Slow Sunday Stitching.

 I started a new slow stitching project today. I have long wanted to make one of the fun Bucilla stocking for our grand daughter, but didn’t really have an idea about which one. Shortly after this past Christmas the idea came to me that we have always done gingerbread baking before each Christmas. She always looks forward to it and so do I. So I thought to look for a ginger bread themed stocking. And I found one and ordered it. What didn’t occur to me was how tricky it would be to actually work on it while living in the same house. She tends to pop in and out of our living area without much warning. How was I going to do it and keep it a secret. Well, this week she is away at over night camp. So I have a full week knowing she won’t be here to see it. I’m going to see just how much of it I can get done in a week. This is the stocking picture. This is where I am. There is a long way to go. I am on piece #4 out of  somewhere around 80 pieces. What I don’t get done this week will get put away until September when we go out to the trailer for a week. After that it will have to be during school days. 

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

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