Frank and the Squirrel

I managed to find a bit of time this week to do some more stitching on my Frank Lloyd Wright "Tree of Life" counted cross stitch project. The top part of this picture involves a lot more counting and checking to make sure I am in the right spot than the bottom part did!

 

My plan for the rest of the top section is to do some cross stitching and then some outlining as I work across the picture so that I can keep everything lined up as I go along. 

 

Here is a picture of Frank from two weeks ago:

 



 

 

And here is Frank today:

 



 

 

Maybe, just maybe, I will have some time to put a few more stitches in sometime this weekend.

 

Earlier this week, my husband took this picture of our backyard squirrel, eating a walnut while sitting on the shed. He thinks he is the king of the backyard, overlooking his kingdom!  I think he has been eating a lot of walnuts as he is quite fat!

 



 

Happy Slow Sunday Stitching Day!

Sewing in the Car

I have continued to hand quilt my liberated squirrel wall hanging over the last couple of weeks. We had family visiting from out of town for a few days and then spent this past weekend visiting my daughter before her last term at university starts.  I brought along this quilt to work on in the car.

It was a long drive so I got a lot done as we travelled along.

I outlined all of the triangles in the top and bottom borders.

The sides have brown wavy lines and green circles which I outlined with some quilting.  When I got home and looked at the entire quilt, I realized that the quilting I had done on this border did not show up very well and did not fit in with the rest of the quilt, so I decided to unsew it!  Tonight, I tried something different and outlined each circle about a 1/4" out from the edge with green thread....I am liking this better!

 

 

I have not decided what to do about the brown wavy line--should I do any quilting along it or not???  What do you think?

My goal is to have this quilt finished by next week's guild meeting so I can bring it for show and tell. I will be entering this quilt and several others in our London Friendship Quilter's Guild Quilt show in October.  My next hand sewing projects will not be as exciting as this one has been... I have sleeves to add to a few quilts and binding on a couple of quilts I just got back from the long arm quilter to do.  I would love to have these projects done at least a week ahead of time so that I am not flying by the seat of my pants at the last minute!

Saving Electricity

My Dad came over to our house for supper tonight...Perch, roasted beats and carrots, broccoli and ice cream and fresh berries for dessert!  Yummy! After supper, I got out my next Slow Sunday Stitching project and did some hand quilting in the gazebo while we sat and chatted.  My father asked why I was hand quilting--"Isn't it faster to do that on you sewing machine?" he asked.  I told him I had decided to hand quilt this one.  "Oh," he said, "you are saving money by saving electricity!"  I guess that is one way of looking at it!

I did the basting this morning just after breakfast.

I am getting brave with this project and using contrasting thread instead of matching thread for my quilting.  I had some problems in some spots where I ran into seams from the pieced back of this quilt.  It was a bit thick to push the needle through but I persevered and I think it looks ok.

The colours are a bit off in this picture but you can see my stitches a bit better here. I have not quilted anything in the middle square. Do you have any ideas for the centre quilting? 

I will keep working away at this project for the next few weeks. If I can do a few stitches every day, it might get done before the guild quilt show in the fall.

We had our nieces here for the weekend and we took them on a field trip to Rondeau Provincial Park yesterday. We went on a couple of short hikes. Of course, I stopped to take pictures of the wildflowers and gave them a botany lesson on the names of the plants (at least the ones I knew!). 

 

Queen Anne's Lace

 

 

 

 

 

Butterfly Weed

 

Bee Balm

 

Goldenrod

 

 

Purple Loosestrife--not so desirable--it will take over and should be removed, but it is pretty.

 

Swamp Mallow

 

I did not know the name of this one.

 

or this one...Can anyone out there help me out?

 

 

We also did a few forest ecology lessons too.  They were surprised I knew about this stuff. (I have a biology degree.)

 

This squirrel was quite adept at getting to this "squirrel proofed" birdfeeder...

 

There were lots of these yellow warblers flitting about too.

 

Our nieces have gone home now and have been telling their parents about all of our adventures. It is lots of fun to have them visit. We have them come for the weekend a couple of times a year, usually once in the summer and once in December. We are trying for the best Aunt and Uncle awards!  (We are their only aunt and uncle so we are bound to win the prizes!)

 

By the way, my new header picture was taken in Iceland--it is gray wooly moss that grows in the lava fields.



Squirrels and Quilt Blocks

Last Spring, I saw an article in the National Post newspaper about a lady in Nova Scotia who takes pictures of squirrels in her backyard. She had produced a calendar of photos she had taken of the squirrels posing with various props on her deck. I thought the pictures were cute and tucked the idea of the calendar as a Christmas gift away in the back of my head.  Fast forward to this past December when I got on the internet and tried to find the squirrel calendar lady (I had forgotten her name!). I found her and e-mailed to ask if the calendars were available this year. Nancy Rose soon got back to me and I ordered 3 calendars to give to my friends and my daughter. We chatted back and forth a few times by e-mail and I told her I was a quilter. I found out that Nancy has also dabbled in quilting! I asked if she would like to borrow one of my mini quilts for a photo shoot with her squirrel friends. She said "YES!"  I mailed the mini quilt to her and she sent me one of the pictures--I am using it here with her permission.  Please do not copy it.

 You can see more of Nancy's pictures on her Flickr page.  If you would like to get a calendar for yourself or one of your squirrelly friends or relatives, you can e-mail Nancy at nancy.rose@gmail.com.  My friends and daughter love their calendars!  By the way, Nancy made that little sewing machine herself out of modelling clay!  She is a very talented lady on many fronts!

This afternoon, my husband was out so I thought I would do a little sewing. I was having trouble channelling my quilting mojo so I decided to work on a couple of chemo quilt blocks for the Elgin Piecemakers charity quilts. The colours for January are violet, orange and green.  Here is my liberated star block:

I also did February's block in pink, green and white. I am not sure of the name of this block.

By then, I was on a roll so I did March's block. We are doing slab blocks in March--each person will do a slab in a different colour. I am going to bring mine in to January's meeting to show people how to make a slab. We will assign colours then since I am not the only one who likes to work ahead and get a few blocks done at a time.

Here is my first stash report of the year:

Fabric used in the last week: .7 yards
Total fabric used this year: .7 yards
Fabric added to the stash in the last week: zero!
Total fabric added this year: zero!
Net fabric used this year: .7 yards

Have a great week!  With any luck, there might be another post this week.