More Hooking and A New Quilt Underway.

My friend, Christine, and I used to get together every week to sew before the pandemic.  We have recently started doing this again as time allows.  This past week, we cut out and sewed the HST's for the Tesselate Quilts "Whistle Stop" quilt along. Here are my HST's laid out for 1/4 of the quilt. I thought that I would easily be able to find some fabric in my stash to use as a background for this quilt...but no.  I tried various shades of green, gray, blue and even white, but nothing worked.  

So...off to the local quilt shop where I tried out several colours of solids before turning around to see this fabric on a shelf at the other side of the store.  I laid out my HST's on the fabric and it was perfect.  I bought enough for the background, backing and binding.  The fabric has been washed but not ironed yet.  This week, I will try to get it ironed, cut out and the quilt top pieced together. The fabric is called Love Is... from Maywood Studios.  It has very cute baby animals in the selvage which you can see in the picture below. 

Over a year ago, my friend, Cathy, moved away.  Before the pandemic, we would get together to sew and during the pandemic, we sewed or knitted together on FaceTime.  This week, on FaceTime, Cathy did some sewing and knitting while I did some rug hooking . It's fun to chat and catch up with each other as we work on our projects.  I finished  off the sun and did a lot of blue sky as well.  I think one more session of rug hooking should be enough to fill in the rest of the sky.  Then, I will have to remember how to do the edging.  

A few people asked what it was like inside our glamping tent so here is a picture of the inside of the tent. 

And here is what it looked like from the fire pit. 

Hello from Finn!  I took this picture when we were talking to him on FaceTime this past week. 

I will need to finish off my orange drunkard's path blocks this week and get started on the next colour for September, light blue, for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I will link up with The Slow Sunday Stitchers at Kathy's blog in the morning.  

Working on the Sky

Earlier this week, my husband and I went glamping for three days--this means we stayed in a fancy tent on a platform with furniture (including a king sized bed) and a bathroom, a deck out front and a barbecue to cook our meals.  The property was lovely and had lots of trails for walking as well as a pond with a paddle boat, a canoe and a row boat.  The deck in front of our tent was in the shade most of the time so it was a great place to sit and read a book (I managed to finish The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams for book club in September--excellent book--I highly recommend it!), knit and do some rug hooking.  I made great progress on the rug hooking, finishing all of the green grass and adding lots of blue loops in the sky. The second and third pictures show the view from the deck. 

I worked on my knitting in the car--a few more rows. 

A week ago this past Friday, the Elgin Piecemakers had a comfort quilt sewing day.  A large amount of batik fabrics had been donated to our guild and two of our members organized a mystery quilt sewing day which we worked on in pairs.  We were given a pile of fabrics for our quilt, including enough for the blocks, backing and binding. Every so often throughout the day, we were given instructions for the various blocks.  My partner was Yvonne.  We managed to keep up with all the steps and had all the blocks done and the first section of the quilt sewn together before we left at the end of the day. These quilts will be given to refugee families who have recently arrived our area.  Here are the blocks we made, starting with four patches. 

Stars:

Flying Geese:

HST's:

And houses:

The quilt is made up of seven sections and here is our first section. You can see that we had to add some strip sections and a solid block to this section. 

Yvonne and I will get together soon to get the rest of the quilt together. 

Today, I got out my orange scraps and pieced them together for my Drunkard's Path blocks.  I will cut out and add the white parts this coming week. Lots of memories in many of these little bits of fabric. 

We saw this tree stump with lots of interesting fungus on it when we were glamping. 

We had perfect timing to catch this shot of the sun coming through the trees on one of our hikes. 

So fun to get a good clear picture of fluff!

Finn found it a bit hot on his walk home from the pet store with our daughter today.  Nothing like a shady patch of grass as a good place to cool down and take a rest. 

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning and with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge folks now. 

Hooking, Knitting and Piecing

Life is busy in my neck of the woods.  This is not going to change any time soon so I will just share my little bits of progress each week as usual.  I worked on my sheep rug hooking project earlier this week. The green grass is just about done now.  Next, I will finish that last bit of green on the right side of the picture before working on the blue sky and the yellow sun. 

I was in the mood to do some knitting earlier today.  I dug out some yarn, needles and a pattern for a lattice patterned dishcloth and got started on it while waiting for my husband who was in a short meeting. I had a pleasant place to sit and knit in the shade of a large tree beside a barn quilt. 

I made more progress in the car on the way home. I like it when the pattern starts to emerge and I can see that I have not made any drastic errors!

The purple and green wedding quilt has more blocks on the design wall --these rows are not sewn together yet...I might get this top done this coming week. Then, on to the pieced back--there is already a plan for this and it might take longer than the front of the quilt! The pattern for the front of the quilt is called "Lopapeysa" by Gudrun Erla.  She designed it based on an Icelandic sweater pattern. 

Finn had a nap with his Kong this week.  He loves it when my daughter puts peanut butter in his Kong, which makes brushing Finn a more tolerable activity for both of them. 

I came across this lovely little sunflower today.  It was only a couple of feet tall but so pretty!

I will link up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning.  Thanks to everyone who continues to visit my blog and leave comments.  I continue to have difficulty leaving comments on many blogger blogs--not sure why I can comment on some but not on others.  I do look at all the blogs that link up with Kathy each week.   Take care and have a good week. 

Starting a New Quilt (or two!)

 The rainbow scrap challenge colour for August is orange so I pulled out my bin of orange selvages this week and made my selvage blocks.  Each selvage strip is top stitched very close to the edge and the are foundation pieced to a square of very light weight non woven interfacing.  Orange is one of my favourite colours. 

I will get my orange scrap bin out soon to work on my drunkard's path blocks. 

In the meantime, I have started a new quilt--this one is a wedding gift.  The wedding was in June, after a two year delay due to COVID.  I had a conversation with the bride and groom before the wedding about what they wanted--colours, style, etc.  They chose modern over traditional and purple green and gray as their colours. The purple and green fabrics are from my stash.  I purchased the gray background. This will be a lap quilt. When we talked, I told them they would have their quilt sometime this fall. They were fine with this--just too much other stuff going on in my life to finish it in time for the wedding. Here is what I have made so far...

I'm hoping for some sewing time this afternoon to make some more progress. 

True confessions...I started another quilt this past week. I signed up for the Whistle Stop Quilt along with Tesselate quilts on Instagram.  I picked out the fabrics I am going to use from my stash but I'm not sure what I will use for the background yet.  There are various sizes included in the pattern...I'm making the one block quilt shown below, but your can make quilts with multiple smaller blocks as well. 

I finally got back to my rug hooking this week too. I added some green grass to the lower part of the picture. 

The phlox in my garden is in bloom this week.  Such a pretty colour.  I also have white phlox in the back garden. 

Don't you just love the pops of yellow from Black Eyed Susans at this time of year?

Hey Finn!  Did you know that you have a post it note on your ear???

My daughter knew Finn was up to no good when he came tearing down the hall this week and ran under her bed.  What did he have???  

Hmmm...

A shower cap from the bathroom.  After fishing it out from under the bed, my daughter just had to get a picture of Finn wearing the shower cap.  He's such a monkey!

I will link up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge people at Angela's blog today and with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers tomorrow.  Have a good week. 

Wedding Shower Gift and RSC purple Drunkard's path blocks

We were away visiting our daughter last weekend and did not get home until Wednesday night which meant that there was not a lot of sewing time this week. Since the end of July is quickly approaching, I needed to get my purple Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks finished up.  The colour for August is orange so I will dig out my orange scrap bin and my orange selvages this coming week. 

Our daughter is in her friend's wedding party this fall. I decided to make the bride some hot pads as a wedding shower gift.  These are the colours that she likes. The selvages are top stitched down onto the insulbrite and then I add the backing and the binding--my hand stitching project this week. 

A few weeks ago, I showed a block I was making from 100 1.5" HST's.  It has been on the back burner while I made the baby quilt and the Quilt for a Survivor of a residential school but today, I got back at it and finished the block.  It is 10" square.  I'm not even sure what I am going to do with it!  For now, it will just live on my design wall while I wait for inspiration to strike.  I'm always surprised how much the block shrinks after all the seams are sewn. 

We had a fun visit with our daughter and Finn last week. We went on lots of walks. One walk took us past Finn's favourite place--the pet store where they get his food.  He was very disappointed that the store was closed and he could not go in to greet the staff and get a treat. 

In 2019, we purchased tickets to see Hamilton in 2020...  We all know that that didn't happen in 2020, and then it didn't happen in 2021 either, but we did see the play this past week with our daughter.  It was really good--great music and wonderful acting.  The tunes have been running through my head all week! 

I took this picture of some thistles on one of our walks with Finn. Great flowers for purple month!

I will link up with Angela and the RSC folks now and with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning. 

A Finished Quilt

 Most of my sewing this past week was by hand.  I finished quilting the Quilt for a Survivor of a Residential School on Monday and added the binding by machine on Tuesday, leaving the hand sewing of the binding for several car trips we made on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  It's been hot here so having a quilt on my lap was a bit warm but I directed the A/C vents towards me and managed to finish the hand sewing without melting!  First, a few close ups of the quilting.  I used navy thread top and bottom and my walking foot. 

The blocks for this quilt were started in an online class with Cheryl Arkison--Traditional Variations. The backing was pieced using batiks from my stash and some extra 6" blocks which did not end up on the front of the quilt. 

This picture was taken before the last two sides of the binding were completed.  you will have to take my word for it that the quilt is totally done now. 

I have a pot on my front porch were I planted several varieties of coleus this year.  Within days of planting them, the squirrels came along and chewed up the plants, dug out the roots and flung the plant parts and lots of dirt all over the porch.  I was not happy with them!!!  I ended up putting a small hosta plant in the pot and they left it alone, thankfully. It bloomed this week!  So pretty!  

I noticed a small bee on one of my Black Eyed Susan flowers today.  

Finn has been his usual cute self this week.  He loves to sit outside.  

This is a bit of a weird pose, Finn!  He does like to sit on a soft pillow. 

Our daughter bought him some doggy frozen yoghurt--peanut butter banana--he loved it!

I will link up with Kathy's Slow Stitching Crew in the morning.  I hope to get my purple blocks done this coming week and maybe get started with quilting another quilt.  I also have a wedding gift quilt to make...too many projects, sew little time...