Slow Sunday Stitching

 I’ve finished my most recent pair of socks and have now decided to switch gears a bit in my knitting projects. I think I have enough socks to keep me going... someday I should count them..... then again, maybe not, I probably don’t want to know. So I made a trip 5 minutes down the road to my local yarn shop, Knitting Three Together. and picked up some cotton yarn for making wash cloths. They are quick and mostly easily done with not a lot of concentration. I’ve done 2 already just over the course of 4 evenings.I’ll do a combination of knitted and crochet. Knitted for when I have full ball of yarn and then crochet for the partial balls. 

I’m continuing to work on my Harbour Village cross stitch sampler. The hillside beach scene is starting to fill in now. The easy large amounts of the same colour sections are done. Now it is time to do the details with lots of colour changes which always takes longer but is so worth it in the end. 

I’m linking to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Prayers and Squares group

 A small group of ladies meet most Thursday afternoons to make quilts for the Prayers and Squares organization. More information about that organization can be found here. About a month ago I took my Accuquilt Go cutter along with its 2 1/2 inch strip die and cut up a whole pile of fabric into 2 1/2inch strips. Those were further cut down into 4 1/2 inch bricks. We’ve been working on sewing these bricks into quilts. We have 2 going at the moment. One with the bricks offset into rows and a second using 4 bricks paired with a dark blue rectangle. It’s quite amazing what a small group of people sewing together can get accomplished. There are many more fabric bricks yet to be sewn together. I will update these quilts as we get more of them finished.

Is my quilting mojo back?

 Back in the winter I was doing really well with getting quilting projects done and out of their bags or boxes. But then it dried up. I think it had something to do with the nice weather and gardening season coming. It was too nice to stay inside and sew. But this morning as I was reading through blogs I came upon Kathy’s post about a BOM she is doing. I love the concept of a block within a churn dash block. So I went and checked out the website producing this free BOM  A Quilting Life. I am hooked. I have two container full of blue fabrics.... one in darks and another medium to lights. It’s the most of any one colour I have so I thought I’d do this BOM in blues with the odd hint of yellow and green here and there. I’m coming in halfway though the year, so I will do the current block and a previously posted block at the same time. Here are January and July. This is going to be fun. It will end up a lap sized quilt which can be donated.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 It’s been a couple of weeks since I posted, so I have some progress to show. I’m still working on the Harbour Village cross stitch. The harbour front picnic scene is starting to take shape. I’ve recently discovered a way to import the cross stitch chart into my iPad. I can keep it open beside me and zoom into the sections I’m working on which makes it much easier to see what I’m doing. Before this I had been using the chart on my computer and zooming in that way. But that was limited to times I wasn’t using my computer for other things, like watching movies while stitching. There’s an added bonus that I can take the iPad outside so I can now sit out on the porch and stitch.

My sweater is on a time out while I wait for an opportunity to wind up the last 2 skeins of yarn I need for it. Plus it’s a bit too warm these days to be working on a lap full of wool and mohair. In the meantime, I’ve started another pair of socks. 

And lastly, I’ve purchased the last 4 instalments of the Noah’s Journey embroidery quilt from Crabapple Hill Studios, found here. I’ve got the stitcheries traced and a few of them coloured and I’ve started stitching on one of them, brown bears and ducks. This is going to take a while to finish, but that’s the fun part of slow stitching, seeing the gradual progress towards finishing and enjoying the process on the way.

I’m linking to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching before going out to the porch with my cross stitching and iPad to enjoy the day.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I am making quite satisfying progress on my Harbour Village cross stitch sampler. I’ve finished 2 more rows and have started on the large village scene near to the bottom of the sampler. The first row I finished was a dark blue wave feature underneath the light houses. The next was a pulled thread with hem stitching done in white at the top of the pulled threads to give the design. The village scene is likely to take quite a while to finish. But I’m enjoying it so that’s ok.

When my eyes give out after stitching over small threads, I take up my knitting. The sweater looks mostly the same, but longer. It’s measuring 13 inches from the underarm now. According to the pattern it needs to be 14 inches before the bottom ribbing. Then it will be onto the sleeves. I love the way the colours are pooling. I was a bit concerned about the orange being over powering when I was winding the skeins into balls, but it isn’t overpowering at all.

I’m linking to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I seem to have gotten my cross stitching mojo back. If you were reading last week you’ll remember that I was talking about having a possible solution to the dreaded thread tangling issue and that, if it worked, I’d report back. Well it worked. Two or three years ago, when I was just getting back into embroidery, I made a portfolio folder type thing from a pattern from Crabapple Hill. It is pretty and I have used it a little bit, but never really put it to efficient use. Fast forward to last week. Here’s the outside of the folder. It folds into three parts. Here’s the inside with my solution to the tangling threads. I’ve pinned the thread drop to the top section of the folder and then tucked the threads into the pocket at the bottom. It will also hold the printed paper pattern of the section I am working on. With the threads all sorted and de-tangled I was able to get the finicky light houses done. I’m ready to move on to the next section of the sampler.

I’ve also been making good progress on my Grenadine sweater. The fade sections are done and I’m down to just using the blue/orange yarn. I’m happy with the ways the colours gradually got more intense. I also like the way the orange stripes look to be pooling and wrapping around. I’ll continue with this colour all the way to the bottom.

It’s a lovely sunny day out on this Father’s Day Sunday, but a bit too cool for sitting outside. Although it might be ok in a patch of sun. Whether I choose indoors or outdoors it will be spent enjoying the sounds of the birds and the wind in the trees with a needle and thread in hand. I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching.

 It’s been raining a lot this week so I’ve had some more slow stitching time. That means I’ve made some good progress on this new Grenadine sweater. The yoke is finished and I’ve split off the sleeves. From here on until I get to the bottom it is straight knitting. I’ve started to add in the blue/orange yarn. Right now I’m doing two rounds of blue and then one round of blue/orange. I’ll continue this for another inch or two and then go down to alternating one round each and then go onto just the blue/orange towards the bottom of the sweater.

I’ve also pulled out my Harbour Village cross stitch. It’s been on time out because the lighthouses in the section I’m working on are fiddly and have lots of colour changes. I think I have figured out a way to handle keeping track of the threads for the colour changes. Right now all the threads for this piece are on thread drops that are on two rings. They keep getting tangled up and it is driving me crazy. I don’t mind the thread drops as opposed to thread bobbins, but the tangling is an issue for me. For reference sake                                     this is a thread bobbin                                                               and this is a thread drop.                                                         Here are some on the ring. You can see how tangled they are at the bottom. Going forward I am going to take the thread colours I need for each section and keep then separate from the rest that are on the rings. Hopefully that will restore my stitching mojo on this and future cross stitch projects. I really do want to get back to them. This is what the finished piece looks like. I’m halfway there. It still reminds me of the lakes and hills here in Muskoka.

I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching before I start sorting the threads for this lighthouse section.