Saturday, November 30, 2019

Hand Quilt Along, Slow Sunday Stitching

Time to check in again for the Hand Quilt Along.  Not much has been done this week with the holiday, and dinner being served at my house.  My brother-in-law was also here, and a lot of help fixing things that needed to be done, and helping yesterday get all my Christmas stuff out of the attic.  He must have been glad to fly home last night, so he can get some rest, and just watch his football games.  He was having a hard time keeping up with me yesterday.  I told him to rest, and he sat down, and I kept on working.  I may have overdone it a bit, as my back hurt last night plus my bad knee.  I have had both my daughters and their families here the past 2 days also.

Last week during Slow Sunday Stitching I was here with Buhl-Bushong Quilt.



Tonight I got this far.  I sewed the bird on the top, and sewed two leaves on the next section.


One hindrance I had tonight was this- on the finger I push my needle with:


I was unloading the dishwasher and my finger touch the blade of my chopper.  I was able to work with a Band Aid though


I did finish my One Stitch at a Time submission for Kathy Schmitz's challenge, due in January, and also coincidentally my oldest daughter's Christmas present.



I hand appliqued the strip with pears and birds and the bottom section.  The appliques were in a book I had by Barb Adams and Alma Allen called Birds of a Feather.  I just cut the letters out myself.  

Hopefully next week, with my company gone, I can get back to my regular sewing routine. 

Be sure and check out what others have been doing below.

Hand Quilt Along Links

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

KathyMargaretEmmaTracyDebSusan,  Nanette,  EdithSharonKarrinGretchen
Kathi,  BellaDaisy and Connie


   

I will also be linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching which provides great motivation for me.  Be sure and pop over there too and check out what others have been doing.  

Thanks so much for stopping by!









Hand Quilt Along Links

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

KathyMargaretEmmaTracyDebSusan,  Nanette,  EdithSharonKarrinGretchenKathi,  BellaDaisy and Connie

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Happy Thanksgiving



Just wanted to take a minute to send out Thanksgiving Wishes to those in the United States.  

I am so thankful for my family and friends.  We are a reduced crowd this year as daughter Katie is visiting her in-laws in Arizona, and our dear granddaughter Kyleigh is staying in Boston till winter break in 2 weeks.  But we are thankful to have John's brother Roger visiting.  

Hope everyone stays safe and warm, and has a great day.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

One Monthly Goal-November, 2019 Finish-A-Long


I really appreciate the motivation that One Monthly Goal hosted by Patty @ Elm Street Quilts gives me for this monthly challenge

My One Monthly Goal for November was to put my One Stitch At a Time Blocks by Kathy Schmitz into a quilt.   She is having a challenge, these are the guidelines:  


Challenge Rules -
1. Use a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 12 embroidery blocks from past, present, and/or future One Stitch at a Time designs.*

2. At least 75% of the fabric used needs to be Moda fabrics (includes backing)

3. Any size of wallhanging or quilt is accepted. Do you have something else in mind?  Feel free to play, just keep in mind there is a minimum of 6 designs in the project.


I had already stitched 6 blocks together.   With the 6 I had stitched, I thought it would be perfect for my daughter who loves birds.  I started off the beginning of the month here:



I decided I wanted some appliqued birds in this piece too.  So I took a book I had Birds of a Feather by Barb Adams and Alma Allen, and appliqued the birds and the pears.  Also, though it is hard to see, I used their pattern for the next on the right bottom.  

The bottom part I designed myself and cut out the letters and birdhouse myself.  This is for my daughter for Christmas, and I put her married name, and when they got married.



Also because you were supposed to use 75% Moda, I kept track of my fabric since I was working entirely from my old stash.  


I'll be linking up at Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal.  Thanks so much again Patty for this continued motivation!



     This project was also #8 on my Quarter 4 Finish-A-Long list 
which I listed here.  

Thanks so much for stopping by!


Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Ella Maria Duncan

I needed to pick up my stuff in the dining room today to get ready for Thanksgiving, but I was able to finish this month's Ella Maria Duncan being offered as a BOM by Gay of Sentimental Stitches.    This was month 3.  



For the Broderie Perse block, I fused it to light fusible, and then zig-zagged around it.  The fabric I cut it out of was a burgundy fabric, so I used that as the thread.  

I'm really pleased I got them done and how they came out.  

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Virtual Cookie Exchange




Just a reminder that the Virtual Cookie Exchange Blog Hop starts in less than a week, hosted by Carol @ Just Let Me Quilt.    I had such a good time participating last year, and look forward to this year's blog hop.  My day is the last day, December 6th.  Hope you can stop by!
December 2nd

December 3rd

December 4th

December 5th

December 6th


Thanks so much for stopping by!

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching


These weeks are flying away it seems.  It is time again to check in at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.  This week has especially gone by fast, as we have John's brother Roger visiting from North Carolina till the day after Thanksgiving.  

Daughter Katie came for lunch Thursday to visit with Roger, as they were leaving for her in-laws in Arizona last night after work, and wouldn't see Roger otherwise before he left.  


John-John and Klara were ready for their adventure out of California for the first time.


Klara made sure she packed her babies stuff in the little bag I made her.


They arrived in Arizona safe and sound.  I surely will miss them this Thanksgiving, along with granddaughter Kyleigh.


I have finished putting together the One Stitch at a Time wallhanging and am in the process of quilting that right now.  I will have pictures of that later this week.

Other than Roger fixing a number of items around the house, and taking him Christmas shopping for my grandchildren, we managed to visit the Harvest Festival yesterday.  The only things we came away with were some cinnamon bread, and fudge.  

I also had 2 appointments this week for continued stomach pain, and managed to have a CT scan too.  Another scan has been ordered.

Daughter Kristen called earlier this week and asked if I had forgotten her Fall cushion cover.  I hadn't gotten to it yet, but I did manage to get it made yesterday.  I quilted in some leaves on the four corners.



What I will be working on for my Slow Sunday Stitching this week is my Buhl-Bushong Quilt.


A bird tops the follage on this one section, and then I have another tulip section to do and then another flower section.

I am going to try to prep some more handwork before I have to pick up my stuff in the dining room this week.

I will be linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.  Be sure and pop over and see what everyone else is up to.

Thanks so much for stopping by!






Saturday, November 16, 2019

Slow Sunday Stitching

It's time to check in again for Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.  I have gotten quite a bit of slow stitching done this week, even though I had a migraine 2 days, and have had company in the form of my brother-in-law coming to visit for 2 weeks here since early Friday morning.  We spent the afternoon today with me stitching, while he did cross stitch and watched football while DH napped.  Today was also our 44th wedding anniversary!  This was  a picture of us shortly after we got married in 1975.  I was actually 25 but looked a lot younger.  When DH first met me in 1972, I was 22 and he thought I was jail bait and wouldn't talk to me.  



This week I finished the Redwork Nativity scene, I still need to finish it off.  I think I am going to keep this one, and have it with my Nativity Scene at Christmas.


I also finished an other of Jenny of Elefantz's stitcheries.  This will be for a needlebook for granddaughter Kyleigh for Christmas.  Still need to get this together too.


The next couple of days I will be working on this applique.  I am incorporating it into my One Stitch at a Time stitcheries by Kathy Schmitz I have stitched out with birds on them.  This will be a wallhanging for daughter Kristen for Christmas.  I have six stitcheries, and I am going to do this applique piece.  I found this section in a book by Barb Adams and Alma Allen called Birds of a Feather .

These are the stitcheries.  Hard to get a good picture of these.  


And this is the section I am appliquing.  There are birds on the first, third and fifth pear.





Today I also got a couple of other sewing projects done.  On the Stitch it and Gift It Blog Hop I just participated in, Nancy at Patchwork Breeze gave instructions here on how to  make a Pocket Pillow Book Tote.  My youngest granddchildren John and Klara and parents will be traveling to Arizona to spend Thanksgiving with their other grandparents this year.  So I thought this would be good for their 14-hour car ride.  




Also today I was able to make a couple of pillow covers for daughters Katie and Kristen.  When I made the covers at Halloween, I told them I would have new ones for the holiday season.  In searching through my Christmas stash I came across these two panels, so I made them up into pillow covers with envelope backs for easy changing.  




I will be linking up at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.  I appreciate this weekly inspiration.  Pop on over and have a look at what others are working on.    Thanks so much for stopping by!



Sunday, November 10, 2019

Stitch it and Gift It Blog Hop Begins, My Day



I'm so excited for this Stitch it and Gift It Blog Hop to begin.  Big thanks go out to Carla @ Creatin in the Sticks for hosting this.  It has certainly given my gift list a jump-start.

Today is my day to share and this is what I came up with.  First off I started making soup bowl cozies.  My DH and I tend to eat dinner in front of the TV and instead of having a towel to hold a hot bowl, these  soup bowl cozies are just the thing.  There are all sorts of patterns out there, but  I used this free pattern here by Happy Hour Stitches.   I had made one for DH and I several months ago, but messed up on mine, so I also made myself another.  I made some last year for my sons-in-law, so this year I made some for my daughters, brother and sister-in-law and sister.  Plus made some for granddaughter Kyleigh and her roommate.  For these bowl cozies you should use 100% cotton batting, 100% cotton thread.  I bought some Wrap and Zap by Pellon.  


There are also instructions here at The Birch Cottage, which also gives you a sheet of instructions which I am going to include with each bowl cozy.



Next up I made Microwavable Potato Bags.   A number of years ago, I bought a kit when I was on vacation in Northern California.  It never got made.  But I got the idea to make up a bunch of these also.  The kit was made with something called Warm Tater batting by the Warm Company.  I made up the kit for myself.  Again for these you should use 100% cotton batting, 100% cotton thread.   The instructions for the Potato Zapper are here on Pellon

This was mine made from the kit.  I love the potatoes.  The lining has tiny potatoes!


I didn't have anymore of that fabric though so the others I used different fabrics.


I found instructions for the potato bags too here.  There are all sorts of places that have directions for use, but I used this one here.  It also has a different way to make the potato bag



Next up, I promised granddaughter Kyleigh I would make a new pillow cover for her pillow I had made her for Halloween.  They are all removable with envelope openings in the back.  So this is the one that should last her till spring.  


Next up, I had a couple of Christmas panels I had bought a number of years ago for my daughters.   I really liked them with the 3D effects.  Basically certain parts of the panel were duplicated like the birds on the snowman one, the snowman's hat, and the letters for the word "PEACE".  The instructions said to iron the cutouts to some fusible fleece and just glue-gun them on.  I had my doubts about this, but did it anyway.  Well the fleece started coming undone from the cutouts.  I finally attached them to the quilt with a zigzag stitch.  Really had a difficult time where the glue had touched.  I kept having to clean off my needle!  But I finished them.  These were actually on my Quarter 4 Finish-A-Long list!




The snowman panel was called "PEACE and JOY" and right next to the instructions was a large piece of fabric with Peace and Joy.  I think I will be making another pillow cover with this.



Next up, I made 2 of Jenny of Elefantz's Sew with a Merry Heart bags.  I also made one of the needle cases as a gift.  I purchased the needle case instructions from Jenny.  






The straps of the bag call for twill tape, and I have had a hard time finding it recently.  I looked in my miscellaneous bin, and found some twill-like Moda ribbon that tied together FQs, so I used that.  




This is the second bag I just finished.  



Lastly, I was recently working on this redwork piece.


I made it into a mug rug.  The half-square triangles were left over from some other project, and matched the project pretty well.  


I also found some mug rug poems here at Resliced by Jordan

Hope I have given you some inspiration for holiday gifts.  Be sure and check out the others that are posting today.  I have included the whole schedule for the hop.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Stitch It and Gift It Blog Hop Schedule