Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly celebration of all hand stitched crafts! We hope you will join us in setting aside a few moments each Sunday for some relaxing stitching on your favourite project. Pick up a needle and thread, breathe deeply, and enjoy a little vacation from the responsibilities of your life.

In a year that has had way more starts than finishes, I am so delighted to be able to share a finished quilt called "5 Cats and Scraps". This is a mystery quilt from Laundry Basket Quilts from the spring of 2021.

Every day for 2 weeks Edyta Sitar posted a different block pattern and by the end of the time we had 225 blocks ready to sew together into a quilt top. 

This quilt was made completely from my scrap stash (except for the backing). There are 5 fussy cut cat blocks that wanted to be in the quilt (hence the name) and they just blend into all the other scraps that are florals, geometrics, plaids, mottled, and reproductions. Every day of the mystery I just grabbed a hand full of scraps and started cutting and sewing. It was one of my most fun to make quilts ever and I am delighted that it is finished!

The finished size is 61" square and it was machine quilted by Roxanne Caughill using the Handiquilter design called "Field of Flowers".

Because this quilt is so scrappy, I was unprepared to love it as much as I do! This was going to be a donation quilt but I have fallen in love with it, so am uncertain now!!

I have no idea what I will be stitching on today. My sewing room is a disaster and I will need to do a big tidy up before I can even find some projects to work on! LOL

What are you stitching today? Do you have some September starts? Any finishes to share? Link up your blog post below and show us your slow progress.

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Slow Sunday Stitching - Olympics

Welcome to the hand stitching olympics! 

You get a bronze medal if you take out your project today and put some stitches in!

You earn a silver medal if you stitch on more than 1 project!

And you get a gold medal if you actually finish a project!

Congratulations to everyone who is a hand stitcher in 2024 - you all get participation awards! 🤗🤗

I finished a couple of things this week - gold medal for me! 

The hand stitched binding is completed on my Dancing in the Stars quilt. This was the 2023 Scrapdash mystery quilt project for the February Super bowl. I added a top and bottom border to make it a rectangular quilt, instead of a square as the pattern called for.  

Finished size: 48" x 57"

It was made all from stash and scraps and I am so delighted with how it turned out! Yah me!

Well, and also yah for Roxanne who quilted it for me! Can you see the lovely quilting pattern she created?!? It perfectly matches the theme of the quilt.

This week I have also  enjoyed participating in an instagram challenge organized by Katie @thenaptimestitcher. The challenge is called #Stitchthesummerolympics and a different stitching challenge is issued for each day. 

During the first week I have finished 3 cross stitched pieces!

1) First I completed Mini Strawberry Sampler (a lovely free pattern given to us by Melisa at  Pinker'nPunking Quilting and Stitching). It measures 5" x 3.5" on 14 count (beet dyed) Aida cloth. I will fully finish this in the same way as I have finished the squirrel sampler, and the pumpkin sampler. I just adore these little wallhanging projects, and can't decide which one to start next! It will be apple season soon, so maybe I'll start the mini apple sampler? Or maybe the sunflower sampler?

2) My second project was started for the "Stitches and Pages" group hosted by Katie the Novel Stitcher. The novel we read was "Funny Story" by Emily Henry, and we always pick our own stitching project to work on. 

I stitched a design from the "Really Cross Stitch" book by Rayna Fahey. This one is already framed and sitting in my office tea room as a tribute to our infectious disease experts who brilliantly navigated covid days and helped us to survive the covid era. Some of our clients did not make it, and it was tough going for us for a couple of years. 

The Stitches and Pages zoom meeting was lots of fun as we discussed the book and our projects. The next book will be posted next week - click here to see the possible choices if you are interested.

3) This Wild Whimsy Bear pattern was started on our annual family camping trip and was finished during the first week of the olympics. It was stitched mostly with Classic Colorworks threads on 14 count tea dyed Aida cloth. I plan to finish this for a Christmas gift.  It measures 4" x 3".

I also wanted to mention in case you missed the World Embroidery Day celebration for July 30th on Sarah Homfray's Youtube video. I enjoyed seeing the video clips submitted by stitchers around the world showing their embroidery.

(And P.S. If you are interested in having your name in the draw for the Fat Quarter Shop mystery quilt kit, you need to leave a comment on my youtube channel and I will pick a winner at the end of August)

And that's what I've been up to. I'm a tiny bit obsessed with the olympics and plan to be in my stitchy chair every evening this week watching the highlights of the day. Are you watching the olympics? Are you hand stitching so much your hands are sore like mine?!? Link up your blog post below and share your projects with us.

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A Finished Wallhanging

At quilt retreat earlier this month I finished the 2023 Fat Quarter Shop's Christmas quilt along called Evergreen. It was such a fun mystery to sew last year. 

I really enjoyed sewing my project from the kit offered by Fat Quarter Shop featuring the Favorite Things fabric line by Sherri and Chelsi. I don't usually buy fabric kits, but I really liked the slight variation on the Christmas colours they used.

The machine quilting was fast and easy. I quilted curvy lines to look like hanging garland across the tree, simple stippling in the background, and individualized designs on the presents and the star. It is so fun to think of a different design for each part of a quilt. As long as a project is quilted evenly in terms of the denseness of the designs, it's all good!

It's a fun brain snack for me to figure out things like how to do the curved corner-to-corner design on red pieces of this star block with the fewest starts/stops.

Another brain snack was thinking of a different quilting design for each present under the tree. 

The binding was completed during a late night chin wag with my dear retreat friends. It was accompanied by a nightcap of my new favourite Canadian drink by Cabot Trail maple and blueberry cream liqueur. It tastes like blueberry pancakes and syrup - yum!

Finished size: 31" x 37"

Here is the Evergreen Wallhanging with my other retreat finish - Spring Stamp SAL.

Linking up to Alycia's Finished (or not) Friday.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome stitchy friends! We are so happy to see what your hands are creating and to encourage you in your creative journey!

I am just back from a quilting retreat with long time friends. I feel inspired, exhausted, and exhilarated all at the same time! I am delighted to share some photos of the hand stitching projects my very talented friends worked on.

This is Sandy starting the day with some rug hooking. I was fascinated to watch this stitching process with wool strips hooked onto a canvas. The texture she created using different yarns and wools was luscious!

Here is Barb (very late at night) finishing the hand stitched binding on a guild quilt. This quilt was pieced by someone, machine quilted by a long armer, and completed by 2 different retreaters. Truly a labour of love to donate to the quilt collection to be donated to Home for Good project.

Another late night stitcher Louise is crocheting a gorgeous shawl for her talented physiotherapist as a thank you gift. Her hands are a blur as she stitches so fast, working from muscle memory, and not even using a pattern. Louise gifted one of her shawls to me at the beginning of the covid pandemic. 💕💕

This is my friend Debby knitting some beautiful purple socks with some self patterning yarn. Knitting socks is on my "to learn someday" list. She shared with us about the process of cutting the knitting to insert the heel and we were horrified! LOL 

And here is Sandy again, and this time she is hand quilting her blue block version of Life is Beautiful. I'll post more about this project next week. Sandy uses a  thread puller tool (hers is yellow) that you can buy from Amazon here. I want to try it out, especially for using with perle cotton stitching. Maybe I could finish my Kawandi quilt (using perle cotton) without so much hand pain?

I worked on many projects throughout quilt retreat, including finishing the binding on my Spring Stamp SAL. I love this little bird print I found for the backing fabric, and the happy floral print for the binding. 

Finished size: 9" x 10.5"

When the binding was finished, I took the mini quilt outside for a photo session and was pleased to have photos that really reflect what 'spring' means... blue skies, budding trees, cool breezes, melting snow, and sunshine filled days.  A big thank you to pattern writer Melisa who blogs at Pinker 'n Punkin Quilting and Stitching. 

Thank you for reading about my retreat friends' stitching projects. And now we look forward to seeing what our online friends are stitching! We hope you will link up your blog post below and share your slow progress with us.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter