What we’re working on

We did so well over the past month or so and had 7 or 8 quilts finished and stored in the cupboard. There is something satisfying and de-pressurising about having a few quilts ahead.  Almost like we can breathe for a bit and relax a bit. Well, that’s done as 6 of them went out this week. So we are back to building up an inventory yet again. They all go to needy people and it is fun and rewarding to make them, so all is good. This puts us up to 21 quilts going out so far this year. That’s almost one a week.

 Janet has been working on a quilt pattern called Iris for the last few weeks. She finished the top yesterday and we got it trimmed. I normally do not like quilts that do piecing on the diagonal that then need large pieces cut off. The waste really bothers me. But this quilt is so striking that it was worth it. And we decided to put the cut offs into the backing so they aren’t completely wasted.

Barbara has been working on this next quilt for quite a while. It was inspired by the landscape style fat quarter in the middle and she’s been adding borders to it. The quilting is now finished and it just needs binding. There are a few other projects in various stages, but I didn’t manage to get pictures of them. 

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

Slow Sunday Stitching

When I left off last week I was trying to figure out the fabric placement for the blues row I was working on. There were 2 light fabrics together that just looked yuck together.  All it took was swapping out one of the blah light fabrics for dark one to give contrast. When in doubt, always go for contrast, says self to self. And that finished off the blue row. I’ve gotten a small start on the next row, which is greens, paired with light pinks, along with some tans and creams. Hopefully by this time next week there will be progress on the greens. I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

What We’re Working on

 We had a bunch of finishes this past week. Quilting done and bindings added on by Marg. She has turned into the binding queen. Marcia did one of the bindings as well. There is a spinning Rail Fence, a very bright triangles and a Bonnie Hunter designed Hopscotch Butterscotch. As well as those three finishes, I’ve gotten the fox panel to a finished top and it has also been layered. I’m hoping to get it quilted this week. I usually spend Fridays doing the machine quilting on our Prayers and Squares tops, but today was instead spent immersed in strawberries. I did up 11 jars of freezer jam and have the dehydrator going with strawberries as well. Tomorrow will be partly spent doing a strawberry rhubarb pie, after which there may be time for some quilting.

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

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’m making good progress on my Good Times, Bad Times by Willyne Hammerstein in her very first book. The blue/creams row is almost done. I dug around in the fabric stash at the church this afternoon to find a couple of good sized light blues to make a couple of large triangles. I’m loosely following the layout in the book, which calls for a couple of full sized triangles towards the end of this row. Although, looking at them now in the picture I’m not sure I like it. They are too washed out compared to the rest of the blues. Oh well, I’m sure something will strike me as working better. I guess I need to dig through the medium blues instead. Stay tuned to next week to see what ends up working. I’m sure this row will be done by then. 

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

What we’re working on

We got so much done yesterday! Such amazing work from such a great group of ladies. We have had some fabulous fabric donated to us over the past year. In one of the boxes was a pre-cut kit for a block of the month style quilt. There were 12 kits, one for each month’s block, each with the fabrics already cut, along with the instructions. And then there was another finishing kit with all the border fabrics and sashings also already cut. The original design for the kit would have ended up with a bed sized quilt. So we’ve modified it and will use only the blocks and one border fabric to keep it at the lap size we use. I've never seen a kit like that before. There is at least one more similar in the cupboard. Marcia did a great job of sewing them all together.

Marg put the binding onto this quilt. And then she went to work on putting borders onto this fun Christmas quilt that was in one of the donated Christmas fabric boxes. 

Elizabeth worked on these fun scrappy heart blocks.

Janet did the quilting on this one. And then she got back to work on another scrappy quilt. All the coloured pieces were cut from the overflowing 2 1/2 inch strip bins.

And I worked on another animal panel, with the hopes of getting it done in time for a couple of fund raising events over the July long weekend. 

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

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’ve worked some more this week on my "Good Times, Bad Times” quilt, from Willyne Hammerstein’s first Millefiori Quilts book. The intent when I started this about 6 years ago was to do each row in a single colour theme, accented with its compliment colour. So the first row was red, along with light green. The second row was orange, along with light blue. The third row yellow, along with light purple. I’ve decided the next row will be blue and its compliment should be in the light orange and peach type colours. It turns out that I don’t have a lot of those, so I’ll be pairing the blues with beiges instead along with a smattering of light yellow. I have lots of blue, so that should be an easy row. There is a rough layout guideline in the book that I’m loosely following. According to the book layout, I need five of these units that have the small triangles in the middle. I may end up doing more of them since I have more of the small triangles cut. Or, I may leave it since I will be repeating the colours rows as the quilt gets bigger. I’ll decide later. I’ll continue on making these units and then get an idea of layout once there are more done. I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

What we are working on

 We didn’t get a lot of sewing done yesterday, other than making backs for quilts. But, we did get 6 quilts layered and ready for quilting. Three of them came home with me. I don’t think I’ll get all three done before next week, but there is one that needs to be mostly done by Sunday, so that will be my focus for the next couple of days. And somewhere in the next day or two I need to process a whole lot of rhubarb, probably into canned pie filling. There are a few things I can show, though. Marg finished the animal panel  with the Friendship Stars. And here at home I finished up another UFO to add to our quilt pile. That makes 12 out of 16 on my list finished. Woohoo!!  It got a fun back since I really wanted to use up all the leftover triangles in order to prevent tham becoming yet another UFO. We’ve also started making some placemats that we are hoping might work for some fund raising. We found a really cute animal panel to cut up and turn into placemats. And then there are some strip pieced mats as well. We’ve cut these out from four or five different sets of fabrics and made up kits with them to work on over time. I’ll link up to Finished, or not, Friday

Slow Sunday Stitching

I’m almost out of 2 inch squares for Connections. A couple of friends are coming up to our area at the end of June, so I’ve put it into quilty time out until then. In the meantime I pulled out a project I started back in 2019, according to this blog. It originally was intended to be a rainbow colour challenge project, but it ended up in the started, never to be seen again, bin, up until this past week. I’m trying to decide what to do with it. I have quite a few yellow/gold/purple bits done, but I’m not sure I like the look. But I’m also not sure what else to do with it, which is how it ended up  in a bin. Although, looking at the photo, it is kinda growing on me. I think I’ll keep going.

I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then maybe see where this will take me.

What We’re Working on

 I only have 2 pictures to show today. We worked on other things yesterday, but I didn’t manage to get my nose in to what they were working on to get pictures. Next week we have a bunch to layer, so I should be able to get pictures then. In the meantime,  I have pictures of the UFO’s I’ve been working on. Hopscotch Butterscotch is a finished top. And then I dug through the Prayers and Squares cupboard and unearthed an older one I started there a couple of years ago. For some reason, I wasn’t happy then with how the squares were playing together, so I put it into quilty time out. Sometimes all it takes is looking at something with fresh eyes and a little playing in Electric Quilt computer program. Here is where it sits at the moment, with the red decided on for borders.                                                                             Here is what I am aiming for. There will be leftover triangles, which I have decided will get pieced into the backing, preventing the formation of yet another UFO. When this one is done it will mean 12 out of 16 on my UFO list finished, or at least to the finished top stage. I think there is one more that I can get done and then reward myself with a new start, or 2.

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

An old UFO done

 Way back in 2012 I joined in on 2 different challenges. I love doing challenges. One was New York Beauty blocks and the other was a colour challenge. I combined the 2 and did the New York Beauty blocks in the colours for the challenge of the month. I got lots of the New York Beauty blocks done, and then for some unknown reason, it sat and aged. Fast forward to 2020 when I decided it was time to finish it. The piecing was done and the long arming was done and then, once more it sat in quilt limbo. I think moving and getting settled and renovations and more renovations may have had something to do with it. Plus it is a small square quilt, maybe 54 x 54 and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. So, lets do another fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when one of the ladies from the Prayers and Squares group posted a gorgeous picture of a New York Beauty quilt and she asked if I was up to doing something like it. I replied that I already had done one, which inspired me to go searching through the piles of quilts to find it and pick out a binding and get it finished. So here we are today, 13 1/2 years after it was started, finally finished. I think it is going to get used as a table topper of our kitchen table. Here’s a close up of the binding, my signature striped binding,  and four of the blocks . I started this year with a list of 16 UFOs. This finish means I have knocked 11 off that list.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 As has been the case for the past several months now, I’m continuing to work on my Connections quilt. I have units made for the next row. I need to sew them together and then add them to the main body. Here’s a close up of one of them. I haven’t a whole lot else to say, so I’ll go ahead and link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

What We’re Working On

 We were very busy quilters yesterday and got lots done to the point where photo taking was possible and necessary. Pat has been working on this fun quilt in an attempt to decrease the amount of 3 1/2 inch strips in the bin. Somehow it didn’t even seem to make a dent, isn’t that always the way. It still needs a good pressing. Marg finished binding a bunch of quilts, most of which have already had their time in the spotlight, so she grabbed a kit for another wildlife quilt. These are so popular. It will get five more friendship stars around the opposite corner and then long borders to fill the space. Yes, we noticed that one of the blocks has an oops in it. I’ve been working on this Moonlight Stroll quilt on Thursdays for about a month now. It needs its finish borders and then will be ready for quilting. We are thinking this one is going to be added to our fund raising pile. And then lastly, there is a Bonnie Hunter quilt that has been in progress here at home as a leader/ender for a long time. It is finally time to the move it up to finish it stage. I think it is called Hopscotch Butterscotch. It has final border of piano keys still to go on. I’m hoping to have it done by next Thursday so we can get it layered. I’ll link up to Finish, or not, Friday

Slow Sunday Stitching

 It is a glorious spring day out there. Warm and sunny and so far no bugs biting. I suspect that will change before this time next week and I’ll be bleeping the nasty critters known as black flies. But for today, I will enjoy it. I took my 2 pieces of Connections outside to get a photo and yahoo, I’m officially 3/4 of the way to being finished. This is what I will be doing for the rest of the day, sitting outside and stitching. I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

What we are working on

 We had another productive day at Prayers and Squares yesterday. We did some talking and planning around our fund raising for the summer and I think we now have a workable plan. There is one quilt for sure that we are going to be taking donations on and will offer tickets in return for the donations. It is the Aurora Ridge quilt , designed by McKenna Ryan, that I finished earlier this spring. It is currently hanging at the church and can travel to the events that we have planned to enter. We finished bindings on a number of quilts yesterday, and we figures out a pricing formula and we hope to sell some of these in the coming months. We think the animal ones will go quickly, or at least that’s our hope. The moose quilt got its binding, a lovely dark blue to set off the centre. I’ve been working on a Great Granny Square quilt here at home for the past few months. This past week I got it all together, quilt as you go style. It got a binding yesterday. The back is interesting too. There was a panel with the large spiral prints on it that would have been difficult to work into a quilt but made perfect backing for some of the blocks. And then, Janet did the quilting on this scrappy quilt. We have a couple more quilts left in the pile to be bound and also a couple in the to be layered pile. All in all, we are being very productive. I’ll link up to Finished, or not, Friday

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’m slowly stitching away on my Connections quilt. Once again, thank you to all who sent me 2 inch squares. Unbelievably, I have gone through almost all of them! When they first arrived I thought there would be more than enough to finish this, but no. I’m going to go scrounging through my stash here and at the church and cut bits off things to get more. I’m almost halfway through the second half of this quilt. Hopefully when the other half of this half is finished,  it will declare itself done.

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

What we’re working on

 We had 2 quilt top finishes yesterday at Prayers and Squares. Marg finished this one, using the animals from the Moonlight Stroll series. And Janet finished this scrappy one. Here at home I've been working on another Pat Speth sampler. It is well over halfway finished. I am hoping that a couple of hours on it this afternoon will finish it. Then it can go onto the pile waiting to be bound. This will make four in that waiting list. I’ll link up to Finish, or not, Friday and then get into my sewing room to finish this one. 

What we’re working on

 We didn’t have a lot of new things to show in the past couple of weeks. We’ve been working on finishes, getting bindings done and labels and things like that. Also doing layering on five or 6 more quilts. But this week, we started a couple of new projects, both using the Moonlight Stroll small wildlife panels. Marg started a new design to use them in. She got all of this done in one afternoon, but then had to stop because we don’t have anything in our stash that works for sashing. We will have to go shopping. And then I have started another Step Into Moonlight quilt pattern. The first one was given away, so I hope to have this second one as a fund raiser. And then here at home I’m slowly working on getting things finished. I’ve been working on this sampler for quite a while, but it got put into time out in order to finish some other things that had deadlines. However, it will be in time out again for a while. I need to do the quilting on these 2 quilts, also hopefully to be used in fund raising. We go through a lot of fabric and batting in the course of a year. We still have lots of scraps and leftover strips to use for quilt tops. It is the backings that we run out of frequently. We have given out 12 quilts so far this year. If we assume 3 1/2 yards per top and binding and another 3 yards for backings, that adds up to 78 yards of fabric used in just the first 4 months of this year. Rather mind boggling. Anyhow, I’ll link up to Finish, or not, Friday and then get to work on the quilting. I’m hoping to finish one of them this afternoon.