Slow Sunday Stitching

I need a slow down day today. A day of doing nothing except taking long deep breaths, sitting in my comfy recliner with my feet up while sewing slow relaxing hand stitches.

Yesterday was a whirlwind. It started several hours earlier than my days normally do, since it was our guild’s Quilt Till You Wilt day. I spent part of Friday getting ready, using my Go Cutter to get everything cut and ready to sew. My goal was to do an I Spy quilt for our grand daughter. I’ve had the fabrics for several years, at least. She is starting to talk really well, and learning lots of new words, so this is a perfect time to get one done for her. I shocked everyone, including myself by arriving at the quilt day right on time at 9 am with my essential coffee in hand. With all my fabrics cut and organized and ready to go, I sat and put the pedal to the metal. By lunch time I had most of the blocks finished and was ready to start sewing them into rows. By the time I left at 3:30 all of the rows were sewn together. I still have to piece some partial blocks for the ends of 3 rows, and the the centre of the quilt is finished.  I used partial seams on the rows, leaving myself enough space at each end to add in the missing pieces and the finish sewing the row.
I haven’t decided what to do about borders. I was so focused on getting all this done, I didn’t even think to stop and take pictures. The only reason I have these is because my friend Gail, who blogged about the same day here,  grabbed my phone and took the pictures for me. (Thanks Gail!!)

After leaving the Quilt Till You Wilt time, we came home, picked up our grand daughter, since her parents had won tickets to a concert yesterday evening, and proceeded out to visit with our son Noel, his girlfriend Mel and our grand son Avery who was down visiting for the weekend. We had supper at their place, and then drove down to Port Stanley where there is a house that does itself up hugely for Christmas, or should I say its owners do. The statistics say that it has over 75,000 lights on the property. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I saw. It was fabulous! Here’s a link to the Facebook page about it Port Stanley Christmas Lights. Both Abbie and Avery were mesmerized by it. Avery kept telling everyone that “it has 75,000 lights aka 75 million!!” using the phrase “aka" being a new thing with him. Abbie ran...... everywhere... through the lawns, up the deck with the Christmas tree, down the steps of the deck,  up the paths on the hill at the back of the house and back down, then back up, then..... well you get the idea.... Abbie ran, exploring and examining everything and Grammy followed. Grampy would have followed, except he was hampered by the stroller that we foolishly thought Abbie would quietly sit in. Silly us, we should have known better, knowing Abbie..... although by the end of it she was tired enough to settle into the stroller for the walk back to the car. All in all it was a fabulously happy day, full of good friends and loving family. What could be better.

So, back to Slow Stitching. Today I am continuing to work on Leo’s Mane, no surprise there. I have the first side of the fourth border finished. Here it is laying beside the main body.  And a closer view. I’ve started on the second side of the fourth border and hope to get a good long way into getting it finished today, probably while bingeing on the British archeological TV series Time Team. 
 I’m going to link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday stitching and then get to my own stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Last week at this time I was unstitching a goof. This week, the goof is fixed and continuing progress has been made on the first of the border #4 for Leo’s Mane. I have 7 of the 8 units needed for this side of the border sewn together, and all the tiny side triangles added to it. So instead of an “oh bother" from Winnie the Pooh I can have a happy dancing Walt Disney designed
Winnie the Pooh. I don’t really know why this particular character is stuck in my brain these days, but there it is......
I suppose it’s because there have been a few other instances this week that have caused me to say the “oh bother” phrase, so it’s kinda stuck.

It’s cold and blowy and snowy outside today, so it’s a good day to stay inside and do some hand stitching. I love how my hands can be busy doing one thing, while my brain can be busy doing something else entirely, even if that is the cause of the occasional goof when my brain isn’t paying attention to what my hands are doing.  (grin) So, today I have a bunch of things I want to do. I started an honeycomb pillow using 1 inch honeycombs a week or two back.  I want to get it sewn down to a background square. Then, I want to finish sewing the white edges of my small version of Willyne Hammerstein’s Creme Brûlée to the dark borders. One of the corners of the dark border wasn’t laying flat the last time I worked on it, so I had to take it apart and re-mitre the corner.


 I want to start another variation of the honeycomb pillow, doing a different arrangement of the colours. And then of course, more on Leo, at which point I’ll have to re-engage my brain.
I have no idea how far I’ll get on this list today, but I’m going to enjoy the process. I think I will start with the one that is closest to being finished, which is the Creme Brûlée variation and then go to the pillow and finally back to Leo.
I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then it’s on to the stitching marathon.

Slow Sunday Unstitching......

Winnie the Pooh has a saying when things go wrong..... “Oh bother.....” I was happily sewing along yesterday, making more parts for the fourth border for Leo’s Mane. I’m doing this border a bit differently than the others. Rather than making all the different elements first and then sewing them together, I’m making the elements and then attaching  them into the long border as I go. Gail, aka The Cozy Quilter, and I were having a virtual sewing hour together via FaceTime. Just before signing off, she asked me to show her what I’d accomplished. She very kindly pointed out the sewing snafu which was the cause of my “oh bother”. It may even have caused me to say some words that sound very like Pooh’s name, with the “h” replaced with a “p”. There may have been even a few variations on that same word.....



The blue/gold star unit on the left end is turned wrong. It was completely sewn into place.
When I’m English Paper Piecing and I come to intersections between one piece and another  that need to be turned, I always take a few extra stitches at said intersections so that they are nice and strong and will not come apart and will hold up to the stress of much manipulation. That’s all wonderful until said pieces need to be ripped apart without damaging them.
So, instead of starting my Slow Sunday Stitching day with comfortable relaxing stitching, it will be started with unstitching, neither comfortable nor relaxing........ sigh........

My handy dandy goose necked Ott floor light that is in permanent residence beside my stitching chair will come in very handy as I cut loose all those neat and tiny stitches. I can bend it so that the light is just inches above the piece I am working on. So, after I link up with Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching, I am going to fortify myself with more coffee, turn on that bright light, put on my drug store purchased 3.25 magnification glasses and get to work taking out those stitches so that I can turn that unit around and sew it back in place again......
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Leo’s Mane Fourth border

I’m late writing up a post this week. I usually do one up for Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching. I was stitching on Sunday, lots and lots of stitching. But I was also binge watching a show on England. Tony Robinson is the guy’s name, and he does walks all over the country side and talks about the land marks and the history. I am fascinated by all things English history, so I got rather caught up in it. By the time I realized what time it was, it was too dark for pictures and too late for thinking straight. And now, here it is Wednesday, and I’m finally getting around to writing that post.
The good thing is, the third border is completely stitched onto Leo, and is all pressed and laying nicely flat. It took a bit of persuasion with some steam from the iron on the eight point seams, but they finally cooperated.
And now, I’ve started work on the fourth border.  The colours in this photo are a bit yellower than in real life. The close ups in the photos further down are closer to the actual colours.


These are the two basic units that make this particular border,  with a couple of extra things as well. It’s going fairly quickly, with all of them that are laying beside the quilt finished since Sunday. There will be small gold coloured triangles filling the space along the edges of the border.

I’m linking up to Lorna’s Let’s Bee Social, Esther’s WIPs on Wednesday and the Canadian Needle and Thread Network. Then it’s time for supper and some more stitching.