A Birthday Gift, The Rooster and Green Scraps

My friend, Ann, is celebrating a special birthday this week so I made her an open wide zippered pouch using this pattern from Noodlehead.  Since February is green month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, this project fit right in!  The lining is white with green polka dots. Ann is an avid gardener so she loved the fabric I chose.  

I rummaged through my green scrap bin and cut up lots of 2.5" squares and HST's for my 3 rainbow scrap challenge projects for 2026.  I made 6 checkerboard nine patches. I have not cut out the white background for the HST block and the shoo fly blocks.  That will be on deck for this coming week.  We are supposed to be using darker shades of green but I have very little dark green in my stash.  I will see what I have when I am done sewing up the blocks using these greens. 

The Funky Rooster got lots of attention this week.  I am well on my way to finishing this side of the rooster.  It will be fun to put it together into a 3D object when I am done with the stitching. 

My husband and I belong to the local hiking club and try to go on their weekly hikes.  It was cold but sunny with blue skies.  The snow was powdery under our feet.  It was a very enjoyable hike!

The trail goes along a creek and we could see lots of animal tracks on the snow covered ice.  They were mostly deer prints. 

Meanwhile, we had a backyard visit from this very fluffy squirrel this week.  He was sitting on our fence. 

Finn likes to lie in this chair and watch the squirrels in the backyard at my daughter's place.  He never barks at them, unlike many dogs. 

I started this blog in 2008 as a way to keep track of and document my projects.  I have come to know many lovely people through my blog, but I have never met most of them in person.  I just wanted all of you to know that I appreciate your support and comments on my blog. Maybe someday, I will get to see you in person and we can enjoy a cup of tea and some in person stitching together...  In the meantime, another friend who I have never met in person sent me this one day this past week and I wanted to share it with you.  

I will link up with Kathy and my Slow Stitching friends,  Frederique and her gang, as well as Angela and Rainbow Scrap Challenge folks who try in vain to use up their scraps, just like me!

Back to Hand Quilting, Funky Rooster and Summer Sorbet Sampler

After a few months of no hand quilting, I finally got back to working on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge pineapple log cabin quilt. I had started the quilting but decided I didn't like it so let the ideas simmer for a while until I figured it out.  I got most of the pink block done today while stitching with a couple of friends but quit when my underside finger got sore. 

In the sewing room, I made three more blocks for the Threadhouse Academy Summer Sorbet sampler quilt. You can see the layout in the fourth picture below.  The last three block patterns will be released in April. 

I also put lots of stitches into the Funky Rooster project this week. I am working on the mirror image of the finished section on the left of this picture. 

Today, Frances worked on her mosaic rug hooking class project. 

Elaine is embroidering a baby quilt. It is a stamped cross stitch kit. 

When I was at the farmer's market this morning, I bought a small cinnamon coffee cake for us to enjoy with our tea while we stitched.  

Frances and Elaine brought along some baking too.  We each had a small piece of each of the coffee cakes (cinnamon and rhubarb) in the morning and then Elaine's delicious cookies after lunch. 

We have had lots of snow and cold weather in the last week.  It's fun to see different animal tracks in the snow.  We think this zigzag trail on our patio was made by a raccoon. 

This squirrel with the snow beard was sighted on our walk at the park one morning this week. 

A fancy new birdhouse was installed at the park this week too.  

These tracks are also in our backyard but we are not sure what made them...something that hops, perhaps but it seems wider than our wild bunnies that tear around the yard. 

My husband bought me tulips this week as an early birthday/Valentine's gift.  I love spring flowers but for now, I am enjoying the winter weather. 

Finn likes to nap on the pillows on the couch behind my daughter after breakfast on a Saturday morning.  It's comfortable, cozy and ever so close to his favourite person. 

I will link up with Kathy and Frederique.  Have a good week and stay warm if it is cold where you are. 

Modern Sampler and the Rooster

I am just about half finished the stitching on my funky rooster.  The pattern includes two funky chickens and a funky rooster.  I hope to get this half done this weekend and move on to the second half.  I like the bright colours and fun shapes on this project. 

Here's Finn, modelling the growing book blanket.  My daughter is adding the book squares from May 2025 now. The gray squares mark the end of each month. 

I didn't have a lot of sewing room time this week but did manage to get started on the next three blocks for the Threadhouse Academy modern sampler.  I have a one year subscription to the Threadhouse Academy and every 4 months, three new blocks for the sampler are released.  I hope to get caught up on the blocks this week.  Then, the fabric and the blocks will get put away until the final blocks are released in a couple of months.  I am not doing every project that the Threadhouse Academy is offering but I still watch the classes and get ideas for future projects. I'm thinking of signing up again next year.  

I made the medium blue shoo fly blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this week.  These are put away with the other blue blocks as I wait to see what colour will be chosen for February.  

It's been a very cold and snowy week here and where Finn lives.  Great weather for staying inside and stitching!  Finn does like to go outside and stick his face in the snow...   Unfortunately, snowy and cold weather also means booties and his coat when he goes for a walk. 

 I will link up with the RSC, the Slow Sunday Stitchers and Frederique.   Stay warm if you are experiencing the polar vortex this week!

Funky Chicken Progress and More Blue

This week, I spent a bit of time working on my Funky Chicken cross stitch and added lots of stitches. When the stitching is done, I need to add felt wings and beak, etc. as I sew it into a 3D chicken.  I was running out of the darker red-orange colour and managed to get another skein this week. 

I have three Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects started for this year. I made a three shoe fly blocks from my leftover light blue scraps. These finish at 6.5".

Then, I dug into my medium blue scraps and cut out lots of squares and HST's.  This scrap bin has been mined for 2.5" strips before and it was tricky to find enough to make these blocks. 

My daughter asked me to repair a hole in her 17 year old university quilt.  The fabric was starting to shred.  Easy peasy I thought.  Won't take any time at all to fix...

Maybe I have some of that fabric in my light green scrap bin...  I did!  This quilt has been used a lot and has been washed many times.  It has faded just a tad...

I had to move on to plan B.  When I looked closer at the quilt, I saw lots of places where the fabrics had worn through. I decided to use the mending stitch on my machine and sew over the holes to stabilize the weak spots and the seams that were starting to come apart.  This quilt has been well used over the years and my daughter wants to keep using it.  In the winter, she likes two quilts on her bed, this one, and the one I made her for her graduation from university.  She and I have talked about picking out fabric and a pattern for a new quilt for her.  We will have to go shopping!

This is what my backyard looked like early on Wednesday afternoon.  We didn't have any snow in the morning. It was just starting to snow after lunch.  The second picture shows what it looked like on Thursday. 

I used my quilting ruler to measure how deep it was...nearly 10" and the snow had not quit falling yet.  It snowed again yesterday and its snowing again today.  It looks really pretty!  This is January in Canada. 

Finn and my daughter have lots of snow too and it is still snowing there too. 

Finn wants you to know that another row has been added to the book blanket.  He approves. 

 I will link up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, the Slow Stitchers and Frederique in France. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge and some Knitting

Blue is the colour of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for January.  I have been participating in this challenge for a few years now and I have still not run out of scraps to use each month.  I would like to make three projects this year.  The first one will be these nine patches with 8 blocks made each month.  I have 2 more to make.  You can see that I am making them so that they form a checkerboard when they are sewn together.  These are my light blue blocks and I would like to make some mid-blue blocks as well.  I will get started on those this week.  

My second project will be 10.5" blocks made with HST's.  I don't have enough variety in my light blue scraps to make these with no repeats but that's fine with me. 

The Oxford Quilter's Guild is doing a colour challenge this year--here are my blocks for each month since September.  September - light/lime green; October - orange; November - turquoise and aqua; December - red; and January - purple and magenta.  There will be sashing between the blocks and a border on this quilt to make it baby sized. 

I found a ball of yarn in my sewing room and decided to make a hat this week.  I will be adding a pompom next week when I borrow my friend's pompom maker. 

My daughter is working on the third row of her book blanket.  

I had a couple of friends over to stitch and chat this afternoon.  We were so busy with our projects that I forgot to take pictures.  Carol worked on a crochet blanket and Christine had a cross stitch sampler with her.  I finished off my had and added a few stitches to my cross stitch chicken--not enough to warrant a picture though. 

While out on a walk at the park this week, we came across these squirrels enjoying a feast of seeds that someone had left out on a log for them and the birds. 

Finn is happy to be home again, back in his role as supervisor when my daughter works from home. 

 I will link up with Kathy and Frederique as well as the RSC folks.