Slow Sunday Stitching

I need a slow down day today. A day of doing nothing except taking long deep breaths, sitting in my comfy recliner with my feet up while sewing slow relaxing hand stitches.

Yesterday was a whirlwind. It started several hours earlier than my days normally do, since it was our guild’s Quilt Till You Wilt day. I spent part of Friday getting ready, using my Go Cutter to get everything cut and ready to sew. My goal was to do an I Spy quilt for our grand daughter. I’ve had the fabrics for several years, at least. She is starting to talk really well, and learning lots of new words, so this is a perfect time to get one done for her. I shocked everyone, including myself by arriving at the quilt day right on time at 9 am with my essential coffee in hand. With all my fabrics cut and organized and ready to go, I sat and put the pedal to the metal. By lunch time I had most of the blocks finished and was ready to start sewing them into rows. By the time I left at 3:30 all of the rows were sewn together. I still have to piece some partial blocks for the ends of 3 rows, and the the centre of the quilt is finished.  I used partial seams on the rows, leaving myself enough space at each end to add in the missing pieces and the finish sewing the row.
I haven’t decided what to do about borders. I was so focused on getting all this done, I didn’t even think to stop and take pictures. The only reason I have these is because my friend Gail, who blogged about the same day here,  grabbed my phone and took the pictures for me. (Thanks Gail!!)

After leaving the Quilt Till You Wilt time, we came home, picked up our grand daughter, since her parents had won tickets to a concert yesterday evening, and proceeded out to visit with our son Noel, his girlfriend Mel and our grand son Avery who was down visiting for the weekend. We had supper at their place, and then drove down to Port Stanley where there is a house that does itself up hugely for Christmas, or should I say its owners do. The statistics say that it has over 75,000 lights on the property. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I saw. It was fabulous! Here’s a link to the Facebook page about it Port Stanley Christmas Lights. Both Abbie and Avery were mesmerized by it. Avery kept telling everyone that “it has 75,000 lights aka 75 million!!” using the phrase “aka" being a new thing with him. Abbie ran...... everywhere... through the lawns, up the deck with the Christmas tree, down the steps of the deck,  up the paths on the hill at the back of the house and back down, then back up, then..... well you get the idea.... Abbie ran, exploring and examining everything and Grammy followed. Grampy would have followed, except he was hampered by the stroller that we foolishly thought Abbie would quietly sit in. Silly us, we should have known better, knowing Abbie..... although by the end of it she was tired enough to settle into the stroller for the walk back to the car. All in all it was a fabulously happy day, full of good friends and loving family. What could be better.

So, back to Slow Stitching. Today I am continuing to work on Leo’s Mane, no surprise there. I have the first side of the fourth border finished. Here it is laying beside the main body.  And a closer view. I’ve started on the second side of the fourth border and hope to get a good long way into getting it finished today, probably while bingeing on the British archeological TV series Time Team. 
 I’m going to link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday stitching and then get to my own stitching.