Tiny Tuesday

#63 - setting sun is completed. This was paper pieced in three sections for the sun part and then the middle and the sun are appliqued onto the background.

Still on track with one a week for the year and we are almost into November!

Hand work Sunday....

We are heading to Sea World today with the kids. I am going to sit in the passenger seat and work on this....







and this....

Head on over to Quilter Kathy and see what others are working on today.

Sewing Saturday.....

It was an early start to the morning as I heard little voices making noise at 5:33 AM. It seems Emily went into Aidan's room and got into bed with him for a 'sleepover'. He was under the covers at the top of the bed and Emily was under his covers with her pillow at the bottom of the bed. Aidan has been going in and waking her up during the week so I guess this was payback. I did warn Grandma they were up at the crack of dawn when I dropped them off.

After dropping off the kids I did a little sewing on some homespun red/tan nine patches. I now have 12 of 39 done. Then I took a little break and threw in some laundry and then ran the steam cleaner over the living room carpet. Boy, you don't realize how dirty the carpet is until you do that! I also made a quick banana bread - I had three banana's that were getting really mushy.
Back to the sewing room - I managed to get the blue/brown irish chain all quilted. I must say I like the simple straight stitches through the chains on this one. They were really easy too! I decided to go with a solid blue binding and made that and attached it to the top of the quilt. I remembered to pop a 10 inch square folded in half on the back so I have a label all set to write up. Yea me!

After a quick lunch - it was back to the sewing room and work on Midget block #63. It has three parts of paper piecing with eight wedges on each part. I have this one all sewn except for the two parts that need to get appliqued. It should be done for a Tuesday reveal.

That leaves me with a little bit of applique to work on in the car tomorrow on the way to SeaWorld with the kids for their Halloween Spooktacular. That will be the kids trick or treating fun for the year. I have a feeling the quilt will stay at home for working on in the evenings in front of the tv since it might be a little hot with that on me in the car.
Head on over to SoScrappy and see what other brown projects were worked on today.

Friday prep work.....

I am so excited to have a kid free day tomorrow! I decided I would try and get some prep work done so that tomorrow after I drop the kids to Grandma and drive home I can jump right into some sewing.

My goal is to have some binding to sew down while we drive the kids to SeaWorld on Sunday.

I prepped the backing and pinned the irish chain in blue/brown. Just need to make a binding for this one. I'm thinking a solid blue of some kind? Maybe the blue check?

I drew the applique onto the cream for the QSA block from the second set of patterns. I started sewing this one down today and hope to work on it some more tonight so I can cut and finish this block sometime this week. The reveal for blocks will be Thursday at Jo's Country Junction. I'd love to have 2 done this month.

I have this log cabin all pinned and ready for quilting if I have time to get to it. It's brown binding is already made and ready to go. I'm thinking loops and stars on this one.

I also have some midget blocks that have fabrics pulled for them already. I need one for Tuesday.

The new Grandmothers Choice block will be available on Saturday.

Brown Rainbow scrap challenge - I still would like to make a little turkey for thanksgiving and need to cut some 2 inch squares for the basket of colorful squares. 

I would also like to finish my Halloween wall hanging. I made progress and made an oops but am going to just add a BOO and call it done. The Boo needs to get cut and added to the quilt and then quilting can take place. 

I started a red/tan homespun irish chain today. A little more progress might get made on that as well.

I'd like to prep the Kansas Sunflower from the Grandmothers Choice blocks so I can work on hand piecing that one next week.

So many options to work on..... I wonder what will actually get done? My only goal is to have the irish chain quilted and bound tomorrow.  It should go quickly with a walking foot and straight line sewing. I've never done that on a quilt before so it will be interesting. Anything else that gets done is a bonus!

Grandmothers Choice Block

Yippee! I got this one done before Saturday. I only have one so far that I have not done..... and I have it printed out and plan to work on it next week. That will be a hand pieced block so I have a bit of prep work to do on it.
I paper pieced this one for the stripes, then sewed them to the middle square. I added the outer four parts by hand. I can't wait to see what the block will be this coming Saturday.

All my completed blocks so far.

Tiny Tuesday

This week I went back and got block #62 - Liberty Star done. Boy, for some reason it was a wee bit of a challenge for me. I am so glad it has the borders on it.... it was looking really wonky until I put them on.

Here is a picture of all my midgets so far. I think I counted 66 so far... but I may have one or two hanging around in a different pile of blocks.

For the birds.....

I was very disappointed when I realized I had to work Sat,Sun and Mon this weekend after my MIL put in my head that it was my Saturday off. I forgot I had the kids last Saturday for a birthday party  and she got them Sunday when hubby dropped them off. I had so many plans...... oh well. Next Saturday will be a busy one in the sewing room once I drop off the kids.

I got my brown birds all done for the month. I figure there is one or two colors left - right Angela? Time to start playing with layouts. I have a feeling there will be a black color month so I know 12 more black blocks will be added to the mix. I can't figure out if we are missing any other color.......? The block will each finish at 6 inches so I need to figure out how long and wide I want it.

I did a little finishing up on Friday and stitched the rows of the irish chain together. I have the backing and it is all washed and ready for pressing. I guess that one will be quilted and bound next weekend =(.

I never got to my Thanksgiving brown... good thing there is still time left in the month.

Head on over to Angela's at SoScrappy for a Rainbow scrap linky in brown this weekend.

My singer sewing machine... and a recipe.

I figured I'd finally pop open the sewing machine that is sitting in our reading room as a table. This belonged to my maternal grandmother and I am glad it came home with me when we cleaned out my grandfathers house after he moved into a nursing home.

It turns out I have a Singer sewing machine - with an electric foot pedal but also has a treadle on the bottom that does move back and forth. The model is a 306W. I found most of the instruction book except pages 1-4 and anything after page 53. I have a box of attachments in a little green box as well.

I'd love to try and get this threaded and oiled and see if it will run. Any thoughts?

Pumpkin Bars.

4 eggs

1 and 2/3 cups sugar

1 cup oil

1 - 16 oz can pumpkin

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

Mix eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until fluffy. Stir together four, powder, cinnamon, salt and soda. Add to pumpkin mixture and mix well. Pour into ungreased pan 15x10x1 inch. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 - 30 minutes (I used a 9x13 pan and it took 45 minutes - I'm going to try them as muffins next time!).

Cream cheese frosting

1/2 cup soft butter

1 3oz package of cream cheese

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups confectioners sugar

Beat butter, cheese and vanilla until blended. Add sugar and mix well. Spread on cooled pumpkin bars.

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, everywhere.....

Today was a pumpkin day for me.
Monday night was a Daddy free night as he went to Orlando to stay overnight in preparation for a test he had on Tuesday.... which he passed! Yea! I decided the kids needed something special (and hopefully something to tire them out so they would go to bed good for me!) and there is a little pumpkin patch at a church that we go by every day on the way to Aidan's school. This is a new concept for me... I'm used to going out in the pumpkin fields and picking a pumpkin up in Vermont. Here they had pumpkins out on pallets. There were some strange varieties - I wish I had taken some pictures. I think I will go get a few more of the pie pumpkins so will snap some pics then. The bumpy red ones and the white with green ones intrigued me.

They had a bouncy house, some pumpkins, a swing set and a hay ride. The kids have been asking me daily since October 1 when they could go and have a hay ride. They had a blast and played with another little boy who was there with his family to get some pumpkins.

The result - the kids got two small pumpkins which they put some stickers on. Can you tell which one was done by the 4 year old and which by the 3 year old?

We got 2 baby ones for decoration to go with the gourds we picked up at the fruit stand.

I got 4 pie pumpkins. That brings me to my pumpkin day. I started with these....

and put two in the oven to bake and two in the microwave. I am trying to decide which way I prefer. Next it was puree them - I just love my little immersion blender - and then freeze some and bake some. The little bit extra will either be added into something for dinner as a disguise or made into a small pumpkin soup and see if the kids will eat it.

The kids had a choice - pumpkin moose (Aidan's favorite!), pumpkin bread or muffins or pumpkin bars. We decided on something new - pumpkin bars with a cream cheese frosting. I found it in my Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont Employees Cookbook and the recipe was from my old boss back in the 90's! Thanks Chris Schuft.

Someone just had to have one right after frosting them! He put the sprinkles on and then ate all the frosting off his piece. No denying it, he is my son! These are really moist and yummy. I know I'll have another piece or two after bowling tonight. There it pumpkin in it so it's healthy..... right?

Of course... I sifted through the pumpkin guts and fished out the seeds. I tried a new recipe where you boil the seeds for 10 minutes in salted water and then roast them in the oven. Yummy! I think I need to get more pumpkins just so I can make more pumpkin seeds..... or hide them from the kids so I can eat them all!

How was your day?

A package in the mail....

A big thank you to Angela over at SoScrappy for a nice package in the mail yesterday. Oh my goodness.... so many fabrics she sent in that package. I agree with her, they are going to look great in my Midget blocks. Such pretty fabrics .... I can't wait to make some midgets with them.
My MIL reminded me that it is my kid free Saturday this weekend. I can't wait to play with some of these fabrics this week.

Thanks again Angela!

Quilt Square Along Block done.....

I got this months block done with a bit of time to spare! I really like how this one came out with the scrappy squares. There are 105 tiny pieces in this 12 inch finished block. The pattern is from Lori Smith - Quilt Squares #6 - pattern #1. Now if I can just remember to put the applique block from the last set of patterns in the living room so I can get that one done this month too!

VTQuilter - Lori Smith Pattern. 12 inch block.

#68 Mosiac

It's Tiny Tuesday time again. I pulled out my next midget and looked at it. Nope, didn't feel like working on that one....all the way up to #68. It looked easy enough and it was. I used a bunch of leftover scraps from other blocks and made this one up quickly during some naps on Monday.
The #68 Mosiac pattern can be found here at the sentimentalstitches website. This block will finish at 4.5 inches.

Grandmothers Choice blocks done....

Grandmothers Choice blocks done in two sizes. A standard 8 inch finished 

and a tiny version for my midget collection to finish at 4.5 inches.

Here is a group shot of the six blocks I have done so far.

Slow stitch Sunday

The grandmothers choice block for the week is perfect for a slow stitch Sunday. I plan to put this one together later tonight while watching The Amazing Race. I think there will also be a midget version of this one too!

This week I have slowly been working on my hand quilting of the QSA blocks while waiting for the kid line up at school and a few stitches taken here and there in the evenings. It is coming along nicely and I only have a couple of borders to go on this one before I can move onto the next one. It is so much easier quilting this one with a lot less seams than the usual QSA blocks. I can't wait to get these done so I can pull out my fireworks wall hanging for quilting.

Head on over to Quilter Kathy's and see what others are slow stitching on today.

Saturday in Brown

I got to work with some brown this week!

First I cut out and pieced the top of the blue/brown irish chain. The blocks are 9 inch finished and with the strip piecing this went together in two days. I think it will just get some straight line stitching through the chains and the big squares and finish with the blue homespun binding.

Then I cut out the parts for the birds in the air blocks. I was curious so I just had to make a few. Here are my first three. I'll do the other 9 next week.

In between my sewing this week I made some basic pinwheels with the corners from last weeks brown pinwheel blocks. I seem to have an oops in there! I've been working through all my colors in between other projects.

Head on over to Angela's blog on Saturday and see what others have been working on for their brown challenge.

I have a plan for next week - brown and thanksgiving............

I forgot how quickly a quilt comes together when the blocks are not 4.5 inch finished! These 9 patches will be 9 inches finished. I am shooting for a 9x7 setting. Since I had twice as much brown as blue... it was pretty easy to determine which color blocks would be the big ones. They do show as dark as in the picture but knowing the house it is going into darker is better for hiding dirt. This will be an anonymous xmas gift to a family of 4 kids in a cool climate that tend to have the heat/electricity turned off and not much supervision by their parent. This will be for one of the boys. The pinwheel blocks from the RSC challenge are being made into two quilts for the two girls. I have another homespun quilt planned for the older boy. Now... if I can just get them all finished, quilted and bound so I can ship them off to Vermont by mid Decmeber. Wish me luck!

Wednesday catch up....

I'm a little late on the Tiny Tuesday but I did get a Midget block done this week. It is #61 - Royal Star and it finishes at 4.5 inches. This one went together easily.

I also put the Grandmothers Choice #6 block together this morning. It is called Aunt Eliza's Star. It was a regular pieced block and went together very easily. I just need to go back and figure out how to make block #4 which is not printing out well on my printer. 

Hopefully both kids will nap for me today and in between attempting to clear out and pick up the play room I'd like to start cutting for the single irish chain quilt in blue and brown today.

RSC Saturday in brown.....

I actually have been waiting for brown as I have this nice container full of brown goodies to sew with this month.

First up is pinwheel blocks. I seem to have gotten carried away and cut out enough for 5 blocks this week.

I am also planning a blue/brown homespun irish chain quilt that I will be working on this month using these fabrics.

Head on over to Angels'a blog at SoScrappy and see what other brown goodness is being worked on this weekend.

Grandmothers Choice Block #5

Just in time I got block #5 done this afternoon. I picked fabrics and cut them out. Then I put them how they would be in the finished block and then came the puzzling part. How the heck do I put this guy together? Hmmmm. I figured I'd try B to E... and then add the D's onto the sides of the B rectangle. OK so far. Yes, the C rectangle fit good onto that piece so I got those in there. Then.... F fit onto those parts really nice. Then it was easy to just pop the A triangles onto the edges. That gave me this finished block.

I still have not attempted block #4. Maybe next week if block 6 is not too difficult.

Have a wonderful evening...... I hope to steal away back into the sewing room later tonight and work on my midget block. See you again tomorrow for the RSC update.

Pillowcases and prep work.

Kristie - these will be headed your way tomorrow. 5 finished pillowcases.

I also got a little prep work done for Saturday. I have some pinwheel parts cut out and ready to sew together. Brown is the color for the month in the Rainbow scrap challenge...... and since the company has headed home my sewing room is back to being a disaster area. =)

I am working this weekend so am trying to get some things done ahead while I have sewing time. Now I just need to put the grandmothers choice block together tomorrow and I think I will be all set.

Tiny Tuesday Variation.....

I finally got to #58 - Diamond Fields. This one has lots of little itty bitty hexies........ I had never done a hexie and was a wee bit intimidated. Well, I decided I'd try a little flower instead and applique it to a square for this block. I think it came out pretty cute..... and fear once my hand quilting on the QSAQ blocks are done I will have a long term hexie block project!

I did find a very helpful website of hexies in various sizes you can print out here. I believe I used the 3/4 inch ones for this block.

Yesterday the kids planted a little garden that I picked up at Lowes a couple of weeks ago. I had them do this project with Grammy R who is visiting from Vermont. Now they can show her the progress of their gardens when they skype with her weekly.