Binding and More Binding!

I took two comfort quilts to Julie, the long arm quilter around the corner and fellow Elgin Piecemaker member last week, expecting that they would not be done for a couple of weeks. I had just started to figure out which UFO I was going to tackle next, when I received a text from Julie to say that both quilts were done and ready for binding!  I picked them up the next day and got to work making the binding and machine sewing it to the quilts.  

 My hand sewing this week involved getting both quilts finished and ready to donate. 

By Friday afternoon, I had both of them done and they have now been delivered to Jacqui who takes care of getting them to the hospital for the adult chemo patients.  

This next picture shows the quilting and the backing. 

The word fabric quilt was quilted with a different pantograph. 

It's fun to read all of the words on the different fabrics in this quilt.  

On the knitting front, I finished off the squirrel facecloth, and started another textured facecloth this week. 

I've only done 5 rows of the next project so it doesn't look like much yet.  The colours are pretty. 

We started our Christmas decorating this week and I have my Christmas tree quilt up on the wall. I will continue to put more things out this week. We will decorate our tree next weekend. 

The bee blackwork project my daughter is working on is nearing completion.  She finished off a few more hexagons and another bee this week. Four more hexagons to go!

I took my blackwork project and a Frank Lloyd Wright cross stitch picture in to be framed this week.  Since they are not Christmas gifts, there is not a huge rush to get them done.  The framer will work on them when she is finished others that need to be done before Christmas. 

Finn is so helpful when my daughter is doing her work from home. 

My sewing machine is back from being serviced/repaired so I hope to get to some machine quilting with my walking foot this coming week, which will lead to more binding!   I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning. 

Comfort Quilts, Blackwork DONE, and some Knitting.

 Do any of you set goals for yourselves each week?  I have found that making myself a list of things I want to do each week helps me to stay on track and motivated during this time when I am mostly spending my time at home. My goals for this past week included getting two Elgin Piecemakers comfort quilts off to the long arm quilter. The first top was completed so all I had to do was wash the backing fabric, press it, sew one seam and it was ready to go.  I did not get a picture of the backing but here is the top --the double disappearing nine patch blocks were sewn by the members of the guild and Pat sewed the blocks together.  My jobs were to do the backing and binding.  Julie lives a 10 minute walk from my house and she will be long arm quilting this quilt. 

The second quilt top was started by Jacqui and I at least 5 or 6 years ago using 10" squares with words on them, donated by members of the guild.  All the pieces were cut out and in a bag which Jacqui just recently found in her sewing room. I laid them out on the design wall last week and this week sewed and trimmed each block before assembling the quilt top.  The backing, which is a text fabric, was also in the bag along with a label.  I walked over to Julie's house with this quilt on Friday afternoon.  It's out of my sewing room and into hers!

Goal accomplished!  I also wanted to finish my blackwork project so that I can get it framed.  I just had this orange square to finish. 

Here is the whole thing after being pressed.  I have washed it and a Frank Lloyd Wright piece that I finished a few months ago so they are ready for the framing appointment on Thursday this coming week.  I take my projects to a local framer--she does a great job and is only seeing customers by appointment right now. 

I had hoped to finish my squirrel facecloth as well but it is still in progress. You can see the squirrel much more clearly now. 

 Christmas projects are ongoing, behind the scenes. All will be revealed after they have been gifted. 

Finn had a haircut this week.  Here are the before and after pictures. He's still cute as ever! (I may be a bit biased!)

My daughter has 12/19 hexagons done on her bee blackwork project.  Only seven more to go!

Finn wants to know if you like him or the picture better!!!???

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

A Little of This and a Little of That

The November Modern Block of the Month pattern was released this week at the Twilight Quilt Guild blog, so I dug out my fabrics and got sewing.  The chevrons were paper pieced. The glasses fabric will appear in every block in my quilt along with other assorted dots and stripes in orange and navy.  I was afraid I was going to run out of the gray hash dot background fabric but managed to find some at a localish store and had them ship it to me. 

 I added the final borders to my Summerhill quilt from Mary Elizabeth Kinch's workshop.  I have a plan for the quilting--I just need to pick a backing from my stash and get my other sewing machine back from repair. I used lots of solid scraps in this quilt, but as is the case with all scrappy quilts, the bin still looks just as full as it did when I started. 

Several years ago, Jacqui and I set out to make two quilt tops for the Elgin Piecemakers outreach project, comfort quilts for cancer patients at our local hospital.  We managed to get one top done and the second top cut out in one day. The second quilt top was never assembled and got lost in Jacqui's sewing room, never to be seen again until a few weeks ago. It was unearthed during a deep clean and was brought to me to put together.  Each member of the guild contributed a few 10" squares of word fabric to this project--there was no colour scheme stipulated, but the fabrics all had to have words on them. I got all the pieces out of the bag and looked at the instructions for the blocks.  I spent a good hour yesterday laying out the blocks on my design wall and will sew them together this week. 

My design wall was not quite big enough for all of the blocks so I will sew what I can see so far and then lay out the final column of blocks.  The pattern is called The No-Waste Windmill and is from a book called Rotary Cutting Revolution by Anita Grossman Solomon.  The bag even has the binding all cut and a backing for the quilt as well. 

My latest knitting project, a baby facecloth with a squirrel on it, is about half done. I will work on it again tomorrow for Slow Sunday Stitching with Kathy.

Finn is excited to show off my daughter's stitching project.  Isn't he a great stitching model? 10/19 hexagons done. 

My blackwork project is very close to being done--only one more square to finish. This picture was taken earlier in the week. The colours were chosen based on what I had in my thread stash. 

Now, it looks like this:

A friend's daughter is getting married in a couple of weeks.  I gave her and her husband to be a couple of choices for a cross stitch picture for their wedding gift.  They have chosen one of the patterns I proposed and once we have the colours finalized, this will become my next project. I told them that the gift will be delivered sometime next year and they were fine with that.  We will be watching the wedding on Zoom instead of being there in person. 

I will link up with Kathy in the morning. 

Machine and Hand Stitching

Essex Linen seemed to be the fabric of the week in my sewing room over the last few days.  First, I finished the last two blocks of my Summerhill quilt and then added linen sashings and borders...the colour is called Pepper. I like the texture of the linen surrounding my blocks.  I am in the process of making a pieced border from more tiny pieces of Kona solids. I'm hoping to get the final two borders on this coming week. 

Next, I made a pillow for an online Christmas bazaar.  I had the three trees made already--they had been pinned to my design wall for the last couple of years so this was a good way to use them. I was pleased that I had enough scraps of the right colour of linen to complete the top of the pillow.  The back is a Christmas print that was in my stash--I added a zipper closure. 

My third Essex Linen project was this quilt top:

I participated in a broken dishes block swap with Barb at www.funwithbarb.com a few years ago and finally assembled the four blocks a couple of months ago.  I did not have the right fabric for the sashing and borders in my stash until the Essex Linen (pepper again!) arrived in my sewing room.  I already have a plan for the quilting on this quilt but need to purchase some red thread in 28 wt. and make a backing.  My sewing machine that I use for quilting is in at spa right now for a repair and a deep clean, so the quilting will have to wait for a bit. 

My blackwork project has almost all of the gray and black frames done now. I also added some more blue to that section. 

Our daughter was so busy following the news this week that she did not get any hand stitching done at all. Hopefully, she will have some progress to report next week. Finn would like to report that they had some snow this week where he lives, and it tasted good.

I glanced out the kitchen door today to discover that a squirrel was hiding a walnut in my wreath.  Mostly, they hide the walnuts in all sorts of strange places and then promptly forget where they are later. 

We had a beautiful day here today--sunny and 17 degrees C.  We spent part of the day raking leaving and cleaning up some gardens. Then, we went for a bike ride on a local trail and came home and cleaned the windows.  A very productive day!   I will be linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning. 

Piecing, Stitching and Knitting

Last weekend, I took a class with Mary Elizabeth Kinch on piecing with small bits of fabric.  The quilt I am making is called Summerhill.  It has 4 blocks surrounded by some borders.  I have now finished two of my blocks.  Each square in this first block finishes at one inch. 

The second one is a Courthouse step block--each log is .5" finished.  This is not paper pieced. 

I am using scraps from my cool Kona solids bin plus red violet.  About half of the scraps are all over my cutting table so I am going to have to keep working on the last two blocks and the pieced border before working on any other projects this week. The next two blocks are started.  

Earlier this week, I sewed my last 16 lupin blocks together...this took longer than I expected but I am glad to have them done.  All 48 blocks are in a bin, waiting for me to cut the setting rectangles and then lay everything out on the floor to put it all together.  This is a queen sized quilt and is too big for my design wall. 

This scrappy yellow block is the first in my next rainbow scrap challenge project.  Even the white pieces were cut from my Kona scraps.  The pattern for this block is from Gudrun Erla's Quilts of Iceland book. 

I started a new baby washcloth this week...so far, I just have the lower border done but I will be working on this again tomorrow for Slow Sunday Stitching, along with my blackwork project. There are 9 coloured squares and 4 gray ones in this Celtic knot design.  

My daughter's blackwork bee project looks amazing!  She sent me this picture today after finished another bee.  There are 19 hexagons in her picture, as well as several bees. 

Her embroidery has lots of wonderful texture!

We planted four different types of daffodil bulbs in our back gardens today. The squirrels tend to leave the daffodils alone so I'm looking forward to seeing these interesting blooms in the spring. 

We didn't have very many Trick or Treaters this year, but the few we did have were all very cute! I gave them their candy with a long tool that belonged to my parents--they used it to pick things up off the floor or from a high shelf. It worked very well to deliver treats to the kids' bags at a safe distance. Until next week, have a great week, filled with lots of sewing, knitting and stitching. 

20th Anniversary Challenge for the Elgin Piecemakers

 I belong to a small quilt guild--the Elgin Piecemakers--that recently celebrated 20 years of getting together to share our love of all things quilting.  We have 20 members and we meet in each others homes. There is always a wonderful social/snack time at every meeting.  In late 2019, we decided that we should celebrate our 20 years as a guild in a significant way.  Someone proposed an anniversary quilt challenge--we would each make our own centre block and then each month for several months, we would be given instructions on what to add to the centre block to make a medallion quilt. Somewhere in our quilt, we had to add something to indicate 20--and I chose to make my centre block XX--20 in Roman numerals. 

I chose to use fabric I had in my stash.  I found a half yard of yellow paperweight Kaffe Fassett fabric and a fat quarter of the same fabric in green. The background is leftover from another project and I had about a yard of it. Then, I got out my green and yellow Kona solid scraps and added those to the mix. I also made the decision to make my blocks in a liberated fashion, like I had learned at the Beaver Island Quilt retreats with Gwen Marston several years ago. 

For the first border, we were told to add stars. I made 4 liberated/wonky stars and decided to just add them to two sides of the centre block. 

Next up was appliqué borders on two sides of the quilt.  I cut some of each of the two Kaffe fabrics on the bias and hand appliquéd them to the background fabric. 

For paper piecing, I made some string borders using various widths of my scraps and Kaffe fabrics.  You can see the string borders above. 

Curved piecing was the next prompt.  I stacked a solid with a Kaffe fabric and sliced through them on a curve before sewing them together again to make my units. 

The second to last border was to be made with HST's. By this time, I was running short of the background fabric so I figured this might be my last border.  I made some string pieced squares and cut them in half on the diagonal to make my HST's. 

The final border could be whatever we wanted it to be.  I chose to use the binding as my final border.  I had just enough of the yellow paperweight fabric to bind my quilt. 

I found a piece of bright green solid which I used for the backing.  I quilted my quilt on my domestic sewing machine with my walking foot using yellow thread. 

My husband took a picture of me with my completed quilt out in our backyard earlier this week. 

This was a great challenge for the members of our guild.  

I wonder what we will do for our next challenge.  I will just have to wait and see.  I will link up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge crew on Saturday since this month's colour was yellow.