Moving Right Along

This has been a productive week in the sewing department!  I finished quilting the potato chip quilt I made for the local hospice.  I used the cut offs from the backing to make the binding, remembering after I had machine stitched it to the front of the quilt that it needed to be machine stitched down, not hand stitched as I usually do.  Oops! This is because the quilts for the hospice will be washed and dried by machine often and the binding will stay on better if machine stitched.  I did not want to un-sew all of the binding so I just machine top-stitched it from the back. It's not perfect on the front but it will stay on when it is washed.  I'm very happy with how this quilt turned out!   

Here is the back.  You can see my straight line quilting easier on the back. There is lots of quilting to keep it together over many cycles in the washer and dryer. 

I pin basted a gift quilt this week and it will be next up for walking foot quilting.  I will show pictures of it once it has been gifted. 

I finished off two more placemats for Meals on Wheels.  I have two more to make to reach my self-imposed goal of 12. 

Lots of cross stitching done this week--I am well on my way to finishing the second quadrant of my winter/Christmas piece.  The pattern is called "Winter Woods" from Satsuma Street.

My daughter has become addicted to crochet and has started another project.  This is a Christmas crochet-along blanket.  Finn is modelling the centre square which will be a gingerbread house.  It is about 1/2 done.  Finn thinks the balls of wool made a nice pillow for his bum. 

This sleeping position is very comfortable but resulted in a serious case of bed face. 

The fall colours are peaking here.  This is the Worplesdon Sweetgum tree in our backyard. 

This picture was taken at the park while I was on my morning walk earlier in the week. 

 Here are a few more photos from our recent SW USA adventure.  We took a two hour boat tour on Lake Powell at 8am.  Turned out to be just us and the guide as no one else wanted to get up that early!  Beautiful day and not too hot at that hour in the morning. The guide was very knowledgeable and told us the history of the Glen Canyon Dam that was built to form the reservoir.  The first picture was taken from the Glen Canyon Museum and the second from a lookout above the lake. The rest are from the boat tour. 

The level of the lake fluctuates depending on how much snow falls in the mountains at the source of the Colorado River. You can clearly see how high the water was at one time in the next picture.  

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning.  I will link up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge folks and Frederique today.   Have a great week!

Getting Back to Normal

I have been reacquainting myself with my sewing machine over the past few days.  I decided to get going on quilting the potato chip quilt top I made for our new hospice (opening in the Spring of 2025).  First I quilted two lines in the sashing to get everything stabilized and ready for quilting the blocks. I also added a row of stitching around the entire quilt the width of the walking foot into the beige border and then a 1/8th of an inch from the edge of the border to keep it flat.  I hummed and hawed over what colour of thread to use and finally decided on a beige thread on top and a light blue in the bobbin.  The backing fabric is blue. The picture below shows how each block will look when all of the edge to edge straight line quilting is done.  The second picture is of the back of the same block.

I spent a bit of time each day this week adding some stitches to my cross stitch picture. The bear needs four more stitches in his cheek and there are a few snowflakes to add in the air.  I have added more stitches to the border at the bottom too. 

You may remember that I am making a dozen placemats for Meals on Wheels--an outreach project of the Oxford Quilt Guild.  I had 6 done before my vacation and managed to finish two more this week as well as get another two to the stage of hand stitching the binding. Only a couple more to make to meet my goal!

Finn sent me a couple of pictures today of my daughter's crochet progress...three more "fried egg" (I mean daisy...) granny squares and more rows on her cream coloured blanket. 

I sorted through some of our vacation pictures this week.  The first few are from Antelope Canyon near Page, Arizona.  We did a guided tour of this beautiful slot canyon. Amazing what flowing water will do to sandstone. 

The next pictures were taken on our favourite hike of the trip... The Queens Garden/Navajo Loop/Wall Street combination hike in Bryce Canyon National Park. It was a really hot day but we dressed to protect ourselves from the sun, used sunscreen, wore hats, hiking boots, ate salty snacks and drank lots of water.  Our daughter gave us hiking poles for Christmas last year and they were used on all of our hikes. As you can see below, the scenery was breathtaking. There were lots of ups and downs on this hike.  We hiked up all of those switchbacks in the first picture at the end of the hike. 

We met a little friend when we stopped for a drink and a snack. (we did not share our snacks!)

I'm not sure how this tree is even alive!

Yes, that is the trail down there!

We hiked earlier in the day and we were back to our car in time for the picnic lunch that we had in the cooler bag. We slept well that night (and every night!). 

That's enough vacation pictures for this week.  I will share more next week.  In the meantime, I will link up with Kathy and Frederique.  

Home from Vacation

My husband and I just got home from three weeks in the US southwest.  We flew to Tucson, AZ, rented a car, visited National Parks and other sites in Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico, and then took the Amtrak Southwest Chief (train) from Albuquerque, NM to Chicago.  The next train, the Pere Marquette, took us from Chicago to Grand Rapids, where we picked up our car and drove home. I will share pictures of the highlights of our trip over the next few weeks--I have not had time to go through all of my pictures  (over 4000!) yet. We had a wonderful time and now we need a few days to rest and get back into our regular routines.  Our daughter and Finn are here for the weekend for Canadian Thanksgiving.  

I took my winter cross stitch project with me to work on in the car and train.  Most of the time, the scenery was so spectacular that I did not take it out of my bag. That being said, I did get a good start on the next quadrant of the picture. I will continue to work on it this week as my slow stitching project. 

We went to a local conservation area to go for a fall walk in the woods with Finn this afternoon, followed by ice cream at Shaws--the local place to go for ice cream. Finn had a small amount of vanilla ice cream--he indicated that it was very yummy. 

My daughter brought her cross stitch home with her and we might be able to do some stitching together before she goes home.  This is the second of five in the series of mystery cross stitch pictures she is making. There are clues in each picture to help solve the mystery.  The patterns are by Dana Watters Handmade. 

While in Santa Fe, New Mexico, my husband and I visited the State Capitol Building--it is a round building and the walls throughout the building are filled with art by local artists.  The tour guide on our walking tour of Santa Fe recommended visiting to see all of the wonderful art. After going through security, the first thing we saw was a special exhibit of quilts featuring Southwest landmarks and themes, presented by SAQA--the Studio Art Quilt Association of New Mexico.  I am sharing a few of my favourites.  You should be able to read the cards with the title and maker of each quilt by clicking on each picture. 

Here are a couple of pictures of the outside of the building. 

The quilts will be on display until December 13th, 2024. If you are in the area, I recommend that you go to see them!

That's all for now.  I hope to get back to my sewing machine this week as I have some projects I want to finish soon. I will be linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning and with Frederique now.