Been a busy quilter

 It has been a couple weeks of not posting but here we go with what I have been up to! There is no shortage of things going on in my sewing room. 

my PIKO quilt top

I had the privilege of helping edit and then doing my version of a new pattern. The pattern is PIKO by Carla Alexiuk of Quilting by the River. This link is to her blog but she is also on facebook. I have helped look over a couple of her patterns. I find the pattern making process challenging but fun to do. I chose to do my version of Piko in shades of purple with the outside border being changed to be smaller on my quilt. It is sitting in time out waiting to be quilted.

Last week I went to my friend's Natalie's "She-Shed" and she long armed two quilts for me. I have yet to finished the binding on them so they are in another pile of things to finish.

double wedding ring hand quilting

I loaded a quilt on the hand quilting frame. It has been on my cutting table waiting to be basted. I was originally going to baste it, machine quilt some of the arcs and then hand quilt the large negative spaces. But I decided I would hand quilt the whole thing. Hope you don't get bored with it, it looks like this might be an all winter process!!

I finished the top for a baby quilt and will wait to find out if it is a boy or girl and I will add the backing accordingly.

baby quilt

               On top of all these starts, stops, and half finished things....I cast on a new knitting project. It is a knit along with Lauren from Sweet Yarns (check out the store on facebook too)in Sudbury.  

knitting new shawl

Oh my when I read this I get exhausted and want to sit and relax. There never seems to be enough hours in the day to get things done. Now add Christmas season on top and WOW life just got a whole lot busier!! That is a good time to check in with my friend Kathy and do a little slow stitching today. Maybe those bindings will get done.

Have a good week everyone and enjoy this Christmas season!

Is it late Fall???

 We turned our clocks back last night one hour but seems more like we turned them back to September. The weather here is wonderful. Temps have been like late summer, early fall but we will take it because all too soon the winter flurries will be coming. We had some heavy winds last night that took out the power overnight but all is good now.

It has been a very productive week for me. I finished a scrappy quilt that I wrote about last week. It will be a prize in a penny sale I am working at next weekend. Then I  started a toddler quilt and am in the process of finishing the machine quilting today and might even get the binding on it too before race time at 3pm!

That leaves me with what to do next...I have a couple of single bed quilts that need sandwiching and quilting. Then I have a few larger quilts that need backings made and get them ready to send to a longarm quilter.

A few months ago, a friend Mallory brought scraps home from a retreat. We all shared them and I even sent some as a bit of a joke to another friend Nicole, who had moved away. We all had a great laugh we she received them and she called us on the day we get together to sew. This week, I received a small zippered bag from her as a thank you for sharing. Yup you may have guessed it was made with some the the very scraps that I sent her!! I haven't quite decided what to use it for but I am sure something will come to me!

keeping practiced at embroidery

I have already been visiting with Kathy's blog to see what slow stitching she is doing today. I will be trying to finish that embroidery I have been working on for awhile. Need to clear it out so I can get back into some knitting. There are six panels 18"square and I have this one to finish and one other. Then I will have to decide what to do with them!

Enjoy your day and the week ahead!! Happy sewing!!