Elgin Piecemakers Sewing Day

Several members of the guild got together today at a local church to sew for the day.  A couple of weeks ago, I left a comment at Crazy Mom Quilts to enter a giveaway for some pincushion patterns.  To my surprise, my name was picked and she sent me the patterns by e-mail!  I decided to spend my day playing with my solid scraps and make some pincushions!  

I started with the paper pieced pineapple block.  It is 4 1/2" square--25 pieces.  

The block looks red and blue here but the red is actually orange. 

I quilted it using a grid with turquoise thread. 

Here is the finished pincushion, in use already! 

Next, I made some paper pieced flying geese.

I chose the colours from some camera fabric. 

My pincushions are filled with walnut shells, which are supposed to help keep my pins sharp. I quilted this one with straight lines. 

Next, I made a pincushion with some free pieced triangles. 

I had to dig through my scrap bag to find 16 different colours for the triangles. 

I quilted his one with organic wavy lines.  

Here is my collection of pincushions that I made today:

These are addictive so you will likely see more of them in future posts.  Thanks, Crazy Mom, for the patterns!  

For slow Sunday Stitching this week, I will be making more plus signs.  Here are the ones I have made so far...

I have picked out some more black and white fabrics for tomorrow's stitching.  I will be linking up to Kathy's  blog in the morning.  

More slabs...

This morning, I saw a video on the CBC website about the Great Canadian Quilting Bee.  I thought you might like to see it

http://www.cbc.ca/2017/these-quilters-are-making-1-000-canada-150-quilts-for-families-of-sick-children-1.3953624

I made four more slab blocks this week for this project.

I will be donating four through the London Modern quilt guild and four through the London Friendship Quilter's guild.

Each block has a bit of Canada 150 fabric in it.

Here are all eight of my slab blocks...

Tomorrow, I am going to a sewing day with the Elgin Piecemakers guild.  I need to gather up my supplies so I will be ready to sew all day!  

Mittens Block

I made my second block for my Have a Jolly Little Christmas quilt, designed by Lorna over at Sew Fresh Quilts.  This week's block features a pair of mittens...with Santas on them!

Lorna is publishing a block pattern every two weeks, with a total of 15 blocks.  So far, I am keeping up!  

The next block looks a little more complicated...

Slab blocks for the Canadian Quilt Bee

I belong to two quilt guild, both of which are participating in the Canadian Quilt Bee to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday this year. We were given some pieces of Canada 150 fabric to use in each of our slabs.  The Canadian Quilter's Association is hoping to gather enough blocks by their annual quilt show in Toronto to make 1000 quilts for Ronald McDonald Houses across Canada.  

Tonight, I made 4 slabs  in red, brown, yellow and blue.  I dug into my scrap bins to make my slabs.  I used up lots of scraps but there is no difference in the amount of fabric in the bins...the lids would hardly go back on after I fluffed up the scraps.

I have some more Canada 150 fabric and hope to make some more blocks soon for this worthwhile project.  Heaven knows, I have lots of scraps!

I am linking up with Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts where you can see slabs that others have been making.  

This Week's Sewing

I made some more elephants for the herd this week.  Here are the first three made early in the week. I made the final 6 little elephants later in the week.  

I especially like this little French elephant! 

As you can see, I have been putting the blocks together.  There was also some hand embroidery involved. I added eyes to the frog... The black is satin stitch.  

He needed a mouth so he could catch some flies! 

The turtle also gained some eyesight. 

The birds also needed some legs. 

I did a bit more EPP this week too and hope to make some more plus signs this weekend. 

I want to finish the Elephant Parade quilt soon...it would be great to have it finished for next week's guild meeting for show and tell.  I will be linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Stitchers.  Have a great week!

A Few Blocks and some EPP

I stole a few moments of sewing time this week and made this 12.5" block for this month's comfort quilt for the Elgin Piecemakers guild.  The colour this month are green, purple and white.  I got out some graph paper and drew this out before piecing it.

The purple and green fabrics are fairly new to my stash but the white on white print has been hanging around my sewing room for several years!  

During our weekly sewing night, I worked on these flower blocks for my elephant parade quilt.  On Friday afternoon, two more little elephants herded onto my design wall...

I have all the yellow pieces and the black ears cut out for the rest of the elephants already so it should not take too long to finish the last 9 small elephants for this quilt.  

Tonight, I took out my English paper piecing and made another hexie flower. I started a third and then ran out of paper hexagons...  

Here are all the hexie flowers so far as well as the first plus sign for another EPP project.

I like the way the organic wavy lines look on the plus sign.

I have some more black and white scraps to use for this project.  I may add some splashes of colour as well...

I am linking up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching.  I hope to make a few more plus signs tomorrow. 

Catching Up

Wow..it has been over two weeks since I last blogged!  Life has been busy and I have not had much sewing time lately so there was nothing to blog about...

Today was the Janiary meeting of the London Modern Quilt Guild.  In the morning, after the announcements, one of our members taught English paper piecing.  We were each given some paper hexagons and a needle.  I brought along a couple of 2.5" charm packs to use.  

I made a flower this morning and started another one tonight when I got home.  I'm not sure what I will make with these but I will keep making them until I run out of the gray and black fabrics In the charm pack.  

After lunch, another member of the guild taught us how to make zipper pouches.  I used some camera fabric that has been in my stash for at least a year and some leftover fabric from my daughter's graduation quilt to make my pouch.  I had the zipper as well. By the end of the day, my pouch was done! 

The pouch pattern came from the  Noodlehead blog and now that I know how to make it, I may try making some more in different sizes!  

I am late to the party, but I decided to make this year's Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt.  So far, I have the neutral four patches from step one just about done.  

I'm not in a rush to get this quilt done, but will work away on it as I have time.  I have fabrics chosen out for all of the other blocks in the quilt and they are set aside.  

Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts is having a Christmas quilt sew along so I decided to jump in and make a new Christmas quilt.  It is only one block every two weeks so I hope to be able to stay caught up.  I made my first block tonight...Christmas stockings! 

I hope to get Elephant Parade back on the rails soon too.  It was put aside in favour of sewing Christmas gifts.  

Here is my final stash report for 2016...better late than never!  

Fabric used since my last stash report: 61.35yards
Total fabric used  in 2016: 122.45 yards
Fabric added to the stash since my last report: 44.5 yards.
Total fabric added in 2016: 112.25 yards
Net fabric used in 2016:  10.2 yards

At least I landed in the black!

I will link up with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers tomorrow.