Wednesday.....

An early release day at school and I also get to work this morning at the store!

I seem to have issued a challenge by e-mail to a blogging friend Joanne..... to finish something by the end of November! She took me up on it and I'm going with something similar to what she selected - Finish my hand quilting on the Hugs and Kisses Quilt! I started it last Thanksgiving so it will be a year (summer off as its too hot to hand quilt!) if I actually get it done. I spent the morning yesterday watching a few episodes of season 4 of Grey's Anatomy and hand stitching. I made some good progress on the side cream border....... lets see if this can be a finished quilt at the end of next month! My next hoop move is a corner =). One side of the first border will be done. I am debating going back and doing the peels on the outer border too... and hand stitching together the edge.

I did get something done... I crocheted the tops to a couple of kitchen towels...... and Aidan added one button and Greg/Emily added the other. Emily's was put right to use in the kitchen. Aidan's will fly up to Grammy R with some others that I need to make today. I seem to have to change them out daily... and sometimes twice a day depending on how much baking/cooking is going on. Which reminds me... better put the crochet hook, yarn and cut towels in the bag for work today. =)

Other good news..... We believe Aidan made it into the gifted program at school. We have a meeting Nov 5 with the school to discuss how it works and to help them plan a challenging program for him. Hopefully that will stop the 'I'm bored, I know what she is teaching already'.

Off to work for me..... early pickup and then a free activity at the library at 2 today - pumpkin painting. 

Finishes!

I actually got my UFO for the month finished! This is the 16 patch stars quilt I made with the 2014 RSC Challenge. I love how these 16 patch blocks work up into such pretty quilts. This quilt is 48x66 with a mottled cream backing and a green binding.

I also never showed the completed pink nine patch quilt I finished the binding on a few weeks ago. This one is 37x37 with a snuggly flannel on the back.

Time to decide which UFO will come out to play next.... will it be the Grandmothers Choice blocks from a sew along back in 2013 or the Lori Smith last two 12 inch blocks in my quilt as you go quilt?

Binding....... you know what that means!

Yup - I finally got a chance yesterday to whip stitch some batting together so I could finish pinning the 16 patch stars quilt from the RSC Challenge last year. I decided to just do a quick walking foot quilting on it - a diagonal line through the 16 patches and just extended it to the edge of the quilt. Then.... I almost put a scrappy binding on it but... it was just easier to cut the lengths I needed out of a bit of mottled green I had sitting on the shelf. Now the fun part - hand stitching the binding to the back! I love stitching in the evenings at the end of the day - it is just so relaxing to slowly stitch and reflect on all the things that happened during the day.... especially since the kids are tucked in bed and it is truly my relaxing time.

Each of the kids had to lay down on it for a picture yesterday- sorry for the extra bits - that is kids for you.

Today will be working in the garden a bit and playing with Emily's knitting loom before we head to a roller skating rink to celebrate Juliette Gordon Lowe's birthday! She was the founder of Girl Scouts back in 1912. The majority of my troop is going to be there. I'll be in sneakers as my few experiences with roller skates would land me in the hospital with a sprained ankle if I attempted it! We'll see how Emily does though. Aidan will be home with Greg working on his diorama that is due tomorrow.

Linking up Sunday morning with Kathy's Quilts. Head on over and see some beautiful projects.

I snapped a few photo's last weekend while out in the back yard. Emily and Aidan got to ride the tractor around the yard - this is Emily on it.

Some butterfly's enjoying the flowers and the garden. I could not get the yellow ones I always see down here. Maybe they'll allow a picture today while Emily and I are out there finishing the planting.

monarch butterfly

Phaon Cresent.

Phaon Cresent

This is what has been eating my lemon bush.... a giant swallowtail caterpillar who love to eat citrus bushes. It will become a pretty butterfly...I just don't want it to eat my lemon bush! Greg moved it last weekend into a better location - more sun than it was getting and hopefully it might give me some lemons and limes at some point.

10 more minutes on the baked french toast and then it will be figuring out Emily's loom. It is a singer circle knitting loom for kids. Wish us luck!

Saturday in RSC world.....

Deep breath.... long week. Sick employee had me working the last two days and I went in this morning just to make sure we were covered. Thank goodness - he is better and I got to pop into Joanns and use a 60%, 50% and 40% off coupon this morning =) My reward.

Pretty blue flowers on a 108 wide backing with the 60% off. Has anyone else noticed that they seem to have a lot more choices for the backings now at Joanns? There were some really pretty ones there today. That will back The Century Quilt for my niece in blue and yellow. Some white plain yardage at $1.99 a yard and it is oh so SOFT! That will be for the dresden plates. The 50 and 40% off were used on hand quilting needles - she rang up two but I had only purchased one... so I went back and just got the second one... you know, since one came to about $1 and the other package was around $1.30... for 20 needles each =) That was my splurge but it all has plans..... I do love when you save $55 in change.

I hope to finally whip stitch the two inches of batting and finish pinning my 16 patch stars quilt from last year sometime today. I'd love to start quilting it... but we'll see.

While digging around in the mess that is my sewing room I found these 4 patches.... brown and cream and green. Leftovers from Greg's Labor Day quilt and The Vermont Quilt. I have some ideas turning over in my head to use these up. We'll see if it works or not! All units except the little four patches in the bottom right side are 4 inches finished. Those are 3 inches.

Head on over to the RSC Challenge and see what other brown projects are popping up in blogland.

While 'working' at the store I did get to stitch a little bit in between customers. The little Sue 2 got finished off and I got the Oval Flower done as well. Oops - just need to stitch the little square in the middle in yellow. These are from the midget appliqué blocks found at sentimental stitches.com and finish at 4.5 inches. I've been working on these since January and I have 39 of 52 blocks completed.

Remember to hug your kids and grandkids today. I found out Thursday afternoon that one member of my daisy troop lost her battle with cancer. She was 6 years old and the sweetest little girl. A few prayers for her family would be appreciated.

Tiny Tuesday....

The petunia got finished last night. 37 Midget blocks have been completed this year. I think little Sue is the next block to get worked on. Now to get all the Girl scout nut and candy orders entered into the system today. Wish me luck!

Monday morning....

No school today for the kids. Teacher work day. They have been busy playing with their connects building things this morning for well over an hour.

I whipped up some pumpkin apple streusel muffins which are baking in the oven now. We will also do some sugar cookies today as well.... so the kids can decorate them. That should keep them busy for a little bit this afternoon. The sugar cookie recipe is from a former guild member up in Vermont and can be found on my recipe page. They hold their shape so well - the only recipe I use now for these. Think I can try almond or will I have to do vanilla flavoring again? Vanilla again. All made and in the fridge for a chill for a couple of hours.

As for me.... I still need to till that last quarter of the garden and plant some peas. The rest of the garden is weeded. Things are popping up and growing! Just need to put the fence posts up and run the wire on as well. Greg is home today... so I'll enlist his help with the fence. It should be wonderful weather in the 70's with a nice breeze. Perfect working outside weather, finally.

I also need to whip stitch some batting so I can finish pinning a quilt. Then read the directions for Emily's new knitting loom so we can play with that. Aidan learned how to put a button on yesterday! He pulled two buttons off his pants within an hour.... so it was time for him to learn how to put them on. He got to join the club..... needle poked his finger pretty good...... but he went back and added the second button to the other pair of pants anyway!

Oh - the green trip around the world block got completed yesterday! One to go!

Here are a few pictures of the kids at the pumpkin patch in Dunnellon on Friday.

Pumpkin patch 2015. Ages 7 and 6

Hay bale slide!

King of the pumpkin patch!

Kids with their selected pumpkins.

Archway with gourds growing all over them. Really neat!

Ok - time to get dressed and start the tiller!

Slow stitching Sunday......

I had high hopes to be binding today.... but when you get to the last part of pinning and realize you are 1 inch short on the batting.... I need to pull out pins and start again later today. Oh well, there is always other projects to work on!

My hand stitching today will be a few more green squares onto the forest green trip around the world block. Yes, just a few more squares to add and I'll have 8 of these completed. That leaves one more to do - in teal I think. I'll be adding a few this morning while Emily is watching a Curious George movie.

I also have a few more stitches to add to the midget appliqué from last week - those little yellow bits are very intimidating!

Head on over Sunday morning to Kathy's Quilts to see what slow stitching is happening all over the world.

Oh - My last post was asking which background to use for my Dresden plates....if you want to take a peek and share your thoughts....

Help! I need to decide on a background color for the Dresdens....

Ok. I need help. I know I need about 2.5 yards to do the background squares, setting triangles and corner triangles for the dresden quilt. I am avoiding pinning (ok, the top and backing for the 16 patch stars are pressed and laying on the living room floor waiting to be rolled on the boards....) so decided to see how much of a cream and grey I had in the stash. 3 yards of the grey marble from Connecting Threads, 2 yards of a dark creamy yellow marble from Connecting Threads and then I tried a light cream print that I am using for the RSC Sampler. I can get that at Joann's.

Cream print

Dark cream

grey - not as dark as it is in the photo.

Or... should I try a Kona white? Maybe white background for the blocks and then the setting triangles (8 total) and 4 corner triangles as the dark cream or grey? Thoughts?

RSC in brown.....

I started off my Monday with a Kick! A kick sampler block that is.

I also cut out a bunch of 2.5 inch squares for my twinkle star block and made up another 16 patch while I was sewing. That gives me three in brown.

That leaves the Dresden... which I managed to put together on Wednesday afternoon while the kids were playing school in the play room! I have 13 of these now... so I pulled out paper and pencil and drew up a setting. I think it will be on point and I just need 13 so this one is 'done'. Just need to calculate the yardage needed for the background (2.5 yards includes wiggle room) and see how big I want this one. Do I go with cream or white? Hmmmm We'll have to see what is on sale in the next few weeks. Thank goodness a birthday is coming up and there should be some birthday $...

This was the sunrise as I was going home from dropping the kids to school on Thursday.

Head on over and check out the RSC Challenge blocks on Saturday morning.

Wednesday.... almost done!

I got this little nine patch pinned and walking foot quilted this morning. The binding was found, made and attached to the front. Now to finish putting that on by hand......
Sorry about the bad photo - my phone is not cooperating right now so this is from the computer.

Design Wall Monday....

I finished the orange trip around the world block last night!

Orange Trip around the World using 2.5 inch squares. Hand pieced.

Yea - just need to go back and cut some forest greens to finish off the green one and then pick some teals to start that one. That will give me 9 - 30 inch blocks to hand quilt. I am hand piecing these using 2.5 inch squares. I picked up some grey fabric on Saturday (major sale!) for my backing for these. I have batting ends hanging around in their container so I just need to finish off the last two blocks and hand quilting each block can begin!

Linking up with patchwork times for Design Wall Monday.

Not so slow Sunday.....

Finally a day off with everyone home and feeling well! That means..... clean the house day. The main area's got vacuumed and picked up this morning before Grandpa arrived for a visit. (Emily did the living room and Aidan did the dining room and front room). Yes, I go through and vacuum after them to make sure it all gets done. Just need to dust and then get them to clean up and vacuum and dust their rooms.... sweeping and mopping floors is next for me along with cleaning the bathrooms. We did a little weeding and deadheading out front as well after our visit with Grandpa. Greg is in charge of the laundry today and some is spinning and some is drying. Mac and cheese for lunch for me and Emily while Aidan is cooking up some raman noodles. At some point I plan to till the last quarter of the garden and weed by the corn. The rest got planted on Friday morning (my only day home this week!) - beans, carrots, beets, cabbage, broccoli, swiss chard and some romaine lettuce. I can't wait until this evening to settle in with some hand work... but what hand work will it be?

Hand quilting on the hugs and kisses? No progress made since the last time I showed this. Hopefully DH selects a decent show to watch tonight so I can sit in my recliner and stitch!

Hand work on the orange trip block? I need to take out two top sides of the pumpkins.... oops I got my squares mixed up. The bottom left corner is correct.

Some hand appliqué maybe on the midget blocks? I did a recap post here, and have since got all the yellow frames onto the last 8 blocks in that picture. Time to make some more.

Time will tell but until that happens I need to get to work on finishing cleaning the house. It is long overdue (two weeks since a vacuum and longer with a mop!). Think I'll finally have a week where I get to be home so I can sew? I know I have a few hours of work Tuesday morning at the store while Greg does an install....... but hopefully that is the only day I need to go in this week. Tomorrow is prep for girl scouts and organizing Aidan's popcorn sales and entering my girls nut and candy into the computer. I also have lunch with Emily at school tomorrow - I did Aidan on Friday. Must keep it even you know!

Head on over to Kathy's Quilts and see what slow stitching is happening today around the world. We in the US are celebrating Columbus Day and our neighbors up north are celebrating Thanksgiving.

RSC in brown....

I got a little sewing time in on Friday morning and was able to make the shadow stars sampler block. I also have my star points made in brown for the next sampler block..... I'm ahead of the game this month!

Then I pulled from the scrap mess on the floor (ok, the boxes are overflowing and I just dig until I find the color I want) and found some brown fabrics. They got cut into some 2.5 inch squares and I was able to make two 16 patch blocks. Here is the slew of them I have made so far this year.

These are so versatile - I have made the last few years into star versions (last year, 2013) but I think I will make this one a colorful 'Goodnight Irene' variation with each color block 'floating' on a solid off-white background color.  I can picture it in my head I just need to get out the colored pencils and plan my color design so I can start in on the alternate blocks. 

Aidan wanted to sew last night - so we quickly made a couple of coasters for Grandma. He picked the fabrics and we used this link for the instructions. Tonight - I need to figure out the knitting loom Emily got as her reward for being good up in VT at the wedding rehearsal, wedding and on the plane ride back.

The orange trip around the world just needs 40 more squares added to finish off the edges of the square. I found fabrics to work last week and added a whole round of yellow/orange to the mix.

This was last Saturday night - my margarita out by the bonfire. Greg and Emily tented out that night - Aidan gave it a shot but that boy can only sleep in his bed at night. I wonder if there will be another bonfire this Saturday night?

Head on over to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge on Saturday morning to see what the dark browns are looking like in projects.

Midget Applique progress this year....

So far this year I have completed 36 midget blocks in the series of 52 blocks. Some still need their yellow strips added to surround them but most are attached already. We have 12 weeks left in the year and it looks like I am 4 weeks behind. I am sure I can add a block or two in over the next few weeks to have my 52nd block finished in the last week of this year. This quilt is completely hand pieced so far... and hopefully will continue to be all hand pieced and then hand quilted.... since there is no deadline on this. Just something to do while I am waiting on the kids. The patterns for this can be found at Sentimentalstitches.com under the midget appliqué in her store. No affiliation, just letting you know where I got my pattern. Looks like I need to prep some more yellow to add to those 8 blocks and pull some fabrics for the next few blocks to appliqué. I should be able to get a few stitches in at bowling tomorrow morning.... assuming Greg is up to heading into work tomorrow. I'm planning my reward time of bowling and stitching and then playing with the machine the whole time the kids are in school on Friday .... well, I might take a break and go in and have lunch with one of them Friday! The housework can wait.... right?

Tiny Tuesday

Today is the daffodil in the midget applique block series from Sentimentalstitches.com

I finished this one off on Thursday morning at bowling. Such a happy little flower.

I had planned to do a photo review of all my blocks so far this year...... alas my morning plans changed! Instead of playing with laying out all the completed blocks for a picture I will be heading into work for the day. Just returning the favor for Greg who was up in the middle of the night with a stomach bug. Now to get the kids up, dressed, lunches packed and dropped to school. Being up early for me - I started the oven before my shower and the cinnamon rolls are ready to come out for their breakfast! Have a great day and we'll plan on a Midget recap tomorrow on the blog.

A lovely Weekend....

It has been a lovely weekend so far (I'm including Friday in since I had the hubby home so it felt like a weekend day). Nice cool temperatures in the low 70's. I am in heaven.... much better than that 90+ stuff we normally have.

It got me to feel like hand quilting on Friday afternoon so I pulled out the Hugs and Kisses quilt and started hand quilting on the border. It felt soooooo good to be hand quilting again.

I know - I do lots of other hand work but there is just something about hand quilting that just feels so satisfying. I also had a black and white helper (Maxie cat) while I was stitching in a quiet house on Friday. (Greg offered to take the kids to his Moms for their sleepover after I picked them up from school so I got 2.5 lovely hours of peace and quiet.) When he got home he mentioned he'd like to see a movie - The Martian. He never plans dates so I jumped and we went to see a 7:30 showing of The Martian thinking we would do dinner after. We nixed the dinner idea (good thing we did soda and popcorn at the movie) when we got out of the theater well after 10PM! The movie was 2 hours and 20 minutes but what a wonderful movie it was. I highly recommend heading to the theater to see this one.

Saturday was a nice sleep in day and then a run to the girl scout store to pick up a few things. A quick drop into work to send in the order, check on my manager who has been out for a couple of weeks and finish some paperwork. A gas fill up at $2.01 a gallon for the car and it was back home for the afternoon. I did make a stop at The Marion Market - a local weekend flea market and vendor site to hit the veggie and fruit area. I had to call Mom and let her know I was doing that too (just to rub it in with all the fresh veggies!). I got a cabbage, a huge romaine lettuce, peppers, sprouts, 5 limes, beets and greens....... perfect for fajitas for dinner Saturday evening and meals and lunches for the rest of the week with the salad things I had already. I am cooking up a batch of black beans on one burner and the beets are boiling on another while I prepped all the veggies and got them settled into the crisper. Two huge bags of lettuce processed from one huge head for $1.50. Just amazes me. The chicken has been marinating in the fajita seasoning and I just need to cook that up with some onions and peppers and make some rice and guacamole and dinner will be set. I'm going to pull out the margaritas I made last Friday from the freezer and have one with dinner tonight too =)

Sunday will find me doing some gardening, bringing my FIL out for a birthday lunch with our family and generally enjoying the day with the kids and Greg. I will be able to get some slow stitching in as well with my Hugs and Kisses quilt and some hand work adding orange to the trip around the world block. I am itching to start basting those 30 inch blocks for quilting... but will wait for them to all be done. Two in progress (orange and dark green at the bottom of the picture) and one more to go in teal will give me my 9 blocks. That green one will change a bit and have more dark green heading out from the white round I think. Not too shabby for staring the blue one last December and stitching all the 2.5 inch blocks by hand. There are 225 squares in each 30 inch block below...that's a lot of squares!

Head on over to Kathy's Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday and Oh Scrap on Sunday morning for their link parties.