Sewing, knitting and embroidery

I have been participating in a round-robin quilt project with a group of 5 other quilters from the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild over the past few months.  We each made a centre block and then everyone else in the group makes a border or another block or two for each member of the group according to the style/colours chosen by the quilter.  This month, my block is for J.  Her block was pieced in an improv style with these colours.  I dug into my scrap bins and made her a block that I hope will compliment what she made and what others have made for her as well.  This block is in the mail!  Next, I have to make a block for D, but I am waiting to hear from her with a picture of what she has so far. 

Last week, I showed the front of my swap blocks quilt.  This week, I pieced the back using leftover blocks and some more of the rust fabric.  I should have enough rust coloured fabric to use for the binding, I hope! I had to made a second row of four patches to make the back big enough. The rest of the square in a square blocks have been put away, waiting for inspiration to strike so I can use them up!  In the meantime, this quilt is off to the long arm quilters.  It should be done sometime this coming week. 

The fabric I used for the barn on this little wall hanging is a dark red but it looks brown in this picture... I will quilt this one this week. This is another Lori Holt barn pattern. I'm still working on using up my 30's prints. 

I started the embroidery on this little project today.  The instructions say to use 6 strands of floss, which makes threading the needle a bit of a challenge.  I will have to dig out my needle threader...

Earlier in the week, we went to visit my MIL so I brought my knitting along to work on in the car.  I'm using 5 bamboo DPN's (double pointed needles) and have not had any problems with the stitches falling off the needles until this week--of course one needle fell down between the seats and that was the end of my knitting for that journey!  I retrieved it when we arrived at our destination.  I did not get much knitting done but did roll all of the yarn into a ball so that it does not get tangled up while I am knitting... this was starting to be an issue.  I can use my yarn bowl now for this project!

I will link up with Kathy and slow stitchers all over the world in the morning. 

The flowers that I associate with the end of the gardening season are in bloom now--this week, the sedums were looking quite pretty. 

On Tuesday, my husband and I went bike riding and had a picnic lunch at Pinery Provincial Park. On the way home, we stopped for ice cream in Parkhill. My husband enjoyed Root Beer ice cream and I had Apple Pie ice cream.  It hit the spot!

This is Finn, out for a walk.  Apparently, someone had spilled their poutine on the sidewalk and my daughter would not let him eat it, so he laid down in protest!  They eventually got moving again and Finn did not get to eat the poutine.  (French Fries with gravy and cheese curds, for those of you who are not familiar with poutine!)

Have a great week!  I'm hoping for some cooler weather than we have had for the last few weeks so I can sit outside to knit in the gazebo. 

Another Hat and a Quilt Top

I had started the second hat last week on our way home from the cottage, and managed to finish it this week.  I will need to make pompoms for both of these hats--my friend, Christine, has a pompom maker that I can use. This yarn is super chunky and the hats are thick and warm--the bottom bands are turned up so they will keep the ears cozy on a cold day. 

 During my sewing room time this week, I finished putting this quilt top together.  The rust colour really brightens up the brown, tan and cream swap blocks.  I had over 150 swap blocks and the top used 81 of them.  

I have pieced some into 4 patches for a strip on the back of the quilt.  The rest of the back will be the rust fabric.  I will use one of the blocks for my label for this quilt. The extra swap blocks will be put aside for another project later. 

We had Finn out for a walk in Port Stanley one evening this week.  Finn and our daughter will be going home shortly. 

My quilt top is Finn approved!  He thinks some of the brown squares match his fur. 

I took a few pictures of some flowers in the garden this week.  Our clethra bush is in bloom and I took a few close up pictures of one of the flower clusters.  When I looked at the pictures later, I noticed one of my pictures was photo-bombed by a tiny flying insect.  

The wasp's nest in the tree in our backyard is huge now with lots of wasps buzzing around.  It is bigger than a basketball now. They have not bothered us but I am looking forward to when they move out for the winter and we can get rid of the nest. Hopefully, they find a different spot next year!

We have three colours of phlox in our garden--white, coral and purple.  You can also see that the black eyed Susans are putting on a show at the moment as well. 

For Slow Sunday Stitching this week, I will be starting the embroidery on this kit that my daughter gave me for Christmas.  I traced the pattern onto the material this morning. I will link with the other slow stitchers in the morning at Kathy's blog. 

Knitting the Same Hat, Twice!

Our family, including our daughter and Finn, spent the last week at a cottage up north.  We passed our days sitting on the dock or the screened porch, reading, doing a puzzle, going for walks and I also did some knitting.  I brought my new embroidery kit with me as well as a couple of knitting projects, but I did not even open the embroidery kit.  I was more in the mood to knit. The screened porch was the perfect place to knit--a nice breeze off the lake and no mosquitoes!

I was quite happy,  knitting away, and managed to finish the hat in short order.  I used a basic pattern that I had made before but added ribbing around the lower edge of the hat. I used slightly smaller needles for the ribbing and then switched to a larger size for the rest of the hat.  I wove the ends in right away and took a picture of my creation. 

I gave the hat to my daughter to try on, and much to my chagrin, it was way too tight!!! The next morning, I took the hat apart and rewound the ball of yarn to start again. 

I started knitting again, this time using the larger needles for the entire hat, ribbing included, with a much better result.  The hat fits just fine now!  

On our way home from the cottage today, I started another hat.  I will need to make some pompoms for both hats later. 

I read three books while we were at the cottage.

I have read 5 of Jennifer Robson's books--all historical fiction--probably my favourite genre.  The 44 Scotland Street Series by Alexander McColl Smith was originally published as a serial in the newspaper, a chapter a day, and then later as a series of books.  They are amusing and I often find myself laughing out loud and reading sections to my husband.  I bought the first one when we were in Scotland a couple of years ago.

I saw this stick on the road when we were out for a walk this past week. 

Here are a few pictures in Finn's favourite spot at the cottage, the dock. 

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

Two Finishes!

 Last week, I gave you a sneak peak at a gift I made, and, now that the gift has been given, I can show you the finished wall hanging.  I used up some more of my 30's prints for this one, although the barn fabric is just from my red drawer.  I quilted the barn with vertical lines to look like barn boards.  The silo is quilted with horizontal lines.  The little basket block was in my spare parts box--I made many basket blocks years ago with my friend, Christine.  This was a good opportunity to use one for a barn quilt for the barn.  The recipients loved their new wall hanging.  I can't wait to see where they put it in their house when we can go to visit them. (The barn block is a Lori Holt Farm Girl Vintage pattern)

The second finish of the week is the zigzag quilt. I quilted it with dark green thread in the darker zigzag and with tan coloured thread in the lighter zigzag.  My kitchen floor has good light in the afternoon to take a picture and see the texture of the quilting. The binding is the last of the dark green fabric I used on the back of the quilt. 

I spent a couple of hours hand stitching the binding down for my slow stitching this week. 

The Elgin Piecemakers Guild did a swap of neutral 5" blocks a couple of years ago and I used up all my black, gray and white ones in a previous project which you can see below.  I still have about 150 beige, tan and brown blocks in a pile waiting to be made into a quilt. 

I took out the remaining blocks this week and looked in my stash for setting fabric possibilities.  I found some gold fabric which looked ok. 

Then, I happened upon some rust coloured grunge fabric that has been in my stash for a while.  I think this quilt will have 9 or 12 nine patch blocks with the rust coloured fabric in between, as shown below.  The blocks are just laying on top of the fabric for this photo. I will use up the extra blocks on the back of the quilt. 

I am going to be starting a new embroidery project this week, a gift from my daughter for Christmas.  I wanted to finish Love Letters before starting another hand stitching project. I hope to have some progress to show before next weekend's Slow Sunday Stitching link up at Kathy's blog. 

We took a drive in the country this week and saw this old barn. 

Finn is his usual cute little self...this week, he helped our daughter read a book. 

Have a great week!