Design Wall Monday

Progress is slowly being made on my scrappy version of the Laundry Basket mystery quilt. I have all the blocks sewn and am attaching them into rows. This photo shows the middle 5 rows of the quilt top. There are 5 rows to add on either side, and that will be the focus of my sewing this week. It is slow going with a lot of seam matching.  Although I am tempted to work on something more fun, I am determined to stick with this until the quilt top is together!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party! It's time to put your feet up, relax, and put some stitches into your favourite project. Just breathe and stitch, even if just for a few moments.

I finished and gifted my knitted guitar face/dish cloth. The pattern is from Knitwits. I love the ease of ordering their patterns and the easy to follow instructions (no affiliation, just a happy customer). And they make such a perfect little gift to let family and friends know (especially during our 3rd Covid lockdown) that you are thinking of them.

Ontario Covid Restrictions May 2021

I will be attending my first zoom wedding today when my niece will be marrying her best friend. They have waited a long time to get married and finally just decided to take the plunge since covid is not going away here any time soon. They are restricted to 10 people at this event, which just allows the wedding party to attend, so the family will be "attending" online. This is how we do things now. 

My friend Debby made these face masks for the bride and groom... so cute! 

This week I finished 220" of hand binding on my Sister's Scrap Challenge quilt and that was very relaxing.

What are you hand stitching today? 

Link up your blog or instagram post below and share your slow progress with us.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Live Quilt Auction Today

Today is the day for the New Hamburg Mennonite Relief Sale! I have attended the event in person for many years and of course due to Covid the event is online this year. There are over 200 gorgeous quilts that will be sold in an online auction, including one that my little quilting group made.

This is our fall themed quilt. You can read more about the creation of the quilt here. Our last group quilt donation Whirligig was in 2017 and was sold for $700! We are hoping that this quilt will be just as lucky and bring a good price!

I will update my post later today with the outcome of the auction... stay tuned...

Update...

Our quilt was sold for $400. I hope it brings the new owner many years of warmth and enjoyment!

The auction is still going on... many more quilts still to be sold!

Finished Quilt!

Did you remember that I have been trying to finish my Sister's Scrap Challenge this month? I was successful and here is the finished quilt! I used only the scraps in the envelope that was sent to me and the blue background fabric. The scraps were sewn using a confetti piecing method (learned from Lady Harvatine) and then the framed scraps were joined together in an improv kind of way.

Here is a photo from the back to show the wavy  machine quilting on the diagonal, with random loops.

I like how it looks like waves in the ocean, hence the quilt was named "Scraps Swimming in the Sea".

The finished size is 52.5" x 57.5" and this will be donated to my guild's comfort quilt project.

Linking up to One Monthly Goal and Hands2Help Challenge

Design Wall Tuesday

The final step has been posted for the Laundry Basket mystery by Edyta Sitar. I'm not quite at that step yet, but I'm getting closer.

I have been working on Step #11 which is a square-in-a-square block. I found a cute cat fabric to fussy cut for the centre of the blocks, and then I cut them all the wrong size! I even had tape on the ruler to remind me of the size that was needed for trimming (which was wrong!) Thankfully my mistake was in my favour and I could easily resize them all.

Here is the centre of the quilt on the design wall. So pretty! I have many more blocks to sew and lots of cutting to do, but I'm really liking how it's looking so far.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party!

Why not pick up your project and put in a few stitches today? That's exactly what I'm planning to do. 

I abandoned the knitting project I showed two weeks ago. I'm having trouble fixing that error and it's just too frustrating. I think I'll need to rip out the whole thing since I can't seem to restart the pattern correctly.

And so, of course I started something new 😄

This is my new knitting project and it's coming along well so far with no noticeable errors.

I also wanted to show you the gift I won for participating in last month's One Monthly Goal link up. This is a starter kit from Paper Pieces and has everything you need to start an EPP project in one container. It's perfect for a take along project during the summer.

What are you hand stitching this week? Do you have some take along projects ready for summer?

Link up your blog post below and share your projects with us!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scrappy Saturday

Although I have been sewing blocks every day for the past 2 weeks for my Laundry Basket mystery project, I am still behind. Today I finished the flying geese for step #10, which means that today I'm only 2 steps behind! I made some colour errors on this step, but that's okay... it's a scrappy quilt and it will all work out fine.

It's a long weekend here (Victoria Day) so I hope to get in  more sewing time to catch up on the next 2 steps. This is what the centre of the quilt is looking like. All the blocks are made from donated FQs and scraps.

In between sewing these blocks, my leader-ender project has been Easy Breezy blocks from last July's Quiltville challenge.

Here are the most recently sewn red blocks. I love the block on the top left with the fussy cut birds.

And here is the pile of easy breezy blocks so far. Almost enough for a quilt! I plan to keep making blocks until the end of June and be ready for the next challenge which will be posted in July.

Linking up to the RSC party

Something to look forward to!

Every May I have attend the Mennonite Relief Quilt Auction. It was something I looked forward to every spring and missed it last year due to covid restrictions. It was held online in 2020 and continues to raise money for world relief projects where people are suffering from poverty, conflict, oppression and natural disaster.

This year the quilt auction will again be held online on Saturday May 29th.

This is the quilt that my little sewing group made pre-covid and donated for this year's auction. It is quilt #108 on the program and unimaginatively called "Sampler from Quilt Run".

This quilt was made from the block kits we collected during the 2016 July Shop Hop. We always looked forward to these July adventures, visiting quilt stores and having lunches out together. So fun! Last year it was cancelled and I wonder what will happen this year?  

I love this photo of some of our group members working on the layout during pre-covid days. Notice how helpful Molly is?!?! I haven't seen my friends in more than a year now. I'm hopeful we will get vaccines soon and be able to meet outdoors sometime this summer.

And in the meantime, our efforts to make this sampler quilt will bring us lots of happy memories as we collected the block kits, sewed the blocks, and worked together to raise money for a good cause.

Laundry Basket Mystery Update

I have been keeping up with the daily pattern postings for Edyta's mystery quilt.  If you are sewing along and not looking ahead, you might not want to keep reading this as there are mystery spoilers in this post!

Here are my  blocks from step # 7 and #8. I know these blocks as  "shaded four patch blocks". 

Because there are a lot of bias seams in this block, I always gently finger press each seam and then use a "wooden iron" or a seam roller before putting the iron on it. They have been coming out the perfect size!

For step #9 I decided to use the Companion Angle ruler which I think is one of my favourite and most versatile rulers. So I checked with Mr. Google on the math for Companion Angle ruler for the step #9 QSTs, and a link to my blog came up at the bottom of the first page! That made me laugh out loud! (It's a post from 2014 - click here to see that.) 

**Note to self** - the finished size of your QST block (in this case 4") is on the side of the ruler, and the strip size you should cut is in the middle (in this case 2.5"). 

So yes... I do love this ruler and enjoyed making these QST blocks in a jiffy!

Today we'll be making flying geese and I'll be using this ruler again in combination with the EZ angle ruler.

Design Wall Monday

We are half way through the Laundry Basket mystery quilt and it has been lots of fun. Every day for 2 weeks a new block pattern is posted. I am using up older, less loved fabrics and enjoying cutting and sewing with different fabric combinations each day.

These larger HSTs are from day #4. I made 8 of 2 different fabric combinations. 

Here are the blocks from step #1 to #5 on the design wall. We have sewed a total of 84 blocks so far.

Day #5 and #6 both included sewing smaller HST blocks. These are broken dishes blocks from day #6, again using 2 different fabric combinations.

Now I am putting these blocks away to clear the design wall for 6 more days of block sewing this week. They will wait patiently in a  recycled spinach container until all the blocks are completed. 

Hop over to Laundry Basket Quilts to see what we are sewing today!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly link up of hand stitched projects! Thank you for dropping by today and taking a look at what the stitchers are making.

I have been doing my favourite type of hand stitching this weekend - binding. The weather has been good enough to sit outside for stitching and I have been thoroughly enjoying that!

Our latest "state of emergency and shutdown" in Ontario started on April 3rd and was extended this week until June 2nd. Our hospitals are overwhelmed past capacity with Covid patients due to more easily transmitted variants, and our vaccine rollout is very slow. So there is nothing else to do but stitch and go for walks to see what is blooming. Thankfully the weather has been good and we can soon plant gardens.

Today I will be trying to fix the knitting error I made last week. What will you be hand stitching today? Link up your blog post below and join the hand stitching party!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Machine Quilting

On Monday I posted a photo of my quilt top for the Sister's Scrap Challenge. It has a lot of small pieces in it and I thought it needed to be heavily quilted to keep it flat.

I decided to quilt wavy lines on the diagonal with occasional loops, and circles around these fussy cut firework looking scraps. It's a fun quilting idea and I am enjoying the process.

No matter how hard you try to space the scraps, it is inevitable that there will be 2 of the exact same scraps ending up side by side. See the silver on white pieces... right close to each other.  I remind myself that "random" does not mean "equally spaced", but seriously why didn't I notice that when I was sewing the quilt top together?!?!

This is one of my favourite blocks in the quilt - a cute little ohio star. I quilted a little loop in the centre of the star. And the selvage edge beside the star says "Fabricville"... love it!

It has been fun to machine quilt this scrap collection. There are so many cute little pieces, such as the cat face on the red square - can you see her?

I better get quilting - this quilt has to be finished by the end of tomorrow to submit the photo before the deadline. I'm cutting it close!

Linking up to Free Motion Mavericks

A new project!

I have no self control.

There, I said it.

I started another project even though I am in the thick of trying to finish a quilt with a deadline of Saturday.

But in my own defense...

*it's a mystery quilt (which I love) 

*it's a pattern by Edyta Sitar (whose quilts I love) 

*it's scrappy (which I adore) 

*the blocks are all 4.5" (small blocks are my fave)

*the post promised "12 days of fun" (which I need). 

So I'm sure you can understand why I had to start cutting and sewing!

Here are the blocks from the first 2 steps.

28 blocks down, and 197 to go!

Join the fun... block #1 can be found here!

Quilt top on the design wall!

This weekend's sewing time was focused on finishing the Sister's Scrap Challenge quilt top. Just look at all of these seams to press... there's a lot of piecing in this project! This is how it looks on the wrong side.

Here is the quilt top from the right side. The green 4 patches on the corners are a little heavy handed, but that's what we're going with. I think it looks interesting and has a lot of movement. I'm thinking of quilting some wavy lines on the diagonal.

But first, the quilt has to be pin basted... that is well under way.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday

Slow Sunday Stitching

Happy Slow Sunday Stitching and Happy Mother's Day! We won't be spending mother's day like we have in the past since we are still trudging through our 3rd lockdown. There will be no family gatherings or special meals together.

But I will be able to see my Mom and I am so thankful for that. I will bring her flowers and blow her kisses from the doorway or have a little socially distant visit in the garage if it's not too cold.

I do hope you will be able to celebrate your mother today by visiting her, or talking with her on the phone or zoom. And if your mother has passed you can still honour and remember her today as you spend some time hand stitching.

I was finally able to locate the pattern for the embroidered girl on my March placemat. The pattern was posted on the Feeling Stitchy blog in 2012 and is called "little lemon slice".  You can still download the free pattern here. So cute!

This week I discovered a major error in my knitting. Somehow I missed a row and had to unravel back to where the needle is. It is quite  discouraging to undo so many stitches, but it had to be done since the top part of the cloth would be backwards. Oh well, I still have time to finish this for father's day in June, so that's what I'll be working on today...unravelling!

What are you hand stitching today? Please link up your blog or instagram post and share your projects with us.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scrappy Saturday

Red is the colour for May at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I got out this pile of triangles from a quilty friend, and broke open a charm pack to play with. What am I making? I don't know! After taking Cheryl's class last month I was reminded of the importance of play and how much I miss that feeling of freedom and lack of stress. 

I started sewing the red triangles to the charm squares. This is what developed. A charm square plus 2 red triangles provided the fabric for 4 baby triangles and 4 squares, which became these little butterfly looking blocks. Is there a name for these?

And this is where things are this morning.The pile of blocks is growing and I am having fun playing with the Canadian themed fabrics! These blocks will be incorporated somehow into my May Table Scraps project.

Linking up to the weekly scrap party at Angela's

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?!?!