Cross Stitch Rabbit and a New Project

I spent a little time each day this past week adding stitches to my Spring cross stitch picture. The rabbit is coming along nicely.  Finn is here for his annual visit while my daughter is busy at work and he doesn't mind lying beside me as I stitch.  He is used to doing that while my daughter works on her cross stitch when he is home with her. 

 My daughter's picture of the city of Ottawa is coming into focus as she adds more colours.  The giant spider is a statue called "Maman" in from the the National Art Gallery.  I am adding a picture of the actual statue  below--I didn't take this picture..it is from the internet. The sac below the mother spider's body is filled with spider eggs. 

Today, I attended  the Vice President's day at the Oxford Guild.  Everyone was making the same quilt with their own fabrics.  I chose some bright turquoise, orange and green from my stash for my blocks.  There will also be some black and white fabrics in this quilt.  I finished all my blocks while at the sewing day and will work on the layout and the black and white parts at an upcoming quilt retreat.  The colours are brighter than in the first photo.  

I made one more comfort quilt block for the Elgin Piecemakers this week.  The pattern, Prairie Queen, was given to us and we were to use blue, yellow and white to make our blocks. 

Finn was looking quite dapper in his heart bandana on Valentine's Day this past week.   He will be getting his hair cut this week... You might not recognize him next week!

I will link up with Kathy in the morning. 

A Little of This and A Little of That

Regular readers of my blog may remember that I took an introductory class in rug hooking last summer.  The hooking has all been done for a while and I finally finished off my project last weekend.  A friend who describes herself as a "hooker" and "addicted to fibre" showed me how to do the outer edge of my sheep project.  I hope to hang this little rug on the wall in my sewing room.  I would be quite willing to try another rug hooking project. 

For the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, this week I used up some tiny scraps to make these four 6.5" square slabs.  I am not sure how they will go into an actual quilt yet, but each month I will make some in the colour of the month and will decide later what to do with them. 

Speaking of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I completed one of my 2022 tops --the scrappy Drunkard's Path blocks are now put together.  This top is now in the "to be quilted" pile. 

I finished appliquéing the last house's window and door for my Coming Home Quilt this week.  Next up are lot of leaves (80 of them!), some vines and four birds.  I have lots of cutting out to do before this next step!

Finn would like you to know that my daughter has started another counted cross stitch city.  She did not tell me what city it is so your guess is as good as mine. 

Finn also wants you to know that the snow where he lives is deeper than him!

We have a bit of snow here finally--it has been a mostly snow free winter until this past week.  It looks pretty on the tree branches in the park where I walk each day. 

I pin basted and started quilting a wedding gift this week. The top was made at a retreat in November and I've got a deadline of two weeks to have this quilted and bound so I can give it to the newlyweds. I'm using 28 wt thread for the quilting. I like how the turquoise contrasts with the gray background fabric.  The lines are about an inch apart.  I have a different quilting plan for the turquoise part of the quilt.  Stay tuned. 

I made some more comfort quilt blocks for the Elgin Piecemakers Guild this week. I have them all done (except for two--waiting for the instructions) for the year. 

Navy, lime green and white:

Nautical theme using the colours in the sail fabric. 

Gray, yellow and white:

 I feel like I got a lot done this past week.  Let's hope that this coming week is just as productive!  I will link up the the Slow Sunday Stitchers and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge folks in the morning. 

Back to the Sewing Machine

I spent some quality time with my sewing machine this week.  The Elgin Piecemakers Guild makes comfort quilts for adult chemo patients at our local hospital so each month, we each have to make a block in a certain colour scheme.  I have my first four blocks for 2023 made.  Here they are:

January:  Blue and white.

February: Red, white and blue

March:  Purple, pink and white

April: Blue and purple churn dash. 

I worked on the last three houses for my Coming Home Quilt.  I did not have any light turquoise thread with me at the sewing day this week so I will do the door and window on the magenta house next week. 

I finished my MIL's wall hanging on our way to visit her last week.  She loves it and wanted to hang it up right away!

I finally got around to working on a blue block for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month.  I have two panels of printed pineapple blocks for foundation piecing and decided to use one of them for the RSC each month.  The gray background fabric is a relatively new addition to my stash.  It should look good with all the colours each month.  I have two more ideas in mind for the RSC for a total of three projects this year.  I hope to get my drunkard's path project from last year put together next week.  I already know how I want to quilt it!

Finn just loves this Statue of Liberty ball and was running up and down the hall at my daughter's apartment with it this week.  

Beautiful sunset when we were on our way home one evening this week.  

I will link up with the RSC folks on Saturday morning and the slow Sunday stitchers on Sunday morning. 

Working on the Sky

Earlier this week, my husband and I went glamping for three days--this means we stayed in a fancy tent on a platform with furniture (including a king sized bed) and a bathroom, a deck out front and a barbecue to cook our meals.  The property was lovely and had lots of trails for walking as well as a pond with a paddle boat, a canoe and a row boat.  The deck in front of our tent was in the shade most of the time so it was a great place to sit and read a book (I managed to finish The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams for book club in September--excellent book--I highly recommend it!), knit and do some rug hooking.  I made great progress on the rug hooking, finishing all of the green grass and adding lots of blue loops in the sky. The second and third pictures show the view from the deck. 

I worked on my knitting in the car--a few more rows. 

A week ago this past Friday, the Elgin Piecemakers had a comfort quilt sewing day.  A large amount of batik fabrics had been donated to our guild and two of our members organized a mystery quilt sewing day which we worked on in pairs.  We were given a pile of fabrics for our quilt, including enough for the blocks, backing and binding. Every so often throughout the day, we were given instructions for the various blocks.  My partner was Yvonne.  We managed to keep up with all the steps and had all the blocks done and the first section of the quilt sewn together before we left at the end of the day. These quilts will be given to refugee families who have recently arrived our area.  Here are the blocks we made, starting with four patches. 

Stars:

Flying Geese:

HST's:

And houses:

The quilt is made up of seven sections and here is our first section. You can see that we had to add some strip sections and a solid block to this section. 

Yvonne and I will get together soon to get the rest of the quilt together. 

Today, I got out my orange scraps and pieced them together for my Drunkard's Path blocks.  I will cut out and add the white parts this coming week. Lots of memories in many of these little bits of fabric. 

We saw this tree stump with lots of interesting fungus on it when we were glamping. 

We had perfect timing to catch this shot of the sun coming through the trees on one of our hikes. 

So fun to get a good clear picture of fluff!

Finn found it a bit hot on his walk home from the pet store with our daughter today.  Nothing like a shady patch of grass as a good place to cool down and take a rest. 

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning and with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge folks now. 

This Week's Sewing Adventures

It's been a busy week in the sewing room at my house!  The log blocks really did nothing to enhance my Oxford Quilter's Guild VP day challenge quilt so I removed them and made a few more HST's. I rearranged the HST's to my liking and then started sewing the rows together.  Most of the rows are sewn and the top two are sewn to each other.  I will likely finish this top this week. I love the Shweshwe fabrics I have used for this project!

I finished the embroidery on my Lupine quilt label this week and now just have to piece the back and get it off to the long arm quilter's house.  I like to have my label quilted into the quilt--it won't fall off that way!

On Wednesday, I attended a Traditional Variations class with Cheryl Arkison on Zoom.  We made variations of four different traditional blocks.  Cheryl encouraged us to play and have fun trying new things.  I decided ahead of time to use some batik fabrics that were in my stash, picking out some red, orange, green and blue pieces.  I will be using my blocks to make a Quilt for a Residential School survivor--a project that has been taken on by members of the Toronto Modern Guild.  

I made a 6" church dash block in the traditional way and then made a 12" block with "curved triangles" in the corners. 

My 6" pinwheel was made in the traditional way and the bigger block was made with half rectangle triangles.

I also made one liberated wonky star block and a couple of log cabin variations.  I used the leftover curved  bits from the churn dash to make a curved pinwheel block.  I still have lots of ideas and fabric left so more blocks will be put together over the next while until I have enough for a lap sized quilt.  I decided to stick with 6" and 12" blocks so it goes together easily.  

I finished hand stitching the binding on this quilt--the top was made by Maureen H. and she gave it to me to donate to a worthy cause.  Julie from the Elgin Piecemakers quilted it and it will go to the local women's shelter.  

When I showed all of my comfort quilt blocks a couple of weeks ago, someone asked me to show all the blocks that were made by members of the Elgin Piecemakers for each month.  Here are all the red and gray blocks for February.  One of our members will make a quilt top with sashing and cornerstones, and then one of our long armers will quilt it.  Another member will do the binding and then it will be ready to donate. 

Finn took my daughter's mitten outside this week while he did his business and then brought it back inside when he was done.  Silly boy!

I wound a ball of wool earlier today during a zoom meeting.  I am going to make myself a hat!  I have made hats for many others but have never made one for myself.  I hope to start knitting tomorrow for my Slow Sunday Stitching project.  I will link up with Kathy in the morning. 

Until next time, enjoy your stitching!