was pieced using batiks from my stash and some extra 6" blocks which did not end up on the front of the quilt. 

This picture was taken before the last two sides of the binding were completed.  you will have to take my word for it that the quilt is totally done now. 

I have a pot on my front porch were I planted several varieties of coleus this year.  Within days of planting them, the squirrels came along and chewed up the plants, dug out the roots and flung the plant parts and lots of dirt all over the porch.  I was not happy with them!!!  I ended up putting a small hosta plant in the pot and they left it alone, thankfully. It bloomed this week!  So pretty!  

I noticed a small bee on one of my Black Eyed Susan flowers today.  

Finn has been his usual cute self this week.  He loves to sit outside.  

This is a bit of a weird pose, Finn!  He does like to sit on a soft pillow. 

Our daughter bought him some doggy frozen yoghurt--peanut butter banana--he loved it!

I will link up with Kathy's Slow Stitching Crew in the morning.  I hope to get my purple blocks done this coming week and maybe get started with quilting another quilt.  I also have a wedding gift quilt to make...too many projects, sew little time...

Purple Scraps and Quilting is Underway.

I sewed with a friend earlier this week and pulled out my purple scraps for my Drunkard's path blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  The white background pieces are cut out and ready to sew to the pieced sections this coming week. It's always interesting to see what lurks in the bottom of the scrap bins!

I have several (too many) quilt tops waiting to be quilted so the push is on to get some of them done.  I took three tops and backings to our church this week where I could lay them out on two tables to pin baste them without crawling around on the floor.  The painter's tape did not stick to the pebbled surface on top of the tables very well so I used longer pieces of tape that stretched to the smooth sides of the tables.  Worked well...just used more tape!  The first quilt is my Shweshwe HST quilt top which I made earlier this year.  

Next up, a RSC quilt from 2021.  The Pattern is by Gudrun Erla from her book "Quilts of Iceland".  I trimmed off the excess batting and backing fabric before taking it home. 

My quilt for a Survivor of a Residential School was also pin basted.  This one is first in line for quilting as I have a deadline to deliver it to a member of the Toronto Modern Guild.  I must say that pin basting on a table or two is much preferred to pin basting on the floor!

I started by sewing in all of the sashing as shown below. 

I had originally planned to just do wavy lines but the quilt did not want that, so I am doing very simple quilting with my walking foot in each block...Lots of in the ditch quilting plus a bit extra. If I had more time, I would do more but the deadline is looming. 

Half of the blocks are quilted and I still have to add something to the outer border.  If I have time, I may add more quilting to some of the blocks.  I will still need to allow some time to hand stitch the binding.  

Finn says it's a dog's life. Life is good when you are well fed and you have a few comfy pillows. 

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday stitchers in the morning.  I hope to get to that hand sewing of the binding soon!

Two Pieced Quilt Backs and a Finished Quilt

I started the week off with all of my batik fabrics on the floor outside my sewing room, sifting though the pile to find the right fabrics to include in the pieced backing for my Quilt for a Survivor of a Residential School.  I also had 4 6 1/2 inch blocks leftover from the workshop on Traditional Variations which also made it onto the back.  I used up several larger chunks of fabric, inserting bits and pieces as necessary to make it the size I needed.  Here is the backing on my design wall, ready for pin basting and quilting this coming week. 

Believe it or not, the batiks bin is still fairly full but the lid goes on with little effort now!  There might even be a bit of space at the top of the bin, which I am not going to fill up again.  I also have a bin of batik scraps which I will try to use in another project, someday. 

The backing of the Hearts baby quilt was put together using four strips of flannel from the flannel bin.  The red and turquoise sock monkey fabric was used to make PJ's for my nieces years ago.  The white fabric with the turquoise dots was leftover from another quilt back. The flannel bin is still quite full...

I quilted this one with organic wavy lines using a variegated turquoise to white thread on the top and white thread in the bobbin.  The binding is the same turquoise solid that I used on the front.  Sewing it down by hand was my slow stitching project this week. 

My husband is an excellent quilt holder!

I took this picture when we were out for a walk one evening this week.  The fish remind us not to dump harmful substances into the waterways to keep a safe environment for the fish and other water creatures. 

My husband and I went on two garden tours this past week--one in Stratford, Ontario and the other in Niagara on the Lake.  I always take lots of pictures on these tours, often to remind myself of plants I should purchase for my own garden.  While at the garden centre this week, we purchased a few new additions for our garden including this Masterwort.  It is now living quite happily in the front garden. 

Another addition was this orange coneflower--echinacea.  This plant is in the backyard garden, adding a punch of colour to one of the flowerbeds. 

The astilbes bloomed this week.  So pretty!

One picture from the Niagara on the Lake garden tour...Isn't this spectacular?  It's called a Mimosa tree --Albizia Julibrissin.  

Finn has a new haircut and is feeling much cooler in the hot weather we have been having.  Here he is before the haircut...

And After...

I will link up with Kathy and her Slow Sunday Stitchers tomorrow.  I am hoping for some more rug hooking progress this week as well as another finished quilt to show you next week. 

I Need to Do Some Quilting...

Back in February, I took a Zoom class with Cheryl Arkison called Traditional Variations.  The idea was to take a traditional block and change it up in some way.  I made blocks based on four traditional blocks:  churn dash, pinwheel, log cabin and sawtooth star.  This week, I finished my last three blocks and put the top together, except for the final border which is cut but not sewn on yet.  This quilt will be donated to the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild outreach project--Quilts for Survivors of Residential Schools. My husband and I participated in a Healing Walk this morning, wearing our orange "Every Child Matters" shirts. It was very moving to hear from survivors and their descendants during the ceremony before the walk. 

I used my batik fabrics for the blocks.  This block is a variation on a pinwheel. 

Variation on a log cabin. 

For this one, I made a liberated sawtooth star block, and then cut it up and added some strips in between the four corners. 

Here is a not very good picture of my top before the final borders are added. The sashing is a navy blue Kona solid.  I will get a better picture when this quilt is done.  I hope to quilt it this week. 

 I also want to get the back pieced for my hearts quilt and get it quilted this week.  You can see why I named this post "I need to do some quilting...!"

I dug into my purple selvages this week and found that I did not have enough to make purple ones to make my Rainbow Scrap Challenge squares.  I did, however, have enough for two red-violet (magenta) squares. I do not buy a lot of purple fabric and whatever selvages I had have obviously been used!

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I had made all of the 36 patches I needed for that rainbow scrap challenge.  This week, I put the blocks up on the design wall and got them sewn together...yet another top waiting for quilting. 

I picked up my Lupins quilt from the longarm quilter tonight and will be making binding to finish this one off soon. I have some of the purple backing fabric leftover to use for binding.  Here is a sneak peak at the beautiful quilting by Julie. 

I worked on some rug hooking while talking to a friend on FaceTime one evening this week.  She was working on a cross stitch project while I hooked.  I'm working on the blue sky. 

While out for a walk this week, I noticed that the milkweed was in bloom. 

In our backyard, the Japanese Lilac tree is showing off with its creamy white blooms. 

This shamrock plant belonged to my husband's great aunt who died in 1977.  It lived on my MIL's porch for many years before she gave it to us a few years ago.  It seems to like it here!

Finn is scheduled for a doggy spa day early this coming week.  He's quite fluffy at the moment!

I will link up with Angela and her Rainbow Scrap Challenge Crew on Saturday morning and with Kathy and the people who like to stitch slowly on Sunday morning. Hopefully, I will have some finished quilts to show next week.  Happy Canada Day!