Slow Stitching Report

I spent a few hours this week hand stitching sleeves on my quilts for the upcoming Oxford Guild quilt show..5/9 are done.  The three larger quilts still need their sleeves sewn on. I can get them done this week.  

I only managed to work on my sunflower cross stitch once this week so there is only a small change from last week.  I'm hoping to finish off this flower this week. We will see how much time there is after sewing the sleeves on the other three quilts. 

Finn had a haircut this week. He was looking a bit shaggy...

Now, we can see his eyes!

The groomer gave him a new bandana with monster trucks on it.  

Finn was quite concerned earlier today when I put two of his toys in the washing machine.  He came to the laundry room to get them back when the load was done.  

I am working on weeding our interlocking brick patio.  I have a tool to clean out the cracks and a bucket to put the moss and weeds into.  When the bucket is full, I stop for the day.  I have done three buckets full so far.  The cleaned up areas look much better. We will get the special sand for the cracks when I am done.  I want to get this job done before we put our patio furniture out.  The gardens need a top up with mulch this year too.  We spend a lot of time outside in the summer so all of this work is worth the effort. 

The azaleas are in full bloom. 

This is a Pasque flower seed head forming. It looks windswept in this picture. 

The bleeding hearts and yellow tulips are blooming in the side garden.  Have I ever mentioned that I love this time of year???

I will link up with Kathy in the morning. 

Sunflowers, Sleeves and a Quilt Show!

More colourful petals were added to the sunflower in the centre of my project this week.  This picture will end up being a 12" circle so there is a long way to go still. I like the turquoise background--the colours in the sunflower really pop. 

I may not get as much cross stitching done this week as I have entered 9 quilts into our guild quilt show in early May and I need to hand stitch the sleeves onto 8 of the quilts. (the smallest one already had a sleeve). This afternoon, I made sleeves for 6 quilts and they are all pinned in place and ready to hand sew.  Guess what I will be doing for Slow Sunday Stitching this week???   Here is the information about the show for those of you who might be close enough to attend. 

I made two hot pads for the church Christmas Bazaar this week.  The sewing group will be making more on one of our sewing days and I wanted to make a couple of samples so they could see the finished product. 

It's quilt show season in our area and the first one of the year was in St. Mary's.  I attended with three friends.  We examined every single quilt in the show, did a little shopping, had lunch in the tearoom and enjoyed each other's company.  The quilts were spectacular and the turnout to the show was huge.  I think there was a pent up desire to attend a quilt show after three years of no quilt shows due to the pandemic. I especially liked quilts that included some machine stitching as well as hand stitching.  

Lots of tiny pieces in this "starry night" wall hanging. 

This baby quilt was just plain fun to look at.  I love all of the different textures in the animals. 

Our gardens have new things to look at every day.  It rained this morning and the sedum caught some of the water in the new leaves. 

At the beginning of the week, the azalea looked like this:

A day or two of sunshine and the flowers were in bloom!

Purple Scrap Blocks and a Sunflower in the Making

I got to work on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks this week using my purple and red-violet (magenta) scraps.  These squares are 6.5" square.  I still have lots of purple scraps but my red-violet collection is almost non-existent now.  

I made another pineapple log cabin to add to my collection. 

We had summer-like weather this week and the garden has burst into bloom.  These red-violet hellebores came from my MIL's garden. 

The daffodils in my garden also put on a great show this week. 

The grape hyacinths are so pretty!

Ladybugs  and bees are making an appearance as well. 

There are so many flowers on this primrose that I can't see the leaves. 

My new counted cross stitch picture did not look like much last week but this week, you can start to see that it will be a sunflower.  This will be my Slow Sunday Stitching project this weekend. 

We took Finn for a long walk in Port Stanley this week.  He was very tired that evening!  He likes to be outside in the sunshine.

Pineapple Log Cabin and a New Cross Stitch Project

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour for April is purple so I dug into my purple scrap bin and made my pineapple log cabin block. I don't repeat any of the scraps in each block.  Someone had asked if I was paper piecing these blocks...I purchased 2 panels of muslin with the pineapple blocks printed onto it years ago and I am using them for these blocks. I have enough for 24 blocks but will only do 12 for this project and save the rest for another quilt.  No paper to pull off after sewing. I laid out the blocks from January to April on our table and stood on a chair to get an overhead picture of the four blocks. I'm loving it!

I started the centre of my next counted cross stitch picture.  It doesn't look like much yet but this is the centre of a large sunflower in the middle of the picture.  The pattern is from Satsuma Street and is a fundraiser for Ukraine.  This is a round design, roughly a 12" circle.  It will take a while to finish, but I will enjoy every stitch! 

I did a bit of knitting in the car yesterday.  I had almost forgotten that I had started this dish cloth.  I will try to work on it again this week to see if I can finish it off. 

We went for a drive yesterday and I took Finn for a short walk near this bridge.  He loves the sunshine. 

He's looking dapper in his bandana and wishes everyone who celebrates a Happy Easter.  It was Finn's 5th birthday this past week.  

It is supposed to get quite warm here this coming week and my daffodils are ready to put on a show!  

 I will link up with Angela for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching.  

Spring Rabbit Done!

 I finished off the last of the stitches on the Spring Rabbit counted cross stitch this week. Then, I added the butterfly antennae, the bunny's whiskers, the lines in the ears and the stitches to make the tail "fluffy".  I love the bright colours!  I will wash it this week and give it a good press before taking it to the framer.  I hope it won't take too long to frame so I can hang it up soon. 

In the meantime, I have organized the thread and cut the Aida cloth for my next counted cross stitch project.  I'm hoping to work on this a bit tonight and tomorrow for slow Sunday stitching. 

I played a bit more with my HRT units on the design wall. I may rearrange them a bit more before sewing everything together. They are all sewn into pairs, but not pressed yet. 

Angela has announced that the colour for the Rainbow Scrap challenge in April will be purple.  I always make a purple block and a red-violet block when the colour of the month is purple.   These strips are for my pineapple log cabin blocks which I hope to work on this coming week. 

When my daughter was little, I used to make her dresses and pyjamas.  I loved the pattern I had to make the pj's so much that I bought it in two sizes!  It has been used many times over the years to make comfy pj's for my daughter and my nieces. This week, I made a pair of summer pj's for a little friend of mine. A 5/8" seam is huge compared to the 1/4" I use for quilting!  I actually made these with French seams.  I had a family studies teacher in high school who taught me how to do French seams and I use them in clothing construction where possible. 

We took Finn to the park one evening this week.  For some reason, he is a much better walker when we go to the park rather than walking around the neighbourhood. It's a good thing there are lots of interesting parks to walk in where we live. 

We had 3rd or maybe it was 4th winter this week.  The daffodils where not happy...   They are in bud and if we get a few warm days this coming week, they may open. 

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