What we are working on

 I have 1 quilt top finish and 2 progress photos to share today. There are quite a few more that are so close. I hope to have photos of those next week. We are hoping to do a mammoth layering session next week. But for today there is this lovely piece that Janet finished on Thursday. The colours in the body of the quilt were chosen based on the colours in the border. And then I have a progress photo of the Star Trek quilt. It is one of those that I hope will be finished by Thursday. It just needs a few more borders added.

Over 10 years ago I started the McKenna Ryan quilt called Aurora Ridge. I pulled it out a couple of months ago and started back in on it. It is now all quilted, free motion on my domestic machine in a quilt as I go style, one block at a time. It is all sewn together now. There is a cover strip left to hand stitch down along the long crosswise seam on the back. And then it will get some borders. This is going to be used as a fund raiser for our Prayers and Squares group. 

I’ll link up to Finish, or not, Friday

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I took the last quilting stitch in My Tweets this past week! The last stitch went into the junction of those three sashing bits. Celebration time! However, it is currently still sitting on the chair in a heap, still in the quilting hoop, waiting to be trimmed and bound. Hopefully I don’t leave it too long. Since finishing that I’ve been rather unfocused and unsure of what to do next. I picked up my Jackrabbit cross stitch, but had a difficult time trying to concentrate on the tiny threads and the counting. I ended up ripping out stitches two different times in his right ear, so I put that aside. Then I went digging looking for an EPP project I started years ago, back in 2019, according to this blog. It’s called Connections. I found the fabrics and the papers and got started on doing some more glue basting. But the biggest thing I’ve been working on this past week is machine quilting an old McKenna Ryan project. I’ve dived in and am doing some free motion quilting on my domestic machine. It’s actually going better than I thought it would. The hand sewing bit comes in on the back. I’m doing it a block at a time and then putting it together quilt as I go style, which involves hand sewing cover strips over the seams on the back, hence the slow stitching part. I really want to get this one done so we can use it as a fund raiser for our Prayers and Squares group this spring/summer. It is the pattern Aurora Ridge.  According to this blog, I started it way back in 2016. I bought the patterns as kits with the fabrics in them. I’m not sure why it got put into cold storage. But anyhow, it is back in production. I have one more block to put together. Pictures to follow in more detail in another post. I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’m a day late posting my weekly slow stitching report. I have a good reason for it, though. I was digging around looking for an old abandoned project from 2016. It’s a McKenna Ryan design called Aurora Ridge. Back in 2016 I bought the patterns and the fabric kits to make the blocks and started on making them right away. But then as often happens, other things interceded and the project got packed way and, if not forgotten, then certainly out of sight and out of mind. Fast forward to this year and it has pushed its way back into my consciousness, mostly because of the similarity between the subject matter of the quilt and the surroundings we live in here in Muskoka. The thing that has been holding me back on it is how to procede with finishing it without a long arm quilting machine. There is no way I could afford to have someone else do it, not could I afford to rent a machine to do it. The only other options were to either leave it unfinished or to figure out how to finish it here. Then the thought arrived that I could finish it as a quilt as you go on my domestic machine. I’ve been playing around a little bit with free motion on it and I think I have figured out what to do. Here’s hoping it works. In the meantime, I’ve been world building and playing with the fabrics and the blocks. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy these. There is one with an Aurora Borealis above a moose family. Then there is a cabin in the woods in front of a waterfall. I’ve just started putting this one together, doing the layers on a teflon pressing sheet. The fabrics that came with these patterns are just so beautiful. 

Anyhow, all that to say that I got distracted from writing a post yesterday. I have made great progress on my slow stitching of the Fox. His body is done and I’ve started the fill in for his tail. Another week or two of working on this in the evenings should do it. 

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

Design Floor Monday

I’m plating with McKenna Ryan fabrics and designs today. I just love her stuff. I don’t very often buy kits. But one of the vendors at our quilt show had kits for one of the newer quilts, called Aurora Ridge. Since I love the fabrics she uses in her pieces, and try to purchase them in order to do her stuff, kits seemed very appropriate. These are from Sew Creative, a store in Mt Brydges, about a 20 minute drive from her. The kits were very well prepared, and I’ll be buying the rest of them for this quilt. This was the easiest block of the four I have in my possession.
It took about 3 hours this evening to get it all traced onto the fusible web, cut out and fused onto the various fabrics, and then cut out of the fabrics and fused onto the background fabric. I am very much looking forward to doing the rest of them.
I’m linking up to Judy’s Patchwork times

Design Wall Monday, June 16, 2014

I've been working steadily at a new project. Yep, I  finally gave in and started one. I couldn't resist the new McKenna Ryan fabrics that came in a week or so ago, I started the first block of the quilt True Nature, and have gotten quite a lot done on it. These things are addictive, once started. And they create such a mess, that it's easier just to keep on going, rather than stop and clean up the mess.

But, now that I've gotten it this far, I've begun to pack up the mess so that I can get to work on the quilt that is actually showing through the sky on this piece, which is Meteor shower. I've found the instructions for it, found the fabrics for it, and now have an idea of what is left to be done. That's always the hardest part of picking up an unfinished project.... figuring out where it was and what was being done and what is left to do. But I think I have a start on that and, once the sun starts to go down, since I am currently sitting out enjoying the evening in the yard, I'll get started working on Meteor Shower again, and see if I can't make my goal of getting the rest of the large star blocks done. I'm Linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday