Tiny Tuesday

#49 - Arabic Lattice. This one is all hand pieced except for the little four patches. I sewed them on the machine. Once I traced it correctly - from the front, this one went together very easily. It has 32 little pieces for the finished 4.5 inch block. I am back on track and ready to work on #52 for next week.
I think I need to go print out some more as I have worked through the previous set. These can now be found for free at Sentimental Stitches in the midget section if you'd like to join in the fun.

Hand work Sunday....

Midget block #49 from Sentimental Stitches

I was able to finally recut out the pieces for my midget block and plan to work some more on it this evening after the kids go to bed. I should have this one done for a Tiny Tuesday reveal. Now if I can only remember to cut things from the front side of the fabric when making templates for hand piecing. This is midget block #49 from the Sentimental Stitches website. Go on over to Quilter Kathy's blog and see what others are up to this slow stitching Sunday.

Aidan's quilt

My sad little baby palm tree for Kathy! Her blocks really do look like the leaves.

This is as far as I got last night with the sewing on Aidan's quilt. I have a few more of the long seams to work on for the middle part. I ran out of that particular blue for the background of the letters and had to make a trip to Joann's Fabrics this morning (after dropping the kids to the pool store to visit with Daddy and Grandma while I ran next door for fabric). I got another yard and should have enough to fill in those spaces.  If I need more - I work tomorrow and that store is conveniently two doors down! I think there may be a few more scrappy stars made for the four corners and before and after Aidan's name. Yes, there is an A also but it is under the presser foot on my machine! The new goal is to have the top finished for next Saturday. 

Some progress...

I have all the alphabet letters and an Aidan created. I just need to get them all to the same size and fit them around the borders of the quilt..... once I get those blocks sewn together.

I also cut out all the keys for the border on the baby quilt and started making them into pairs. I am thinking the four corners will be a paper pieced little corner block but we'll see as it comes together. Hard to believe that little pile is 82 slices of 2.5x5.5 rectangles! I just hope I did my math correctly. I am leaving that stack of fabrics out on the floor until that top is done just in case.... does anyone else do that?

I also recut out one section of that midget block and got it pieced. I figured out my mistake - always trace from the front of the fabric when there are triangles! I did it from the back originally and that just doesn't work. Unfortunately, I don't think I have enough of the original fabrics I selected so I have to reselect some. The good news is I know it will go together this time!

Now I just need it to be nap time or have the kids play together without having me 'right there'..... so I can sneak in and get some sewing time in here and there. Yesterday was a long day with one very cranky boy who wanted to be hugged and snuggle all day long - both kids had slight fevers and were just off. Of course - I have a head cold too and from their sneezing I am guessing they have it too. Lots of Vics vapor rub (good stuff!) and humidifiers in their rooms for sleeping going on at our house.

I also forgot it is getting to the end of the month and I have not done my quilt square along block yet! I think the baby quilt will go on the back burner until that one or two is done. My priority is Aidan's quilt though.... I'd like the top done for a reveal on Saturday. Think I can do it? Then Sunday will be cut the midget one out for hand work and maybe cut out and start sewing the quilt square along block.

Hope you have a great day and can get a little sewing in.

12 bunting blocks done.....

Now comes the fun part. Putting them together and deciding what to do for a border. I am not sure why but it keeps telling me it wants strips of all the fabrics used all around it - maybe 2.5x5 inches each in the chinese coin fashing! It is also calling for cream sashing with random color cornerstones....but I don't think I have enough of that cream to do it. I think it looks ok set together just like this. What do you think?

Tiny Tuesday

#51 Friendship is completed. Now I am off to reprint that hand pieced one #49 and hopefully I can get that prepped and done for next week. Then it will be try and finish the last three baby bunting blocks before the kids wake up... if the older one ever goes down. Pajama story time tonight at the library requires a nap this afternoon.... we'll see if we get to go or not.

Baby Bunting....

I managed to get 11 of the 12 colors cut out and found some fabric for the background in the fabric closet. I also found some that should fit for a backing of the log cabin quilt - so I don't need to run out to Joann's tonight... I get to sew instead!

This is what I got done this afternoon. 6 of the blocks and they are 12.5 inches unfinished.

Now it is time to pick up the house, finish folding the last two batches of laundry and pound out the chicken breasts for dinner tonight. I'm going to try a chicken piccata, rissoto and some steamed broccoli for dinner. In between all that I think we also need to go jump in the pool, something about 'if you go down good for naps, you can go in the pool before dinner.' I have to live up to my end of that bargain!

Saturday - blue rainbow scrap challenge!

I got to sew this week!

I was able to get my birds in the air blocks done for the month. I think they came out pretty cute!

Then I got to start on the letters yesterday during nap time. I am through all the standard ones and ready to move onto the slanted ones. I just follow the book for the capital letters. I will go back and make some lowercase ones for Aidan's name. I do need to add backgrounds to even out the letters and make them all the same size.

Then crazy me decided to start a new quilt - a baby quilt. My employees daughter had a baby girl on Thursday evening. I am going to use the Baby Bunting pattern from Quilters cache and have picked out the following fabrics for the 12 bunting blocks. I have been looking at this pattern for a couple of years but have never had reason to make it. I think it will turn out cute and it will use all fabrics from my stash. Got to love that. I just need to find a background with enough to make the quilt. Considering I found out last week that she was going to be a grandma, I think if the baby gets the quilt in the next month I'll be doing good.

Go on over to Angela's blog and see what others are up to on this scrappy blue Saturday.

Wrapping up the week

It has been an eventful one around here.
Monday - I had an audit at work. As I do the bookkeeping I was tagged to prep for it last weekend and had it all ready for the  corporate auditor... who happened to have been raised in Rutland, VT! It's a small world. It went very smooth and he was in and out in 3.5 hours. I do believe he had planned to spend the night but was able to go home that afternoon.
Tuesday - Very cranky kids and a gully washer of thunderstorms and rain right at nap time. Keeping an already tired boy entertained while I was also sleep deprived was not fun. I am so sick of the insomnia!
Wednesday - lots of errands and appointments - drop kids to Grandma, go to my doctor, get a long overdue hair cut, grab a quick lunch and then search the house for the cat carriers and capture said cats to bring to the vet for annual checkup. Home for a little sewing and then back in the car to pick up Emily - Aidan spent the night with Grandma. Got home and was eating dinner when we watched an out of control car back into our neighbors and our mailbox. Got to call the sheriff and deal with that for the next hour..... he even tried to fingerprint the mail box! He got there in under 4 minutes and was very nice. Finally slept through the whole night for the first time in ages!
Thursday - Girls day with Em - bowling and lunch out and then house cleaning and some sewing before tackling bills and the mail. Yes, that was my order!
Friday - Early dentist appointments for the kiddo's who did great and got a perfect report from the dentist. A quick stop at the farm stand for cukes to make quick pickles for lunch and Aidan decided he wanted cabbage. So it is a boiled dinner for us tonight - I wonder if he will really eat it or not.....
At least both kids settled down for naps and I got to start sewing some letters from Tonya R's book! Yippee. I'll post some shots of that tomorrow. Sorry for the no photo post.

On another note - an employee is about to become a grandmother (I found out her daughter was in labor yesterday and still was today, poor thing.). With not much notice I decided to make a baby quilt using the pattern from Quilters Cache called Baby Bunting. I think I will pull fabrics tonight and make a block or two.
See you tomorrow for the rainbow scrap challenge.

Blue Birds in the Air....

I must have miscounted since I made 14 of these blocks instead of my standard 12 for the month. I had also made 4 back in the neutral month of the rainbow scrap challenge so have 18 of the blue blocks. I think they will blend in well with all the other colors at the end of the year though.

Now if I can get the kids down for naps I plan to sew some letters today. I also am toying with creating a quick baby quilt this weekend..... time will tell....

Midget Wednesday?

I had 30 minutes to sew once I got the cats home from the vet and before going to pick up Em. I got Block #50 - Autograph done. I had cut out everything for #49 yesterday as it is a hand pieced one but I think I traced on the back of the fabric instead of the front, since it is just not looking right when I attempted to put it together. I'll recut enough for one of the four parts later tonight or tomorrow and see if I can figure it out.

This is the gully washer we got yesterday right at nap time.... so I did not get to sew as I was with a very frightened child who does not like thunderstorms. We got 2.32 inches of rain in one hour and got a bit of a lake in our front yard. The tree is probably 50 feet from the road so we had a good amount of water in that area and over the bottom of the driveway. Once the thunder stopped and the sun came out..... the kids put on their boots and were walking around in it away from the road. Lets just say... the water was slopping into their boots it was so high! The joys of childhood - I think they had more fun doing that than swimming around in the pool that morning! Since no nap boy was so cranky I would not take them to the pajama story time last night and once he got over that (about an hour of whining and crying) and I suggested we do our own story time at home - we had a fun program. Crafts - made stars and moons and taped to the walls. Some poems from Shel Silversteen - Where the Sidewalk Ends and then I read them 'The Quiltmakers Gift'. Then it was song time and we went around the house to The wheels on the Bus and then the Hokey Pokey (Dad walked in from work while that was going on - he just smiled!) and then we finished with Trixie who is dog (a really weird book!) and The cat in the hat by Dr. Suess. Then we made popcorn for their bedtime snack. All in all, a good evening with the kids. Oh - and all that water was completely soaked in by 8PM that evening.

Where did the weekend go?

I can't believe it is Sunday night - I never posted for the rainbow scrap challenge and it is blue this month. My favorite color. I did get things cut out for the birds in the air blocks on Friday but didn't feel like sewing once I finally got the kids sleeping Saturday afternoon. Lets just say I had to take away a sleepover at Grandmas this week and was only able to sit on the couch and stitch while watching some taped shows from this spring by the time he went down for a nap. It was a long morning. He did straighten out and went to bed well last night and was better today for Daddy so it has been reinstated. Grandma also had a chat on the phone with him last night.
Hopefully these will be completed for next Saturday.

I did get the borders done on this one this week and have now started back on the fans and hope to have some progress to show on that one next week. You can really get a lot done with a strand of thread sewn here and there in little bits of time.

Top completed!

The scrappy log cabin top is done! Needs pressing but I made great progress on this one. I think I know why I have so many blocks hanging around my sewing room - I really hate sewing long rows of blocks together. It is fun to make the blocks but putting them together is not my favorite thing.
Unfortunately, my free Wednesday next week is all booked with dropping kids to Grandma (1.5 hours in the car) - a doctor appointment for me in the opposite direction and a vet appointment for the cats in the afternoon, then go pick up the kids again. I'll have to schedule some time to get this pinned and quilted in the next couple of weeks so it can be mailed off to Colorado for mid August.
On a happier note I got to meet a Mom and her 3 year old son this morning that I had been chatting with online for a few years.. we met on an on-line pregnancy due date board when I was pregnant with Em. The kids got along great and hopefully we can meet up again sometime for a play date at a park.
I hear quiet from two bedrooms so I think I'll go pull out Tonya R's book of letters and start playing with some blue and white.

Tiny Tuesday

I just got this one done and it just reminds me of a backwards S for some reason. Here is #48 - Mountain Road.

Angela asked a couple of weeks ago for a picture of all my midgets. Here there are - all 48 of them!

First 48 Midget Blocks

Hand work Sunday....

Thanks Kathy for doing a linky for hand work Sunday! It was just the thing to prod me into getting my Quilt Square Along Blocks hand quilted. I have never done a quilt as you go quilt before and not much hand quilting. I figured my monthly QSAB would be a good one to try it with.  I got another one done this week














and finished the border on the star quilt as well. I just did a curvy meander in the border.

I think I will pull out the arcs from my last weeks post and redo them a bit farther apart. That should have the quilting spaced more evenly throughout the blocks. That will be what I work on this coming week in the evenings or when watching the kids and I get a few minutes of free time.

Saturday sewing.....

I got the kids tired out in the pool and down for a nap so I could sew this afternoon. I got the other 2 pinwheel blocks done for the scrappy blue challenge

and was able to finish the 9 scrappy log cabin blocks. This is probably how they will be laid out, but I will probably move things around a bit to spread out the colors. Aidan helped by selecting the lights and dark colors as I was sewing them.

Blue Saturday!!!

I am so happy blue was picked this month. I love blue and most of my stash is blue followed closely by green.
I only have one of the pinwheels completed so far - three are cut out but I did a little oops when sewing two of them so need to recut a couple more 6.5x2.5 strips to remake them.

If I can get the last 9 blocks made for the scrappy log cabin - currently on the third round and waiting for the fourth and trimming down - and get those put together..... I'm moving back to Aidan's blue quilt this month. These are not sewn together yet - just blocks sitting in a drawer.

 I need to grab Tonya's book from the bookcase and make some letters to go around his quilt for the border. The alphabet letters will be white and a dark blue for the background. He will also get his name on the bottom like his sister got on her quilt.

Go on over to SoScrappy and see what others are working on for this blue Saturday.

Tiny Tuesday

I flipped the coin - do paperwork month end (which I left a bunch of it at the office and will be arriving tonight with my husband) or sew the Crazy Ann block #47. Guess which won?

Better run out and grab the paper from the driveway and the mail before the thunderstorm rolls though. Then.... some paperwork before the kids wake up.

What do you think?

I need some advise. I am hand quilting my 12 inch monthly quilt square along blocks and have been quilting about 1/4 inch from the seams in the light fabrics on the few I've done so far.  My latest one is the corn and beans block and I decided to do freehand baptist fans. Is it too much quilting for this little block? These are going to become a quilt as you go sampler once they are all done. I also want to try a clam shell type all over pattern sometime this year on one as well. The applique blocks I plan to do echo quilting around the middle parts. So, is it too much quilting to blend with the others?

This is the wild bunny that lives in the back yard. He has been out eating the grass the last couple of days. I just hope he stays out of the garden!