Foothills Blocks DONE and more FLW

A few stitches here and a few stitches there, and progress is made towards the finish line. I just have a few more borders to do at the bottom of my Frank Lloyd Wright cross stitch picture and then on to the outlining. With any luck, the cross stitching will be done in the next week or two.  When I get this close to the end, all I want to do is finish it! When this picture is done, I will have three completed pictures to take to the framing store to have them stretched and framed.  It would be great to have all three on the wall by Christmas time. Maybe that is a good attainable goal...

On the quilting front, I am nearing the end of a quilt I started in February...the Foothills quilt along organized by Mary Elizabeth Kinch.  I used my husband's discarded shirts as my fabric source for this quilt and have been working away for months now on the 25 blocks.  This past week, I finished the last of the blocks and purchased the sashing/border fabric.    Here are my last 5 blocks:

The brighter green rectangles were actually from one of my shirts--the rest of the shirts were my husband's.

The above block involved some ripping and in the end, I still ended up with all the geese going one way...I am fine with that...it will make the quilt more interesting to look at.  I intentionally made some of the blocks with the HST's oriented differently in regards to where I put the light and dark fabrics.

This quilt allowed me to play with different value and colour combinations that I have not tried before.

Most of the fabrics were thread dyed checks or plaids but there were also a few solid colours as well.

You might think that with all these colours and different shirts in one quilt, it would not be cohesive, but somehow, it is.   Here are all my blocks.

The flying geese took the longest of all of the parts of the blocks.  There are 150 flying geese in these blocks.

I grew rosemary, thyme, oregano and parsley in pots on my patio and I have decided to try drying them in brown paper bags.  Here is what the rosemary looked like when I picked it.  I will see how it looks in a week or two.  I have not done this before.  (I know, I should have grown sage instead of oregano and channelled Simon and Garfunkel, but I digress...)

With this picture, I am a day late and a dollar short--Kathy asked the slow Sunday Stitchers to show their favourite stitching spot and here is mine--in the gazebo in my backyard.  This picture was supposed to be shown last week or the week before... Oh well...now you know where I like to sew!

I will be linking up with Kathy on Sunday morning.

Modern Quilt Guild Swap

Several months ago, I signed up to participate in a swap at the London Modern Quilt Guild.  Our swap partners were from the Ancaster Modern Quilt Guild and we were given some information about our swap partners and their preferences.  The quilts were to be no bigger than 24" X 24". We handed our quilts in at the July meeting and they were to be distributed at the August meeting when the Ancaster Guild members would be visiting.

You may remember the quilt that I made--my husband thought it was a hat...

I was not able to be at the August meeting as I was away on vacation so Christine brought my quilt to me a couple of weeks after I got back.

My swap partner's name is Nicole and she wrote me this lovely note that came with my quilt:

I had mentioned that I liked liberated quilts, such as those made by Gwen Marston.  I love my liberated log cabin quilt, Nicole!  The colours are wonderful and the quilting is divine!  Thanks so much for swapping with me.   Christine told me that Nicole knew that the quilt I made for her was not a hat!

(I'm not sure what Kristin and Nicole were looking at while this picture was taken!)

If I get another chance to participate in a swap, I think I will jump in with both feet!

Slow Stitching This Week

It has been a couple of weeks since I last posted a picture of my Frank Lloyd Wright counted cross stitch project.  Here is a picture of where I left off last time.  

Since then, there have been a few car trips with stitching as well as an evening with a friend --she was knitting mittens and I cross stitched.  Today, I was at the September meeting of the London Modern Quilt Guild and there was time to sit and sew after the business meeting and program.  Instead of bringing my sewing machine and a bag of fabric, I chose to just bring my (lightweight!) bag with my cross stitch project in it and add some more stitches.

There is one more rectangular box at the bottom of the picture that I need to complete along with the grey borders like the rest of the piece. There are not a lot of colourful stitches left to add--just a few here and there---mostly grey.    After the cross stitching is done, I will be working on the silver outlining. I need to find my thread heaven again as the metallic thread tends to tangle easily.

Grand-puppy, Finn, has been teething and lost a molar this week.  I wonder if the Tooth Fairy visits puppies???

It has gotten decidedly cooler in my neck of the woods this weekend but I still have lots of blooms in my garden...

Sedum

A miniature rose

Phlox

One of my favourite things to do on Sundays is to check out what the other Slow Stitchers are up to over at Kathy's blog.  I hope you will take a peek and perhaps leave some encouraging comments on some of the blogs. 

Guess Whoooo is Here?

A colleague at work is having her second baby any time now and her last day of work is tomorrow.  I started this quilt last week and finished it up on Tuesday night.  I brought it to work today to give it to her.  I included washing instructions!  Mom was thrilled with the quilt and promised to send me pictures of the new baby and her big sister with the quilt.

The name of the quilt, "Guess Whooo is Here?" came from the owls on the white fabric.  The quilting is a wavy cross hatch.  I used some solid yellow for the binding and a soft flannel for the backing.  All fabrics were in my stash...

I don't think there are any more babies coming soon so I will take a hiatus from baby quilts for now.  I did find another charm pack in my sewing room that I will likely use for the next baby quilt...

I will be working on the last 5 Foothills blocks this next week.  I finished two more last night...

I am so close to having all of the blocks done.  I have started the last 5 blocks and just need to make the geese and the HST's for the remaining blocks.

I will be linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers on Sunday Morning.  I love hand sewing the binding on a quilt!  I will be working on my Frank Lloyd Wright counted cross stitch this weekend...no progress so far this week but I hope to get lots done this weekend.

Frank and Another Baby Quilt

I want to start today's post with a thank you.  On Friday, an envelope arrived in the mail with more DMC #318 thread in it...and it matched the thread I have been using on my Frank Lloyd Wright Fountain Glass counted cross stitch project.  Thank you Karla for sending the thread to me all the way from Kansas!  The thread wrapped around the lower cardboard holder is my thread and I cannot tell the difference between it and the two skeins sent by Karla. I now have enough to finish my picture!  (Thanks again to Cathy, Carole, Pat, Kim, and Paige who also sent me thread during the making of this picture!  It takes a village...)

I did some more of the silver metallic thread outlining today and then worked on some more grey stitching.  I had some distractions while I was stitching today...my daughter and Finn came to visit for the weekend.  My husband and my daughter went to a Tigers game in Detroit and I am home dog sitting Finn. We had a great time---we went for a long walk with my friend, Pat, at the park and tonight another friend, Karen, came over to meet Finn. I made some progress on the stitching while Finn had a nap but then he woke up and my stitching time disappeared!

You can see where my attention and my camera were focussed!

I hope to get a bit more stitching done tomorrow.  I will be linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning.  

Finn on our walk today. 

One of my colleagues at work is having a baby in September so I decided this week to make a baby quilt for the new addition. I don't have a lot of time to get it finished so I went with a super simple design using only stash fabric. 

I had about a yard of the owl fabric and about 1/2 a yard of each of the blue and green fabrics.  I kept cutting squares for the hourglass units until I ran out.  I had just enough of the owl fabric for the squares.  I got the blocks sewn together and then decided it needed borders but I was not sure what colour to use. I did not have enough of either the blue or green left to go all the way around the quilt. 

After sleeping on it for a night, I decided to use my leftovers from both colours for the border. 

  The finished top measures 41" square.  I found some blue and green flannel in my stash that was the perfect size for the backing (with one seam) and then did the pin basting on my kitchen floor.  I have done some of the quilting and hope to finish the entire quilt by the end of the week.  I will have to find some other fabric in the stash for the binding as I only have a few odd bits of these three fabrics left after making the quilt top.  Check back later this week to see the finished quilt.  My colleague starts her maternity leave on Friday so I want to give her the quilt on or before Friday. (She does not even know that I have a blog!)

Have a good week. 

Swap Blocks and Foothills Block #18

During sewing time with Christine last night, I finished up the last of my 4th set of 24 swap blocks.  The Elgin Piecemakers Guild is doing a swap of these blocks over the next year or so.  We are to use neutral colours (white, beige, tan, brown, black grey) to make the blocks.  I wanted to get all of my swap blocks for September to December done before the end of August so last night, I achieved my goal.  I have 96 blocks done!  They are all bagged up and ready to go for each of our meetings this fall.

I also made one more Foothills quilt block. The quilt has 25 blocks in it and I have completed 18 blocks.  I am using my husband's discarded shirts for this project. I am starting to think about what I will use to sash my blocks...I don't have enough shirt fabric in one colour to use so I may use a solid colour (navy??) for the sashing.

I am going to piece the shirt backs together to make the backing of the quilt.  The bin of shirts is overflowing so I hope I can get a lid on the bin when this quilt is done. There will likely be more shirt quilts in my future.

On the weekend, my husband and I made mustard relish.  We were channeling our ancestors as we made it with my Mom's recipe in my Dad's soup pot and we did the processing in my husband's grandmother's canning pot.  The last few times I made this relish, my Dad and I did it together.  I thought about him as we chopped and stirred.  I have enough relish to keep us going for a few years now!

On Sunday, one of the no reply commenters asked to see the porch at our B and B from our vacation. You can see our view of the boats in the harbour as well as the book I was reading. 

There was a nice breeze as we sat out here most days. 

This picture was taken one evening at the harbour. 

I thought you might like to see a few hiking pictures too.  These were taken on the Cup and Saucer trail on Manitoulin Island. 

This was called Angel Wing fungus for obvious reasons. 

The trail through the woods. 

I will continue to work on the foothills blocks.  I would like to finish this top soon so I can get it quilted and put it into the London Friendship Quilter's Guild show in October. 

Slow Stitching on a Boat

My husband and I spent the last week on the Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin Island.  It was our first vacation in a couple of years and was a much needed break from our normally busy lives. There is something magical about getting on a boat and going to an island that changes your mindset.  We slowed right down and spent some time each day reading on the verandah at our B and B in between, hiking, sight seeing and eating some delicious meals. I actually read an entire book while we were away---something that I don't often take the time to do.

The ferry to Manitoulin Island--the Chi-Cheemaun--has recently been refurbished and a mural has been painted on the bow. I took these pictures as the ferry arrived in South Baymouth on Manitoulin Island to take us back to Tobermory.

I did some slow stitching in the car on our way to and from the Bruce Peninsula as well as on the boat  on our way home.

We sat by a window in the lounge as I stitched and my husband read a book.  I didn't see anyone else doing any handwork on the ferry but, for me, it was the perfect way to spend my time during the 1 hour and 45 minute journey. I did some more of the silver outlining at the top of the picture

as well as some cross stitching in the lower section.

Naturally, I took lots of pictures while we were away...here are a few of my favourites.  I'm not sure what type of butterfly this is but it was fun to watch it flit about.

This squirrel greeted us as we arrived at Misery Bay Provincial Park for a hike.  Don't let the name of the park fool you--it was beautiful there!

Even though the end of summer is in sight, there were lots of flowers to photograph as we hiked---that is my husband in the distance.

In other news, grand-dog Finn had his first haircut today. He's still just as cute as a button--no bias here!

I will be linking up with Kathy and the other slow stitchers in the morning.  I always enjoy checking to see what everyone has been up to each week.