Hand and Machine Sewing

I continued quilting my round robin quilt this week, finishing the orange and green spiky sections and starting on the next border.  I am still undecided about what to quilt in the wide blue sections.  I will wait until inspiration strikes to do this part. 

I watched the next Moon Trees lesson on the Thread House Academy with Jo Avery and then added the. running stitch embroidery around my tree branches, as she suggested.  I have fabrics picked out for 8 more blocks and will work away on them over the next while. I used pearl cotton for this stitching, green on the gold tree and a variegated gold thread on the print tree.  I'm looking forward to making the next tree block with interweaving branches. 

The Rainbow Scrap challenge colour for August is yellow.  I cut out and sewed my circle block today.  Only one more block to make before I can put this quilt together. As you can see in the second picture below, it will be medium blue. 

I pulled out my cross stitch this week too and added the top stitching on the windmill and some of the beads.  The kit included a very fine needle to use for the beading.  I still have more beading to do. The beads are really tiny!

I am making a bird coin pouch --this was one of the taster weekend projects for the Thread House Academy. I have completed the embroidery and now I just have to put it together.  There is a zipper to add first.  It doesn't look hard to do in her video.   You can see I was sewing in the car.  We went on a date day earlier this week and I stitched on the way to our destination and on the way home as well. 

I have a variety of coleus plants in my patio pots this year.  Such interesting foliage in lots of different colour combinations. 

We went to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton on Wednesday.  We saw lots of beautiful flowers and several garden critters, including this bunny which was doing its best to hide from view. 

They have a special display of brightly coloured garden sculptures this summer.  

As you know, I like to take reflection pictures. 

Such big ears on a little dog, blowing in the wind.  Finn is cute!

 I will link up with Kathy and the slow stitchers,  Angela and the RSC bloggers and Frederique as well. 

Hand Stitching

I did not touch my sewing machine this week.  Not even once!  I did, however, do quite a bit of hand quilting and hand appliqué.  I did the first lesson of the Moon Trees Class with Jo Avery on the Threadhouse Academy and managed to get one block made.  The background fabric is a piece of Essex Linen.  The yellow tree is Fableism Sprout and the print is from Tilda. I plan on making more of these blocks with different variations of trees.  The next online class will teach me how to do this.  I'm using 80 wt thread for the appliqué and the stitches totally disappear. 

I finished quilting the centre square of my round robin quilt this week and started on the second set of orange and dark green triangles. I'm not sure what to quilt in the wider blue strips so if any of you have any ideas to offer, I am interested in hearing what you think. 

After being away for a week at the cottage, my gardens needed some serious dead heading and weeding. I did a bit each day this week and things are looking more shipshape now. There are lots of colourful flowers in bloom, both annuals and perennials.   Echinacea or Purple Cone Flowers have spread themselves around and I need to do some serious thinning of these plants...not right now when they all look so pretty. 

Orange Echinacea

Black Eyed Susans

Lantana (These are in a pot on my patio--one of my Australian readers told me these are considered to be an invasive weed there.)

Scaevola

Finn and my daughter have been here this week.  Finn likes to keep an eye on what is happening on the street from the back of the couch.  They will be leaving to go home soon. 

Finn and I had some time on the patio this week.  I was reading a book until someone came along for an ear rub. 

 The book blanket has had another row of squares added this week.  Only four more rows to go.  Finn was doing a good job impeding progress one evening this week.  He is very good at claiming all the blankets!

I will link up with Kathy and Frederique on the weekend. 

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.