Welcome to the first Slow Sunday Stitching party of 2014!
Last week we had a record number of link ups - 25! So much inspiration and beautiful projects to enjoy.
...And speaking of inspiration, if you like intricate hand embroidery, crazy quilting, embellishments, Hummel figurines, beading, and/or lace work, you have to check out this quilt - Little Darlings. What an inspiring example of the love of all things stitched by hand! I cannot even imagine the hours of stitching bliss!
...And speaking of stitching bliss, since finishing my Accidental Quilt, I have returned to my Journey of a Quilter project. I just had to take a photo of my quilt when the sun came out for a minute yesterday.
Okay, where is my needle?
I really shouldn't leave my needle stuck in a project, but there it is!
Now where was I on this project? I have finished hand quilting 7 of the 9 blocks on this quilt. 2 more blocks to go, plus the border. It has been a wonderful journey with this quilt! I started piecing the blocks in the summer of 2007, so this is the 7th year of this project. It's time to get 'er done in 2014!
What are you working on today? Link up your post below and share with us - hand work projects only please!
Today is the 1st post for 2014 Rainbow Scrap Challenge!
This is my third year of participating and I plan to continue most of my scrappy projects from last year, so it is "business as usual" in the scrap production line here!
This is my first Omigosh block this year in blues, which is the colour for January. This project uses my tiniest scraps - 1" squares and strips for the 9 patches, and 2" squares of background neutrals. The 9 patch blocks finish at 1.5" and are cute as a button!
This year I am adding a new focus for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and that is to actually use up some of my collection of Half Square Triangle (HST) blocks.
I must brag to you that I have a wonderful and diverse collection! There are bags and bags of them sitting in boxes. Some of the projects are started, and some are just waiting for inspiration. I know where most of these bonus triangles have come from, the quilts that I have been finished long ago, and the scraps I have retrieved from trash cans at classes and retreats (yep... I'm a proud garbage picker!)
So I plan to use up as many of those as I can in the colour of the month. Angela is posting some patterns for us and I will work on the blocks that have HST's in them. Also there are wonderful ideas posted here from the "Festival of HST's" last year.
Here are my blocks this week. The top left is 36 HST's that were given to me by my friend Pat, and there are a few more to use up from that bag. The two star blocks use wonky scraps for the star points. These blocks are 6.5". Then there is my blue Omigosh block at 5" and my one and only blue spool block at 3.5". A pretty good start to the year!
Hop over to SoScrappy to see the more scrappy inspiration projects.
The first "Friday Night Sew In" (on my calendar) for 2014 was a great success! Interesting conversation, lots of laughs, yummy snacks, and a little bit of sewing got done too!
I worked on a few different things including my Civil War quilt (my UFO of the month).
But I guess I wasn't quite paying enough attention because in spite of having my rows clearly marked, I managed to sew the last two rows in reverse order. Ugh.
We debated just leaving it that way, but there were too many things I didn't like, including having the same sashing prints too close together (I don't do "random" very well!) and I really had my mind set on specific blocks being in the corners.
So my generous sister volunteered to do some unsewing for me. She took off the last two rows and now I need to fix the order of the sashings and cornerstones, and then re-attach the last two rows. But not tonight - I am exhausted from all the shenanigans!
Well that Bonnie Hunter surprised us all with her mystery his year by releasing the final design on New Year's Eve!
I still had about 30 units to sew from step #5, but I jumped ahead to constructing some blocks to see what my version of Celtic Solstice was going to look like. These blocks went together perfectly, and the seams all butted together the way I like them to.
I whipped up 6 tester blocks, and I must say that I think this is my very favorite mystery yet! I have enjoyed them all, but the movement that is created when these two blocks are combined is really something!
And I am still loving my fabric choices, so that is awesome! I do wish my pinwheels showed up a little more, but that is not much of a concern with this design overall.
I can see on the computer screen that the top left block is not placed properly, so I will have to pay close attention to that when I'm ready to put the quilt top together.
We are having an early "Friday Night Sew In" tonight, although the official one is not until later in the month. I sure am hoping to make lots of progress on my mystery blocks tonight!
I am feeling a little better on this first day of a new year. I am walking slowly and moving gently as I try to decide how sturdy I actually am today. While feeling a little bit sorry for myself, I decided to take the bull by the horns with this thought...
“Don’t waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
I plan to spend today "chanting the beauty of the good". Doesn't that sound like fun!??!
In 2013 I participated in A Lovely Year of Finishes and benefitted from the regular goal setting and end of month celebration of success (or confession of nonsuccess). In reviewing my UFO list (on right sidebar) I realized I had 6 finished quilts, which means a 50% success rate. That's pretty good for the kind of year I had! Actually I'm declaring that to be amazing!
This is the review of my UFO list for 2013, while "chanting the good" ...
5. RRCB - a valiant effort was made over the summer, but it was not meant to be at that time. (notice how I avoided the "fail" word!)
6. LoTE K/F - DONE!
8. Civil War Sampler - again a valiant effort at the end of the year, but it will be finished at the beginning of 2014.
9. Tetris - neglected quilt top
It's the 2013 Finale Party over at A Lovely Year of Finishes, so you can hop over there and see what the participants accomplished over the past year. A big thank you to our hostesses Shanna and Melissa for keeping us on the UFO completion track! And if you think this might be helpful to you in conquering your UFO pile, you'd be welcome to participate in 2014 - to sign up, click here.
So my 6 unfinished UFO's from last year will be bounced over to the new 2014 list. And 6 more "quilt wannabes" will be added. To locate those honoured 6 new inductees, I carefully opened the door of the UFO closet. There are 20 hangers in that closet, so I asked which projects are desperate to become a finished quilt in 2014. Apparently they all are!
Those that shouted the loudest and made the list of 6 new inductees are:
1. Log Cabin - never showed on my blog (made in mid 90's)
2. Block Sampler - from Kingston shop hop
3. Countdown to Christmas - newly made top that I want to have for next ready for next Christmas
4. Plaid Beauty - blocks made at a class with Bonnie Hunter
5. Storm At Sea - small project that will be a fun finish in a busy month
6. Scrappy Hexagons - a really interesting scrap quilt that I would like to finish this year
So that's it!
The quilty goals for 2014 will be posted in a list on the sidebar of my blog, along with a slight change in my long term hand quilting projects, since one has been finished (woohoo!), one can be added.
I plan to finish my Civil War Sampler quilt top as my January project.
Cheers to a great quilty year ahead!
A very non-quilting New Year's Eve day has been happening here and I am really annoyed. I had a very full quilt day planned. I had hoped to finish my UFO project today.
Not happening.
Also I had a really good start on step #5 of Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery while watching QuiltCam last week. I made an incorrect block right off the bat, so I left it on my sewing table while I continued to sew to encourage myself not to repeat that error too many times! Today I was going to finish those 100 blocks and post about it.
Not happening.
I have spent most of the day traveling between my bed and the washroom. Again. Such a crappy way to end the year - pardon the pun!
Bonnie calls these "split triangle units", but I know them as "shaded four patch" blocks. I did get maybe half of my step #5 blocks done, and I really like them. I had some fun on the design wall seeing what could be done with them.
Did I mention lately that I love my "Angels Among Us" fabrics?
Can't wait to see the next step on Friday!
To see more blog posts about the mystery, hop over to the link up party - click here.
On the design wall today is my UFO project of the month. I started piecing these Civil War sampler blocks in January 2011.
It was a project on Barbara Brackman's blog and I enjoyed making the blocks throughout that year, and learning some history about the Civil War. This project was on my UFO list for 2013 and here it is almost the end of the year and they are finally making it into a quilt top. I have many of the vertical sashings sewn on and need to cut and sew the horizontal sashings. Oh yah - and figure out the borders!
My goal is to get this quilt top completely together by the last day of the year... which is tomorrow! Yikes!
What do you think the odds are of that?!?! LOL
To see more design walls on the last link up of the year, hop over to Patchwork Times.
Welcome to Slow Sunday Stitching - a celebration of all kinds of hand stitching! 2013 was a great year for slow stitching - 52 weeks have passed in which we could enjoy our own hand stitching, and be inspired by the projects of quilty friends. Thank you to each of you that linked up your blog posts on Sundays and shared your stitching with us. Last year, we had a total of 641 blog posts that were linked up to Slow Sunday Stitching! That's a lot of s l o w stitches!
At last week's link up, there was a draw for an applique pattern, and the winner was comment #12 which is Deb in Florida. Congratulations to Deb and thanks for being such a regular contributor to the Slow Sunday Stitching party!
Over the past year I have shared my progress on various projects including binding quilts, hand quilting two projects (Journey of a Quilter and The Accidental Quilt), making a scrap rug, stitching some tiny hexagons, hand piecing some blocks, improving my applique stitch, and I did a bit of hand embroidery. And I enjoyed every single stitch - the perfect, consistent stitches, and the crazy, messy ones too!
This week I am so proud to tell you that put the final stitches in my "Up, Up and Away" quilt! This quilt was impulsively started at quilt retreat in February, hence it became named The Accidental Quilt. Amazingly, it was pieced and hand quilted, and finished in the same calendar year!
My quilt model Max was totally uncooperative... this puppy needs some training since he has a Grandma who is a quilter!
I was able to get a nice photo of my finished quilt hanging outside before the sun went down. Can I say again that I just love everything about this quilt!?!
The pattern is from the book called Sunday Morning Quilts by Cheryl Arkison and Amanda Jean Nyberg.
And then I had an amazing synchronistic experience. Just as I was finishing the stitches in this quilt, a gift arrived in the mail for me -
"A Month of Sundays". It is hot off the press, and I can't believe that I won a copy in a draw on Cheryl's blog called Dining Room Empire. I love this blog (go read her wonderful post about the reality of Christmas, which reminds me to say "Thank You" to my Mom for years of fun and memorable Christmases past!)
And just look at the card Cheryl put inside the book! She even autographed the book for me!
What a wonderful Christmas gift - thank you Cheryl! And what a great book this is, full of patterns and tips, and amazing photography.
So now that this quilt is finished ("out with the old") I am I wondering which of the projects in the new book I will be tempted to start next ("in with the new")?!?
For today, I'm back to hand quilting my Journey of a Quilter. I am really close to finishing that one too, so will start to think about which hand quilting project is going to be next in my hoop.
And I have a new hand embroidery project to start in the new year that I can't wait to show you!
2014 holds 52 more weeks of hand stitching link ups at Kathy's Quilts. Grab my button (code is on the right sidebar) to put on your blog, and make a commitment to yourself to enjoy some relaxing hand stitching with us on Sundays throughout next year. What are you proud of accomplishing with your hand work last year? Link up your blog post below and share your current project or ideas for what you plan to work on next year.
I have been participating in Angela's scrap challenge since January 2011 and it has been such a great experience! I am so delighted that she is continuing the challenge into next year!! I have made so many fun blocks, sewn up a ton of scraps and enjoyed the comradery of fellow scrap lovers every Saturday on the scrappy link up party.
For the last few weeks I have been thinking about the Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects that I have worked on over the past year, and have been trying to decide which ones will continue and which ones might need to be finished.
Here is the list of my scrap challenge projects:
1) Palm Branches
This block pattern ("Red Herring")is from Kristy at the Quiet Play blog. By the way, Kristy has a fun free BOM starting in January - Sew Kitschy.
It has been a while since I sewed some palm branch blocks, but I still really like them. They are great for using up really small scraps since the blocks finish at 6" x 7". I enjoy paper piecing, and am happy to have a regular chance to make one of these blocks. I would like to add more blocks to this collection, so this project will continue next year.
2) Carrie Nation
This project is just "OK" for me. I wouldn't mind finishing this one up in early 2014 since I don't really enjoy piecing them. I don't seem to have 2.5" squares readily available and have sometimes ended up looking for yardage to cut into and that is not really the purpose of this challenge. Also these blocks lack challenge for me and I'd like to do something else, although they do make a great scrappy quilt. So the plan for this one is to make a few more blocks and make it into a finished quilt asap.
3) Alamo Stars
OH yah... I love these tiny little star blocks. They are 2.25" and are like little sparkly diamonds. I like how some blocks have the star fabric centers and some have background centers. That was a good decision!
I sure have used up a lot of tiny batik scraps... and these blocks are a perfect leader/ender project. It is hard to describe why these blocks make me so happy, when I am sewing them and when I am admiring them!! There are many more finished blocks which I have to find somewhere in my sewing room, and then will take a more recent photo of the whole collection. The Alamo Stars will definitely continue into next year.
4) Pumpkin Seeds
I started this project to try to improve my applique stitch, and I think have accomplished that goal. My curves are smoother and my points are pointier, and I think I'm ready to move on to other applique challenges now. But I do want to round out the balance, so this year I will focus on adding more colours that are needed in this quilt. The challenge with this project right now is the goal that I set of making this a true charm quilt and finding different neutral background squares. I think this would be a fun quilt to hand quilt next year... or the year after that!
5) Omigosh
This is a multi year, long term scrap project. The blocks are tiny and are perfect for using up my 1" scraps. It will continue into 2014 and likely in the years to follow! I am just really getting started on this one.
6) Spools
What can I say? I love these little scrappy blocks. They will continue next year for sure! Sometimes they are leader/ender blocks and sometimes I just cut and sew them for relaxing fun! I need to get a more recent photo of this block collection too and start to figure out how many more blocks are needed for a bed sized quilt (this one is for ME!) and in which colours.
7) Crumbs
I don't know why, but I seem to have lost interest in this project over the year. There are enough blocks to make a nice size lap quilt for the comfort quilt collection at my guild so maybe it's time to finish this one up.
As I write this blog post I am thinking about how amazing it is that little bits of fabric and time add up to such beauty!
Each of these projects uses up specific kinds of scraps and participating in this challenge has helped me be more organized and thoughtful about my scrap problem collection (although you wouldn't believe that if you saw my quilting studio!)
Also I am thinking about how much I love each one of these projects. But I also know that it is important to clear out old energy to make room for the new... and we all know how much I love to start new quilting projects! So for 2014, my plan will be to finish up two of these projects (Carrie Nation and Crumbs) and continue with the other five. To see what other scrap challenge quilters are working on at the end of 2013, hop over to the SoScrappy link up.
What a Christmas hangover I have this year!
There was way too much of this!
And other things that catch up with you eventually - like hours of traveling and being so happy to see friends and family that you talk into the wee hours of the morning, and forget that sleep is necessary for survival!
And not nearly enough of this! Which is also necessary for (my) survival!
Finally, today I have some time to myself. I will download my photos, and write a blog about my favorite Christmas gifts this year.
And I will get my last Rainbow Scrap Challenge blog post written... look for that later today.
What a busy month!
On top of everything else going on this month, I did some machine quilting for a friend so she could finish up a quilt for Christmas. Such beautiful fabrics!
I quilted a holly leaf kind of pattern on the diagonal of the quilt and it will make the quilt nice and light for snuggling up in. I don't like dense quilting for a lap quilt since all that quilting makes the quilt feel too stiff.
For a change, I am not madly finishing up any quilts to give this year. I have been busy with the mystery quilt, my December UFO, and two wedding quilts that should have been finished in the summer and that I would like to finish up before 2014 arrives. That's unlikely!
But I will enjoy every quilting moment that I can find over
the holidays, and I hope you do too. If you are visiting family and friends, take along your hand stitching and double your fun!
My blog posting may be sporadic over the holidays, so I will wish all of you my wonderful blog readers a Merry Christmas!
There is a lot to enjoy in quilt blog land today. It is Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times and the week 4 link up for Celtic Solstice at Quiltville.
This was on my design wall at the end of last week - step #3 of the Celtic Solstice mystery. I was not a happy camper. There was not enough contrast in these blocks for my liking. The colours are way off in the photo and makes the pinks look purple. I sure hope the rest of the quilt design will perk up these duds!
Then I got busy cutting and sewing strips for step #4.
Doesn't that look so cool how the fabric swirls like that behind the machine?!? It looks like ribbon candy!
I was much happier with my blocks from step #4. They are simple four patches but they look pretty on the wall and could be their own quilt. But they are part of a much larger mission, and I can't wait to see the next step being released on Friday!
It is amazing that I have been able to keep up with the mystery at this busy time of year.
The main reason I am completely caught up is because my shopping and wrapping for Christmas is not finished.
And the reason for that is the ice storm we had over the weekend.
Most places in town, including my house, had no hydro, so we spent a lot of time at my parents, who thankfully had power most of the time.
That meant they also ended up with most of the extended family hanging out at their house to stay warm!
This is the view of my parent's house from the sidewalk. Many tree branches snapped off or were hanging to the ground from the weight of the ice. The sound when a branch breaks and falls to the ground is surreal - a loud crack followed by a smashing sound, like a thousand glasses shattering.
Our power was restored by last night and the house is warm once again. I sure hope tomorrow is better for driving and finishing up Christmas preparations.
...And speaking of stitching bliss, since finishing my Accidental Quilt, I have returned to my Journey of a Quilter project. I just had to take a photo of my quilt when the sun came out for a minute yesterday. 
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