Aqua Granny Square Saturday

It was a sewing deficient week.  I had the fabrics for this week's Rainbow Scrap Challenge granny squares cut, but I did not get to sew them together until last night.  I still need to finish two more grannies, but that will have to wait until errands are finished this morning.

Have you seen Barbara Brackman's tutorial for a thread box/pincushion?  She set out to make a reproduction of campaign memorabilia from 1830.  Her inspiration came from a thread box with the image of Andrew Jackson (the hero of the Battle of New Orleans!) on top.  Her thread box commemorates the election of 2012 and features a reproduction fabric she designed at Spoonflower.  I'm going to try creating one of these in the next few days, although I think I will use one of my patriotic toile fabrics for the top.

I leave you with a picture of McKenzie as she "helped" me stitch down binding this morning.  She reminds you to go check out the other Rainbow Scrap Challenge ideas on display at Soscrappy's blog!

Slow Weekend Stitching

I am almost embarrassed to tell you all that I am STILL stitching down the binding on my huge cow quilt.  I haven't made many opportunities for hand stitching in the last week and I have missed it!  My job required me to do copious traveling last week, and in the evenings I was just too tired for much of anything.

So after errands and chores yesterday morning, I settled on the couch with plans to hand stitch.  As I watched the Olympics, inch by inch the binding was stitched.  I'm almost three-fourths of the way around - I feel like I'm working on a marathon!

I did take the quilt up to the camp last weekend so I could hang it from the deck and get a full-size picture.  It's so large it doesn't even fit on the top railing - I had to wrap about 5 inches around the corner support post!

As soon as I finish this post and link up with Kathy's hand-stitching linky party, I'm going back to the sofa for some more binding stitching.  I'm ready to have this finished so I can move on to something else!

For those who are still reading, here's an updated picture of McKenzie.  She wanted to help me in my sewing room today, but there's just too much mischief for her to get into there.  I think I'll have to do some puppy play with her before I go sit 'n stitch - then maybe she'll nap a little while I'm sewing!

Sunday Night Hand Stitching

I procrastinated for quite some time when it came to binding this quilt.  It measures almost 100" x 100", so that was a lot of bias binding to make and stitch in place.  I finally tackled it this week; now I just need to hand-stitch the binding to the back.  I started on Wednesday evening, while we watched A Capitol Fourth on PBS.  I'm hopeful I'll get some quiet time to stitch tonight as well.  My guys are watching the Yankees v Red Sox on TV though - not exactly my favorite hand stitching fare!

There's another distraction tonight as well - a new family member!  McKenzie joined us this past Tuesday; she's half English Lab, half Golden Retriever.  We've had a few rough nights as she adjusts to her new home, but she's a sweetie and loves to snuggle, so I guess we'll keep her!

Sharing my hand sewing and linking up to Kathy's Hand Stitching party...hope you all have the opportunity to do some hand stitching this week!