A Weekend at the Cottage

 My friend, Christine, and I had a few days away at the cottage last weekend. We brought our sewing machines, projects, and handwork with us, as well as some books to read and good food to eat.  It was a pretty relaxing weekend.  A storm blew through and the power was off for 12 hours, but we found lots to do.  We even toasted bagels and boiled water for tea on the BBQ!  

I started a Tiny House quilt (online class by Jo Avery).  My houses still need roofs and chimneys but I did didn't have the right colour of fabric with me to do them when we were away.  I need to make more houses and trees before I put it together to make a table runner.  

I took an improv tree class with Cheryl Arkison a few months ago and added a few more trees to my stack while we were away. 

Our guild is making some Quilts of Valour and I made these blocks to hand in for this group project.  The centre squares were provided and I used my own fabrics for the frames. 

There was knitting on the screened porch when the power was out. 

My flannel scraps baby quilt got some attention.  The centre is pieced together now and I put enough scraps together to finish off two corners.  I will have to piece more scraps together to finish the last two corners.  I didn't bring enough scraps with me...but do not fear, I still have lots.

Christine reupholstered a chair at the cottage with some selvages.  The old seat cover was looking a bit tired and now this chair has a new life!

One of Christine's goals for the weekend was to learn how to use her hand crank singer sewing machine.  She could still sew, even though the power was off!  She sewed her Quilts of Valour blocks on this machine and then started a new project.  She wants to piece the entire quilt top using the hand crank machine.  

On Saturday afternoon, our friend, Cathy of Eagle's Wings Quilts came for an afternoon of hand stitching and chatting.  There were also a few treats consumed...  Cathy worked on a paper pieced quilt--she has received squares from several blogging friends to use in this quilt and we added more squares to her collection when she arrived. Christine added more stitches to her cross stitch project.  It is almost done! I did some rug hooking on my pitcher plant picture. 

We ate our meals out on the screened in porch, overlooking the lake.  

One evening, there was reading time on the dock.  (until the bugs chased us back into the cottage!)

I came home to an explosion of colour in my garden!  Lots of flowers blooming at the moment.  

Several of the quilters who made quilts for the hospice were on hand last week to present 22 quilts to the new hospice which will be opening in July. (Not all of the quilts are in this picture.) The staff at the hospice were thrilled to receive our donation!  Thanks to all who contributed to this worthwhile project. 

It's been really hot this week, but Finn still wanted to spend time outside.  Don't worry, my daughter did not let him stay out too long in the heat.  

I have started working on the blue sky and the flowers are just about done. 

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers as well as Frederique. 

Stitching Everyday!

Kathy, our Slow Sunday Stitching organizer and cheerleader, keeps a journal/calendar where she documents what she sews/knits etc.  each day.  I decided I would track my stitching activities each day this year on a wall calendar which I will keep in my sewing room. So far, I have stitched and/or knitted every day this year!  We will see how this goes.  I don't have a goal of how many days each week I want to stitch--I'm just going to track my activities.  

I added more stitches to my counted cross stitch Christmas project.  This will continue to be my winter stitching. I have actually added more of the purple borders already and will be working on a reindeer next--to the right of the wreath. 

Christine and I got together to sew on Friday and I put my Rainbow Scrap Challenge pineapple log cabin blocks together.  I had to use a lot of pins to keep all of the seams matched up.  The seams are pressed open because each block is foundation pieced on fabric so there are lots of layers.  I'm not sure how I'm going to quilt this yet. 

I added the new binding to my daughter's quilt and noticed that the batting is getting a bit bunchy--this quilt has been washed many times.  My daughter loves how soft it feels and doesn't care about bunchy batting. The new binding is a light blue Kona cotton and should be more durable than the flannel binding that I took off.  It is the same colour as the previous binding.  I got three sides of the hand stitching done in the car when we took Finn and our daughter home after the holidays.  The quilt is at her place and I will finish the hand stitching when I am there in February to visit.  I also repaired a few small holes and covered a larger area of wear on the back of the quilt with a new piece of flannel. 

The moose hat is done and my husband wore it today when we went for a walk.  I like how the crown of the hat swirls into the middle. (This picture was taken before I worked all the yarn ends in). The hat goes well with his navy blue coat as you can see in the second picture. 

I took a zoom class today with Maria Shell on Half Circles and Lines.  Here is my fabric pull for the class.  The dotty fabric is leftover from two RSC quilt backings.  I only have a 5" strip of it left--enough to inspire the colours I chose for this quilt.  Maria showed us how to piece an improv half circle into a block.  I have done lots of quarter circles in Drunkard's Path blocks but never a half circle.  Her tips and tricks made it fairly easy.  I made three blocks during the class.  There are other types of blocks that she showed us in the class so I will be making more to add to this collection.  It will eventually become a quilt.  (I have not trimmed the blocks yet, so, yes, they look a bit wonky.)

I got a new iron for Christmas and it matches one of the fabrics I used today in my class!  My old iron bit the dust in November so I sent a note to Santa requesting a new iron. 

Finn is up to his usual displays of cuteness.  Belly rubs?  Yes please!

Finn is sitting on the quilt I made him for his first Christmas.  He often lies on it while my daughter is working. 

My daughter ordered herself a sweatshirt with a picture of Finn. (short for Findley). She had to send a photo in and then they made the image for the shirt.  She had shirts made for her two cousins with pictures of their two dogs and cat on their shirts.  Very cute!

I will link up with the RSC group and with the Slow Sunday Stitchers.  Happy New Year!

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...

Sewing Machine UFO and a Baby Quilt Top

I tackled a UFO this week--they will not get done unless I work on them!  I participated in a round robin with some members of the Toronto Modern Guild last summer and made a wall hanging out of my centre block with a spool border made by Terri. The other borders/blocks will be used in future projects. I found some appropriate backing fabric and pieced some batting scraps before pin basting and quilting it with my walking foot. My slow stitching project this week was sewing the binding down. It is the same fabric as the background gray around the sewing machine. 

This will eventually hang in my sewing room.  

Last week, I made a flannel baby quilt backed in minke for the church Christmas bazaar.  This week, I brought some nautical themed fabric home from the church and made this quilt top.  The blue fabric was from my stash.  I have a yard of some sailor fabric for a backing--I will have to piece some other fabric into it to make it big enough for the backing.  I will piece some batting scraps for this quilt as well.  I am attempting to clear out some of my batting scraps and make it possible to shut the lid of the very large bin where they live. 

I finished off my green scrappy drunkard's path units and took a picture of the 5 circles I have made so far... the quarter circles are not sewn together yet. 

All these HST's, 100 of them, will end up making a 10" block.  I have one quarter of the block made and the second quarter partly done. My large ruler is holding down all the pieces on my sewing table so they don't blow off. I'm still pondering about what this will become. 

Lots of work has been done in the gardens this week. All my patio and porch pots are planted and getting watered every day, either by me or by the rain. Everything is growing well, despite one particular squirrel's efforts to dig up the little plants and fling them, and a lot of dirt, all over the patio.  I have replanted several of the plants and chased him away this morning before breakfast as he was trying to do some more digging. 

My grandmother used to have lily of the valley growing beside her house when I was growing up.  My MIL has some growing beside her house too and I spotted some blooms when I was there this week.  

As I said earlier in this post, we have had some rain this past week.  I noticed lots of water droplets on this tulip as I was going out for my morning walk and took out my phone to get a few pictures. 

These little flowers are quite small and don't last for that long, but they are very pretty.  This is called a Thrift. This little bunch of flowers is less than an inch across in real life. 

Finn and our daughter went to the park this past weekend.  They enjoyed watching the people and other dogs go by.  I think the picnic blanket would be good inspiration for a quilt...

You may be wondering why I have not posted any pictures of my daughter's cross stitch or embroidery lately.  At Christmas, I received a promise to make me an embroidery picture as one of my gifts.  She has been working on it but I am not allowed to see it until it is done, so there are no pictures for the blog.  We will all have to wait patiently for the big reveal!

I will link up with Angela and the RSC group now and with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning.   Have a great week.  I have plans to work on my knitting and embroidery projects this coming week.