Lupins, Slow Knitting and a Finished Quilt Top

My lupin blocks continue to accumulate...I finished 4 more blocks this afternoon. 28/48 blocks have been completed.  This fat quarter adds some more red-violet to the mix. 

I have four of each of these 7 blocks. 

I started a new knitting project last weekend...another facecloth in turquoise.  I have a few more repeats of the pattern to go before this one is done. I will be working on it tomorrow. 

The final layout for the London Modern Guild HST BOM was published this past week so I set to getting my blocks sewn together.  My blocks are 9" squares so the quilt was a bit small, even for a baby quilt.  I decided to add a navy striped border to bring the final size up to 34 X 44".  I found some backing material in my stash and will get it pin basted and quilted soon.  I have enough orange fabric leftover for the binding.  I will likely use orange or navy thread for the quilting. 

 My daughter has started two new handwork projects.  She is teaching herself to embroider by doing a small sampler and trying out different stitches including satin stitch, lazy daisy, stem stitch and French knots, among others. 

She has also started a blackwork project which will be a Christmas gift for someone who does not read my blog. 

I am still deciding on colours for my blackwork project... Stay tuned...maybe there will be pictures next week. 

Fall is in full gear around here.  My husband and I went for a walk this afternoon at the local elevated park 

Last weekend, we hiked by Lake Huron. 

Finn enjoyed a walk with my daughter today.  He loves being outside. 

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

Lupins, a Bee and a Sheep

 My lupin block collection continues to grow...although, this week, the blocks were made with Finn's assistance, which means they took a lot longer to make than usual.  This week's blocks were made with a purple grunge dots fat quarter. 

So, now I have a total of 12/48 blocks made for this quilt.  Here are the three lupin fabrics I have used so far:

I have a FQ chosen for my next set of blocks. 

I started a new counted cross stitch project this week--a free pattern from The Blackberry Rabbit (Sorry, I can't provide a link to their website as they are creating a new website at the moment.) The bee will have a wreath of flowers around it and some words above it. 

Last week, I said I would be starting a Bee facecloth...my attention got diverted and I am making a sheep facecloth instead.   I am about half done. 

The London Modern Guild has been doing a year long HST (half square triangle) BOM (Block of the month) over the past year.  I made my final block this week and played with my 12 blocks on the floor when Finn was not looking.   

Here is the first layout I tried:

I will do more playing before sewing the blocks together.  This will be a baby quilt...I will likely add a border before quilting it. 

I picked up my Tula Pink 100 Modern Blocks Sampler quilt this week from the long arm quilter.  I will be getting the binding put on this quilt by machine early next week so I can sit and do the hand sewing out in the gazebo.  Each block is custom quilted...here is a sample. 

I am excited to use this quilt on our bed!  It's the first new bed quilt we have had for several years. 

I have joined the book club at the library and we will be discussing this book on Tuesday morning.  I am about 2/3 of the way through it so far and will finish reading it this weekend. It's a good book--I would recommend it!  As you can see, I have a reading buddy. 

The sedums are starting to bloom in our garden. I took these pictures in the morning after it rained. 

I will link up with Kathy and the slow Sunday stitchers in the morning.  I used to get emails notifying me of your comments but must have done something to stop getting them.  I am not sure how to start this up again...if any of you have any ideas, please let me know in the comments.  I sometimes can find your emails to respond to your comments on your blogs, but sometimes I can't... so I apologize for not responding to every comment.  I find I cannot comment on any blogger blogs at all.  I do read everyone's blogs though...

Take care and have a great week. 

A Few Finishes

My sewing machine was moved up to the dining room table as the sewing room is not a safe place for Finn to hang out with me...too many things for a curious little dog to get into.  I started out this week making three more blocks for the London Modern Guild HST BOM.  The patterns for April and May were posted this week --three blocks in total.  Here are my blocks. 

And here are all 8 that I have made so far.  The final reveal of how they are to be put together will happen at the end of the year.

Finn and I also did some knitting this week.  He loves it when I sit down to knit or read or cross stitch.  He curls up in a ball and sleeps in my lap. He doesn't seem to mind being a model for my knitting either!  This half made dish cloth could be his super-hero cape!

I finished off the hat I was making last week and made a second one the same.  I am up to 4 dishcloths now too.  Here is a picture of my finished knitting projects.

I am not sure what I will make next.  I have a different hat pattern to try and the wool to make it.  I found another dishcloth pattern to try as well.  I enhanced my dish cloth yarn stash this week by ordering online from a local yarn shop so I won't run out of knitting to do for a while. It was very handy to just drive to the store, open my trunk and call them on my cell phone--they brought out my order and put it in the trunk for me.  I ordered some fabric online from a local-ish fabric store and they mailed it to me.  It arrived the next day.  I hope that all of the small businesses manage to stay open during and after this crisis and I did my part to help them this week.

Finn and I also spent some time cross stitching this week.  I finished off the February ornament for the Linens and Threads stitch along.  The material is cut out and ready to start March's pattern tomorrow. 

I spent quite a bit of my sewing time this week making the rest of the blocks for my Snowflake quilt. You can see Finn was waiting for my husband to get home from work while I was sewing.  He seems to know that it is time for him to be home in the late afternoon and will sit on the back of the couch for an hour, eyes glued to the street, looking for the right car to come around the corner. 

I finished the last of the blocks for this quilt this morning.   Finn wanted to help me show it off.

He lost interest quickly when he realized that no treats were involved.

The backing fabric is in the laundry basket, ready to wash before I sew it...there are some extra red squares leftover from the front so there may be a stripe across the back so I can use them up.

Finn and I came across this sage advice on one of our walks this week. Day by day, we will get through this difficult and trying time.  Stay home.  Keep sewing. Stay safe.  Take care.  I will be linking up with Kathy and the sewcially distancing Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning.

Knitting, Binding and Cross Stitching

I'm still stitching away on February's cross stitch ornament from Linen and Threads.  I will add some more stitches this weekend for slow Sunday stitching.  I need to buy some extra skeins of these colours so that I can use them for all 12 ornaments. I have a plan in my head for a project which will include all 12...

My friend, Pat, is teaching me to knit.  This week, I made the big leap from working on my red practice sampler to actually starting a real project using a pattern!  We went shopping yesterday at the local knitting store and I purchased knitting needles and stitch markers with a gift certificate that my husband gave me for Christmas.  Pat gave me a pattern for a cotton dish cloth and showed me how to read and follow the pattern as well as do yarn over.  She sat beside me and coached me as I did the first few rows.  The new circular knitting needles are stainless steel and are very slippery, but I am getting the hang of it.  Yesterday, after she left to go home, I knitted for a while and got this far...

This morning, I went to town and got to the point where I had to start reducing the number of stitches on the needles.  She had not shown me how to do this, but I figured it out and now my dish cloth looks like this:

Knitting is obviously addictive!

Earlier in the week, I made a quilt top with the nine patches I showed on my last blogpost.

I only had one yard of the fabric I wanted to use for the backing so I used up the leftovers from the jelly roll and added more length and width to my backing to make it big enough.

The gray fabric has little rabbits on it.  You can see below that I did straight line quilting with my walking foot in a diagonal grid through all of the white squares.

I went searching through my stash for the appropriate fabric for the binding and found this yellow print.

I hand sewed the binding down on Wednesday as I wanted to have the quilt finished in time for show and tell at guild on Thursday morning.

Here is the finished quilt. 

The March pattern for the London Modern Guild HST BOM came out this week so I made my block.   I have 4 blocks done now--there were two in February. 

I am happy to announce that Spring has officially arrived in my back yard.  Our witch hazel bush is in bloom.

Finn continues to offer guidance and assistance as necessary to my daughter on her stitching project.

I will be linking to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching link up in the morning.  One less hour of sleep tonight but one extra glorious hour of daylight after supper from now until the Fall.  Have a great week!

Embroidery Done and some HST blocks

I sat down with a cup of tea by my side and added more embroidery stitches to my project several times this past week.  Yesterday, I finished the last few stitches, and it is done!  As directed, I soaked it in warm water and the pink lines on the fabric magically disappeared. 

I had fun trying out some new stitches and when I find the hoop that came with the kit (I know I put it somewhere safe and now it is MIA), I will hang it in my sewing room.

I bought the kit at QuiltCon a year ago on a whim and will need to do another embroidery project in the future. Next, I will be doing a small counted cross stitch picture.  I have my pattern and threads ready...no stitches done yet.  I will start tomorrow.

The London Modern Guild is doing a mystery BOM using only HST blocks.  I dug through my stash and found these two fabrics.  The seagulls wearing sweaters make me smile!  I made a bunch of HST's yesterday.

This morning, I made the first three blocks.  The first one did not go together as smoothly as I would have liked...

My trusty seam ripper saved the day and I was soon back on track.

Here are the next two blocks.

I am told that these will go together somehow to make an interesting quilt top.   There are lots more blocks to go.

I will be linking up with Kathy and the gang in the morning.