Sunflowers and a Mini Vacation

This past week was not very productive in the sewing room but I did spend several hours working on my sunflower cross stitch picture.  I would really like to finish this picture in the next month or so as I would like to start a Christmas cross stitch project and maybe finish it in time for Christmas...

When we went to Newfoundland in June, we happened upon a little knitting store called "Skivvers Fibre Studio and Wool Craft" in Cow Head  where I purchased a pattern book and wool to make myself a hat, mittens and a scarf. I have decided to start by making the hat.  The pattern is on the left in the picture below and the wool I will use is on the right. The wool is made by the "Fleece Artist" in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  The colours are inspired by Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland.  They produce different colour schemes for each National Park in Canada.  We spent quite a bit of time in Gros Morne, so I decided this would be a good reminder of our trip. I am not the fastest knitter so making all three items will be a long term project. 

I cut up a stick and made a stem for the pumpkin I made last week. I think it looks finished now and I probably won't add a leaf. 

My husband and I, along with my friend Christine and her husband went on a mini vacation to Buffalo, New York this week. We stayed at a bed and breakfast and did a historic boat tour along the Buffalo River to Silo City where we did a walking tour of the abandoned silos for a malting company. 

We did in-depth tours of the Darwin Martin House and Graycliff, both designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  My husband and I had toured these homes 10 years ago and noticed many improvements had been made in the intervening years. 

This window is the Tree of Life pattern, prominent in the Darwin Martin House. Several years ago, I did a cross stitch picture of this window. 

This is Graycliff, the summer home of the Martin Family. We had excellent tours of both homes and highly recommend a visit to both homes if you are in the Buffalo area. 

Finn had a spa day this week and had a haircut.  We can see his eyes again!

Finn tells me there is a hole in the backing of a quilt I made for my daughter when she started University.  They will bring the quilt home with them when they come here in October so that I can repair the hole. 

I think I still have a few scraps of that flannel backing left so it will be easy to patch. I think it just wore through with use ...Finn is not at fault!

I will link up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching group in the morning. 
 

A Variety of Projects

Somehow, I managed to do some sewing almost every day this past week. Two sunflowers are almost done in this quadrant of my sunflower cross stitch.  I also added a bee and some leaves. 

I'm going to a wedding shower tomorrow for my cousin's daughter.  If you know her, please don't spill the beans.  I am quite sure that the bride to be does not read my blog!  I made her these pillowcases--they like to go camping so the canoe fabric was chosen with this in mind. 

I also made her two coiled rope hot pads.  The fabric scraps in these are dark green.  They are about 9" in diameter. 

Today, I met another cousin's new grand baby (this cousin is on the other side of the family!).  I gave him a flannel vortex quilt that I made a few years ago using scraps from PJ's I had made for my daughter and my nieces as well as other scraps accumulated over the years. We talked about how the quilt can be used to play I spy or a matching game when he gets older and is learning to talk.  It has a flannel back and will be quite cozy for story time too.  

I found a fabric pumpkin pattern online (just google it and you will find several patterns) and decided to try making one this week.  I have lots of orange pumpkins to decorate with and decided to make a lighter coloured one.  I have a stick to cut up to make a stem as well as a piece of green felted wool for a leaf.  I will finish it off this week.  I wanted to show my friends at the Slow Sunday Stitchers the slightly gathered running stitch I added to give the pumpkin a more interesting shape. I used pearl cotton thread for this. 

I also found an easy free pattern for a leaf quilt online and decided to just make a small wall hanging instead.  The background is Essex Linen.  I still need to add an outer border in the same background colour and quilt it.  This will be a gift for someone special.  

I started quilting my Shweshwe quilt ages ago and finally got back to working on it again this week.  I hope to do some quilting on it most days.  Of course, I have decided to quilt it rather densely so this will take a while.  I do like how it looks though so will continue to persevere.  

It has been quite cool some mornings this past week but my fuchsia plants are still blooming happily on the front porch.  

Finn certainly enjoys his naps, especially when he can touch my daughter at the same time. 

He likes to be comfortable and use all of the pillows. 

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

Making Gifts

My next door neighbour is an excellent knitter.  Last week, she helped me to fix a booboo in my knitted dishcloth.  She showed me some socks that she was knitting and I noticed that her knitting bag was a reusable grocery bag. I decided she needed a wide open zipper pouch for her sock knitting projects. I purchased the knitting fabric when on a mini shop hop with friends (we visited two shops and went out for lunch). The other two fabrics and the zipper were in my stash.  Can you tell I like dots?  My neighbour was thrilled with her new knitting bag!  The pattern is from Noodlehead. 

I'm going to a wedding shower next weekend and have made some things for the bride and groom to be. I will show pictures after the shower.  

I made a navy blue pineapple block this week for the rainbow scrap challenge.  I know that the colour of the month is Aqua but I don't have enough aqua scraps to make anything so I decided my colour for September is Navy. 

My husband and I spent two days on the long weekend making mustard pickle relish using my Mom's recipe. One batch makes a lot of relish! We filled 6 pint jars and 26 of these smaller jars with relish. 

I have finally finished two quadrants on my sunflower cross stitch. The picture is actually more than half finished now.  I have a pattern for a Christmas project which I may switch over to at some point but for now I will continue with the Sunflowers. 

Around here, the leaves on some of the trees are just starting to turn and my sedum is blooming.  Fall is just around the corner. 

Our shamrock continues to put on a magnificent show as well.  This plant belonged to my husband's great aunt at one time. It really seems to thrive on our shady back step. 

 I was talking to Finn on FaceTime yesterday and took this picture.  My daughter put her phone on the floor so Finn and I could chat while she made dinner. 

I will link up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.  Have a great week. 

Sunflowers, A Knitting UFO and Borders

 There is a reason why they call it SLOW stitching...it takes a long time to finish a project.  I am still working on the second quadrant of my Sunflower cross stitch.  I don't have a deadline for this picture so it will get done when it gets done.  

I found a project bag with this knitting in it this week--I started this dish cloth in February and it got put away... it was about half done. I decided it needed to be finished! I'm not sure why I waited so long.  I bought some wool to make myself some mittens, a scarf and a hat so one of those will be my next knitting project. 

There is a little town north of London, Ontario called Exeter.  On their welcome sign, it states that they are the home of white squirrels.  I have been to Exeter many times over the last 38 years and had never seen a white squirrel, until this week! Apparently, the white colour is a genetic mutation of the more common gray squirrel. 

My husband and I celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary this week.  He brought me flowers... so pretty.  

I added asymmetrical borders to my HRT project earlier this week and managed to keep all of my points!  I have to figure out how to quilt this one so for now, it will be in the "to be quilted" pile. 

My husband and I went to a Heritage Farm Show today.  The chickens and turkeys were my favourite part of the show. I managed to get a few good pictures of these rapidly moving targets!

One of the old tractors had this little tractor in its Pre-Cleaner...LOL!

Finn was given a new bandana this week from our nieces. Both of our nieces worked at a Provincial Park this summer and bought this cute bandana for Finn as well as one for each of their two border collies, Skye and Kindle.  All these boys are looking very dapper!

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