Next in the hand quilting lineup...

I just finished adding the borders to this Snowman and Silent Night sew along from Jaquelynne Steves - The Art of Home. Next up will be to find a backing, batting and pin it for hand quilting. Do we think I could actually get this finished by the end of November? Maybe it should be my OMG for November then? As it is fairly small - at 35 or 36 inches (I have not measured it!) I think it is possible. 

First up - carving some pumpkins (because in Florida you can't do it in advance as they will rot too quickly!) and then the afternoon will be watching a few of the girls from the girl scout troop roller skate. I still need to schedule their Mom and Daughter Painting to finish off a badge for the girls. 

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Stitchers (prepping for hand quilting counts right?) and OMG for November when it opens up tomorrow.

Saturday RSC in bright green

I just finished off this green placemat. It has become my 'go to' when I don't know what to make. Using 2.5 inch strips it makes a nice colorful addition to the table. 

While I was in the sewing room I added a few green periods for my Full Stop.... and at the end I added the ... as this will be at the end of the quilt. I used 2.5 inch squares and used 5 inches between the periods and 2.5 inch white squares between the ...

Linking up with the RSC and The Table Scraps Challenge. I have had the windows of the house open all afternoon and I am enjoying the cooler weather that finally arrived in Florida. Almost time to close up the front windows for the night. 

 

OMG for October is completed!

 The boy's quilt is officially finished - extended by 2 rows so that it will tuck under his feet. I documented the steps to extend the quilt by 2 rows in this OMG link up post. I might have had to relocate the cat a few times to finish off the binding but it is done and ready for his bed. 

Linking up with the October OMG finish linkup. 

Monday... Well, I think I survived the weekend.

I was sick Sunday...slept all day yesterday once I got home though. I am hoping it was exhaustion/dehydration from Saturdays 90 degree temps. I did drink lots of water and Propel waters all day (80oz at least). So far so good this morning. My Fitbit said I got 20,791 steps on Saturday.... I was around 17K after the campfire and smores and we got back to our cabin, but we had an unexpected 10:30 PM hike across camp to retrieve a little sister that was having issues with being away from family for the first time so we went and retrieved her. Grandma and her 2 older sisters were in our cabin for the weekend. My whole troop and one girl from another did the late night (boy was it dark!) trek through the woods to gather her and bring her to our area for the night.

All 4 of the quilts were picked by the girls yesterday. I had taken one for my bed and an extra... which my co-leader claimed! She got the Grandmothers Choice Sew along from 2012 that I finished in 2017. I just shot her an e-mail of the info behind the quit in case she was interested. He daughter claimed the Spring Blossoms quilt. 

I guess word got out that I gifted the girls the quilts as I was asked Sunday morning by a couple of adults if they could see the quilts that I gifted the girls. I pulled up the blog and showed the 4 quilts and which girl selected which quilt. 

I had taken my knitting - the standard dish cloth with no thinking. (Cast on 4, knit 2, YO, knit to end...until around 50 stitched on the needles then start the decrease - knit 1, K2T, YO,K2T, knit to end until down to 4 stitched on needles. Cast off) Emily grabbed it Friday night and asked how to do it - so I showed her the knit and YO since I was around 37 on the needles at that point. She did great..... just a little tight for tension. She got to the decrease and after showing her once and her asking me to check the next couple of rows she has got it! Another adult asked on Saturday night when she had learned how - and I said last night! It was the first time she expressed an interest.... =)

 

Weekend.... will I survive?

That is the question! I will be heading to Camp Wildwood with most of my girl scout troop this weekend. (Friday night -Sunday morning) I will enjoy the shower when I get home around noon on Sunday after 2 days at camp with the girls. We are staying in the house on the property this time but I expect lots of walking around camp all day Saturday.  Highs around 90 and lows around 65 overnight. 

I have been working away at the green hexagons this month. I still have quite a few to stitch up and quilt and begin attaching into their groups of 4. I think I'll do browns next month and black and grey in December to round things out. 

I made a little progress yesterday on the Snowman sew along and have the four blocks framed and the next round started - red/green/red strips. I was attempting to organize and prep and pack for the weekend when I normally get to sew.

The OMG quilt has made progress and is in the hand stitching the binding stage. I had the boy check it for length... he is under it and said 'that should work!'. 

I started stitching it down last night and Peanut had to test it out for snuggle time. He had a good nap so I assume it passed muster!
 

The little bit I got done due to the cat's nap. 

I'll link up on Sunday to the following:

Rainbow Scrap Challenge and Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching. 

Assuming I survive the weekend with the girls (5 of them age 10-12 in my troop). It is a Figmentopia theme - with trips to 100 acre woods (for archery, fire building and knots), Yellow Brick Road (geocaching and exploring the trails), A party with the Mad hatter (crocket, building a scarecrow, etc) and science with the Magic School Bus and Ms. Frizzle - for bottle rocket fun. Dinner is at Hoggwarts Hall... I can't wait to get my chocolate wand =). 

In the interest of 'clearing out' some quilts.... I am bringing 4 with me for the girls (Em already has some so she does not count!) to choose from for an extra blanket this weekend and then it goes home with them. I chose these from old RSC projects....

Cubes - made with my 16 patches. (Lauren)

Spring Blossoms. (Hailey)

Scrappy Houses (Seems someone is not happy with my choice to have this one leave the house!) (Ireland)

Stashbuster 2020 quilt. (Sofia)

I'll need to pick one more for my girls who is not attending this weekend.

October OMG - progress

 My One Monthly Goal is to make Aidan's quilt (Twilight Hopscotch by Kim Diehl) longer. Someone got taller and the 61x61 it was seemed to be too small according to him. It is now 89 inches long..... we will see how that works for him! I opted for adding 2 rows instead of the requested 1. He is only 13 after all and still growing..... he has not reached the 6 feet I expect him to hit in the next year or two.

My handy helper holding down the parts while I was organizing today. I zigzagged some extra batting bits together. Then I zigzagged that onto the existing quilt. Then I added the backing, while tugging that batting out of the way. Then it was moving the cat and pulling back the batting and batting and machine stitching that top to the existing top. Done. Then I laid it on the floor to pin it for the quilting. Let's just say washing it will hopefully help make those issues not as noticeable =). A quick squiggle quilting following what I had originally done. Then.... I made a teal binding and attached it by machine. I see I hand quilted inside each of the teal stars in orange..... so I have 8 of those to do along with hand stitching the binding. 

That will be my slow stitching later tonight. We will see if I have to do the kid pick up or if hubby will do it this week. 

Linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Stitchers.

Saturday in green

 A few touches of light and bright green this week - I cut out a slew of hexagons last night and about 10 are ready for prepping for stitching. If I am tagged with the horses run today that is what I will be working on. 

I pulled some darker green and stitched up this block since I did not have a dark green in the mix for this collection. Something about forgetting the correct size to cut things and my block ended up 12 inches instead of 16! oops. All fixed now. 

I got a bright green butterfly block stitched and basted. All set for applique onto a background next year. This is going to be a multi year project.

I saw this bumblebee this week and managed to get him right after he came out from getting some nectar. 

I hope to see more green and some bits of orange later today when we head to the pumpkin patch! I wish the cool front had gone through already, but alas it looks like later tonight. It will be a hot and sunny day walking around the field. 

Linking up with the RSC Challenge.

Snowman and Silent Night sew along

 I took some time today and stitched up the last block in this sew along. The finishing instructions come out on Monday. The pattern is currently free until the end of the month if you sign up with Jacquelynne Steves - The Art of Home.

Sunday stitching

 Happy Thanksgiving to our northern neighbors up in Canada. Kathy reminds us each week to slow down, breathe in and stitch to relax. After a little picking up, cleaning and errand running I am ready to settle in with a movie and some relaxing stitching. I might have also promised the cat he could snuggle on my lap if he would let me sew for a bit earlier!

I forgot I had one orange hexagon left to 'quilt' and this time I will embroider a pumpkin. I completely forgot to prep more hexagons in bright and light green so maybe I'll do that later tonight.

Done!

I was working on drawing, cutting and sewing these butterfly wings together by machine earlier. I need to mark 1/4 inch around those circles and cut it out still. That will go on the inside of the butterfly, then I'll basted it 1/4 inch in all around for future applique onto a background.

Done!

Then the seam ripper will be in use to remove the bottom border off Aidan's Twilight Hopscotch quilt. One errand was to look for more of the blue dot print for the backing but alas, they did not have any at that store. I'll try another one tomorrow or come up with another solution. 

The top section with 2 rows of blocks is the 'new' section.

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

RSC in bright green

I finally finished up the orange and prepped some green hexagons this week. I managed to get one green stitched up in the car line yesterday. The rest are ready for a quick 5-10 minutes of time here and there.

While the green was out I cut out this block and got it sewn together. I messed up the dark green month one - so that will be my next block in this series. Then I need 2 more - and since I missed the red month with them one will be bright reds and one maroon I think.   I used 4.5 inch squares and 2.5 inch squares for the four patches. It finishes at 16 inches.

 Linking up with the RSC on Saturday. 

It will be interesting to see what the next week brings. Our county's community spread numbers were 9% last week and 6 % this week. The school board had said 2 weeks under 10% and they would remove the mask mandate (with the parent opt out which is at 22% in our area). I did attend an in person leader meeting for girl scouts this week. Keep in mind my troop does meet in person and per the new church rules we meet at, masks are worn at our meeting and I have the girls spread out. I was one of 2 people at the leader meeting with a mask. There were about 25 people there. We were spread out at a U shaped table but that tends to show how things are in my area of Florida. 

Snowman and Silent Night Sew Along

 After running the kids to school and then moving some files at work for testing, it was time to play with fabric! First off I sewed Aidan's 4 rows together to make his quilt longer.

I made block #2 and #3 for the Snowman Sew Along. I do love that I purchased the middle blocks so it is super easy to sew this one up.  I also cut a weeks worth of bright green hexagons and then prepped them for stitching during a 2 hour meeting this afternoon.  During that meeting I had Aidan's quilt and my seam ripper and got nearly all of the 60x60 binding taken off the quilt. I finished off  the last 2 feet before dinner.  When I laid out the quilt without the binding and the section I had sewn together..... it appears there is a final border on the quilt that I missed! Oops - plenty of fabric left to add that to my new section and  I will have to unpick the last row on one side of the quilt when I add it to make it bigger. If I take off that bottom I really just need to add something to the 2 new sides then sew the removed last row onto the new section. I think I have it figured out in my head even if it doesn't make sense here!

After dinner of warmed up carnitas meat from the freezer and some roasted sweet potato, I headed to Sams Club. All I can say is I had flashbacks to last year! Limit one of toilet paper or paper towels. There were no paper towels and I grabbed the Members Mark TP. I got flour - no sugar! There was also no brown sugar at all. Good thing I usually buy more when I pour the old bag into my big container so I do have both granulated and brown sugar in the pantry. The cookie/cracker aisle... where it is normally stacked my height was single layer of things and missing a few of the things on my list. At least there was frozen chicken and beef so I got my one package of each for the freezer. Honestly, I keep a well stocked pantry and freezer and when I open the last container  or know I am using something that week I grab another one. I knew the coffee I am using will be empty tomorrow and I'll open the container in the pantry. So I got one to put into the pantry. I think I have always shopped that way, not sure why but it works for me. I tend to use the same things so they do get used. 

I am very glad I went out Tuesday and filled up my empty tank with gas. I told the kids I was trying to test the gas low light =) It comes on with 27 miles to go. I think it was at 29 when I filled up.  It was 2.91 for unleaded. I noticed yesterday the prices had jumped to 3.05 and today they were 3.15 a gallon! Quite the jump in just a couple of days. Too bad it does not go down that quickly.

mid week check in....

 I really need to stitch these 4 rows together tomorrow for Aidan's quilt. Hopefully I get a few hours in the morning for sewing. I have a meeting in the afternoon that I will log into and some quick moving of files into test first thing in the morning before I drop kids to school. I must remember to grab his quilt and jack the ripper and get to work on removing the binding tonight as well.

That of course will be after the leader meeting tonight - the first one this year (year started in August) I will go to in person! Hope I can find the new spot. Dinner is a mish mash.... as Aidan didn't feel like the brussels sprout and squash meal and Em didn't want the kiev. They are getting rosemary roasted red potato and buffalo wings instead!

Hopefully I can stop at Sams on the way home and pick up a few things. We are out of Kleenex (Aidan informed me it is allergy season!), and I'll pick up the big package of bounty paper towels and tp so we are good for a few months. Flour and Sugar as I popped the last bags into their container last week and we are nearly out of the frozen burger patties and chicken breasts I like to have on hand for meals. 

A few photo's from the back yard this afternoon. This is 7 of the chickens - Poppy was in the coop thinking she wanted to lay an egg but I have not checked to see if she is done yet. When she is done there should be a green one in the nesting box. The Trumpet flower and my rose the kids gave me probably 10 years ago for mothers day. This time it looks cream in bloom - last time it was pink =) It tends to swap back and forth on me.

Slow Stitching

 The calendar says it is fall, but I don't think the state of Florida received the memo yet. It was feels like 93 yesterday by 1PM when we got home from horses. Granted it was better than feels like 100, but still pretty hot. I stayed in the barn yesterday despite the large number of people there to watch Emily ride. She got a really long time in the arena as there was a wait at the stalls to tack up and wash down the horses. I think she got an extra 20 minutes of walking Lance around to cool him down after his workout.

Getting him from his stall before tacking him up. There was a wait for this as well.

Getting all set to ride.

Since the calendar says it is fall.... and I currently don't have anything in the hoop I figured it is a good day to give the cat and mice a little attention and see if I can get them moved along.  I took my cue from Kathy who is pulling out her winter quilting project this week. It has been sitting here patiently waiting for me to work on it. This is the first set of borders so the whole quilt is still waiting on quilting. I am hoping to add 15-30 minutes of quilting on this each day and see if I can get it moved along. You know if you sit down for that 15 minutes it always turns into longer!

The new month turned up lime green or bright greens in the RSC. I have a little 'finishing' to do still with orange from September. I miscounted and need to prep 2 more when I pull out the greens to prep those for the month. A handful need their quilting inside the edge and some need stitching down and quilting. The orange pile was pretty low on options to pull from so I added a couple of extra muslin ones with orange backing. I see a pumpkin stitched in that bottom middle one I think.

Linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Stitchers. What will you be working on today?

Finishing off orange

As I was looking through the blocks I am making for the RSC - I saw I had not done the Full Stop one. Angela mentioned a dash at the beginning of the month. I decided to give it a try - 2.5 inch by 4.5 inch for my dashes. I added a top and bottom to that in white. Then I added a 6.5x2.5 on each side and stitched them together. I think they came out pretty good!

I also stitched together the butterfly's and basted them. Next year I'll work on adding them to a background I think. 

I never got to the garden path blocks in orange. Oh well, that's what the catch up months are for.

Linking up Saturday morning with the RSC.

 

OMG for October 2021

 To make my son happy, I'm making my goal this month to finish expanding his quilt to make it longer.

We worked on this quilt together and it finished at 60x60 in March 2019. He picked the pattern and colors and did sew a few seams before he got completely frustrated and asked me to finish it. I asked a few times about making it bigger - no, this size is fine. Well, the boy has grown in the last 2 years and now he wants it longer! I managed to find similar fabrics and pulled what was left from my stash. The quilt is a Kim Diehl Pattern called Twilight Hopscotch. 

I am planning to add 8 more blocks  to get it around 90 inches long and have made them and cut out the sashing and cornerstone blocks. By the end of the month I hope to have the 'new' quilt rebound and finished for him. Linking up with the October One Monthly Goal.

My steps to do this month to get it completed:

1.) make 8 blocks - done - finished the last 4 on Sept 30.

2.) cut the needed sashing and cornerstones - done

3.) remove the binding from the original quilt. ** Done 10/7.

4.) remove the bottom border from the quilt. **Done 10/14.

5.) create rows and borders with the new blocks as a new section. **just need outer border 2 sides 10/7 **Done 10/16

6.) Find a backing piece to use for this new section. **Done

7.) cut a batting piece for the new section. *Done - pieced one.

8.) Using the QAYG method - add the top to the existing top, bottom to the existing bottom and whip stitch or zig zag on the machine the new batting. Will need to unpick a little of the existing quilting. **Done 10/17

9) Quilt the new section on the machine - thank goodness I did easy line squiggle quilting! **Done 10/17

10.) Trim up quilt.** done 10/17

11.) Select  and make binding (will let him choose - orange, teal or grey) - Teal chosen!**Done 10/17

12.) attach binding to the quilt. - by machine is done - now to finish by hand! ** Done 10/29.