Placemat Production

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers, aunts, grandmothers and others who nurture their friends and families!  

I have been working hard this week to finish off my 12 placemats for Meals on Wheels.  I used up some of my batting scraps strips, zigzagged together for this project--the bin is still full...sigh. I fear that all of my scrap bins are bottomless, somewhat like Mary Poppin's duffle bag. The scraps for these three placemats are leftovers from a quilt I made for my aunt a couple of years ago.  The placemats are about 12” by 18”. 

 I made 4 placemats which would be suitable for someone who likes gardening or woodworking.  

The other placemats can be seen in previous blogposts.  I thought I was finished with making placemats for a while...I showed the placemats to the Oxford Guild at our meeting this week and suggested that we take on this project for the Meals on Wheels recipients in Oxford County.  I had asked the agency how many placemats they would need--only 90.  Most people at the zoom meeting the other night agreed to make 2-3 placemats by the end of November so that they can be delivered with the Christmas meals. I have lots more scraps to make more placemats and hope to get those done this coming week.  

I am participating in a round robin with the Toronto Modern Guild.  I made my centre block this week and emailed a picture to the person who will make the next part. I received a picture of the quilt to which I will be adding a few 6" blocks this past week as well.  I have been thinking of ideas and will work on gathering fabrics soon. 

The colours are a bit off in the picture.  The background is Kona Steel gray and the pink pieces are actually magenta. Those yellow bits are more green that they appear...  I may have to try to take another picture in better light. 

I finished the dark green leaves and moved on to the hearts and stems this week on Love Birds.  You can see I don't have too much more to do to finish off the wreath of flowers. 

My daughter also added some stitches to her Munich cityscape this week.  This side of the picture is just about done. 

She and Finn have had a challenging week.  Finn has an infection and is now wearing a cone and taking painkillers.  He had an injection of antibiotics at the vet's and is on the mend, thankfully.  He was really not feeling very well at all. The medication makes him sleepy. He's not allowed to go for a walk until he sees the vet again. He is eating normally again--you know something is wrong when he does not demand ask for his food!

My husband and I did a tour of our gardens this week and have a long list of jobs to do over the next few weeks.  We hope to work on the yard for a couple of hours each day to get everything ready for the upcoming season.  I noticed a few more flowers in bloom this week including the bleeding heart, some purple flowers and tulips.  Does anyone know what the purple flowers are called?  The fuzzy white and green flowers are on our fothergilla bush. 

We noticed a robin has taken up residence on the windowsill outside our laundry room.  There are two beautiful blue eggs in the nest.  We have had nests on our windowsill before.  It's amazing how fast the babies grow once they have hatched. 

Here's a picture of Finn when he was feeling better earlier in the week. 

I will link up with Kathy in the morning.   If you want to see my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project, you can see it at this post. 

Lupins and 4 Finishes!!!

Four more lupin blocks made this week--I am not sure where I bought this purple fat quarter.  Here are samples of all the blocks I have made so far...24/48 blocks made.  I am half way there!  I have a few red-violet fat quarters in my pile so the raspberry lupins will blend in more once those are added. 

I finished the starfish baby wash cloth.  It is actually light blue...not gray. 

The "Let it Bee" cross stitch is done too.  I almost forgot to add the antennae!  I will frame this in a small hoop and hang it in my sewing room. 

I purchased a pattern for a blackwork project to work on next...I am in the process of getting my supplies gathered and hope to work on it this weekend. 

My daughter also finished her Nashville cityscape.  She has started a new project...not a cityscape.  I hope to share a picture of it next week. 

Finally, my Tula Pink 100 Modern Blocks sampler is completed!  I spent a few hours this week hand sewing the binding down.  I took this picture while standing on a ladder to get a full view of the quilt. 

I used three fat quarters of ombre fabric for the colourful bits in most of the blocks as well as my extensive collection of black and white fabrics for this quilt. The binding is the same darker gray solid as in the horizontal stripes.  

The colourful fabrics on the front and the backing fabrics were all designed by Tula Pink.  I purchased the three fat quarters for the front at QuiltCon 2019 in Nashville.  

My quilt was custom quilted by my friend, Julie C.  Each block is different and the background areas all have horizontal lines.  This quilt will go on our bed--our first new quilt on the bed in many years.  I have several quilts that fit our bed and rotate them about once a month so every quilt gets a chance to be on display and lay flat. I love looking at all of the blocks and finding little scraps of fun fabrics and admiring the quilting on each one. 

My friend and I go for a physically distanced walk every morning and today was foggy.  Water droplets clung to the spider webs we saw along the trail so I had to take a few pictures. 

I will be linking up with Kathy on Sunday morning along with all of the other Slow Sunday Stitchers.  

Paige at Quilted Blooms has a new link up on Fridays for people to share their finished quilting projects. Thank Goodness its Finished Fridays--TGIFF!!!

Have a great weekend!

FLW and a New Cityscape

If you paid close attention to last week's FLW picture, today, you might notice that I have added some backstitch lines to my project. I hope to add enough outlining today to move the hoop down so I can continue the yellow columns of cross stitching. Truth be told, I find the straight lines of backstitching a bit boring...but they do add interest to the picture, so I will soldier on!

My daughter started another cityscape, and, once again, she will not tell me what city she is stitching.  Any guesses?

I spent the last two days at a "Designing with Line" workshop with Jacquie Gering.  I can't wait to get into my sewing room to play with lines some more.  I have lots of ideas to explore!  I will be doing a post about the workshop sometime in the next few days so check back for more pictures and thoughts about the workshop.

Finn and my daughter went for a walk at the dog park yesterday and Finn had a lot of FUN!  I love how his ears flop around when he runs!

I have an exciting week coming up.  I will be retiring on Thursday!  I am looking forward to more time for creative pursuits--sewing, cross stitch, embroidery...and I want to learn to knit.  I also have lots of jobs around my house that I need to tackle, and I have a growing pile of books to read as well. I don't think there is any chance of boredom any time soon!

This picture was taken at the St. Thomas Elevated Park--the first elevated park in Canada.  The official grand opening was last weekend.  My husband and I went for a walk there on Thursday evening at sunset so I could take some pictures.

I will be linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.  Make yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take a look at what everyone is up to this week. 

A Little of This and a Little of That

I have worked on a variety of hand sewing projects in the past week. I finally got back to working on my Coming Home BOM designed by Sarah Fielke.  There is a lot of applique to do for the next couple of steps so I am making an effort to get caught up.  There are two crescent moons and two suns in the current border.  I did the moons last weekend and this weekend, I am working on the suns.   I appliquéd the circles onto the yellow sun rays today at the London Modern Quilt Guild meeting. 

Both suns are now ready to appliqué onto the corner blocks.

I was going to make the circles yellow and the sun rays magenta but my daughter gave me the idea of doing it the other way around.  I like it!

I finished off the last moon out in the gazebo one evening earlier this week.  It reminds me of that old song...Blue Moon...

The London Modern Guild is having their first ever quilt show in September so I spent some time this week adding hanging sleeves to my quilts for the show as I watched a movie.  All three quilts are now ready for the show. 

Last weekend, Christine, my husband and I went to see the Nancy Crow quilt exhibit at the Mansfield  Art Centre in Ohio.  I had seen some of her quilts in Toronto, Ontario and Muskegon, MI in the last couple of years and jumped at the chance to see more of them in Ohio.  I wasn't allowed to take any pictures of the quilts but did take a picture of the poster. The quilts were amazing...I recommend you see them if you can!

We also toured the Weltzheimer/Johnson House in Oberlin, OH.  Frank Lloyd Wright was the architect.  My husband and I have toured several of the houses/buildings that he designed and jumped at the chance to see another one.  This one is owned by Oberlin College and is open for tours one Sunday a month.

The house was build for a family of 6 and has an interesting ball detail around the entire roof.

I immediately noticed that the ceilings were a courthouse step pattern...

While in Mansfield, we briefly walked around the gardens at Kingwood (until we had to race back to the car because it started to pour rain!) and I took this picture at the lily pond in one of the gardens.  It was my favourite picture of the day!

I did some more stitches on Frank in the car on the way to and from Ohio last weekend.  I need to do more cross stitching before I add some more outlining.  Christine did some knitting in the car but I did not get a picture.

My daughter also did some cross stitching this week...I think the palm tree gives away the city she is working on...Miami!

Finn did not want her to do any work on her computer today...

I will be linking up with Kathy and the other slow Sunday stitchers in the morning.  Take a look at the other blogs for fun and inspiration!  The link is in my sidebar.