CCS and Some Old Slow Stitching

I added some more cross stitches to my snowman project this week. The above picture shows how it looks now.  There was a fair bit of progress since I last posted about his project...

I will be working to the right of this section next.

Yesterday, my MIL and I went to a Canada 150 quilt show at the Lambton Heritage Museum near Grand Bend, Ontario.  They had quite a few quilts from Lambton County, all of which included a lot of hand stitching. I picked out a few to show today for Slow Sunday Stitching.  This first one was made for Canada's 100th birthday and includes many signatures which are all hand embroidered.

Here is a close up of one of the blocks.

There was a second Centennial quilt which included more embroidery signatures.

The signatures are not obvious in most of the blocks until you take a closer look.

This signature quilt was made by the ladies of Bethel Church.  I was quite impressed by the embroidered picture of the church in the middle of the quilt. 

The person who did the embroidery spent many hours working on this!

Of course, there were a few hexie quilts too.  This one was my favourite--it was made in the 1930's.

Here is a close up--those are very small hexies!

My MIL is not a quilter but enjoyed seeing all of the quilts and hearing my explanations of how they were made. If you have a chance to go to see this exhibit, it is well worth the trip!

Canada 150 Pillow

My Canada 150 pillow is finished!  It was not done in time for Canada Day but the whole year is a celebration so in my books, I am happy with the timing of my finish. As you can see, I used prints instead of solids for my Canada 150 symbol.  I used a light grey Aurifil thread for the organic quilting.  I will try to put all of the unsewing that happened with this project behind me and just enjoyed the finished pillow!

The back is a red OXOX batik fabric that I purchased a few years ago.  Here is a close up...

I added a hidden zipper so that the pillow can be washed if necessary.  I also tend to change the covers on my pillows seasonally--it is easier to store the covers than to store lots of pillows.

Here are my two Canada Pillows on the bench in my front hall.  Happy Birthday, Canada!

Tonight, our family went down to Port Stanley for a walk on the pier followed by ice cream at our favourite dairy bar, Shaw's, on the way home.  These ducks were jockeying for position on a mostly submerged log.

I will be linking up with Amanda Jean's Finish it up Friday tomorrow.

LFQG Summer Sewing Day

Today was our London Friendship Quilters Guild annual summer sewing day.  I had all of my projects, sewing machine and supplies packed up last night and ready to take out to the car this morning.  I brought along three things to sew today:

First up, I wanted to get this block quilted and made into a pillow.  I brought along some variegated thread that I thought would be perfect for the organic quilting that I had planned...I got about 2/3's done and then decided that I hated the variegated thread.

I spent the next hour and a half unsewing all of my quilting...not a productive start to my day.

The fabric on the back of the quilt will not show in the finished pillow as it will be inside the pillow. I ended up using a light grey thread and quilting it organically.

I then put the Canada 150 pillow aside to work on my second project...making and attaching the binding to this comfort quilt for an adult chemo patient at our local hospital--an outreach project of another guild that I belong to--the Elgin Piecemakers.  

This went much smoother that project number one, with no seam ripper involvement at all!  I will be doing the hand stitching tomorrow for my slow Sunday stitching project.

I did some of the hand stitching tonight while watching Grantchester on TV.

My third project barely got started--I have the pieces cut out for my next block, a reindeer, for my Holly Jolly Christmas quilt that I am making through a sew along at Lorna's blog, Sew Fresh Quilts. I hope to get it sewn together sometime this week before the next block pattern comes out on Saturday.

I will post pictures of the finished pillow and Christmas block later this week.

Canada Pillows and Cross Stitch

I made the Canada Flag pillow in my header photo for one of my nieces for Christmas.  She is off to university in the fall and this pillow will be used to decorate her dorm room.  My daughter and I both decided that we need Canada flag pillows to to help celebrate Canada's 150th birthday this year. When Christine and I got together to sew this week, I worked on the pillows. This one is for my daughter.  I tried to pick fabrics that would mean something to her...she wears glasses and lives in a place where there is lots of snow in the winter, tulips in the spring and many places to ride a bike.

Here is a close up of some of the fabrics.

This one will be my pillow.

Again, the fabrics have some personal meaning for me.  Do you see the fishing bobbers?  I used to go fishing with my dad and my brother when I was little.  I remember catching lots of sunfish and then letting them swim away.

While looking for something in my sewing room, I found this old Cross Stitch UFO.  I decided to work on it this summer for one of my slow stitching projects.  I will need to enlarge the pattern so that I can see it better....

There are 4 snowmen in the finished picture so I am half way there.

On my way to work this week, I stopped to take another picture of a barn quilt. I love seeing these on the drive.

My garden is bursting with new growth with the warm weather we have been having. My husband and I spent the day in the backyard yesterday, doing spring chores.  We will be working on it again on Monday.

The lilacs are beautiful and smell like spring.

 I will be linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching.  Take a look at what everyone is up to today.  There is always lots of fun inspiration to be had!