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.