Slow Sunday Stitching

 In my slow stitching this week I was able to complete a couple of things. All the stitching for our grand-daughter’s stocking is finished. I still need to sew it all together, but that can all be accomplished on the sewing machine. The other thing I finished is the Jack Rabbit for The Year in the Woods stitchery. I’ve gridded out the next section and gotten a small start which will be the Raccoon.

We received almost a foot of snow over night and it is still coming down, so we decided to stay home from church. That gave a good opportunity to cut, bake and decorate some gingerbread cookies, the inspiration for the stocking. Every year since our grand-daughter was about 3 we’ve done gingerbread cookies. It’s a favourite thing to do every year. She’ll be 10 in January. I’m hoping the stocking will stay with her and remind her always of the fun making and decorating cookies with Grammy. There are more cookies yet to decorate, so we might end up doing that after school for the next day or two.

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

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’ve been very lazy in my slow stitching for the past week. Nothing was appealing to me. I didn’t want to sew on little pieces, and I didn’t want to knit, or do much of anything. However, last evening as I was sitting here, I saw my much neglected cross stitching sitting beside my chair, so I picked it up and I did a bunch on it last evening and again today. It’s my Year in the Woods project. I think it has been months since I did anything on it. According to the last post about it on this blog, it’s been since last January. Looking back, that makes sense. Hand quilting and then hand piecing on different quilts took over. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep this up, but I seem to have forgotten how much I like cross stitching, so it might take over some of the other projects, for a while at least. I’d also forgotten how much I like these designs, so it’s a good thing to get back to it. It’s like saying hello to an old friend.

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

Slow Sunday Stitching

 Last winter, or maybe it was the spring, anyway sometime last year I decided it was beyond time to get the quilt called My Tweets finished. Because I no longer have my long arm quilting machine and because I can’t afford to pay someone to custom quilt it, I decided to hand quilt it. I started it back last year sometime and then stalled out. Actually, I just looked back at a picture taken of the beginning of the quilting and it is dated March 13, 2024, so that answers that particular question. There’s no way I would have worked on it during the spring and summer. I have picked it back up in the last couple of weeks and am making good progress on it. I would love to have it finished before the warm weather and outdoor activities return. The centre of the quilt is finished and I’ve moved on to the first of the 12 blocks around the outside. I had originally thought that I would continue the straight line background quilting into the outer squares. But the more I look at it and the more I work on it, I realize that they don’t need it. The appliqué on those squares is so dense that the straight lines would get lost. I’m outlining the appliqués and that will be it. I can only work on this for a limited time each evening and then the finger on the back side of the quilt starts to get sore from feeling the needle come through, so then I pick up my cross stitch. The Jackrabbit from A Year In The Woods is slowly growing. I had hoped to continue with my one critter a month finishing on this, but the hand quilting has taken over and that’s ok. It has been a true Muskoka winter this year, very cold and a fair amount of snow, although nothing like the 4 feet of snow that was dumped about 45 minutes south of us. It still makes for a good time to be staying indoors where it is warm and cozy and play with fabrics and thread. I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I ended the year 2024’s slow stitching with a finish. All other stitcheries were put on hold while I worked on a new pair of mittens. Somewhere over the course of time since last winter I lost one of the mitts that made up the pair of my old driving mittens, which necessitated the new ones. Hence the rush to get them finished. Here they are, already worn and used a number of times. And since those are finished, I was able to get back to my cross stitching of the Jackrabbit for the series “A Year in the Woods” by Cottage Garden Samplings. He is very cute and also handsome, for a jackrabbit. 

I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then I have to go back to the dreaded task of finishing up some seat cushion covers for one of the school’s class rooms. I was asked to do these several months ago and in a moment of not thinking it through, I said yes. I’ve been putting it off and putting it off and decided that they have to be finished before school is back tomorrow. There were six of them to do. I’ve been working on them since last Monday. I'm about an hour away from finishing the last of them. It has been a week of sewing on nothing but these cushions, at home at least, and I am more than ready to get back to sewing on fun stuff. 

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’ve been absent from the blogging world for a bit. The monitor screen on my computer died and it too a while to get the problem diagnosed and then even longer to get a solution implemented. But it’s all good now and I’m back in blogging mode again. 

Just before the computer problem, I finished my Swans for the winter series of At Home In The Woods. Here are all three side by side. 

I did finally decide to order a frame for it but it hasn’t arrived yet. 

I have since started on the spring series and the first one is a Jackrabbit. He’s very cute. I love the texture in his fur. I think it is that texture in all the animals that drew me to this series. Anyhow, it’s almost time ti leave for church, so I’ll post this and link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching