Handsewing Sunday

It was my intention to spend part of my Sunday afternoon, sitting in our gazebo in the backyard, doing some hand sewing so that I could link up with Kathy's blogpost for quilters who do some hand-sewing on Sundays. All was going well--I trimmed the quilt (a charity quilt for Quilts of Valour put together by a member of the London Friendship Quilters' Guild), made the binding, machine sewed it down, gathered my thread, needle, Clover needle threader, and my reading glasses...and it started to thunder and the rain started!  Goodness knows we needed the rain!  My gardens are alive only because I have spent hours watering them!  The grass is crunchy is brown.  Anyway, I ended up sitting inside to do my hand sewing.

Later in the afternoon, it quit raining. I went outside to check the chairs in the gazebo, but they were still quite wet.



After supper, the chairs were dry enough to sit in. My husband read a book and I did some more hand stitching on the binding of the QOV quilt.

Kathy wants everyone to share the view from their stitching spot...

Some echinacea flowers in front of our shed...

Our shade garden, now well watered by the rain...

My husband's squirrel that appears randomly around our property. This was today's hiding spot.  He watched me quilt...

And here is my straight ahead view...

I will post a picture of the quilt when I have finished the binding later this week.

I trimmed the rest of the flying geese today and started to sew them together. There should be a picture or two of them "in formation" later this week.

Saturday Sewing!

Debbie and Chris came over for the afternoon to sew. All three of us worked on projects in progress...

Chris worked on a Christmas table runner that did not get done in time for last Christmas. I predict that it will be done by Christmas 2012!

By the end of the afternoon, her block was done!

The rest of the runner is ready to put together so keep going, Chris!

Debbie worked on the borders of a quilt top that she has had finished for a while. Here she is sewing strips together for the piano key border:

I made seemingly endless numbers of flying geese units for my Stars for My Friends mystery quilt.  I have actally finished the mystery quilt as far as the instructions are concerned but it is not big enough for my bed yet so I decided to add an extra border with flying geese units.

I spent some time this past week cutting out squares for making the units.

I had thought I would be able to get the borders put together this afternoon, but the whole process of making the flying geese took longer than I had anticipated.

I have most of them trimmed and ready to sew together, but still have some more to trim. Stay tuned for more progress on this border this week.

The tumbler quilt was delivered to my friend this week. She loves it and appreciates the hugs included in every stitch as she faces the challenges ahead.

Progress towards some finishes...

My tumbler quilt is nearly done...

I added the orange (Kona Tangerine) outer border to this quilt top earlier this week and took it to my long arm quilters. He quilted it with hearts and stars and today, I picked it up. Tonight, I made the binding and got most of it hand sewn down...

My husband and quilt holder extraordinaire held it up for a picture before I did any hand sewing on the binding...

I wanted to take this picture outside and it might rain tomorrow, so it had to be done tonight. While watching a bit of TV (a show about quilts on PBS that my husband had recorded earlier in the week) tonight, I hand sewed the binding 3/4 of the way around the quilt before I got too tired to sew.

The binding is striped and the same material also shows up in some of the tumblers. I had hoped to deliver this quilt to my friend this weekend but she won't be home. I will try to deliver it one evening next week. My friend is having a rough patch health-wise and could use a warm hug and a reminder that I am thinking of her.

Christine and I got together earlier this week for an evening of sewing and visiting...  We both worked on our Mexican Stars wall-hangings...

I worked on finishing off the curved bits...

I love how the curves add movement to the design...

I have one more border to add and then I will be ready to take this one off to the quilter's house for some curvy quilting to accent the stars.

Christine made great progress on her wall-hanging too.

I saw Karen's finished flimsy earlier today as well and it looks great. Our guild, the London Friendship Quilters' Guild has a quilt show this fall and these wall hangings will all be there!

I also finished off the last border on my mystery quilt. I think I would like the finished quilt to be a bit bigger so I am trying to figure out an extra border to add using the material that I have leftover from the fat quarter bundle I have been using. I can't wait to show off this flannel quilt but that will have to wait until the Sept meeting of the guild when everyone who participated in the mystery quilt will be revealing their projects. I will be having this quilt quilted before the end of the summer as well.

I am trying hard to finish off some UFO's before I dig into another scrappy quilt with thousands of pieces...I am finding it hard to resist the scrappy quilt magnet!  Soon!  Soon!

Handsewing...

I have decided to link up to Kathy's Quilts handstitching post yesterday since I did some hand-sewing on the weekend!  I picked up this Fall themed Swoon table topper on Saturday and today I put the binding on it. This table topper is a wedding gift for my cousin--she does not read my blog!  I am very proud to have it done 5 days ahead of time--I have been known to finish the hand-sewing on a gift on the way to the occasion...

My daughter was home for the weekend and brought home some hand sewing for me to do for her. I fixed the hem of her red dress that she wore to work for the annual Canada celebration--at the end of the day, one thread got caught and the entire hem fell down! I also shortened a pair of dress pants for her--all this was hand-sewing.  I must say that I really don't like to do mending, but I am always glad to get it done and off my plate!

Here is my token machine sewing on the weekend. I added the first border to this tumbler quilt--one more border to go and it will be added tomorrow night!  I will post a picture when the last border is on.  This quilt is lap-sized and is a gift for a friend.

Have a good week!

Mexican Stars Class--Part 2

Tonight, I went to my second and last Mexican Stars class at Pat's house. It was fun to see everyone's blocks coming together.

The fabric and colour choices made each block really sing, and each one sang a different song!

Seeing the colours that everyone used makes me want to make a second Mexican Stars wall hanging...

This is one of my corner blocks with the curves completed.

At the end of the evening, I had all my blocks together and took it home to add the stitching to make the curves.

Here are some of Christine's blocks:

And Karen's...

And last, but not least, here are Beth's:

I hope I have a chance to see each wall hanging when they are done!

Elgin Piecemakers Dinner

Tonight, the Elgin Piecemakers Guild enjoyed a wonderful gourmet dinner prepared for us the husband of one of our members. He has done this for us for the last few years and we all look forward to this meal!

It was a beautiful day today so we ate outside and did our show and tell outside until the mosquitoes came out and wanted to have us for their dinner!

Debbie made a delicious raspberry cake and I am hoping to get this recipe from her. She also made strawberry shortcake and brownies for the chocolate lovers...

There were not many leftovers at the end of the meal!

We were all asked to bring an ugly fat quarter to the meeting. Each of us picked one of the uglies out of a bag to take home. We are each supposed to make something out of it before our next meeting.

Here is my ugly:

I took a picture of all of us before show and tell.

I have a timer on my camera and ran to get into the picture after pushing the button.

Three chemo quilt tops appeared at show and tell.

Pat finished the brown, cream and rust one off completely! 

The blue and lime green one looks great too!

We ended our evening by sharing quilt blogs that we like to visit and a new pattern or book. I have such fun with this group!

I received some fabric in the mail this week from Mad about Patchwork (see the shops listed in my sidebar for the link)...isn't this rainboot fabric fun--take a look at those selvages--I can't wait to use them in an upcoming selvage project!

I have a couple of quilt tops nearing completion so there should be pictures soon.

Happy sewing!

Mexican Stars and some Rubber Chickens

I made this rubber chicken pillowcase for my husband for Father's Day. He has a rubber chicken that Santa gave him in his Christmas stocking one year. The rubber chicken has been on vacation with us a few times and has had his picture taken in many exotic locales...  These pictures were taken at Bouctouche Beach in New Brunswick. The rubber chicken had a travelling companion...Nutty the Squirrel, a beanie baby.

On Thursday night, Karen, Christine and I took a class to make a Mexican Stars wall hanging from my friend Pat. I finished off my homework yesterday and I am ready for the 2nd and last class this week. I am using batiks for my project.

I also made a bit of progress on my orange and yellow tumbler quilt. All the pieces are arranged and ready to sew together. It might rain this afternoon so I will try to get these put together.

My husband and I spent a few hours mulching all of our gardens yesterday--what a job!  Mulch mountain (4 cubic yards!) is no longer in our driveway! The gardens look great and now there will be less weeding to do. Here are a few pictures of what's blooming this week.

Echinacea

Orange Echinacea

Karl Forrester Reed Grass

Echinacea

While we ate supper, this robin worked on finishing off this nest on our light fixture at the back of the house. She kept making trips out to get more mud and then came back to add it to the nest. She did this funny vibrating dance in the nest to pat it down. We have had lots of nests before but this is the first time we have had one on this light fixture.