How is it almost the end of the month????

Yikes, September flew by.

In my hopes to actually get a 'finish' this month..... I worked last weekend to make a batting from leftover scraps using the zigzag stitch on the machine.  I am trying to get a finish on Crayon Box - a free pattern from Quiltville.com

Thank goodness it is big enough! This is a little one at 44x58.

I have the pieces set to piece the backing - I figured with a bright top I needed a nice bright background - so yellow with a strip of flowers down the middle. Could not make it easy on myself...but down the middle will look nicer than just on one side.

This needs a backing pieced, then everything pressed, pinned and quilted. A binding made and attached... in the next 3 days to get a September finish. Thank I can do it? Time will tell.....

Gymnastics tonight with Emily - so early dinner for us. Tomorrow is busy - orthodontist appt for Emily at 3:30, Aidan has his first soccer game at 5:30 and then of course... it is open house night at school from 6-7. One parent will take Emily to her open house and the other will finish the soccer game and try to get him there for the last 15 minutes.  Friday... I need to call and see if we have a guitar lesson or not. Saturday morning is bowling - Greg took them last week and got a splitting headache from the noise!

I finally got sleep last night after 2 nights up with a boy who was all stuffed up and couldn't breathe. Yes, we tried everything - humidifier in room, steamy shower and personal humidifier, vicks, netti pot, medicine, sleeping upright (and cleaned air vents and changed air filter on the AC yesterday afternoon)..... he got a full night of sleep last night too, thank goodness. He was in bed at 8 and I headed in to find my bed around 8:30!

I think it will be a sewing room evening after the kids are in bed if I want to make some progress.
Happy Wednesday everyone.

Slow Sunday Stitching....

I brought my trip quilt to bowling with me on Thursday. One of the ladies made a comment that she remembers me working on that a couple of years ago! Hmmmm. I know I put it away for a while (a whole year from summer 2015-2016 with no working on it!)...... It made me wonder when I actually started this?

Lots of searching.... and turns out it was around December 11, 2014 and I am still blaming Carla! This of course is my 2 inch one that is pushed aside a lot when I get sidetracked with new hand work projects (midget appliqué blocks, then 1857 appliqué blocks)... then it comes out again. So far this month I have added 3.5 rounds and have the next round (#27) of blue all cut out - that is 108 squares to add. Each round add's 4 more squares to the count. I checked and it looks like Carla did 36 rounds and then the quarter square triangles to make it square. We will see how long this one stays out before I get sidetracked to do something 'new'!

Sophie likes to observe from the sidelines....

While Maxie likes the on top view. I believe she thinks this is hers!

I added one side of blue last night - it always amazes me how each row changes how this looks so drastically! I'm loving the blue. I wonder what purple Emily will select for the next row...

I have built up a nice callus on my left pointer finger (I don't use a thimble - I know I am a rebel!) so I should also pull out a chair and get working on quilting the 2.5 inch TATW quilt on the quilting frame. That started after this one.... and has made much more progress. Again... that one is all by hand too. I am still quilting on the first row of moss green, yellow and red. I started this one January 2015 and did one a month with the RSC Challenge.

Maybe I'll plan a good 30 minutes of hand quilting time on the TATW in the frame each day this week and then spend other time stitching some blue onto the ever growing trip quilt.

What will you be stitching today? Linking up with Kathy at Slow Sunday Stitching and Cynthia at Oh Scrap... since both of these  are definitely  scrappy quilts.

Orange blossoms....

I finally got a little orange sewing in and managed to find that missing white background for the blossom blocks. 5 of these babies got made in orange and I am just waiting on 5 more pink ones before I can start putting these together. I need to do some measurements and figure out if I want to frame it in a color of the setting triangles or not..... I guess it will depend on if I have enough of something in my stash. I know I do have enough of the white if needed. After 7 years of this challenge (or is it 8?) I finally figured a few things out I thought I'd share. I decided to reclaim a 12.5 inch storage box back in January when I had decided to make these blossom blocks. I wrote down some instructions on a piece of paper that I got from here - thanks Joanne for a great free pattern! I also noted how many of each color I needed on the back. I stored my green in here (moved to stash now as I cut ahead for the pink month) and stored my completed blocks in here. It made it easy each month to see what I needed for parts and how many in each color.  I have a paper in a storage bin on my BITA blocks too - just waiting on black and brown to come up in the rotation to finish off those blocks for a nice queen size scrappy quilt.

September 21 Greg and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. We have not really celebrated per say, he had these pretty pink flowers delivered and I ordered his favorite meal  - Papa John's pizza for dinner! I know - we are pretty boring! Today is my FIL's 82nd birthday - we will be taking him out tomorrow to Texas Roadhouse to celebrate. I think we'll count that as our anniversary dinner too (I do love my prime rib!) I'll have the kids call and wish him a happy birthday after school today.

In the mean time I will be adding more of these bright orange to the trip quilt. One strand of thread does about 4 of the 2 inch squares. A nice, slow repetitive process adding these on. I am ready for the nice calming blue on the next round.... 3 bright colors in a row is my limit!

I'll be linking up tomorrow with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Greg will take the kids to bowling so I can work in the morning.... internet issues Monday didn't allow me to log into work so I'll make up those 5 hours tomorrow morning. Very grateful to work for a company that allows me such flexible time. Have a great weekend.

Weekend

It has been a very long week. The house is picked up and cleaned (the kids have been out of school all week and home!). They enjoyed baking with the new oven that arrived Friday afternoon. The baking yesterday left a mess in my kitchen that I got to clean up this morning along with the rest of the house. I just hope I am not prepping again later this week for another hurricane. Maria looks like she might be aiming for Florida. Time will tell.

I hit the sewing room a couple of hours ago. Surrounded by orange I had to hunt for the white I used for the spring blossom blocks. Nowhere to be found. Darn it, I know I have more somewhere. After a little time looking, I gave up and moved on. The 4 inch orange squares are all cut out to make 5 blocks and the green leaf's are cut as well. Just waiting on the white print to turn up.

I pulled the pile of orange and sorted it a bit and cut out 12 bow tie blocks (2 2.5 inch squares and 2 1.5 inch squares and another 2 2.5 inch muslin squares to make one bow tie.). Those got made and just need pressing. They are the lower left on the below photo.

While doing the above I cut 2.5 inch squares for a couple of 16 patch blocks. I also found a strip of orange and black print sewn together... so cut those into 2 inch sections to make some 4 patches and those made a smaller 16 patch block.

I was sorting into 1.5, 2, 2.5 inch piles and then 'the rest'. Those will get sewn up at some point into some 6.5 inch crumb blocks to make a nice 12.5 inch big orange crumb block to join some others I found earlier this year. Some hand towels for fall turned up too - those will get some crochet tops added to them at some point.

Lots of time on my bare feet (oops, was to wear sneakers but my achilles is much better despite being on my feet for a good 5 hours straight!) so time to sit with my feet up and stitch. Despicable Me is on Freeform and I just need to disturb Maxie to get my hand work.... well, maybe I just need to pull the knitting instead. She looks comfy. Yes, she is a very spoiled cat.

Linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching, Rainbow Scrap Challenge in orange and Oh Scrap.

Friday....

A full day of working for me today. Grandma took the kids off my hands, they were going stir crazy. They have been off school since last Friday. They go back on Monday and things are getting back to 'normal' in Marion County Florida. We did drive through some different areas yesterday (one road was under water to bowling so had to find an alternate route and the kids got to see how lucky were were in our section of town. Power lines and trees still down in lots of places).

The lines for gas have gone down and more gas stations are getting filled. The power is coming back up for people daily and there are a lot less people without power than a few days ago. Patience is a good thing.

I have added the pink, green and most of the yellow the last few days to the hand pieced trip around the world top. These are 2 inch squares I am adding. It was about 48 inches at the end of the pink round. Orange is next, then a medium and calmer blue and then Emily will find a purple to go after that.

Until then I will just stitch away.

Monday morning check in.... Hurricane Irma.

I have power at my house. Sounds like it went out in most of Ocala and just a few streets down from me so we are very lucky. A few of the shelters, including the kids school less than 3 miles away lost power last night.

The winds are still blowing but nothing like last night. Everyone slept but me......it was a long night.
Looking out my windows - all seems ok at my place. As the winds slow down later this morning, the first responders will be able to get out and assess things in our county and try to restore power.

I am feeling very blessed that we are ok, with no damage and have power.

Slow stitching Sunday....

I just went over to check on Angela's blog and had completely forgot it was SUNDAY! The joys of waiting and waiting and waiting for the darn hurricane to make up her mind and go by already. Sigh.
We are as prepped as we can be. Coffee and hot water are in the carafe for tomorrow. I have been cooking up a storm... I guess I cook when I am worried! Bread baked in the bread machine, brownies baked in the microwave since I am still waiting on the delivery of my new oven later this week. FYI - 9 minutes in the pampered chef deep covered baker for a brownie mix =).

Dinner is in the crock pot cooking away. I think it is time to sit and watch Guy's grocery games and put a few stitches in on the trip quilt. Hey, as long as the dish is still working I'll watch!

The kids are now staging rescues with their fire, police truck and copters through the house. We have played chinese checkers, they ran the cafe for lunch (grilled cheese, fried fish and hot dogs with tater tots on the side!).  The rain is coming down pretty good now but the winds are not bad. Things will change in the early morning hours but until then we are doing just find in a nice secure house. Now I understand why they use block concrete or poured concrete (like mine thank goodness!) to build houses down here in Florida. 4:30 PM and all is fine in SW Ocala FL.

Linking up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching. Time to pop the laptop back on the charger =).

Waiting on Irma...

We are north central Florida to the west so should be fine with this hurricane heading towards us. Ocala.

 The kids have their last day of school today for the week and are off on Friday and Monday - so they can prep the schools for shelters for those who have special needs and are in mobile homes.
We will pick up any projectiles from the yard this afternoon and then will pop some sand bags to Grandma tomorrow for her back porch. We will see if my oven gets delivered tomorrow or not. I sure hope so....

We have plenty of water (bottled and will fill up our two big blue water bottles leftover from the store with our tap water on Saturday),tubs will get filled and we do have the pool!,  food, candles, flashlights and batteries. Hopefully Jose will take a turn to the east and miss the USA as he is following close on IRMA's heels.

Hoping all in the path are safe.

I expect lots of board games, books read and general kid playing over the weekend while I try and get a little stitching in. Part of prepping is making sure there is handwork right?

I'll be finishing the lime green on the trip quilt and maybe adding an orange round as a nod to the RSC Challenge this month.

Plenty of hand quilting options - the trip quilt on the frame, a border of quilting needed on a little orange peel quilt and of course the dresden plates all need quilting on their blocks. Fingers crossed that power stays on, if not..... the grill will be working to cook off the freezer =).

I think we are all prepped just a waiting game now.

Labor Day...

Yesterday I got the last 8 blocks created for the scrappy log cabin before the head ache hit. That did me in for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Today I ran to the store quickly then headed into the sewing room. This got pieced into a top - it is 48x60 for a nice lap size quilt.

I had planned to sew the 1857 top together this weekend... but since I had scraps out and saw the 4 crayon blocks I had made back in April... I made a few more (8!) and sewed them together with sashing and cornerstones. This one is about 44x 58 for another lap size quilt. The pattern for this one is over at Quiltville.com by Bonnie Hunter called Crayon box under the free pattern tab. Would you believe I still have 2+ bins full to overflowing of scraps after these two were done! More quilts to make I guess. I did pull a bunch of orange scraps out (and used a bunch in this quilt) so I have a pile to work with this week for the RSC Challenge.

Time to sit back and hand stitch some lime green onto the trip around the world  before the kids arrive home. Ribs are all cooked and ready for dinner, just need to make up some coleslaw to go with it. Good thing Greg grilled them this morning - we are getting a nice soaking rainstorm for the next little bit. Time to enjoy the sound of the rain while pulling some thread through the fabric.

Slow Sunday....

I am looking forward to peace and quiet (kids have gone to Grandma's for the day and are doing a double kid sleepover tonight!). The house was cleaned up yesterday so today I can just relax and sew.

I have a few 2 inch pink squares to add to this trip around the world. It is currently around 48 inches square. The next round is a nice lime green. I might add an orange round after before the yellow and blue... we will see. After so much appliqué lately (1857 album quilt and my baskets in July) it is so nice to do some hand piecing.

I also plan to add a few threads of hand quilting into the Trip on the frame. This one was had pieced using 2.5 inch squares and went with the RSC Challenge color of the month a few years ago. It has been neglected for far too many months. Time to start working on it again a little each evening.

Linking up with like minded people over at Slow Sunday Stitching... where Kathy reminds us to breathe slowly while putting in one stitch at a time.

Weekend.....

It is a dreary day today with off and on drizzle. I had energy this morning... and started cleaning and clearing and getting reluctant help from the munchkins. They decided to organize the pantry... and actually did a really good job! Then the lazy Saturday with rainy weather settled in. I have been doing a little hand stitching on my 2 inch hand pieced trip around the world. I believe I am on round 23 which is  dark pink. I have some lime green, yellow and blue cut out for the next few rounds.

 I should go check out the sewing room.... but it is a mess and I just am not feeling it. I guess I'll just curl up and stitch on this while convincing the kids Mommy doesn't feel like making dinner. They had picked out dinner (since they were in the pantry I had them try and come up with some ideas for dinner) - chicken nuggets, butter beans - they found a can and have never tried them, and a can of corn. I'm thinking Chinese takeout or pizza.... we shall see in a couple of hours what we have. No oven still so the nuggets would have to be in the microwave.

I have no orange to show yet.... but here is all my 1857 blocks on neutral background just waiting to be sewn together tomorrow when the kids go to Grandma's. I did add the 4 peels to that last block yesterday so it is ready to go. As you can see - Maxie cat is always out when there is a quilt or blocks around.

I also had a finish this week- the binding on the bricks and stepping stones got done. This was from the green month where I tried to clear out a few green and browns.

Linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge where others have already had a start with orange. I plan to pull some this weekend to make my blossoms... then I'll just have some pink ones to make  before I can put them together!

I did get a girls night out for cooking club last night. We made an awesome meal - spinach and feta chicken and potato - roasted cauliflower and mini classic chocolate bundt cakes. There were mini peanut butter bundt cakes too. All recipes can be found on the pampered chef website under recipes. That chicken one might be the first meal I make in the new oven! It was that good.