I've got a Sunday Finish

          I am delighted to share that I have a Sunday Finish.  It was actually finished on Friday night but by the time it was done it was in the midst of winter dark and difficult to photograph.  So instead I'm sharing it with my Slow Stitching Sunday Friends.

     It's hanging on the clothesline in my backyard.  I'm pleased with the photo because it shows how luminous the Japanese fabrics are.  I love the fabrics in this quilt.  

     There were several challenges with making this quilt.  The first one was finding a backing fabric.  Japanese fabric is very expensive so I didn't want to back it with that but it was very hard to find a fabric that would blend well with it.  We finally found this fabric in the sale section of Sew Jax....bonus.  I'm not crazy about it as a fabric but it works really well to back this quilt.  The binding fabric was hanging around in my stash.   You can see some of the quilting in the photo below.  

     I'm not sure if I'll get any hand work done today maybe I'll put a few stitches in a shawl I am knitting, very slowly.  I did put in a lot of hand stitches this last week on the binding. 

This is my second finish for the 3rd quarter finish along over at the Littlest Thistle.  You can see my wish list here.  I'll be lucky if I manage to finish another.  It's also my November goalfor a Year of Lovely finishes, so I'm joining the linky party over at Fiber of all Sorts and I'm also posting with the Slow Sunday Stitchers over at Kathy's blog.

Hand Stitching Binding, Not

     Today I was hoping to share with you that I was hand stitching the binding on my large hexagon quilt.  However the quilting is taking me longer than I anticipated so instead I will be working on the sewing machine completing the quilting.

     I'm doing straight line stitching down both sides of the seams at about 3/8 s of an inch.  I may get to the hand stitching of the binding at some point today as I'm about 7/8 s finished  quilting.  I have to cut and sew the binding still.  It's a very wet and grey day here so working on this will be just the perfect activity.    I'm linking up to Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.

     

Toronto Modern Guild Projects

     I'm going through a period this fall where I have very little energy.  This is making it hard for me to sew, even harder to blog but I just finished a  couple of little projects so I thought I would share them.

     In September I decided to check out the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild.  I live more or less in between Toronto and London which both have Modern Guilds but I go to Toronto more as my daughter, my niece and my aunt all live there.  It was a fun meeting and they handed out fabrics and asked  each of us to complete a star block which would all be combined to make a quilt.   You can read more about this here.   I made this block.

     It's based on an Amish pattern which I found in a library book and I'm sorry I've forgotten which book it was.  I had fun playing with the negative space.  I'm thinking of making a mini quilt of this block .  It's 16" square.

      Of course I had to go back to the next meeting to hand in my block so I joined the guild.

     The next project which is due at the November meeting is to make a pouch which will be traded with members of the Victoria Modern Quilt Guild.  This is a bit of a stretch for me because I don't tend to make things with zippers and shape and such.   I found a free pattern on Craftsy called the No Guts Box Pouch by So Chick.  I decided that I better make a prototype first so I made this version which I will give to one of my friends.

     This was a fairly tricky project but it worked out pretty well.  I had some issues with the tabs but I'm confident I can improve that .  I'm going to make two more out of oriental fabrics and then a more modern one to send across the country.  I'm linking up with Let's Bee Social  at Sew Fresh Quilts.

    

November Goal for a Year of Lovely Finishes

     This is the first time I'm linking up a goal for A Year of Lovely Finishes.  Hopefully this will work some magic and help me to finish this quilt.

    It's a hexagon quilt made of traditional Japanese Fabrics.  All I have to do to complete it, is quilt it.  This wouldn't be so difficult if I only worked on one thing at a time.  I can't hold myself to that though I'm always drawn to many directions at once.  I'm linking up to A Year of Lovely Finishes November Goal Setting Party at Fibre of All Sorts.

Sewing Kit Update

    I haven't done much blogging or for that matter much quilting of late...I guess I'll just blame it on life and spare you the details . I did notice today however that the Monday Morning Star count was back up  so I thought I'd give you a quick update on the slowly progressing sewing kit.

 I put the scissors in the picture so you would have an idea of scale.  As you can see I have 1 1/2 rows to finish and then I can start to assemble the sewing kit. I'm thinking I'll have the project completed in a couple of weeks.  That will be exciting!  Then I will have a case to bring my epp with me when I leave the house.  I recently bought some diamond shaped papers.  I've been inspired by the star quilts that I've been seeing on the link ups, so that's what I'll be doing next.   I'm linking up with The Monday Morning Star Count which is hosted by Jessica at Life Under Quilts.