Works in Progress

     We have a Civic Holiday on Monday and I'm lucky enough to have Thursday and Friday off as well.   Whoopee!   I'm looking forward to seeing Shakespeare in the Park in Toronto with my daughter on Thursday, and we are heading off to the Beach on Monday  which leaves me lots of time in between for gardening and sewing.

    

      I'm always working on lots of projects at once which gives me many options to choose from.   I have the binding to put on the d.w.r. for my son who is getting married in 2 1/2 weeks.   I was hoping to have it all finished by Friday but it looks like it's going to be a bit longer at this point.  I've also got the fabric washed to make the Staple Dress,  and I'm way behind on my Park Bench, but I'll share here two projects I have on the design wall.

     This will be my version of the  Giant Chevron Quilt by Jess of Elven Garden Quilts.  Jess is hosting a free motion quilt along at her blog.  You don't have to use her pattern but I chose to.  The half square triangles are made with 10 inch squares. I had been looking for something to do with this layer cake that I picked up at Three Gals and a Quilt Shop in Huntsville last summer.  It's Happy Go Lucky by Bonnie and Camille and I think it will work just fine. This will be a pretty easy quilt to put together.  I'm excited to practice my fmq with the quilt along!

     The other project on the wall is the Modern  Blocks Table Runner made with a fat eight Rubies Oakshot pack.  The pattern is by Lynne Goldsworthy from Lily's Quilts.  Sorry the lighting in the room isn't the best in the evening.  I've got four blocks sewn and ready for trimming and I think eight to go.   It should be a fun and productive weekend.  Linking up to Le'ts Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts and W.I.P. Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network.

Slow Sunday Stitching

     It's been Slow Stitching  Sunday, Slow Stitching Monday, Slow Stitching Tuesday....you get the picture, with a few days off here and there.    That sentence makes it sound like its been drudgery but   I have to say I've enjoyed every minute of it.

     I've chipped away at outlining the arcs of the double wedding ring in small doses and I'm happy to say I've got the quilting on this little wall hanging done three weeks before the wedding.  I was hoping to have the binding attached by today but yesterday Wendy, and Cyndy and I spent the day doing the last leg of the July shop hop here in Southern Ontario.  Almost all the shops in the July Shop Hop were also in the Row by Row , so we tossed in a few shops that were only in the Row by Row. We visited 16 shops over 3 days. It was lots of fun but pretty intense.  All three of us felt an emotional let down after we handed in our passports at the last July Shop Hop store yesterday.  How funny is that!  

     Here's my binding ready to sew onto the quilt.  I'd like to say that I'll get right on it and start slow stitching the binding today but I volunteered to go into work today so that the younger staff at our store could attend the local music festival.  That's o.k. as I get Thursday off instead which  with the holiday on Monday will give me a 5 day weekend! Whoopee!  I'll probably squish a visit to Toronto in there somewhere and possibly a visit to Lake Huron on Monday.....but that will leave me plenty of time to work in the garden and do some sewing.  I'm linking up to Slow Sunday Stitching over at Kathy's blog.

The heart of our quilting

  

     This is my first time linking up to Let's Bee Social and I thought I would share this story with you. (the quilt above has nothing to do with the story. It's just eye candy).

Last night I attended the visitation for my co workers father who died on Friday at the age of 89.  He was a well loved member of our community who owned the local sewing machine shop years ago before I had started quilting.

     At the visitation I was touched to see a vintage sewing machine that was on display, and also  a quilt which was draped over the coffin.  This quilt was a simple log cabin quilt made with scraps.

      I work in a  store and today I met one of his nieces, who was in town to attend the funeral.   She told me that his mother had been a seamstress and made quilts.  Also at least one of his sisters made quilts and wedding gowns and that one of his nephews makes wedding gowns. I already knew that in his own family quilting and sewing had skipped a generation.  None of his children quilt or sew but some of his grandchildren do.

      When I asked about the quilt I found out that it was pieced by either his mother or his sister and that in his last days he kept asking for this quilt which was obviously a comfort to him.  I hope that the quilts that I am working on today will be as cherished.

2014 Finish Along, Third Quarter Goals

     It's time to set the goals for Quarter Three of the 2014 Finish Along hosted by Katy at The Littlest Thistle.  Despite finishing only two of my five goals in the 2nd Quarter I'm going for six goal this quarter!  This gives me lots of options.  I'll start with the three projects I'm carrying over.

1.  Swoon.  A couple of quilters managed to complete their Swoon quilts in the second quarter.   I hope to follow their lead and get mine finished this quarter.

2.  Penny Patch:  I still have some blocks to construct before I can put the top together.

3.  Hexagon Quilt.  I did make progress on this quilt.  The top is together. Once I find backing fabric to go with it.  I'll be able to finish it up.






 And the additions are:

4.  Double Wedding Ring.  This one is on the hand quilting frame.  I'm loving making this quilt for my son and his future wife.  It needs to be finished in August.

 5. The Staple Dress.I don't make a lot of clothing but I love this pattern and this fishy fabric.   If I want to wear it this season I'll have to get moving.

6.  I'm  definitely ready to try my hand at Improv Quilting a table runner out of these Oak Shot fat eights.








This is quite the list and I don't expect to finish them all but a girl can dream can't she?

Double Wedding Rings and Things

     Last weekend we went up to Grey County where we visited some young organic farmers that my husband used to work with in construction. This was fun and nostalgic for us because way back, when we first got together we had this romantic notion of having a sheep farm together. Life does not always lead you where you think you are going however and we did not end up with a farm.  This is probably a good thing in our case.

     Near Neustadt there is a cluster of organic farms all on one road.  It's awesome.  We helped out a bit a Devon and Nicole's which is the farm that we have a CSA share in. We visited Amy and Ahren.  Amy is an artisan making soap , other beauty items and clothes. The link to her business Sol  Beauty is herehttp://www.solbeauty.ca/ .  Ahren farms grains and Shitake mushrooms and asparagus. We visited Ben at his permaculture nursery in the Beaver Valley Fiddleheads.Here's the link if you are interested http://fiddleheadnursery.ca/. We drove home on Monday ahead of the rain.

     I had booked the rest of the week off work and I spent each day doing a little gardening, a little reading, a little sewing and a little cleaning.  We had the wedding shower on Saturday and I wanted things to be a least presentable.  I made good progress with the front garden and the parts of the back yard closest to the house.  I like the wild natural look, but things have gotten out of hand.  Here is a picture of Benni in the sweetgrass in the front garden.  I was going to thin it out further but he loves hiding in it and I didn't want to make him move.

    The shower was lots of fun!  My daughter and her girlfriend came here early on Friday to help get the food ready and set things up.  It was also my husbands birthday on Friday.  Here's a picture of the spread below.  Minus the awesome cake my mother in law made shaped like a double wedding ring.

     Speaking of double wedding rings, I'm making good progress on mine.  It is about 1/4 quilted.   I took the advice  at Celebrate Hand Quilting and used a thread similar in colour to the background.  I marked with pencil using quarter inch masking tape as a template. I'm stitching a quarter inch from the rings.   Here is a picture to show some of the stitching.  I'm going to have to take a course or a workshop  to get better at taking photos.  One thing leads to another when you start blogging!  If I ever figure out how to use a random number generator I'll know I've arrived!

     After a busy couple of days getting ready for the shower and then hosting it, I'll be happy to have some down time today  enjoying the clean house and tidy garden and slow stitching the double wedding ring.  Linking up to Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's blog.

July Small Blog Meet

Yikes!  Where has the time gone.  Suddenly it's Canada Day and Small Blog meet.  I've hardly got any sewing done this month.
       I've been spending an awful lot of time trying to keep ahead of catch up with the weeds and the overgrowth in the garden.  I've been shamed  nudged into doing this by a local gardener who offers her services to people with overgrown gardens.  I may end up employing her yet.  Normally I can ignore some of the overgrowth but we are having a shower here on the weekend.
     I've also spent some time rearranging things in the sewing room.  Up until a couple of weeks ago I shared the sewing room with my daughter's bedroom.  Now it's just a sewing room.  We moved her bed into the room which used to be her brother's and is now a guest bedroom with two single beds in it. In the sewing room we also moved the cabinet which holds the material.  It was partially blocking the design wall.  Because the cabinet  is heavy I had to remove all the material first which gave me the opportunity to sort it all out once again.  This takes so much time.
     Although I've been planning to do all this rearranging for ages what actually got everything going was setting up this.

Yes I finally have the double wedding ring quilt set up for hand quilting.  Let's see if I can get this baby done by August 16th.  

     

     I've been working on the Park Bench Sew Along with my quilting buddies.  The progress is pretty slow.  Here's where I am with that.  I've lost track of how many times I've ripped the yellow block out.  I'm still not happy with it.  It's one of the easy ones but I had trouble figuring out how to match the centre points up and I think I stretched the material in the end.

     Well that's me for this month  I'm linking up with lilysquilts for the Small Blog Meet.