Stay at Home Round Robin, prompt 4

 The fourth prompt for this year’s round robin came out last Wednesday, to add curves of some sort to our quilts. They could be in any form we chose, curved piecing, applique, vines, circles, anything that we chose. As usual, I had great and grand ideas of what I wanted to do, but none of them quite worked. I played around with adding Dresden Fans, colourful wheels, drunkard path blocks and they all just sat there saying “meh”, totally underwhelming in the way they looked. But then inspiration hit, facilitated through a video call with my friend Gail, who had a split Drunkard’s Path block up on her design wall in the background of our video call.  Back to Electric Quilt 8 I went and drew up a version of that split block. I really liked it. But then I had to figure out how to do it. I only have one set of templates for a Drunkard’s Path block, and it finishes to 7 inches, much too big. I settled on cutting background squares at 10 inches and circles the size of a sandwich plate which were then appliquéd down using a zig zag stitch on my sewing machine. I then cut them into eight sections and sewed them together, resulting in a 4 inch finished block. A perfect fit for the rest of the quilt.. The original thought was to have These blocks going all the way across. But I quickly changes my mind when I realized that I’d have to make more of them and then have leftovers. So I pulled the previously used quarter square triangle idea out into this border to finish it off. I really like it. The quilt now measures 44x52 inches. I’m looking forward to this Wednesday and the next prompt. I’ll link up to this week’s party here.

 

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’m continuing to make great progress on the Ferret from The Year in the Woods. I’m thinking maybe this week will finish it. I hope so because my supplies for the next set arrived on Friday and I’m itching to get started on it. But I am trying very hard not to leave another cross stitch project as a UFO. I have 3 or 4 of those and don’t want to add any more to that list. I really need to dig out my framing tools and get the first set of these into their frame. It is here, along with the foam core board. All I need to do is find my 3/8 inch pins that I use along the edge of the foam core before lacing it. It’s been sitting waiting in my cupboard since about this time last year. I will be watching the pairs figure skating later this afternoon, so I will put more stitches into this in between the skating. I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

What We Are Working On

 We’ve had a couple of really busy weeks at our Prayers and Squares group. I didn’t do a post about it last week though because there wasn’t anything to show that was new. We spent almost the entire afternoon making backs and layering 5 quilts and making the back for a 6th that didn’t get layered due to running out of time. Yesterday, however was much better for doing stuff that needed pictures. Also, I’ve been busy here at home. Janet finished this beautiful top. She picked all the fabrics based on the colours found in the beautiful large scale floral. I’m sure someone will be very glad to receive this one. Tammy is continuing to work on the garden themed sampler. She is doing such a great job for a “beginning” quilter. Here at home I finished the Boston commons quilt I started about 6 weeks ago. It is  one that was layered last week and is now back here waiting its turn to be quilted. And then, after that one was finished I started a very fast one using 2 1/2 inch sets of four that were done leader/ender style and adding solid colours to them. Susan put the binding on it and it is already going to someone in need of comfort and prayer.

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

Stay at Home Round Robin Prompt 3

 This week’s prompt asks us to use a block or blocks inspired by the animal kingdom. It could be applique or pieced. 

• A block or unit named after an animal: Bear Paw, Monkey Wrench, Snail's Trail, Birds in the Air, Shoo Fly, Puss in the Corner...there are so many!  Looking for something simple?  There's always that classic quilt unit, Flying Geese.
• Applique of an animal
• Pieced block that looks like an animal
• Fabric that contains animals

There are so many blocks named after animals that it is hard to choose. So, I went searching through my EQ8 libraries for some ideas. I finally narrowed it down to a choice between two, the choices being determined by the size. I didn’t want a large block or blocks, since I don’t want this quilt to end up larger than a lap quilt. I was wavering between a design called Migrating Geese which I planned on putting at the bottom and top to turn the quilt into a rectangle, or a block that I found in EQ called flying goose. I finally decided on the flying goose, using a 4 inch finished block. It looks like a variant of the Birds in the Air. My quilt is now 44 inches square. I was able to bring the black fabric from the centre of the quilt out into the edges and used a large scale blue and orange floral The orange in the middle now feels like it fits with the rest of it. I’ll link up to this weeks party here

Slow Sunday Stitching

 Progress continues on the Ferret for The Year in the Woods. I’ve almost finished the bottom half of the chart. He looks rather odd without his head.I’m planning on watching/listening to some of the olympics this evening while I stitch and give the poor critter his head. I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I met my goal of finishing the Raccoon for the Year in the Woods last week. I actually finished it last Sunday evening. And then I immediately started on the next animal which is the Ferret. Here’s a picture of the three of them side by side. And of course, I also ordered the supplies I need for the next set of 3. They are coming from 123 Stitch in the States, so it will likely be another week or 2 before they get here. I ordinarily like to order from Canadian suppliers, but the price of $4.95 shipping was impossible to pass up. Plus their selection of different counts and different colours of linen can’t be matched.

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

What We Are Working On

 We had such a good day at Prayers and Squares yesterday and managed to get quite a lot done. The biggest accomplishment was that Marg finished putting together the sampler we started a few months ago. We were all given a piece of focus fabric and then were asked to pick a quilt block from the Quilters Cache website that began with the first letter of our first name. There were no requirements for the size of the block. It required a lot of thought and improvisation to come up with a layout to get all those blocks together. I think it was a lot of fun. I’m not sure Marg, who did the majority of the work getting it together, would agree. It is currently in 3 sections. Those sections will be quilted and then put together quilt as you go style. And because we had so much fun making blocks for that one, we decided to do it again, only this time we all are making 12 inch blocks using a different focus fabric. Tammy is back to working on the garden themed sampler after using our last meeting to do her sampler blocks. And I’ve been working on a Boston Commons design on Thursdays for the past month or so. It is very close to a finish, so I brought it home to see if I can get it to the finish line this week.

Here at home, because the weather has been so awful, snow and brutal cold, I’ve been spending my time sewing. I finished another quilt using large red half square triangles. And then, because there were lots of 2 1/2 inch strips hanging around here, I started sewing them up and then cutting them into 6 1/2 inch triangles. I had the top done in the space of 4 days. That may be a record.

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