What we are working on.

 This past week for Prayers and squares saw 3 quilt as you go tops finished and ready for binding. The two Baby Bently quilts are done. And then another quilt made with a forest animal themed border print is done as well. I’ve made a start on another one that is using a fabric in the centre of the stars that also has forest animals in it. However, I've run out of batting so I can’t go any further on this one. I’ve used up every small scrap I had here. I’m hoping to pick up more batting off the roll at the church tomorrow, providing we are able to get together then. The weather here has taken a really nasty turn, from spring pouring rain this morning to flash freezing temperatures and snow tonight.  We’ll make a decision tomorrow.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I finished my Frankensocks this past week, and even got the toes grafted and all the ends woven in. That is the step that usually just sits and ends up procrastinated. So that’s done and I can even wear them today.  I’ve had a couple of coordinating skeins of Alegria fingering yarn sitting here for quite a while. There was enough to do a scarf or shawl, but I don’t really need another scarf or shawl and there wasn’t enough to do a sweater and matching either of the skeins was going to be difficult. My dear friend Gail, aka The Cozy Quilter, gave me a gift certificate to a local yarn store here in Huntsville, just 5 minutes down the road, so I got the idea to see if there was anything there that would coordinate that I could use to do alternate rounds in a sweater to make a combined fabric. It turns out that there was. So I got the skeins wound up into cakes and started on the sweater yesterday. I think it is going to work really well. I already had the green and the light yarn with the greens and orange in it. The skein I picked up has all the colours of the top skein, minus the green. While I was in the yarn shop, because I had explained to her what I was planning on doing, the sales lady mentioned a technique called Helical knitting that seamlessly blends alternating yarns together. I did a you tube search and the technique works really well.

I also had big plans this past week to take the centre block of My Tweets to the church where there are large cutting matts that I could use to trim it up to the right size. It occurred to me that I should check the block against the picture of the pattern just to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. It turns out that it is missing quite a few leaves. So those will have to be done before I can trim it and start adding on the sashing and the other blocks. Getting the leaves traced and ready for appliqué is going to be part of today’s slow stitching. 

I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

What we are working on

 As usual, our Prayers and Squares group is busy. It seems as soon as we get a quilt done there is a recipient for it. So for the past 3 meetings 2 of us have been going through our fabrics and cutting for kits. I think we now have about 8 kits fully cut and ready for assembly. That should help with getting them quickly sewn together. In the past it has always been a challenge to pull together something for everyone to work on. Hopefully this will help. We had a few more quilts go out this week. Two quilts for little toddlers and 2 adult lap quilts.

In the meantime I brought home some of the kits so I could work on them here, I found a cute, but simple to sew together quilt called Baby Bently. It actually took longer to cut out than to sew. We had some of the Forest animals border panels left and they fit perfectly into this design. I also had some cat border panel fabrics here that worked well for this design. There are side borders of migrating geese to add to the woodland panels and then it will be ready to hand off to someone else for binding. It was done in the quilt as you go method which makes quilting these on domestic machines much easier. 

I’m linking up to Mid Week Makers

Slow Sunday Stitching

 What is the saying about the best laid plans? I had plans to get all the hand stitching done on My Tweets. Some friends and I went fabric shopping last Wednesday and I bought the fabrics for the sashing and backing for My Tweets. I had wanted to get the stitching finished and get a start on trimming up the blocks and adding the sashing to them. Not a stitch was done. Of course, I could blame it on the continuing renovations and the necessity of getting all my stuff out of the bedroom in order to lay the new floor which left very little time and no energy at the end of the day for anything except mindless sock knitting. Yep, that sounds good. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. So, one “frankensock" is done and the second one started. I’m almost to the second colour on the second sock.

I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I haven’t made any further progress on the My Tweets block. I’ve stalled out for some reason, although I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s just I’ve been too tired in the evenings, which is when I do most of my hand stitching. I made a small start on my new cross stitch project, only to stall out on that as well. The chart is difficult to see and difficult to hold onto while stitching. I usually scan the charts into my computer and then import them into a knitting program I have called knit companion. However, the printer was unplugged, waiting for a place to put it; renovations you know, affect the most mundane things. However, the printer now has a place to live and I was able to get that chart uploaded. So I can perhaps do more on that in the days to come.

So what is a lady to do when there is nothing else to occupy her hands..... start a new pair of socks. I had some leftovers from various previous pairs of socks, all having shades of grey in them. So I got out my digital scale and divided them up into equal amounts for a pair of “frankensocks”. I don’t really need any more socks, although the ones I made when I first started into socks are getting thin at the toes and heels. I did do some research a while back on how to replace worn spots in socks, but I think I’d rather just make new ones. 

I’ll link up with Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 A finish for the My Tweets quilt blocks is so close. I prepped all the leaves for this last block and glue basted them into place. A few days of stitching shall finish it and then I can go fabric shopping for the sashing and backing. Then I will have to decided how to quilt it, since I know it is going to have to be done by hand. Perhaps a very simple cross hatch so the quilting won’t take away from the appliqué. The hand quilting means that this project will be in my Slow Sunday posts for quite some time to come yet.

Our kitchen renovations are now finished.....woohoo!! But, now the renovations are moving into the bedroom/sewing room. Which means emptying it out and getting it organized and doing some more purging. It will be lovely when it is done, but it is a bit of a nuisance getting there. I have 2 weeks before it needs to be empty for the floor to be done. I’m assigning myself a small section of the room every day or two so that I don’t end up feeling overwhelmed. And in the meantime I remind myself that the end is in sight.

I’m linking to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching