Cross stitch finish

 The stitches are in, but I need to decide what to do with the empty space. The original design (shown in last week’s post) has a vintage safety pin and a fabric scrap in that area. I’ve ordered a Christmas tree charm, but not sure if it’ll look ok or not. 

I moved my Noah quilt to my Barnett hoop. I have better control of my stitches in the lap hoop than I do on the frame. I can turn the hoop in my lap, whereas I can only stitch from right to left in the frame. 

I think I’m making better stitching time this way, plus I can sit on the couch to stitch.

***off topic: I’m a nurse and I’ve donated blood numerous times in my life. However, I had not donated in over 15 years until yesterday. My favorite thrift store was having a blood drive and I promised. 🤪 when I was younger, my coworkers and I would give blood during our working shift and go right back to work. Y’all, I almost fainted! I came home and could hardly make it through the door. I drank water and rested for a couple of hours. And then I had another episode last night! 😱 I’m better this morning, but I think my blood donation days are over. Do you give blood? 🩸 

Linking to : Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching 

Slow Stitch Sunday

 This has been a busy week for me, but I was able to get some sewing things done.

I hand stitched all 420 inches of binding onto the Quilt of Many Colors . 

This is the best photo I could get of the pieced backing. 

This picture shows a little more of the frugal red gingham binding mentioned in my previous post. I had quite a bit left over, too.

It was too cold to go outside today and I didn’t have an assistant, so here’s the completed quilt on a queen sized bed. I hope to get a better photo with my daughter when she visits and takes the quilt home with her in April.

I started a new cross stitch project, something I didn’t think I would ever do again. But this little primitive pattern makes me think of my Mama, who used to sing this little song to us. 

This is a small project that shouldn’t take too long to complete. The picture of my beginning project shows approximately two hours of stitching.  Does anybody else remember this little Christmas song?

Check out my new bluebird couple. I received the bluebird box for Christmas from our daughter and am excited that we already have a family moving in! 

One more thing: I read this book last week. It was a great unraveling of several families, who were all connected somehow, through a Singer Sewing Factory a long time ago. A really good read if you haven’t read it before.

Linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday. Click on the link to see what others are sewing this week.

Frugal Slow Stitching

 It’s a quilt top! Ready to bind!

I spent all week tying knots. A true labor of love. Really, I enjoyed it! I definitely will do this again for my larger size quilts.

Now for the frugal part. I had figured I needed approximately 1.5 yards fabric for my binding strips. My plan was to go to Hobby Lobby yesterday to buy fabric , but it rained all day and was too cold!

I had purchased this cotton twin sized bed skirt for $1 from a thrift store sometime back, knowing I could use the cotton fabric for something else. And who doesn’t love red gingham?

After cutting it apart,  and if I did my math correctly, I have approximately 2 yards of usable fabric!

Not bad for $1. 

Not my idea, but I had read somewhere to save the thin white part of the bed skirt to use as foundation fabric for string blocks. So, back into the closet that part goes. (My kids will have fun going through my things when I’m gone 🤣🤣🤣)

Surely I could do something with those thin strips! How do you like my new rag ball?  

I’d say I got my dollar’s worth. 

This is all I threw away! The tag!!

So if you like to be frugal (cheap) like me, look for bed skirts with pretty usable fabric. They are cheap and easy to take apart.

Hopefully I’ll get the binding cut and sewn this week, so I’ll be able to share a finished quilt by next Sunday.

I’m linking up with Kathy’s Quilts and Slow Stitching Sunday. Click on the link to see what others are slow stitching this week. Thanks for stopping by!

Slow Stitching

 I’ve been doing something a little different with my slow stitching this week. 

I am hand tying this king sized quilt!

Knot after knot after knot!   Call me crazy, but I am enjoying every minute of it. 

 (I guess that's the point of having a hobby, right?  But it's not always the case when trying to wrangle a huge piece)

Trying to keep this quilt as scrappy as possible, (using what I already have), I started out tying with a leftover collection of Sulky quilting thread.  Once I ran out of that, I switched  to tying with embroidery floss. 

You guessed it, I like the look of the thicker floss much better.  So I'll be going back and retying (or reinforcing) the first threads.  

I like the fact that it's spread out on my dining room table and it's easy to stop and put in a few knots at anytime of the day.  I'm not stuck in the sewing room all day.

I may still put it on the sewing machine for a few quilting lines, once it's all tied.  But not too many!

I haven't put in that many hand stitches on the Noah quilt this week, but I've done a few, just to keep the finger callous strong. I finished two lions this week!

I'm linking up with Kathy's Slow Stitching to share what others are slow stitching this week.  Click on the link to see lots of pretties!