OMG for May

 was a fail, but some progress was made so I'm calling it a win. Every little bit of progress does help move the projects along, after all!

I started out the month with this:

I started the Harmony hand pieced quilt along in February but only did step 1+2. I pulled it back out and did step 3 this week. I'll prep step 4 today. I am making the throw - so making 4 of the big blocks. I am using a FQ bundle of red, white and tan I picked up from the old Craftsy site.  My One Monthy Goal (OMG) will be to get Harmony to a top! Wish me luck.

 

 

I ended the month with this: Step 3 and 4 are done and part way through step 5. My step 5 blocks need some unpicking for the 2 sets I made and an adjustment to make them a wee bit bigger than the first try. 

I got a little distracted this month with end of school year awards and banquets for the kids, end of girl scouts for the year and needing to make a graduation quilt (oops.... guess he is a senior in HS this year!).  Progress was made and hopefully things will settle down a bit now for some relaxing hand stitching each evening.

Linking up with May's OMG despite not achieving my goal.

Hands2Help Link Up post!

I think all of my quilts this year are headed off to Little Lambs Foundation for Kids. I had small block collections from the Rainbow scrap challenge that made some nice size quilts for this charity. I hope the colorful quilts bring a smile to a little one. I plan to ship these three quilts off in the mail this week. 

Stars and nines

Scattered stars

16 patch blocks.

Linking up with the Hands2Help Roundup.

Slow Sunday stitching...

It has been a slow week for any hand stitching. I did manage to add a few rows to the knitted dish cloth. I do love my bamboo needles. 

 This morning I finished up the last 5 of my QAYG hexagons that I prepped yesterday. There are 32 this month... when I counted I had 26... even though I thought I had done 27. Turns out the red sox one was below the tin and in the cover so I didn't see it until after I had prepped the 5 to finish off the month. Oh well, an extra never hurts anything. I'm excited to prep some purple for the month of June with the RSC Challenge.  So far we have done pink, yellow, dark green, light blue and red. Purple will be a nice addition to the hexies.

I just tossed out some treats for the chickens and they all came running! As you can tell from the crispy grass we are really needing rain in my part of Florida. Looks like we get a chance of rain each day this week but we will see if we really get any or not.

Karen had made some granola and posted a photo on her blog.... which got me searching recipes and I'm going to give this one a try today. I think Greg and Em will be making a cheesecake today as well for tomorrow. I have the other 8+ pounds of pork shoulder in the crock pot today working on some pulled pork for the freezer. The recipe is in my recipe tab. 

I'm off to the sewing room to wrangle up a little more red before a good house cleaning happens. The girl finally woke up around 11AM so vacuuming can happen how! 

Linking up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Saturday in red

 I have been concentrating on the graduation quilt this week with pops of red. I still need to make a couple of my red blocks for the month... but it is a long holiday weekend for me so I should be able to knock those off while in the sewing room working on finishing this quilt into a top.

15 blocks completed of 24 for the graduation quilt - disappearing 9 patch. Even the cat toy was red in the upper left hand corner!

Linking up with the RSC Challenge.

I took one cat to the vet yesterday and the other goes next week. I got him the annual shots we were late on. No real help on the aggression issue that started late Wednesday night (my normal vet was out so I went to the other one in the office). They did recommend a plug in that calms cats and helps deter aggressive behavior, peeing outside the box and scratching.  Who knew they had such a thing? This is the  spray. 

I'm happy to say there was no hissing, yowling and chasing last night, but the boys are still not acting like they did for 3 years. A tolerable truce right now but they are not friendly toward each other at all. Separately, they each purr and love petting and attention. I got one of the plug ins and have more on order and a spray coming. 

I saw a great deal yesterday at a local grocery store - pork shoulder for 99 cents a pound with card! They were huge - I got the smallest at 18.72 pounds. $72 down to $18 and change was too good of a deal to pass up. It was cut into a 10 pound and 8.72 pound portion all packaged in one sealed pouch. The bigger portion barely fit in my oval crock pot but it got made into Carnitas yesterday and overnight. I sealed 4 family size bags for the deep freezer and have a large glass container filled for the weekend meals (carnitas and cuban sandwiches) and grazing. Emily and I might have taste tested last night before bed and she had a bowl for breakfast this morning! The other portion will go into the crockpot later today once I pick up honey for the pulled pork recipe. I expect similar containers for the freezer from that portion - so at least 10 family meals of meat.... not to mention leftovers. =). I got to use some math skills - I had to double and a half the carnita recipe and triple the pulled pork recipe - based on the pork size. 

Off to horses today with the girl then pool time. It might be warm enough for me now and if not... the mid 90 temp and feels like higher should get me in there for a bit.

May table topper challenge.

 When I looked at the calendar yesterday and realized I had not made my May table topper yet, and the linkup started tomorrow..... I looked around the sewing room to see what I could find. I had to throw out one whole bucket of scraps last week (cat sprayed some - I think I have the culprit and he is seeing the Vet today at 4PM) so I picked through another stack and found a couple of QST blocks. Hmmmm. Looked at the fabric wall and saw a flag print. Possible. Hmmmm a print of yellow with blue and red balloons... potential. I looked a little more and found a little stack of easy breezy blocks. I started making them and then for some reason that stalled. Well, there were a couple with some red in it - what if I sewed a bunch together to make a placemat with them. To make it reversible I cut out some of the flag print for the backing. Then the decision on a binding..... hmmmm pulled a few bits leftover but opted for a darker blue which would go with both the front and the back. As time was an issue - without checking how to do it properly, especially the corners I actually sewed the binding on by machine. I think I'll actually watch a how to video next time before attempting it but.... it is done and I'm calling it good. It will be used for my lunch later today to test it out. It came out 16 x 12 ish.

Front

Back

Linking up with Joy and the Table Scraps Challenge.

Graduation quilt D9P progress this morning.

 It was time for a lunch break so I figured I'd show my progress on quilting today.... after some of the cat drama was calmed down. I did have a pressing helper which made this process go much quicker. She did a good job. So first I cut my 5 inch blocks then sewed them into a nine patch. I made sure my middle red was now 4.5 inches and sliced down the middle measuring 2.25 inches from the red in both directions and cut.

That gave me these 4 blocks.

I turned the top left and bottom right blocks so the red was in the corners.

Sewed them together and got this block!

I had Emily pressing for me and she also pressed a few more fabrics I grabbed over the weekend so I can cut them and add to the white and black piles for more variety. This is the first 8 blocks of the 24 I plan to make for a 4x6 setting. It should come to a nice twin size with a border or two.

Now for the cat drama. Last night - Peanut and Ollie (LeeLee or Oliver is the true name) were fine and I was laying on the floor petting both and they got along. We believe they were brothers and were bonded so we got them together about 3 years ago. Late last night around 11... all of a sudden Peanut was chasing Lee and lots of hissing and cat growling. Normally they do this and swap and it is playful around 9PM . Not last night. 3 of us heard and all came out to investigate. I separated them and all was quiet for an hour or so when it happened again. Peanut chasing and attacking Lee. Originally they flew in from outside on the porch. Not sure if another cat or animal was out there and sprayed him or what. But Peanut is acting like he doesn't know him and he is an intruder. We have had peeing outside the box lately but I was trying to figure out which one before taking to the vet and we did separate where the litter boxes were thinking maybe someone was not letting them through (sometimes Sophie sits at the entrance and does not let the boys in). I called the vet - I have an appt for Lee tomorrow as they did not have time slot for both boys. I figure the non aggressor might have a medical issue - bladder infection or something and we can get him checked out first. Never a dull moment at my house.

Summer meals...

 It has reached hot in Florida with temps this week in the mid 90's.... 

I was thinking of meals and figured a crock pot one would be easy with awards Monday night. I made beef stew. The boy insisted you don't eat hot things when it is hot outside! I made a batch of Tatziki for him and he had that with pita while the rest had stew. I planned ahead and had a container of plain yogurt and cucumber to make the Tatziki. Some fresh minced garlic, lemon and olive oil with a little salt and some dried dill weed. Yummy. My kid tucks that into a half pita and gobbles it down, on repeat! 

Last night - I decided it was greek night - so used my grill pan and greek rub to grill some chicken tenders. Fresh greens and tomato, cucumber, red onion and black olives. I added some feta cheese and the grilled chicken with a vinegrette and that was dinner with Tatziki and pita on the side. Nice and light. The best part - I have leftover grilled chicken and fixings for salad for lunches the rest of the week! What are your 'warm weather' go to meals?

Tonight we will use the Papa John's robotics card one last time and get one large pizza and get one free after I pick up the kids from their last day of school! Tomorrow - they get their first vaccine. Just enough time to get the second shot a week before we fly next month.

7th grade awards

 Last night was another awards at school - this time for Aidan and the 7th graders. He was recognized for a 4.0+ gpa for the whole year last night. Sorry about the bad photo - he would not consent to one after..... he was ready to head home after 1.5 hours in a room full of people! Since I had stopped on the way home with the girl for a treat - he had the option as well. She chose McD - sunday and he chose Baskin robbins sunday. He has county wide essay today in his last critical thinking class. Let's just say it was sprung on the teacher  last week and he already told the kids he would be very generous with grading it! Still, the boy is stressed. Hopefully after today - he will have a stress free last day of school tomorrow.

This is the start of the graduation quilt. I did get a slew of 5 inch squares cut out. This will get sliced on the vertical and horizontal to create 4 - blocks that will get turned and sewn together. The corner blacks will remain whole - but the rest will be 4 red squares and white triangles. I hope to slice it up later today and see how it comes out.

Sunday Slow Stitching...

 Well, there might be a little slow stitching today. I measured my step #4 of harmony and I need to unstitch and try again with a smaller seam allowance to get the desired size.  It is a smidge off - by a good 1/4 inch on multiple sides. I had only done 2 sets of the 4 sets needed so once I figure it out I can move along and then get the corner sections stitched up.

I probably won't meet my goal this month of getting this to a top... but it is a project that can travel so it will head up to Vermont next month at whatever stage I am at. Linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Today - I will start cutting out the graduation quilt. Yes, I am aware it is May 23. My goal is to have it together and quilted by the end of June to travel up to VT for delivery. I picked up a few more FQ's of black on white one of the trips to Walmart yesterday. It was a busy day of errands - Emily to horses, then Aidan to get shorts - his keep getting shorter - something about growing taller!, then pool time with Aidan for a couple of hours... then Emily needed a bathing suit that fits so back to Walmart with her last night. 

The separate trips were intentional. I have had a lot of Emily time with all her awards, scouts and horses this week and the boy needed Mom time. His awards are Monday night. Only one parent can attend for capacity measures so I get to go. 

Last night we had a chicken search. Only 8 were in the coop so we were out searching the back yard with flashlights looking for Poppy - who lays the green eggs. We have 1.25 acres for our lot and the back part is wooded but we have a fence up to keep the chickens out of there. The back yard area is all fenced in to contain the chickens for free range all day. She did this a few days ago and was sleeping perched on the trailer by the fence. That took us 20 minutes to find her. Last night, she was on the top of the fence! That is getting into dangerous territory.  We will need to figure out why she is not wanting to go into the coop at night to sleep.... I have a feeling someone is being a bully (Molly or Emma). We have it secured so no rodents or predators can get in, it is getting a good cleaning this morning from Emily and Greg and we don't think mites are an issue. Must be bullying - as she does lay her eggs in the nesting boxes.

Saturday

It has been a very busy week of Emily which has limited any sewing room or stitching time for me.  This is the lot of red hexagon QAYG's so far this month. For some reason - the photo loaded upside down and I'm off to horses with Emily.

Monday night was girl scout bridging and a water ballon fight after. 

 

Wednesday was Emily's grade awards at school. She got reading, math and 4.0+ gpa.

Friday night was FFA awards banquet. It was catered and she got recognized for showing at the fair and for her academic achievement at school. There were 4 kids from 6th grade recognized.

Off to horses and a busy Saturday.

Graduation Quilt

 Yes, the high school graduation is this year.... and I hope to have this completed by the end of June so it can fly up with me to Vermont.

First step - pick a pattern and colors. Black,white and red were selected. I showed a photo of a disappearing nine patch in those colors and it was approved. I got to Joanns yesterday and I think it was the quickest I have ever picked out 13 fabrics for a quilt in my life! Cut and paid for was this bunch of goodness.

Now to start cutting and hope my math was correct! I have never done this pattern before but it looks 'easy' to do. We will see how it goes. 

This is the photo I sent for approval I found on Pinterest by searching on black and white disappearing nine patch quilts. Another had the instructions using 4.5 inch squares to make the nine patch. Fingers crossed it works out for a twin size!

I have a crazy week coming up after a crazy weekend of running errands all... day.... long! 

Saturday was horses, then home for lunch then arrive late to a birthday party which I ended up staying at until after 5Pm with her. Honestly no clue what I did that night but being outside all day in Florida in May... I was probably in my recliner! The weather just drains me!

Sunday - once the kids left for Grandma's around noon I had about 5 hours or running. Seems the Dollar Tree was out of helium - at both stores I tried for balloons. I was picking up things for bridging and end of year scouts party tonight and then the fabrics. My badges I ordered last Saturday are still in route - so those won't be handed out but the water balloons did arrive so I'm calling it a win. They will bridge up from the last 2 years to their new units. Then will have some snacks of veggies, fruits and cookies. Then a water ballon fight... and yes, I expect to get soaked as well. I think I'll man the hose! Hehehe.

Wednesday I have school awards for Emily in the evening. Friday night we have Emily's FFA banquet. I'm assuming I will get an invite to Aidan's awards this week for next Monday night. Last day of school is Wednesday May 26. The kids are counting down the days.....

RSC Saturday in red

I showed this earlier this week but since it's Saturday and Red.... I'm posting it again. Garden Path blocks are all caught up!

I spent a bunch of time Friday night prepping a slew of red hexagons. I think I counted 27 prepped so if I have extra reds after finishing up Harmony, I'll grab a few more to finish off the 31 I need this month. Sophie was kind enough to allow a photo with them. 

I got 2 sets of step #4 of Harmony stitched. Before I prep the next 2 sets, I figured I'd actually stitch these together to make the first part of the block. These 4 go together then a HST goes in the corner with 2 white rectangles to make it square. There are 4 of these for each block. Halfway through the month and making good progress on getting this stitched together by hand.

Linking up on Saturday with the RSC.

I had planned to prep this post Friday night but there were dangerous warning signs on the blogger sites including mine. Thank goodness it cleared off by 10:30 or so. Post written and scheduled.

Saturday - horses, then dropping Emily to a birthday party for the afternoon and possibly overnight. I plan to head to Joann's and see what I can find for black on black and black on white fabrics for a graduation quilt needed for next month. The accent color is red! I came up with the disappearing nine patch pattern for a quick twin quilt for a boy. I found a new Andover fabric line that would be perfect... alas, time crunch and I am not seeing a FQ option over at Connecting Threads. We will see what I can find locally first.

 

Wednesday already?

 Honestly, I have not had anything to post about so have been a little quiet the last few days. I did get my red garden path blocks sewn up over the weekend and here is a shot of all of them so far this year. Pink, yellow, green, light blue and red for 10 blocks.

I finished hand stitching step #3 of Harmony and cut out one practice one for step #4. 

That one is all done by templates for the twisted triangle and I'm following their advise to do one or two before cutting them all out. Mine are going to be tan.... since they were in the bundle with the red. I decided to introduce the tan when I was cutting out step #3 and marked up my pattern so I would not forget when cutting out the next steps. 

Instead of prepping blocks and doing my finance report for scouts on Sunday..... I was a wee bit lazy. So... I get to do my finance report tomorrow (it is due by Saturday and I do love to procrastinate!) and then I'll prep some more Hexagons and all of my Harmony step #4 parts.

Saturday RSC in red...

Well, I never did get into the sewing room last night. These are the red parts that will become 2 garden path blocks. 

I have the reds pulled and just need to press them before cutting out some flowering snowball parts in red. I figured I'd make myself a kit for a scrappy flowering snowball quilt this year by cutting a little each month. No rhyme or reason on how many or what fabrics, just pull from the bin and if it fits it gets cranked through! These are bigger so not a lot of my scrap bin parts are big enough. 4 of the half peel and 4 of the bigger parts makes a 12 inch block. I'm using my Accuquilt to cut them out.

I did use my Accuquilt 8 inch cube - die #5 to cut my 2.5 inch half square triangle parts this week in light blues and reds. The light blue ones did get sewn together.

Finally, my Hexagon quilt as you go blocks got prepped and started. I seem to be a few days behind so maybe I'll bring the tin with me to horses this week and stitch a few as Emily is riding.

Linking up with the RSC on Saturday.

Finishing up blue

After dropping the kids to school yesterday I stopped to get a few more pounds of blueberries for the freezer. I might have made blueberry muffins this morning for breakfast.... since Sophie would not stop meowing before 7AM. Figured I might as well get up and feed her.

It was actually not terrible outside last night after the storms went through. Mid 80's and low humidity. I was sitting and got a few feathered friends for company before Greg came out for a bit.

 I was able to get my garden path blocks in light blue finished yesterday afternoon  and just have a little sewing to finish off the red ones today.

Harmony.... step #4

 Sunday I prepped step 4 of Harmony. These are 'partial square in a square' or half of the square in a square block from step 1. I have all the parts cut out and the stitching line drawn on the small squares. I just need to remember to make 4 the same and then swap the red and tan on the other 4.... for each set.  

Yesterday - I got a call on the car from Honda stating it was ready for pick up. They replaced a few parts, did an alignment and after a test drive none of the warning lights went on so, fingers crossed that fixed it. I logged off work early and Greg drove me over to pick it up. I had a little window before having to pick up kids - Aidan got out normal time and Em stayed an extra hour for a FFA meeting. Aidan was not hungry (I was surprised too!) and just finished some crackers from his lunch after we stopped off at CVS. I needed mineral oil as I was out and the vet is having me add 1/8 of a tsp to Sophies dry food to help with her digestion issues. While there - he was trying on sunglasses and finally found a pair he was happy with. This has been going on for months and he never likes any of them. He got these, put them on in the car and no doesn't know how he will be outside in the sun without sunglasses on! He has blue eyes like me so the intense sunlight really bothers us. We headed back to school and picked up Emily. I was planning Chicken Tikka Masala for dinner and had prepped the yogurt marinade with the chicken at lunch and since we would be home an hour later - Greg was in charge of making dinner. It came out really good and I'm sure Aidan will be eating some for dinner tonight. They wanted to take photos of dinner so here are our plates. Greg passed as his stomach was not right yesterday.

Mine - sorry the photo turned.

Aidan

Emily

As Cinco de Mayo - I'm humoring Emily and we are having taco salad with chips for dinner tonight!.

Some hexagons in red

 I did a lot of prep work on Sunday. A slew of hexagon shapes were cut and prepped and last night I managed to stitch up the first 3 for the month.

We moved the girl scout meeting inside last night - it was feels like 96 (actual temp of 90) outside around 6:30 in the evening. The girls did go out and chase the chickens around before and after and I got one of the girls dropped off very early as the family was trying to get everyone where they needed to go. We were working on a jewelry badge and made wire rings last night. One of my Cadettes (grade 6) taught us how to do it! I think we will just have 2 more meetings this year - next week to finish our badge and plan bridging. Everyone is moving as we will do both last year and this year. I heard they want an actual bridge so we sill see what we can come up with. A few years ago we borrowed the boy scout one but we were meeting at the church then. They also want a water fight in the back yard! Should be a fun bridging =)

** Bridging is an end of year rite - every 2 years they advance to a higher level. We stopped meetings in March after spring break so did not last year so all of my girls will 'bridge' this year. Daisy is K-1, Brownie is 2-3, junior is 4-5, cadette is 6-7, ambasador is 8-9 and senior must be 10-12. Next year all my girls will be junior and cadette - ranging from grade 4-7.

Slow Sunday Stitching and a hand pieced top!

I spent the day relaxing/resting and hand stitching yesterday afternoon. I'm happy to say my Endless Diamond is finally a completed top! It needs a press and then I'll sandwich it for hand quilting in the hoop. It is 48x60. You can read more about this quilt by clicking on the Endless Diamond Tab above. This is completely hand pieced and I love how it came out! I checked back and started this around July 22, 2020!  

I started the Harmony hand pieced quilt along in February but only did step 1+2. I pulled it back out and did step 3 this week. I'll prep step 4 today. I am making the throw - so making 4 of the big blocks. I am using a FQ bundle of red, white and tan I picked up from the old Craftsy site.  My One Monthy Goal (OMG) will be to get Harmony to a top! Wish me luck.

 

Linking up with Kathy at Slow Stitching Sunday and Patti at Elmstreetquilts for the OMG for May.