Sew day progress

On Saturday the ladies came for a sew day.  One of the ladies came with this Lady of the Lake block to show and share.  This block is only  5 1/2" square.  Those little half square triangles on the perimeter finish at only 1" square!!!  A labour of love.  She does one of these blocks per week, in different colours.  They are all so cute!

This friend brought her scrappy blue string quilt to work on.  My mom and I are also making this quilt.  My mom's is going to be blue and white as well, and mine is going to be burgundy with sand coloured background.

These are the two blocks that got completed during the day.  

Another friend was working on assembling a quilt top for the guild, however she could only go so far, as she forgot to bring some of the outer blocks.  

Fortunately for me, she wanted to work on something, so I pulled out my blue strings that I am making into a lattice quilt.  Once I sorted her out, she managed to make a total of twelve strips.  Yeah!!  This was helpful.  It gave me a jumpstart to my measly little four blocks that I did some time ago....lol.  They were part of my test block to check out sizing.  

Don't they look pretty?  Sunday I saw them sitting on my table.  I hadn't put them away yet.  They inspired me to move a little further with this quilt.  I finalized the sizing and needed to add a couple more inches to these, then I trimmed the corners and they are now ready to go.  I also finalized on the two background fabrics, to make up the side triangle corners, to finish off the blocks.  I'll show all of that in another post when I really set in and start working on this quilt.  

It won't be long now, as I am making progress on some of the other quilts and the basket case blocks are all done.  I think this one will be next.  My friend did twelve strips, I had four from before, and this quilt requires forty-eight altogether.  That means I need to make thirty-two more.  It may seem like a lot, but these strips are what I consider mindless sewing.  You sit there and just pull a string and sew it on.  Very calming.

Take care everyone.

A small baby quilt - Eeyore panel

There is a set of four panel blocks of Winnie the Pooh charactors.  They are plain with no colour.  This block is the only one with colour and it is only the background.  I'm not used to blocks with no colour.  

I had a mind to colour this in, similar to the crayon blocks I shared in an earlier post, however Eeyore is grey with a flesh colour snout.  So that won't work.  He'd disappear into the background.  The only colour he has is purple for his inner ears and a pink bow on his tail.  At least that was the original version.

I hadn't planned on tackling the panels just yet, but I was washing some donated fabric and dumped it all on the table, on top of the panels.  When I saw how well this fat quarter, outer border fabric, matched the Eeyore panel, I just couldn't resist.  

In my earliest memories, the only colour I associate with Eeyore is purple, because even though the original version of Eeyore is two tones of grey, my memories remember the blueish grey for his back (similar to the background colour) and a pale purple belly.  This is why I did a purple inner border.

I know this little quilt is very simple with just the two borders, but the gloomy, pessimistic, melancholic and depressed Eeyore didn't inspire me to make him fancy.....lol.  I took the description directly from google....lol.  I would have just left it at gloomy....lol....but I didn't know if I had it right, so I looked it up.  Google went on to say, he has a cynical outlook and low energy....lol....I can still hear him in my head in his monotone drawn out voice.

The other block panels are of Winnie the Pooh, of coarse, Tigger and Piglet.  I'll try to be a bit more imaginative with those ones....lol.

Take care everyone.

Basket case top completed

I last posted about this quilt back on Aug 16/2025.  This pattern is called Basket Case by Cluck Cluck Sew.  I modified my version to use up what I already had on hand.  The scrappy strips I started with are only 2" wide.  Once I got the rhythm or order of assembling it, they went together pretty quickly. 

Basically, I opened my drawer of 2" strips and pulled out colours at random, and I really mean at random.  Don't over think this one.  Just pull two colours that you like together that have enough contract to allow the block design to stand out.  Otherwise anything goes.  I chose to do my background in the same cream colour to allow the weave design to stand out.

During Saturday's sew day, I worked on assembling these blocks.  I needed a total of 30 blocks (5 across by 6 down).  I had all the fabrics cut out into kits from a cutting session I did during my vacation last week.  So I really only needed to sit and sew.  

It sounds easy.......the only needed to sit and sew......lol......but I get so caught up in having the ladies over, doing the show and share things, all the chatter and the various projects everyone is doing, that by the time I actually sit and sew, it's time for lunch.....lol.  Can I just say that it's pretty easy for me to get distracted with all the quilting stimulation....lol.

So needless to say, my goal of having 16 of these blocks done by end of day was very ambitious...lol.

I did eventually get the blocks done and the quilt centre assembled, however most of it was done after the ladies left....lol.  By the time I closed down for the night, it was 9:50 pm.  Long day, but I was so energized.  I'm sure I've said it before, but worth saying again, having the ladies over, fills my cup to overflowing.  I always look forward to our Saturday sew day!!

Do you like it?  I still have the border yet to put on, but that will be another day.  Today I think I am going to iron some recently washed fabric and play with some plaids.  I really need to start processing some of my scrap fabrics.  The quilt above is a good start, though it hardly made a dent in the drawer!

Take care everyone.  Have a great day!

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.