Slow Sunday

 Someone turned 60 today in my household (it's not me - hubby is 6 years older than me)! His Mom is coming up for a lunch out at a local restaurant. 

I'll be adding some stitches to the new cross stitch I started this year. It is the November design from Paula Vaughn's Quilts for all Seasons.

I'll also be glue basting a bunch of units for my Brimfield Awakening EPP I cut out earlier in the week. 

I'll take both with me tomorrow as I'll have waiting time at the hospital with my FIL as he has a procedure. Hubby's back is hurting, so I'll go with and handle the waiting inside so he can go to the car comfy seats if needed. He has to be there for 8AM... so we need to go pick him up for 7AM and bring him there. A very early start for a Monday. 

Another option- the QAYG hexagons I prepped last week as well. Plenty of options to keep my hands busy as I wait. I need to find our masks to wear while there. I know flu is running rampant and I did get my flu shot back in September. I managed flights over the holidays fine, but figure hospitals are even more of a germ area and don't want to be down for a week with the bad variant that is prevalent now.

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Blue UFO/RSC

 I do plan to join the RSC 2026 again this year. I will continue on with some old projects like the chickens and alternate BITA blocks. I'd like to add a couple of new things to the mix. I made house blocks years ago and gifted that quilt away (my daughter was not happy but it went to a good home with one of my girl scouts) so I will plan to make another one of some sort this year. I also liked the 16 patch star blocks, and have lots of cream bits leftover from my flowering snowball cut offs so will use those to make the stars in RSC colors of blocks this year. So, that is the plan before I go see what everyone else is making!

These are the 'leftover collections' I hope to be adding to this year.

The chicken blocks. 

The alternate BITA blocks so far.

The 16 patch blocks with 2.5 inch squares.

These were the houses I made - free pattern from Bonnie Hunters Quiltville blog. Might do another like this? We will see.

I did just go search to find a UFO in blues that I cut out ahem.... over 25 years ago! I think it might be time to finish this one off. It took a bit to find... and I might have found 3 other projects along the way. It looks like the nine patches are all sewn (I wonder if they match the correct size? My seam allowance was way off back then.) I'll be reading the instructions and figuring out how to make the alternate blocks. It looks like a more difficult way from what I expected but we will give it a try and see how it goes. 

It is called Sunrise Surprise and I'm not sure why I chose the colors I did but we will sew it up and see how it turns out this month!

This is the book that the pattern is in. One of the first I purchased back in 1992 when I graduated from college and started playing with a sewing machine. I did the four patch baby quilt and you know that friendship one still calls to me. I guess some likes never change over the years!

Currently my sewing table is being used by hubby to build some new shelving storage units. I hope to get it set up again tomorrow to sew and will start making those alternate blocks and see how this one goes together. 

Brimfield Awakening

 

This one was started and then sat, and sat and sat. The issue was I started without a plan and the colors were not 'matching' what I had in my mind and were not working.

With that in mind, I pulled the baggie of Liberty fabric cast offs I picked up 20 years ago at a guild meeting. Just enough to make either the tall or small house. I cut out a bunch but they are multiples of the same fabrics. I did a couple peels as well. 

I was not feeling it for this project. It was also hard to hold the template and cut around... I looked over and saw the rotating 10 inch cutting mat I got on a daily deal at MSQC last month. OMG! This thing rocks. Love it for this purpose.

I then opened one of the 4 charm packs that I had tucked with this project. Not solids like the originals but read as solids in a variety of colors. 

I remembered I needed twice as many small houses than the tall or fat houses this time.

I have quite a bit of the houses cut. I'll need to do more peels, but will wait and see what colors I want to use as I make the little sections - 2 small houses and one fat house go together and then a peel goes underneath. The tall houses connect 4 of those sections together for a circle in the pattern.

All prepped with their papers. Now do I use the glue stick or tack them with thread? So many decisions.

I was able to add in some of the other reds to the border of the quilt. I was missing a few of the DMC floss colors needed for this pattern and stopped at Michaels after work yesterday before hitting Sams Club for those pesky TP and Kleenex that were running out! I miss when floss was 20 cents each! Good thing I have a good slew of them from the other months I have done out of this book - August, September and January the 3/4 done one.

 

I had this photo marked as one of my favorites for the possible patterns I wanted to make next. I went with November, and was able to find all but 2 of the needed floss. I'll work around it until I am able to get those two at some point. 738 and 814..... just so I have it noted somewhere.
 

August, which needs to get reframed as the original fell and broke.

September.

Hexagons QAYG prep

 

I had enough clips to prep 16 hexagons yesterday.  I have one more in teal from a previous set. I was lucky and had all the batting cut already and most of the cream backing. When I decided to do cream for one set, I pulled larger pieces in red, blue, yellow and green for some pop on those. I liked having some color on the back of the quilt in other rows. These quilt as you go blocks will eventually be part of the last 2 rows I want to add to my existing quilt I finished a few years ago. I have 2 strips read to add to the quilt but will wait and add all 4 at the same time.... hopefully in the next few months. If I can stitch one or two a day, they should be done fairly quickly. It takes longer to prep them than to stitch them. I pulled a 10 inch stack of fabrics and actually cut into it to make these. I decided, time to use things up and move things out! 

This is the original quilt. It wanted to be a bit wider than the 66x88 it is. Adding 4 rows should make it 88x88 I believe. The link to more info on this one is here which is one of the tabs up above.

Cross stitch

 A little progress on the November design quilt.

After work yesterday, Grandma stopped up to fill out some paperwork Greg printed so we could witness her signing it. Her younger brother passed away Sunday.  She filled out paperwork to donate his body to the local med school in Ohio. Greg e-mailed it back to them and confirmed they have all they need. 

After she left, I hit Aldi after clearing out the fridge.

Lazy dinner of frozen meat ravioli with Rao marinara sauce. I have things for salads for my lunches now. The kids did not request anything saying they'd find things for lunches starting tomorrow for school. I did get more bread for pb&j as their default. Emily made pasta as her lunch around 3pm. I picked up the mini wonton freezer bags she likes. That was her dinner around 8pm. When you wake up at 11 you have a strange eating schedule!

I also did a few hexagons, so will need to prep more of those. I have plenty of clips now for them.! I'll also cut some charms for brimfield later today. The pantry needs work so that is on tap for clearing and organizing.  

I need a Sams club run but might do that tomorrow afternoon.  Depends if I want roaster chicken for dinner tonight or a clean pantry.

End of the weekend.

 It was a very long day of travel on Saturday. We started out with temps in the single digits when we woke up. We finished the puzzle we were working on at my parents and then headed out around 2:30 PM for the trip to the airport about 2 hours away with a ferry ride. We found out on the ferry that our flight was delayed an hour... so instead of waiting at the airport before security (has to be within 2 hours of the flight to go through TSA there), we wandered around the Sams club up the road! Dinner was under $9 and we each got a $1 pretzel for the plane ride! They had winter coats marked down, and for $27, Aidan found one he liked so we got it. 

We headed to the airport and got through security - both my bags were flagged this time and one of Aidans. Mine were for the 4 bars of chocolate stacked together and the other bag had 2 bamboo knitting needles that needed inspection in the other bag. Completely forgot they were in there! Aidan was stopped for the small summer sausage he got in his Yankee Exchange gift from my family exchange.

The flight was uneventful and we landed in Sanford around 10:30PM. It was raining and there was a huge puddle at the back of the car.... which got both kids sneakers soaked putting the luggage in. I did pull forward but the damage was done. It was a very dark and foggy drive home and we arrived a bit after midnight. The dog was very happy, as were the cats. 

I got up mid morning  and the dog did get a nice long walk closer to lunchtime. Today was taking down the Christmas stuff and packing it away. Boy that took a while! The tree is down, ornaments tucked away as well as all the other Christmas decorations. Aidan took down the outside lights. I did toss a few things including one of the ornament boxes. It had seen better days. The snow globes are all tucked away.... except the big one. That was a casualty as I was putting the big box up high and it fell. Big crash and there was sparkly water and glass everywhere in Greg's new office! Oops. I think I got it all cleaned up and didn't damage any of his servers he is building in there. There is a stack of 4 boxes that need to get moved into storage with the tree bag, but that can happen another day! 

I did change out the quilts as well. The new header is hanging on my kitchen/living room wall. 

The snowmen are in the living room

The umbrellas are in my office room. I will add more quilts in there since I have more hangers.

The baskets are in the dining room - I did not turn on the light which is why it is dark.

Greg just got back from Chili's with dinner. After I eat, I'm taking a bubble bath and then curling up with some stitching on my November Cross Stitch.