Last Saturday in Red.......

First off are the two snails trail blocks in red and maroon. Hard to find a light shade so I went with a white print. Here are all the blocks so far.

As for my little apple project this month....... Here she is!

 I was planning a nine patch outer border but I really wanted to get this to a top stage so I pulled this maroon from the closet and finished the top. This measures 36x36. I plan to hand quilt this one - outline quilting on the apples and some apples in the outer border, little leaves in the inner brown. Not sure if I'll do a diagonal in the nine patch or another apple outline there. I guess I'll decide that once I get there.

Head on over to SoScrappy on Saturday and see all the wonderful red projects people are working on. I'm also hooking up with Kathy's Quilts on Sunday for Slow Stitching Sunday. I hope to have this one pinned and ready for a little hand work on Sunday evening.

Friday= Nabby's Dowry Sew Along.....

Today is Friday and that means Pam has posted a new block over here. I quickly put this one together as I needed something for a leader and ender while putting the borders onto the apple quilt top.
Here is this week's block and a shot of all of them so far. Not too bad for a bunch of scrap HST's!

A UFO is now a TOP!!!!

I've been plugging away a little bit here and there and was able to throw on the last few borders today. This Maple Leaf UFO is now a top measuring 50x70. I really like how it came out. Now I wonder if I can get it quilted up in the next month......

I'm off to wait in line and pick up the boy. Then we are headed over to a friends pool for a play date. That should tire them out pretty well so they sleep good tonight. 

Tiny Tuesday - Double T

Today I made block number 120 in the midget block series - Double T. Other than having to go look at the instructions again to see how to put the four parts together, it went together very easily.

I have been reading a bit lately. A new to me author is Cindy Blackburn who has three funny mystery books written about billiards. I finished the first one in two days (Ok - instead of doing any sewing Saturday evening I read!) and am onto the second one thanks to my Amazon Prime lending abilities. I got to meet Cindy this summer while I was up visiting my parents. It turns out she wrote the books while at her cottage at the lake in the summers! She also helps out at the Lake Association Bingo held on Wednesday evenings  - real high stakes - a dollar to get in and 3 cards for a buck. It is so much fun and the kids had a great time there this summer. In fact - coming up with words that start with B on the way home from Emmy's speech lesson I mentioned Bingo and she said 'We went to Bingo in Vermont this summer with Grammy and Grandpa!'

Time to start thinking of dinner - Taco's tonight - one of the kids favorites. I use this recipe for the seasonings. Yummy.

Nabby's Dowry.

We are seven blocks in to this BOW over at Pam's Heartspunquilts. Here are all my blocks so far. I can't wait to see what block is on tap for Friday. It's not too late to join in, grab some hst's from your stash or make some. These are such fun little blocks to make.

Every time I try and work on the binding of the purple quilt someone keeps jumping into my lap. This is Maxie - she only show's herself when the kids are not home or are safely tucked into their beds sleeping. This was during nap time last week. She decided to snuggle down and take a nap herself as you can see in the next picture. Maybe I'll have to take this with me in the kids car line if I ever want to get it completed! I'll wait for the temps to settle down a bit - even with the AC on in the car at over 90 degrees out and the sun shining it is a bit too hot for a quilt on your lap.

Slow Stitching Sunday

Today is all about applique and apples! I plan to get a few more apples sewn down onto their backgrounds later today.

It will end up looking a bit like this.....

Head on over to Kathy's Quilts and see what other hand work is being worked on today. Oh, Kathy - those are the two silk thread I use for my applique. The light blends well with the light colors and the dark tan blends with all the dark fabrics.

Scrappy Saturday in red

This week I made a few crumb blocks with my reds. They are about 6 inches each right now. I think I may sash them with white into groups of 4 to make a bigger block. I need to go back and make some orange and green ones to add to the rainbow of colors.

I got all 12 of the red 9 patches done and now am starting to work on the apples. This is the first two that I managed to get done on Friday. I'll decide about adding a little leaf in there once they are done. I may just add a leaf or two on a few of the apples. Two down and eleven to go! I really like how this is starting to look.

Next week I'll have to make my snails trail blocks. Thank goodness there are five weeks of red to play with this month. Who knows, maybe I'll have the apples done and sewn together with the 9 patches!

Head on over to SoScrappy and see what other red projects are in the works this week.

Progress on the UFO.

Today I got some sewing time in before picking up Emmy at school. I did take my walk first and saw these two turkeys a couple houses down

and then another a block away on my way back home from my loop.

It seems they are out early in the morning since I saw three at the end of my road yesterday on my walk.

Then I got to go explore the fabric closet since my HIPPY meeting this morning was postponed until this afternoon. Since this was a BOM all the fabrics were supplied to me with just enough to make the blocks. I pulled some blacks, tans and then some maroon, green, orange and yellow for the border. I pressed and cut out my geese parts and sewed the black ones together. I also found this fall print while I was in the closet... I think that might be the outermost border.
This is what I am thinking.... the rest of the two sides with black geese will be black. Then the opposite corner will be tans. The blocks are 10.5 inches so the middle part with the leaves is currently 30x50 inches. The geese will finish at 2x4 and I am thinking a 1 inch finished black inner border. We'll see how it comes out.

Another UFO....

I made a deal with myself that I would chip away at some more UFO's once the kids started school. Since the Purple Pineapple quilt is just waiting for the binding to get finished (the crochet baby afghan keeps wanting some work done on it - skein three of yarn right now) it was time to pick something new to move forward.
Do you ever want to work on certain things based on the time of the year/season? I do!
I decided since the kids are in school and it is starting to head towards fall I would work on my Maple Leaf quilt. This was a block of the week through Yankee Pride in Essex Jct, VT - I think the $5 a block one - and you got a maple leaf block every other week for a couple of months. I remember working on this in my Colchester house so it was sometime between 2001-2005. The setting blocks were part of it I believe and when I pulled it out to check the status I noticed my glaring error! Right beside the green leaf. So, I'll take some time today and do some frogging so I can turn that block around. After that..... I've been thinking maybe a small inner border of black to frame it and then some flying geese to go around the quilt after that. I'm toying with one half blacks with the fall leaf colors and the other half deep golds with the fall leaf colors. I'll make a few and see if it will turn out like I am thinking or not. Should the colors be on the inner triangle on the geese or the outer two? Too many decisions this early in the morning. I'll make a few both ways and see which I like better this afternoon.

What are you working on today?

Tiny Tuesday....

I pulled an easy pieced one to do today. I have Aidan home from school since they do a 1/3 start for the beginning of this week. He must be extremely overtired and overstimulated from school yesterday since he was a terror last night for Daddy and was starting out the same this morning with me. He was much better after we dropped Em off to school this morning and was very good and helpful. Then..... he turned into a terror again after she got home. I was so hoping this behavior would stop after the 'anxiety' of school starting happened. Both are napping and hopefully will turn into my good kids after a bit of sleep.

My easy block was number 111- Wedding Ring. Very easy to put together.

While someone was being good this morning we made some banana muffins. He scooped the batter into the mini muffin cups all by himself. They sure were yummy. I think I'll enjoy the quiet of a sleeping house and work on a binding and watch a show while I can.

Slow stitch Sunday......

After a wonderful day in the sewing room Saturday I finally got a UFO marked as done....... well, almost done. The binding will start being stitched down this evening after working and then having a 70th birthday dinner for my MIL this evening.
I tried to do some FMQ but the machine was not in the mood. Life is all about going with the flow so I switched to a walking foot and stitched in the ditch a bit, searched until I found some more of the batik fabrics in the quilt and made the binding and then attached it. A successful day in the sewing room = some nice hand work this evening. This is the free pineapple pattern over at quiltville.com. I've been calling it the butterfly pineapple quilt since the batik fabrics have butterfly's on it. I had to carry on the theme when I saw this purple butterfly print at Joann's for the backing. This one is not spoken for but if my SIL is ok with a 68x68 sized quilt to snuggle under it may just be shipped up to her in the near future.

Head on over to Kathy's Quilts and see what other hand work is being slow stitched today. As for me, I'll be relaxing this evening and counting down the hours until I get to drop both kiddo's off to school for the first day tomorrow. One is nervous (starting Kindergarten) and the other is excited (starting 3 hour VPK with the same teacher her brother had). I'm sure we'll settle into a routine in the next week or two and I'll get used to a couple of hours of quiet in the morning while they are both in school.

Playing with the color red.

I finished hand stitching the peels this week and decided to sew them together into some X and O's. I think they are pretty cute! I need to go back and make sure I have sets of 4 of all the colors I have done so far so I can sew the others together sometime.

Then I got to working on my little apple quilt this week. I cut and made some of my nine patches in red. These are 5 inches and will finish at 4.5 inches once they are into the quilt. I just need to applique the 13 apples down onto the backing fabrics. So far this is a fun little quilt to work on.



Head on over to SoScrappy on Saturday and see what other red projects are being worked on this weekend. As for me....... it is a kid free day (thanks Grandma H) and I plan to quilt my purple pineapple quilt. Wish me luck.

Nabby's Dowry.....

After a morning of cleaning the house and then heading to school orientation, I remembered it is Friday today! That means a new block over at the Nabby's Dowry sew along. I went and pulled some hst's from the basket and got them ironed and trimmed to the 2 inch blocks needed. Sewed them together and got this cute little block.

A shot of all my blocks so far. 

Now to finish cleaning the house.... the kitchen and bathroom floors are in need of a mop. Lets see if that can get done before the kids come out of their rooms from nap/quiet time.

Tiny Tuesday.... a day late.

Yesterday I got a little sewing time in while Emmy napped and Aidan had a 'rest'. I prepped a  bunch of 2 inch squares for my little Saturday apple project. Then I made Midget block #103 - string.
This was paper pieced and went together very easily. Aidan helped tear two sections of the papers off.... I think I'll have a job for him since I have a lot of papers still on the backs of these blocks.

Grandmothers Choice blocks are complete!

I finished off the applique on the last one on Friday night. I tried something new and decided to do back basting for the applique. It worked pretty well and I could see using it in a couple of other projects.... like the last two applique middles on the Lori Smith Quilt Blocks I worked on last year.
This block is week 47 - Heroine's Crown.

This is a shot of all 49 of my Grandmothers choice blocks. I purchased a tan flowery print for the sashings and hope to play with the letters on my machine sometime in the next couple of weeks and try and get the block names printed onto the sashing. The cornerstones will just be various prints cut from my stash of the fabrics used in the blocks. I think it will need a medium and then darker border around the outside.... hopefully from stash. This sew along has been so much fun and very informative. Although the more I look at the picture it may change...... you just never know!

Now I need to go supervise the kids weeding my garden for replanting. I sent them out ahead so I could finish the dishes and this post. Then it will be grocery shopping and pool time.

An apple for the teacher?

This month we are playing with red over at the rainbow scrap challenge. First I made my 16 patch from my pile of red/maroon scraps.

Angela mentioned apple peels in a comment last week on my 'orange' peels and that got me thinking. Why not make a little wall hanging with apples. Then the mind started racing.........

I remembered a quilt I've thought was so cute in a Quick Quilts magazine - September 1999. Hmmmm lots of little 2 inch squares.

Or, I could always applique some apples down onto a background and then have a second setting block either in a snowball - red with cream corners (a little hand quilting of an apple in there?) or a nine patch of some red squares? I have a feeling this pile of red will turn into some form of the above for a little back to school wall hanging. I found this neat apple on a coloring page here, that would fit great into a 5.5 or 6 inch block printed at 50%. Do I want to applique or piece? That is the question.

Head on over to SoScrappy and see what others are doing with their red bits of fabric today.

Nabby's Dowry and a recipe.

Since today is Friday, there was a new post for the Nabby's Dowry sew along. I am using some leftover HST's to make this fun little quilt and love how this week's block looks. All these little 2 inch squares turned into a nice little 6.5 inch block.

I had picked up a large zucchini at the farm stand earlier this week and finally got it shredded. I have two bags in the freezer ready to make a bread and a spice cake. The rest made a spice cake which was made this morning and sampled after lunch. It got the two thumbs up from the kids.... especially the cream cheese frosting! If you have extra zucchini hanging around why not give it a try. I keep my Taste of Home magazine with the recipe in with my cookbooks but it can also be found here online.

Tiny Tuesday - Turkey Tracks....

The midget block 98- is called Turkey tracks. Other than creating my own block by marking the brown paper pieced parts a little wrong, I'm calling it done. My quilt will be very unique! This was sewn together on my kid free day on Saturday.
After working for the last two days I am looking forward to a little bit of sewing time sometime today. First, I need to stop at Emmy's school and fill out her paperwork since I don't have a sitter this evening and can't go to the normal registration. Then it is swim lessons and dropping off all the clothes I cleared out to Goodwill. I think I should be able to squeeze in some sewing this afternoon! Do I pin a quilt for quilting, add borders to the Easy Street Mystery or be good and learn how to do back baste applique so I can finish off my last Grandmothers Choice block..... Decisions, Decisions.

Slow Stitch Sunday (or Saturday as the case may be!)

Another week and we are having a slow stitch Sunday. I cheated a bit and had a bit of a slow stitch Saturday while the house was quiet with just me home all day long. It was so nice to sit and watch NCIS and stitch the afternoon away.
I got a couple of the Grandmothers Choice blocks done -
Week 48 - Fair Play. I cheated a bit and avoided the curved seams for piecing. I just cut a 4.5 inch square and then appliqued the arc onto each one. Sew them together and you have this block. I really should have pressed it before taking the picture.

Week 49 - An Arc bending towards justice was pretty easy peasey too! Again, I cheated and cut out my three arcs. Sewed them by machine and then cut a 8.5 inch square.

I drew the arc line without the seams onto the block and then turned it under so it would be just at that line.

Easy and DONE!

 I think it came out pretty cute. I could see a whole quilt of this block =).

That just leaves me Week 47 - Heroine's Crown. I think I am going to try a new method to me on this one - back basting. We'll see how it comes out on Wednesday. All 49 blocks will be complete and it will be time to put the top together.

As for today - I'll be working on some peels that I am doing through the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at SoScrappy. Head on over and see what red projects people are working on here.
I'm hooking up with Kathy's Quilts and her Slow Stitching Sunday. Head on over with a cup of Joe and see what fun projects are being worked on today.

Saturday in red

It has been a productive Saturday but not doing what I was planning. Sometimes.... you just are not in the mood for FM quilting. I did take off the border that had a seam on the front side and fix it on the purple pineapple quilt. I also pieced together two leftover batting's to make a batting for the quilt and pressed and made a backing for it. Everything is rolled onto the boards and ready to get pinned for quilting. Who knows, maybe I'll try and pin it later tonight.

The kids were dropped to Grandma early this morning for the day so I decided it was time to go through their drawers and closets and pull the clothing that doesn't fit anymore. Aidan had a partial basket of things taken out but he is pretty well stocked with clothes for school that will fit. Emily on the other hand had a clothes basket overflowing with things that just don't fit anymore. She is in need of a little shopping trip to fill in a few things.

I did manage to fix the tension on my machine this morning and clean it up a bit. I also made a paper pieced midget block for Tuesday and hand appliqued a grandmothers choice block - last week's Fair Play blocks. I decided to hand applique the arc onto the 4.5 inch square and then sewed them together.

Now to go back and do the previous week and this week's and I'll have all the blocks done in that sew along!

I had guessed the wrong color for last month and went ahead and cut out 24 cherry peels in red and maroon. Since I know I am making X and O's out of sets of four - I planned them so the maroons will go together and the reds will go together. I only have seven done so far but these are great for waiting for the kids at swim class or in the school line. 16 more days until school starts.... not that I am counting!

Head on over to SoScrappy and see what other red projects are being worked on this weekend.

Nabby's Dowry....

It's Friday and Pam released this weeks Nabby's Dowry block here. I am still picking hst's from the pile and made this block for the week. That upper green really blends into the grass outside!

Here are all four of my blocks so far. I think the one on the bottom right is my favorite.

After a great morning at the park with a few of the kids from Aidan's PreK class, they are both in their rooms taking a snooze. The 90+ degree heat really gets to you after being out in it for 3 hours playing.
Emmy was playing with a little girl there and turns out she was in her dance class last year for a bit. She is also going to the same place for PreK. Hopefully she'll be in the morning class too and she'll already have a friend! It was great to see the kids and chat with the Mom's. There were four families and all are going to different schools in a few weeks! Very different from Vermont.

I think I'll clean up the kitchen and put the 13 jars of canned tomato's away in the pantry and then after a quick vacuum of the house, head back into my room and play with some fabrics. Tomorrow is Grandma day and my fist kid free day since the end of June! I can't wait. I have plans to finish up a UFO - and finally get that purple pineapple quilt quilted. To have it ready I need to make a backing, find some batting to fit and get it ready for pinning tonight. I'd love it to be all set to start quilting when I get back home after dropping them off tomorrow morning. Oh - I may need to make a trip to Joann's Fabrics and get some more Caron simply soft yarn. I checked both Walmarts near me and neither one had the color I needed. Oh well, I get to use the 20% off your total purchase.... wonder what else I need?

This one is for you Mom - the tomato's I canned on Wednesday afternoon and evening.

The rest were simmered down yesterday into a pasta sauce that I put into 3 quart jars and popped into the freezer. I think I need one more box of the 30 pounds to can a few more jars and then try making a batch of salsa. Not bad for $10!
Now lets see how quickly I can clean up the kitchen and vacuum!