Elgin Piecemaker's Challenge Reveal.

The Elgin Piecemaker's guild has issued a challenge each year for the past few years to the members to create a project with certain parameters...this year we each had to bring a yard of batik to our November meeting.  I brought the bright blue fabric at the top of the picture below.   We stood in a  circle, each holding our yard of fabric in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other hand.  We were instructed to fold our fabric in half, make a small snip with the scissors at the fold and then rip the fabric in half, drop half on the floor in front of us and pass the other half to the person beside us.  We continued to fold it, snip it, rip it, drop it and pass it until we ended up with 7 pieces of fabric.  The challenge was to create a project using our fabrics and any other fabrics we wanted to add to it by our March meeting, when the projects would be revealed. 

I had three challenge projects to make after Christmas and wanted to have all of them done before QuiltCon in February.  I decided to make a bag for my counted cross stitching.  Since I do a lot of stitching in the car, I wanted it to include a place to keep my scissors and an extra needle or two, both of which can easily go missing in the car.

I used two of the fabrics on the outside of the bag.

Fabric number 3 was used for the zipper tab.

Fabric #4 was used for the lining of the bag.

I made a scissor holder with the 5th fabric.  The scissors fold up so they won't poke through the bag.  Since they are attached to the bag, they will not fall on the floor or in between the seats if I drop them.

The last two fabrics were used to make a needle book for my extra needles and a few pins.

My embroidery hoop and cross stitch supplies all fit into the bag. This is a big improvement on the ziplock plastic bag I was using previously!

We had two guest judges who chose a first place and runner up from all of the projects.  Then, everyone in the group got to pick their favourite for the viewer's choice award. There was a lot of variety and creativity in everyone's projects...Wall hangings, table runners, a pillow, a purse, and mini quilts.

Julie won the honourable mention award for her bag.  The judges were Lorna and Heather.

Debbie won the Judges choice award for her modern table runner.  She stayed up all night to complete her project on time!

The viewer's choice prize went to Diane for her mini American Beauty quilt.

Congratulations to the winners and to all who participated in the challenge.  It is amazing to see what everyone made with their challenge fabrics!

Frank is FINISHED!

Today is the last Slow Sunday Stitching day of 2018.  In April, I started a counted cross stitch project,  Fountain Glass, a stained glass window designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  This past week, I finished the last few silver outlining stitches and this picture is done!  

This project represents a lot of time spent stitching in the car, in the gazebo and on the couch.  

I now have three counted cross stitch pictures finished and waiting for framing.  (two FLW windows and the snowmen) I will make getting these framed and up on the wall a priority in the new year. 

I took two weeks off work this Christmas and have spent lots of time with my family.  We finished one puzzle and have started a second one. 

 There have been lots of long walks with Finn as well as play time with him. 

 I have also been doing some reading. This is our stack of books that were under the tree...some belong to my husband and some belong to me. 

Of course, there has been lots of sewing going on as well. I am sleeping better and am feeling more relaxed.  The wide open zippered pouch below was made for a friend for Christmas.  She likes to knit and it is the perfect size for a smaller project such as a pair of socks or mittens. 

A confession...I am still working on one last Christmas gift!  With any luck, it will be finished today and I will deliver it later this week.  There is some hand sewing to do on it...  I will cut the outer circle to make the grey circle centred after I finish the blanket stitching.  I will do a blog post about the finished project later this week.

For 2019's Slow Sunday Stitching project, I have signed up for Sarah Fielke's "Coming Home" BOM.  I am in the midst of picking out fabrics for my quilt.  I will also start another counted cross stitch picture, likely another Frank Lloyd Wright window, to work on in the car.

I will be linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers.  Take a look at all of the wonderful hand stitching that is going on there!

Christmas Gifts Revealed and some Slow Stitching

I made several zipper pouches as gifts this year for Christmas.  Now that they have all been given, I can show pictures on my blog.  This one was made for my MIL.  She loves sheep and I have had this sheep fabric in my stash for a year or two, hoping to make something for my MIL with it.  My MIL was delighted with her pouch and looks forward to using it when she comes for an overnight visit at our house.

This bag was made for one of my nieces.  She has converse running shoes so this fabric called to me when it was time to make her zippered pouch.

Here is a picture of my nieces with their pouches.  The second pouch had bicycles on it.

I made a couple of pouches for friends for Christmas too, but somehow, forgot to take pictures of them before they were gifted.  

During the holidays, I have had some time to work on my counted cross stitch snowmen picture.  Santa brought me a new Ott floor lamp for Christmas so now I can see better for stitching in the evenings.  

I have been concentrating on finishing off this snowman completely.

I still need to outline the two yellow and black birds.

I also added some branch extensions to the second snowman.  This picture is coming along nicely.  I don't have a deadline for when it needs to be finished.  I am just enjoying the process.  I hope to have some more stitching time today, if our family gift from Santa does not distract me too much.  The three of us spent a few hours last night working on our new puzzle.  Most of the easy parts are done...now for the background... 1000 pieces...

I will be linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers tomorrow.  Happy New Year!

Zippered Pouch

I made this zippered pouch from a tutorial I found at Noodle-Head for a friend who helped me out with a problem.  I'm not going to talk about the problem, other than to say that, with her help, the solution was sorted out and there was no longer a problem!  I am very grateful for her assistance at a time when I was feeling powerless.

The two fabrics on the outside of the pouch were part of the same line of fabric and have been in my stash for a couple of years.  The lining fabric was in my dotty fabrics drawer and it had all the same colours in it and it was purchased at a different time and place from the other fabrics!

The turquoise zipper was a perfect match.

I quilted this little pouch with green thread in straight lines with my DSM.  I used some batting scraps  to give the pouch some body, rather than the interfacing suggested in the tutorial.

The Elgin Piecemaker's Guild met last night and we brought our grey, black and turquoise blocks in for this month's comfort quilt for an adult chemo patient at our local hospital.   I think this will be a stunning quilt!  Sashing and borders will be added by two members of the guild and then it will be given to another member for long arm quilting--this is a true group project!

Catching Up

Wow..it has been over two weeks since I last blogged!  Life has been busy and I have not had much sewing time lately so there was nothing to blog about...

Today was the Janiary meeting of the London Modern Quilt Guild.  In the morning, after the announcements, one of our members taught English paper piecing.  We were each given some paper hexagons and a needle.  I brought along a couple of 2.5" charm packs to use.  

I made a flower this morning and started another one tonight when I got home.  I'm not sure what I will make with these but I will keep making them until I run out of the gray and black fabrics In the charm pack.  

After lunch, another member of the guild taught us how to make zipper pouches.  I used some camera fabric that has been in my stash for at least a year and some leftover fabric from my daughter's graduation quilt to make my pouch.  I had the zipper as well. By the end of the day, my pouch was done! 

The pouch pattern came from the  Noodlehead blog and now that I know how to make it, I may try making some more in different sizes!  

I am late to the party, but I decided to make this year's Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt.  So far, I have the neutral four patches from step one just about done.  

I'm not in a rush to get this quilt done, but will work away on it as I have time.  I have fabrics chosen out for all of the other blocks in the quilt and they are set aside.  

Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts is having a Christmas quilt sew along so I decided to jump in and make a new Christmas quilt.  It is only one block every two weeks so I hope to be able to stay caught up.  I made my first block tonight...Christmas stockings! 

I hope to get Elephant Parade back on the rails soon too.  It was put aside in favour of sewing Christmas gifts.  

Here is my final stash report for 2016...better late than never!  

Fabric used since my last stash report: 61.35yards
Total fabric used  in 2016: 122.45 yards
Fabric added to the stash since my last report: 44.5 yards.
Total fabric added in 2016: 112.25 yards
Net fabric used in 2016:  10.2 yards

At least I landed in the black!

I will link up with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers tomorrow.

The Last Gifts of Christmas

My friend, Cathy, is heavily into English Paper Piecing...you should see what she has been working on all year!  I call it the "Monster".  She has been enhancing her stash a lot this year with fun fabrics that she can fussy cut for her project. 

 

 

For Christmas, she made me this EPP pincushion.  Isn't it cute???





 

 

I love the little heart buttons!  You can't smell it from where you are, but I can tell you that it has some lavender in it and smells heavenly!

 

 

 

Thanks Cathy!!!!  I love it!

 

 

Speaking of pincushions, here is one I made for Roxene at the Elgin Piecemakers Guild.  Each year, we pick names and exchange small gifts.  Roxene loves Churn Dashes and makes them almost every month for our charity quilt projects.  I decided she needed a church dash pincushion. 

 

 

 

This is a chunky churn dash! The fabric was in my scrap bins...

 



I found some green fabric for the back and some green buttons for the middle on the top and bottom.  I filled this pincushion with plastic beads--no lavender for this pincushion.

 

 

I also made Roxene a friendship bag with a churn dash on the front.  (I actually made two of these bags and the other one was given to Karen.)

 

 

Organic quilting with green thread:

 

 

Two friendship bags...

 

 

...with green dotty fabric for the lining!

 

 

 You have seen all of the quilty gifts I made for friends and family now.  Next up...I need to finish off the two quilts for the Syrian Refugee families.