Christine's Birthday Gift

Her birthday was 10 weeks ago, but tonight, I finally finished making her birthday gift...she is a very patient friend and says she does not mind that it is a bit late...  Sorry, Christine!

 

It looks like someone else has claimed your pillow, Christine! 

 

 

 

Happy Belated Birthday!

 

 

Quilt Top for Alberta

I sewed 20 of the slabs that I received from my quilting friends into a quilt top tonight when Christine was here for sewing night.  I have 6 extra blocks to put into the package for Cheryl at Dining Room Empire. Here is the quilt top:

So colourful!  It was fun to look at all the different fabrics in the blocks!

Special thanks to my quilty friends who contributed slabs to this project: Pat, Anne, Pokey, Kathy, Cathy, Heather, Jessie, Karen, Carol and Charlene. I am sure that the recipients of our quilt and slabs will feel the love and support that we sewed into our blocks.

Have a great week!

More slabs and I am in a bind again...

I received two squishy envelopes this week. These two slabs came all the way from Pokey in California for the Slabs for Alberta project that I have been working on.  I love seeing other people's scraps. Pokey included some polka-dots in both of her slabs!  Thanks, Pokey!

Kathy sent me these two teal slabs in the mail. Nice scraps, Kathy!  Thanks for contributing to this project!  I hope to get the quilt top made shortly and off in the mail to Cheryl in Calgary to be quilted and bound and given to someone who was affected by the flood.

Cathy (a different one) and Karen came over one evening this week for some sewing. We got so engrossed in our sewing that we did not even stop for a snack or a drink! Karen put some borders on a quilt top that she finished a while ago and Cathy did a block for a fall leaf quilt.  I put bindings on two quilts. I did not even take any pictures, except this one:

I put the roll of binding on the leg of my acrylic sewing table to keep it from falling all over the floor. This worked very well!

I have finished hand sewing the binding on the Trip Around the World quilt that my nieces and I started piecing two years ago. Here they are holding it up for me to take a picture:

Here's the back...

I like the striped binding!

I am still doing the hand sewing part on the binding of Swoon. I am a little more than a quarter of the way around this quilt.

There is still some stash sorting and organizing going on as well.

I am going to link up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching post tomorrow. 

Not much change in the stash this week. I bought some backing for Christine's pillow and two fat quarters with birds on them.

Fabric used in the last week: .5 yards
Total fabric used this year: 111.5  yards
Fabric added to the stash in the last week: 1.33 yards
Total fabric added this year: 95.16 yards
Net fabric used this year: 16.34 yards

Have a wonderful weekend! (What's left of it!)

Summer Sewing Day

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, today, I spent the day at the London Friendship Quilters' Guild Summer sewing day. Between 20 and 30 of us gathered in a cool church basement and sewed the day away!  Charlene gave me three more slabs and Cathy made one at the sewing day.

I now have 22 slabs.

I spent my time finishing off the front of Christine's birthday gift--a pillow. (Her birthday was a while ago and she has actually seen the Dresden plate.) I added the orange centre and sandwiched and quilted it today.

I decided on a radiating organic quilting pattern. 

I think you can see it better in this picture.

I hope to put the back together tomorrow and get this project finished.

Cathy delivered my Swoon quilt to me today so I trimmed it and made the binding. Pictures of the completed quilt will be posted as soon as I finish it.

I also made the binding for the Trip Around the World quilt that my nieces and I pieced together. It is being quilted by Cathy as well. It should be ready for binding shortly.

 

 

I promised pictures of my "Sewing Baskets" quilt when I finished the binding, so here it is!

Those are my DH's feet in the picture!  He is an excellent quilt holder.  ;-)

Karen C did a wonderful, whimsical job on the quilting:

 

 

 

 

And here is my pieced back: 

 

 

I used an extra selvage spool block as my label. I will be bringing this quilt to this year's BIQR with Gwen Marston for show and tell night. I made most of the quilt top at last year's retreat. The theme was "Liberated Medallion Quilts". 

I was out wandering around the garden tonight as supper was cooking on the BBQ.  The bees were buzzing and having a party at the liatris plant.

The black eyed Susans have started blooming this week:

 

I caught a little butterfly on this bloom.

 

 

I just love echinaceas, don't you??

 

 

These scavoleas are in a pot near the gate to the vegetable garden:

 

 

 

The vegetable garden is starting to produce food to eat, including these kohlrabi: 

 

 

I have also picked some peppers and yellow zucchini which we cooked in our BBQ wok for dinner tonight.

 

 

This is a great time of year for fresh fruit and vegies!

 

Here is this week's stash report:

 

Fabric used in the last week: 2.25 yards

Total fabric used this year: 111  yards
Fabric added to the stash in the last week: 0 yards
Total fabric added this year: 93.73 yards
Net fabric used this year: 17.27 yards

 

Until next time...

A Scrappy Week

I spent much of my sewing time this week dealing with scraps...  I have piles and piles of scraps leftover from various projects in my disaster of a sewing room. I actually do most of my sewing at the dining room table but my DH would like me to move down to the sewing room, so we can actually use our dining room table for dining!  We are going to convert our home office--no longer needed since we have a portable laptop computer now, into a sewing room with a door through to my current sewing room which will become a fabric storage area and cutting station. I will eventually get a new sewing machine table with room for 2 or 3 quilters and there will be room for the ironing board and my design wall in that room too. There is a window in the home office so that will be nice too. I think that is why I did not like the sewing room that much--I like to have some daylight coming in through a window!

I had three drawers of scraps in my sewing room plus the aforementioned piles of scraps. First, I sorted all the 2.5" strips into ziploc bags by colour...

Next, I tackled the drawer full of strings...

All labelled and easy to grab what I need...

I have been sorting through my leftovers and cutting them up into the strips for the bags...

Next, is the dreaded small scraps drawer...I will need a good long movie or two to watch while I sort that mess out.

While I was sorting, I took a couple of sewing breaks to make some more slabs for Alberta.

I have had some slabs delivered to me as well...

Carol mailed her slab...

Heather dropped off 7 slabs tonight...

Anne put hers in my mailbox last night.

Karen, Jessie and Pat  dropped theirs off last week (see the last blogpost for pictures of my first three slabs and their slabs).

I laid out the slabs on the design floor and stood on a chair to get a picture...

18 slabs so far and more are coming. I should have enough for a 24 block quilt top and some extra slabs to mail to Cheryl next week!  I know that there are some more coming in the mail and will not mail the package to Cheryl until everything arrives. Thanks, everyone, for contributing to this project!

Tomorrow is a sewing day with some people from the London Friendship Quilters' Guild so I will be working on a birthday gift for Christine and some binding. I have a kit to make a quilt as well--I may bring it along to work on if there is time.

Puttering....

I made another slab for Alberta this past weekend. I have been working on sorting my strips and scraps into zip-loc bags by colour so it was easy to just grab a couple of bags (red strings and red 2 1/2" strips) and start sewing!  Several friend are making or have made slabs so I have a collection of them on my design wall...

I will be getting some more blocks this week--some in the mail and some at a sewing day this weekend. It would be nice to have enough to make a quilt top to send out west. Let me know if you are going to be making some slabs for this quilt!

I made a pillowcase for a friend for her birthday. She and I used to drink a lot of tea together when we lived in the same city. I will be putting this in the mail for her this week.

My BIL and SIL painted my nieces' room this past week and their new pillows are on their beds.  Yes...that is Hedwig on the bed with the pillows.

Here is the other one...

The girls are quite excited to have a "new room"!

I put the binding on my "Sewing Baskets" quilt that I made at BIQR last fall. I am in the midst of doing the hand sewing part...I am about half way around and will show a picture of the completed quilt soon.

You are also getting a bit of a sneak peak at the quilting in this picture...

I also finished sewing the 9 patch mystery flimsy together. I am trying to decide if I want to add a border or not...I like there to be lots of quilt hanging down the side of the bed when it is made. I have a wide-back purchased for this quilt already.

The darker green hosta in this picture is called "Quilting Bee"!  I can see it when I sit in my gazebo.

Here is my stash report:

Fabric used in the last week: 1.75 yards
Total fabric used this year: 108.75  yards
Fabric added to the stash in the last week: 0 yards
Total fabric added this year: 93.73 yards
Net fabric used this year: 15.02 yards

I was even in a fabric store this past week and resisted the temptation to buy more fabric!

Sewing and Stash Report

I sat down this afternoon to sew the 4 patches for the border of this basket and birds quilt this afternoon. Those 4 patches fought with me every step of the way---I think I did more ripping than sewing!  I was not defeated by the 4 patches, and the border is on! I had hoped to make some more progress on other projects today, but that was not meant to be.

Last night, I made a second "Slab for Alberta" for Cheryl at Dining Room Empire. You can read more about the slabs project in my previous post. I still hope to make a few more of these blocks. I have heard from several friends that they are making some slabs as well so we should have a nice package to mail to Cheryl later in the month.

Christine and I got together to sew one evening this week and I put together 7/9 blocks for my 9 patch mystery quilt. This was the other project I had hoped to work on today, but ripping got in the way!

I was outside earlier today and took a few pictures of the gardens.

The vegetables have been jumping out of the ground with the rain and warm weather. (The weeds are jumping too but my dad helps me to keep them under control.)

 

Echinacea

 

 

 

Day Lily

 

Veronica

 

 

Coleus--wouldn't these colours make a lovely quilt...?

 

Another Coleus.

 

Here is my weekly stash report....

 

 

Fabric used in the last week: 2.0 yards
Total fabric used this year: 107  yards
Fabric added to the stash in the last week: .5 yards
Total fabric added this year: 93.73 yards
Net fabric used this year: 13.27 yards

 

Slow progress on reducing the stash, but progress, nonetheless.

 

Until next time.