Two Baby Quilt Tops and Handstitching, of course!

In an effort to use up my kids prints and to replenish my baby quilt supply, I made two I spy baby quilts over the last couple of weeks.  The first is a Bonnie Hunter Pattern...Bricks and Stepping Stones.  The quilt is 36" by 48" and features lots of fun I Spy prints. 

The second one is a Potato Chip quilt featuring more fabrics from my collection.  It is the same size as the one above.  I tried to use pairs of all of the fabrics so that a game of find the matching fabric can be played.  Some of these fabrics have been lurking in my stash for a long time.  The thing I like about both of these patterns ---both are easy to cut and put together fairly quickly.  

The backs are pieced with fabrics from my stash.  I will get these pin basted and quilted over the next week or two. 

Finn likes to lie close, sometimes on top of, my daughter to make sure she does not leave his sight. 

I've been working on the bird's tail and more leaves this week on my fall cross stitch project. 

I made some cottage themed pillowcases for a friend for her birthday.  She is excited to use them at their cottage this fall. 

At my guild's weekly sewing day, I did some more hand quilting on my round robin quilt. 

My husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary with lunch out and ice cream as well as a few stops on the way home at various interesting spots.  We both had fish tacos and a salad for lunch.  Yum!  All afternoon, we could see a storm brewing north of where we were.  We managed to avoid most of the rain until we got home when the storm arrived with a vengeance.  We had hail, thunder and lightning and torrential rain and winds.  

We lost one branch in a tree in the backyard during the storm but everything else was fine.   

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers as well as Frederique.  

Back From Vacation

 We just got home from two weeks in Calgary, Alberta where we were visiting family.  We had lots of fun and went to lots of interesting places. This post has lots of pictures of our trip as well as the sewing I have done in the last three weeks.  I will start with some progress on my hand quilting of the round robin quilt.  I'm just figuring it out as I go along and will go back to quilt the blue border as well as the outer green border when I feel inspired. 

I started a new fall cross stitch project on our trip.  The pattern is Autumn Bird by Satsuma Street. I like to do a bit of this colour and then a bit of that colour as I stitch.  

I went to one quilt store in Canmore and purchased these four fat quarters, all with a Canadian theme.  I really like the touques on the birds!

While out for a walk along the river, we discovered some interesting art made with marbles.  You could only see the picture they made when the sun was shining from behind. 

I also caught a picture of an Osprey landing on its nest on top of a public art installation on St. Patrick Island. 

We went for a short hike at Big Hill Springs Provincial Park near Cochrane. 

Who doesn't love a happy barn?

A real sunflower and an art installation in a reading garden. 

I'm always on the lookout for Quilty inspiration...

Fishing, anyone???

This is the best bathroom art I have ever seen! It was at the SAM centre (Calgary Stampede Museum).   Yes, those are toilets in the background...

We also spent a day at the Calgary Zoo where my favourite animals were the penguins. 

These little birds weave their nests with grasses. 

We took a trip to the badlands where we saw lots of Hoodoos. 

I took last year's fall cross stitch project in to be framed before we went away and it should be ready soon.  Here is the frame I picked out. 

Also, before we went away, I finished met Rainbow Scrap Challenge 9 patch quilt. It's all ready for show and tell at our September Guild meeting. 

What would a blogpost be without a picture of Finn the granddog???  He just got his hair cut this week.  (I saw this mat outside a store in Calgary...)

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers, Frederique, and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge folks as well. 

Machine Quilting, Piecing and Hand Quilting, of Course!

It's been a busy week in the sewing department!  On Monday, I pin basted my nine patch quilt.  I quilted it with my walking foot yesterday and I have binding picked out to cut and sew on today.  This quilt will be done and ready for show and tell at our September guild meeting!  I used a 28wt light grey thread for the quilting. 

I pieced the medium blue block for my "circle" quilt and now all the blocks are made.  I went searching through my stash for an appropriate sashing fabric as I did not want the blocks to be butted up against each other in the finished quilt.  I found this black and white striped fabric and will use this for both the sashing and the binding. I am going to cut the sashing at 1.5" so only an inch will show once everything is sewn together. 

I added yellow and green beads to my counted cross stitch project.  Three more colours to go!

I am working on hand quilting this pieced border, just figuring out what to quilt as I go along.  I am quilting the final border as well.  I still haven't figured out what to do in the wider blue border.  It will come to me eventually!

On our walk one day this week, we saw Mama deer and two fawns in the woods beside the path.  

There were some interesting spider webs as well. 

Finn helped my daughter will her crochet this week.  He finds balls of wool make very comfy pillows.

There were some very nice sunbeams this week too. 

I will link up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers at Kathy's blog, the Rainbow Scrap Challenge folks at Angela's blog and Frederique, as usual.  Have a good week!