Progress

 Since this quilt was just sitting on the frame and not getting worked on... I decided to pin it for machine quilting. Note to self... this actually worked great to pin a quilt. Must remember that. I plan to start working on a nice and easy walking foot wavy line down every 4-6 inches of the quilt. Each block is 6 inches so I believe this one is 90x90. I think I might search for leftover binding and see if I have enough to do a scrappy one. This is Thursday afternoons project. I might see if I can make the frame a little smaller and throw the string of beads on there, or put the 1857 quilt on there and have string of beads in a hoop. Still pondering that decision.

Last night was the last symphonic spring concert of the year. These are well attended by parents and friends. She broke up the Jazz Big Band this year to a separate concert an hour earlier. Since it is the Seniors last concert, she gives the ones moving onto a music degree an opportunity to select a piece and conduct it. There were 3 this year of the 5 pieces played. Each did a great job. The director actually plays their parts with their instrument for them. She has her own mouthpiece. I believe she played French horn, bassoon and trumpet last night!

Aidan actually went with us to the concert along with Grandma. I guess he figured he should go see one of them! He knows a couple of the seniors in the band as well. 

Slowly moving on this Sunday

 I actually slept in until 9 today! My alarm is normally set at 6:30 and on weekends I usually get moving around 7. Not today! 

We had a cold front go through yesterday afternoon that gave us some much needed rain (3/4 inch) and a little cool down of the temps. It will be in the high 70's today... as opposed to the 90's and humid yesterday. 

Grandma and I travelled across town to see the 'fun show' for Winter guard. There were 6 schools represented, and most did their show for the season, then the kids scripted their 'fun show'. This was actually a great run through for my girls team and if they had done this at Championships, they would have medaled. Their fun show joined the two teams (JV and Varsity) and was set to Frozen. It was really well done for just 4 practices! I might have had to watch Frozen last night on Disney plus to get the songs out of my head!

I have not worked much on this cross stitch the last week or two. 

I should make some progress on it this week. I was busy doing binding on my grandmothers flower garden quilt finish. This was started in 2014 and hand pieced (not epp) of the flowers and then hand appliqued to the black background squares. I did machine piece and machine quilt it. 

Some final hexagons got stitched and are ready to be joined into a foursome so I can start stitching the last column of these together to add to the main quilt. I have 2 columns done and will pop this one in the middle, then add it to the quilt.

Since it is cooler, and my back is only slightly unhappy with me, I'm going to try and quickly till the garden area and see if some hot weather crops will grow the next few months in Florida. We will see. I'm trying cucumbers, zucchini, sunflowers, pumpkins and watermelons. I need to get the companion flowers for them this week and pop them in, but hoping to get this planted today. I opted out of setting up tables at a girl scout event, since I knew it would hurt my back. Tilling should not bother it... and if it does, I'm pulling a kid out to do it for me. F1 race today with the boy to watch and then Stanley Cup hockey to watch this evening. 

Have a great Sunday.

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Rsc in orange

 I snapped this squirrel on my walk with Bear yesterday. I might have taken the day off in support of the May Day protest here in the US. 

I did a little sewing and got a couple of Bear Paw blocks added to the Graduation quilt pile. In between I added this orange house block for the RSC.

I was tapped to drive Greg to his MRI on his back Friday and got some hexagons stitched in the car while I waited for him. We had cooked dinner that morning, so the ribs just needed warming and broiling to finish them off. We use the Alton Brown Baby Back rib recipe. An actual dinner at the table with all of us happened, which is unusual with the kids schedules. It was fun to hear about school, teachers and the happenings over the last week. School sure is different from when I went, as they know an awful lot about their teachers and their lives! 

Today is the Winter guard fun show about 35 minutes away from us. Grandma is coming up to attend that one with me. We have much needed rain predicted this afternoon. Aidan has an F1 sprint race and qualifying later today (Miami race) and they are getting the rain tomorrow, so the race will be interesting. Sunday, I'm helping set up a Tea Party event in the morning for Girl Scouts. I've helped with the setup the last few years and get the tables and chairs out and set up for just under 200 people with a few other volunteers. Then do the tablecloths, silverware and tea cups and saucers with paper plates. Sunday night I'll be watching the Lightning/Canadians game 7 of the First round of the Stanley Cup. My guys finally played well last night and scored in overtime to keep the series alive. 

Head on over to the link up and see what pretty oranges have come out to play this month.

Little house sew along

 Melva released the latest block today and after a trip to visit my FIL and then a visit to his house to check on the handyman and pay him, and a lunch date with hubby at Millers Ale House, I got home a little before 2PM. Doggie, kitty and chicken tending and some pool checking and I got a little time to check blogs. I forgot today was a release day but I was looking forward to this block. I had fun picking fabrics and sewing this one up. All 7 blocks are put back onto the shelf with the box of the jelly roll I am using. Linking up with Melva and her fun sew along.

This photo is sideways, but I needed something as a leader and ender and had cleared off the house block things when I pinned the quilt last Thursday. I cut some 'ends' of the purple and creams and made some 2.5 inch four patches. Then I dug into a bin and found these extra's from cutting out Brimfield parts from a charm pack. I'm trimming them to 2.5 inch hst's and will just sew them into sets of 4. No plan, but making use of extra bits. 

I'll move onto cutting some more Bear Paw parts to add more of those blocks for Aidan's graduation quilt... which is coming up way too quickly!

Greg and Emily finished off the Cat run on Sunday and other than me and Aidan grabbing the cats (while the dog is shut in a room) and placing them onto the run... the promptly run right back into the master. We will see how long it takes them to try it out.  We did have one fail, one shelf needed some help to keep it into the wall. Turns out the bit above the slider is solid concrete! Em had fun drilling through that! Greg did a little modification with suggestions from Aidan and it appears to be holding up better. Once the cats start using it, we will see how it goes. I need to rehang my quilts and the hangers that were taken down to put these up.

Flower garden is officially finished

 I finished the hand stitching of the binding last night while rewatching The Residence on Netflix. I do like mysteries and this is a fun series. I really hope they do another one. This one is hand pieced, hand appliqued, machine quilted and hand stitching on the binding. 82x93. It was fun revisiting all the pretty fabrics in this from the last 10 years. 

Sunday, I had a afternoon at Painting with a Twist with Girl Scout Volunteers. I'm not sure about this one. I did not like the 'henna' type stuff that is really light on mine around the edges. It was a fun couple of hours though. 

Now to pin the big quilt on the frame that is not getting hand quilted. Pinning and then a machine swiggle is going to call it good I think. Hoping to get that one finished in May. Not sure about June yet, but I'm shooting for one a month this quarter.

Oh, if you are interested in the MSQC Christmas box, it is on pre-order through the end of April. It is a fun gift to yourself in December and I have loved opening the box for 25 days. I hear there is more fabric this year? Time will tell.

Almost done a UFO

 

An old rsc quilt getting towards the finish line. I just measured this and it is 82x93 inches. I started hand stitching the yellow binding down last night. 

In 2014 I started hand stitched (not epp) the flowers. Another year I basted the edges down and appliqued to the black squares.  Sewed them all together another year and added borders. Then it sat. I rolled it onto boards last month.  I finally pinned and did minimal machine quilting down the long column lines as a squiggly in black. The around either side of the blue border. I added the yellow binding to pull the yellow center color out and finish it off. I'll be hand stitching the binding during hockey games this week. It feels good to move a old quilt top into the almost completed column!

Linking up with the RSC.... sometimes it takes a while but those RSC quilts do get finished eventually!  

Friday

 

I love my Merlin bird app. I think Diann pointed me to this a couple of years ago. The birds were chirping a lot yesterday. 

I spent time Thursday working on this. It got pinned, machine quilted and then I got frustrated making the binding. No discernible right side for my fabric choice threw me. I've not made binding in a while.  Ill try again this afternoon, sine I have hockey time tonight and hand stitching binding wold be a good fit. This is a big quilt, I think 84x93ish? 

Hoping for a finish this month.