A Little of This and a Little of That

The November Modern Block of the Month pattern was released this week at the Twilight Quilt Guild blog, so I dug out my fabrics and got sewing.  The chevrons were paper pieced. The glasses fabric will appear in every block in my quilt along with other assorted dots and stripes in orange and navy.  I was afraid I was going to run out of the gray hash dot background fabric but managed to find some at a localish store and had them ship it to me. 

 I added the final borders to my Summerhill quilt from Mary Elizabeth Kinch's workshop.  I have a plan for the quilting--I just need to pick a backing from my stash and get my other sewing machine back from repair. I used lots of solid scraps in this quilt, but as is the case with all scrappy quilts, the bin still looks just as full as it did when I started. 

Several years ago, Jacqui and I set out to make two quilt tops for the Elgin Piecemakers outreach project, comfort quilts for cancer patients at our local hospital.  We managed to get one top done and the second top cut out in one day. The second quilt top was never assembled and got lost in Jacqui's sewing room, never to be seen again until a few weeks ago. It was unearthed during a deep clean and was brought to me to put together.  Each member of the guild contributed a few 10" squares of word fabric to this project--there was no colour scheme stipulated, but the fabrics all had to have words on them. I got all the pieces out of the bag and looked at the instructions for the blocks.  I spent a good hour yesterday laying out the blocks on my design wall and will sew them together this week. 

My design wall was not quite big enough for all of the blocks so I will sew what I can see so far and then lay out the final column of blocks.  The pattern is called The No-Waste Windmill and is from a book called Rotary Cutting Revolution by Anita Grossman Solomon.  The bag even has the binding all cut and a backing for the quilt as well. 

My latest knitting project, a baby facecloth with a squirrel on it, is about half done. I will work on it again tomorrow for Slow Sunday Stitching with Kathy.

Finn is excited to show off my daughter's stitching project.  Isn't he a great stitching model? 10/19 hexagons done. 

My blackwork project is very close to being done--only one more square to finish. This picture was taken earlier in the week. The colours were chosen based on what I had in my thread stash. 

Now, it looks like this:

A friend's daughter is getting married in a couple of weeks.  I gave her and her husband to be a couple of choices for a cross stitch picture for their wedding gift.  They have chosen one of the patterns I proposed and once we have the colours finalized, this will become my next project. I told them that the gift will be delivered sometime next year and they were fine with that.  We will be watching the wedding on Zoom instead of being there in person. 

I will link up with Kathy in the morning. 

Piecing, Stitching and Knitting

Last weekend, I took a class with Mary Elizabeth Kinch on piecing with small bits of fabric.  The quilt I am making is called Summerhill.  It has 4 blocks surrounded by some borders.  I have now finished two of my blocks.  Each square in this first block finishes at one inch. 

The second one is a Courthouse step block--each log is .5" finished.  This is not paper pieced. 

I am using scraps from my cool Kona solids bin plus red violet.  About half of the scraps are all over my cutting table so I am going to have to keep working on the last two blocks and the pieced border before working on any other projects this week. The next two blocks are started.  

Earlier this week, I sewed my last 16 lupin blocks together...this took longer than I expected but I am glad to have them done.  All 48 blocks are in a bin, waiting for me to cut the setting rectangles and then lay everything out on the floor to put it all together.  This is a queen sized quilt and is too big for my design wall. 

This scrappy yellow block is the first in my next rainbow scrap challenge project.  Even the white pieces were cut from my Kona scraps.  The pattern for this block is from Gudrun Erla's Quilts of Iceland book. 

I started a new baby washcloth this week...so far, I just have the lower border done but I will be working on this again tomorrow for Slow Sunday Stitching, along with my blackwork project. There are 9 coloured squares and 4 gray ones in this Celtic knot design.  

My daughter's blackwork bee project looks amazing!  She sent me this picture today after finished another bee.  There are 19 hexagons in her picture, as well as several bees. 

Her embroidery has lots of wonderful texture!

We planted four different types of daffodil bulbs in our back gardens today. The squirrels tend to leave the daffodils alone so I'm looking forward to seeing these interesting blooms in the spring. 

We didn't have very many Trick or Treaters this year, but the few we did have were all very cute! I gave them their candy with a long tool that belonged to my parents--they used it to pick things up off the floor or from a high shelf. It worked very well to deliver treats to the kids' bags at a safe distance. Until next week, have a great week, filled with lots of sewing, knitting and stitching. 

Stitching Report

I finished off the walking foot quilting on my London Modern Guild HST BOM quilt this week. The orange diamond was my focal point and the quilting lines ran parallel to each side of the diamond, creating an X of parallel lines and other areas of cross hatching off each corner of the diamond.  I used orange thread for the quilting and even though this is a relatively small quilt, I went through 3 bobbins of thread!  

 The orange binding is leftover from the HST's. I just love those seagulls!

I purchased the backing fabric on sale several months ago, before COVID, just to have on hand for a backing.  You can see the quilting a bit better in the picture below. 

The second block in the Modern BOM was posted this week and I did not waste any time getting it done.  I added some more fabrics to the bin for this quilt and will continue to use the glasses fabric and the gray hash dot fabric in every block.  I have chosen several other striped and dotty fabrics for this quilt. 

Here are the two blocks I have made so far. 

I figured out this week that I probably do not have enough of the gray Michael Miller hashdot fabric and have been checking with local quilt stores to no avail.  If a Canadian Store near you has a yard of this fabric, please let me know and I will order it!

I attended a quilting workshop today taught by Mary Elizabeth Kinch on Zoom. I met Mary Elizabeth several years ago at the Beaver Island Quilt Retreat that Gwen Marston used to run. Mary Elizabeth is in love with making large quilts out of tiny pieces and today's class was an introduction to her methods for cutting and sewing small pieces of fabric. The finished quilt, Summerhill, will include 4 blocks as well as a pieced border. We made a start on the four blocks today and here is the result of my day of sewing.

I am digging into my cool solid scraps for this quilt and throwing in some red-violet scraps for fun. Stay tuned for more progress on these blocks. 

My blackwork project is moving right along--I'm working on the 5th colourful square now.  My daughter is also stitching along on her landscape and the honeycomb.  

I have 4 sets of four blocks cut out for my lupin quilt and hope to sew these this coming week.  As you know, the cutting takes quite a while!

My husband and I went for a walk by Lake Erie today before supper and came across a large flock of seagulls taking to the air. 

I will be linking up with Kathy in the morning for the weekly Slow stitching party at her blog. If you would like to read the story of my music challenge quilt, you can read it here. 

Sewing with Strings

Last Friday marked one year since my Dad died.  I had signed up for a quilting workshop with Mary Elizabeth Kinch, author of "Small Pieces, Spectacular Quilts" a few months ago and decided I would use my Dad's shirts for my project.  Mary Elizabeth spoke at our London Friendship Guild meeting on Thursday night and we had a great trunk show of her quilts, including the workshop quilt, "Go with the Flow". 

I met Mary Elizabeth several years ago at Gwen Marston's Beaver Island Quilt retreat in Elk Rapids, Michigan.  It was fun to see her again and catch up.

After some discussion about string quilts in general and different ways to make them, we cut into our fabrics and started sewing the strings together.   Mary Elizabeth also showed us pictures of several antique and newer string quilts.  Here is her "Go with the Flow" quilt.

By lunch time, everyone had made at least one row of strings.

Here are my two rows, not pressed yet

Two more, pressed and ready to trim.

Tonight, I made a couple more rows and then made my first block of the 16 needed to make this queen sized quilt. 

As I sewed, I thought about my Dad and the times that he wore these shirts.   Dad loved to stop at Shaw's Ice Cream for a Black Cherry Cone so my husband and went there on the weekend. 

It seemed like a fitting thing to do.