August checking in to see how I did... and Sept goals!

Hmmm.... looks like I made progress at the beginning of the month. Lets see what was on the list.
1.)  Finish the binding on Scrappy Houses quilt. Finished this on Aug 2!
2.)  Make and attach binding to Dresden Plate Quilt - done Aug 5!
3.) Make a backing and pin baby hearts for quilting - currently hand quilting 29 of 63 blocks done.
4.) Midget Applique quilt - no progress.... still in drawer.
5.) Green Tumblers hand piecing - 8 rows are all sewn together as 1/2 the quilt top done, another 4 rows are completed and need to get added to it. 4 rows to go!
6.) Assemble BITA blocks - nope -still sitting in their box.
7.) Work on Emily's triangle quilt - nope.
8.) help Aidan with his quilt - nope.

The start of school and all that craziness happened mid month. That included a pre school day trip to Weeki Watchi springs for fun. A girl scout recruitment event and my troop meeting starting again - we have had 2 so far.
I expect next month to be a wee bit crazy - one business travel week home to Vermont and cooler weather I hope! A big ty to hubby who will leave work early that week to pick up kids from school  including an early release day at noon so I don't have to get a sitter to pick them up and stay with until 6PM when he normally gets home. 2 deadlines at work Oct 1, and normal kid activities including checking homework this year.
Oh, the fridge also got defrosted Wednesday night and one of the ice makers is working again... just not the one in the door! I did finally figure out how to get the water working again yesterday afternoon. The pantry also got organized and sorted, as well as 4 cabinets in the kitchen. Unfortunately it has been raining with thunder each evening this week.... so no nightly walk or hitting my steps goal. Hopefully the weather pattern changes next week, I like my evening walk!

Goals for September.... Survive! Just kidding!
1.) Finish hand quilting the baby hearts.
2.) Finish the last 4 rows of the tumbler quilt and attach it all into a top.
3.) Start making star blocks out of the 16 patches from the RSC Challenge. 2 sets - one in tan and one in black for backgrounds.
4.) Make the Squared Away RSC challenge blocks for Sept, and the pink ones too!
5.) Maybe bring yarn with and start a crochet granny continuous square afghan to use up some caron yarns I have in blues, cream and grey.

We will see how I do at the end of September!

RSC Blocks....

I pulled out the 16 patch blocks that I made over the last year or two with the RSC Challenge. I have a good amount of them.... and was thinking of doing another version of my cubed quilt with grey as the background..... I do have 25 blocks... which is what I used in the below quilt.....

But I am in a mode to sew them up and clear them out. It takes a little more thinking to make the alternate block for that pattern (and a clean floor to lay them out on!) and I am not in thinking/creative mode with a couple of deadlines approaching in the next month at work. I think instead I will make them into stars and have them ready to donate next year to the Hands 2 Help cause..... or locally if something comes up before then. I have made a couple of these and love how they look. This one I get to see at my MIL's as it went to Papa Andy. It has a nice snuggly fleece backing. I like this look....so will probably do the squares on the edge of the blocks for one of them... maybe both!

This one I just did a plain square in the corner of the star block.... I don't remember where this one ended up. It might be somewhere in my house!

My 16 patch blocks made with 2.5 inch squares.... into sets of 12.

I sorted and pulled some backgrounds. I think the tan will look good with the set on the left. I was thinking black or grey for the group on the right. I think the black won when I laid it out. Yes, Peanut stayed there and would not move so I just put them on top of him. He likes to be covered!

The most difficult part when you have generic blocks - figuring out what to do with them! I have a plan now.... so I can start sewing these into bigger star blocks.

Linking up on Saturday with the RSC Challenge.  Who knows... I might have some stars made by then!

Slow Sunday stitching.....

Slow stitching is all I see to be doing lately. The kids opted to stay home today instead of going to Grandma's. I think the boy did because I was away all of yesterday with Emily for a girl scout event then stopped to get her a riding helmet at The Tack Shack - wonderful store with extremely helpful and patient associates.

Last night was movie night - since my feet needed to be up! We watched Finding Dory - a very cute movie. I got a few more blocks hand stitched.
Time for a check in on Ari's quilt - 22 blocks quilted of 63. I really need to get a few blocks quilted each evening to get this done.

Ollie - lets play Mom!

Peanut - my toy!

Linking up with Kathy and the other slow stitchers. 

If you'd like to see my progress on other hand stitching - my tumbler quilt has 11 of 16 rows stitched. This one should end up around 72 inches square. Yes, the cats love quilts and to 'help'!

Friday....

So sad when you don't get to play with the sewing machine all week! Good thing I have hand work projects prepped.

Row 11 of 16 got stitched together yesterday at my first day of bowling. Here they are all laid out and sewn into sets of 2 rows.  Ignore Peanut's tail at the bottom! Ollie is holding down the rows for me. Yes, the cats are probably brothers and look very much alike but the personalities are complete opposites.

Somehow.. despite laying them out and trying not to get the same fabrics right next to each other.... I have one or two that got switched around. Do I like it - no. Will I change it.... nope! That is just how scrappy quilts are sometimes! Trust me.. I tried moving the rows of 2 around and it just causes more fabrics hitting at the same spot so it will stay like this.

I have one more row prepped to work on. I think this might go with me tomorrow to a gs recruitment for a few hours. I might have time to hand stitch the sets of 2 into sets of 4 while I am there for 4 hours. I agreed to do this one since it is inside a building with AC. The temps in Florida reach 'feels like 100+' by 10AM and I do not deal well with heat.  I'm going to set up a couple of games my girls came up with to earn one badge and will pull together some other things from journey's and badges we have done.

Saturday....

The first week of school is in the books. Both kids have new to the school teachers that they love. Each has 2 teachers this year - one does math and science and the other does language arts and social studies. Aidan was also offered a 5th grade safety patrol position for the first semester ... something he has wanted since 1st grade! He is on cloud nine and got his belt on Friday for it!

Aidan's rose out by the shed is in bloom.

Greg was off work yesterday so was able to go to Emily's riding lesson. Huge smile on her face as she walked Stella from one area to another without the lead on. She even got to bring her outside for a walk along the property in full control with her trainer by her side. We'll let her drop gymnastics and continue with horses.... which gets her down to 2 things. Homework starts next week at school... oh sorry, they are calling it PAS - practice and additional support work... since they stopped homework last year and saw the consequences. No mention of this publicly of course.....

Last night was cooking club - we made some great food, laughed and chatted and generally had a great time. Emily went with me and played with my co-leaders girls while I cooked and chatted.

As for sewing.... Just some hand work for me this week. A little progress on Ari's baby hearts quilt. 15 of 63 blocks quilted.

Almost done 2 rows of green tumblers while at gymnastics and car line. This will make 10 of 16 rows done. Just 2 to add to that last row.

As for orange....
My third squared away block.

I changed where the background was in each of them and really liked to see how different they all look. I'm not sure which is my favorite!

Grandma turns 75 on Monday.... so she requested a meal out tonight with family. We switched days with Grandpa - he'll come visit tomorrow instead of today - and the kids will go to Grandma today and then Greg and I will go over for dinner out and retrieve the kids.

Busy weekend (cause I leave things for the last minute!) - prep for first girl scout meeting this year on Monday, prep for a recruiting table I am doing next Saturday, working a few hours - making up for that Weeki Watchi day and a couple of deadlines at work coming up.  Maybe tackle hacking back a few more bushes  before it hits feels like 100+ and the normal picking up the house ...... oh, and figuring out kid care for a week next month while I am away on business. Sigh.. it never ends. I see some relaxing hand stitching in the evenings this weekend ......

Linking up Saturday with the RSC Challenge, Sunday with Slow Sunday Stitching and Oh Scrap.

Slow Sunday

I would have made a little more progress on hand quilting this baby quilt last night..... but someone was pretty comfy. I leave it on my quilt stand and someone has decide that is a wonderful napping spot. Silly Peanut. A couple of nights ago he knocked off 2 of them to get on the one quilt he thought was the most comfy.

I am hand stitching an X through the nine patch and outline stitching 2 times around the heart and once inside. 8 of 63 blocks are quilted.

I plan to get a few more blocks quilted on this later this afternoon. First up is cleaning the house... which really needs a good vacuum, mop and cleaning up before the kids head to school tomorrow. They are off to grandma's for the day but will get returned early since they need to get up early for the first day of  school tomorrow! They met their teachers on Friday - both have new to the school teachers this year. Each have a good friend in their class - which makes things easier. Aidan knows quite a few kids in his class and his good friend Jackari is in there. Emily has a few girls that were in her class in kindergarten but her good friend Serianna is in her class this year. She is very excited.


I'll be prepping some applique on my save the bees block today for some hand work in the car line tomorrow. I also have the next 2 rows of the tumbler hand piecing picked out, they need to get their stitching line drawn on them today as well. So nice to have a quiet Sunday to putter around the house and prep things. A big thank you to my MIL for taking the kids for a few hours every Sunday to give us a break and make some great memories with the kids.

Linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Stitchers today.

RSC in Orange....

I got 2 squared away blocks made today while the kids took over the kitchen to make a marble bundt cake. I was called in to swirl the batter since they didn't know how to do that. I think they have made a quarter of the recipes from his Hershey's Chocolate cookbook in the last year. We had a chocolate torte with cherries on top earlier this week... really yummy. It seemed to disappear without a photo.

Linking up with the RSC Challenge. I think I'll try and sneak back into the sewing room and make the 3rd one while they are distracted making homemade lemonade with the leftover lemon juice. I think I am off the hook for dinner tonight - we went out to eat for lunch at Southern Pig and Cattle and I think everyone is still stuffed. Yummy ribs though. They had a complementary ice cream maker (soft serve or creemee if you live in VT!) on the way out so 3 of us got a little cone. Very yummy. 

Save the Bee's BOM - Starting point.

There is a Free BOM (4 blocks!) from Jacquelynne Steves called 'Save the Bee's'. She sent the first block instructions out on Monday and will release one block per month over the next 4 months. I  finally looked at some fabrics and decided to use up some of the hand dyed or batik scraps I have hanging around from a few quilts I have made. I know I have more somewhere... but these were in a basket just asking to be used! I think I will have a purple flower for the first block. I'm still deciding colors for the outside... time to break out the coloring pencils and see what I come up with and what fabrics I can find to make it work!

Have you signed up yet? There is still time and for ideas you can visit a few of her testers who have already completed their first block. This will be my first attempt at embroidery - wish me luck.

Tumbler progress.... half way point!

I did a little hand work on Sunday and have 8 rows hand stitched.... and the rows are stitched into sets of two. Since there are going to be 16 rows, this is half done!

I took a day off on Monday and went with Grandma and the kids to Weeki Watchi - Natural springs beach and waterslide park with a lazy river. They only let in a small amount of people (1500 I think) and were at full capacity yesterday. It did not feel crowded and the cost was about $20 for adults and $14 for the kids ($13 and $8 to get in and $6 for the lazy river tube ride all day!). Not bad and the food prices inside were normal... not crazy at all. The kids enjoyed this more than the expensive parks in Orlando! The 72 degree water kept us cool all day despite the 95 degree weather.

The entrance price included the mermaid show - 30 minutes - boy can they hold their breath for a long time!

We even saw this guy just walking around!

The kids were completely wiped out last night and both slept for 12 hours! The boy got a little dehydrated so I'll make sure he has lots of liquids today and rests. 

Slow Stitching Sunday....

A little more binding stitching on the QAYG Dresden plate quilt is on tap for the day. 2 sides are done and 2 to go! I remembered to add that label triangle again! A 10 inch square ironed in half and added to a corner as I stitched the binding to the front of the quilt.

Linking up with Kathy at the Slow Sunday Stitching link and Oh Scrap. Here is a photo of the quilt this morning with 2 sides of binding to go - the front.

The back - so you can see how the quilt as you go method looks on the back.... not to mention all that hand quilting on the dresdens looks really good this way!

Scrappy Houses is Finished!

Emily was disappointed I finished the binding so I told her she should go around and check my work and add some stitches if she see's any gaps..... and cut my extra threads if she see's any!

Peanut would not budge - so you get a cat on the quilt this morning.

Linking up to the RSC Challenge.

August... new month and new color at the RSC Challenge..... Orange!

I'll have to go through and see what needs some orange on my current RSC projects and what catch up I still need to do.

I decided to set some goals for the month.... we will see how I do!

1.)Finish the binding on the Scrappy Houses quilt - 2 sides done and 2 to go. Finished Thursday August 2! 

2.)Make and attach the binding to the Dresden Plates quilt - Completed August 5.

3.)Make a backing and pin the Chain of Hearts baby quilt so I can start hand quilting it..... maybe I'll machine quilt this one instead.....or a combo of both. Machine through the 9 patches and hand quilt around the hearts...... Made backing and pinned 8/5 started hand quilting 8/9.

4.) Pull out the midget appliqué quilt and start working on the appliqué borders -  making some green vines, leaves and flowers to put all around the quilt..... this might take a back seat depending on the baby quilt hand quilting.... although it might be a good car line project...... thinking....

5.) Continue with the green and cream tumbler blocks - goal one row per week hand stitched. I marked 2 rows last night with stitching lines.

Well shoot.... those are ALL hand work!

6.) Assemble all the birds in the air blocks into a quilt top. There... that one is machine work!
7.) Work on a couple of rows of Emily's 60 degree triangle quilt with her.

8.) If I have patience... work with Aidan to get another block done on his quilt.

They just got threatened to be put into camp again with all the screaming and yelling this morning..... we will see if that works so I can work in peace and quiet for the next couple of hours.