What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Last weekend, I took a class with Mary Elizabeth Kinch on piecing with small bits of fabric.  The quilt I am making is called Summerhill.  It has 4 blocks surrounded by some borders.  I have now finished two of my blocks.  Each square in this first block finishes at one inch. 

The second one is a Courthouse step block--each log is .5" finished.  This is not paper pieced. 

I am using scraps from my cool Kona solids bin plus red violet.  About half of the scraps are all over my cutting table so I am going to have to keep ...

 My lupin block collection continues to grow...although, this week, the blocks were made with Finn's assistance, which means they took a lot longer to make than usual.  This week's blocks were made with a purple grunge dots fat quarter. 

So, now I have a total of 12/48 blocks made for this quilt.  Here are the three lupin fabrics I have used so far:

I have a FQ chosen for my next set of blocks. 

I started a new counted cross stitch project this week--a free pattern from The Blackberry Rabbit (Sorry, I can't provide a ...

As planned, I made 4 more lupin blocks this week, this time using a recently purchased fat quarter with raspberries on it.  My whole family loves raspberries!  At our first house, we had a raspberry patch. As soon as our daughter was old enough to discover the berries, they never made it into the house.  She ate them all, straight off the canes as soon as she went outside for the first time each day.  Here are my raspberry lupins.  (I checked google and lupins can be spelled with or without an "e" on the end--lupin or lupine)

I have always been someone who likes to get a head start on projects with a due date...I did this in school with essays and assignments and I do it now with gifts for special occasions such as birthdays or Christmas. So, yes, I have already started to make some Christmas gifts, which I cannot share on my blog for fear that the recipients will see them here before they unwrap them in December.  I am also working on a 20th Anniversary challenge for the Elgin Piecemakers Guild which I cannot show yet either.  All that being said, I ...

My goal for this week was to finish the y-seams on my Weight of Love quilt and get started on the appliqué...I am happy to report that I managed to accomplish this goal!  Those y-seams sure take a long time.  At the time I took this picture, I had one more seam to do. Note that my toe nails match my quilt...

Back in January, the program committee at the Oxford Quilt Guild issued a challenge.  Each person that wanted to participate was asked to bring in a yard of batik material and a pair of scissors.  We stood in a big circle and listened for instructions...  Fold the fabric in half, snip it at the fold, rip it in half, drop half in front of us and pass the other half to the person on our right.  "Fold it, snip it, rip it, drop it, pass it!"  This was repeated with until each of us had 7 pieces of batik fabric ...

Over the course of 16 months in 2018-2019, 10 quilting friends and I made and exchanged 20 neutral blocks each month.  We could use any neutral colours including cream, beige, brown, white, gray and black and each block was to be made using two lights and a dark or two darks and a light. This way, each of us ended up with 320 neutral blocks at the end of the swap.  I divided mine into two piles--1:  white, gray and black and 2: cream, beige and brown, and decided to make two different projects with my blocks.   

I found some ...

The neighbourhood is expanding!  I have 20 houses made now and lots of fabric set aside for more of them.  This will be an ongoing project for a few weeks.  

I also made the June and July blocks for the London Modern Quilt Guild HST block of the month mystery quilt.  There was one block for June and two for July so now I am all caught up until the next block pattern comes out in August.  Each month, we learn how to make HST's in a different way for our block that month. 

I started another knitted facecloth ...

Last week, I showed my first finished face cloth which I had knitted and this week, I made another one.  The second one went much more quickly.  I will be starting a third one tomorrow for Slow Sunday Stitching with Kathy and the other sewers, knitters, crocheters and embroiderers. 

The variegated yarn makes an interesting pattern.  

My hexagon quilt top is done.  As you can see, I decided to add 1.5" filler strips between the columns of hexagons. I needed the quilt to be a tad wider to make the proportions right.  The size of the borders was determined ...

Last week, I showed two piles of blocks for this baby quilt--the rectangular four patches and the I Spy blocks.  I have way too many I spy fabrics but could not resist buying this one to add to my collection--who doesn't love a popsicle in the summertime?  

I got busy at my sewing machine this week and put the quilt top together, quilted it on my DSM and did the binding...One completed baby quilt in less than a week!

Since I did not want to go out to a quilt store to buy backing, I pieced the backing ...

What a beautiful day today!  Last weekend, we had snow, but today, we were out gardening while wearing shorts and sandals.   I think I like this weather better, and so does Finn.

Yes.  You read that correctly.  Today, we had snow flurries.  In May!!!  I even wore my winter jacket, mitts and a hat this morning on my walk.  In May.   It can be cool here at this time of year but it has been many years since I remember having snow in May.

Speaking of snow, my snowflake quilt is done!