Veterans day

 First off, Thank you to all Veterans who have served their nation. My hubby was in the Air Force back in the early 90's.

I made some progress on gobble gobble. Time to add more brown to the turkey.

I started November 2nd adding one of these a day. All caught up and I'll add a teal one today.

I picked up the girl a couple hours earlier than expected yesterday. Since the government is shut down, they were unable to do one of the museums on the last day as it was a national one. She had a great time and enjoyed peace and quiet in her room for a bit. We had temps around 32 this morning, and she took me up on my offer to start her truck for her 10 minutes before she left for school at 6:40. The boy declined my offer about 40 minutes later when he left. No frost, so it was just cool outside.

 I have the day off, and plan to add bear paw blocks and look at 'fixing' a quilt for a friend. It needs a new binding and there is some damage. I think I need to cut off a little from the top and bottom, use that to 'fix' a few areas with applique and then add a new binding. 

Greg had mentioned Mexican Skillet as a meal a few times, so I let him make it last night while I went to get Emily. I did pull everything out he needed including the recipe. 

The kids found this one years ago and liked it, so we added it to the rotation. It only take 20-30 minutes depending on if you use chicken in a can or raw chicken. I need to start picking a recipe from a cookbook and try them out! 

I'm thinking zucchini boats tonight or taco's using ground chicken instead of beef. I'm sure I'll get push back on that swap. Both kids are late tonight - Emily made the JV Winter Guard team and has practice until 7 and Aidan has an Academic Club meet across town, so will be home later this evening. Not as late as last night - he was helping at an event as an Ambassador for the school. Got home around 9PM. 

Off to walk the dog, who enjoys these cooler temps we are having for a few days.

Sunday stitching.

 It is a quiet morning at my house. Well, other than the neighbor across the street playing weird music before 7AM that woke me up! Sigh. Better than the 2AM it used to be but this is the second Sunday this has happened. Deep breath, I am enjoying the quiet house all to myself with some coffee and catching up on blog reading.

I have been stitching up a Hexagon each day this week (except Friday and Saturday as I was too busy doing cross stitch! Oops) I'll just whip up 3 of them today! Once these are prepped, the stitching goes quickly. I will plan to prep a few more of these today. Sometimes I feel like working a certain color and all I have right now are blue/teal prepped.

The gobble gobble I started on Tuesday has been taking most of my time. This is a free pattern from Melissa who is so kind to make and share her talents with us. I transferred the pattern to a block sheet as it was easier for me to read that way. 

The bulky quilt addition of circles has not finished, but I will get the last 5 done today. I'd like to move the String of Beads quilt to a completed top stage. I'll probably do these during the F1 race in Brazil today. It was quite a Sprint race yesterday. 

Hand quilting - I have neglected the quilt in the frame as I did not like my choice for quilting on it. It came to me this week, I really want to do a Baptist fan pattern on it. I'm just going to free hand it I think (Yes, I'm too lazy to create the pattern although I might change my mind on that too!) I do need to take out the quilting I have done on a few of the blocks first. 

Linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers. The drizzle rain has ended at my house and the sun is bright and shining. A last 'warm' day before we get a freeze warning tomorrow night in Florida. It does happen and I'll enjoy grabbing out my jeans and sweater to be cozy! It will warm back up later in the week to our 'normal' temps. I am really enjoying these cooler weather systems that keep dipping down to us. 

Somehow I have 3 days off in the middle of the week, so hubby and I will attempt to tackle his Dad's house a bit. It needs to be cleared out, cleaned and then someone to do some plumbing work and painting outside so we can list it for sale eventually.  He is extremely happy in the assisted living quarters closer to us. He has his own room and things, they do his medicines, meals, cleaning and laundry and check on him throughout the day and help in the bathroom and dressing if needed. He is quite content for a 90 year old man. 

I forgot - I also need to make some wands for a Wizarding event next weekend! Oops. I guess I will be drizzling hot glue onto chopsticks today as well. Then I'll go grab some spray paint and get them colored up for next Sunday's event. Emily was planning to do it, but I ordered the wrong glue sticks for our hot glue gun. 

Taking stock RSC

 It was time to open the bins that hold the RSC blocks and see where things are at.

The alternate BITA blocks (the hst's are swapped and made a fun pattern so I kept making them!)

I see I am missing some colors. I think I'll keep making these in 2026.

The sixteen patches with 2.5 inch squares. Always nice to have on hand for a quick quilt.

The string of beads blocks have 5 more green circles that need to get added. I'll work on those this weekend during F1 races - a Sprint race today and the main race tomorrow.

Linking up to the RSC on Saturday.

Some progress on the Gobble Gobble from Melissa at Pinker n Punkin Quilts. So exciting when it starts to look like something!

Emily is on her Civil Rights Trip. They got stuck in traffic yesterday with a cotton something overturned on the highway and had to cut one of their stops out. She is having fun and shared a short video of the bus all singing along to a song last night. 

At school Friday, there was a surprise visit from a Food Network star. Aidan was hoping for Alton Brown (whom none of his friends knew!) but it was Duff Goldman - the cake guy! Aidan is friends with the person in charge and got asked to meet him and then got to listen to his presentation. He also brought a French chef from WEC (World Equestrian Center) and it was an inspiring speech. I was told I had the Food Network on a lot when he was a kid, so he remembers all the old chef's. I think I put that on as it was a kid friendly show and was good background noise! He is off to a Ted Talk at a local High School for most of the day today. 

Duff and Aidan.

The start of Bear Paw Wanderings... Bear Tracks in the woods?

 Not sure that either name will stick, but I did show Aidan a non-traditional bear paw setting that I'd like to try and he is considering it. He can't picture it with his colors, so once I get a few made we'll test it out.

I know I didn't want tiny ones, as he indicated his quilt is for 'after college' so a bigger size is needed - double bed size. 

I found this pattern at FQ shop for a finished 6 inch single paw and a 14 inch finished standard block. Better than the much smaller ones I have in my books. That should help with the amount of blocks needed!

I showed him some arrangements from this page where I pulled these photo's from. This is the layout they called Bear Tracks. Now picture it in civil war type fabrics of cream, green and blues.

As opposed to a more standard layout... although I really like this RSC type scrappy one!

I really liked this one as well with the different sizes.

and the chain in this one is nice too. I love the little touch of color at the middle of each block by the sashing.

The girl was dropped off to school before 6AM this morning for her school trip to a few neighboring states to learn about the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. Shout out to the 9 teachers taking 90 students under their care for the next 5 days. 

Time to go make some cuts into the fabric and see if I can get some paws made today. 

A gobble start

 I ordered some Aida cloth and it arrived yesterday. I got a start on Gobble Gobble from Melissa at Pinkern Punkin Quilting and Stitching. My honey comb is my needle minder for cross stitch. I had to search for colors to work with but found a good mix. I had transferred the pattern onto a notepad of squares, since my print out was too tiny to read. Good thing I grabbed it from hubby when he was done with his math classes. It will come in handy for making patterns easier to read!

 

I got another squishy in the mail as well from Pieces of the Past. I had ordered 3 of the mini applique quilts that were marked down. They came to just under $25 each and include the pattern and all fabrics for the top and back. Not bad. I think notions are marked down this week.

Slow Sunday in November.

 As November is a new month, I'm going to be stitching one of these hexagons each day! I finished prepping these yesterday, so they are easy to grab at lunch and get one stitched up. These will be grouped into fours and added to my QAYG hexagon quilt from a few years ago that insists on being bigger. I have 2 additional rows already stitched and need 2 more to make it the 88x88 that it wants to be. Each row needs 12 sets of 4, so this will be a long term project over the next couple of months. The blues were at the top of the scrap bins, as you can tell from the pull of fabrics. 

I have not made progress on adding the last 8 circles onto the String of Beads but hope to get it completed this week. 

Linking up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Marching season is officially over with the long practices. They go down to just a couple hours after school on Fridays until the 2 December parades are done. They got an overall Exceptional rating - one step down from Superior they got the last two years. The guard and visual did get Superior ratings. The music was not as spot on as their Thursday performance at the football game. It was a great show, and they should be very proud of all their hard work this season. Would you believe I didn't even take a photo? It was a long ride to get to the venue - Greg and I headed 45 minutes to pick up Grandma and then continued 40 minutes further to the venue. Same route back, and around 8, we decided to do dinner out with Grandma before returning her home and chatting for a bit. It was nice to have adult chats without the kids! Greg and I got home just before 11 and Emily rolled in about 11:15. Aidan put the outside light on for us, as he stayed home and finished applying to colleges, which were due by midnight last night for the early applications. Fingers crossed he gets what he wants in January!

Winter Guard try outs are this week. Emily will do that at the first one, and then she heads off on the Junior class Civil Rights trip for 5 days to Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. 

Looks like I should have lots of time to 'play' this week, if only I would put down my phone and stop scrolling and playing games!

The county Pre MPA from October 21,2025.

This is all the bands. I think we are about halfway through, Belleview HS.

RSC and Table Scrap Challenge

 The TSC for October was Denim. The RSC was light or dark neutrals. Linking up to both on Saturday!

Hmmmm.

Looking at fabrics as I was attempting to tidy up my working area this week (photo's later as it might scare people!), I saw some cowboys riding horses on a black background with lots of browns. Darks, checked. Cowboys wear denim jeans. Check! I have a winner.

Since I have finished a quilt or two in the last bit, I actually have batting extra's again, so it was the perfect time to prep more hexagon blocks to add a couple more rows to the hexagon quilt. I started this in 2021 and it is asking to be made a bit bigger. Since it is a quilt as you go style, I am able to accommodate it's wishes!

My finished edges are 2 inches with the templates I have. I use the outer two - the 3 inch and 2 inch. I cut backgrounds using the 3 inch and then batting and eventually more fabrics with the 2 inch. I do need to find the box of clips I bought a month ago so I can prep all of these. 

I prepped this one.

Got it stitched up this morning after walking the dog. Technically a finished little quilt. It will be added to 3 more for a grouping of 4, and then I think 12 groups of 4 make a row. 

The back.

We have one last marching band performance to go see today for their MPA. Their time was set back an hour so it will be a little cooler when they perform. We are having cooler weather in Florida this week, I'm not complaining though. I much prefer cooler temps - in the 60's when they perform tonight.

The girls are molting - at least the 2 Barred Rocks (black and white ones) and they look so funny without their feathers. No eggs for a while as they are building their feathers right now. I think I get about 1 egg a day now. I put a couple dozen in the fridge so they will last a little longer before I need to buy some. 

You can see all the feathers in their big run. The coop looks like something was plucking all the feathers out! Just a natural occurrence.

A close up shot of the girls. Their feather pins are blue, which makes me chuckle when I see them. So far it looks like just these two, but I think Poppy will soon. I think the two younger ones molted in the spring, so I'm not sure if they will again in the fall this year. 

I mentioned I finally went into the sewing area and attempted to pick it up a bit. You might want to stop now, if cluttered mess gives you hives! I did the side section, that I did not photograph first and got that tidied up a bit. Lots of papers into the big shredding box and old suitcases went through and will be tossed out. These are from the 80's and 90's so old without wheels. Then I tackled all the bins of overflowing fabrics. Not a great solution, but 3 contained bins instead of all over the floor helped. I did manage to find the missing colorful Flowering snowball parts I was cutting out a few years ago each month! Still a lot more to go, but I can move around in there now. 

The mess!

Slightly better mess! 

I'd better start lunch. I made chicken stock with a carcass yesterday and will be using that in a potato leek soup today. Chilly temps call for soup and this is a favorite of ours.

Enjoy your weekend.