A New Mystery

Next week a new mystery is starting! Edyta Sitar is hosting a 2 week mystery that promises to be "12 days of non stop fun". I need that! It is perfect timing for me since we will be in the last 2 weeks (of 7 weeks) in our third lockdown... it will get me through to the end of this marathon 3rd wave of covid. Hopefully more vaccines will have arrived in Canada during May and there will be some hope for our communities to recover.

The description and fabric requirements are here and further information is here. The blocks will be 4.5" ... so FUN!

As I have been doing since the beginning of the pandemic, I am using what I have on hand. My guild friend Lesley gave me a stack of fat quarters and I added some from my stash to make this collection for the mystery. I might add in more darks to make it less like a red quilt. The yardage on the left will be for the light borders as it seems we need 3.5 yards of light fabric for borders and extra lights (maybe for sashing?)

The fun starts on Monday May 10th so you have time to gather some fabrics.

Who's in?!?! 

Design Wall Monday

Some major sewing progress went on over the weekend and the centre of my Sister's Scrap Challenge is sewn together. It was a struggle because I am worn down from the isolation during our 3rd provincial lockdown/stay at home order. My brain isn't quite firing on all cylinders, but spring weather is on the way, we are half way through this covid lockdown, and hopefully I will be allowed to see some friends before the month of May is over.

I used a piece of every scrap that was mailed to me in the scrap bag and attached each scrap to background fabric. It was an unfortunate background choice and I wish I would have picked a white or cream fabric but didn't have the yardage on hand. However this is for a challenge and I certainly did challenge myself!

I do like some parts of the quilt... like this tiny Ohio star that finishes at 1.5" and I enjoyed including this selvage edge that came in the scrap bag.

There are now 2 borders to attach. One border will have corners using the 4 patch units that I wasn't sure what to do with. I think they'll make a nice frame. And the last border is the background fabric to make the quilt a bit bigger.

It is my May goal to add the 2 borders, machine quilt and hand bind this project. Linking up to One Monthly Goal and Design Wall Monday.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party! It's time to get out your stitching project, a cup of your favourite beverage, and enjoy some relaxation.

Some Covid Humour

My friend Celeste told me it is 'World Laughter Day". We could sure use more laughter these days as we are half way through (hopefully!) our 3rd lockdown. After a year of covid we are in a worst state than ever here in Ontario, so we need some relief and a good belly laugh is almost as good as some slow stitching time!

Covid Weekends

We are staying "safe at home" and waiting for time to pass until we can get some vaccines. My parents who are in their 80s and are the first group to be vaccinated have received their first vaccines and are hoping to get their second ones in July. 

Ontario Covid cases

Scary times.

What else is there to do but stitch the time away?

I have been repairing my granddog's bed. He likes to eat fabric, so I hand stitched the hole closed and sewed a new bed cover yesterday. This Kong dog bed is supposed to be tough and durable, but Max can and will chew through anything.  At least he keeps us entertained while we wait to see what will happen with covid.

What are you hand stitching today? Tell us a joke and/or show us what you are hand stitching and cheer us up. We hope you will link up your blog post below and share your project with us.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Design Wall Tuesday

Nothing is on the design wall that is in the design stage right now. I have my 4 placemats on the design wall to cheer me up (January pink, February yellow, March green and April blue).

My Sister's Scrap Challenge was on the design wall, but I really don't like it, so I can't look at it right now. It just reflects the state of the covid crisis in Ontario - it's a hot mess. The vaccine rollout here has been disorganized and painfully slow. It is causing crisis, conflict and death. I have a dear friend (since high school) in the ICU unconscious since Friday. She didn't qualify for a vaccine since she is not in a "high risk group". She got covid from her Mom who did have her first  vaccine and is also in hospital. No one will get a second vaccine until mid summer. It's an unbelievable national health crisis.

I will do lots of hand stitching this week to just stay calm and grounded.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to Slow Sunday Stitching where we celebrate the art of creating things with our hands. Any hand stitching activity is welcome here :)

I did some hand stitching yesterday to finish up my April placemat challenge (you can read about it here). Isn't that a pretty backing fabric?

This week I also put a few more stitches into the Kawandi I started last fall in a class with Sujata Shah. I am enjoying hand stitching with the perle cotton threads. Soon I will need to review my class notes to figure out how to finish the centre. Today I will work on adding the 3rd round of scraps.

What are you hand stitching today? We hope you will link up your blog post below and show us what you are working on.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

April Challenge

My goal for 2021 is to create a placemat each month which combines the RSC colour of the month (which is blue for April), the Table Scraps Challenge, and includes some miniature blocks. April's placemat is a celebration of blue Ohio Star block variations.

These are the larger 6" star variation blocks. These blocks are made with leftover HSTs from my Mosaic Mystery.

And I made 3 sweet little 2" star blocks. Working with miniature blocks really makes my heart sing! 

I set the mini stars on point and placed them in the centre of the design. The machine quilting is a very simple stitch in the ditch, and a single wavy line in the outside border.

The finished size of the placemat is 17" x 14".

Linking to the Table Scraps Challenge, the RSC party and the mini quilters over at the Constant Quilter

Online Class

I attended my second online quilting class this week.

The class was called "Traditional Variations" taught be Cheryl Arkinson. It was a wonderful day exploring creative ways to make traditional blocks. I played with friendship star variations and these are the blocks I sewed during the class.

Cheryl gave us so many ideas to run with and it was a day of cutting and sewing and trying new things. For example these are friendship stars made with curves instead of HST blocks. 

I'm going to make a few more blocks and turn this collection into a backing for my 21 Stars quilt.

What I discovered when playing was that one idea sparks another idea (and more scraps) and it was so FUN! Remember when we used to play as children just for the sake of having fun? As adults we think everything has to be purposeful and goal focused. Especially during covid there have been so few opportunities to play and have fun with our  friends. This class was a great reminder to enjoy the benefits of play - it's good for your health and we all need to be as healthy as we can during this pandemic. Hence... we need to play more!! I'm so grateful for this reminder!

You can read more about Cheryl and the workshops she offers here and can read her blog here.

New Project - Step #5

I'm starting to feel the time pressure with this challenge quilt because the deadline to become a finished quilt for the Scrap Sister's Challenge is May 15.

The next decision was what to do with the many green strips in the envelope. Having no other ideas at the time, I just made a stack of 4 patch blocks.

Now I need to figure out how to integrate them into this quilt. 

I don't know... sprinkle them around the quilt? Use them as sashing? There aren't enough to go around the quilt for a border, but maybe partial borders?

I will ask the quilt and see what she says!