Hibernating…

This is the current UFO which is being worked on, every evening while watching tv. Our cat approves and will be on it as soon as it comes out. Moving the lap hoop is not allowed according to said cat.

These squares are all sorted into two projects. They are now ready for sewing together.

Working on a new swatch square for said cat, she wants more girly colours. She decided the other granny square was too different from her last one. This is another one from Lucy in the Attic. For those of us who want very detailed tutorial with photos, she does very information rich instructions.

Red shoo-fly blocks done!

Twenty six red shoo-fly blocks are done, need a hundred and eleven of them.

Next is the basket of tiny four patch blocks, will get to them over the weekend. It is very cold here, so lap quilting may be warmer to do than piecing blocks by machine.

The quilting in the ditch on Vintage moments continue, the basting stitches is coming out. Each evening the cat is waiting for it to arrive on the footstool, once it is on there she follows pretty quick and makes herself comfortable on it, do not say it needs to be moves.

The leftover pink fabrics, need to make binding with it for the Mystery quilt top, which was finished this past week. Quilting will happen later on this year.

The finished top, over the quilt frame, 86 by 99 inches. It is a big quilt. It will be gifted, once it is complete.

The squares that was cut before was too big, so they needed to be cut smaller. We needed to add some more colours and some green. They are all cut and will be sorted into a layout, before the secret project for spring can begin. Linking to RSC22 at Superscrappy.blogspot.com

Borders on.

The flying geese got sewn into long border strips.

Next the flying geese border strips was sewn to the main body of the quilt top.

It is still very cold here and the weekend will continue this cold weather pattern.

This is ice crystals that formed on the outside of a window, it has been like this for two days. The cat agrees with handquilting, she spy the quilt in the lap hoop and she is on the quilt before the needle has done the first stitch. What is it about cats and quilts?

Flying geese.

The flying geese units are now sorted and can be sewn together.

Paper pieced the four diamond blocks, these are used in the borders in the middle of each row.

The red scraps have been cut.

They are packed away for now, these are the leftovers.

Watched tv and quilted some more. It is cold up north...

Hibernating.

Added the red and decided it was not working, so pulled it out and gave our kitty her new block. She can now felt it to her hearts content and put her head down on top of it to sleep, when she wants to. it is cold up here in the north, our night time temperatures are closer to -29C and day time highs in the mid teens.

These fabrics all needed to be cut out in two inch squares. Once they got done, some more scraps awaited to be cut.

All of these reds are being cut into two and two and a half inch squares. They are almost all cut, will finish cutting them today.

The first border is on the mystery quilt, this top is almost done.

A little bit more hand quilting on Vintage Moments. All in the ditch quilting for now.

Snow mystery.

We are back to snow on mondays into tuedays for this winter. Made some progress with the mystery quilt. The rows to create the main body of the quilt is assembled. Next will be the first border.

The back of the quilt so far, still have to trim some of those threads.

This bag was falling apart, so the fabrics needed to be ironed and sorted ready for cutting to be used. Have made three tops and (one wedding quilt)in different sizes with this collection of French General fabrics over the years.

Collected this fabric line for years now, have some more precuts which can be added once these ironed pieces have been cut into squares, rectangles and triangles.

We baked chocolate cake, a few milestones will be celebrated this weekend and and upcoming week!

Vintage Moments.

After the housekeeping got up to date, we have a quiet day(or so we thought? The smoke detector started beeping while we vacuumed the carpets and we could hear it above said noise, not good). New batteries was required, which meant a quick trip to the shop to get some. It is now happy. Will sit and quilt this old UFO some more today. Just relaxing and putting our feet up. The cold is still here and we had some snowflakes coming down earlier. Every winter the storms arrive on a set date, it is now in the storm arrives on monday and tuesday cycle.

Shoo-fly blocks.

While sewing the mystery quilt rows these past few days (it is not done yet), the shoo-fly blocks was used as enders and leaders. Above is my red shoo-fly blocks so far. Have more to sew.

Our cats new crochet square, she loves to sleep with her head on said square as a soft pillow.

The mystery quilt has grown with another row sewn on.

It is bitterly cold here and another UFO has come out of the box, it is now in a lap hoop and being quilted in the evening, watching some tv and enjoying a warm spot in front of the fireplace.

Progress with the cold weather.

Yesterday was an exercise in practising a swatch square for a crochet piece, using a treble stitch. The end piece will be a blanket for our cat, I went along slowly reading the information. Above is the piece so far.

The size is suppose to be 12cm, this is 14cm. The crochet hook is suppose to be smaller, I had a 4.5 (which will create a larger square).

Another row was added to the mystery quilt.

Discovered with the skinny sashing strips, sewing the long rows onto the previous row is easier if one have not ironed the sashing in the direction it will be once it is ironed.

This tiny adjustment helps a lot with sewing long rows of blocks and sashings, to the main part of the quilt top already sewn.

In August 2019 this smock dress left to go to South Africa, it was a gift for my one great niece. The lady at the post office asked me if it was undeliverable, if they should return it to me? So I figured, it might as well otherwise it will be discarded. Not in a million years did I expect this to happen, yet that is exactly what did happen. The great niece is now too big for the dress, wrote to my niece and asked if she still wanted it for future babies? She instead said we should gift it to a new great niece, who was born in December last year. This dress has left on another adventure(hopefully the dress will get to be worn and not go on more solo adventures), this time to another country. Trust and believe in snail mail has been restored, honesty prevailed when we least expected it... have a little faith.

Mystery quilt slowly getting done.

The sewing part so far for the mystery quilt. Taking it slow and easy, doing just a bit each day.

My enders and leaders blocks is the shoo-fly blocks, for the mystery quilt.

This is fabrics for an easter surprise, two of us are working together on this one.

The mystery quilt is big, put my trusty quilt sheet down and played with the blocks. I would need a big design wall to accomodate a big quilt on a wall. This is just easier,the rows get pinned together and put in row order.

With the frigid acrtic cold which have arrived yet again, have decided to try crochet again. The colours are wild a bright, it is all without any wool. Time to hibernate...

First attempt at this, keep on having to read whata treble stitch is.

Blizzard.

Yesterday was an interesting day. Our cat woke me just after 3am to walk her to her food bowl. As one do, when your brain decides to be wide awake I put a pot of soup on the go in the crocpot. Dinner sorted for later, had breakfast before five and went back to bed.

Then a noise arrived, the snowplow? It never arrives while we have a snow storm. Here it is clearing the roads at 6h25 am. A sure indication we were in for a wallop.

This was the road not even twenty minutes after the plough came by. Before lunchtime I decided to clear our porch and promptly disappeared in the white stuff, it took some creative effort to extract myself from the white stuff. With a handy lesson and instruction sheet we got the beast out the garage, got it started. With so much snow, our neighbour came and helped when the snowblower, aka the beast started to splutter. After that it was a marathon to clear mountains of snow, first off the driveway, then on the road and path and helping neighbours.

At five pm, the snowplow came past for a second time in less than twelve hours.We all got outside and did a repeat of lunchtime clearing the piles the plough left on the driveway and paths. Our neighbours all help and we help them, getting the snow and ice cleared safely. Then it was inside for the soup and bread. In the morning these bits were cut and sewn for the mystery quilt. Will lay it out tomorrow.