A sewing day with friends

Yesterday a group of my friends and I got together for a sewing day.  We don't have a group name - we are just people who have known each other for years and who all like to quilt.  It was a beautiful sunny day and I should have got a photo of our extended lunch break in the sun room.  Oh well, I did get a few photos...

Jo was really excited to show us the quilt she made for her grandson.  She had quilted it on her daughter's mother-in-law's long arm machine.  Her first time doing the quilting on a quilt.

Jo's project for the day was cutting pieces for a quilt for her granddaughter.

Linda sewed the binding on a quilt.  This beauty is made with Kaffe Fassett's except for the solid in the centre of the blocks.  Linda loves Kaffe Fassett fabrics and uses them in most of her quilts.

Caroline brought this quilt for show and tell.  About two years ago I gave her a bag of scraps - a big bag - garbage bag sized.  I have millions of scraps because the woman who runs the local quilt shop keeps a basket for people to throw their scraps into, and she gives a lot of them to me.  Well Caroline has made about four quilts out of the bag of scraps.  This is her latest one.

Caroline was working on a couple of tote bags.  Donna, whose house we were at, was working on a quilt that she started at a class we went to last year.  And I forgot to take a picture.

As for me - well after someone asked me how big the hexie quilt was, I measured it and decided that is needs to be bigger...  So I spent time cutting out second round hexies!  I will need another sixteen flowers.  Here are ten of them ready to sew.

And the two hexie flowers for my swap partner for March.  The end of March is coming up - I guess I better get these sewn!

And that was our day.  Today my daughters and grandkids are coming for a visit.  I am looking forward to the chaos!  :) 

Janet 

St. Patrick's Friday Night Sew In Report

I had a great FNSI.  Finished work on time, did the grocery shopping, got home and went to my friend Linda's house to watch Jeopardy, our Friday routine, and started sewing while there.  Then I went home, hubby cooked dinner and I continued sewing.  You would think I would have had time to finish the darn hexie flower quilt... NOT!  But I did get a decent amount done.  And I was in the spirit of St. Patrick's day with all my green!

Green borders added to these two flowers that I had already joined to the main quilt...

And then I started working on the last row...

I'm excited enough about reaching the end of the main part of the quilt that I have started thinking about and planning the borders..... yes this baby is going to have a couple of borders, so there will be more hexie sewing to show.  I hope you aren't getting bored with it yet. :)

We have a new bird feeder.  We have had so many birds visiting that we needed it!  Pine Grosbeaks, Red Crossbills, Redpolls and the odd chickadee.  This morning Harry, the Hairy Woodpecker stopped by to feast on the suet.

Although they spill many seeds on the ground and will feast on them there.

Although the squirrel doesn't like them munching on what he considers to be his!!

I hope you had a productive FNSI.  Please stop by Wendy's blog to see what everyone got up to.

Janet 

Update on the hexies

I am making progress on finishing the hexie quilt top.  I sewed up another flower ready...

And added it to its spot on the quilt...

Then I added two more flowers into their respective places... I didn't add their green borders ...

But I have a stack of green hexies ready to go...

And Friday Night Sew In is coming this Friday.  Sign up at Sugarlane Designs (although I see she doesn't have the sign up post up yet... hope she is okay).

So almost four of the eight single flowers done.  Just four more, one row of five flowers and then joining the two pieces together.  Woo-hoo!!

I am officially challenging DD # 2, who has her own hexie flower quilt on the go, and who has been working on putting it together for longer than me, to a hexie quilt finishing match!  Her only excuse is that she lives in St. John's, Newfoundland and her power was off for a long while on the weekend due to the 16 - 185 km/hour winds...

Hopefully we will see you at FNSI!

Janet

Friday Night with Friends Report for March

Greetings fellow sewers,

When I returned from Hawaii I laid out my three completed rows for the hexie flower quilt along with the five rows I already had joined together and I decided it needed to be a little bit bigger.  I needed eight more flowers for the sides and one more row for the bottom.  So on Friday I started putting the flowers together.  

I managed to get one side flower prepped and ready to join on the main quilt.  

And this morning at our local craft club meeting (we meet once a month on the first Sunday for an hour - mostly to plan what we are going to do, but I always take some hand sewing to work on) I sewed it on to its spot on the quilt.

I have decided that I want to get the additions done and the two big pieces of the quilt sewn together by the end of March.  This may be unrealistic, but I am going to try.  I also want to get all the pieces cut and the preliminary blocks sewn for Bonnie Hunter's last mystery quilt En Provence.  The mystery steps are no longer available from her, but I saved them all when they came out over Christmas.  I want to put that quilt together at my quilt retreat which is the third week of April.  I'm going to be busy!!

I hope you all had a great Friday of sewing.  :) Please check out Cheryll's blog Gone Stitchin'  to see what everyone else got up to for Friday Night with Friends.

Janet