Mindful, Slow Stitches

For the past several years when Ed, Sandy, Jane, Betty and Steve plan their annual get together for some fun in the sun it has been at Jane's cottage. They decided to try something different this year and all traveled to a cottage in Prince Edward County for their getaway, complete with several day trips. On one they dropped in to an artisan’s co-op in the pretty town of Bloomfield and saw these original pieces by Claire Wellesley-Smith.

Apparently they were all quite intrigued, and rightly so. Look at that stitching!

The gallery owner said that Claire is featured in a book called Slow Stitch, all about the pleasures to be had from slowing down, making connections with sustainability, simplicity and reflection - a less is more approach that values quality over quantity.

The nice part is they were able to touch her work.

It seemed like the perfect thing to share with Kathy and her Slow Sunday Stitching friends. Me also thinks that Santa needs to be given a heads up as well so that he knows which Christmas tree to leave a copy of that book under....M

I'm Not Alone in Tiny Town

Anne has been playing around with one-inch strips lately too. She was inspired by Lynn's adorable Courthouse Steps blocks designed for her Cute as a Button table topper, and eventually a quilt called Country Courthouse.

Each block is anchored with a little nine patch...

And then off she goes adding creams and darks.

They are all the same and yet each one very different...

and at 4" finished, absolutely adorable.

This started out to be a small project of some sort but looking at all of her cream strips makes me think that she might end up with enough blocks to make a throw, or even something larger (apparently they are very addictive). Whatever its end, it is off to a fabulous start!....M

My Baggie Runneth Over

For the better part of this past week I have held the kitchen table captive with my sewing - I brought the machine upstairs to make a few bindings, and there it stayed. I worked on more of the tiny nine patches for Omigosh, enjoying the view to the back yard and working in natural light. Eventually the baggie that I store the blocks in reached its breaking point so it was time to put a few of the larger nine patches together and clear that backlog.

Making these little blocks is not the speediest of exercises - it would be faster if I was using full widths of fabric and limiting my fabric choices - but scrappy is the way that I've opted to go, and I love them. Once I have the strip sets cut into one-inch pieces I always pin them at the seams...

It helps avoid missteps like this. On a block with larger pieces I might be tempted to just let this go but when the blocks are so small (half an inch finished) I feel that its doubly important to try and be accurate, so there was a little ripping being done as well.

Eventually the second strip gets added, and before you know it, the baggie is full.

I was anxious to clear the table and get my kitchen back to normal so I set myself the challenge of making up all of the larger nine patch blocks in the baggie before I returned my machine to the sewing room and put the pedal to the metal. Voilá! Sixteen more blocks now added to the finished pile. It helps to set goals, even if they are small ones, doesn't it?....M

p.s. Still no obvious signs that my basket of one-inch strips has gone down any...

A Peach of a Day

Warm Peach Cake was the finishing touch to our day yesterday, and it was soooo delicious. It is the end result of a war between me and the fruit flies and I like to think that I won 😏. Apparently it is equally good chilled, so we will test that theory out this evening.

It was also a bit of a reward for getting more of my tiny nine-patch blocks assembled for Omigosh.

Though I have to say that I'm not sure I made much of a dent in my basket of strips. I think that all I did was fluff them up when I was digging through them. Oh well, lots more fun to be had.....M