Slow Sunday Stitching

 Most of my slow stitching time over the past couple of weeks has been taken up with mindless sock knitting. I started and finished a pair of socks. I took the last stitches in them last night and decided to wear them today. Here they are in their sock modelling debut.

And then I did the tiniest bit more on the hardanger lace section of my Quilting Bee Sampler. By the time I get to it most evenings my brain is too foggy to concentrate on it or I’m watching something that requires watching rather than listening. I just might settle in this afternoon and put on a program I’m familiar with and listen while I stitch. I would like to get this one finished.

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

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I managed to dig around in the spare bedroom upstairs that is acting as our storage facility while our renovations down here are happening and I found my Quilters’ Bee cross stitch sampler. I’ve been slowly working my way through the white hardanger lace work at the bottom. It is very fiddly and slow going, which is the whole point of slow stitching, so that’s OK. 

And when my brain or my eyes are too fried to be able to concentrate on the cross stitch, I’ve been working on a very simple mindless scrap sock yarn scarf. It is knit on circular needles with all of the yarn joins being in the middle where they won’t be seen and therefore don’t need to be neatly woven in. It might be close to being done. And of course, I have enough scrap sock yarn here to be able to do another of these. Then again, I may just start another pair of socks.

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

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I managed to get all the satin stitching done for the pulled thread work necessary on the third last band of my Quilters Bee cross stitch sampler. And then, I was able to spend a few evenings doing the cutting and tread removal for the Hardanger Lace section. What a slow process that is, to make sure to only cut the correct number and location of threads. Whew! Am I ever glad to have that done. I have set it aside again for a few days while I refresh my memory as to how to do the specialty stitches in the empty spaces and around the remaining threads. 

We looked after our grand daughter the last couple of days, as well as having an electrician come in and do some work in our living space. Between those 2 things there were a couple of early mornings with another one happening tomorrow when the electrician comes back to finish the work. That all means that concentrating enough to figure out these stitches is going to have to wait a while. So in the meantime I will post this to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and get on with the onerous task of doing next to nothing while I rest.

Slow Sunday Stitching.

 I’ve missed a couple of weeks posting on my slow stitching progress, mostly because there hadn’t been any progress. It is renovation and gardening time, so not much stitching was happening. I tried to change that last evening only to have to take out most of the stitches I’d put in due to not looking closely at the instructions. There are stair step type satin stitches at the bottom the piece that were supposed to have five stitches in each group. I had only put in four stitches per group. I am hoping to change that today. It is a glorious summer day today and I am planning on spending it sitting beside the window and enjoying the breeze and the sound of the birds. I would love to be actually outdoors enjoying it but this has turned into a nasty year for mosquitoes and that most horrible of creatures...... the black fly.... tiny little critters that take out chunks and leave large intensely itchy welts in their place. So I will concede defeat and stay indoors until they are no longer a threat.

Last September I joined the Pinetree Quilt Guild, fully planning on attending as many meetings as I could. It turns out I got to one.....  the first one in September. After that something always came up that prevented attendance and then they went to zoom meetings for the winter. I dislike zoom meetings. However, this was their quilt show year, so in spite of not going to a lot of meetings, I was still able to enter a couple of quilts. Noah’s Journey was one of them. I was able to get a really good full shot picture of it hanging. 
Not quite bang on square in front of it, but pretty close.

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

Slow Sunday Stitching

Spring has finally arrived in our neck of the woods so there has been lots of time spent outdoors in the last few days. Unfortunately, it is May in Muskoka, which means black fly season and they are out in force. So far the non-deet bug spray we are using is keeping them from biting. But it doesn’t stop them from swarming around our heads. It might be time to get out the bug jackets.

Since I have my hand quilting project finished I’ve brought my cross stitching back out. The quilt section is almost finished. Then it is on to the border bands under the quilt section. This is going to keep me occupied for the next month or two. And after this is done, I may either go on to hand piecing some quilt squares or pull out another cross stitch sampler. I’ll decide much later.

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

 

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’ve made good progress this past week on my very bright sock. I’m down to the toe decreases. The progress on the Quilting Bee cross stitch sampler is a bit slower. There are a lot of white work squares which require concentration and focus so they go slowly. I think I got 4 of them done this week. I just might focus on getting all of the white work squares done and then go back and finish the rest of the coloured squares.

We have family visiting this weekend, so I’m going to make this a short one and link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching

 When doing Slow Stitching it is always so exciting to have a finish. And I have one. Noah’s Journey is done..... or at least the assembling of the top is done. This is a design by Crabapple Hill Studios It still needs to be layered and quilted. But all the embroidery and all the piecing of it is done!! According to this blog I started this project in September of 2020, 3 years and 5 months ago. For such an intensely coloured and stitched and pieced project, that’s not bad, especially since it sat in it’s box for almost a year, untouched. It was so much fun to do!! A photo....  you want a photo? Here you go... It can be clicked on for a biggie sized look.

So since that is done and the layering and quilting of it have yet to begin, I’m back to my cross stitch and knitting. I’ve finished 9 of the 25 “quilt blocks” in the sampler. These take quite a bit of time each as they all have intense stitching and designs in them. And then my knitting with the new yarn, The socks are turning out more rainbow than striped and I’m not sure how I feel about that. But I’ll keep going on them. I much prefer the fun stripes I get out of sock yarn than this melding of colours.

I’m linking to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I left off last week with a goal for my slow stitching projects. I was going to finish an element in my cross-stitching before I charged projects so that I wouldn’t forget how to do it. I met that goal yesterday. All the quilt blocks are now outlined and the basket bases that were a challenge to do are finished. That meant I could pick up my Noah’s Journey block - bears and ducks. These are fairly quick to do. I did most of the outline stitching on the bear in the back last evening. I think I’ll keep going until this block is done. It shouldn’t take long. After the bears are finished I’m going to look at the assembly instructions for this quilt and start working on putting it together and doing the blocks that are left as they come up in the assembly, if that makes sense. In between these blocks I will go back and add elements into my cross stitch quilt. This should enable me to keep both projects moving forward.

I’m linking to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching

 It’s the first Sunday of the new year.... how did that happen so fast? Do you make new year resolutions? I don’t because I know I am terrible at keeping them. I like the word goals better since it is a more nebulous something to aim at rather than a resolution to keep. With that in mind, I have some goals I’d like to aim for. I want to keep up with my slow stitching, of course. But I seem to have gotten stuck on cross stitch, which isn’t a bad thing, but some of my other embroidery projects have gotten left behind. So I would like to get back to it, especially the Noah’s Journey embroidery. I have all the remaining blocks traced out and coloured in. They just need to be stitched. I’m not sure How I’m going to organize that goal, but I do want to get back to it. Maybe the first half of a month on one project and the last half on another. Or maybe every other week. Or maybe set the goal of finishing a section and then moving to something else. 

I have been making really good progress on my cross stitch Quilters Bee piece which I picked up again after Christmas. We had 6 days of on again, off again power loss due to the 4 feet of snow we received over the Christmas weekend. So I had lots of time during the day light hours to stitch. Most of the quilt blocks in the large quilt area now have their outlines done. And I’ve started the baskets in the corner blocks. They’re tricky and involved multiple rip outs before I got them right. I think I should finish the outlines of these blocks and do the other 2 baskets while I still remember how to do them. There... that’s my first goal set. Then I’ll move to the Noah’s Journey block. 

I started a new knitting project. I needed something simple to do during the dark evenings during the power outage with only a small lantern flashlight for light. I’m using up leftovers from socks for this scarf. It’s knit in the round so I only have to tie off the ends of yarn in the middle without having to neatly weave them in since they won’t show. I’ve also started a new pair of socks, but there isn’t enough done on them to take a picture. 

The other goal I would like to aim for is to post on the blog more often about other things I am doing. I am getting more quilting done these days, but for some reason don’t seem to get around to posting about it. And since this blog is titled Eagles Wings Quilts and all I seem to post about lately is knitting or cross stitching, I would like to fix that. There seems to be more incentive to post if there is a linky party to hook up to. So I’m going to investigate that and see if I can find one, mid week perhaps, and see if that will help with consistency. 

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

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’m continuing to make good progress on my Quilting Bee cross stitch sampler. The flowers on three sides are done now. After I finish the last side I have to go back and put beads into the centre of each flower and then I can move on to the next border in this cross stitched quilt. Have I already mentioned how much I’m enjoying this piece? Of course I have..... sorry for the repetition. I suspect progress on this will be slowing for the next while. There are Christmas gifts to finish and at some point I will need to do a little baking, For sure there will be some ginger bread men done with our delightful grand daughter’s help. I’d also like to do some mincemeat tarts and maybe some shortbread. I’ll have to canvas the family opinion to see what everyone would like. 

I’m linking to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching

 When I left all of you last week I was getting ready to start on the stitching  for the large quilt on my Quilting Bee cross stitch sampler. I’m quite surprised at the progress I’ve made. One of the things I love about the Victoria Sampler designs is their wonderful detailed instructions. For this section they say to work from the outside of the quilt to the middle. So I started that. All of the outer blanket stitches are done and also the stems of the vines are finished. I have to add in some lazy daisy leaves and some flowers to that particular border and then move in to the next. All of the quilt blocks in the centre are little mini samplers all on their own. I love doing this type of embroidery. Most of the designs from Victoria Samplers that I’ve purchased in the past have also come with what they used to call Acc Packs, where they provided all  the threads and beads necessary to complete the designs. Unfortunately they no longer do this, so I’m coming up with my own colours. I have lots of threads left over from previous projects, so I’m using some of those for this. I need to dig in my bin and find some silk for the leaves. I started out using DMC floss, but I think I like the silks better. They stitch up so much smoother with much less drag and tangling when doing the stitching.

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

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’ve gotten the top section of my Quilters’ Bee Sampler completely finished. All the beads are added and the threads and needles in the quilters’ hand are done. I can now move my hoop and start in on the large quilt section under them. To give a reminder, the sampler I am doing is available at Victoria Samplers here.They have scaled back their services and no longer offer printed patterns, but all their designs are still available through PDF purchases.

I’ve made progress on my grey/blue sock too. I’m at the point of starting the heel for the second sock.

Most of the snow that was forecast to hit us over the last few days missed us, thankfully. I suspect there is about 4 inches of it out there. or at the most 6 inches. Enough to make it look pretty and clean without causing too much of a problem. Also thankfully, we have a son-in-law with a snow blower to do out the drive way which is long and on a slope, not a safe thing for old bones to be doing.

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

Slow Sunday Stitching.

 My Quilting Bee cross stitch was in time out for a couple of weeks. I’d gotten to the 1 thread of floss over 1 thread of fabric section for the lettering and I was finding it difficult to see and I didn’t have enough patience for it. So it got put away, That seems to have passed and I’ve picked it back up again and made good progress on it. Not only is the lettering done, but so are the quilt blocks and I’ve started on the floral border of the quilt. I still have to do the threads in the quilters’ hands and some beads around the floral arbour which will finish this section. 

In the meantime I continue with knitting mindless hand occupying socks. I have more than enough bright eye catching pairs of socks, so I’ve gone over to more muted shades of grey this time. It seemed to suit my mood somehow.Once these are done I’ll likely go diving into my box of stash yarns and find some more bright ones.

I’m linking to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’ve started a new cross stitch project. I’m enjoying it so much that I can’t seem to stop working on it so I’ve made really good progress on it. It is the Quilting Bee Sampler. How perfect is this...... quilting and cross stitch together. I love it! Wouldn’t that be a fun location for a quilting bee, outdoors under a flowering arbour. 

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