Funky Chicken Progress and More Blue

This week, I spent a bit of time working on my Funky Chicken cross stitch and added lots of stitches. When the stitching is done, I need to add felt wings and beak, etc. as I sew it into a 3D chicken.  I was running out of the darker red-orange colour and managed to get another skein this week. 

I have three Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects started for this year. I made a three shoe fly blocks from my leftover light blue scraps. These finish at 6.5".

Then, I dug into my medium blue scraps and cut out lots of squares and HST's.  This scrap bin has been mined for 2.5" strips before and it was tricky to find enough to make these blocks. 

My daughter asked me to repair a hole in her 17 year old university quilt.  The fabric was starting to shred.  Easy peasy I thought.  Won't take any time at all to fix...

Maybe I have some of that fabric in my light green scrap bin...  I did!  This quilt has been used a lot and has been washed many times.  It has faded just a tad...

I had to move on to plan B.  When I looked closer at the quilt, I saw lots of places where the fabrics had worn through. I decided to use the mending stitch on my machine and sew over the holes to stabilize the weak spots and the seams that were starting to come apart.  This quilt has been well used over the years and my daughter wants to keep using it.  In the winter, she likes two quilts on her bed, this one, and the one I made her for her graduation from university.  She and I have talked about picking out fabric and a pattern for a new quilt for her.  We will have to go shopping!

This is what my backyard looked like early on Wednesday afternoon.  We didn't have any snow in the morning. It was just starting to snow after lunch.  The second picture shows what it looked like on Thursday. 

I used my quilting ruler to measure how deep it was...nearly 10" and the snow had not quit falling yet.  It snowed again yesterday and its snowing again today.  It looks really pretty!  This is January in Canada. 

Finn and my daughter have lots of snow too and it is still snowing there too. 

Finn wants you to know that another row has been added to the book blanket.  He approves. 

 I will link up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, the Slow Stitchers and Frederique in France. 

Stitching Report

You may have noticed I was missing in action last weekend...I was visiting my daughter and Finn for the weekend!  Finn and I hung out together while my daughter participated in a curling bonspiel. He didn't mind snuggling up to me as I did some cross stitching.  We went for a walk every day too. 

I have added three more motifs to my winter cross stitch project.  You can see the cardinal and the pinecone above and this week I finished off the evergreen tree. 

There were very nice sunbeams in the afternoons while I was visiting.  Finn took full advantage of them!

You may remember that I replaced the binding on my daughter's University Quilt at Christmas time.  I finished hand stitching the new binding while I was at her place.  This is a well loved quilt!

Here is a picture of when this quilt was new in 2009. 

Finn approves of the repairs that I did. 

A friend has four grandchildren and she wants to make quilts for each of them using leftover fabrics from PJ's that she has made for them over the years. She brought the fabrics for the first one over one night last week.  I showed her how to make a disappearing nine patch block.  We figured out how many squares she will need of each fabric and she will get them all cut out and sewn into nine patches over the next couple of weeks.  Then, we will get together again to figure out the layout.  She has lots of flannel chunks that we can piece together to make the back of the quilt.  Once this quilt is done, we will figure out a design for the next one.  There are lots of fun winter themed fabrics in this quilt. 

I added the border to my crumby stars quilt top and I purchased a piece of flannel to use for the back. I have some ideas floating around in my head about how to quilt this using my walking foot.   Stay tuned. 

I have another quilt underway but can't share anything about it yet in case the recipient is lurking here.  I will be working on it this week to get it done before the deadline. 

Another picture of Finn... I hope you are not getting tired of seeing him!

My daughter's mystery cross stitch is coming along. Finn doesn't mind being a cross stitch model. 

I celebrated a birthday this past week.  Finn and my daughter sent me flowers.  There have been three restaurant meals with friends and and family--with one more extended family dinner tomorrow.  I am feeling well loved. 

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone.  Someone decorated a tree by the walking path with hearts this past week. 

 I made this at a recent retreat. It is on our mantle. 

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning.  This is a group of bloggers from around the world who share their hand stitched projects each week.  We all encourage and support each other as we slowly make progress. The link to Kathy's blog is in my sidebar. 

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!

Last Minute Block

Last night, I hosted the May meeting of the Elgin Piecemakers.  Our comfort quilt blocks this month were to be made with polka dot fabrics. At 10:30 pm on Wednesday night, I realized that I had not made my block yet...Yikes!  Luckily, all my polka dot fabrics are kept in one drawer in my fabric storage area so I picked out three fabrics and then went through a few magazines to look for some block inspiration.  I was looking for something easy so it would not take too long to cut out the pieces or sew the block.  I ended up with what you see above.  Whew!  I was done by 11pm.

Here are all the blocks that were brought to the meeting last night. 

There were a few people missing last night so we are short a few blocks so the members making this quilt will wait until they receive them to put it together.

We had a few comfort quilts finished or nearly finished on display last night as well.

These quilts will be donated to the adult chemo unit at our local hospital.  It is always fun to see how the blocks we make each month are transformed with some sashing and cornerstones into beautiful quilts!

My husband and I visited our daughter last weekend. She moved to a new apartment earlier this year and this was my first time seeing it.  I brought my sewing machine along as her drapes were all too long and pooling on the floor.  I had to move the furniture away from each window and then pin the drapes to the right length in place followed by ironing the hem, trimming and pinning before setting my sewing machine up on a small table or the ironing board and sewing the hem.

This is not my usual sewing set up, but I managed to get 8 drapes shortened, all to the same length, and they look much better!

The quilt in the foreground is the one I made for my daughter when she started university.

The quilt on her bed was her graduation gift when she finished university.  She picked the pattern and fabrics for both quilts.

I am hoping to have some time for some quilting this weekend...we shall see.  

My Weekend Sewing

That's me in the photo above. I am hemming the drapes in my daughter's apartment in the city where she is going to university. We moved her into her apartment this weekend and I brought my sewing machine along. She groaned when she saw that I had it with me!-- I think she thought I was going to do some quilting!
We purchased the drapes at Ikea -they come with some iron on tape to shorten them but I think the sewing method works better. My husband hung the drapes and then I pinned them and used my sewing machine to hem them. The sewing machine is on her coffee table and I just moved it from panel to panel to sew the hems. My back did not like sewing in this position! She is all settled into her apartment now and even has her University Quilt on her bed to remind her that we love her.

Tonight, I sewed another sleeve on one of my quilts for the quilt show. Only 2 more sleeves and 5 more labels to go...

This week, I am volunteering in the quilt tent at the International Plowing Match just outside St. Thomas, Ontario. There's lots there to see and do so if you want an interesting outing, come on by!