Machine Quilting, Piecing and Hand Quilting, of Course!

It's been a busy week in the sewing department!  On Monday, I pin basted my nine patch quilt.  I quilted it with my walking foot yesterday and I have binding picked out to cut and sew on today.  This quilt will be done and ready for show and tell at our September guild meeting!  I used a 28wt light grey thread for the quilting. 

I pieced the medium blue block for my "circle" quilt and now all the blocks are made.  I went searching through my stash for an appropriate sashing fabric as I did not want the blocks to be butted up against each other in the finished quilt.  I found this black and white striped fabric and will use this for both the sashing and the binding. I am going to cut the sashing at 1.5" so only an inch will show once everything is sewn together. 

I added yellow and green beads to my counted cross stitch project.  Three more colours to go!

I am working on hand quilting this pieced border, just figuring out what to quilt as I go along.  I am quilting the final border as well.  I still haven't figured out what to do in the wider blue border.  It will come to me eventually!

On our walk one day this week, we saw Mama deer and two fawns in the woods beside the path.  

There were some interesting spider webs as well. 

Finn helped my daughter will her crochet this week.  He finds balls of wool make very comfy pillows.

There were some very nice sunbeams this week too. 

I will link up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers at Kathy's blog, the Rainbow Scrap Challenge folks at Angela's blog and Frederique, as usual.  Have a good week!

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 Week Away

 Our family, including our daughter and Finn, just got home from a week at the cottage.  We did lots of reading on the dock, and stitching in the screened porch.  It was a very relaxing week.  Finn loves it there and could not wait to go down to the dock every morning and evening.  We had great weather although it was smoky for a couple of days from the northern Ontario forest fires. 

I finished the hand quilting on my Pineapple Log Cabin quilt!  I looked up when I started the hand quilting--October 2025.  I must admit that I took long breaks from working on it so that's why it took so long.  Here are some pictures of the front and back as well as the last two blocks.  It was a bit breezy during the photoshoot.  I hope to do the binding this week.

I started quilting my improv round robin quilt that I hand basted a couple of weeks ago in anticipation of taking it to the cottage.  I am using orange thread on the cool colours and green thread on the warm colours and just figuring out how to quilt it as I go along. 

Reading on the dock is a favourite activity for all three of us.  I took pictures of a couple of the books that I read.  This one was about three generations spending a week together at a cottage on Cape Cod.  

My husband gave me this book for Christmas...an interesting read about the history of women's handwork including spinning, weaving, knitting and quilting. 

I have completed almost all of the cross stitching on my barn project. I added some outlining stitches to the barn.  Next up is the beading which I prefer to do at home where I have really good lighting. 

I got a couple of interesting reflection shots of Finn and a water lily. 

Finn is very photogenic!

The squirrels, chipmunks and birds kept us entertained. 

This dragonfly stayed still long enough for me to get a picture of it and its shadow. 

My daughter worked on her book blanket and only has five more rows to add before doing the border.  

I will link up with Kathy and the slow stitchers on Sunday and Frederique.  Have a great week and enjoy your stitching!

Almost a Week at the Cottage

Christine and I spent most of a week at her cottage and did lots of sewing, chatting, watching movies and eating good food!  It was a bit buggy outside so we were mostly inside.  Christine has lots of bird feeders which she kept well stocked all week so there were lots of birds and other critters to see out the window. 

But first, the sewing!  I added yellow binding to my colour challenge quilt and, over a few days, finished hand stitching it down.  The dock was a good place to take some pictures. 

I did most of the hand stitching in the evenings while watching a movie and drinking tea. 

The colourful birds at the feeder were distracting, but in a good way!

For June, the RSC colour was "pastels" but since I don't have many pastels in my stash, I decided to make purple blocks this month.  I completed all the purple blocks for my four projects while we were at the cottage. 

The Kawartha Dairy just released a new ice cream flavour this week.  We had to try it, of course.  Delicious!

One of my goals for the week was to make the last (paper-pieced) block for my Summer Sorbet sampler from the Threadhouse Academy.  It took a while to make this block as there were four curved paper pieced sections and then curved piecing to put each quadrant together before sewing them all together to make the block.  I put all the blocks together into a finished quilt top before we headed home. I have fabric for backing at home and will work on getting that pieced and the quilt pin basted this week. 

Christine noticed a visitor under the bird feeders one day.  What does the fox say, you may ask?  Nothing.  He was too busy eating.  

Our friend, Cathy, from Eagles Wings Quilts came over for lunch and an afternoon of stitching and catching up. We had not seen Cathy since we were up at the Cottage last June!  I stitched my yellow binding, Cathy worked on some knitting, and Christine did some cross stitch.   A fun afternoon!

Down on the dock, I took a couple of pictures of Christine with her projects.  This Christmas wreath wall hanging had the binding sewn on at the cottage.  The double star with the grey background is for her colour challenge project and is the last of 12 blocks that she has made.  She will be able to assemble the quilt top now. The quilt top hanging in the screened porch is ready for quilting now that the borders have been added.  We also both worked on  Dream Bird coin pouches from the Taster Weekend for the Threadhouse Academy.  No pictures yet...I will take some when we finish our projects. 

You all know that Finn loves a sunbeam.  My daughter took these pictures this morning.  The second one shows her progress on the rounds of her crocheted blanket. 

I took lots of bird pictures at the cottage...  The goldfinches and the hummingbirds were fun to watch at the feeders. 

This squirrel and others were happy to munch on seeds that fell on the ground. 

I am on the program committee for the Oxford Quilters' Guild and we are organizing a 9 patch swap  mystery quilt for the 2026-27 year.  I made 20 nine patches in three colours while I was at the cottage.  Christine worked on making nine patches too but I didn't get any pictures of hers.  The instructions will soon be sent out to the participants in the swap.  I decided to get ahead of the game as I hate the last minute pressure of getting something done for a deadline.  I am also trying to encourage more guild members to sign up for the swap by sharing pictures of my nine-patches.  Each month, the participants will bring in 20 nine patches in a specific colour. The program committee will collect the baggies of nine patches and redistribute them evenly amongst the participants--each person will get 20 nine patches back at the next meeting, made by the other participants. We will swap nine-patches for 7 months for a total of 140 nine patches.  There are also constant blocks which will be made along the way.  At the end of the guild year, the final instructions on how to put everything together will be given out.  It will be fun to see everyone's quilts!

To end this very long and picture heavy post, I present a picture of a new type of featherless bird at the feeder...

I will link up with the RSC folks, the Slow Sunday Stitchers and Frederique.