Saturday, October 31, 2020

October OMG....

Well, I did not meet my goal to have this as a completed top BUT.... progress was made. All 4 borders are attached. I still need to add the vine to all the corners to connect them and add some more flowers and some leaves. 


This Midget Applique quilt top went from this at the beginning of October 


To this at the end of October. Progress at least! 



 



Friday, October 30, 2020

Last RSC in yellow.

 This week I made 6 yellow sweet confetti blocks after carefully counting and finding 90 blocks so far. I needed 96 for the quilt. I laid them out (in way too small of a space it appears). Count of 95! There are 6 yellow blocks. I'm not sure where the other one ran away to, or if I just counted wrong..... Oh well, it will either turn up before I decide to sew these together or I'll just make another one in yellow. I hope I like this one more when I spread out the colors a little better and get it sewn together. A bit busy. Not sure if an all over baptist fan or just outline quilting on this one but plenty of time to think on that decision. This one should measure 54.5x72.5 according to the Sunday Best Quilts book where I got the pattern from.


I did get the cobblestones pinned yesterday. Hopefully it will get quilted this weekend. We finally got some cooler weather.... my morning walk was in 56 degrees without humidity. It was heavenly! The house is opened up with everything open and 73 degrees.

Linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Saturday morning.

Tomorrow (Saturday) is a horse show where Emily rides. A 'home' show so 4-5 hours. Last time a couple years ago she had her in 4 events.... we are novices at this so we will find out as it happens. The end is a Halloween contest for horse and rider. Emily is going as Sarah Sanderson from Hocus Pocus (the blond witch) and Lance her horse will be somehow dressed as a broom. We have brown fabric, raffia and thinking PVC pipe or brown construction paper for the broom handle. Not 100% sure how it will work but we will see how it goes tomorrow! Greg got tomorrow off so he could go, however.... he was on his back fixing the dryer heating element yesterday morning and is feeling it today. He called out reluctantly tonight after hemming and hawing for a couple of hours this morning. Let's hope rest and Tylenol and Advil and he will be better for work on Monday. Grandma is planning to come over for the show so she will have at least 2 people cheering her on! 

 


Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Meals.....

 Some weeks I am all prepared for meals and other weeks I stress it out not knowing what will be for dinner until right before I enter the kitchen. Thank goodness I have a stocked freezer, pantry and fridge so I can come up with 'something'.  If people turn up their nose - the boy will grab frozen salmon and cook that. Emily would grab a hungry man meal or make mac n cheese. 

This past week I decided with the kids going back to school and me having to pick them up for 3:45... which means we get home a good half hour after that... I decided no stress was better this week!

I made a list of meals.... trying to come up with things we have not had in the past week or two. We seemed to have had a lot of chicken last week, when I actually cooked! 

My list was - lemon chicken and rice, egg roll in a bowl, chicken enchiladas, grammy's spaghetti sauce (from the freezer!), meatloaf.

So far this week - I have done pretty good. Everyone in the family looked at the list and 'approved' it. 

Monday was grammy's spaghetti sauce (meat sauce I made earlier this month) with pasta. 

Tuesday - hubby was home to eat with us so we had lemon chicken with thyme over rice and some green beans and asparagus. Emily turned up her nose at the beans and cooked up some corn for her veggie.

Wednesday - I picked up some pork chops Monday night at Sam's club so I cooked up some of them tonight with the leftover butternut squash, home made applesauce and to use up some of the long english cucumbers - a cucumber salad (Emily) and a quick pickle (Aidan).

Thursday - if I can get some ground pork.... will become egg roll in a bowl with the big bag of coleslaw I picked up Monday night. I don't expect leftovers! This is also called Crack Slaw! It is sooo good. Looks like I could use italian sausage too. 

Friday will be meat loaf, a veggie and potato. I use the recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook for fluffy meat loaf. 

Saturday - after a long day at horses for a horse show.... it might be chicken enchiladas. We will see how hot it is and how much I feel like cooking.

So, that was my meal 'plan' for this week. I'll be thinking this weekend what to come up with for next week's meals! 

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Monday update

 The kids had a good day at school and were ever so happy to be back to in person schooling. I even got a 'I'm glad you forced me to go back' from Aidan which is high praise. A little snafu in the morning had him going to 3 different places for his 'Panther Primetime = homeroom'. The first 2 were in error (there were a lot of kids going back and some confusion) but.... he got to see two of his old teachers from last year and this first quarter! They were happy to see him in person (his gifted teacher is his history teacher for all 3 middle school years and his robotics teacher - same person as last year and first quarter). Despite the mishap I think that actually started his day off good seeing some old faces. One of the boys from his classes last year asked him if he remembered him! Aidan said of course Tyler, I remember you. It has been since the second week of March when they last saw each other.

Emily remembered some names and faces from virtual in her classes and in Ag - one of the girls approached her and said she has seen her at horses and does she remember her! Today is their 'B' day for the other 3 classes so we will see how it goes. No picture allowed so I did snap this one as they were walking to the car yesterday morning. 


As for me.... I think I am finally done with the crown! I had my dentist appointment yesterday afternoon. Other than them not being able to just pull the temporary crown out (it was the old permanent one that cracked as they were putting it in last time!), the new one went in and all is good again. I was out of there in plenty of time to stop and get a reward iced coffee at Dunkin Donuts on the way to pick up the kids.

One of Aidan's roses is in bloom. I snapped this last night while supervising 9 chickens released from their run to roam in the yard and eat grass and bugs.

In my wait time... I got a couple of the hexagon QAYG stitched down! It is just like stitching binding, which I actually like doing! Win, Win.



 

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Sunday Stitching....

It won't be a completely slow Sunday as I have a bunch of masks to make for the kids who are going back to in person school tomorrow. Technically our numbers in our county are hovering at controlled community spread, however I see lots of photo's of people in our area at parties without masks. There have also been a few 'rallies' in the area that are also mask free with no social distancing. Sigh. 

The kids were able to log into their school portal and see their new schedules. They each have some teacher changes but both did get their same elective so that is a positive.  We will see how it goes tomorrow. I just need to add the ear loops and continuous loop to them. Aidan's are on the left and Emily's on the right. The extra paw print one is up for grabs at the top of his pile.

I did a little prep work while in the sewing room. Another Endless Diamond block is cut out and ready to go into a baggie. I have created a tab for them with the information and have put the template I created on there as a PDF if you are interested in trying it out.  

I also did prep for a Hexagon quilt as you go - 7 blocks - to make a little quilt and see how it works. I seem to have mentioned starting a Hexagon quilt as you go in November and a few people have purchased the templates and are planning to join along. I know I am going to do mine by hand as a 'car wait line' project but they can be machine stitched as well. You can read a little more about that project here in case you are tempted to start something new! I love the idea that when you are done, in whatever stage it is done... no finishing needed! That seems to be my stall point! I purchased the 'magic pins' when I got the template and used them to hold down those edges for stitching. 

After cutting out the background with the big hexagon, and the leftover batting and middle with the smaller hexagon, I used the big one for my placement.


7 pinned and ready to stitch.


Into their baggie with a spool of thread. I just need to add a pin cushion, scissors and some needles.

Linking up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Friday, October 23, 2020

RSC Stashbuster blocks....

Some sewing in yellow happened this week. I was able to sew my two yellow Stashbuster blocks (well, 8 blocks really). This is the set of them. I need to rearrange it a bit for a better low, medium to dark blend. 


I also added 2 16 patch blocks in yellow to the set. I think this one will continue next year.... but if not they can be worked into something pretty easy. I like making stars with these by adding a flying geese block to 4 sides. There was a neutral leftover from a previous year when I made these guys into my cube quilt..... that one is on the hope chest at the bottom of my bed. 


Linking up with the RSC on Saturday morning. 

The rest of the post is the chickens. It appears I have not posted photo's of the newer set in a while. They are now outside in their new 'house'. We have 2 coops now - each with a 8x8 run and those runs are connected with a door and chicken wire in between to keep them separate until the littles get a little bigger. They are about 2 months and the older set are about 4 months. They are molting.... so no eggs from the big set yet.

The bigger coop where everyone will end up eventually. It just needs some nesting boxes made and the window on the inside part set up. They were just out for some 'grass' time before it rained.

Maple, Myrtle, DC - Daisy Chickaletta, Rose and Poppy - 3 Barred Rock and 2 Easter Eggers.

The older set - Emily sitting  with Fred, Lilly, Molly and Emma

                                Emily holding Poppy - one of the Easter eggers (Rose is one too).

Thursday, October 22, 2020

Thursday... Endless Diamond page created.

 I added a page to the blog with the information I have found on my 'Endless Diamond' blocks. It contains the information on how I found the block, how I drafted mine and some links to hand piecing tips. I also found a book and a template set that produce a block like mine. 

I have sent out the PDF scan of my created template by e-mail to a couple of people.

Check it out if you are interested!



Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Hexagon QAYG (Quilt as you go)....

So, back in September I was surfing the web (I know, always dangerous!) and came upon Missouri Star Company's video of making hexagon quilt as you go projects. I believe I asked someone to stop me but no....... you all encouraged me to start a new project instead! (see how I placed that blame away from myself!). I figured I'd wait for 'birthday monies' in November to order the Daisy and Grace templates...... a few of you mentioned you might want to join in on my 'rabbit hole' project.... cause I seem to be an enabler! 

I was ordering something from Amazon... and well, there might have been anniversary money in September .... so I ended up ordering a similar template set that should work just fine for this project. I think it was about the same price but also included that 60 degree triangle shape that might come in handy for some other project. From what I can tell, it is slightly smaller than the Daisy and Grace templates. For me, the big hexagon measures 5 3/4 inches rather than 6 inches. It is going to work just fine for me!

Honestly, I'm not sure where this one will take me. I had purchased a couple of FQ bundles from Aldi a while ago for $5..... They are pretty blues and greys. I think I will start out with that and just play a bit and see what happens. This 'might' become a RSC project next year.... time will tell. I sure do have tons off scraps of warm and natural batting hanging around and this will be a great use for all those parts and pieces.

There may be a 'practice' piece of 7 hexagons in Christmas fabrics to make a hexagon 'candle mat' for the table. There are instructions on how to do them by machine but I'm tempted to do them by hand. I know, like I need another hand piecing project!  

My original plan was to start this in November.... but as the kids are going back to in person school Monday... I might prep those 7 Christmas hexagons this weekend and pop them in the car with some thread, needle and scissors for the car line pickup next week and see what I am getting myself into.

Feel free to join along! It is always fun to pull people down that rabbit hole with me!




Sunday, October 18, 2020

Sunday in slow motion....

 I had a bit of a slow Saturday yesterday. I've had a sore throat in the afternoon/evening for the past week now. This usually only lasts 2-3 days then goes away for a few weeks then comes back. Things are still in bloom down here so probably allergies. I'm enjoying my night blooming jasmine even if it might be causing my sore throat! Might have to go have a strep test just in case as it has been lingering for a while now.

We also took a trip to the pumpkin picking patch on Friday afternoon after the kids were done with school. It was a beautiful day wandering around the corn maze - a very small one compared to up north. The kids always go to the end of the patch to pick their pumpkins. They each got one to carve on Halloween and a gourd for their desk in their rooms. We also got 3 huge sunflowers which we are enjoying inside for now. After they droop too much we'll let the chickens have the sunflower seeds! Would you believe... I switched my purse to a small cross shoulder bag and left my phone at home! No photo's and it messed up my plans to call ahead to order dinner for pick up on the drive home. The pumpkin patch was about 25-30 minutes from home and 15 minutes from restaurants on the way home. Oh well. We all survived but I was disappointed about the no photos from the patch this year.

After a run to Joann's with Emily (and masks on!) to get brown fabric and raffia to drape over the back end of a horse.... to make him into a broom for the dress up part of the horse show, it was time to bring her to her riding lesson. She is planning to be Sarah Sanderson from Hocus Pocus and her lesson horse Lance will become a broom! The horse show is on Halloween.  She has only done one before from when she first started riding.

I decided to have a lazy afternoon of sitting and stitching yesterday. I got the vines stitched down on the 4th border for the midget applique quilt. I'll add some flowers to it today and then attach to the rest of the quilt. This has been completely done by hand over a few years.

I also added some rows to the crochet afghan for Emily..... until someone decided they needed to use me as a bed! Silly Peanut



The Endless Diamond blocks are coming along. I have 16 completed and one more prepped and ready to go. I guess it should be a bit of a prep day today with flowers and leaves for the first quilt and block pieces for the Endless Diamond quilt.



Linking up with the other Slow stitchers over at Kathy's Quilts.




Friday, October 16, 2020

Cobblestone blocks are a top!


 I finally got this to a top stage. It needs pinning and quilting but progress was made!

Linking up Saturday with the RSC

Thursday, October 15, 2020

Endless Diamond

I added another completed Endless Diamond to the pile yesterday. After a couple of days of nothing to show it was nice to get something done.

Today is a day off for me. I need to get moving and get my walk in before it gets too hot. I have been walking at lunch the last couple of days as it has been really foggy in the morning. It was feels like 88 or 90 around 11:30AM.... so I'd prefer to get out now! I went and counted 9 wild turkeys!


The kids have 4 days left to the first quarter of school after today. They are off next Thursday and Friday. We have until Wednesday to decide on how they are learning....and we are thinking they need to go back to in person learning. They are both doing very well with on-line learning.... attending classes and handing in their work. Their grades are exactly like they have been in the past. They need the social interaction... and Emily really wants to have the in class Agriculture experience at school with the gardens and animals. I plan to send the e-mail today... there is the realization they will probably have different teachers and their  schedules and electives might change..... fingers crossed he still gets robotics and her with Ag. We know Em's history teacher will change - she is in the gifted civics as that was the only virtual class open for her schedule. That meant the kids each had her as a teacher this quarter for history.  We know the school class size is at or over capacity. With the administration doing block days for less change and mandatory masks inside, we have not heard of any major issues so are willing to take the risk. It sounds like the teachers usually take the kids outside for fresh air and mask free time during their block time (2 class periods together). Since the grandparents down here are both going out to eat in restaurants.... it kinda defeats the purpose of keeping the kids 'safer' to keep them safe! Greg's back is a lot better than it was as well, just using tylenol for pain now. Not great but a lot better than it was. 

To get the boy more comfortable with getting out and about.... I asked what he wanted to do 'special' next Thursday on my day off. He had mentioned a trip up to the Panhandle sometime to see a airplane museum there.... that is 5 hours away! I told him sometime in the future, find something closer to home. He found the Florida Air Museum in Lakeland... only 1.5 hours away. That will be my adventure next week with the kids. I figured Emily has horses and a horse show coming up on Halloween so it was his choice this time. 

Almost 10... time to get moving and get something accomplished today!

Monday, October 12, 2020

Endless Diamond Update....

 


15 of these blocks are completed. I do have another 2 prepped and ready for hand stitching. Each block is 12 inches finished.... so with one more it will be 48x48. I still like making these (I have not been distracted by something 'new' yet!), so I will continue on. Will I make it to 49 blocks for a 7x7 setting and 84x84 inch size? Time will tell!



Sunday, October 11, 2020

Slow Sunday....

 I am all prepped in the slow stitching department after a prep day Thursday afternoon! It is a nice feeling to have a few things to select from when you just don't know what you feel like working on!


Last night, it was movie night. We had planned to watch the original Willy Wonka, but I guess I had not saved it the last time it ran so Emily popped in Hocus Pocus for me. In return, I pulled out her crochet afghan and added a few rows of stitching to it. She laid down on the floor with it and said it needs to be about another 12 inches - which is about one more skein of yarn. 

At horses yesterday (in the hot and humid air, please send cooler weather to Florida!) I got some stitching in on another Endless Diamond block.


The third border got added to the midget applique quilt. Lots more flowers and leaves need to get added. When I got up from the recliner to take a few photo's to post, this is what happened to my spot! Taken by the Nutty cat (Peanut). 




Linking up with the Slow Sunday stitchers. Hope you are able to get some relaxing stitching in today with needles of your choice.


Friday, October 9, 2020

RSC Cobblestones

 I had a very productive day off on Thursday and managed to sew my yellow cobblestone row together. Now the decision as to how to lay out the row colors for a quilt top! Thoughts? There will be a small grey strip in between each of the rows.


A

B

C

Linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge on Saturday morning.

Prep work....

 I really enjoyed my day off Thursday. The morning was lazy and then I made a batch of soft pretzels. They were yummy! I might have sent this photo to Greg at work. He loves pretzels =).


I marked and cut Endless Diamond parts for the next 3 blocks.


Picked some fabrics for flowers. I'll hand baste some of the circles and I'll just needle turn the purple and blues. 


A bunch of vines were also made. These will be for the last border and all the corners and a few might stick out here and there for a flower or two.


I also got this little one finished! I used a special batting so it should be able to be used as a hot pad on the table. I believe it is about 9 inches square.



Not too bad for a day off. 

Thursday, October 8, 2020

Thursday...

I have not been doing much hand stitching this week. Games on the phone have been happening instead at night. I did make some progress on this last night. Just that one corner to stitch in and then I really need to prep some more of these today.

These 5 chickens - 3 barred rock (black and whites) and 2 easter egger (mix) spent the night outside! The coop was finished up enough for that. A little work is needed to dig and bury the wire to the ground so critters don't dig in and a door is needed in between the two. There might be a quilt hanging there right now after a couple decided to fly into the others section of the cages last night. They got put to bed early due to the rain last night. 

During some free range time Tuesday afternoon after not having any since Saturday. I supervise them as there are chicken hawks around. Lily decided to claim the chair as hers.

Arn't I a pretty girl?



Today is my day off working. Greg is off to work this morning. Kids are logging into school for the day. 

My Noom (Down 13 pounds since June 23 when I started!) has let me know today is a day off as well! I love that this is no special foods, nothing is off limits and it wants me to fly free after the 4 months if we are comfortable in what we have learned. Lets hope the blood work next month reflects the change. I was pre-diabetic last year so this was a needed change for health reasons. The benefit - I am sleeping better, have more energy and feel much better! Heck - the size 14 pants are too big and the size 12 are comfortable to a little big =) 

We won't go into yesterday's dentist episode. I had a tooth infection, which needed cleaning out, antibiotics and then a root canal 2 weeks after that had healed. Then 3 weeks to get the temporary crown..... which should have been a 1.5-2 hour appointment but was more like 3 hours. Another 2 weeks and I went yesterday to get the permanent crown on... they put it in and said to bite down. I did. Crunch! It broke and there was a perfect circle out of it! Sigh... They fixed that one up and put it in as a temporary crown and made the mold for another permanent crown to be made. I get to wait almost 3 weeks this time .... Sigh. It has been a long 2+ months. On the positive - I'm not paying for this 'additional' stuff and it doesn't hurt. I just can't eat sticky things.... or popcorn. I do love my popcorn at night so it has been a very long time........

On tap for today is some outside work in the garden and trimming of the various bushes around the house. Some digging around the coop as well. But first... I think I'll visit the sewing room and play with some fabric.

Saturday, October 3, 2020

Stars and Nines is Finished!


 Stars and Nines is finished! Well, I do need to snip threads and write the label and toss it in the wash.... but it is DONE! I plan to mail this out to my sister on Monday. 

Linking up with the RSC Challenge!

RSC in Yellow????

 Since that is the last color of the rainbow and we have not worked on it yet this year I believe yellow is Octobers color of the month!

I technically did a little yellow last month to make a couple stars and nines... which is getting it's binding hand sewn down today.  I plan to wash it on Sunday and mail it out on Monday to my sister. This one finishes at 48x60. 


I was able to cut out the 14 yellow cobblestone blocks. Those will get sewn up today and made into their strip. I purchased some grey for the strip in between each of the rows already. My hope is to have that one to a top by next week. Ignore the mess under the sewing table!


I'll bring my Endless Diamonds to Emilys horse riding lesson today.... there is a little yellow. I went with a 'halloween' theme for this block! 


A lot of building has been happening in the back yard. Seems if you get chickens at different times you can't just put them in together when they are different sizes.... So Greg got to build another coop! This is bigger and more stable and will eventually house all 9 of them. Yes, it does look like an outhouse! The 'extra' one will be used for separating them if someone is sick or for when they come back from the fair for a week or two.  The two runs will be connected with chicken wire in between the two. We will add a door for when we can intermingle them so they have more space to be. 

 We'll keep the 4 big ladies where they are for now until the 5 that are inside are to full size in another few months. 3 of the 5 are ready for outside so I was happy with the progress made on the coop over the last few days. He did make me nervous up on the roof yesterday though. Good thing his life insurance is all paid up! =) 


Linking up with the RSC today.

Thursday, October 1, 2020

October OMG - One Monthly Goal.

Since September was a great goal month with the midge applique quilt - I decided on a pattern for the borders and got a good start on them. I think in October I should continue on and get this baby to a completed TOP. Not quilted mind you... but I do have a plan in my head on hand quilting already.



That's it. Get the applique borders completed and attached to the quilt for a completed top.

Linking up with the October OMG. Wish me luck!