Slow Sunday Stitching

 Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate this weekend here in Canada. It has been a gorgeous weekend here. Yesterday was sunny and warm, for this time in October. And the colours in the trees here in Muskoka have been glorious! I wasn’t actually planning on writing a post this weekend. It has been crazy busy here. We had our Church family dinner at the church yesterday, following the Worship service. It was wonderful to gather with our church family and enjoy a traditional turnkey dinner. And today we are having our family get together. But I’ve got a few spare minutes before everyone gets together today, so I can do a post. Last week I was struggling getting used to doing the cross stitching. Gradually this week it has gotten easier and I’ve made some good progress on the Woodpecker. During the evenings after working on it, I went back to some knitting and have finished, except for grafting the toes, a pair of socks I started back in the summer. I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

What We Are Working On

 We got a lot accomplished yesterday. Unfortunately, most of it wasn’t photo worthy. And I also missed one picture. Tammy brought in a finished quilt top, that somehow I didn’t get a picture of. Marg is working on the beginnings of a new quilt. So far it is just a lot of half square triangles. There will be pictures in future posts. Janet was working on sewing together a lot of batting scraps, also not a lot of fun for photos. Susan has started a new quilt. No photos there. Tammy and Janet also spent some time picking out and cutting backings for 6 or 7 of the tops we have waiting. They may end up getting layered next week. Diane is putting together a Bonnie Hunter design called Bricks and Stepping Stones. And I finished the top from some squares I put together a couple of months ago that then got packed into a box and semi forgotten. It still needs a border of some sort. If I can find some of the leftover strips, I may do a scrappy border of some sort. Here at home I’ve been working on adding borders to the EPP mystery centre I started a month or 2 ago. I’m hoping to have this done perhaps by next Thursday. I have several more want-to-do quilts hovering around in the back of my mind that I’d love to get to. I’ll link up to finished, or not, Friday.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’ve picked my cross stitching back up and am slowly figuring out where I left off several months ago. It is strange how it involves a whole different way of seeing doing cross stitch that my eyes are having a hard time picking back up. Anyhow, the Woodpecker from  The Year in the Woods is slowly getting its black outlining done as I slowly get used to looking at the graph and the lines of linen and my red grid lines. I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

What We Are Working On

 We had a couple more finishes yesterday. Donna finished the Trip Around the World quilt she started a few weeks ago. It has lovely colours. It is now in the waiting to be layered pile. Beverly finished the binding on this very scrappy strip quilt. It needs a label and some ties put in and then it will be ready for gifting to someone who likes oranges and blues. We’ve been working on the blocks for next year’s fundraiser, a combination of Marie Noah blocks and McKenna Ryan blocks. We have 4 out of 12 finished.

 I’ll link up to finished, or not, Friday.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 All of the hand stitching for the EPP mystery I was doing is done. And, I have 8 of the 16 units loosened from the papers around the outer edges and trimmed and sewn together, this time by machine. That means, by this time next week, I’ll be back to my cross stitched critters. In fact, I think after I post this, I will rummage around on the table beside my chair and see if I can’t actually find the Woodpecker I was working on. 

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

What we’re Working On

 I didn’t get too many pictures yesterday. I was pretty focused on finding the perfect fabrics to build loons with. I’m doing a variation of this block. It will have some pieced flying geese in the background. We have started the blocks for next year’s fund raiser. It will be a combination of Marie Noah blocks and McKenna Ryan designs for another Muskoka themed wildlife and countryside quilt. It takes a lot of sorting and a lot of digging in order to find the prefect fabric just right for a loon’s wing. However, I did get a few pictures of a couple of finishes and an in progress quilt top. This wildlife chain quilt is finished and will be prayed over on Sunday before going to its new home. Janet finished putting together this Big Block moose themed top. And Donna is almost finished this trip around the world top. Here at home I’ve been working on a design by Judy Martin called Capistrano from her book Stellar Quilts. I fell in love with the design and had to make it. I suspect it will be added to next year’s fundraiser, since the last thing we need here is another queen sized bed quilt. I’m enjoying the intense challenge of the piecing. It’s a nice change after all the endless strip piecing. It will likely take until deep into the winter before it is done. I think it will be domestic machine quilted as I go in sections. I’ll link up to finished, or not, Friday

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’m almost finished with the hand stitching on the mystery EPP project I’ve been working on. There are base triangles to add to some of them. But I think I will do that by machine after the hand sewing on the inset pieces is done. There are 3 more of them to do. I’ll loosen the fabric from the papers and trim them to 1/4 inch so I can finish this by machine. After this is done I’ll get back to my cross stitched critters. I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

What We Are Working On

 We had four lovely finishes yesterday. A fully finished Disappearing Nine Patch and three quilt tops. What a great and efficient group we have. Marcia finished this Disappearing Nine patch. It is labeled and ready to go to a person in need. Tammy finished this Churn Dash top. Here at home I’ve been working on quilt tops as well. Yesterday I got the final borders sewn on to 2 of them. A Triple Irish Chain and a Trip Around the World. I seem to have reverted back to using blues again. I tried for a while to get away from that colour, but it seems to keep coming back. I have fabric here to do another Trip Around the World variation, this time using blues and reds. I’m not sure if I’ll start it this week or not. I’ll link up to finished, or not, Friday.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’m almost halfway done with the mystery EPP thing I’m doing. This will be the layout. 

I like the pinwheels that form with the yellow triangles. It will be 24 inches square when done. But of course, I can’t leave it there. I don’t have any use for a 24 inch square piece, so I am planning on borders around it. So far, this is the front runner for the ideas for the borders. But that could change by the time I get to it.  I want to keep the borders fairly basic so as to let the hand pieced centre shine. I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

What We’re Working On

 Another productive afternoon was had at our Prayers and Squares group yesterday. Tammy and I got 2 quilt tops layered, but I don’t have pictures of that. I brought one of them home to do the quilting, hopefully before next Thursday. I’ll take it back and pass it on for someone else to do the binding. That’s one of the many things I love about our group, everyone pitches in to do the thing that they are good at. Susan has been working on sewing down some Dresden Plates that were donated to us onto their backgrounds. She’s never done a zig zag stitch with a sewing machine, so she’s feeling quite good about it. Donna and Diane finished a quilt top that is now in the waiting to be layered pile. Here at home I finished a quilt using up the last of some small animal panels that we had. And also, we are starting on a quilt for next year’s fund raising season. I have the first block almost finished. It needs a piece of the background fabric added to the top. I don ’t think I ever posted here the finished quilts for this year’s fund raising. We did a quilt that I saw and totally fell in love with called Northern Wilderness Renewed. And the other was a floral themed one that was donated to us as a complete kit, with the blocks all pre-cut into individual kits with really great instructions. Tammy, one of our newer members and a beginner quilter, was able to do the blocks using the instructions given. I’ll link up to finished, or not, Friday.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’m continuing to take a bit of a break from cross stitching in order to work on an English Paper Piecing Mystery. Clue #4 was given out this past week, to start assembling the units we previously made. So far I have 2 full units put together. The reveal of the full layout will come sometime this week. It was a gorgeous day yesterday and I spent quite a bit of it outside in the screened shelter happily stitching away. I may do more of the same today. The final square is going to measure 24 inches. I still have lots of the fabrics I used for these left, so the plan is to use this as the centre of a medallion style quilt and then donate it to the Prayers and Squares group I belong to. I’ll make more decisions about that after the reveal of the layout.

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

What We’re Working On

 I haven’t done one of these posts in a few weeks. I was absent from our Prayers and Squares group due to illness. This is a picture heavy post with quite a few finished quilt tops. Donna finished this lovely Churn dash top. I love the piano key border. Tammy has finished a couple of tops. For a beginner quilter, she sure is doing wonderfully. There is one called Tam’s Patch, a pattern from the Quilters Cache website.  And she finished another using up some fun bird fabrics with coordinating colours. She is also working on a Churn Dash quilt, but I didn’t get pictures of that one. Diane finished up a scrappy top using lots of 3 inch finished squares. We call this one Triplets. The Lego quilt we’ve been doing for the young boy with cancer is completely finished. We will pray for him on Sunday and hopefully get the quilt to him soon. Elizabeth is continuing to work on her bear themed quilt. And Donna and Diane are working on these star blocks together. They are 16 inches finished, and I think they are aiming for enough for 2 quilts. I’ll link up to finished, or not, Friday.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’ve set my cross stitching aside for a little bit. Instead, I’ve been playing with some English Paper Piecing. I saw the beginnings of a mystery a couple of weeks ago, and decided to hop in on it. I chose the fabrics, as the hostess described, a couple of weeks ago. I have clue one finished. There are a total of 16 of these. 

Clue number 2 is well on its way. I think there are 32 of these, 16 of each colour reverse. 

We’ve also been doing tons of canning in the last couple of days. Every August our local Freshco grocery store has 25 pound boxes of Roma tomatoes for a fabulous price, $8.88 per box. We go through a lot of marinara style pasta sauce every year, so I am trying to do enough to last us all year. Pictured here is the second batch. There will be one more batch tomorrow and then I hope to do up some jars of just plain tomatoes. It’s been a family job. Scott and Becca have helped with all the chopping of the green peppers and onions. Our grand daughter Abbie did all the blanching yesterday and I’m hoping she will help tomorrow too. I did the coaring of the tomatoes and the peeling. We started at 11:30 yesterday morning and the last batch came out of the water bath canner at 9:30 last night. Tomorrow will be mostly the same.

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

Slow Sunday Stitching

 Today’s slow stitching report its on Monday, rather than Sunday. I got hit by a nasty head cold that turned into a nasty cough. I’m finally feeling more like myself, 10 days later. Yuck-er-oonies..... All that to say I haven’t been doing much cross stitching due to lack of concentration. The Woodpecker from the Year in the Woods is slowly taking shape though. And the slowly is good, because that’s the point of the whole thing, to enjoy the slow progress and watch it slowly take shape. I’ll link up with Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 As soon as I’d finished the Skunk critter for The Year in the Woods series, I started right in on the next critter, a Woodpecker. I’ve gotten quite a bit done on it already. I’m doing this one differently. On the last few that I’ve done, I’ve started on the bottom of the charts and worked my way to the top. This one is growing from the top down instead. When I went searching through the threads I already have, while waiting for the ones I ordered to arrive, most of them were for the head, therefore I started there rather than be patient and wait for all the other threads to get here. I also had to change the lighter yellow in his beak. The one called for was too close to the colour of the linen. He’s looking quite handsome so far. I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching, and then do some more on this handsome fellow.

What We’re Working On

 We changed our P&S day to Friday this week so a couple of our members who were visiting today could come. It was a great day, full of laughter and sewing and hugs and chaos. And we also got some stuff done. It doesn’t get any better than that. Marg has been working on some little boy quilts for a family in need. These are done, just waiting for their bindings. The one boy is into trucks and also mine craft. Some of the pieced blocks are sort of like some of the mine craft things. The other boy likes mythical creatures and monsters. This panel fit that theme quite well. Marcia is working on putting together her Disappearing Nine Patch. I think she is working on her borders now. Diane took home a couple of big block quilt kits last week. She has the blocks all pieced together. We found the large print the last time we went fabric shopping. There were 2 one yard cuts of it, enough to cut 12 squares measuring 10 1/2 inches for these blocks out of each yard of fabric. There is a blue version and a brown version. 

We have had a request for a quilt for a young boy, 11 years old, undergoing treatment for a malignant brain tumour. His favourite colours are blue and black. He likes fish and moose and lego. There are moose and fish in the fabrics. They are being sewn together to look like large lego blocks. I’ll work more on this at home this week and hopefully get it finished and then layered next Thursday.

I’ll link up to finished, or not, Friday.