Spring Fever

enjoying the sunshine

Not that it is getting any warmer or nearer to looking like Spring...but I feel like getting projects done and I am accomplishing just that. This week I have finished that quilt for my friend, got a quilt top done that I have been working on, helped my sister create a baby quilt, my apple cores are to the point of binding and I have put binding on two charity quilts. I picked those up at guild this week and will be working on them today for my slow stitching Sunday.The fabric on them is a panel and is the same but I put two different coloured bindings on them and does it ever make the overall quilt look different!

ready to be delivered

apple cores will be bound in red

two charity quilts to bind today

After my exciting day last week, you can read about the here....I just have the urge to sew or quilt every project. Do you ever have hills and valleys in your quilting? Or maybe I am having feelings of not wanting anyone to go into my sewing room after I am gone and discover all that I have and haven't done!!! I am realizing it takes so little time to do some things. As little as 10 minutes here or an hour there and you can have a few things done. In between all the sewing I have been doing leaders and enders with these triangles and soon they will be to a point where another top will be ready to quilt! It is  Bonnie Hunter's Jamestown Landing.So try today to see what you can fit into even a small amount of time, maybe just a little hand stitching!

The winner is......

What are you doing mom!?

In my last post I was asking for advice on what backing to choose. Well I went with the dark pink. It worked well with the rest of the quilt better than the other ones. It is done now and I am just waiting to put the label on and deliver it for Easter weekend.

aiding in a clean out or adding to my addiction?

Tuesday was a very exciting day around here. Good things were being showered on me. The night before DH saw an advertisement for someone cleaning out a sewing/quilting room. I never thought anymore about it after reading it till Tuesday morning when a friend called me. She had a fellow who needed a quilt quilted and she was wondering if I would be interested. She mentioned his wife had passed away and he was in the middle of cleaning out her sewing room. Hmmm...yup I asked and he was the same fellow in the advertisement. What a coincidence!I believe things happen for a reason. I talked to the fellow(Louis) later that day and made arrangements for a friend and I to go and visit. Her sewing room wasn't big but she had lots in it. I was given a chance to rehome some of her projects, one quilt that needs finishing, a Q-snap frame, a bolt of muslin and lots of pieces of fabric(who doesn't need more fabric)!! The quilt I will finish and return to Louis for his family. But there is another quilt that he wants quilted. Plain stars in solid colours. The fabrics were his wife's grandmothers. WOW!! He is going to let me know about that quilt and  getting it finished cause his daughter would like it.
I also won an online auction that day...I got a like new coffee perculator pot for $10( valued at $90)!!
I received a $20 cheque in the mail and lastly I found the very large box of dog biscuits that I have been looking for for awhile now. It was
indeed a GREAT day!!!!    

 I am the designer/cutter/preparer of fabric that someone else is sewing up into a  baby quilt. We spent the other day searching through my stash for just the right combinations and coming up with a design. I think it will look great. Here is a sneak peek. Don't want to let the whole cat out of the bag just yet!!
Woke up this morning to a couple of inches of freshly fallen snow. Lots don't like it but I think it is pretty and it covers up all that Spring "ick"!!! The only thing is I have to go out later and I hope the roads aren't too bad. Have a great Friday!

Not Spring Yet!!

2nd day of Spring..I don't think so

It was a snowy start to yesterday which made it a great day to be sewing on National Quilting Day! Waking up today it is clear,sunny but -20 Celcius...brrrr!!! So after posting this I am headed to the sewing room to finish what I started yesterday!

a panel quilt

I pieced this top last Fall at a retreat and but was missing a fabric for a border, so it was put on the back burner for awhile. A few weeks ago I found a fabric that would work and the project got moved to the front burner. But it wasn't until last week that I got the top together just in time to show as part of a talk/show and tell about panels I gave with a friend at guild. So far it is made according to the pattern but that is where I stop. Now I want to make it a little larger so I am adding a piano key border with the leftover fabric and a solid outer border. I got the math done and the piano keys cut yesterday, then it was time to go work on my other project....machine quilting!

hoping to finish today and bind

 I could put it off with laundry and housework but I do have a deadline so jump in I finally did. It went well but I must finish it today. I did have one issue...I was having problems seeing well. I thought it was my eyes but came to discover that one of the bulbs on my machine(I have two) was dying and glowing orange so I had to set up a lamp so I could see better especially since I am sewing on black.This is going to require a trip to the sewing machine store for a bulb as I have no spares. If I get to the binding part this is what my slow stitching will be today.

apple cores....love or hate?jury is still out!

Also this week I started a new project. I am in a love/hate relationship with it. A few ladies want to start an applique group here in our area. So after our guild meeting, the applique group meets using the same building for now. One of the members introduced us to apple cores last month. So I started mine this month as I had missed that meeting. How hard could they be? Never ask that!!So I printed out the templates and made a smaller one for turning the edges, cut out some fabric and started piecing. BUT things weren't going together quite right. Hmmm? Well it turns out you can't take the templates and draw a 1/4 " line inside the template for the other template. The geometry of it doesn't compute!! So after discovering that I made new templates and cut more fabric and now I am making a MINI quilt. DH asked me one night what I was making and I said "probably the smallest quilt I have ever made"!! This was a charm pack that I had  and wasn't sure what to do with it, but I think this will be perfect and more stash fabric is used up!!! I don't think it is actually classed as a mini, size wise but I am NOT making it any larger other than to add a border to finish it off. These are the ups and downs of a quilters life but as long as it is cold and snowy I can quilt and sew cause no yard work needs to be done!!

Picking up the pieces

all those embroidered words from last week

It never rains but it pours....literally and metaphorically speaking. It has been very mild that last few days and yesterday it was very dull, gray and rainy. A great day for sewing!! Today finds it gray again with snow that has fallen overnight. Seems everything hit at once. DH and myself both being sick for a week and this week still trying to kick that bug out the door and the time change throwing us for a loop as it always does. I feel I have almost caught up!
This week I have had two days  of good sewing(you all know what that means) ........

backing choices

success! I  have produced this quilt top for a friend who requested it. I am just waiting to hear back from her on her choice of backing fabric. Which would you choose?
Oh well while I am waiting I can get some quilts and books together for my half of a talk at guild on panels and what to do with them!!! There are just so many options when you start looking into doing something with a panel. Do you add borders, pieced blocks or just cut the panel into bits!! All work great. As I start to look at my quilts, I have used lots of panels...more than I would have thought!!
So today  I will be basting and hopefully quilting this quilt. Later on I will be joining Kathy for some  slow stitching.I have several knitting projects that I would like to see finished. There is also that winter embroidery project that looks like it won't be done till next winter and don't even get me started on the baby quilts that will be needed in the next 6-9 months!! Enjoy your day and whatever you decide to do!!

Mother of all cold/flu bugs!

Oh yes it has hit our house and doesn't want to leave. First DH came down with it on his first weekend of vacation/retirement. A wicked cough and chest cold and while I was being his nurse...I got it too! It has been a week now and no end in sight. You feel stuffy and weak, no energy to do anything. While reading other blogs I find I am not alone...poor Bonnie Hunter is away in Florida and writing how she has caught something too. So I guess I can count myself lucky that I am at home!! At home I am...I haven't been out of the house in a week. Those who know me that is very odd!!

Mother's Christmas present a few years ago

With lots of Netflix watching going on...I have had a productive week. I have embroidered all the words I need for a quilt I am making. A friend wants this quilt for her friend who is fighting cancer. I have made this quilt before for the friend's mom as a gift for Christmas. The pattern is "Turning Twenty Again" I think. I just have a photocopy and there is no title on it and I am not sure where I got it!!?!

So this has been my slow stitching for the week and since I haven't been sewing I have no other projects to work on. So I guess slow stitching Sunday with Kathy this week will be my knitting day!!!I am hoping with lots of rest I can kick this bug right in the butt and out the door.

my slow stitching from this week

part of a challenge

 I have too many other things I would like to be doing.  Like this, it is just part of something I am working on with a group as a challenge. Can you guess what it might be? More on that in a future post!!Hope everyone is busy and staying healthy!!

My world is a changing!!

DH is retiring!!! This weekend is the start of 2 months of holidays and then the official start of retirement in May.  Will my sewing/quilting/blogging life be in for a change? This is yet to be seen but for now I will carry on!

Penelope at the auction house where I got her from

It has been a great week. I finally got the belt I needed for "Penelope" and she sews like a dream. Smooth and oh so quietly!!She will need a little time I think to get the oil into spots to make her run even better. Then my friend Jessica gave me a ironing board topper her hubby made that she didn't need anymore. It fits over your regular ironing board to make a larger surface for ironing. It will require a slight modification so it will fit my antique wooden ironing board. Thanks Jessica!!
Then on Friday another friend gifted to me an older Kenmore sewing machine, circa 1980 something!
It will make a good all purpose machine as the feed dogs drop too. Thank you Brenda.
Oh no my "herd" of machines is growing!! Kathy I am catching up!!

Commission project colours

I have a commission project that I need to start soon. It has to be ready for Easter weekend, so I have a month. The pattern is Turning Twenty Again, which is not difficult but there will be some embroidering going on the quilt top that will require some time. So I must get my but in gear! I will post more of this in the near....very near future!

Only 3 blocks left to go!!

I will be linking up with Kathy

today for more slow stitching. I am determined to get this hand quilting done today....well soon!!!I have many projects on the horizon but I seem to be in a rut trying to get this quilt finished. I have been hand quilting on it since the Fall. I counted last night that I have 3 blocks out of 30 left to do. Then there will be a border stencil to do. I am hoping that the border will go quickly!! haha
Happy stitching to you today!!