Gift Quilt Reveal, Cross Stitch and Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving!  Our daughter and Finn are here for the weekend and we had a turkey dinner with my husband's family today. I put out my pumpkin decorations this week.  I even raked some leaves--it really feels like fall now with cooler temperatures and the trees changing colour. 

I'm adding another tree to the Forest cross stitch picture.  It looks a bit odd now but will look better when it is all filled in. 

Finn came with us to the farmer's market this morning and I managed to get him to pose in front of the pumpkins, but only very briefly!

We can see his eyes now that he has had a haircut. 

I have completed the 12 placemats that I am donating to Meals on Wheels.  Here are the fronts--you can see I made some matching sets which might go to a couple. The second picture shows the backing fabrics. 

Here are the two that I finished this past week. 

These two pictures were taken when my husband and I went for a walk in the park one morning this past week. 

The program committee at the Oxford Quilter's Guild has started a colour challenge.  Everyone has been encouraged to pick a block and then make it in a different prescribed colour each month.  The green block was for September and the orange one for October.  I am keeping this project very simple as I have a lot of other projects that I want to move along to the finish line this fall as well as a new quilt I want to start. 

My daughter has joined another crochet along and made one of the corners this week to check her gauge.  

Back at the beginning of the Summer, I mentioned I was working on a secret project.  I made this potato chip quilt using shirt fabric for my cousin.  He received the quilt in September and sent me a picture of him with the quilt this week.  He really likes it and was very surprised to receive it. He has already used his quilt several times--this makes me happy. 

 

One of the things I really wanted to do on our recent vacation was a trip on the Agawa Canyon train out of Sault Ste Marie.  We bought our tickets months ahead of time and although it was a cloudy day, thoroughly enjoyed our day--lots of fall colour and three waterfalls at the Canyon to see when the train stopped. If you have never taken this trip, I highly recommend it!  We were there the last week of September and the colours were at their peak. 

I will be adding more stitches to my cross stitch project for Slow Sunday Stitching with Kathy.  I will also link up with Frederique. 

On a Roll

 I have been in the mood to finish some quilts and so I have another finished quilt to show this week.  My yellow and green potato chip quilt is done. I'm calling it "Sunny Day". The striped binding was in my stash.  This quilt will be donated to my MIL's nursing home to be raffled off as a fundraiser. (Another quilt is quilted and will be bound shortly--it is a gift so no pictures yet)

I spent quite a bit of time rug hooking this week and made great progress on my project.  Lots of blue still  and a little bit more on the last row of the outer border to go.

My daughter's collection of granny squares for her book blanket.  She makes one granny square for each book she has read this year.  Each of the colours and position of the colours gives information about the book she has read--ie genre, rating, how she read it, etc. 

While watering my parsley plant, I discovered that I am sharing my parsley with a swallowtail butterfly caterpillar. 

I saw this flower on a hike this week. 

I love the lemony yellow colour of the thread leaf coreopsis flowers in my garden. 

The milkweed pods are plentiful at the trail where I walk each day. 

Mom and Dad Osprey and their growing baby were putting on a show this week. 

Thanks for visiting!  Finn says hello. 

I will link up with Kathy and Frederique, as usual. 

Walking Foot Quilting

I finished off the quilting and binding of the hollow 9 patch baby quilt earlier this week and got to work on quilting my yellow and green potato chip quilt.  I am using 28 wt green thread on top and white 50 wt thread in the bobbin. This is a bigger quilt so it is taking longer to quilt...more material to manage as I quilt. I will work on this again soon--I'm hoping to have it done to show on next week's blog post.  This is a donation quilt. 

And here is the big TaDa!  The hollow nine patch rainbow quilt is done.  It is 36" by 48".   I bought the backing on sale a while ago and only have 1/2 a yard left.  

My black eyed Susans are putting on a show in the garden in the backyard these days. 

Our Kangaroo paws plant is in flower!  Such an interesting plant!

I finished the red border and started on the Burgundy border on my Pitcher Plant rug hooking project.   This definitely qualifies as slow stitching!!  I also spent a couple of hours on knitting my scarf---another very slow stitching project.  I am itching to start another cross stitch picture but I am resisting until these two projects are done. 

My daughter read 14 books in July and here are her granny squares for each book.  The second picture shows all of the books she read.  The little squares will be put together in the order that she read the books.  She has a spreadsheet that keeps track of the books and granny squares...

My husband and I decided to take advantage of a beautiful, not too hot, day yesterday and we went hiking at Rondeau Provincial Park. There are some interesting plants there and we also saw several varieties of butterflies.  Only one butterfly stayed still long enough for a picture. 

Spice Bush Berries

Red Admiral Butterfly

Finn is peeking out from under my daughter's desk to say hello!

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers tomorrow.  This post will also be linked up with Frederique and Angela today. 

Rug Hooking, Knitting and a RSC Baby Quilt in Progress

After making 6 purple hollow nine patch blocks last week, I took out the bag of blocks that I have made so far this year and discovered that I had enough to make a baby quilt. I took them to the guild sewing day this week and laid them out on the design wall as shown above.  I sewed them together and  today, pin basted it and started the quilting--diagonal lines in both directions through each square. 

I'm using 28wt white thread in the top and 50 wt white in the bobbin.  The backing was in my stash. 

I added most of the red border to my rug hooking project this week. 

And more rows were added to the scarf --it is 60" long now.  I will knit until I run out of wool in the little ball in the picture. 

There are lots of butterflies in our garden these days...Today's picture is a Red Admiral. Its wings look a bit worse for wear. 

Our shamrock is blooming. It does well every year in a pot on our back step which is in the shade all day long. 

Can you handle another bee picture?  

My hanging baskets are very purple this year. 

Finn and my daughter went home this week.  Finn loved being outside in the backyard while he was here. The redbud tree in this picture had major storm damage this week when the trunk split and half the tree came down.  It may need to be removed which makes me sad as I love the pink blossoms in the spring and the vibrant green colour of the leaves in the summer.  

Now that my daughter is home, she is trying to get caught up on her book blanket granny squares.  Here are her June squares and the books she read.  She promised to have the July squares and books ready for next week's post.  Finn is a reluctant granny square model tonight. 

I will link up with Kathy, Frederique, and Angela.