One week to go!

first snowman of this winter!

Christmas is only one week away. WOW has this Fall and early winter ever passed fast. We are just starting to have snow sticking around to make it feel more seasonal! My shopping is all done and I just have a couple little projects to finish up and then the wrapping and I will be ready!

I have kept Christmas simple this year. The gifts are well meaning and come from the heart(or my hands). This year the season has been filled with longing  and sad sentiments. It is hard to put up the tree with all those ornaments we have collected over the years, remembering that a big part of my life is no longer here with me but trying to keep his memory alive as well. 

one done one to go

Nat's quilting is super

                                                                    And so I keep busy whether shovelling snow, I got to make my first snowman of the year, curling and visiting with my sewing/knitting buddies. I spent the other day with a friend Natalie and she long arm quilted a  quilt for me. I have been to her house twice this winter and each time it snows! Starting to wonder about taking my PJs next time!! She is helping me clear out old UFOs that are finished tops but just need to be finished quilts.

No time to be typing away on here. Checked in with
Kathy and now to go and do my own slow stitching to get things checked off my list!

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! just in case I skip or miss a couple of weeks. 

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!!

I am backkkkk

zoom quilt pattern

 Not that I went anywhere but it has been a busy few weeks. The weekend of October 22, I had three friends visiting and we had a mini retreat. Three of us were quilting and one was knitting. We were so busy sewing and chatting that I didn't even think to take any pictures. We did zoom with another group of friends that were retreating south of us. We all did a project together. 100-5 inch squares with simple directions became a large table topper. I of course added more blocks once I knew what we were doing and now have a single bed sized quilt top that was border and had binding made. It will get finished at a later date.

I have finished the memory project I was working on but can't show pics as yet. This past week I completed a quilt top that I started at my retreat. It is my version of a new pattern that is not out as yet. I made it all in purples. Pictures will come when I am able to release them by the designer. Yesterday I started a new project. No time to lally gag..got lots of things to do. It starts with a panel and I will add blocks all around and an outside border to finish it off.

purple quilt my version

After all that, I need to get some of these projects actually finished. Which is sandwiching and basting in preparation for machine quilting. Or I might have to engage my friend Nat to give a hand with her long arm machine.

I have a little time to do some sewing but then will settle in for an afternoon of slow stitching  I have 6 blocks to embroider and I think I am on the third one. I will get lots of stitching time while watching the race...Go Denny!!

I'm a bad blogger

lightest purple roses

 I can admit to you all, I am a bad blogger! So much for my once a week post. It has been over a month but life happens. I received a lovely bouquet of roses from a friend, they were so pretty! I couldn't not share this pic with you all.

Once September started it was like summer is over and now it is time to plan for the next event in my life. That event was a celebration of life for my husband. The timing was right and I knew if I didn't do it this Fall it was probably never going to happen and that wouldn't do. We were blessed with a beautiful Fall day, lucky because we had had so much rain and they were predicting it for that day. So many friends and family joined us for the  day, many hugs were received and given. We ended the evening with a potluck supper with a few close friends and family. It was an emotional and exhausting day but something that I needed to do to honour Ted and his memory.

sneak peek

Now we are deep into quilting season otherwise called Fall! I am elbow deep in a secret project so there will be no full pictures(maybe a tease)  but it is coming along. Three quilts to be ready for later in November. I have a few borders to do then the machine quilting will begin. I might even add a bit of hand quilting!

finished wallhanging

Quilt guild has started for another year as well....bring on more UFOs!! I started this year with 4 projects(you can see that post here)Two are completed and have been delivered to their forever home. The other two are completed tops that are waiting for quilting. One might even end up on the hand quilting frame for this winter! Maybe January, I will start a new list but it might be all UFOs!! I know in the next few months aside from Christmas gifts, I have a couple baby/toddler quilts to get finished. Good thing I have my sewing days during the week and a couple of retreats coming up this Fall. Lots of time to get some sewing done. I have finished a few things, cleaning out the sewing room!

one toddler quilt top finished

The garden will get cleaned out soon. I dug potatoes last week. I only planted 5- 20 foot rows but I think I have lots of potatoes to keep me eating all winter and maybe my neighbour too!! Frost has hit so now the only things growing are plants that can withstand the cold. I see cabbage roll making in my future! Then it will be time to put summer things away hunting season and getting ready for winter. I do love the snowy winter season. It is just the shovelling of mounds of snow and the sketchy road conditions if I want to go somewhere that can get a person down, if you let it!!

I have been MIA and did some catching up on my blog reading the other day and today I checked in with Kathy to see what she was slow stitching on today. She even included a story last week about a quilt top that I had finished and entered in the fair while she was here visiting for the Piranha retreat.

Happy sewing and I will pull up my socks, put on my big girl pants and get blogging! Enjoy the week ahead!

Piranha Weekend roundup!

us Piranhas

third time's the charm

The tables are packed up, the sewing room has been returned to the family TV room and everyone has gone home. The weekend went by way too quickly. We got in visits with other friends, got to meet a deer(a real life Bambi although she is a girl) and got to visit our local Fall fair. That is alot to pack into a day and still get some sewing done.There is more about the piranhas here.

toddler quilt

I finished a postcard for a guild member and sent it out last week. I worked on a toddler quilt that will be gifted later. I got the blocks sewn together and on my Wednesday sewing day, I got the top together. The photo isn't the best, the blue is actually dark teal and I think it works very well with the flannel kitty print in the middle of the blocks.

toddler quilt top

This week I have started a new project. I can show this much but for the rest of the story, it will have to wait till they are finished and gifted!

new project

I will be doing some slow stitching today to finish up these heart blocks then more knitting while the Nascar race is on!! Check in with Kathy, apparently I helped her alot while she visited. Nothing I wouldn't do for a friend!

Enjoy your week ahead, it will be a shorter one as Monday is a holiday!

Fair and Piranha Weekend

 So much fun to pack into one weekend, I am so happy and enjoying every second of it. Friday morning I gathered all my entries and took them to the arena to be judged for the local Fall Fair. Then I would have to wait till Saturday to see how well I did with the judges.  

Next the Piranhas started to arrive, supper and we settled into sewing without skipping a beat. Hours of chatting and catching up and a bit of sewing. Our weekend production cannot be measured by what we actually got finished that will be for sure. I have finished one project...it was a postcard but size doesn't count. It will go in the mail later today! Next up for me to sew is a baby quilt . I have to do a practice block first and then will finish the rest of the cutting.

My fellow piranhas, Kathy is making thousands of hst for the Oh say can you sew  mystery quilt, Louise is machine quilting a table runner and Barbie is outside as I write this doing some rust dyeing with all the metal things in my yard! Later this afternoon we will go out to my gazebo for some

slow stitching Sunday with Kathy "beverages"  might be consumed.

This is our last evening together and tomorrow the gang heads home until we meet again! I will have more posts  later this week!