I added lots of stitches to my cross stitch picture this week.  I just love the colours in this project...so bright and cheerful.  One friend said this pattern looks almost Scandinavian to her and I would have to agree. There is a butterfly to sew next, once the large pink flower and the beet are done.  I bought myself a HuRTy ruler (designed by Latifah Saafir) at QuiltCon and wanted to try it out on a small project before tackling a bigger quilt.  Here are my first few Half Rectangle Triangles on my design wall.  I am not sure what the final layout will be yet. &n ..read more

I have two finished quilts to share with you this week.  They are both Rainbow Scrap Challenge finishes, the first from 2021 and the second one from 2022. This pattern is by Gudrun Erla from her "Quilts of Iceland" book.  I used a turquoise Kona solid for the binding which co-ordinates nicely with the bicycles fabric on the back of the quilt.  I used my drunkard's path rulers and lots of my colourful scraps to make this circles quilt. I quilted in the ditch between each quarter circle block as well as a diagonal cross hatch through the circles.  To finish the quilting ..read more

 Christine and I left early for our quilting retreat with the Oxford Guild this past Friday because there was a winter storm coming and we wanted to get there and be set up before the snow started to fall.  The snow started in the afternoon and kept going all night.  In the morning there was almost a foot of snow (30cm for the metric folks).  We were all snowed in and loving it.  We did not lose power and we had our sewing machines and lots of fabric and projects on hand to work on.  It was a great weekend! First, I tackled my two rainbow scrap challenge projects ..read more

My husband and I drove to Atlanta last week so I could go to QuiltCon.  This was my second time attending this great gathering of modern quilters from around the world.  My friend, Christine and I went to the 2019 conference in Nashville, but unfortunately, she was unable to come this time.  As you know, I like to sew in the car to stay awake on long car trips and this trip was no exception.  I did quite a bit of stitching on my Spring picture. I forgot a couple of floss colours at home so the holes will be filled in soon. The rabbit is almost done and I have started workin ..read more

I spent a little time each day this past week adding stitches to my Spring cross stitch picture. The rabbit is coming along nicely.  Finn is here for his annual visit while my daughter is busy at work and he doesn't mind lying beside me as I stitch.  He is used to doing that while my daughter works on her cross stitch when he is home with her.   My daughter's picture of the city of Ottawa is coming into focus as she adds more colours.  The giant spider is a statue called "Maman" in from the the National Art Gallery.  I am adding a picture of the actual statue &n ..read more

 Almost all of my sewing time this week was devoted to finishing the turquoise and gray wedding quilt.  Several hours were spent at the sewing machine, adding lines of quilting with turquoise thread using my walking foot.  The herringbone part of the quilt was quilted with diagonal lines following the pattern of angles of the turquoise strip piecing.  The backing of this quilt is turquoise flannel--so soft and warm! I did the hand stitching of the binding in the car.  I had some solid turquoise in my stash which was used for the binding.  I just noticed th ..read more

I spent a little time each day this week working on quilting this wedding gift quilt.  It is much bigger than the quilts I usually do using the walking foot on my domestic sewing machine so I decided to keep it simple with horizontal lines on the background fabric.  The scrappy herringbone section is shown below.  It involves a lot more manipulation the quilt I have finished three sections and will work on getting the rest done this week.  Then, on to the binding! I started another knitted cloth this week.  I am using the same pattern as the last one I made but I ..read more

Regular readers of my blog may remember that I took an introductory class in rug hooking last summer.  The hooking has all been done for a while and I finally finished off my project last weekend.  A friend who describes herself as a "hooker" and "addicted to fibre" showed me how to do the outer edge of my sheep project.  I hope to hang this little rug on the wall in my sewing room.  I would be quite willing to try another rug hooking project.  For the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, this week I used up some tiny scraps to make these four 6.5" square slabs.  I am not ..read more

I spent some quality time with my sewing machine this week.  The Elgin Piecemakers Guild makes comfort quilts for adult chemo patients at our local hospital so each month, we each have to make a block in a certain colour scheme.  I have my first four blocks for 2023 made.  Here they are: January:  Blue and white. February: Red, white and blue March:  Purple, pink and white April: Blue and purple churn dash.  I worked on the last three houses for my Coming Home Quilt.  I did not have any light turquoise thread with me at the sewing day this week so I wi ..read more

 I have been missing in action the last couple of Sundays for my weekly blogpost.  Our Christmas took some unexpected turns this year ---as the saying goes, life happens when you are making other plans.  Our daughter's dog, Finn, had surgery on Dec 19th to remove a broken tooth. After the surgery, he went into kidney failure and was in the animal hospital for 10 days in intensive care to receive treatments to improve his kidney function.  Thankfully, his kidneys are now working normally again and he is home and feeling much better.  The vets at the hospital called his ..read more