Spring Rabbit Done!

 I finished off the last of the stitches on the Spring Rabbit counted cross stitch this week. Then, I added the butterfly antennae, the bunny's whiskers, the lines in the ears and the stitches to make the tail "fluffy".  I love the bright colours!  I will wash it this week and give it a good press before taking it to the framer.  I hope it won't take too long to frame so I can hang it up soon. 

In the meantime, I have organized the thread and cut the Aida cloth for my next counted cross stitch project.  I'm hoping to work on this a bit tonight and tomorrow for slow Sunday stitching. 

I played a bit more with my HRT units on the design wall. I may rearrange them a bit more before sewing everything together. They are all sewn into pairs, but not pressed yet. 

Angela has announced that the colour for the Rainbow Scrap challenge in April will be purple.  I always make a purple block and a red-violet block when the colour of the month is purple.   These strips are for my pineapple log cabin blocks which I hope to work on this coming week. 

When my daughter was little, I used to make her dresses and pyjamas.  I loved the pattern I had to make the pj's so much that I bought it in two sizes!  It has been used many times over the years to make comfy pj's for my daughter and my nieces. This week, I made a pair of summer pj's for a little friend of mine. A 5/8" seam is huge compared to the 1/4" I use for quilting!  I actually made these with French seams.  I had a family studies teacher in high school who taught me how to do French seams and I use them in clothing construction where possible. 

We took Finn to the park one evening this week.  For some reason, he is a much better walker when we go to the park rather than walking around the neighbourhood. It's a good thing there are lots of interesting parks to walk in where we live. 

We had 3rd or maybe it was 4th winter this week.  The daffodils where not happy...   They are in bud and if we get a few warm days this coming week, they may open. 

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

This and That

While I was in Elk Rapids, MI for the Beaver Island Quilt Retreat, I purchased some flannel fabric to make PJ's for my daughter, and my twin nieces. Actually, I just made the pj pants and purchased the tops. I have been using this same pattern since my daughter was very young and she will soon be 20! I just get the measurements of each girl and alter the pattern to fit. I have used this pattern so often that I can make them with my eyes shut! Well...almost!  My nieces just turned 12 and we celebrated their birthday this past weekend with dinner at their house. I also made them pillowcases for their birthday.

I think everyone in the family has a pillowcase now!  They proved to be popular birthday gifts this year!

The Elgin Piecemakers Guild charity project--quilts for adult chemo patients at our local hospital--continues full steam ahead. This block is my contribution towards the black white and green quilt. This block is due at our early January meeting--I am trying to get ahead a bit as I have some Christmas gifts to work on over the next few weeks.  This block is called "Get The Point" and is #291 in volume 3 of Quiltmaker's 100 blocks magazine.

We had our meeting last week and everyone brought in their blue and yellow blocks:

Two of our members will get together soon to add sashing and borders to make this quilt.

Last Spring, I challenged everyone to make a "Filmstrip" block for a charity quilt. I gave everyone the centre square fabric. The sashing looks great and this quilt top is now at the quilter's house in line to be quilted. The backing is in the lower left corner of the picture.

I made this raspberry apple kuchen for dessert one night last week. I picked the raspberries from our garden. It was delicious...there were no leftovers!  The recipe is a variation of Pineapple Nut Kuchen from the Company's Coming Diabetic cookbook. The key to this recipe is to serve it warm.

A couple of weeks ago, I entered a give-away on the Selvage Blog for this book "The Town That Drowned" by Riel Nason. My name was picked out of the hat and today, the book and some orange fabric scraps arrived in the mail from Riel!  Check out Riel's blog to see the wonderful quilts she makes for Halloween!  I especially love her Selvage Mummy quilt!  Thanks, Riel for the book and the fabrics!  It was perfect that this parcel arrived on October 31st!

Last week, we had our first hard frost. I had a few minutes to spare before leaving for work so I raced out to the yard with my camera to get some pictures.

I spent much of tonight working on putting more HST units into strips of 5 for my Roll Roll Cotton Boll quilt. Christine and I are getting together tomorrow night to work on this quilt.

Good Night, everyone!

Birthday PJ's

My twin nieces will be 11 years old tomorrow. It does not seem that long ago that they were tiny babies! (2lbs 11 oz and 3lbs 8oz) Now, they are almost as tall as me and I am sure I will soon be the shortest in the family. Sigh!

Their favourite Uncle (actually their only uncle--my husband) picked out the fabric for this year's pj's at Quilts and Calicos in Exeter (see sidebar for the link). We are going with a winter theme this year.  They should be nice and cozy in these flannel pj's this winter!

I found some cute labels at the local sewing store.

I took this next picture in my backyard of our Worplesdon Sweetgum tree. The leaves turn many beautiful colours this time of year.

More quilt show photos

The above quilt was made my friend, Jacqui. It is an underground railroad quilt--she made two --this one is wall hanging size and the other is bed size.


This quilt was made by Cynthia. I love the snowmen!







The above wall hanging was made entirely of felted wool.


My twin neices turned 9 last week. Every year, I make them flannel PJ's for their birthday. They are so cozy and warm! Here are pictures of this year's gifts:


I have some wall hangings mostly done. I will post pictures when they are done.