Quiltville Mystery!

Bonnie Hunter has released information on her yearly free mystery quilt that starts on Black Friday. A clue is released each Friday for as long as the mystery lasts. This year's mystery is called 'On Ringo Lake'. I have made a couple in the past but have sat out the last few years. I think it is time to join in the fun again this year.... and I LOVE the colors!

Will you be joining in the mystery this year?

I looked back and I have made 2 of the mysteries.... Easy Street and Celtic Solstice.

Celtic Solstice

Easy Street

Weekend Roundup....

Another busy weekend.... of course! Would you expect anything else from me?

Saturday was an early morning start with Emily and 7 other girls from our girl scout troop heading to a Wizzadry event about an hour from us in the forest.  I had 3 girls in my car.... I will enjoy quiet today in my house! The girls got sorted into houses (GIRL - go getter, innovator, risk taker, leader). Then we headed to potions class. The girls got to make a scary bubbly creation that bubbled over the huge glass container. One of my daisy's added the final touch that started the bubbling. Then they made lip balm to take home. Next was herbology - where they put together some mandrakes to grow before learning about different herbs and scents.  Spells was next- the girls picked and decorated their wands and got their acceptance letter with a butterfly surprise inside. It was outside time at the quiddich pitch after that .... with a obstacle/solving race first then a quiddich game. We hit the honeydukes store last for some butter beer and lots of scary named candies that the girls got to eat. A fun time was had by all. My 3 had some playground time....and my daughter didn't like the twirly tire ride. We had a sick girl (mine of course) on the way home but she was better after.  Grandpa A was there when we got home after dropping girls off to parents. A nice visit with him and then.... the boys started putting down the floor in Aidan's room. We did have an issue..... a nice heavy box fell and landed on the boy's big toe. After about 20 minutes of screaming and crying - he has a very bruised big toe.  At least the carpet out of the room is really helping with his allergies.

Some pumpkins got carved and pumpkin seeds got toasted in the evening. Needless to say - I was in bed early after watching a Harry Potter movie.

Sunday - it is going to be an interesting week with Aidan and his toe - with putting on socks and shoes. He seems to be walking fine and can move it - just a good bruise. They are off to Grandma's house today. They are headed to the cooter festival in Inverness today to see the turtles race. That leaves me a couple of hours to clean up the house a bit before everyone returns. A quick lunch date with hubby at Chili's (with a margarita with my fajita so no driving  errands for me today!) I'm headed to the sewing room shortly - the sewing machine doesn't count as heavy machinery..... right?  (which now has all Aidan's things from his room in there - I just had it all cleared out! ). I hope to get the spring blooms quilt into a top stage by the end of the day. I went with white..... I cut out the blue and just didn't like it. I'm thinking a bright green binding from the leaves in the bloom blocks eventually.... or maybe the light blue. I guess I will see what works when I get to that stage. Sharing this one with the RSC Challenge. The free pattern can be found here. Thank goodness I still have 2 days to make some pink bow tie blocks!

Some more Inklingo shapes will get printed. I had NO luck last Sunday. Lots of paper jams until I figured it out on Tuesday. Note to self - leave a 1/4 inch of just freezer paper on the top and right side of the paper going into the printer so it pulls through ok. After I did that - no printing issues! I need to prep a bunch for my trip next week so I have some hand work for the plane ride and evenings in the hotel.

I also hope to slow down a bit and finish the last row of the purple setting triangles on the trip quilt.  I do like how this one turned out. It will have to wait a bit for it's hand quilting.

Linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday....

Not! I get to do the drive to Grandma's today with the kiddos. I also pulled a turkey out of the freezer yesterday... and will finish the defrosting with the cold water bath later this morning before popping him in the oven to roast this afternoon. Lots of turkey meals this week -and the rest in the freezer for easy meals while I am gone in a few weeks.

I think it will be time to play with the printer and Inklingo again today. I finished up the last of the lemoyne stars I had prepped ages ago. Time to prep a few more... these finish at 4.5 inches and are from the free diamond set from Inklingo.

and while there I will print out some of my new hexagon shapes in a white dot print to finish the edges of the spring hexagon flower quilt.

If I have time, I might even try and make my vines for the border of the midget appliqué quilt. I am trying to think of a good take with me project (or three!) for my business trip to Vermont in a couple of weeks. Lots of plane time and evenings in the hotel room to hand stitch.

What will you be hand stitching today? Linking up with the slow stitchers over at Kathy's Quilts.

RSC Saturday....

I was thinking the surround of the spring blooms would be pink.... but I liked the light blue better. Now that I have that fabric in house - enough for the triangles and the binding, I hope to sew this one together later today.

Emily is mumbling about her triangle quilt... so that one might start getting a few of the triangles sewn together today as well.

First up - bowling for the kiddo's this morning. I will finally drop off some things to goodwill on my way to get it out of my house (and sewing area!). The house does need a clean - but I did get the bathrooms and lots of laundry done yesterday! Aidan lost his sewing time today ..... for being disrespectful and talking back yesterday. Maybe he will learn..... tough love.

Linking up with the RSC Challenge. Head on over and see what other pinks are being worked on.

Friday....

Whew... what a long week!

Monday... I took the kids to Crayola in Orlando for their day off and met up with some friends. Got him home in time for soccer practice and Emily stayed home with Dad... and started watching Hocus Pocus with him.... my favorite movie this time of year.

Tuesday... was errands and lots of running around after school. Maxie needed wet cat food (spoiled girl) and Aidan needed apples to rerun his science experiment.  I did get into the sewing room... but Aidan was the one sewing... after he practiced his guitar.

Aidan started sewing his quilt on Tuesday evening. He was getting frustrated but I talked him through it and once it was pressed and laid out.... I told him he could do all my triangles! They turned out very good. He wanted to make one block so he could see progress. We will do the four patches in orange for the four corners of this one sometime tomorrow and see if we can get his first quilt block completed this weekend. The background is grey and the stars are teal.

Wednesday... somehow more errands (no lettuce or veggies for the guinea pigs!) and then gymnastics with Em while Greg and Aidan went to his guitar lesson. Em got dropped to them then I went to a rescheduled cooking club. A much needed time out with friends... and a late night home at 9:30! 

Thursday... I mailed off some boxes finally (ok, been sitting waiting for months on one of them!) on the way to bowling. I also got a ping in my windshield on the way there.... darn rocks. At least it is small and not in my line of sight. We got done by 12:15 so I popped into Joanns and got 50% off a white dot fabric needed to finish off the spring hexies and 60% off some solid light blue for the spring blooms. Then home - make a salad and back in the car line for kid pick up. It was actually not too hot out so I decided to turn off the car and eat my salad for lunch and play some games on my kindle. When the line started moving... I tried to start the car. Nothing. Dead battery.... a  friend grabbed my car sign and picked up the kids and returned them to me. Another Mom I did not know offered to come back and jump the car with jumper cables (I asked the kids for a set for the car for my birthday in a few weeks!). I now know how to jump a car - hey you need to find the positive, right! It worked..and we headed to Sam's to get a new battery. They estimated an hour...... The kids had a snack and then grazed through the store trying all the samples. We got home with 20 minutes on the clock before we needed to leave for a soccer game. Well, we left 15 minutes after we needed to..... I miss getting places on time. We got there just in time for the game .... and Aidan scored his second goal last night. He scored his first ever goal last Thursday. He said he is going to try and get 2 goals next week! It was a great game and the teams are very evenly matched this year. A lot of fun to watch as the teams are starting to work together now.

Friday.... The car really needed an oil change so that got scheduled and done this morning. I really need new tires and an alignment.... something to look at for next week I think.

Me... I pulled out a small take with me project this week and got these 3 lemoyne stars pieced (car line, gymnastics)  and another nearly done this morning while waiting on an oil change for the car.  I hope to get the white finished in the car line today. Fingers crossed the car starts... or maybe I should leave it running? I got a full tank of gas in there after Sam's yesterday.

Next week will be a whirl wind as well... but hopefully no car issues! Hubby is on call at work so... I need to prep and hand off scouts on Monday so I can do soccer practice with the boy... in case someone doesn't get out of work on time or gets a call. Wednesday should be fun too..... bad planning on my part to double up the kids in different directions on those days. I'll make it work.

Monday design floor

I decided to lay out the spring blossom blocks this morning. Somehow I have one extra block.... I did 7 of the purple instead of the 6 needed!

Then I pulled some colors to see what the setting triangles would look like.....

It will sit until it tells me what it wants! The kids and I are headed to The Crayola Experience today in Orlando. We are meeting up with some friends there. 

We have to be home for soccer practice tonight... so dinner is in the crockpot so I don't have to deal with that later tonight. Onion, potato and carrots in a cream of mushroom sauce on the bottom with chicken leg and thighs on top that were seasoned with rosemary herb blend. We will see how it turns out! I was thinking beef stew, chuck roast or a roaster chicken... but they were all expensive... and this package was on sale for a little over $4! 

RSC Pink blossom blocks.

I found the floor in the sewing area.... and then decided it was time to sew the parts of the pink blossom blocks together. These are the last 5 I needed for this project. It will be time to start pulling fabrics for the setting triangles for this one. I could go with the white flowered print... or a color. I have a soft yellow or purple in my head for this one... but we will see what is in the stash.

Linking up with the RSC Link Party. Head on over and see what other pinks are coming out to play.

Long weekend.....

I was to be at the girl scout Camp Wildwood all weekend.... but opted to just spend a nice long day there in the heat and humidity for a sisters retreat. Lot of great ideas, networking and resources for leading my troop of girls (daisy, brownie and then it will be some juniors next year!).  I do have to say, it was sad and surprising to see all the tree damage to the trails from hurricane Irma, but thankfully no damage to the buildings.

We did have a power outage due to a branch falling on the power lines and knocking out a transformer. SECO was great and had power restored in a couple of hours so the fans could be working again (and toilets could flush!). Did I mention it was hot and humid.... in October. Mother nature forgot the humidity should be gone by now.... We had a few people with the beginning of heat stroke but thankfully I was not one of them.
 I have to make a quick trip back today to pick up a few things at the store since their internet didn't come back up for a credit card payment.

That led me to come home and have the surprise of Greg and the kids removed the carpet from Aidan's room yesterday... and they went into the pool as well! Aidan said he slept great and was able to breath this morning in his room. No mold on the back of the carpet (my worry) but I guess  we need to order the new flooring now! He has terrible allergies to dust and mold... so carpet is a no no for him.

I looked into the disaster of a garage this morning - where my office and sewing area is.... and everything gets thrown in there (yes, the pulled up carpet is in there now too) . I think today will be a clean/organize day in there.... it needs an intervention, big time. I think that is why I have not been going in there to sew - too messy even for me!

After all that... I will finally relax with some slow stitching. I have 'fixed' the last row of hexie flowers on my springtime little quilt top.... and with another in process needing a black surround, I splurged and purchased the 1 inch Inklingo hexagon pattern. This will allow me to print off hexagons with sewing lines on the back of fabric to make quick work of prepping to finish this quilt. It comes with half and 1/3 shapes as well to get that square edge. If I can find more of the white dot fabric I hope to print off a few today. I started with the free diamonds from the inklingo site and made a bunch of lemoyne stars and I must say - this is a wonderful tool to quickly get you stitching.

If I can't find more of that white dot fabric in my cleaning... I will be adding purple quarter triangles to make a square edge on the trip around the world quilt. It decided it was done and I listened! I have started adding them and have 4 in... with lots to go.

Linking up with the other slow stitchers and Oh scrap.

Wednesday....

It started. The boy started bugging me about making his quilt yesterday. Emily was home sick yesterday (she got sick after scouts on Monday night - right after we got home. At least I didn't have to clean the car as she made it to the bathroom!).... and was feeling better around noon. That lead me to pulling out the triangles for her to play with on the floor for her quilt. I'm not sure I am liking the green triangles... these is that color in the owl fabric but..... I'll let it simmer for a bit. It might get changed out.

She learned the hard way that the cats like to help out if you leave the room..... as fabric was scattered and a cat toy bear was resting on the overturned fabrics! 4 rows up from the bottom right is the white cat toy bear Maxie must have been playing with. Doesn't she look innocent up there on her perch? What Mom? I didn't play down there with the fabrics! I'm not sure how that got there or what happened!

I told Aidan after dinner if he practises his guitar.( which he helped make - beef stroganoff over egg noodles after Emily and I made individual apple crisps after Aidan's science experiment with apples - turns out the tart ones turned brown first!). He went and practiced so..... we had to start his quilt. We washed his fabrics already and he pressed them. We started with the stars.... I cut out the 128 - 2.5 inch squares and had him start drawing the lines on them. Yes, he learned there are steps and lots of prep work. He had a little help on about half of them.... someone was getting frustrated with the fabric moving and his lines not being where they should when the fabric shifted.

That led me to start thinking about my next hand piecing project (I know, I still have to add my triangles to the trip quilt to square it up). I saw the hexagon flowers in the drawer from the RSC Challenge a few years ago... sitting and waiting.
I also did one in spring colors for a small one to see how to hand stitch them together.

I had one last row that was not working correctly so it got put aside. Well, it came out last night and got fixed. The last row is now attached. Now I need to figure out how to finish it off to make it square - add white hexies all around and then cut to make it square? Turn under the 1/4 inch seam and appliqué to a border all around? I'll think on that one for a bit. It reminded me how to put these together so I also need to decide if I will add the black surround like I was thinking to the RSC flowers, make a bunch of black hexies to put in between the 'rows' of flowers like this one with white, nix the black and just sew the colorful flowers together as is..... so many decisions.

Time for a quick shower and then working today. I'll let these thoughts swirl in the back of the mind and see what happens with them.

Slow Sunday Stitching...

I hope to add the last side of the purple onto the trip quilt later today.  I'm not sure if the quarter square triangles will start next... or if I will add another row or two. Right now... I am leaning toward making some qst's out of the same purple to finish this one off. I am thinking it just wants to be done. Of course... it will need a very good pressing, checking for seams that might need some fixing and then it will be prepped for hand quilting.

Linking up with the other Slow Sunday stitchers. Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers from Canada. For some reason my kids have school tomorrow but are off next Monday. I'm thinking someone doesn't know how to read the holiday calendar two years in a row!
Also hoping the readers in the path of hurricane Nate fared well.

A Finish!

Can it really be? Did I actually complete something? Why yes, yes I did!

Crayon Box

Not a boring backing.

I finished the hand stitching of the binding on this crayon box quilt at bowling Thursday. This was not a UFO... but rather a project from the RSC Challenge this year. I believe I somehow started this on the multi color month I think? It is a little one finishing off at 44x58.

That means I can start something new..... ok, most of these are new purchases for the triangle quilt for Emily... but a couple of the pinks came from stash. I have 132 - 6.5 inch triangles cut out. I need 204....must search a little more in the stash to find the last ones needed.

From some of the above scraps I cut out my 4 inch squares to make the last of the spring blossom blocks. 5 will get made at some point.

Linking up with the RSC Challenge. Since I had a 3 hour nap after bowling this morning with the kids (and the splitting sinus headache finally went away) I might have sewing time later tonight when I know I won't be tired!

17 in 2017.... September

I've been working on my hand pieced trip around the world quilt top for the month of September. When I pulled it out back before Hurricane Irma was set to arrive in Florida - I was on the first side of round 23 the dark pink round. These are 2 inch squares I am adding onto the quilt in rounds.

My helper Maxie Cat

Round 23

I believe I am now on round  28 - the light purple and it just needs one last side to get stitched on which will probably happen today at bowling.

Round 28 = 112 purple squares. 

It is around 60 inches square at this point. I am thinking it might be close to being finished. I think the kids have selected a medium green leaf print for the next round..... I might end it off after that with some dark blue quarter square triangles. But..... I am reserving the right to change my mind!

Linking up with Meridythe for the 17 in 2017 for September. Somehow this UFO did not make my list...but I assure you it has been in process on and off since January of 2014!

Shopping with Aidan....

The kids were looking through my quilting books a few months ago and both decided they wanted to make quilts. They each picked one out. Since Emily will be helping (laying out fabrics and determining how it looks) with the 60 degree triangle one this month, it was time to humor the boy and let him pick out his fabrics. We headed to the store on Saturday night to run a bunch of errands.

He picked out a quilt pattern by Kim Diehl called Twilight Hopscotch but wanted to have it done in teal and orange.

The big decision was what to use as the background color. He didn't like the white or cream ('it's too bright mom!'), I suggested black and he nixed that idea - 'too dark Mom!'. I pointed him to the grey..... he liked a light one but decided it was too light and instead picked a medium shade. He is quite happy with his choices.  He has decided the stars and the big squares will be teal and the little squares orange with grey as the background. I suggested the background be teal but he was having nothing to do with that choice!

When asked how long it will take him - he responded, a couple of years I think!.
So glad he realizes it will not be done tomorrow!

October in Pink.

Emily was a wee bit upset when the springtime triangle quilt left the house last December. I told her I could make another one. Well, in my head I figured I would do that when the pink month came up in the RSC Rotation. October is the month when pink was selected.

I had made this quilt back in March/April of 2014 with a Triangle quilt along over at sassy quilter.com. I think I will just refer back to that quilt along and work on making another one this month. This week I hope to combine steps 1+2 - assuming I can find the colors Emily wants in the stash.  That would be selecting fabrics and cutting out the 200 and change of the 6 inch triangles. I think I cut mine at 6.5 inches when I made my original so if I have enough fabric I will do that again. Anyone else want to join in?

Slow Sunday Stitching.

Progress has been made on the hand pieced trip around the world quilt this week. The blue got finished and Emily selected the purple - which got cut out (112 - 2 inch squares) and have begun being added. I hear a darker green might be the next round.... but we will see.

Linking up with the other slow stitchers at Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching.