Slow stitchin'

 It's another warm Sunday and some slow stitching in the air conditioning sounds good to me. A while back I showed you a start on a Valentine cross stitch. Here is where I am at today, progress has been made.

I have also continued hand knitting slippers for donation through my daughter in law. Last time I showed them I had eleven pair done. Thirteen have now been knitted, one them still needs sewing up which I will do today. 

Yesterday I made the other two matching southwest placemats. 

I also finished up the last orange pineapple block, took a photo, put the project away and then as I was getting photos ready for this post I deleted the pineapple block one. So you will just have to take my word for it that it is done because I don't want to dig it out!

Lots of slow stitching happening today so I am linking to Slow Stitching Sunday and Sew and Tell Monday

Delectable Mountains plus...

 A delectable mountain table runner is a pretty fast gratification to wiggle into the middle of a bigger project. I use Bonnie Hunter's Scrappy Mountain Majesty tutorial for it.

You cut strips and then blocks, sew and cut etc, I had extra blocks so I decided to make a small mat with the leftovers this time. I am pretty sure I have some of the dark fabric left and will hunt it down and add a border to make it a useful size.

Same thing happened with this color batik set.

Here comes the plus part in the title of this post. I finished the sashings of this leaf lap quilt. I will add a gold print border before it gets to my longarm. 

An update on my slipper knitting for this winter season.  This is my evening TV viewing project, they will become donations to those in need. I am using a 4ply red heart yarn with a strand of sport weight. The pattern is a freebie from Fave Crafts.

We were going to be out boondocking for two weeks and with the heat we canceled it for now so there should be lots of sewing time with the AC on!

Linking with Beauties Pageant, Finished or Not Friday, TGIFF

Southwest placemats

Happy Friday my friends. I have something new to show! I made a couple placemats with southwest fabric because I couldn't stand putting dishes right on the new table, LOL. Oh the joys of being a quilter and able to whip up something when needed. 

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It's very rare that I used my domestic sewing machine to quilt anything, even small things. However that is what I had available to me, I used the walking foot on my Janome Skyline 7 and it did a fantastic job and pretty quickly too.  First I followed lines in the fabric design vertically and horizontal. After that was done I discovered I wanted more quilting so I went in between those lines. 

Hobbs 80/20 batting is what I used to sandwich the southwest fabric and orange backing.

Someday I will make 2 more so when we have company over we have a matched set. And just perhaps there will be a small runner for the middle of the table;)

And so I am prepared for Slow Stitching Sunday, I have still been working on knitting slippers. Three more pair have crossed the finish line for a total of six pair in the last 45 days. This weekend I hope to finish another orange pair.

Linking with Finished or Not Friday, Beauties pageant, Off the Wall, TGIFF and Wednesday Wait Loss.

 

Hanging a quilt plus a pressing table

 Things are happening in the new studio. We made a very quick and inexpensive quilt hanger from a 1x2 board. I painted it white then we screwed it to the studs in the wall. Unfortunately the studs were not centered in the wall and I wanted the hanger to be centered. Thus you can see nail heads that are not evenly spaced. Oh well it still does the job of holding a quilt and that was my main focus. We also screwed spring clips to the board, I don't like that they are red but that is what was available.

Remember me loving my lift desk for my sewing machine? Well I bought another and am using it as a pressing table. These tables were from Amazon. Being an electric lift table allows me to use it standing up pressing or when I am say paper piecing I can pull the table next to the sewing machine and lower it to a sitting height and not have to get up to press. On a normal basis I do like to keep the pressing area away from the sewing machine so I have to get up and move around.  My first finished(piecing) table runner in the new space.

Another pair of slippers finished, so I am up to three pair. 

Linking with Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew and Tell Monday and Wednesday Wait Loss

Slow stitching

 I hope everyone is having a great December. Ours has been busy. But I have taken time to do some slow stitching for a change of pace. While traveling the first week of December I started knitting socks again.

But as you can see this is as far as I can go because my needle broke. Will have to wait to continue until I get to Hobby Lobby.  

But that is okay I had other yarn and needles to start making slippers again. One pair done using a burgundy 4 ply yarn with a sport weight pink yarn.

And second pair started using a variegated 4ply with a blue sport weight yarn. My daughter-in-law loves these and so I make and give to her to donate to someone in need in her community.

And I also started this Christmas Tree stitchery from a pattern by Melisa at Pinker n Punkin blog.

That is my slow stitching this week. Also linking with Sew & Tell and Monday Musings

Starting another scrappy string quilt

This is the start of yet another scrappy string quilt using greens, blues and a tad of neutral. I need lots more blocks, these are 9.5".

The pattern is Two Bits by Cynthia from Quilting is more fun than Housework blog. It's a fun pattern but I wish I would have had a lighter neutral available for the pinwheel. They don't stand out as much as I wished. I am going to take a little break from it. 

Here are the slippers I have knit in the last couple months. 

And here is what we saw the other day while ATVing. These big horn sheep were actually on the golf course lawn!  We saw a couple others in the mountains but didn't get their photo as they disappeared too quickly and were farther away. 

Linking with Monday Musings, Design wall Monday and Sew and Tell Monday.

 

Three more stars and stripes

 Hello quilty peeps, how are you doing with your projects this week.  I am pleased that I finished piecing three more of my stars and stripes table runners. Yes these three are identical which makes it really easy when cutting. 

This time the blue fabric is different from the previous two which you can verify right HERE.

In the evenings another pair of slippers were produced. I talked with my DIL this week to see if her group was able to give out the slippers I previously gave her. She said a big YES and they could use more!  I am so happy about that. So I will continue to knit away. These are red 4 ply with a gray sport weight yarn. These would probably fit a 6-8 year old.  

Linking with Friday linky parties... Beauties Pageant, Off The Wall, Finished or Not Friday, TGIFF

Homespun Tumblers

 Remember me talking about kitting up projects to work on this winter? This is one of them. I have a lot of homespuns in browns, golds, greens, reds, and blues.  This particular set is all browns/golds. I used the larger tumbler Accuquilt die to make fast work of cutting. The alternate is muslin I had setting around also. 

This was an easy project that only took 3 short afternoons to sew up.  I didn't use all the homespuns that I cut so they will be future seed for another someday;)

Two more pair of slippers knitted. I used three strands of sportweight yarn and a size 8 needle for these.  The pair on the left were two shades of blue and a green. The pair on the right were blue, green and aqua. It's fun to mix the colors to see what they turn out like.

Linking with Beauties Pageant, Finished or Not Friday, Off The Wall Friday, and Oh Scrap!

Stars and Stripes and Slippers

It's here, it's here...the New Year, 2025!!

I know it might be early to start working on patriotic projects, but hey I was in the mood;)  My original stars and stripes design has been a popular one for me so I hope to have 8 pieced over the winter. These are the first two. These were started on Dec 30th 2024 and finished on January 1st. 

And to continue the blue theme is a pair of hand knit blue and gray slippers. I used a blue 4 ply with a gray sport weight yarn for these. It's fun to mix the colors and see how they come out. These are actually a size that fits me. The pattern is called Grandma's slippers found on Fave Crafts. I only knit on these a little each night as I am in no hurry, it's all for fun.

I started another pair with different yarns in a small size this time.  Lots of people are making plans for projects in 2025, my plan is very loose...do what I feel like and enjoy it!! 

Linking with Friday Linky parties TGIFF, Finished or Not Friday, Beauties Pageant and Off The Wall

 

Knitting again

 Just a quick pop in for today.  In the evenings while watching TV I have gotten back to hand knitting more of these slippers. Once in a while during the night when I wake up and can't get back to sleep I will knit for a while to calm my mind. They are called Grandma's slipper from favecrafts. I am using a strand of 4ply Red Heart yarn with a strand of sport weight cone yarn from my knitting machine yarns. It's fun to try different color combinations. 

So this was a first for me, holding the hummingbird feeder in my hand while he came to drink!  It was so amazing, I could hear his flutter and feel the breeze he was making. His neck was a hot pink and I could see some green color on his back and tail.  The video is only 21 seconds, enjoy!

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Linking with Wednesday Wait Loss and Midweek Makers

Bright Scrappy Fun

Fun is what I have been having this past week working with my bright strings again.  Three years ago I started working on these bright blocks using a pattern from Cynthia called Two Bits. Then I stalled out for some reason and into the closet it went along with all the other UFO's.  Sara inspired me to look at my UFO's since she has really been crossing off her UFO list and even emptied her big gray bin;) So last weekend I went through a couple shelves of UFO's and picked this one to work on. I might have shook my head a time or two at the amount of UFO's that are in that closet!  Some are just waiting to be quilted, a lot of the UFO's are ones for donation quilts eventually. 

This is where I left off. I had to look around to find my orange and yellow scraps first and then I made three of each of those.  Still not enough blocks made, so I went back and made more pink, green, purple and aqua. By the way I trimmed my blocks to 9.5" because I have the 9.5' square ruler to make that easy. Today I will be stitching these all together and then I think I will add a small white border and then make scrappy piano key borders since I still have loads of strings to use up.  It felt amazing to work with my scraps again.

If you have been wondering how my slipper knitting is coming along, I have made progress with 6 pair knitted. The teal ones need sewing up yet. The next color yarn needs to be picked as I have really enjoyed knitting these in the evenings here and there. The pattern I am using is called Grandma's slippers and I found it on Pinterest. These are the two smallest sizes for kids. I used two strands, a variegated yarn with a solid color yarn for the first four pair. The teal ones I used solid in two shades of teal. I will be working on another pair today.

Linking with Oh Scrap! , Slow Stitching Sunday, Sew and Tell Monday

Brown Scraps and knitting

Yesterday I pulled out the brown fabrics bin and refolded and stacked neatly back into the bin-it's like a refresher course to remind you what you have! In the process I pulled out this scrappier looking pile. The plan is to cut these into usable rectangles and squares this week.  A lot of it will go into the potato chip blocks.

In the evenings I like to have some handwork so I searched the internet for a hand knit slipper pattern for kids.  The first one I found and tried I didn't like.  Then I found one called Grandma's knitted slippers.  After running to JoAnn's to get size 8 Bamboo needles. For yarn I used a 4 ply Red Heart variegated along with a sport weight soft pink, it gave just the right feel to the slipper. 

That was fun to make so I started another pair and used the variegated yarn with a fingering weight aqua.  The slipper takes on a bit different color leaning more toward the aqua now. I am adding a few rows to the foot and to the toe for a little larger slipper.  At this point I am just making them to have something to do, I'll end up donating them somewhere. If I stuck to it I could knit one slipper in an evening. But I don't want to overdue my wrists so I am limiting to a little time here and a little there. 

This is the best photo my phone took of the northern lights. Not great but a verification that we did see them! 

Happy Mother's Day to all you momma's out there, what will you being doing today?  We are going for a nice bike ride on this beautiful day, supposed to be 84 and sunny with a few clouds.

Linking with Oh Scrap!, Monday Musings and Sew and Tell Monday