Goal Accomplished

My June UFO goal was to piece a backing for my 21 stars mystery quilt which was pieced in January. I used the quilt top scraps to make these fun friendship variation blocks in Cheryl Arkison's Traditional Variations class.

friendship star blocks on the design wall

I started with 6 blocks from the class and bordered them to make them larger. I worked with the amount of blue Darlene Zimmerman fabric I had left, added some gold, and used up as many of the scraps from making the front of the quilt as possible.

I decided to sew the stars together in rows, and add side and top borders. 

Here's the finished backing. It's a little wonky, wrinkly and disjointed, but it will do as a backing!

Linking up to One Monthly Goal and Design Wall Monday

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party!

We are in full summer mode here, with long evenings and lots of time for stitching in full light. I love to sit outside in the evenings with a cup of tea and do some slow stitching until the setting sun takes away my natural light. This week I greatly enjoyed finishing the binding on my monthly placemat.

There is good news to report re: covid as the cases in Ontario  continue to drop so we are out of the woods once again. This is a graph that shows the improvement. However, my region is still considered a "hot spot" having higher numbers of covid so hopefully more vaccines are on the way.

Today I will be hand quilting some Life is Beautiful blocks.  I have pin basted 5 more blocks and hope to put stitches into some of them this week. This is the perfect take along hand work project, so I hope it sees lots of progress this summer.

What are you hand stitching today? Link up your blog post below and share your progress with us.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scrappy Saturday

Two new Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects were started this week!

1) I tried hard to resist the Sewcialites quilt along. It was just too many projects for me to juggle. I have enjoyed following Coriander Quilts and seeing all the lovely sampler blocks she made in 3" miniature size. 

But when I saw block #33, which is a sewing machine block designed by Lori Holt, I just had to make it.

Oh my goodness, how cute is this? There are 16 pieces to cut to make this pattern and it is so fun to sew. You can watch a video here if you are a beginning quilter and want to make one.

You really can't tell the scale of the block so here is a photo of me holding it so you can see how little and sweet it is!

And that, my friends, is how a new RSC project is born! After I made the block in blue and it was so super cute, then I made it in purple. 

3" sewing machine Sewcialites block

You can get the free pattern for the mini sewing machine block at the Fat Quarter shop. And there are instructions to make it in 3 different sizes (3", 6" or 9"). I might try all three!!

2) I bought the Quiltville pattern for the Bitcoin quilt. How could I resist? It was scrappy and marvellous and I love it! 

Beginning of Bitcoin blocks

I immediately started sewing ladders with the purples scraps that were sitting around from making my monthly placemat and other purple projects this month. 

I just know some of you are going to ask me how many RSC projects I have on the go, and the answer is... "enough to make me very happy"! 😁

Linking up to the weekly RSC party

June Mini Table Scraps

Each month in 2021 I am creating a project that combines 3 challenges. I make a placemat for Joy's Table Scraps, using some mini blocks for Wendy's mini link up, with the colour of the month from the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, which is purple for June. A Challenge Trifecta!

I started this month with a bag of HSTs that a friend shared with me. I think these were from Jackie since it looks like her handwriting. I pulled out the purple ones and added some brighter HSTs from another bag of scraps. The HST blocks turned out to finish at 1.25", and there are 52 of them in this project.

These are the 13 pinwheel blocks I ended up with and this photo shows playtime on the design wall trying to figure out what layout the quilt wanted and what fabrics to use. The dark purple got voted off the island all together! 

I decided that an on point layout was fun with these pinwheels and added white sashing.

Somehow I miscalculated the math (so what else is new?!) and you can see the edges aren't aligned. 

That's okay with me. The trimming chopped off some of the white points, but I thought it still looked okay. I added two strips on the sides to make it rectangular. Then I bin basted and got to work machine quilting with white thread on the top and purple in the bobbin.

The backing fabric is a black and white stripe FQ that I hand dyed many years ago. It was the perfect backing for this little quilt, and my granddog Max was happy to be my quilt model.

As you can see I quilted some diamonds in the side fabric strips. But once it was finished, I was unhappy with the white blobs in the side fabric strips.

So I got out my Setacolor paints and had a bit of painting fun. I covered the white blobs with a bit of purple paint.

That's a little better!

I'll be linking up to Table Scraps, RSC party, June's Favorite Finish, and the Constant Quilter mini quilts list.

Mini Arrowheads

My collection of arrowhead blocks are on the design wall today. 

I have sewn 120 individual 3" blocks so far and  recently started sewing them into groups of 4 to make it easier to layout the design. The yellow really stand out in this collection doesn't it? I need more pink, and aqua blocks. What else does it need? Maybe more gold blocks?

4 arrowheads make a 6" block

This project is coming to the end of my interest in it, so I need to be more thoughtful about the blocks I will make so I can finish up this scrappy quilt top.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party!

This week marks the 9th anniversary of Slow Sunday Stitching adventures! The inaugural link up was June 24th, 2012. I can't even believe that much time has passed! My original goal in creating this link up was to inspire people to slow down, to take a deep breath, to dedicate precious time to the healing process of hand work, and to connect with other creative like-minded stitchers.

Slow Stitching Gang!

And all these years later, there are still folks who are hand stitching and blogging about it. And they are still willing to share their projects with us and I am thankful! Although I don't get around to visiting everyone each week, I do visit as many folks as time permits, and hope you all take the time to visit a couple of friends each week too. Thank you for posting, for reading, and for leaving encouraging comments for all of us hand stitchers!

This week I finished knitting a #1 Dad facecloth just in time for Father's Day. It is a Knitwits pattern and was easy to make (except for when you miscalculate and miss a row!) Thankfully I was able to fix my mistake and finish the cloth in time to go in the gift bag today.

And I put some stitches into my Kawandi quilt that was started in a class with Sujata Shah from the Root Connection. She was offering a summer class on how to make a Kawandi, but it filled up before I could get this posted! She is a great teacher!

My progress is slow, and sporadic, but I do love the slow mediative hand stitching. I really enjoy stitching with perle cotton and don't even mind when my stitches are not even, or following a straight line. Life is way too short for perfection!

What are you hand stitching today? Are you making slow, imperfect progress? We invite you to link up your blog post below and share your project with us.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scrappy Saturday

It's a great day for cutting scraps! 

Cathy who blogs at Crazy By Design called the Rainbow Scrap Challenge participants "Scrapettes"! I love that! I am claiming the title of a scrappette and this is what I made in purple scraps this week.

Waffle blocks 5" on the left, easy breezy blocks 4" in the middle, mini arrowheads 3.5" on the right, and two pinwheels 2.5" on the bottom (that might turn into a placemat). Lots of scrappy goodness!

I'm in the quilt studio today "cleaning" and you just know that means I'll be falling into a rabbit hole of a random project that I find and "have to" work on!

Linking up to Rainbow Scrap Challenge

June UFO project update

This blue fabric is finally coming to an end! It's an older Darlene Zimmerman fabric (for Robert Kaufman) and I bought it on a sale table for $5/metre at a fabric store a few years ago.

It was the full backing for one of Carole's mystery quilts, then it was part of the backing for another one of Carole's mystery quilts, and the leftovers were used to make some friendship block variations in an online class with Cheryl Arkison. 

It is the fabric that just keeps on giving! 

Now I'm using it as part of a quilt backing.

First I am sewing borders around the blocks that I made in Cheryl's class. The star  block above is 6" and the star block on the right is 3".

Then I will use the extra fabric as sashing to sew the blocks together. Somehow.
Hopefully every bit will be used up and I will meet my goal of getting these blocks into a creative quilt backing by the end of the month.

Easy Breezy Design Wall

On the design wall today are my most recently sewn Easy Breezy blocks. This is the 2020 Quiltville leader - ender project that started last July. I have been slowly sewing these 4" blocks as a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project over the year. and have sewn 130+ of them so far.

This weekend I played with a scrap bag, and cut and coordinated 24 more blocks. They are ready to sew, but they might not be done leader-ender style, since the new challenge will be posted in July and I'd like to finish this one before I am tempted by the new one!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party! Thanks for dropping by! We want to encourage you in the slow process of creating treasures by hand.

I am so excited to have nothing planned for today! I might do a bit of pulling weeds, and then some hand quilting, and some knitting, or I might do nothing at all. It's a wonderful feeling to have a whole day in front of you to do whatever you want! 

What are you doing today? We'd love to see what you hands are stitching, so link up your blog post below and share your project with us!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scrappy Saturday - Full Stop

 Are you sewing along with the RSC year long quilt project called Full Stop? Each month we are sewing a different punctuation mark using the colour of the month.

Last month our block was red exclamation marks and I just finished sewing these. I tried to make each one a bit different using Cheryl Arkison's improv tutorial. It was so much fun that I briefly thought of making a whole quilt of these in many colours. Cheryl made her quilt in blues using these blocks and it's the perfect block pattern for a covid quilt!

Here are my Full Stop blocks on the design wall. I am making 4 blocks each month and am ready to start sewing my purple semi colon blocks to add to this collection.

Linking up to the weekly RSC party

Finished Quilt Top

I participated in the Laundry Basket mystery in May.  For 2 weeks a different block pattern was posted daily, and by the end we had 225 plain or pieced blocks ready to put together. 

Here is the quilt top on my design wall.

This was a fun way to build a quilt! I am delighted that it was mostly made from fabrics that were gifted to me from my quilty friend Leslie and some of my older neutral FQs. The colour work would have been better if it wasn't a mystery - I would have spread out those dark reds more and wouldn't have put the browns on the outside. But it was a mystery and the goal is to have fun not to make a perfect quilt! You just never know where everything will end up and which blocks will be together.

If Edyta does another mystery next spring, I'm going to try making my first monochromatic mystery! Her blue and white version is gorgeous!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party!

Last weekend I attended my first zoom wedding. While I was waiting for the ceremony to begin, I was knitting another facecloth.  Although I was thankful to be able to watch (and they did a great job of ensuring that the virtual guests could see and hear everything) it was hard to not be there in person.

I did finish this knitted cloth for my friend Louise for her birthday. I'm always thrilled when you can actually make out the pattern. There are a couple of mistakes, but you can see the letters, and make out the shape of the flowers so I'm very happy with it! This is another pattern from Knitwits and made with Sudz yarn.

I also finished hand stitching the binding on my May placemat this week. So it has been a productive hand stitching week, and I don't know what I'll be stitching today.

What are you hand stitching today? Link up your blog post and share your project with us.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scrappy Saturday

Red month has come and gone! How did that happen so fast? I sewed these cute little blocks using 1.25" HSTs for the side borders of my May placemat.

It was fun to use some Canadiana themed fabrics. One print has the names of all the provinces.

And I am still sewing up some of the scrap blocks I had cut out earlier in May, such as these waffle blocks.  

Today I'll be working on some red explanation point blocks for the Full Stop project, and then I will be ready to start cutting scraps for purple month. 

Linking up to the Weekly RSC party

June Goal

June will be a busy month, so I am being kind to myself in choosing a realistic UFO goal. 

I intend to piece a backing for my 21 stars mystery quilt which was pieced in January. I used the quilt top scraps to make these fun friendship variation blocks in Cheryl Arkison's Traditional Variations class. I just have a few scraps leftover from these blocks and will look in the stash for more fabric to 

Linking up to One Monthly Goal

PS Did you know that I won a prize for linking up with One Monthly Goal last month?!? I won this lovely EPP kit from Paper Pieces! I actually got a treat for finishing a quilt!

May's Placemat

I'm a little late posting my mini Table Scraps challenge for May. The RSC colour for May was red, so I rummaged through the UFO box and found a house block that was primarily red.  I think it was started for some kind of challenge and then it was abandoned when it didn't turn out as I had envisioned. Basically, I hated it! LOL 

Just look at that weirdo applique tree which I'm sure must have been the challenge fabric.

I decided to combine the block with a charm pack for this month's  placemat project. I also found some gifted red triangles, and dove right in to creating something.

First I sewed these sweet little blocks using the Canadian themed True North charm squares with the red triangles. The 20 HST blocks finish at 1.25" and are my favourite part of this project! I sewed the blocks together for the side borders which gave the project the rectangular shape I prefer for a placemat.

Then I had to fix the windows in the house since they were too stark. I appliqued a tiny print fabric over both windows (and later quilted some curtains).

Then I pin basted the quilt, batting and backing...

and the quilting fun began. I machine quilted the words HOME Sweet HOME in the background and on the roof, and then stippled the background space.

It turned out much better than I had anticipated!

Linking up to the May Table Scraps Challenge  and the Constant Quilter monthly mini projects.