OMG - progress

 Progress was made on my One Monthly Goal, but it is not a quilt yet. Good thing there are a few more days in the month. Might there be more progress made before December? We will see. 

The tree also got trimmed on Saturday evening. We got a new tree this year, as my last one was over 20 years old and needed to be retired. This one is 9 feet tall, and yes the angel is leaning. I can't reach up there to fix it so we will just assume she is a little tipsy and landed a little off kilter!

November Table Scrap Challenge

 I went into the sewing room planning to finish off the black star block. Alas, I left the black fabrics on the cutting table 3 weeks ago and 'someone' showed his displeasure with my lack of sewing time this month on it. It has now been through the wash twice and dried... so I cut and made the brown star block I needed.

While there, I had these bits of Kansas Troubles fabrics on the cutting board, so I sewed them together and got this 6 x 6.5 inch little mug rug. Instead of a binding, I did the easy turn method.

Emily got me this mug for Christmas a couple of years ago. 

Linking up with Angela and the RSC and Joy and the Table Scrap Challenge. 

Chilhowie begins.

The first clue of the Quiltville mystery Chilhowie has been released!

Let the sewing begin.

Tuesday....

 I did add a little stitching to this on Sunday. I did not pick it up last night at all. 

Greg has been doing the running this week and took Emily to school to feed the animals Monday and Tuesday morning, then took the dog to get his nails trimmed Monday and took Aidan for his first cavity (filling) at age 14 and some sealants added to his back teeth on Tuesday.  I got the guitar lesson trip Monday night and might do the animal feeding driving Tuesday afternoon. We will see. It is nice to not be running here and there all the time! 

With F1 racing done for the season, Aidan and I were chatting about his F1 subscription on the way home last night. Turns out, they have the old races available for watching so he pulled up a race at Spa from 1998 I think. Lots of crashes and only 6 or 7 finished the race! Lots of comments on the lack of safety measures and the picture quality. Was it really that bad... I guess we have improved things a lot in the last 25 years!

My way to get the house cleaned - tell the kids they can change over Fall to Christmas! They did get a start and Emily put up the new tree this year. It didn't look this big as a 9 foot tree at the store! It is nice looking though. The lights have different options and can be multicolored, white, switch between the two and a few other options. I do like having my Christmas things out, as seeing them always makes me smile. 

Hopefully I can spend some time in the sewing area tonight and work on the OMG quilt. It is nearing the end of the month and I have not made much progress on it yet.

The last run to the grocery store has been done and the turkey is defrosting in the fridge for Thursday. I might have purchased a few extra stollen while at Aldi's. I did not grow up with it but decided to try one last year. I really liked it. I have a Cherry one which is yummy and grabbed one more of those and a Butter Almond one. We will see how that one tastes in a few weeks. I did the marzipan one last year, so it is fun to try the different types. 

 

A lazy Sunday

 It is a rainy cool day today. I am being a wee bit lazy today and resting. I did get up and watch the last F1 race of the year this morning. Grandma came and picked up Emily for the day. Seems Aidan was up chatting with a friend online until 3AM and is quite tired today! 

I should go sew the last 2 16 patch stars in the sewing room... but I think I'll put on a movie and do some hand quilting on the Bear Paw quilt today instead!

I did make some progress on EPP and Brimfield Awakening this week. I need to prep some more fabrics to keep moving on this as well. I'm planning to try this flat back stitching when I put them together.

I'm recovering a bit from my adventures yesterday helping out at a girl scout encampment. You can read about that here.

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers. She has been a little under the weather and showed her medicines to get her through. My whole house is sniffling with all the colds going around right now or allergies. Emily likes the humidifier in her room to add moist air to help her breath at night and I'll mention for them to add vicks rub on the chest to help clear out the airways with that strong menthol scent. I got more Sudafed, that works great to dry out a nose for a good 4-6 hours and she took one this morning before heading to Grandma's. We are out of my favorite Cloverine salve to add to the outside of the nose to help sooth from all the blowing, so are using Vaseline instead. Lots of tea drinking and spoonfuls of honey are happening around here as well. The kids are off school this week for the Thanksgiving holiday so plenty of time to rest up and feel better.

A day in the woods at Girl Scout Camp

I spent Saturday helping at a Girl Scout Encampment at our local property about 25 minutes from my house. I had 2 girls attending for the day from my old troop and the new leader was there as well. I was in charge of planning one of the activities in the rotation. We had an Outer Space rotation where for 30 minutes they constructed a rocket and then got to set them off using air and a pvc pipe. They did it last year and with some lessons learned it went much smoother this year. The other half of that rotation was my planning. There is a space science explorer badge. I came up with some activities that kept them occupied for the other half of the time. They all got to do Oreo phases of the moon, made a box constellation by using pins to prick the constellations and then added a little light so it will light up tonight for them. The littles were going to do shadow drawings of toys, but the sun did not cooperate. The juniors did a giant walk to Mars to see the distance of the planets from the sun. I had 4 'helpers' in high school that I explained things to and they handled that half hour. I got to relax and help with the rockets, chat with the adults and play with the catapult - and I got the tennis ball into the bucket!

Some of the other rotations were a Pirate Hike searching for clues and treasure throughout the camp ('our' troop found the gold coin and won a $50 ice cream party!), Dinosaur dig where they hammered into dinosaur eggs and got to keep the egg and the little dino piece. Not sure if they had the discover the bones dig or not. With a Magic School Bus theme, they did some science experiments and made volcano's. The pool time was cancelled due to cool weather (it was 50's to low 60's) and they did an under the sea adventure - but I'm not sure what that one ended up being. They enjoyed a bonfire and smores and camp songs tonight before bed.

It was a very relaxing day! I also got to take a little exploring hike with 2 of the older girls to the Ampitheater. I had been to the Nature Center on the other side of the property and out to the Hammocks and the Homestead area by the lake but did not know about this theater!  I snapped some photos along the way of the camp's nearly 600 acres. 

BeautyBerry bush.

The natural amphitheater. I was standing on the platform.

looking down the trail.

One of the trees - crazy branches!

pine tree.

the little pond at the theater.

We heard donkey's braying and got to see these 4 on our walk back.

Two paths - reminds me of the Robert Frost poem - The Road Less Travelled.

This was one of the higher awards a troop did in 2020. 

After 12,000 steps on my Fitbit today, I enjoyed a nice hot soak in the tub tonight and will enjoy my nice soft and warm bed at my house. I do not miss sleeping in the cabins at all this weekend!

 

Mail call!

 I've eagerly been awaiting a Mystery bundle from Missouri Star Quilts to arrive. I figured a variety of fabrics would be a fun way to spend my birthday $ this year.

 I was very happy with the bundle and Emily was kind enough to lay them all out. Quite a variety of fabrics, batiks, some cute chickadee and snowmen and a lovely Dr. Seuss in the kitchen. It will be fun to add these into scrappy projects. Quite a few are half a yard or more. Only one is a 4 inch WOF.

I also got my fabric bundles I ordered for the Bonnie Hunter mystery this year from Cotton to Quilts. I'll add a bit from my stash as well, but this will help to add some variety in the purple, light teal and oranges.  The orange and purple really needed some enhancement! There is an adorable orange with white spider webs from the above mystery bundle that will get added to the quilt too!