A Variety of Projects this Week

Last Sunday, I brought up this week's sewing projects from the basement sewing room to the dining room table where I have set up my temporary sewing space while Finn the grand-dog is here.  The first order of business for the week was to finish quilting this table topper, started 7 years ago.  As you can see, the binding is on and it is done!  The blocks are Bonnie Hunter's Boxy Stars. 

I don't know about you, but I am finding it hard to stay focussed on one thing for very long these days and tend to flit back and forth between projects.  I did some counted cross stitch on the March pattern from Linens and Threads.  I have to decide how I am going to use the other colours in this pattern...I have a few ideas floating around.

I started cutting and piecing the units for a new quilt that will be a gift.  I only had .5 yards of the bird print so that limited how many blocks I could make to 51 four patches.

The other unit is an HST using white and a gray print. I am aiming for a barn raising layout which may or may not be asymmetrical.  I need to make more HST's...

One day, when feeling quite rattled by all that is going on in the world, I picked up my knitting and made another dish cloth.  I find the repetitive process calms me down and gets me back on track.

And, another one to add to the growing pile!

A friend from church is organizing the making of scrub hats for our local hospital staff.  I dug into my stash and found some fabrics that I could use to make some hats...first up:  Elvis!

My SIL purchased this fabric for me at Graceland many years ago and I could just never think of anything to make with it.  I am sure it will bring a smile to someone's face when they see a doctor or nurse wearing this scrub hat!

My first batch of hats were delivered to the hospital today and I am in the process of making more.  The pattern is from YouTube and can be found here.

We have been having some beautiful sunny spring days here this past week.  Finn loves to go outside and sit or lay on the porch and watch the birds, squirrels, people and dogs go by.   I read a book and said hello to the people walking by. 

Today was Finn's 2nd birthday!  No cake but he did get some apple pieces and peanut butter for his birthday treat.

My daffodils are popping out today and should be fully open tomorrow, I hope.

I will link up with Kathy and the slow Sunday stitchers in the morning. 

Sew Many Projects, Sew Little Time!

 

 

Christine came over to my house on Thursday night this week to work on our Lazy Sunday mystery quilts. We are putting together these blocks for step 3 of this mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter. After I put the blocks out on the floor and took this picture, I noticed a little unsewing job that needs to be done...can you find it?  I have already done the unsewing but still need to sew the block back together again! Only 8 more of these blocks to put together and then on to the purple and white border units.  This is the only sewing I have done since my last blog post.

 

I have stared longingly at my sewing machine a few times as I am heading out the door to work in the garden...  My husband and I are expanding our front flower beds, adding stone edging and planting some bushes, moving and thinning out the perennials, etc. What a big job!  We have finished off one garden--I added the mulch the other night. The second garden has the stone edging and the bushes are in but we still need to thin out and replant the perennials. We hope to get this job done by the end of next week. It takes a long time when we only have evenings and limited time on the weekends to be outside. In the backyard, my Dad (83 years young) and I have put in the vegetable garden--pole beans, zucchini, peppers, cherry tomatoes (in a pot on the patio), broccoli, kohlrabi and leeks.  My Dad always had a big garden at our house when I was growing up and after I left home but he is not allowed to have a vegetable garden where he lives now so he and I do the veggie garden here. The garden is fenced so that these visitors do not eat everything before we get a chance to do our harvesting!

 

 

 

This cardinal visited the yard the other morning and perched on the top of our gazebo to survey the backyard.

 

 



Here is my stash report.

 

Fabric used in the last 2 weeks: 2.4 yards
Total fabric used this year: 96.5  yards
Fabric added to the stash in the last 2 weeks: 0 yards
Total fabric added this year: 81.08 yards
Net fabric used this year: 15.42 yards

 

If you read my last blog post, you would know that I started making a boxy stars quilt for a family member last week.

 

 

I worked on this quilt at Jacqui's last Thursday night and have 4/12 blocks completed. Friday night, we had a phone call from my husband's cousin to let us know that her Mom had died early that morning unexpectedly. I had hoped to give this quilt to Aunt M in July. Now, it will be completed and given to her daughter in memory of her Mom.

QNIC at Jacqui's

Jacqui hosted Chris, Karen and I for a Quilting Night in Canada tonight. We have not done this for ages and had a fun evening of sewing and chatting.

I worked on some more Boxy Star Blocks.

I still have 8 more blocks to make. It is fun to root around in my batiks to make these blocks.
Jacqui thinks white sashing would make the boxy stars float--I agree. I am not sure if I will add cornerstones or not...  What do you think?

Jacqui worked on a couple of baby quilts. She satin stitched around the circles tonight.

Karen quilted a table topper. Looking good, Karen!

 Chris is making a wedding shower gift--a table runner and a pot holder. Lucky Bride and Groom!

I hope we can get together for a few more QNIC's this summer!

Because I Need Another Project...

I was looking at some blogs tonight and saw that Bonnie Hunter has a preview up of the next step in the Lazy Sunday mystery that is running in Quiltmaker magazine. Christine came over for our weekly sewing night tonight so I decided to put 3 blocks together, just to see how they would look...

This is going to be one bright quilt!  This is the first time that the blue has made an appearance. I hope the magazine shows up in the store where I get my quilting magazines tomorrow so I can see the rest of the instructions for step 3.

Last night, it rained...there was lots of thunder and lightening so I could not go outside to work on the garden. Instead, I played with my 9 patch mystery strips on my design wall.

I found out my design wall is not big enough for this quilt! I may have to resort to using my design floor instead.  I will stare at this for a few days before sewing everything together so that I can make sure the colours are as random as possible.

Tonight, I started a new project. I am going to make a lap quilt using Bonnie Hunter's Boxy Stars pattern, available for free on her website. This quilt will have 12 blocks and will be given to another family member. I hope to have it finished by the end of June...Nothing like a deadline to get me motivated! Tonight, I made 4 units which make one block.

I am using some batiks and some off white tone-on-tones...all from my stash. I think I should be able to use each batik only once in this quilt. Did I ever tell you I have too much fabric???