RSC Chickens

 I had a lovely unscheduled weekend and was looking through my block collections... once I found the boxes they were in! 

I decided to add a few chickens to the flock in red and green for this month and last. I had plenty of blue ones already.

Yes, three of the purples are a different size, since I turned the chicken body on the wrong side and then just went with it the first month I made them. The pattern is free at Sew Inspired Blog - Chicken Quilt Block.

. That will be fun to fit into a quilt! I might need to add eggs and a coop! We will see. Looks like I need to add some orange, black and white and brown birds. The red polka dot one makes me smile! 

I'll link up sometime on Saturday with the RSC.  It will be a busy day for me as I'm chaperoning and driving a group of kids to FFCC Championships in Orlando. It worked out both groups are quite the timeframe apart, which should work out to see both programs and awards despite being about 30 minutes from each other as JV is performing at a different school from Varsity. It will just be a very long day - 6AM until Midnight with the getting ready, driving and standard perform and wait for awards time.  Knitting will go with me in my backpack. That was easy to do while watching and waiting last competition. 

Slow Sunday

 I've been making good progress on the cross stitch. I forgot how much I enjoyed doing it after a 20 year hiatus. This was my last post last Sunday

I've been stitching this week! This is where it stands this week. This is the second page of the pattern. I still need to do the first page but I wanted to start towards the middle on this which was the quilt part. I think I'll alternate between working on the 'quilt blocks' and the grassy area below the wagon. The pumpkin was fun to stitch. This is the October Quilts For All Seasons book by Paula Vaughn. I did the months of August, September and started January back in the 1990's.

When I went to the front room to photograph progress, I saw these guys out the front window! One of the flocks of turkeys in the area. This one has 2 toms and 4 ladies. 

He is missing some feathers, so I know which flock he is with.

A question for you all. How do you juggle multiple projects? Knitting, cross stitch, sewing, hand quilting, hand piecing? As the mood strikes? Finish one before moving onto another or work a little on each throughout the week? 

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers. 

Little House Sew Along from Melva Loves Scraps

 I managed to sew up blocks 3+4 today. The basket and the shoo fly blocks. Looking at the photo, I wish I would have done a second lighter purple on the basket instead of a medium, but it is done so it's staying! 

Here are my four blocks so far. I believe there will be nine in total. We will see how long the jelly roll lasts! My blocks are a little bigger and finish at 18.5 inches. 

Linking up with the Sew Along as I wait for the next block release.

RSC red houses

I was able to play a little in the sewing room this morning and finished off 4 houses so I have a set of six now to join the green and blue ones. I'll have to cut more chimney and roof parts so I am all set for next month's houses. Linking up with the RSC.

It feels strange to have nothing planned for the weekend. After a nice sleep in and a walk with Bear I enjoyed the puttering in the sewing room. I think I'll head back in after lunch and catch up on my Little House Sew along as I need to do block 3 still and I think block 4 is out as well now. 

 Next week has a National Honor Society induction (Emily) that Aidan has to lead as VP since the President has a game that night. It also is on the same day the Friends and Family presentation of the Winter Guard (not color guard this is more dance with the colorful flags, riffles and sabers) performances, since all competitions are at least an hour away. The final competition - FFCC Championships is next Saturday in Orlando and I'll be driving a bunch of the kids to the competition. The JV and Varsity teams are at different schools, about an hour apart but their time for performing and awards are spread apart so I think they can go to the others performance and awards. Just makes a very long day!

We had quite the wind gust at our house earlier this week that was in front of a cold front going through. We had 2 nights of freezing temps! In March in Florida! Unheard of.  It took the metal awning we have over my car for a whirl. Unfortunately, the metal bar scraped my driver's side door and pulled up the trim by the window on the drivers side. Hubby pulled it off and ordered a new one. Hopefully he will take the mirror off today and get the new trim piece on, so it won't leak with any rain. I can deal with the scrape later. They also need to put the new cover on the frame and put it back, right side up so I can park under it again and protect the paint on the car from the Florida sun. We don't have a workable garage. 

Since the kids were off this week and Aidan needed an oil change on his car and mentioned the grinding sound on starting and I noticed brake issues - it went to Honda for service and a check. We had them do a bunch and then took it to Meineke for the brakes as their labor cost was loads less. A $21 part and $700 in labor was a bit ridiculous I thought from Honda. So, $5,300 later the car should be good for another 100K miles! It has 190K now. The AC is working again and an oil leak is fixed, the grinding sound on start is fixed and the belt got replaced with the break pads and routers and a rotate on the tires and the oil change of course. Things got cleaned out and everything is running smoothly again.

Time for a quick lunch then back to sewing. Maybe I'll prep a quilt for quilting this weekend as well. We will see. 

Slow moving Sunday

Today I plan to putter and do some relaxing things while recovering from Saturday! On tap is some grocery shopping and making my little house block with Melva's sew along. Some slow stitching will also happen with a few threads added to the cross stitch. I did finish off a knitted dish cloth Saturday that I started this week while watching some training sessions on Teams at work. 

I started the brown part of the wagon by the wheel the last few days. I think I'll fill in the half stitches in blue above that next. This was the last photo from Wednesday. Not much but every stitch counts!

The knitted dish cloth. I finished this while watching the guards perform Saturday. I have a huge spool of this yarn when Joann's was clearing things out. Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

The rest of this post is Winter Guard and my Saturday as a Chaperone. 

 Saturday was a long day! We arrived at school before 6am for call time. Varsity needed to run through since they had one person away and one broke her toe Thursday night. A little modification was needed. We left around 8 on the school bus to the comp about 2.5 hours away. The JV team (the team my daughter is on and is co-captain of) had a great run and got first place in their class of 7! First time in their history.  The Varsity did well later in the day in their class and also took home 1st place.  The last competition is Championship in 2 weeks. We arrived back to school around 11pm. We got home about 11:40. I got 10k steps yesterday despite 5 hours on a bus! I was very happy to sit with the JV's bags in the auditorium while they went with the Varsity for their body warm ups through all warm ups and then  put down and pulled their floor for their performance. That is about an hour of time, so I got to watch all the teams perform in the Varsity grouping. Everything is timed down to the minute and there is a mark down if they run late on any part. I've learned a lot about guard the last 2 years. This is my kid ready to perform. 

After they got their 1st trophy with the team. They had performed a few hours before awards ceremony so everyone got to change out but the captains and the senior on the team since it was her last non Champions competition. 

This is their performance from Saturday if you'd like to see. Lots of hard work went into this.

Wednesday

A little stitching to fill in the sashing on the quilt. It is easier to do the blocks once the sashing is stitched.

Saw these guys on our morning walk. The camera allowed a nice photo from afar.

 The boy handed the girl her acceptance into the schools National Honor Society today in one of her classes. He is the VP of the chapter but the President has a sporting game on the 26th induction ceremony so he gets to lead it that night. How did the below 2 get to be a Junior and Senior in High School?

 

Spring 2013. Ages 5 and 4.

Rsc houses in red

I was able to add a couple of red houses to the collection as well as the last two green houses I had cut out. I managed to cut more of the parts needed for the house tops and chimneys for the next batch, so those will get sewn as I am doing other things.

I need to find the chicken blocks and add see what I need to add to that collection and get back to the graduation bear paw prints. Since today is an at home day rather than in Tampa at the winter guard competition (sick kid), I get to relax and putter around the house. Hot weather arrived here in Florida, so I'll enjoy inside things.

Linking up with the RSC.