Seventy seven days at home…
I’m still here and still stitching the days away. It’s three weeks since I last caught up. I feel like I’ve got nothing to write about and then all of a sudden the month is almost over and I have ended up with a great long post…
I did have a lot of fun chatting to Pokey on her Instagram live feed. If you want to take a look you can still find it. Just go to Instagram, search @pokeybolton, click on the funny looking tv icon and scroll down to A studio chat with quilter Catherine Redford. Click on the picture and away you go…
I had some strip sets made for my Sashiko quilt back then and wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them. Well, they became a medium sized quilt top 46″ x 48″. I know that some people would consider that small but for me it’s medium!!
I pieced a back out of some left over pieces of the Debbie Maddy fabric and a blue solid from my stash.
This is all I have left from the whole fat quarter stack.
Then it was time to baste the layers together with lots of safety pins,
and get the quilt quilted. I just did a simple walking foot grid.
All it needs now is the binding. I have a piece of navy blue solid I am going to use.
Meanwhile I stitched the butterflies on my apron.
The design will be available on my new postcards when the book comes out!
I had another idea for some little walking foot samples. This time I used two 10″ colored squares that I layered, sliced and then arranged under a top layer of white for a mini series of three co-ordinated pieces.
Number One
Number Two.
Before hand stitching,
and after embellishment.
The machine stitching is 1/4″ apart.
Number Three.
These were 10″ square finished, just big enough to try a new idea.
Back to embroidered flowers. Some bright yellow daffodils on a fuschia pink background.
One skein of hand dyed yellow and one of green from Global Artisans in 8 weight perle cotton was all I needed!
What next?
I just can’t resist those walking foot squares.
Continuing the Under the Surface series but going slightly larger to 20″ square.
How about some shadowed squares and a curvy grid?
The cross-stitches fit in the organic grid, stitched 1/4″ apart using my BERNINA 37D foot which works with the dual feed system on my B740.
And I just had to make a bigger version of the curvy colored piece.
Here it is before I added the hand stitching.
Finished and faced!
and a close up so I can admire the stitching 🙂
I have been trying to tidy up as I go along in my sewing room and as I do so I have been finding some nice fabric! I bought a bundle of dinosaur prints when I was in at Birch Fabrics in Paso Robles last year that just seemed ready to use…
Squares and rectangles for a quick baby quilt, quilted with the serpentine stitch.
A pieced backing used it all up.
And now for something completely different!
My friend Michelle May of The Raspberry Rabbits is changing direction and closing out her stock of kits. I ordered a beekeeper pincushion kit in pretty spring colors from her online store AND I stitched it.
The bee keeps safe the new pair of scissors I bought…
The kit included everything except the two cotton fabrics I needed … I just happened to have something that worked in my drawers! It was a quick and easy project. Michelle has been teaching it in person at guilds and shows around the country but I managed fine with the excellent instructions that came in the packet. I’m excited to see what she comes up with next.
If you enjoyed the podcast I did with Quilting Daily … here’s another one for you!
I recorded a chat with Ashley Hough of The Quilters Circle Podcast last month and it went live on Thursday. You can find it HERE. It kept me amused while I listened and walked on the treadmill for a whole 40 minutes! We discussed very different things to the other chat and my visit with Pokey. However I do talk a lot… you have been warned 🙂
I haven’t been doing any sewing this weekend. After ten weeks of self isolation we extended our bubble…
Julia, Matt and the children came to visit! We watched NASA live on YouTube for most of yesterday and again for the docking this morning.
I haven’t had a picture of grandchildren on my blog for a long time so I hope you’ll excuse just the one of Benjamin and Ruby who successfully completed fourth and second grade last week.
And that’s where I’ll leave things.
See you next time!
