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March 22, 2025
Lots of Hand Stitching and Another Block from The Cozy Quilter

A few years ago, I stitched "Let it Bee".  I was cleaning up the top of my cutting table and found it in a pile, waiting to be framed.  I went to Stitch It Central this past week to buy some backing for the secret gift quilt that I have been working on and purchased a 5" hoop for my bee while I was there.  It was well overdue for being framed!  


I went to the weekly guild sewing day earlier this week and spent my time hand quilting the four HST blocks in my Arizona quilt.  The centre part ...

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February 23, 2025
A TaDa Moment! from The Cozy Quilter

This afternoon, I added the final stitches to my Winter Woods cross stitch!  There were lots of little stars to add in the sky of several pictures and a bit of backstitching, but not very much. I love this picture and look forward to getting it framed to hang up somewhere in my house next winter.  We have lots of snow right now, although not as much as many places north of us where roads have been closed for days on end as the snowplows try to clear the snow away. 


I spent some time at the sewing machine this ...

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February 16, 2025
Knitting, Cross Stitch, Crochet and a Weekend Away from The Cozy Quilter

My scarf that I am making with the yarn I purchased in Cow Head, Newfoundland in 2023 is getting longer-- 32" or 82cm long now.  It takes a long time to make a scarf! I will keep knitting...it would be nice to be able to wear it this winter!


Just a little bit more to do on the Winter Woods cross stitch.  There are some clouds in the sky above the mountains to add and some stars in the sky in several places on the entire picture.  The deer got its tail this week too--I forgot to do it ...

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February 9, 2025
Slow Stitching Report from The Cozy Quilter

I finished off the second diamond hand quilting this week and then started on the squares at the top of the Arizona quilt. I'm working on quilting a quarter inch along the gray background. As I quilt, I am thinking about what I am going to do next. I'm still undecided about whether to quilt a circle in the middle of each square...we will see. 


I have finished the tree section now on my Winter Woods cross stitch.  This picture was taken before I was quite done.  The next section is started now.  Who knows?  Can I ...

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February 2, 2025
Slow Stitching Saturday! from The Cozy Quilter


Today was the annual Vice President's day at the Oxford Guild.  Many quilters were working on Anita's Arrowhead blocks, a pattern chosen by our VP, but I decided to bring along some hand stitching to work on instead.  Earlier in the week, I thread basted my Arizona quilt so that I could hand quilt it.  I am using 28 wt grey Aurifil thread for big stitching.  So far, so good!


I had several opportunities this week to add stitches to my Winter Woods cross stitch project.  The deer is done and I also did the snowflake.  I am ...

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January 26, 2025
Arizona Quilt Top and Deer Stitching from The Cozy Quilter

 I put my Arizona quilt blocks together and it is now a completed top--36"square.  Before assembly, I remade a couple of the four patches. If you look closely, you can see that the cacti are now mirror images of the adjacent block in the next quadrant.  Anal, I know, but I didn't like how it looked before. 



I also worked on the walking foot quilting on the second potato chip baby quilt.  It is about 3/4 done and I hope to finish it this week and get the binding on.  One more of these tops to quilt ...

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January 19, 2025
Quilt Blocks Made and some Slow Stitching from The Cozy Quilter

Last weekend, I showed you some fabrics I purchased when we were in Phoenix, Arizona in the fall.  I had pulled out some co-ordinating solids to go with them.  This week, at the guild sewing day, I started to make some blocks. 


I am making four of each block.  Each quadrant of the quilt will be a mirror image of the quadrant beside and below/above it.  I am using one solid and one print in each block.  The blocks are 6.5" square.  Here are the blocks I made early in the week, in a possible layout.  I was ...

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January 12, 2025
Sewing Day with Friends from The Cozy Quilter

This has been a busy week in the sewing department!  I have decided to rejoin the Rainbow Scrap Challenge again this year after a 1 year hiatus.  My scraps are in bad need of being tamed!  January's colour is pink so here are my two projects so far.  I may add one more but I'm not sure yet.  I have a pile of  white 2.5" squares with small scale prints on them.  I have had them for a few years and decided to use them for the centres of these hollow nine patch blocks each month.  I ...

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January 5, 2025
Slow Stitching in the Car and My Daughter's Crochet from The Cozy Quilter

We spent some time in the car this past week, driving our daughter home to where she and Finn live so that gave me some time to do some cross stitching. I should be able to finish this quadrant off this week and then on to the fourth and final quadrant.  This is a great winter project!


Our daughter worked on her crocheted Christmas blanket when she was home.  She is working on the gingerbread border right now.  There is a white wavy "Icing" line to add and then more of the gold colour.  Then, there are 80 little "candies ...

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December 29, 2024
Slow Sunday Stitching from The Cozy Quilter

 Christmas 2024 has come and gone and we are now in that quieter time between December 25th and New Year's Day. I blogged earlier in the week about some of the gifts I made this year and you can read about them here.  I have been doing some reading and cross stitching every day--ahhhh! The lower left square will eventually be a picture of an owl...



My friend, Pat, knitter extraordinaire, made me these cute Christmas sweater ornaments for our tree.  I'm not sure I could manage to knit something so small!  


Finn loves a squeaky toy and ...

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December 22, 2024
Secret Sewing and Some Slow Stitching from The Cozy Quilter

I worked on the last Christmas gifts that I am making today--one is done and the other is very close to completion.  Pictures to follow in a few days... The secret sewing season will soon be over for another year. 

I made some progress on my winter counted cross stitch project this week.  The Christmas tree is done and the next part of this quadrant is started.  I did quite a bit of the framing on this quadrant too. There's a reason why they call this slow stitching...  it gets done slowly, one stitch at a time.  I enjoy ...

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December 15, 2024
A Finish and Cross Stitch Progress from The Cozy Quilter

TaDa!  This quilt top was made at a Vice President's day quilting day at Oxford Quilter's Guild at least 3 years ago.  The idea behind VP day is to work on a simple pattern chosen by the VP that can be finished in one day. I found the top in my UFO drawer and took it to one of my retreats in November where I pieced the back, pin basted it and did 3/4 of the quilting.  This week, I finished the quilting and added an orange solid for the binding.  This will go in the baby ...

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December 8, 2024
Christmas Events and Preparations! from The Cozy Quilter

This has been a busy week with lots of special Christmas events to attend and decorating being done at home. I added a few more stitches to my winter cross stitch picture, but not as many as I had hoped.  I don't have a deadline for this project so that's ok. 


Last night, the hiking club we belong to hosted a Spirit walk at a local conservation area.  My husband and I were tour leaders and lead groups of visitors along a candle lit path to see a magician, a children's choir, the Grinch, a singer, a ...

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November 30, 2024
Another Secret Project Reveal and Retreat Report from The Cozy Quilter

There was no blog post last weekend as Christine and I were at a crafter's retreat at Camp Kintail.  There were other people sewing, knitting, crocheting, paper crafting, card making, painting, rug hooking, etc.  Lots of interesting projects to walk around to look at when I had been sitting for too long! I worked on several projects, one of which was a gift and will not be revealed until after Christmas.  I quilted two baby quilts--one of which you can see in the picture below.  It is not quite done yet and I hope to finish it off this ...

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November 17, 2024
A Busy Week from The Cozy Quilter

 It was a busy week with lots of activities happening, but not a lot of time for sewing.  I managed to make some progress on my cross stitch project, adding more trees, border stitches and starting the snow at the bottom of this section. I'm hoping to finish the mushrooms in the forest this coming week and move on to the next part. 

The church bazaar was yesterday.  Here are the three pillows that I made for the sewing table.  We had a family wedding to attend out of town yesterday so I only had time to stop briefly ...

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November 10, 2024
Retreat Report from The Cozy Quilter

 I had a very productive weekend at the guild retreat last weekend.  It was glorious to have three full days to sew--meals provided and no dishes to do!  I added binding to two quilts that are gifts so I can't show those yet, but they are both hand stitched now and ready to gift.  I quilted the table runner I showed last week that will be for sale at our church bazaar next weekend and added the binding this week when I got home. I hope someone will like it enough to purchase it! I also worked on three ...

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November 1, 2024
Getting Ready for a Quilting Retreat from The Cozy Quilter

I am getting ready to go to the fall retreat for the Oxford Quilters Guild this weekend. I have a big bin full of projects--two just need binding, one is a pile of blocks that need to be made into a quilt top, some are Christmas gifts (secrets!), three new quilts to put together--pieces are cut already in preparation and also my last two placemats for Meals on Wheels.  I will not have time to get bored!  I finished the second secret project this past week and will not be able to show any pictures of it until it has ...

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October 26, 2024
Moving Right Along from The Cozy Quilter

This has been a productive week in the sewing department!  I finished quilting the potato chip quilt I made for the local hospice.  I used the cut offs from the backing to make the binding, remembering after I had machine stitched it to the front of the quilt that it needed to be machine stitched down, not hand stitched as I usually do.  Oops! This is because the quilts for the hospice will be washed and dried by machine often and the binding will stay on better if machine stitched.  I did not want to un-sew all of the binding ...

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October 20, 2024
Getting Back to Normal from The Cozy Quilter


I have been reacquainting myself with my sewing machine over the past few days.  I decided to get going on quilting the potato chip quilt top I made for our new hospice (opening in the Spring of 2025).  First I quilted two lines in the sashing to get everything stabilized and ready for quilting the blocks. I also added a row of stitching around the entire quilt the width of the walking foot into the beige border and then a 1/8th of an inch from the edge of the border to keep it flat.  I hummed and hawed over ...

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October 13, 2024
Home from Vacation from The Cozy Quilter

My husband and I just got home from three weeks in the US southwest.  We flew to Tucson, AZ, rented a car, visited National Parks and other sites in Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico, and then took the Amtrak Southwest Chief (train) from Albuquerque, NM to Chicago.  The next train, the Pere Marquette, took us from Chicago to Grand Rapids, where we picked up our car and drove home. I will share pictures of the highlights of our trip over the next few weeks--I have not had time to go through all of my pictures  (over 4000!) yet. We ...

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  • counted cross stitch
  • Page 1 of 9 ( 177 posts )