Only 4 more to go! #15 and 16 are done.

Here is number 15. I used the polka dot fabric to make a pillowcase for my daughter.

Number 16 started out with the knitting fabric--originally purchased to make a pillowcase for a friend who is a knitter.

 

 

I have a few evening committments this week so my design floor may just look like this for a little while.

 

 





My Dad and I made some Mustard Pickle Relish this weekend too. It is a two part process done over the course of two days. The first day involves a lot of chopping and peeling...

 

The second day is the day it becomes relish after some cooking and lots of stirring.

 

 

I used my huband's grandmother's canner for the hot water bath. Here are the last two jars being processed:

 

 

Here is the finished product:

 

 

My Mother and my Grandmother both used this recipe.

I really like this relish on hamburgers and ham.

 

We finished the staining of the shed too. All in all, a productive weekend!

Great Granny #14 and the beginning of some canning

 

It was a busy day today with lots of things to do, but I did manage to make Great Granny #14.

 

 

If you read my blog all the time, you know that purple does not appear in my quilts very often. My purple stash consists of about 5 or 6 pieces of fabric. This seemed like the perfect spot to put a bit of this purple fabric since some of those feathers in the yellow fabric are purple.



 

Only 6 more to go!  If I do one a day for the next week, I will have all the blocks done.  #15 is aleady cut out and ready to sew. Maybe I will get a swoon done tomorrow too. It would be nice to have both quilts' blocks done by the end of the month.

My Dad and I are in the midst of making Mustard Relish. This is my Mother's recipe and we spent a couple of hours today chopping and slicing and dicing for the first step of making the relish. Tomorrow, we will be making the sauce, cooking everything, canning it and admiring the finished product!  We make this every few years...it makes a lot and I only use a little bit at a time. It is great on hamburgers, hotdogs and ham. Maybe I will put the recipe on my blog tomorrow with a picture of the jars of golden relish.

Until tomorrow....

A Baker's Dozen

Did you ever wonder why a "Baker's Dozen" is 13 instead of 14?  I googled it tonight and here is a link to the explaination!  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/Bakers%20dozen.html  The origins go back quite a ways--back to Medieval times!   Our local roadside stand that sells corn on the cob offers a Baker's Dozen for $4.00 to $5.00, depending on where we are in the season. This time of year, this is my favourite Baker's Dozen!

You have probably guessed by now that I have finished my #13 Great Granny Square block. My husband and I spent every last minute of daylight tonight staining our new garden shed and then I came inside to sew my block.

 

Here are all 13 blocks, back on the design floor.

 

 

We will be doing some more staining tomorrow but I hope to do a little bit of sewing too!

One Dozen!

Here is #12!  If you click on the picture, you will be able to see the cute little birds in the Granny row. I bought this fabric from Mad About Patchwork. The orange flowers came from there too!  Pam has lots of fun fabrics in her online store.

I did a little gardening tonight after supper, so this is all I have to show for today's sewing.  I hope to do another block tomorrow. I have 3/4 fabrics picked for the next block.

I have some pillowcase fabrics picked out too. Maybe I will make a few of them this weekend sometime...

Swooning on the Living Room Floor!

As promised, I put together my 6th Swoon block tonight. If you click on the picture, you will be able to see the wonderful swirls in the orange fabric and the dots on the black fabric. My black stash is not that large and since each one of these Swoon blocks takes an entire black FQ, it is rapidly depleting!

I have my Great Granny blocks and my Swoon Blocks laid out on my "design floor" in the living room. Once in a while, I get a comment from my husband about quilting taking over our house, but most of the time, he is happy to see me working away on my projects.  I have three more blocks to put together and, as you can see in this picture, I have the fabrics picked out for each block already.

 

I have another Great Granny Square laid out on the table, ready to sew together...tomorrow night's project.  I like this block a day quilt making!
 

One more #11

The great granny row on this block is made from some spools of thread fabric that I found in my stash...

11 blocks done, 9 to go.

I have another swoon block cut out and ready to sew tomorrow night.

Great Granny #10

I sewed #10 together tonight. That means I am 1/2 done the blocks for my Great Granny Square Quilt!

The next one is sitting beside my sewing machine, ready to sew.

Watch for more posts later this week.

Weekend Sewing

We spent much of our weekend doing outside work, but I did manage to make a couple of pillow cases (a wedding gift for a friend's son and his bride--we are not going to the wedding).

I also managed to make one more Great Granny Square block.

I have 9/20 done now...

And I have two more cut out and laid out, ready to sew!







Swooning!

It's Wednesday night and that means it is quilting night at my house!  Christine came over to play with fabric with me!

I made a new yellow and black Swoon block to replace the pale yellow and black one I made before. I like this one better! 5/9 Swoon blocks are done now.

I also made one more Great Granny Square...

The cream coloured fabric has cherries on it. I bought it in Elk Rapids, Michigan in May.

My collection of GGS's is growing...



Christine finished off her 3rd block and then worked some more on her 9 patches for another quilt she is working on.

Until next time...

A Gift and GGS #7

I made this thread catcher/pin cushion for a friend for her birthday. She recently turned 60 and although she does not quilt, she does like to sew clothes for herself and items for her home. I will have to try to convert her to quilting!

Here is Great Granny Square number 7! 

And here it is with the others:

I started cutting out another Swoon block tonight.  I will post a picture when I get it done.

My husband and I went to see "Love Letters" on Sunday afternoon with my in-laws at the Victoria Playhouse in Petrolia, Ontario.  After the play, we got to meet the actors, Michael Learned and Ralph Waite, aka Olivia and John Walton! 

I grew up watching the Waltons and never missed an episode!  Good Night, John Boy!  Good Night Mary Ellen!  Good Night Grandma and Grandpa! 

An Afternoon to Myself

My husband is away for the afternoon so I am spending a blissful Saturday afternoon doing a little sewing...

This is my 6th Great Granny Square block.  I am not repeating any of the fabrics in the blocks except for the red centre square. It is fun digging though my pile of fabric  neatly organized stash to find bright and fun fabrics to include in my blocks.  (Actually, most of my stash is organized but more work is required in this area!)

Here are the 6 blocks I have made so far:

Only 14 to go!

I decided to not use the yellow and black swoon block that I showed you a few posts ago...the yellow just did not pop enough against the white background.

I made another swoon block with some black and white polka dots and pink today. I bought the black and white dotty fabric at the Mad About Patchwork fabric party I hosted a couple of weeks ago.  I have 4/9 Swoon blocks completed and fabric picked out for the rest of them.





 Last weekend, my family spent the weekend in Kingston, Ontario where we went to the Sunset Ceremony at Fort Henry.

 The marching band is made up of university and college students.

I had not been to Fort Henry since I was a child when my family went to the Sunset Ceremony and toured the fort!

We also toured Bellvue House, former home of Sir John A. Macdonald, first Prime Minister of Canada.

 In the bedrooms, I took pictures of the quilts on the beds.

A double Irish chain with Baptist fan quilting.

This quilt was on a trunk at the end of one of the beds.

This Log Cabin quilt was on Sir John's bed.

The cradle was used by the Macdonald's for their babies.

On Monday, we went on a boat cruise of the 1000 Islands from Ganonoque.  There were a lot of people on the boat so it was hard to get pictures. The highlight of the trip was a view of Boldt Castle.

Some day, I would like to go back and go on a tour of the Castle.

I am working on a birthday gift for a friend now. I will show a picture of it after it has been gifted.

Have a good weekend!

One more and a tasty treat!

Some of you may be wondering how I possibly got so much sewing done this week...my husband was away for a whole week at a model train conference in Grand Rapids, MI so while the cat's away, the mice will sew!  I sewed every day that he was gone and I think I even did a blog post every day too!  My production will probably slow down a bit now that he is home and I get to spend some time doing fun things with him. :-)  Tomorrow morning, we are going to the local farmers market. I had to go by myself last week--not nearly as fun as going with my husband--I had to carry my own bags!  lol!

I made this 5th Great Granny night while I was waiting for him to come home, after I cut the grass and watered the gardens and did the dishes.  He came home to lots of quilting projects and fabric strewn about but I thought he might overlook that if the grass was cut!

He walked in the door tonight with this box....

Yes, he is my Bagel Hero!  I love Panera Bread bagels but they are not available in Canada. Guess what we are having for breakfast? 

He brought me another quilty gift for my Go cutter as well. I plan on using my new strip die for a quilt I would like to start in September--another Bonnie Hunter quilt with lots of pieces. In the meantime, I need to finish off Swoon and the Great Grannies!

Have a good weekend!

Two More Great Granny Blocks

Christine and I got together again tonight to make some more Great Granny Square blocks.  (Yes--we really did sew together twice this week!) My two blocks are in the picture above. I have decided to make 20 blocks. I am trying not to use the same fabric twice. It is fun to put the fabrics together for each block. The red centres will be the same in every Great Granny!

Christine made another GGS block and this picture shows both of her blocks that she has made so far. She continued to put together some more blocks for another UFO after completing her block.

Here are my 4 completed blocks.

I have another block laid out ready to sew together.

Until next time...

Flying Geese Borders



Jacqui invited me to her house tonight for some QNIC (Quilting Night in Canada). I resisted the temptation to make another Swoon block or another couple of Great Granny Squares and took along the flying geese units for my Stars for My Friends mystery quilt. I had to make more Flying Geese units first and then I put them together into these long borders for my quilt. I am hoping to get this quilt to the long armers in the next week or two so that it will be done for the September meeting of the London Friendship Quilters' Guild. I may have to ignore Swoon for a day or two...