What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

The week got away from me and I did not show my favourite quilts from QuiltCon so I will show them to you in this post along with my stitching efforts from this past week.  I'll start with my stitching...

I have finished the flowers to the right of the rabbit in my Spring cross stitch picture and I'm now working on the carrots and beets under the rabbit and the flowers on the left side. I'm surprised all these flowers and vegetables have not been eaten by the bunny--that's what happened in our backyard when ...

This week the Project QUILTING challenge is Sew Not a Square. Specifically, the quilt could not be a square or have any squares in it's composition. "use no square shapes in doing it"

I was out of town until Monday evening on my trip to QuiltCon and came down with symptoms and tested positive for Covid on Tuesday evening {whomp whomp} so I've been isolating from my family. I've also had limited energy as you can imagine. I still wanted to participate in this week's challenge so I grabbed a few supplies from my studio to ...

 Almost all of my sewing time this week was devoted to finishing the turquoise and gray wedding quilt.  Several hours were spent at the sewing machine, adding lines of quilting with turquoise thread using my walking foot.  The herringbone part of the quilt was quilted with diagonal lines following the pattern of angles of the turquoise strip piecing. 

The backing of this quilt is turquoise flannel--so soft and warm!

I did the hand stitching of the binding in the car.  I had some solid turquoise in my stash which was used for the binding.  I just noticed the thread formed ...

 The condition of my sewing room has deteriorated over the last month or so to the point where I could not find my rotary cutter... it was time for a clean up.  I spent over an hour putting things away, folding fabric, sorting through piles, etc. and still no rotary cutter.  I tried to think of the last time I used it...then, I remembered I used it at a recent guild sewing day---it was in the bag I took to the sewing day.  Oh well, the sewing room is looking much better and I had a new project planned ...

It would be nice to write about all the things I made this year before the end of the year is up! 

One of the makes I'm most proud of, I finished in early autumn and it had been a while in the making. I started making this coverlet when Jenni Smith taught the Manx log cabin technique at Stitch Gathering in 2019.

This traditional technique involves measuring and ripping fabric strips by hand, folding and sewing the blocks by hand and sewing them together front and then back. I made all the blocks by hand, sewed the fronts ...

 I have been furiously sewing this week to finish off some Christmas gifts in time for the big day.  Just a little bit more to do! My cousin and her husband came for lunch on Friday.  We do not get to see each other very often but often talk on the phone about our mutual genealogy project--shaking the family tree on our mothers' side of the family to see what we can find out.  The majority of our family members are Scottish with some Irish as well.  I made my cousin a wide open zippered pouch with some fabric I ...

I have not one but two finishes to share this week!  I quilted the baby quilt that I made for the church bazaar this week using light yellow thread and my walking foot to create a rectangular grid.  The backing is donated minke in light green which goes perfectly with the colours on the front  of the quilt.  The binding is made from the same Kaffe fabric that was used to make the spinning four patch blocks. 

Over the past 10 months, I have been making 36 patch blocks in the colour of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  This past week, I quilted, bound and labelled my quilt--that's two quilts finished in two weeks!  I'm on a roll!  I used my walking foot to sew straight lines diagonally through all of the white squares with 28wt thread.  The backing is a wide back called Sea Glass.  It has lots of colours in it to match all of the squares on the front.  There are no repeats of any of the coloured squares on ...

I have had my lupine quilt back from the long arm quilter for a couple of months now.  Finally, this past week, I had the time and energy to get the binding made and sewn on by machine.  I don't usually measure my quilts before I cut the binding.  I tend to just cut the number of strips that looks like the right amount--usually, I am pretty accurate doing it this way.  This week was no exception and I had 7" of binding to spare when it was all on. 

Firstly - thank you for all the answers to the question I posed last week.  How do you follow blogs in 2022?  I haven't had time to digest all the answers yet, but I will.  

This week I've been busy finishing up this piece so I can take it to Coastal Quilters tomorrow.  

It's something that I started when I came back from Dunedin all inspired by the local's use of woollen fabrics.  The maroons in the centre are from a small bundle of Sue Spargo woollen fabrics, and the borders on the side are flannel that ...

 Most of my sewing this past week was by hand.  I finished quilting the Quilt for a Survivor of a Residential School on Monday and added the binding by machine on Tuesday, leaving the hand sewing of the binding for several car trips we made on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  It's been hot here so having a quilt on my lap was a bit warm but I directed the A/C vents towards me and managed to finish the hand sewing without melting!  First, a few close ups of the quilting.  I used navy thread top and bottom and ...

A few weeks ago I was invited to teach wool felt applique at Stitch Witches in Dunedin.  My good friend Sue Lucas is one of the owners of Stitch Witches.

The inspiration table

I had a great time and met lots of lovely ladies. It's always interesting to see everyone else's ideas, and I was inspired by the woollen blankets and woollen suiting fabrics that some of them bought along to the class. 

I had a quick look in a local op shop, but they only had plain green blankets and I wanted pattern and texture (of course ...

 This was not a very productive week in my sewing room.  I managed to hand appliqué a few more doors and windows on a couple of houses on my Coming Home quilt, but that's about it.  

There may have been some bribing involved in the taking of this next photo---Finn is showing you have have two more houses to do on this row.  The dark blue house will have a yellow door and windows.  The magenta house just needs the windows sewn down. This will be my project for slow Sunday stitching tomorrow. I will link up with Kathy ...

 I finished hand stitching the binding on my checkerboard quilt earlier in the week and then today, my quilt holder did his part for the photoshoot.  It was windy outside today, so we picked a sheltered spot on the back patio.  Finn watched from the back door--he really wanted to come out to participate in the photo shoot!  This quilt was started last year as part of Debbie Brown's Colour Block Challenge on Facebook--I had a lot of black and white scraps to use up and made 25 sixteen patches for this quilt.  Yes--I still have more black and ...

 I have been working on several slow Sunday stitching projects this week.  I added more windows and doors to the houses in the Coming Home quilt...I still have a few more to stitch down and one complete "street" to cut out and sew.  Some of my houses have extra "personality" with slightly slanted doors and windows...

I put the pompom on my new hat earlier today so it is all ready to wear.  There are still a few days here and there when I will need a hat for my morning walk.  The pattern picture showed the hat with ...

My friend Christine and I attended the Spring Crafter's Retreat at Camp Kintail this past weekend.  Since last week was extremely busy, I did not have anything to blog about before I left on Friday, but now, I have lots to share! We drove through some snow squalls on the way to the camp on Friday but the roads were fine.  We managed to get some walking in while we were there, in between meals and sewing.  I always get lots done at a retreat--no meals to prepare, no dishes to do...just sew, sew and sew!