Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the international weekly hand stitching party!

Why not get a project out and enjoy some relaxation?  Try not to think about your "to-do" list, or ruminate about your worries. Just take a stitching break and focus on pulling thread through fabric or knitting stitches with yarn. 

This week I traced out a new hand embroidery design and I am excited to start stitching it today.

 

I have long admired this Gail Pan pattern that a few other slow stitchers have made. You can find the free pattern here if you want to make one too.

I would like to make this for myself as a souvenir of trudging through yet another Covid modified lockdown phase (with schools going virtual again) until the end of January - is it the 4th or 5th wave now? I will stay safe at home today as I hand stitch away my worries.

Are you starting 2022 with a new hand stitching project? Or finishing ones from last year? Link up your blog or instagram post below and share your projects with us.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scrappy Saturday

Usually by this point in January I have a clear sense of what scrap projects I will be working on for the year ahead. But this year I have not followed the process I usually do and I am more unorganized than usual... and oddly, I am not worried about it at all!

Playing with the scraps!

It seems that all I want to do right now is sew mystery blocks and have fun with scraps! 

So I'm just living in the moment and going with the flow, and maybe sometime I'll get myself more organized for 2022... or maybe not!

I have been drawn back to working on my RSC Bitcoin variation (pattern by Bonnie Hunter). I have done blue, purple and aqua, and some short ladders of orange. This week I sewed my light green strips together that I started back in November, which made 3 1/2  ladders. Then I started cutting and sewing some red ladders for this month's colour. The red ladders look more interesting than the green ones don't you think?!

I don't know what I'll be sewing next week... I'll see where the scraps lead! 

Linking up to the Rainbow Scrap Party

Quiltville Mystery

I finished my blocks for Quiltville mystery part 6. These blocks fit together beautifully, as if everything had been cut and sewn correctly. If you've ever had the experience of blocks not fitting together properly, you know how great it feels when they go together so smoothly!

It has been fun to sew with these spring colours in the dead of winter. I am looking forward to seeing what part seven will have us sewing today and will we be introducing the aqua which we haven't used yet?

Thread Challenge

Did you see on the Jolly Jabber blog that they have issued a "sew down" challenge for 2022? The goal is to sew with a cone of Aurifil and see how long it takes you to finish the cone. 

Aurifil spools

I love these cones of 50 weight thread and have a few Aurifil cones on the go. My most used cone is a darker grey and a beige, but I have finished both of those recently...and several others!

I have opened my new white thread cone and whenever I can sew with white, I will use this cone and see how long it lasts.

You can enter the sew down contest by posting on instagram, which I will do right now at my account "ssskat7".

January UFO project

It was an embarrassment of riches to pick a UFO to work on this month with so so many to chose from! Let's take a quick peak into the UFO closet. Uh oh - not much room to add to the collection, so the newer UFOs have been piling up on the bottom of the closet. 

Better get quilting!

The UFO choice for January is the guild mystery called Milady which was sewn last summer. I added an extra border of blocks I had sewn incorrectly and am very happy with how my mistakes turned out - I think there is a life lesson in there!

The first step is to wash and sew some red yardage for the backing.

Linking to One Monthly Goal

Design Wall Monday

It was a sewing frenzy around here this weekend while I worked on 3 different mystery quilts! 

1) I have been sewing the

Quiltville mystery block

Quiltville mystery since November and have several of those blocks done. I'm about half way through part 6 now and hope to have all the blocks finished in time for Friday's post of part 7.

2) On New Year's day I started the Merry Mayhem Ups and Downs  mystery and it has been really fun to sew. I know this pattern as Scrappy Mountain Majesties and I'm sure I have some blocks somewhere as a partially made UFO. There were many layouts to chose from, and I have finally decided (with the help of some sewing friends on zoom) on this layout. I have more than half of the blocks done and plan to finish up the top this week.

3) I also started the Scrapdash mystery called Winter Walk and it was quite a bit longer and harder.

I had to sew the second line on the sew and flip corners because those bonus HST blocks are about 3"... enormous! Can't possibly throw those in the garbage! I will likely make the HST blocks into another border for the quilt. I have all the blocks sewn, and now all the pieces are going into a box to take to quilt retreat to sew (if we are permitted to have retreat - depends on what omicron does in the next month).

This is what my design wall looked like with pieces from all 3 mysteries. 

Total craziness!
But hey... I started off the new year with what I hope to spend most of the year doing - sewing!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Happy New Year!

Welcome to the first hand stitching party of 2022!

This is the perfect time to reflect on a year gone by, and the accomplishments made. It was another very challenging year living in a world wide pandemic, and I consider just staying alive to be a great accomplishment! I am so thankful to have access to vaccines, to not have contracted covid, and to not have lost any loved ones. 

I am celebrating making it to another year by sewing all weekend and zooming with friends! Yesterday I started 2 mystery quilts and will post about those tomorrow.

My biggest accomplishment this week was finishing my December UFO that was 4 years in the making. I was a little worried about stitching the binding on these 135 degree angles, but it went very well.

See the very old Debbie Mumm fabric used up in this backing?!?

I savoured this hand stitching as 2021 came to an end, and wondered what I would hand stitch in 2022. 

I have a project in mind to start and I pulled out these Valdani threads, plus a white for the background and the blue fabric for the border. Can't wait to get started!

What are you starting to hand stitch in 2022? Or are you busy finishing up projects from last year? Link up your blog post below and share your hand stitching plans and progress with us.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

December UFO

pin basting the layers

I didn't do anything with my December UFO prior to Christmas, but during the past week I buckled down to it. My brain needed to be in a relaxed state where I could focus and make decisions. 

I was quite hesitant to start the quilting but once I started it went very quickly. 

The little stars were outline stitched with an X through the middle.

The bigger red stars was outlined stitched also, and I used the hera marker for the lines through the centre.

The background was quilted with random swirls and loops.

I decorated the tree with red thread and made clam shell shapes to look like garland. I don't it ended up looking like garland, but that's okay :)

This quilt was made from a beautiful kit I purchased in 2017 from Quilter's Nine Patch (which unfortunately closed due to covid, but still has a small online store). The pattern is in Kim Diehl's wonderful book called Simple Christmas Tidings. 

This is my last finished quilt for 2021 and I'm so excited to finish it before midnight! 

Linking up to One Monthly Goal.

Happy New Year!

New Years Mysteries

Now that the busyness of Christmas is over, it's time to look ahead to a new year. How do you celebrate the end of one year and the start of a new one? 

Pre-covid celebrations have included attending concerts and parties with friends, but covid has taken all that fun away. The most fun a quilter can have is to start a new quilt! How about starting 2 quilts on New Year's Day?!? 

Double your fun!

1) Merry Mayhem is providing a free mystery called Ups and Downs. This one starts with 8.5" blocks which is a huge size for me to work with, so I'm intrigued about that. It looks like a great stash buster and you can make the mystery in any quilt size you prefer. The fabric requirements and first step of making HST blocks has been posted here. I'm ready!

2) Scrapdash is hosting their usual New Year's Day mystery and this one is called Winter Walk. The fabric requirements and cutting instructions have been posted here, but all the sewing happens on New Years Day. I'm ready! I have sewn several of the Scrapdash mysteries and enjoyed every one! Click here to see last year's mystery.

You may have guessed by the photos that I plan to sew both mysteries because I couldn't chose between the two of them! NO, we are not talking about the fact that I am knee deep in the Quiltville mystery right now! There is always room for one or two more projects right?!?!

These are the 2 mystery quilt adventures that I am aware of to celebrate the beginning of a new year. If there are there other mysteries I have missed, let us know in the comments below!

Favourite Finishes 2021

Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs is hosting a linky party to celebrate our accomplishments in 2021. It was quite a stressful and memorable year, so it was good to look back and remember some happy quilty memories.

These are my top 6 finishes for 2021:

Favourite Machine Quilting

1) Grassy Creek - this is my version of the 2020 Quiltville mystery. I made a smaller lap size donation quilt. This is my favourite machine quilting accomplishment from this year, especially the hearts in the grey border spaces.

Favourite Original Design

2) Swimming in a sea of scraps - this quilt was a real challenge for me. I received a bag of scraps in the mail from the Sister's Scrap Challenge to make a quilt. There were so many small scraps! We could add a background to the project and this is the quilt I ended up with.

Favourite Mini Projects

3) Table Scraps placemats - the Joyful Quilter issued the Table Scraps Challenge to help us use up our smaller scraps and I made many placemats to donate to Meals on Wheels. It was a wonderful project to use up old blocks and little  scraps, and provided a wonderful sense of accomplishment each month.

Favourite RSC project

4) RSC Maverick Stars - this is my favourite Rainbow Scrap Challenge project! Some of these star blocks are made from very tiny scraps and this quilt holds a lot of wonderful memories for me. The quilt top was finished during a special visit at my friend Deanna's house.

Favourite Hand Quilting

5) Hand Quilted Rails - this was made from fabric strips given to me by my friend Gillian. I just love the soft colour pallet and really enjoyed my first experience (and definitely not my last) hand quilting with a wool batting.

Favourite Mystery Quilt

6) Bats and Boos - this is my favourite mystery quilt adventure this year. It was a free mystery from the Fat Quarter shop, made completely from stash, and every step of the process was fun, fun, fun!

Linking up to the Best of 2021 party!

Quiltville Mystery Update

Part 4 QST blocks

Part 5 has just been posted for the Quiltville mystery called "Rhododenron Trail". It has been fun working with purples for a change, and I just love this old batik fabric with the stick people!

I have been making about 2/3 of the blocks for each step to make a smaller quilt. But part 4 was a doozie, so I'm behind in finishing those QST blocks. 

I have many blocks in various stages of completion and will enjoy some sewing machine time to finish these, and start some part 5 blocks.

If you are sewing your own version of the Quiltville mystery, how are you coming along?

Jolly Box Unboxing

In yesterday's blog post I mentioned that I treated myself to a Jolly Box for Christmas. Readers made comments and sent me emails wanting to know what was in the box.

When I mentioned this to my kids they suggested I do an "unboxing video" and I didn't even know what that was. So they gave me some tips and here is the video my daughter made. Max the Granddog even makes a surprise cameo appearance!

Slow Sunday Stitching

Merry Christmas everyone and welcome to the weekly hand stitching party! If you have been as busy this week as I have been with shopping, wrapping, cleaning, cooking, and eating.... you probably haven't had much time for stitching. But today is the day for relaxing, and putting some stitches into your projects.

This is the stitchery I am working on today. It's one of the patterns for the Hugs 'n Kisses Advent Stitch-Along. The tree is done and the house is next. I think I will have to put a foundation on my house :)

My daughter got some stitcheries for Christmas and I was happy that she jumped right in to start the first one. This is what she accomplished on Christmas day. She has learned the stem stitch and the chain stitch, and how to make french knots. Pretty good start! 

Santa brought me this Jolly Box for Christmas from the Fat Quarter Shop, but I haven't opened it yet to see what is in the mystery box!

What are you hand stitching today? Link up your blog post and share your plans for some relaxing stitching today!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Placemat Gifts

Gail's placemats

I was able to finish up 22 placemats to drop off to the Meals on Wheels office last week. The transfer of the bundle was quick, distanced and masked as all things are in these worrisome days of the Omicron variant. I didn't get a photo of that to share, but I have lots of photos of the placemats.

There were 8 placemats that my friend Gail made and I finished. Some needed backings attached and some just needed the edge top stitched.

The most fun part of finishing the placemats was picking the thread colours. I used the spool with the least amount of thread for this mat and finished it up!

14 of the placemats were ones I had made over the past year. Here are 10 on the design wall. These were made as part of the Table Scraps Challenge that The Joyful Quilter issued for 2021. I made a placemat each month using scraps in the colour of the month at Rainbow Scrap Challenge. So many of these projects were made with scraps that did not originate in my quilting room!

Here are the other 4 mats. The QST mat was made from scraps sent in the mail by Gail The Cozy Quilter,  2 mats were made from leftover blocks from my friend Marg, and the William Morris scraps were in a random scrap bag.

I am proud of these quilting efforts! It really makes me happy to turn scrappy leftovers into something that is both beautiful and useable. I hope these quilty gifts bring a ray of sunshine into the lives of folks who are shut in at Christmas.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party! It's the last Sunday before Christmas, so I know all you hand stitchers are busy finishing and wrapping up gifts. Have you got your hand stitching projects to the point where they might be ready for Christmas? 

These days I'm taking life at a slower pace and I immediately shut down any grandiose ideas of "I could make this for ___" prior to Christmas!  

If I really like the idea, I tell myself that I will make it next year for that person. But I will not start any last minute creative impulse projects that end up causing me stress with a Christmas deadline!

I have been slowly embroidering some little tiny designs from the Hugs and Kisses mystery advent stitch-along. I have finished a couple of the stitcheries, but mostly I am looking forward to some slow stitching after the holidays.

What are you hand stitching today? I hope you will take some time today to rest, to put some stitches into a gift for someone special (including yourself!) and reduce the level of stress you are experiencing. Feel free to call this "mandatory preventative medicine".

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scrappy Saturday

The 2021 punctuation themed sampler quilt called Full Stop has been really fun to sew. Each month Angela posted a block pattern to sew in the colour of the month. I made 4 blocks each month and this week I finished sewing the last block pattern, which was a period. 

It was fun to pick out the colours and to look at all the blocks on the design wall. I didn't sew the side pieces on as I'm waiting to see what the layout is to determine the block size.

This is the layout that I'm leaning towards. I think it needs one more red exclamation mark block on the top right.

Any ideas you'd like to share to improve this design?

I am hoping to sew the blocks together over the Christmas break and have a quilt top by the end of 2021.

Linking up to Rainbow Scrap Challenge