Slow Sunday Stitching Retreat Day

Christine and I spent the day at Kathy's First (hopefully annual!) Slow Sunday Stitching Retreat in Guelph, Ontario yesterday.  It was a beautiful day and the trees were just starting to change to their glorious fall colours.

This sign greeted us at the retreat centre...a perfect reminder that the day was all about slowing down.

I brought two projects in my bag---my Frank Lloyd Wright counted cross stitch and my appliqué trees for Coming Home.  I spent most of the day working on the trees.but did add some more outlining to FLW as well.

My husband and I went away for a couple of days at the end of last week so I managed to get all the tree trunks appliquéd in the car on our way to the destination. 

Christine knitted a cowl and made some progress on a stocking for her daughter.

There were 28 people at the retreat with a wide variety of hand stitching and knitting projects underway.

Knitting:

Hand stitching the binding on a quilt:

Embroidery:

English Paper Piecing:

Appliqué:

I am looking forward to attending next year’s retreat!  I will link my post to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching link up this weekend.

Coming Home--Trees ready to appliqué

Well, I am finally back at work on my Coming Home quilt.  I am a few months behind the crowd, but I will catch up, eventually!  Today, I prepped the appliqué trees for the next border.  Everything is glue basted and ready for me to sew by hand this weekend. 

I have my threads, my applique needles, my LED light and my thimble...I am prepared!

All these trees should keep me busy all weekend. 

I did some other sewing this week too...  This is November's comfort quilt block for the Elgin Piecemakers--Grey, yellow and white squares made into a disappearing nine patch.

I also made a couple more blocks for my Tula Pink 100 Modern Blocks quilt this week.

Only 14 more to go.

I made this wall hanging earlier this year, intending to hang it up in my sewing room...today, I finally added the hanging sleeve and it is now up on the wall!

Weird sight of the week...  A friend and I went walking at a local park where we usually leave our cars near the ball diamond.  Look what we saw!  Lots of turkey vultures, playing Simon Says!  One bird would spread its wings and within a minute, all the rest of them were doing the same thing.

I will be linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers on Sunday morning.  What are you working on???

8 More Modern Sampler Blocks

Today was the first day that I did not have to go to work since I retired last Thursday.  I got up at the normal time, got ready, made my lunch, loaded up the car with my sewing machine, a project,  all the rulers, cutting mat, and other equipment I needed and headed out to a sew-in day with the Oxford Quilt Guild.  I just joined this guild last month and today was the first chance I had to sew with everyone.   I chose my Tula Pink Modern 100 Blocks sampler as today's project...it was all in one bag and ready to go.

Over the course of the day, I made 8 more blocks.

Some blocks had a lot of pieces!

I managed to create the 3D effect with different sizes of dots.

You may remember I am using my large collection of black and white prints for this quilt along with three fat quarters of Tula Pink fabric which I purchased at QuiltCon in February.  Some blocks are just black and white but most have a bit of colour in them.

In large quantities, that one black and white fabric does weird things to your eyes!

Such cute little owls!

The end of block construction for this quilt is in sight...I have made 84/100 of the blocks.   Now, I will have to think about how I am going to set them...

Retired!

This past Thursday was my last day of work...I retired!  It has not really hit me yet, since I did not work on Fridays anyways, but tomorrow morning, I will not need to rush around to get ready for work.  Instead, I will be spending the day sewing!  

Yesterday, my husband and I went to see a play in Blyth, a small town about 2 hours north of where we live.  You will never guess what I worked on in the car!  Frank Lloyd Wright came along for the drive and many stitches were added.  I added lots of outlining first and was finally able to move the hoop down to work on the lower section on this project. The yellow columns continue down to the bottom of the picture. 

This picture was taken in the car before I moved the hoop down. 

I stitched on the way home until it got too dark to see what I was doing.

On the way to Blyth, we stopped at the Quilt Kitchen in Exeter...I had never been to this shop before but I had seen their fabrics at a booth at the London Modern Quilt Guild show a few weeks ago.  These fat quarters jumped off the shelf and into my hands!  Those squirrels are so cute!

I also bought some yardage--some orange Essex Linen--orange is a neutral in my world!  The other fabric may become a quilt back unless I get inspired to use it in another project before then.

To celebrate my retirement, my friend Pat and I went hiking at a local conservation area near here.  It was a beautiful day on Friday...we hiked for about 90 minutes and then went out for lunch.

This dead tree had interesting fungi growing on it.

Speaking of fungi....

The trees are just starting to hint at changing colour here but there was colour to be found closer to the ground.

I will be back here again soon as the leaves change colour. 

Finn spent some time yesterday watching the squirrels out the window.  

A couple of friends gave me some Quilty retirement gifts.  I can't wait to work on this fun puzzle and get inspiration from Kaffe's quilts in Italy!

I will be linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.  Take a peak at what everyone is making.  

FLW and a New Cityscape

If you paid close attention to last week's FLW picture, today, you might notice that I have added some backstitch lines to my project. I hope to add enough outlining today to move the hoop down so I can continue the yellow columns of cross stitching. Truth be told, I find the straight lines of backstitching a bit boring...but they do add interest to the picture, so I will soldier on!

My daughter started another cityscape, and, once again, she will not tell me what city she is stitching.  Any guesses?

I spent the last two days at a "Designing with Line" workshop with Jacquie Gering.  I can't wait to get into my sewing room to play with lines some more.  I have lots of ideas to explore!  I will be doing a post about the workshop sometime in the next few days so check back for more pictures and thoughts about the workshop.

Finn and my daughter went for a walk at the dog park yesterday and Finn had a lot of FUN!  I love how his ears flop around when he runs!

I have an exciting week coming up.  I will be retiring on Thursday!  I am looking forward to more time for creative pursuits--sewing, cross stitch, embroidery...and I want to learn to knit.  I also have lots of jobs around my house that I need to tackle, and I have a growing pile of books to read as well. I don't think there is any chance of boredom any time soon!

This picture was taken at the St. Thomas Elevated Park--the first elevated park in Canada.  The official grand opening was last weekend.  My husband and I went for a walk there on Thursday evening at sunset so I could take some pictures.

I will be linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.  Make yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take a look at what everyone is up to this week.