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.

You win some, you lose some...

I haven't been sewing for about a week and a half now.  I seem to have lost my sewing mojo....  I have been caught up in work and training, as well has additional stuff with my health, and keeping up with household things, which didn't leave too much time for anything else.  When I did have some time, I chose to read more about things health related.  Currently I am learning about the circadian rhythm.

I don't like that I don't feel much like quilting.  It happens sometimes.  Today, I found out that this time, I am not alone.  I was texting some friends and they are experiencing the lack of desire to sew as well.  One of them mentioned it must be the February blahs...lol.  This weather can definitely have a baring on it.   Constant snow and minimal sunlight.

Today being Saturday, with no plans of things that have to be done, I decided I was going to go down to my studio and see if I can get inspired to do something.  Anything!  Just to see if I could jumpstart my mojo.....lol.  When that didn't initially happen, I decided to write a list of what was laying around unfinished and make a point of doing one thing.

In the end, I made binding for my hexagon quilt.  This is the fabric I decided to go with.

The binding angels must have been watching over for me......lol.  You could say, I was playing binding chicken and I won!!  Just barely....lol!  Now that the binding is machine stitched on the front, I'll get the quilt to my mom, so she can hand stitch the binding down in the back.

I was really glad that I persisted with some sewing,  It felt ok and the boost I had by just making it with the binding, made me want to keep going.  So, then I made another binding.  This one was a bias binding, as I chose to use a stripe.  I always like stripes on a diagonal.  This is what a pile of binding looks like for a king size quilt.  Doesn't look like much, does it?

I proceeded to sew this binding on by machine on the top.  However, unlike the quilt above the binding angels were on a break.....lol.  I was 17" short of binding!  The worst part is that it is a bias binding that I was short on.  I use the make a square method, which requires some calculations.  I even added an additional 6" to my numbers, but obviously it was still not enough...pooey!

Did you know that binding is my least favourite thing, when it comes to making a quilt.  But it is a necessary thing.  So, back to calculating what size block to make to get a bias binding that measures at least 25", and crossing my fingers that I would have enough of this fabric to make it.  It was a close call.  I had a piece that was just wide enough to get the required square.

Some time this week I'll take these two quilts to my mom's place for her to finish the handwork.  I'm not sure if my mojo is back, because I did have to talk myself into sewing.....but, I have this week off for vacations.  In my case a staycation, so maybe if I just do something each day, I can get back into it.  Wish me luck!!

Take care everyone.  Happy Valentine's Day!!

Starting the week out well

I'm starting the week out well with getting the two snail's trail blocks and two of the Rhododendron blocks done as part of my required blocks for the week.  It doesn't seem like much, but the paper piece blocks take quite a while to sew, fold back paper, trim seam allowance, place the next piece and sew some more.  I'm happy to say, that I am further along with the Rhododendron blocks, than I thought I was.  I counted and I only have ten more blocks to do!  Whoohooo!!!

After I decided to quit for the evening, I went upstairs to relax some.  That's when I saw the temperature block sitting there, pinned and ready to appliqué.  Just to keep this real and to explain the situation with the less then perfect picture.  I don't have a bunch of fancy equipment.  I take the pictures where I am, at the time of day it happens to be, and with no staging.   The block below is on a banana pillow, that I put on my lap to support my wrist, while I do hand appliqué.  

This is why the block looks all wavy....lol....and to add to this, if I want to do appliqué in the evening in my chair, I have to turn on the floor lamp, which is the yellow tone of light on the right hand side and the extra Ottlite daytime table lamp, which is the white tone of light on the left.....lol.  Then if I need to write up my evening post on my computer and the battery runs low, I need to unplug one of the lights to plug in the computer....lol.  Oh, boy...confession time or what!  I didn't realize how ridiculous/pathetic I have it set up, until now....lol.  Going to have to do something about my set up.

If anyone has any suggestions for lighting and how you store or put aside your work until you want to work on it again later, please share your best practices (pictures would be nice too).  At the moment the side of my chair looks like an unkept mess of various handwork items that I am working on.  They're all laying on my footstool.  Looks like an accident waiting to happen....lol.  There must be a better system.....  Let me know!

Take care everyone.