A better picture

I was sitting having my tea and looked over to see my appliqué block.  This one is the Welcome to the North Pole block that I was working on for February.  These are more the true colours then the last time I posted about my Sunday Slow Stitching day.  Daylight definitely makes a huge difference.

I know I still have a week left of February, but I am being realistic in saying that this is as far as it is going to get, for now.  I have high hopes for a lot of things and get carried away with what I think I can get done....lol.

I'm ok with this block not getting done for February.  This one is for me and I'm making it just for fun!

Take care everyone.

Mom's NICU quilts

My mom's been busy making a bunch of NICU quilts.  All but one of the following quilts started off with my sister having her grandkids over for a sleepover.  During this time, one of the activities everyone did was colouring fabric blocks.  The designs for the blocks were traced from a kids colouring book.   

Later, the blocks were given to my mom, who then set the crayon with an iron and added borders.  There's not much else to say about them, so I'll just let you enjoy them.  

Something to keep in your thoughts if you are looking for a fun activities to do with grandkids.  I don't know anyone who doesn't like colouring.  These blocks were all assembled into a NICU quilt, but once I assembled some into pillows for each of the kids who coloured two blocks.  One for the pillow and one for a charity quilt.  The kids treasured their pillow for a long time.

This next NICU quilt was a quilt that my mom did to use up some strings.  These quilts are cute!  You can choose whatever colour crayons you want.  This one was made in colours suitable for a boy.  Quilts for boys is more often needed.

It was not intentional to have crayon coloured blocks along side a quilt made of crayons, but it's cute how that turned out...lol.  

The crayons were made at the last HHQG retreat, as my mom didn't need the lesson of assembling a quilt that was being held for beginners or anyone looking to learn some tricks of the trade.  The coloured blocks were made a couple of years ago and just recently given to my mom to do something with.

Take care everyone.

Caught up on my weekly blocks

As mentioned yesturday, it's been a busy week with little time to do any sewing.  I did finish the last of the required blocks for the week.  All sixteen of the chimney blocks, for the Smith Mountain Morning quilt.  I was behind on these ones.  I usually do four a week, but I got behind.  Some weeks are like that.

I'll leave this post at that, as there is not much to talk about at the moment.  I just wanted to check in with my progress on my required blocks.  I have to get down to the studio to clean up the little messes that I made everywhere and vacuum, as I have the ladies coming to sew today.

Yesturday I quilted a bunch of small NICU quilts for my mom.  I'll keep them all for tomorrow's post.  In the meantime, have a great weekend!!

Take care everyone. 

A simple nine patch quilt

It's been a busy week, even though I've been on holidays all week.  It was a short week with the long weekend of Family day and going downtown for appointments, so I didn't get much done in quilting.  For this post, I decided to pull something out of the earlier pictures.

Sometimes I just like to do a simple quilt that can be done in an afternoon, or at least the top can be done in an afternoon.  I already had all of these red solid squares cut and leftover from a previous quilt, that I decided didn't need to be so big.  The first thing that came to mind was a nine patch block.

With the nine patch blocks, I made a simple single Irish chain quilt centre.  Then I pulled out a fabric that I thought was perfect.  It is pink with red hearts in the design.  For the first border I went with a slightly brighter pink.

Simple but pretty.  I made and finished this one back in March/2024 and it has since been donated to Project Linus.

Take care everyone.

Mending a dearly loved pillow

As most people know, quilters do not generally like mending.  I am no exception!  But when my husband came to me with his deteriorating little pillow that he got from our daughter, what was I to say.  It is deteriorating, but it is really special to him.  I forgot to take a picture of the top, but it has a saying on it that goes like this, Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a DAD.  How could I refuse....I couldn't.

In the picture above, I am trying to show you the piping.  The green canvas fabric is so brittle and now very thin.  The picture below shows you just how bad the disintegration is.  The backing of the pillow is almost non existing.  The stuffing is only holding onto itself, with little strands of green thread....lol.

So, I took one of my husbands jeans that I saved for making jean quilts and cut a leg off.  I made the backing out of his jeans and then pulled a darker, thinner, stretchy jean fabric to make a new binding.  Running this already made pillow through the sewing machine was a choir, especially when I was trying to sew the binding, on both the front and on the back.  In the end I managed!  It may not be the prettiest job I've done, but it is done.

I really dislike mending, but I am glad I did it for hm.  He treasures this pillow and uses it daily for his neck when he reclines in his chair to watch tv.  This pillow is at least 20 yrs old!!  Let's see how much longer it will last now.

Take care everyone.  

My Sunday Slow Stitching

I think I mentioned it in a previous post, about a group of bloggers who will use Sundays, as a day to take time to do some handwork.  I thought it was a great idea.  They do their handcrafts and post about them to a main page with a link to their own blog.  I don't link in, as I've never done it before, but I thought when I can, I'd like to join in by doing some of my own handwork.

Yesturday was Sunday and this is what I've been up to.  I finished this block, which is part of my quilt called Gathering Flowers.  I've written plenty about this quilt in previous posts.  This is the block for February.  You'll have to pardon all the wrinkles from handling it.  I won't bother to iron it until I am ready to trim all the blocks and start assembling the quilt. 

After I completed the above block, I was really motivated to do some more handwork.  So after lunch I started working on this 2024 Temperature quilt.  This is the block for February.  I had about 1/3 of the outer circle appliquéd on, from a previous hand stitching session, and yesturday I was able to finish all of it.  Even the inner circle!! 

By this time it was done though, I had to take a break.  I needed to give my hands a bit of a rest.  So I went down to my studio and tried to catch up on some of my Smith Mountain Morning blocks.  I haven't been sewing for almost two weeks and I was already behind by a week.  Considering that I have it listed as making four blocks per week, I needed to make twelve blocks to catch up.  As today is now Monday, I have another four to do for this week, so that makes me sixteen behind.....

Luckily, I was in the mood to work on them and I had four of them done, before I had to go back upstairs to make dinner.  So today is another day and I am hoping to catch up a bit more on these blocks.  

On Saturday, I was able to cross off two boxes on my list of required blocks.  Yesturday, I was able to cross off two more boxes with the above two blocks done.  Now I have twelve blocks of the Smith Mountain Morning left to do and one last appliqué block from the Welcome to the North Pole wall hanging.

After dinner last night, I thought I would enjoy some quiet time stitching up this next block.  I got the building stitched on and the left roof piece is done.  The second roof piece is almost done, but about one inch left up at the top peek.

As this last picture was taken in the evening, the colours are quite a bit off.  The background is actually a dark denim colour, the edges around the block are a piece of the backing which is a dark but brighter teal, and the building is a bright light blue that stands out more then the snowflakes.  The roof is mainly red and green with highlights of gold, but in the picture looks more gold and red.

I am not sure when I will be able to get back to this appliqué block, but as it is for the month of February, I still have another couple of weeks.  Though I am not going to stress out about it.  This wall hanging is just for fun, and just for me, so there is no deadline.  I'll get to it as the mood strikes.  

Take care everyone.  Happy Family Day!!  Take some time to spend it with your loved ones if you can.

Some more blocks done

Yesturday, before I packed it in for the day, I thought I would see how many blocks I could catch up on, for my list of required blocks per week.  I did the two weeks worth of these Rhododendron Trail blocks.  Yeah!!  I only have six more of these blocks left to do.  Then all the blocks will be done and ready to assemble the quilt.  That's exciting!

I also managed to get the two weeks worth of these snail's trails blocks done too.  Yeah, again!!  I still have to trim the blocks and then de-paper them, but I can do that another time.

That was it.  I was pushing myself by this time and decided not to overdue it.  Overall though, I am happy with what I got done.

Today is another day....  I am hoping to pick something else to work on and do it.  I am four weeks behind on my required Smith Mountain Morning blocks.  Maybe I can do some of them.....we'll see.

Take care everyone.