Stitching Everyday!

Kathy, our Slow Sunday Stitching organizer and cheerleader, keeps a journal/calendar where she documents what she sews/knits etc.  each day.  I decided I would track my stitching activities each day this year on a wall calendar which I will keep in my sewing room. So far, I have stitched and/or knitted every day this year!  We will see how this goes.  I don't have a goal of how many days each week I want to stitch--I'm just going to track my activities.  

I added more stitches to my counted cross stitch Christmas project.  This will continue to be my winter stitching. I have actually added more of the purple borders already and will be working on a reindeer next--to the right of the wreath. 

Christine and I got together to sew on Friday and I put my Rainbow Scrap Challenge pineapple log cabin blocks together.  I had to use a lot of pins to keep all of the seams matched up.  The seams are pressed open because each block is foundation pieced on fabric so there are lots of layers.  I'm not sure how I'm going to quilt this yet. 

I added the new binding to my daughter's quilt and noticed that the batting is getting a bit bunchy--this quilt has been washed many times.  My daughter loves how soft it feels and doesn't care about bunchy batting. The new binding is a light blue Kona cotton and should be more durable than the flannel binding that I took off.  It is the same colour as the previous binding.  I got three sides of the hand stitching done in the car when we took Finn and our daughter home after the holidays.  The quilt is at her place and I will finish the hand stitching when I am there in February to visit.  I also repaired a few small holes and covered a larger area of wear on the back of the quilt with a new piece of flannel. 

The moose hat is done and my husband wore it today when we went for a walk.  I like how the crown of the hat swirls into the middle. (This picture was taken before I worked all the yarn ends in). The hat goes well with his navy blue coat as you can see in the second picture. 

I took a zoom class today with Maria Shell on Half Circles and Lines.  Here is my fabric pull for the class.  The dotty fabric is leftover from two RSC quilt backings.  I only have a 5" strip of it left--enough to inspire the colours I chose for this quilt.  Maria showed us how to piece an improv half circle into a block.  I have done lots of quarter circles in Drunkard's Path blocks but never a half circle.  Her tips and tricks made it fairly easy.  I made three blocks during the class.  There are other types of blocks that she showed us in the class so I will be making more to add to this collection.  It will eventually become a quilt.  (I have not trimmed the blocks yet, so, yes, they look a bit wonky.)

I got a new iron for Christmas and it matches one of the fabrics I used today in my class!  My old iron bit the dust in November so I sent a note to Santa requesting a new iron. 

Finn is up to his usual displays of cuteness.  Belly rubs?  Yes please!

Finn is sitting on the quilt I made him for his first Christmas.  He often lies on it while my daughter is working. 

My daughter ordered herself a sweatshirt with a picture of Finn. (short for Findley). She had to send a photo in and then they made the image for the shirt.  She had shirts made for her two cousins with pictures of their two dogs and cat on their shirts.  Very cute!

I will link up with the RSC group and with the Slow Sunday Stitchers.  Happy New Year!

Lots of Slow Stitching Projects Underway!

 I have been working on several slow Sunday stitching projects this week.  I added more windows and doors to the houses in the Coming Home quilt...I still have a few more to stitch down and one complete "street" to cut out and sew.  Some of my houses have extra "personality" with slightly slanted doors and windows...

I put the pompom on my new hat earlier today so it is all ready to wear.  There are still a few days here and there when I will need a hat for my morning walk.  The pattern picture showed the hat with no "turn up" at the bottom edge.  It looks better this way on me. 

I finished quilting my black and white checkerboard quilt and added some black and white striped binding by machine earlier today.  I hope to do some hand stitching on the binding tomorrow...I really enjoy doing this, although some don't. You can see that my assistant is always ready for a photo op. 

I did a bit of embroidery last week but did not blog about it.  I will add more stitches this week, I hope. 

You probably noticed that Finn had a haircut this week...

Before and After:

One final picture of Finn because he's so cute. 

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitching crew in the morning. 

Retreat Report

 Last weekend, I attended a quilting retreat, my first in two years.  Everyone in attendance was double vaccinated and our tables were spaced apart.  I brought along 4 projects plus some mending to work on over the three days of the retreat.  My husband gave me a nifty folding cart for my birthday in February 2020 and this was my first chance to use it since I got it.  With the cart, I was able to bring in all my sewing stuff in one trip as well as my overnight bag. 

My first project was my Buffalo Check Modern Snowflake quilt top.  By the end of the first day, the top was together!  I have already purchased a flannel backing for this quilt so I will be able to take it for long arm quilting soon. 

Next up, I worked on my black and white colour block quilt top.  I made these blocks a few months ago and they got put aside for some reason--it was time to get them made into a top!  I chose to make the sashing and outer border with a fuchsia cross-stitch print.  I like the way the black and white blocks look like a checkerboard. There are all kinds of interesting prints in the little squares that make up each block.  I have chosen a backing for this quilt from my stash, and will quilt this one myself, after Christmas gifts are made. 

I took a break from quilting and shortened two pairs of pants for myself next.  A friend pinned them for me.  I used the extra fabric that I cut off the bottom to repair a hole in a pair of jeans that my niece ripped while climbing a fence.  

Back to quilting!  I brought along some Christmas prints that I bought a couple of years ago.  I had started a project with them at the last retreat I attended and then they never saw the light of day again until last weekend.  I managed to finish off a wall hanging and then did the quilting and binding when I got home.  Here is a sneak peek at this project which will be a Christmas present so I can't show the whole thing. 

I made a pompom for the hat I showed last week, and started a new knitting project this week, another gift. I got started this morning on this gift while I was attending an online seminar on Zoom. The knitted snow person also saw some progress this week. 

I spent the remaining time at the retreat cutting and organizing the blocks and sashing pieces for my lupin quilt.  You may remember me showing my lupin blocks months ago--I got stalled on this quilt when I stopped to make a bunch of gifts.  I would like to have this top put together and to the quilter before Christmas.  I made 4 more lupin blocks at the retreat:

My husband and I crossed an item off our bucket list this week--we got to ride in a combine at a family member's farm while he was harvesting corn. It was a beautiful day and lots of pictures were taken. 

We went hiking at a local conservation area on Tuesday morning and enjoyed a colourful walk in the woods. 

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning.  I hope to do some more knitting tomorrow. Have a great week.   Finn says hello!

The Gifts of Christmas

Our daughter has been very busy over the last few months, working on gifts for us and her grandmother. I knew about the bee picture for her grandmother, but had no idea she was making something for us as well.  "Home for the Holidays" was a stitch-along at the Barmy Fox on Instagram.  Each day for 3 1/2 weeks, there were new stitches to learn and add to her picture. It looks great on our mantle with my little gnome. She learned several new stitches including the whipped backstitch, the feather stitch, the open and closed fly stitch, padded satin stitch and the Bayeux stitch which was originally on the Bayeux tapestry.  Wow!  I will have to get her to teach me some of these!

 If that was not enough, she also made us three Christmas ornaments. These patterns were from Thread Folk. 

Before Christmas, I took a short trip to Stitch it Central in London, Ontario to pick up some thread for a wedding gift cross stitch picture that I will be making over the next few months for a friend's daughter and her husband--they got married at the end of November and we attended the wedding on Zoom.  I offered to make them a cross stitch picture and emailed a couple of pattern possibilities.  They picked one called "Love Birds".  They made a diagram of the colours they wanted me to use and I picked out the matching colours at the store.  I made one substitution for the first colour when I got home.  My daughter had some thread that matched better. The pattern is from Peppermint Purple. 

I have made a start on the picture this past week. This project will take a while.  The newlyweds are patient and look forward to seeing my progress pictures as I work on their wedding gift. 

A while ago, I showed you a picture of a landscape that my daughter was stitching--it took a back seat while she worked on Christmas gifts but she managed to finish it this past week.  I took a close up picture of her bullion stitches.  I am in awe! The pattern is from Lark Rising. 

She is going to keep this little landscape picture for herself. 

Since August, I have been knitting a scarf and hat for my husband for Christmas.  I purchased the wool at my local knitting store, The Little Red Mitten. This wool was from Shetland in Scotland and was spun in England.  I had read about both places in the book my husband bought me for Christmas last year about the history of knitting in Britain called "This Golden Fleece".  

I just learned to knit this year so I am not very fast. I picked a relatively easy pattern from Ravelry. With some guidance from my knitting friends, I got started on the scarf. 

I tried to knit two repeats of the pattern as shown above each time I sat down to knit, at least 3 or 4 times a week. It was slow at first until I got the pattern memorized but eventually, it started to grow. 

I had to hide my wool and my knitting in a zippered pouch in my sewing room so my husband would not see it.  The knitting was done while my husband was at work or at a meeting.  I had to have a public project underway at the same time (that's why I kept making dish cloths and facecloths!) so that he would not suspect anything. My friend, Christine and I knitted in my backyard in the warmer weather and then we knitted on FaceTime when it got too cold to knit outside.  

I finished the scarf by the end of November...here I am modelling the finished scarf.  It took two skeins of wool to make the scarf. 

The hat did not start out very smoothly and I had to take it apart 3 times before my friend, Pat, helped me to get it cast on correctly.  (I originally tried to use double pointed needles to cast on and thought I was doing fine until I discovered they were the wrong size...ugh! ) I used round needles to knit the main part of the hat and then changed to double pointed needles when it was time to reduce the number of stitches on the crown of the hat.  I lost a few stitches in the process of doing the crown, but Pat helped to get me back on track. Thank goodness for knitting friends!

Finally finished the ribbing:

I started knitting the patterned part. 

Progress!

I finally got to the final stitches and finished the hat a few days before Christmas!

Here is the finished hat:

My husband was totally surprised by his knitted gifts.  He told me he did not think I would know how to knit something this complicated since all he had seen me make was dishcloths and facecloths!  He has worn his hat several times already when we went for walks and when we were shovelling the driveway--as you can see, we had a white Christmas! Keeping the pattern going as I did the crown of the hat was a challenge but it looks fine!  

Pat gave me cable needles and some wool for my next project for Christmas.  She will give me a quick, in person, masked, outside lesson in January.  I think I will make a practice piece before starting the actual project I have in mind. We sometimes trouble shoot my knitting questions on video chats as well.  I have seen a couple of videos of how to make cables so I have some inkling of how to do them.  

I made a couple of sewn gifts for my daughter for Christmas.  I ordered one yard of this book fabric from Spoonflower to make a pillow case and zippered pouch for her embroidery projects.  My daughter is an avid reader and this fabric matches the colours in her quilt that I made when she graduated from university a few years ago.  The white and gray fabric on the pillowcase was purchased at QuiltCon in Nashville. 

Here is the zippered pouch--the pattern is from Noodlehead. 

I still have a little bit of the book fabric left for another small project!  She loved both of these gifts, which  made me happy. 

One last little gift...I made a few counted cross stitch patterns to make ornaments earlier in the year and finished one off for Pat for Christmas.  I still have two more ornaments to put together---I think these last two will go on our tree next year. 

I will be linking up with Kathy and the other slow stitchers in the morning. I am sure that everyone will have lots of projects to share --after all, we are makers and we love to make gifts for our friends and families!