A Gift, Orange Blocks and a Walk in the Woods

On the way to sewing day on Monday, I stopped at the quilt store to pick up a gift for someone and some fabric to make a table runner for a friend who likes purple.   The lilac fabric jumped out at me as there are lots of lilacs in bloom here right now.   I bought three other colours that went with the lilacs and a striped fabric for the binding.  When I arrived at the sewing studio, of course I cut right into the new fabric and got to work on the table runner. (I was supposed to be working on my Kaffe Fassett Overlapping Tiles quilt that I started putting together last week--that will have to wait for another day!)

The runner is all put together and quilted.  The binding has been sewn on by machine and I am working on the hand stitching. 

My Orange scrappy Pineapple block is finished for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.   Below, there is a picture of the 6 blocks I have made so far. 

I made four 6.5" slab blocks too with my orange scraps. There are lots of little treasures in these slabs!

I finished off the bees on my cross stitch project and have moved on to the next sunflower.  I found the thread that was MIA last week and stitched the rest of the lower petal on the sunflower, but then I discovered I did not purchase one of the other colours I need for this picture. It must have been out of stock when I was at the store. This little problem will be rectified tomorrow. 

Finn received this lick mat for his birthday. It sticks to smooth surfaces with little suction cups on the back.  He particularly likes it when my daughter puts peanut butter on it for him to lick off the textured surface.  

Finn and my daughter are avid readers--here is the book they were reading this week.  I have read this book by Fredrik Backman and loved it.  Finn thinks it should have been called "Anxious Dogs" as he tends to be that way himself!

My husband and I went for a hike this week at a local wildlife area.  It has not rained here in two weeks so we thought it should be dry and I had heard that the trilliums were out, so off we went. 

It wasn't dry.  There were lots of very soft muddy sections on the trail and once we got started, it was easier to just keep going rather than turning back.  We were up to our ankles in mud. 

Despite the mud, it was a beautiful sunny day and there were lots of flowers in bloom. 

Speaking of flowers, our gardens are showing their best colours these days.  The deutzia bush is just starting to burst into bloom.  

These thrift flowers are a beautiful colour!

I will link up with Angela and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge tomorrow and with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers on Sunday. BTW, I cleaned our hiking shoes when we got home and they look as good as new.   Happy long weekend to my Canadian readers!  We will be in the garden...

Oxford Guild Quilt Show

I attended our guild quilt show on Friday and Saturday this week--our first show since before COVID.  I entered 9 quilts in the show and took pictures of them in the venue. There were several of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects including "All the Colours" based on a pattern by Gudrun Erla called Haldora. 

"Scrappy 36 Patch"

"Scrappy Drunkard's Path" and "In Formation"

I put one bed sized quilt in the show--"Memories of Iceland"--the pattern is by Gudrun Erla and is called "Lupine". 

"30's Plus Sign Baby Quilt"

"Scraps on Point" 

( I was very happy that this hung straight with no wavy edges--the edges are all on the bias!) 

"Let it Snow"

Pattern by Modern Handcraft called "Modern Snowflake"

"Summerhill in Solids"

Pattern is by Mary Elizabeth Kinch

This quilt by Gwen T. was one of my favourites.  The background squares are denim. 

Megan H. had this wonderful modern basket quilt in the show. 

Lois W. entered this fun quilt into the "Star Challenge".

My daughter and I have both been adding stitches to our counted cross stitch pictures.  The black stitches on the outside of the sunflower will eventually become bees. I still have a few more stitches to add to the lower petal --I lost the skein of thread and need to find it!

Ottawa Cityscape

My Friend, Christine, gave this to me for my Birthday.  It is so cute and I have it out on display in our Living room. 

The garden is blooming...I'm not sure what these flowers are--they came from my MIL's garden. 

More daffodils in bloom.  I love this soft yellow colour. 

Hosta leaves unfurling. 

Fothergilla bush in bloom. 

Coral Bells--no flowers yet but the leaves are pretty. 

 Finn is now back home with our daughter but he did enjoy a final romp around our yard before he left. Of course, he brought a dirty sock out to the yard with him...

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning.  Happy Mother's Day!!

Resurrecting an Old UFO

Back in October of 2014, I took a class called "Overlapping Tiles" with Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Malby.    At the end of the day, I rolled up my project in a piece of flannel design wall, gathered up my fabrics and put all of it in a bin, never to even look at it again until this past Monday. I knew it was in my sewing room because every so often, I would move the bin around, always thinking that I should get back to this project and get it done.  The last time I moved the bin, I remembered that I originally wanted to make a queen sized quilt for our bed, and decided that maybe a lap quilt would be big enough. I really just wanted to get it put together and be able to put the fabrics in the bin back into my stash.  This past Monday, I brought the bin with me to the weekly Oxford Quilter's Guild sewing day. I unrolled the design wall and found lots of very wrinkly squares.  I sorted out my fabrics and decided I needed to add another column of  tiles to the right side of the quilt.  I cut out some more squares and ended up with what you see in the picture below. 

Here is a picture of the squares rolled up in the design wall. 

I fiddled around with colour placement before lunch and then after lunch, I started sewing.  I got this far before it was time to pack up and go home.  The constant fabric is a very old Kaffe fabric.  The section that is sewn looks so much better now that the squares are not all crumpled up!

I hope to finish getting this put together at our next sewing day after the quilt show this coming week. 

I added more stitches to the sunflower cross stitch project.  This pattern is from Satsuma Street.  As you can see, I am almost finished the centre sunflower.  

Finn provided support as I added sleeves to two more quilts this week.  Only one more to go and it will get done tomorrow.  The quilt show is next Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  I will be at the show on Friday and Saturday. 

We had a lot of rain this past week and they do say that April showers will bring May flowers...  These mini tulips are really pretty...my favourites in the garden. 

Bleeding hearts are blooming their hearts out!!!

My MIL picked out this Columbine for our garden.  

Finn had his very first Puppuccino today.  He liked it, a lot!

Finn thought these hamburger buns looked good enough to eat...fortunately, he was not tall enough to get them off the plate and we were able to eat them with the hamburgers that were cooking on the BBQ. 

We took Finn for a walk at the park tonight after supper and these two geese were hanging out at one end of the lake.  I have a feeling that there will be lots of goslings sometime soon. 

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning, although I am going to have to sew fast to get the last sleeve on the quilt for the quilt show.