2 posts in one day!

Progress! This is what I am thinking for the borders.... the corners are in thought process. I think I will just do a straight line to connect them to the corner.... that way I don't have to extend into another border. I think it will work.... now to find any purple and pinks of the hand dyed fabrics. I sure hope I have some more...... I have all the parts for the light blue, yellow, brown and red already sewn. Just need to cut more background but that will have to all wait for tomorrow. Must do a few things before picking up the kids.

Design wall Monday....

Lots of progress on my RSC Sampler - alternate blocks on Saturday. I only have 5 to go... and 3 to fix before I can start sewing them together =).

Emily was a trooper and did a great job ringing the bell for her Community Service with Girl Scouts on Saturday - 2 hours of ringing by my 6 year old with no complaints. She had fun and did a great job... and people were extremely generous =)

Someone in the house is very happy the tree is up and the Christmas tree skirt is down. This will be her spot (Maxie)  until the tree comes down. Sophie will watch the tree from her spot on the couch!

Linking up with Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork times.

Weekend post...

I have been enjoying a bunch of hand work the last few days.
I added a few rounds to the aqua trip block - mostly yesterday on the back porch while watching the kids with their play date. One little girl went home for a nap but her brother stayed to play for the afternoon. Lots of running around outside - trips on the playhouse as a boat (watch out for the whale!) and hikes through the back woods as settlers to the new world. Time to prep more squares for this - 28,24,20, etc down to 4 to finish this last block off. I do wonder if on this last one I'll actually remember not to sew on those corner white triangles? I've only remembered twice the whole year!

Last night I added another 1.5 hours of hand quilting on Hugs and Kisses and have the fist border completed. Now the challenge - hand quilting that last edge. I got the blue peel quilted inside and out and started the orange before I decided to stop for the night.

When I need a change of pace - I have a little binding to add onto the twinkle star quilt that I machine quilted earlier this week with a wiggle stitch. This little guy is 40x40.

For the sewing machine..... I plan to add a few alternate blocks and maybe start sewing my blocks into rows. I have most of my parts sewn together - just need to finish the red four patches and cut some more 4.5 inch squares. I kept forgetting to change one part of 4 blocks of Angela's pattern to help my last border to connect those chains. Must find the yellow and light blue fabric to cut a few more squares for four patches. Of course... those are the alternate blocks I have already sewn up!

Linking up Saturday with the RSC Challenge and Sunday morning with Slow Sunday Stitching.
Greg has taken the kids to Grandma's so I get a little time of quiet in the house. My Daisy's are ringing the bell as part of their community service today so I'll be checking in and making sure someone is there. We have 3 hours to fill in at the end - I had Em signed up for the last hour but will try and have her do 2 and I'll cover the other hour by myself with the cadet scout. Too bad I can't bring hand work with me =). Sunday..... Greg and I will toss a coin and see who gets to work the short day. I hope I win - as he'll get the kids and I'll work before he heads to Clearwater Sunday night for a couple of days of training (recertification of CPO - certified pool operator). I'll hit the recertification at the next training session usually in Feb/March time frame.
Our elf has learned what the kids want for Christmas this year and I'm sure he has reported that back to the big Boss. Emily wants a police rescue helicopter to round out her rescue team (fire trucks, ambulance, police cars). Aidan wants a blue sewing machine. So nice the kids only really ask for one thing from Santa instead of the big lists I've heard other kids ask for.
Ok - must go shower and dress so I can sew a bit before Greg gets home.

Black Friday... is decorating day

And boy are the kids gung ho for decorating for Christmas. They started at 8:30.... I really need more coffee. All my fall things - mostly my Partylite candles were put away by the kids... and then properly put into their boxes by me. Then they dragged out the Christmas boxes of decorations. To distract them - I said to go find the tree in Aidan's room and take that out. I gave myself a 1 hour reprieve while they decorate the tree before I have to start helping =) A big thanks to Daddy for stringing the lights so they could add the garland and then the ornaments. They are actually doing a good job this year - I don't think I'll need to redecorate the tree this year and spread out the ornaments!

Oh, the elf flew in this morning. I was sure he would get confused and head to Vermont since that is where he last saw the kids. He must have gotten Aidan's note that he was to come to our house this year. They found him right off this morning in the dining room.

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving.  

No BH mystery for me this year.....

I have way too many things in process! Instead of working through the clues with everyone else in blog land over the next months, I will be working on getting some finishes.
My hope is to work through the following in December.

1.) Finish the last 10 midget appliqué blocks and get the yellow surround on them. I have fallen a little behind on these but would love to have the blocks competed by the end of the year.

2.) Finish the teal trip around the world block and hand sew all 9 blocks together. I decided to hand quilt it as a whole project rather than individual quilt as you go.... which means I need to ......

3.) Finish hand quilting on Hugs and Kisses and get it bound.

4.) Appliqué the 13  dresden plates onto the background and piece into a top.

5.) Finish the alternate blocks for the RSC Sampler quilt, assemble the top and get it quilted and bound by the end of the year.

I may not get them all done, (you know, life does tend to interfere with my quilting!) but at least I'll have made progress on them rather than starting something new. If I do pretty good on the list - my reward will be to finally make my Bittersweet Briar wall hanging that I have had sitting in a kit forever.... well since I saw Kim Diehl speak at my guilt up in Vermont before I moved to Florida. After that one is done- it will be paper piecing my storm at sea kit. That one has been waiting 8 years to get made.
There. I feel better now that I have the plan in my head down on paper. =)

Now to make some cloverleaf rolls and a pumpkin pudding for Thanksgiving. I just have to make the potato and gravy on Thursday as Greg is in charge of the turkey and stuffing this year. He saw an episode on America's Test Kitchen that revisited Turkey with Julia Child. I'll let you know how it came out!

Tiny Tuesday is a twinkle star almost finish....

I decided I needed a sewing reward this morning so I pinned, quilted and made a binding and attached it to this little guy. It is 40x40 and has a nice snuggly blue dot flannel on the back. Just needs to have the binding sewn down.... and I'll have a nice finish from my RSC2015 twinkle star blocks.

Design..... pantry?

Well, after a frustrating Saturday when I opened the Christmas boxes on the back porch and found lots of things crawling in there......it lead to some research. Turns out a bag of bird seed went bad and some pantry moths moved in......and since we have the cat door they migrated into the house. We had little moths that we could not figure out what they were or where they came from but they were mostly in the kitchen, in the pantry. Today instead of cleaning the house up for company Thursday I took everything out of the pantry and cleaned, cleaned, cleaned and vacuumed up the few little buggers that were left in the crevices where the wall and ceiling meet. Greg hit them with the vacuum the last couple of weeks and they are getting lots fewer but there is a life cycle and I want them gone. Most of the things in the pantry are sealed (love my glass jars and tupperware!) and were safe. A couple of things from Greg's Atkins days got hit and it was time to toss them anyway. Three bags of garbage later and lots of boxes into the recycle bin.

The good news..... I have a clean and reorganized pantry! Hopefully me moving things around in there doesn't drive me too nuts. I already realized I moved the baking things one shelf up.... which the kiddo's can not reach anymore. Might have to swap things so they can reach them again.

Now to add the last few things back in and I'm calling it a day. The rest of the kitchen and house will get cleaned tomorrow. So much for sewing.......

Now to finish prepping the crafts for girl scouts tonight and then I think I'm going to relax for a few minutes before starting dinner - Chicken marsala with rice and whatever veggie the kids select out of the freezer. I'll add a salad and dinner is done.

Slow Down Sunday..... with a touch of rain.

Kathy reminds us each week to slow down, relax and enjoy some slow stitching. I get to work a short day today at the store so I'll be sure to bring some stitching with me just in case..... rain tends to make for slow customer counts. I think the Aqua trip block will come with me and maybe a round or two will be added on today at work.

Tonight - lows in the 40's so I'll be snuggling under Hugs and Kisses and working to turn that third corner of the first border tonight.

Hugs and Kisses - third border almost done!

Emily decided to make a scarf this morning.

Mom - I think I'll finally pick some swiss chard tonight and have some with the calzones for dinner =). I added a scallion from the garden to my salad yesterday. Don't worry, I'll plant another row of chard and beets this week and next month so you can enjoy some in March when you come down =)

RSC in lime green.... or Aqua?

I'm ignoring the green this month for the challenge this week and am working on aqua - for the 9th and final block of the trip around the world quilt I have been working on this year.

Head on over and see the other links in the RSC Challenge this week. As for me, I am headed out soon with the girl scouts for our 'Light up Ocala' Parade in downtown. Lets hope the rain holds off until after we are done walking the parade route.

Thursday....

I seem to have picked up a head cold this week. To try and get over it I took it easy yesterday and got a bunch of hand quilting in on my hugs and kisses. Almost ready to turn the third corner of the border.

Sunday..... slow stitching

I have not done as much slow stitching on my Hugs and Kisses as I would have liked this week - but I did make some progress. Almost done the second side of the first border.. that corner is coming up!

 I also got to try a new marking tool. My grey fons and porter chalk pencil got to the point of breaking whenever I sharpened it. I know I have a blue somewhere and white and yellow but darned if I could find them when I needed them. Yellow was later found in my take with me bag but would not show up on my background! A trip to Joanns with a coupon on Veterans day and I got this..... It actually works really well. Nice line drawn through the template and has stayed on this week while I was working on the border. I love that it came with lots of white and different colors as well.

I also starting prepping some more appliqué blocks. I just need to pull fabrics later today so I'll have my car line hand work this week. I have 10 to go in this series of blocks. There was a recap of my blocks shown here last week.

I'm linking up with Kathy's Quilts today and can't wait for this evening when I can snuggle under my quilt and put some soothing stitches in.

Wednesday - another midget block done....

 This is Overall boy. He got stitched up yesterday. I am out of prepped blocks... must go prep some more!

I decided to go with the 4x4 setting and added a light purple block to the mix. I wonder if I'll be able to pin this one in the afternoon after kid pickup? Only time will tell....

Tiny Tuesday.....

Another night of being up for an hour or two in the middle of the night... so I decided to review where I was in some projects. Must take the kindle out of the bedroom for if it happens again tonight. I believe I have 11 midget appliqué blocks to go in the set of 52. With  7 weeks left in the year, I think this is an attainable goal to have all 52 blocks done and surrounded by yellow by the end of the year. Not too bad considering I started them in January with the plan of one a week.
The acorn was today's posting, snuggled in with the rest of them! Quite a slew of 4.5 inch blocks I have collected.

Design wall Monday....

After dropping the kids to school and popping into work to open the store (just until Greg gets there after his Dad's eye appointment) I plan to come home and play with these twinkle stars.

I think I can get them to a top stage today... with hopes to quilt it up and finish it this week. Do I go with 3x5 setting for a 30x50 little top or 4x4 for a 40x40...which would need one more block to finish it off?

This is the cake the kids and Greg made yesterday.

Slow Stitching Sunday.....

I finally got some quality sewing time in yesterday afternoon! It felt so good to sew with the machine.  I got my two lime green sampler stars done and started assembling my alternate blocks.

Then to round off the evening.... I got some hand quilting in on my Hugs and Kisses quilt while Greg went to pick up Aidan from Grandma. Emily has a sleepover and will be returned this afternoon. Then we'll use some of my birthday $ to go to Yamata's with the kids - it is a Japanese steak house with the habichi grill. The kids love going there (me too!) and watching the show the chef's put on for us.

I also got a little hand stitching in this morning while the boys were busy making my birthday cake (it was last Wednesday). A devils food cake made into a cat using round cake pans..... and hopefully not a snake like the snickering little boy thought would be funny. I don't like snakes! There was a black one in the driveway when I was dropping the kids to Grandma yesterday morning.....yes, I backed up the car and called her to let her know. She came out and shooed it away. =)
This was my helper this morning while the boys were cooking breakfast. I hear our orders are up so must go let Aidan serve us our breakfast - sausage, pancakes and eggs with coffee. Just what I ordered!

Hope you get some time to enjoy a little slow stitching and relax today. I'm linking up with the other Slow Stitchers at Kathy's Quilts. Head on over and enjoy the link show.

RSC Saturday in lime green....

Ok - I looked at my header photo to see what lime greens I had in the stash... ;)
I had 45 minutes yesterday before heading to work at the Fall Family Festival at the church where we have scouts..... so I cut up my squares for the 16 patches and the twinkle stars. The two 16 patches got sewn up to show today.

I got an edible arrangement for my birthday this week. It was yummy.

The kids had a good time... and there were some old cars there for a car show. Oh boy - my kids were fascinated - especially Aidan with all the cars. He was talking out loud and said 'this is the first car made'! - The guy who owns it said 'yes it is!' and had a nice conversation with my 7 year old! Others said - watch out he is a car guy. I see car shows in my future!

Barrel train ride

Remember A&W with the roller skating delivery?

Mom - Aidan had a great day yesterday in his first day of the gifted classes. He was so excited to go to school and has not stopped talking about it. I love his math homework - mind puzzles =) My favorite thing to do!

No working for me this weekend so maybe I can get a little sewing in..... to start finishing up some of these blocks into quilts. Head on over to the RSC link party and see how others are doing in lime. I'm off to bring the kids to Grandma, then the girl scout store and then home to enjoy some peace and quiet.

Teacup Wednesday....

I got a lot of relaxing sewing done yesterday. After playing with the blocks from yesterday's post in the morning, I prepped three more midget blocks and then settled in after a quick lunch with the first Harry Potter movie and some hand quilting on the hugs and kisses quilt. I got up to the corner on the cable border - one side border is done. After picking up the kids ... it was resting to relieve the sinus headache with some hand stitching on this little teapot while Emily watched a Pooh movie. The last of the stitches were put in while the homemade sloppy joes were cooking on the stove top and roasted rosemary potato's were in the oven. The kids picked corn as their veggie =). Now if the boy would start going to bed better we'll be all set. This time change really does a number on him and it is always a rough week after a change.

Sewing today =)

I finally got some sewing time....... the four patches are now bigger!

A possible layout.

Now to prep some midget appliqué blocks for the car line.

November 1! How did that happen?

This is waiting in line at the school trick or treat on Friday night. 

It was too hot for his Ninja Turtle costume with long arms and legs so he grabbed his soccer gear - from 2 years ago! He was a Ninja to school for a bit on Friday and then for actual trick or treating last night. Their first time going door to door in a neighborhood. WAY too much candy... which will be sent into school and shipped overseas to the troops. This is T and M with Emily and Aidan on Halloween.

Another long and unpredictable week for me. Lets just say Greg worked alone Friday and I had to go in Saturday with the kids and then today... and I get to work tomorrow. For now - I'll be working Sat-Monday for the next little while. The joys of owning your own business.

Not much sewing time at all this week..... but I did cut out some browns to surround those four patches I had made with leftovers from Greg's Labor Day quilt. I think I have 25 four patches... and some other blocks that size so we'll see how they turn out. Linking up with the RSC Challenge for the brown...... and can't wait to start with the light and bright greens for November.

I've been too tired this week to even do anything at the end of the day....so no progress has been made on my hand quilting of the Hugs and Kisses. If I can prep dinner and make sure I am all set for girl scouts tomorrow night - I think I might be able to put some stitches into this tonight with my feet up while relaxing in front of the tv. Hopefully the kids get up good tomorrow for school - the time changes really mess up their sleep schedule. Linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday with hopes I can join in with some slow, relaxing, stitches this evening.