Lupins

I was under the weather for a few days this past week and did not go near my sewing machine all week.  I managed to add some more stitches to my Lupins cross stitch and it is finally looking like more than just a purple blob.  There are still lots more purple stitches to do though...

Last week, Jill asked me what book I was reading.  My daughter gave me this book for Christmas--it is about a midwife in the late 1700's in Maine.  Excellent read--I highly recommend it!

I lead a monthly book club and I am currently reading our June book--Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie.  The May book is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society--an epistolary novel. (written in letters)

Finn is heading home with our daughter tomorrow.  He was very happy to see her when she arrived on Thursday and leaped into her lap before she even got out of the car. We took him for a walk at the park this week when the sun was shining. Everything is bursting in to leaf and flower!

It was warm enough this week to do some reading in the gazebo.  The flowers in the gardens are looking fresh and colourful.  I love this chartreuse colour of the fothergilla bush flowers in the spring. 

In 2017, Canada celebrated 150 years and lots of people planted these special Canada 150 tulips.  Such pretty colours!  I have a wire fence around these tulips to keep the rabbits from eating them. 

We went for a walk this morning and ended up in a small wooded area not too far from our house. 

 I will be back at my sewing machine this week and hope to do some more cross stitching as well.  I will link up with Kathy and the slow Sunday stitchers tomorrow. 

My Sew Together Bag

I bought myself a kit to make a Sew Together Bag at QuiltCon in February...it came with a booklet of instructions which I have been following carefully to make my bag.  I have one more zipper and some binding to add before it is done.  The dark turquoise square is a wool needle landing.  This has been a fun project to work on and I look forward to finishing it this week. 

I worked on my cross stitch Lupins this week too, adding more purple stitches as well as a few cream coloured ones.  If you use your imagination, you can start to see the lupins. 

The bleeding hearts are blooming in my garden as well as the yellow tulips that my daughter planted in our side garden 24 years ago.  

I have several friends who are rug hookers and one of them invited me to see the rugs that were on display at their annual provincial conference in London. Here are a few of my favourites.  

This next one, inspired by a Group of Seven painting, was hooked by my friend Joanne. 

I thought this lighthouse looked familiar to me and when I checked the information about the rug, I found it was based on a photo that someone had taken at the Rose Blanche lighthouse in Newfoundland.  We were there last summer when we were in Newfoundland!  I have added my photo of the lighthouse. It was raining when we were there so the sky was not blue with white fluffy clouds as shown in the rug.  If I was not a quilter, I think I could be a rug hooker but I'm not willing to invest in the equipment and wool stash at this time. I have a kit that I purchased in Newfoundland last summer and hope to work on it sometime.  A kit is the way to go for me right now. 

Finn and I enjoyed several hours outside in the sunshine this week.  I read my book while he basked in the sun. 

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning. 

Cozy Flannel Scraps

I keep all of my flannel scraps in a large tote bag and when the bag starts to overflow, I make a scrappy flannel baby quilt to tame them.  Last week, I showed the crumb blocks I made at a sewing day with my guild and this week, I put those scrappy blocks together to make a baby quilt top. I have enough of that darker blue left to make the binding too.  When I give one of these quilts away, I always write a note to go with it with washing and drying instructions as well as suggestions to play I Spy, a matching game or to learn colours.  I also say that I will repair the quilt if it starts to wear out or gets a hole from the stitching coming loose. So far, I have never had to repair a baby quilt I have given away.  I want the recipient of the quilt to use it--play on it/with it, cuddle under it for story time or a nap, build a fort or take it on a picnic. 

I dug into my bin of flannel hunks and chunks bin to piece the back.  All of these fabrics are leftovers from  PJ's I have made for my twin nieces when they were little.  They are now in their mid 20's. 

I sent the pictures of the top and backing to a friend and she commented that I must have made my bins emptier...nothing could be further from the truth.  They are both still full.  Larger pieces on the left and smaller scraps on the right.  I will have to make more flannel quilts...

Here are the leftover blocks from my quilt...the sourdough starter for the next one. 

A friend has four grandchildren --she saved all the leftover fabric from PJ's she has made them over the years and has decided to make each of them a quilt.  The first one is for her grand-daughter who will be starting university in the fall.  I got together with my friend this week to help her lay out the blocks--this is a disappearing nine patch quilt. She is busy sewing them together this weekend so she can use her living room again. We will get together to piece a quilt back when the top is together. All of these fabrics have a winter theme. 

I started my Lupins cross stitch this week.  I doesn't look like much yet--a friend suggested it looks like an inkblot. I've used three colours of purple so far. 

Finn was just telling me he wanted to go outside to sit in the sun when I took this picture.  His tail was wagging!

Gardens and trees in our neighbourhood are bursting with colourful blooms.  I love this time of year!

You all know already that Finn loves to be outside on a sunny day!  

I will be adding more stitches to my cross stitch tomorrow for slow Sunday stitching. 

Sunflowers Cross Stitch (Finally!) Done.

I spent a few evenings this past week working on my Sunflowers cross stitch.  Finn likes to lie beside me on the couch while I am stitching.  When I got up to get a glass of water, he moved over to my spot... very helpful!

On Thursday evening, I added the last few stitches and gave it a good press.  TaDa!   I love how all of the bees and sunflowers look on the blue background.  I will take this in to be framed sometime in May.  The stitched part is about 11.5" by 11.5".

Last Summer, my husband and I went to Newfoundland for our vacation and saw lots of lupins in bloom. I purchased this counted cross stitch kit while we were there. This is a much smaller project than the sunflowers. I have prepped my Aida cloth by zig zagging the edge and sorted out the threads by colour.  I hope to start stitching tomorrow for Slow Sunday Stitching. 

Today, the Oxford Guild hosted a sewing day to work on a pattern chosen by the Vice President of the guild.  Being a rebel (haha!), I chose to work on a flannel vortex quilt to use up some of my flannel scraps.  I had cut up lots of pieces earlier in the week and put them in a clear plastic shoebox.  The larger bin where I keep my flannel scraps looks fuller than ever...I think I must have just fluffed everything up.  I sewed and pressed and trimmed and sewed and pressed and trimmed all day long.  I hope I have enough crumb blocks made now to make a baby quilt.  I had some blocks leftover from the last time I made one of these quilts--sort of like a sourdough starter but fabric.  The second picture shows the blocks I made today as well as the ones that were made before.  I will work on cobbling them together soon. I love this part of the process--it is like putting a puzzle together. 

We took Finn for lots of long walks this week.  He loves to walk at the park and on hiking trails but does not like to walk in our neighbourhood...

We went out for ice cream tonight.  Finn got his own bowl with a small amount of vanilla ice cream in it.  He loved it!  You could not tell that there was ever ice cream in the bowl by the time he was done. 

His face, however, was another story!

Our azalea bush has started to burst into bloom this week. 

The bloodroot was very pretty earlier in the week until it rained for two days, knocking all of the petals off  of the flowers. 

We watched the eclipse on Monday in our backyard, enjoying Eclipse Sundaes while we waited for the full eclipse.  

Finn was ready!  (Actually, we kept him in a shady spot in our gazebo--he was very happy to be outside with us!). 

Have a good week!  I will link up with Kathy in the morning. 

Modern Sampler Done!

I started making blocks for this modern sampler quilt in October 2020. I had to buy some of the gray background fabric for the blocks but the rest of the fabrics were in my stash--the white fabric has glasses on it and appears in every block.  All of the other fabrics have dots or lines on them in orange or blue and white. It took a year to make all of the blocks as it was a block of the month program.  I made one extra block so that I could set them as shown in the picture below. The blocks sat in a drawer for quite a while--I could not decide what colour of background fabric to use.  I took them to a quilt store in Stratford last fall and finally found something I liked--Navy blue solid.  The borders were completed in January and I pieced the back with leftovers and other fabrics from my stash and took it to the long armers who quilted it with organic wavy lines and random circles, as I requested.  And this week, it is done!  It will be used on the single bed in my daughter's old room.  

I'm happy to say that Finn approves as you can see by his waggy tail. 

While most of my hand stitching time this week was devoted to hand stitching the binding on the sampler quilt, I did manage to add some stitches to my Sunflowers as well. 

I have not shown a picture of my knitting recently--my scarf is now 23" long.  Hopefully, it will be done before next winter!

After a week of cold, wet weather, today was finally sunny and warm enough to spend some time outside on the front porch.  Finn looks like he is in jail here!  

I will link up with Kathy in the morning. I will be doing some cross stitch tomorrow for my slow Sunday stitching.  I will also link up with Frederique.