Slow Stitching Sunday

I did not take a single hand stitch in a quilt this past week. I have done some knitting. I found a pattern on Ravelry that I liked and I thought it would be good for some odd bits and bobs of sock yarn I have hanging around...... kinda like a scrap quilt, only knitting. Who knew I’d end up with the same leftovers/scrap problem in two different hobbies? The design is called All Points South and I thought it would be a fun thing to knit while I wait on my new yarns to be delivered.



It’s very difficult to get a decent picture of any knitting project while it is still on the needles. It should be lovely and warm and cosy under a winter coat once it’s done.
The biggest reason why I haven’t done any hand stitching this past week is because I’m trying very hard to get this Log Cabin quilt done, and it is all by machine. Our daughter and son in law were away last week, so I took advantage of the situation and set up in the glorious window they have in

their kitchen. Sewing in the natural light was a real treat. Up till then my sewing machine had been tucked away on a table in the furnace room. Not exactly a desirable place to go to spend any creative time. They are home now so I had to give up my sewing spot and have now set up in our living area where there is light rather than go back to the furnace room. Hopefully I can keep the mess under control so it doesn’t end up too disruptive. The centre of the log cabin quilt is done, as are the 4 corner squares for the outer border. 

I have 24 border blocks to do and then it is done. I’m really enjoying being back at the sewing machine. I think I am going to have to go exploring into some older projects once this one is done and see if there are some that might want to get finished.
I’m linking to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

End of year round up.

I hadn’t planned on doing one of these because I had it in my head that I hadn’t accomplished much to report about. But out of curiosity I browsed back through the year’s blog posts just to check and see exactly what did happen. And to my surprise I finished a lot more that I thought I had. The finishes are a lot heavier in the knitting end of things than the quilting. I don’t have pictures of everything though. I’ll start with the knitting finishes:

5 shawls....
1 cowl....
7 sweaters....

Those numbers completely blow me away. I had no idea there were that many until I started looking through the blog posts talking about them and then looking at my Ravelry account to actually see what projects were listed there.  There are also a couple of pairs of socks that are waiting to have their toes grafted and a blanket that needs a few more inches done.

Back at the beginning of the year I did a post about what I’d like to get done. It was mostly about quilt tops that needed to be quilted and finished. Again, I didn’t think I’d gotten that much done, but no, there was more accomplished than I thought. There were 6 quilts listed that I wanted to get finished. Of those 6, two are now done.
The one I wanted to finish most of all was the Round Robin quilt that was the oldest of all my finished tops. It is done. The lighting in the house isn’t the greatest which means the quilting doesn’t show very well in the photos.





And Three of a Kind also is finished. This quilt is so big I had to fold it in quarters in order to get a picture.



The hold up on both of those was not knowing how to quilt them. Once they were loaded onto the machine the decisions were easy. Lesson learned.... just load them and they will tell me what they want. I have four more still to do. I haven’t added any more finished quilt tops to that list. Not on that beginning of the year list were a couple of other finishes.

Friendship Chain



East to West Compasses.



I also did a baby quilt.



So there were five total quilt finishes. I seem to have spent most of the last few years doing hand piecing using English Paper Piecing. Making that baby quilt brought back the enjoyment of machine piecing. So at the end of November I started a quilt that had been on my bucket list for a while now. Judy Martin’s Pioneer Log Cabin.



I am loving doing this! It may even get finished before the end of this week. I have 12 more blocks to do for the centre and then 28 border blocks to do.

So, that was my year full of finishes that I didn’t know I’d finished. I am so glad I blog, although it has been very sporadic. If it weren’t for this blog, I’d have no idea just what I’d been up to all year.

Slow Stitching

I’ve made some progress on Hold Onto Your Heart this past week. The embroidered stems are done and the leaves are all prepared and glue basted down. There is still a flower to place on top of the stem on the right but I haven’t decided on the colour it will be yet.



It will have three rows of petals. Right now I’m leaning towards 3 shades of purples.
I’ve also started piecing on a new quilt by my favourite designer Judy Martin. This one is from her book on Log cabin quilts. I love the secondary design formed by the pieced logs.



I have six more blocks than this done now, but don’t have a picture. The blocks are 12 inches finished with the individual logs finishing at 1 inch. I’ll be doing 36 blocks, so I’m over half way there. The cutting and piecing, like most of Judy Martin’s quilts, is quite time consuming and intense but I’m enjoying the process. I’m doing 4 at a time and trying to get a good mix of fabrics in each block. I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching

I have a slow stitching, or make that slow knitting, finish this week The pattern is called Canyon Road. I have fallen in love with this persons patterns and have happily fallen into the rabbit hole of colour work sweaters. 

 It still needs to be blocked. After it is blocked the lace and colour work around the yoke will be even prettier.

I have some yarn left from this one, but of course it wasn’t enough to do a full sweater so of course I had to order more yarn. And then after I ordered the yarn to make up the difference so I could make another sweater, I got a notification that I had reached a milestone and therefore had a $25.00 store credit. Which meant, you guessed it, I ordered yet more yarn. With the yarn I already have here and the yarn that is coming I figure I have enough to do 5 more sweaters. And that’s not counting all the leftovers from all the other projects. Yep, I’m building a whole second stash, with yarn instead of fabric.  

In between the knitting I’ve been working on my Hold Onto Your Heart design by Esther Aliu. I’m working on the houses and the foliage surrounding them. 

Her design for the houses had shutters by the windows. I’ve left those off and have instead added some lace trim inside the windows for curtains. I’m doing embroidery for the stems of the foliage rather than using bias fabric. This afternoons job is to prepare the leaves and get them glue basted in place. And maybe get some more of the stems done.

I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

I’ve been busy

I’ve been busy and it’s been a good busy too. It’s been a long time since I sat at a sewing machine and made a quilt. There’s a baby shower coming up on December 13th for a couple at our church. I hemmed and hawed about what I was going to do for it since I don’t have any little girl baby quilts hanging around here. Should I or  shouldn’t I make a quilt? My go to solution for questions like that is to head to my Electric Quilt software and see if I can come up with a good design that can be done quickly. I was successful  It went from block choice using 6 inch and 3 inch squares, to quilt design on Thursday evening.

The black borders are 1 1/2 inches finished and the pink border is 3 inches finished.



 I picked some fabrics and started some cutting and piecing that evening. By Friday the centre of the quilt was finished.



Saturday saw the borders added and the backing pieced.



I’m so pleased with myself! And better yet,  I rediscovered that I like to make quilts by machine. So Saturday I started the process of cutting for another quilt.

Also this week I made 3 more rosettes for Battle of the Stars.  The yellow one will be surrounded by the red pieces. I haven’t decided yet what will  go around the green or the blue.



That’s the last I’ll see this quilt for the next month or so. I’ve packed it away into its project box and I’m going to pull out Hold Onto Your Heart and get back at it this week. I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching where there are lots of fun things to see, all made by hand. I have bonus time today for stitching too. It is freezing rain outside and everything is covered with ice. So church is cancelled for today. I’ll put some stitches into Hold Onto Your Heart and maybe continue with cutting  for a new machine pieced quilt.

Progress and decisions

More progress on Battle of the Stars. Last week I left everyone, including myself, hanging about what fabrics I was going to use for the filler diamonds and for the outer edge stars. I studied what I had done so far and it led me to 2 decisions which involved only a little bit of stash diving. The stars that surround the centre of this pice are done in 2 colours - a light green and a bright pink.



I decided to repeat this in the stars that go in the outer edges.



The other fabric I found is a stripe that had most of the colours I’ve already used and seems to fit with everything else.



I’ve cut them to form a chevron. Here’s the stars laid in place up against the stripe.



And a photo of the whole thing so far.  The stars and that outermost rosette are actually one of the corners.



I think I am going to get this corner done and then put it away. I’ll pull Hold Onto Your  Heart back out for the month of December or until I get another of the sides on it finished, whichever comes first.

I’m going to link to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Battle of the Stars.

I’ve made real progress on this project in the past week. The centre section is now finished.



I’m starting on the corners and the sides now.

I haven’t 100 percent decided on all the fabrics yet, but this is a start for one of the corners. I’ll need to do some stash diving to decide on what else to use. There are some five point stars and some setting diamonds that go in between these 10 point stars, I’ll get these 3 large 10 point stars done and then I’ll lay out some colours and fabrics with them to determine what is going to work. I should know what I’m doing with it by the end of the week. So my job for today, after I link up with Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching will be to finish off these large stars.