Slow Sunday Stitching

Every Sunday we roll out the welcome mat for like-minded hand stitchers to gather for a virtual party. Thank you for joining us this week! We encourage you to get out your hand stitching project and put in a few stitches. Then make yourself a cup of your favourite beverage and visit other hand stitchers around the world to see what they are working on.

Today I plan to do some cross stitching and some binding stitching. I am pleased that I am keeping up with the Historical Sampler Company stitch along called "All things grow with love". 

This shows the stitching to the end of part #2 and part #3 has been sent out already. I changed up the colours on the right side flower and got a wild hair to use some variegated teal floss. The flower on the left has the "called for" floss. I think the variegated floss calls too much attention to itself, but I'm not sure. Do you have an opinion?

I'll also be doing some quilt binding today. When I attended the guild mingle yesterday I brought home some quilts that just needed the binding finished. Here they are sitting on the steps to go upstairs to my sewing room.

I got a quick start last night on the blue quilt on the top. Of course I had to use my blue scissors and blue thimble to stitch with blue thread on blue fabric! LOL

Also, I wanted to show you my new Mac Sport XL folding wagon (with brakes!) that my nieces bought for me. It holds all my quilty stuff to go to meetings and retreats. I'm terrible at taking selfies but hopefully you can see my wagon filled to overflowing as I was leaving the guild meeting. I was so excited about it's inaugural outing - no assembly required!

So now it's your turn... what are you hand stitching? Please link up your blog and/or leave a comment, and share what stitching project has captured your interest today.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly celebration of all hand stitched crafts! We hope you will join us in setting aside a few moments each Sunday for some relaxing stitching on your favourite project. Pick up a needle and thread, breathe deeply, and enjoy a little vacation from the responsibilities of your life.

I was making good progress on some of my stitcheries until I saw Melisa's adorable squirrel sampler pattern *squirrel*

I had to set everything aside and stitch the squirrel. I love this guy so much! Today I will be pulling fall coloured threads from my DMC collection to stitch the sampler letters. 

I have also been finishing the binding on a scrappy comfort quilt for my guild. Black thread is hard on my eyes, so I can only work on this in the daylight.  Luckily the backing is this yummy mottled fabric that helps when sewing with black thread. One side of the binding is stitched, and I hope to finish it up this week so I can start on another quilt binding.

I am dreadfully behind in blog reading and hope to have time today to visit some of you. Please link up your instagram or blog posts below and share your projects with us.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party! We encourage you to pick up your favourite project and put some slow stitches in today!

I will be hand stitching a binding today. I didn't sew or do the swirly machine quilting on this project - I am just the binder. I was delayed in finishing up this quilt because I couldn't find my needle threader, and at this stage of my life, my vision requires help threading a needle.

This week I bought a pretty purple Clover needle threader so I'll probably find the old pink one any day now! These are my required tools for binding. I love these Clover black gold needles which are so thin and sharp that I don't even need to use a thimble when using these for hand stitching.

I have a little treat for my slow stitchers today - a story about generosity and quilty kindness. One of my blog readers - Annie from Washington State - reached out to me after reading the post I wrote about the Home for Good project that my local quilt guild is participating in. Annie was moved by hearing about this project, and not only did she donate to the cause, she also sent a quilt to donate! Annie called this a "gentle bit of shared border-crossing kindness"! 

And send a quilt she did! But not just any quilt!

She sent this amazing double sized quilt, made from the Bonnie Hunter's mystery pattern called Chilhowie (now available as a pattern booklet to purchase). This special goodwill quilt travelled over 4,000 miles from Annie's house in Washington State, to my sister's house in Michigan, to my house in Southern Ontario! 

Annie wrote: "Bonnie’s mystery quilts have a long-standing tradition with me as an integral part of the holidays and so they, unlike other quilt projects, tend to get finished in short order. Part of that tradition is that the quilt is always given away to someone I don’t know.  It pleases me to think the person who ultimately sleeps under this quilt will feel a sense of connection stitched into it."  

I hope so too Annie! In addition to comforting someone without housing/resources, you also restored this burned out social worker's faith in humanity, and for that I cannot thank you enough! You have reminded me that a) we never know the impact we have in this world, and b) there are generous and kind people everywhere! 💖 

And so my dear blog readers, that is my treat for you today! You would probably also like to see the perfectly hand stitched binding and the label I just sewed onto this treasure.

I am embarrassed to say that the last time my version of Chilhowie was seen, we had a falling out and it went into the UFO closet. It's time to get the blocks out, put on my big girl panties, fix my mistakes and try to be more like Annie - finish quilts and spread kindness!

What are you hand stitching today? Are you finishing projects, and/or starting new ones? We love to see what your hands are creating!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party!

This week marks the 11th anniversary of Slow Sunday Stitching adventures! The inaugural link up was June 24th, 2012. I can't believe that much time has passed! My original goal in creating this link up was to inspire people to slow down, to take a deep breath, to dedicate precious time to the healing process of hand work, and to connect with other creative like-minded stitchers.

Slow Stitching Gang!

And surprisingly all these years later, there are still folks who are hand stitching and blogging about it! And they are still willing to share their projects with us and I am thankful! Although I don't get around to visiting everyone each week, I do visit as many stitchers as time permits, and hope you all take the time to visit a couple of friends each week too. Thank you for posting, for reading, and for leaving encouraging comments for all of us hand stitchers!

This week I finished up a donation quilt and enjoyed hand stitching the binding. These are my commonly used tools, and you probably can't see my favourite needle which is a #10 Clover black gold needle.

I also stitched the label (created by our community outreach committee) onto the back of the quilt.

Once the quilt was finished I had enough time to get a new facecloth started.

What are you hand stitching today? We hope you will join the slow stitching gang and link up your blog or instagram post below.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party!
Can you believe this is the last link up for February? Where did this month go?!?
Even though it was a short month that went by so quickly, I did accomplish quite a bit of hand stitching this month. In fact over the course of the past week I hand stitched 473 inches of binding on 3 different quilts (Scrappy Strings, Save the Bees, and Exploding block) and I hand pieced the 4th block for the hand piecing quilt along. That must be a record for me!
Granddog Max loves to snuggle under any quilt I am working on, which is hard to do when it's a small table runner and hardly big enough to get himself under. There wasn't room for him and his toy under the quilt, so his husky dog toy had to sit beside him... so cute!
Today I'll be working on some applique for block #40 of my Blockheads project from last year. It's the last block for that quilt (see the others here) and then I can sew that quilt top together.
What are you hand stitching today? 
Please link up your blog post or instagram photo below so we can see what your hands are creating today.

   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly celebration of all hand stitched crafts! We hope you will join us in setting aside time each Sunday for some relaxing stitching on your favourite project. Pick up a needle and thread, breathe deeply, and enjoy a few moments of restful stitching.


This week I finished a quilt that was 5 years old (see the finished Tetris quilt here). I enjoyed stitching down the binding on my lunch hour, sitting on a bench at the park. So many employees will sit at a desk and stare at their phone screen for their lunch "break". That does not relax my body or brain. But hand stitching does! It is a meditative process that immediately calms me. I enjoyed sitting in the sun, breathing fresh air, and feeling renewed with creative energy. 

I also put in some binding stitches at my weekly date with my parents. It is our tradition to watch "Dancing With the Stars" together and I like to have a hand stitching project to work on during the commercials. 

Since that project is finished, today I'll be back to working on my Life is Beautiful blocks. Here are the quilted blocks on the design wall.

I have a few more alternate blocks prepped and ready to start stitching. When they are all quilted, I will join them together using the quilt-as-you-go technique.

What are you working on today? Link up your blog post below and tell us about your hand stitching progress so we can cheer you on! 

   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

Slow Sunday Stitching

Wow that past week just flew by and it's Sunday again already! 
Welcome to Slow Sunday Stitching! I haven't even visited the 30 fabulous links from last week yet. Sometimes there is just not enough time to do all the fun things we want to do. But I always make the time on Sundays for a few relaxing moments with my needle and thread.

We have been enjoying such fabulous fall weather here that it has been hard to stay indoors and sew. I did buckle down and get the binding attached on my Berenstain Bears baby quilt. I was so happy I had enough of that great yellow with orange dots binding fabric to get all the way around the quilt. I enjoyed some hand stitching time while watching QuiltCam this week and got one side of the binding finished. It is looking good to hopefully finish the quilt this week!
What are you hand stitching today?

   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the community of slow stitchers where we celebrate the art of creating things with our hands, where we connect to our ancestors by using time-honoured techniques to make things we could easily buy for a fraction of the cost, and where we recognize the value we add to our own lives by engaging in this restorative practice. 

This week I finished machine quilting my UFO of the month and am so happy that I get to hand stitch the binding today. Binding is one of my favourite things to do, and this is one of my favourite places to do it! You wouldn't know it looking at this photo, but this is right in the heart of the city where I live. There is a beautiful river and walking trails, and stitching benches. Well, maybe the benches were made for resting, but I often use them for stitching.

Did you know there is such a thing as "binding needles"? I did not know that until recently and so of course I bought a package to try them out. I will let you know if they are smoother and/or faster than using any other regular needle.

What are you hand stitching today? 
We encourage you to pick up a needle and thread, and join us as we make time in our busy lives to rest, to breathe, and to stitch. Link up your blog post below and share your hand stitching project with us.

   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

Slow Sunday Stitching - Binding

Can you believe that January 2016 is already over?!? I really cannot believe it! We are already one month into the new year... how are you doing with your resolutions? 
I am so happy with my progress so far this year. I have already managed to (almost) finish a UFO! It was one big challenge that I have been working on either in my mind, or in my hands since November. Once I got the border problem solved, and the quilting started, it practically finished itself! Well, not really but it was quite fun and I'm so thrilled.

Stay the course!

It's time to give myself a big pat on the back. We all know that it is so much easier to start new things that are fresh and enticing, with no challenges or problems to solve. But there is such a sense of growth and satisfaction to "stay the course", to solve the problems that arise, to push yourself in new directions, and to actually accomplish a huge task.

Today I get to enjoy the wonderful task of finishing a quilt that I started in 2013. Isn't that a great striped binding fabric?  Binding a quilt is one of my favourite hand stitching activities, so I am in for a very enjoyable afternoon of slow stitching.  

What are you hand stitching today? Are you able to stay the course, meet your goals, and finish projects to completion?
Link up your blog post below and share your progress with us.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Thanks for joining us for the first Slow Sunday Stitching of 2016, and welcome to a whole new year of celebrating the art of hand stitching!
For those that enjoy numbers, here are some statistics from the past year of Slow Sunday Stitching celebrations:

**Total # of 2015 Sunday link ups: 1,684 
**Busiest month: 193 links posted in November (5 Sundays)
**Second busiest month: 165 in March (also 5 Sundays)

That's a lot of projects that we enjoyed seeing, and a lot of hand stitches taken over the past year!! 

Here is one more statistic that I like to keep track of ... the number of inches I have sewn on bindings.

To the end of November, my total was 3,709", and added to December's only finish (Tucker) which was 52", makes a grand total for 2016 of 3,761"! That's a lot of stitches made by these little hands!

Today I plan to put a few stitches in my star quilt. I am stitching black thread on a black star block, so the photos are not worth sharing. But you can be sure that I will be slow stitching my way through the season premiere of Downton Abbey tonight! 
I hope you have something interesting to show us today. Do you keep track of any hand stitching statistics for your own entertainment? Link up your blog post below and tell us what your hands are stitching and what progress you are making on your projects.

October Binding Blitz

October has been a great month for finishing quilts! It must be the cooler weather motivating me to snuggle under a quilt to enjoy hand stitching.

I finished Cozy Afternoon which was 136" of binding. It was a little harder on my hands because of the flange in the binding on the front of the quilt. I should have cut the binding strips a bit wider to accommodate the flange, but I forgot, and had to really pull the binding to cover the stitching line on the back. 
A quick finish, was the Peaceful Country Roads quiltalong which was 21.25" square, so it only adds 85" to the monthly total, but I'll take it!
Then I finished a little hand quilted miniature block called Times Nine.  That added 48" to the total.

And the big finish was Easy Street, a Bonnie Hunter mystery from 2012. It finished at 88" square, which adds 352" to the tally.
October's total is 621".

And adding this number to September's total of 2,832" gives me a total of.... 3,453" of binding in 2015 so far! Woohoo!
PS.... I hope someone is checking my math :)

Linking up to Julie's binding blitz.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts! Make yourself a cup of tea or coffee and join us to celebrate the experience of living life more deliberately and slowly.

I am so happy today to be hand stitching the binding on my October UFO. I cut these lime green scraps from the quilt top and backing to make up over 360" of binding.

It is now attached to the quilt and I'm plan to spend the better part of today hand stitching it to the back of the quilt.

Busy brain

Why do I stitch by hand when I can make a machine finished binding in a fraction of the time?  For me hand stitching is all about how it makes me feel. It forces me to slow down, calm down, power down. It's like yoga stitching. It brings me out of my head and into my body, into my hands, into the enjoyment of this moment. I breath deeper, and feel the relaxation increase as I take each stitch. 
How are you relaxing with hand stitching today?
Tell us about how you benefit from stitching slowly and link up your blog post below. 

September Binding Blitz

I have been keeping track of the number of inches stitched on quilt bindings this year. It's maybe a strange thing to do (one of many oddities I enjoy!) but it's kind of fun to know.

Ever wonder what a pile of 300" of prepared binding looks like?!?
Now you know!

This is the binding for the Confluence quilt, and it used up pieces leftover from the quilt front and the backing.






So let's see what the numbers are...
at the end of July, my total was 2,286".
I didn't do a binding update in August, but I did finish an old UFO which adds 258" to the tally.
And this month I finished my scrap squad quilt, adding another 288". 

So the 2015 tally so far is....
2832"!

Slow Sunday Stitching - Binding

It's Sunday... time for some relaxation and slow stitches.
At FNSI the binding was attached to my August UFO and today I will be hand stitching it to the back of the quilt. 
This is how I stitch a binding, with the edge of binding toward me, and stitching from right to left. I like to use lots of Clover clips to keep the binding snuggly in place as I stitch.

Just for fun, I took a poll of my quilting friends to see the variety in binding techniques.

These are the hands of the infamous Barb - she stitches her binding with the quilt towards her, the binding edge away from her, and stitching right to left. No pins.




These are the hands of Louise, and she stitches with the quilt on her right, the edge of the binding to her left, taking stitches away from herself. Lots of pins.




These are the hands of Deanna binding a quilt. 
Oh look, she stitches in the right way I mean the same way as I do! LOL!
But no pins or clips.

How do you hand stitch your bindings?  Do you use any of these techniques? Have you invented your own method?


We'd love to see what project you're working on today. Link up your blog post below and share what you are hand stitching today?