What We Are Working On

 We’ve had a couple of really busy weeks at our Prayers and Squares group. I didn’t do a post about it last week though because there wasn’t anything to show that was new. We spent almost the entire afternoon making backs and layering 5 quilts and making the back for a 6th that didn’t get layered due to running out of time. Yesterday, however was much better for doing stuff that needed pictures. Also, I’ve been busy here at home. Janet finished this beautiful top. She picked all the fabrics based on the colours found in the beautiful large scale floral. I’m sure someone will be very glad to receive this one. Tammy is continuing to work on the garden themed sampler. She is doing such a great job for a “beginning” quilter. Here at home I finished the Boston commons quilt I started about 6 weeks ago. It is  one that was layered last week and is now back here waiting its turn to be quilted. And then, after that one was finished I started a very fast one using 2 1/2 inch sets of four that were done leader/ender style and adding solid colours to them. Susan put the binding on it and it is already going to someone in need of comfort and prayer.

I’ll link up to finished, or not, Friday

Stay at Home Round Robin Prompt 3

 This week’s prompt asks us to use a block or blocks inspired by the animal kingdom. It could be applique or pieced. 

• A block or unit named after an animal: Bear Paw, Monkey Wrench, Snail's Trail, Birds in the Air, Shoo Fly, Puss in the Corner...there are so many!  Looking for something simple?  There's always that classic quilt unit, Flying Geese.
• Applique of an animal
• Pieced block that looks like an animal
• Fabric that contains animals

There are so many blocks named after animals that it is hard to choose. So, I went searching through my EQ8 libraries for some ideas. I finally narrowed it down to a choice between two, the choices being determined by the size. I didn’t want a large block or blocks, since I don’t want this quilt to end up larger than a lap quilt. I was wavering between a design called Migrating Geese which I planned on putting at the bottom and top to turn the quilt into a rectangle, or a block that I found in EQ called flying goose. I finally decided on the flying goose, using a 4 inch finished block. It looks like a variant of the Birds in the Air. My quilt is now 44 inches square. I was able to bring the black fabric from the centre of the quilt out into the edges and used a large scale blue and orange floral The orange in the middle now feels like it fits with the rest of it. I’ll link up to this weeks party here

Slow Sunday Stitching

 Progress continues on the Ferret for The Year in the Woods. I’ve almost finished the bottom half of the chart. He looks rather odd without his head.I’m planning on watching/listening to some of the olympics this evening while I stitch and give the poor critter his head. I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I met my goal of finishing the Raccoon for the Year in the Woods last week. I actually finished it last Sunday evening. And then I immediately started on the next animal which is the Ferret. Here’s a picture of the three of them side by side. And of course, I also ordered the supplies I need for the next set of 3. They are coming from 123 Stitch in the States, so it will likely be another week or 2 before they get here. I ordinarily like to order from Canadian suppliers, but the price of $4.95 shipping was impossible to pass up. Plus their selection of different counts and different colours of linen can’t be matched.

I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

What We Are Working On

 We had such a good day at Prayers and Squares yesterday and managed to get quite a lot done. The biggest accomplishment was that Marg finished putting together the sampler we started a few months ago. We were all given a piece of focus fabric and then were asked to pick a quilt block from the Quilters Cache website that began with the first letter of our first name. There were no requirements for the size of the block. It required a lot of thought and improvisation to come up with a layout to get all those blocks together. I think it was a lot of fun. I’m not sure Marg, who did the majority of the work getting it together, would agree. It is currently in 3 sections. Those sections will be quilted and then put together quilt as you go style. And because we had so much fun making blocks for that one, we decided to do it again, only this time we all are making 12 inch blocks using a different focus fabric. Tammy is back to working on the garden themed sampler after using our last meeting to do her sampler blocks. And I’ve been working on a Boston Commons design on Thursdays for the past month or so. It is very close to a finish, so I brought it home to see if I can get it to the finish line this week.

Here at home, because the weather has been so awful, snow and brutal cold, I’ve been spending my time sewing. I finished another quilt using large red half square triangles. And then, because there were lots of 2 1/2 inch strips hanging around here, I started sewing them up and then cutting them into 6 1/2 inch triangles. I had the top done in the space of 4 days. That may be a record.

I’ll link up to finished, or not, Friday

Stay at Home Round Robin, prompt 2

 I want to thank everyone who commented last week about liking the orange in the first round of my quilt. It made me feel so much better about that choice. I was so excited waking up this morning, knowing that the second prompt was today. The prompt was “double", which could have been anything. The first thing I did was put the word “double” into the search function of my EQ8. It gave over 150 results. I started scrolling through them and came up with a few ideas. I wanted to do something complex and fun. But when I started plugging the complex and fun blocks and ideas into my quilt layout, none of them spoke to me. And then I realized that the complex and fun didn’t fit with the rest of the quilt. So I went back to very basics. I decided to do a very simple double four patch. I had some octagons left of the floral fabric that could be trimmed to 2 1/2 inch squares, so I decided to use those as part of the four patches. And then to finish the round off, I did a double stripe. I introduced a wider stripe of tone on tone white, just to calm things down a bit and to give a bit of a break between this round and whatever comes next.I’m happy with it, so far. I’ll link up to this week’s party here

Slow Sunday Stitching

 The Raccoon from the Year in the Woods series is so very close to being finished. I have to add the detail in his legs and then the paws. After that there are some details to finish on the flowers and a few doo dads to add and it’s done. I’m thinking by this time next week I should have the Ferret started. Which also means that I can order the supplies that I need for the next set of 3, which is always a lot of fun, the planning, the organizing, the ordering and the anticipation.

I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.