Sunday....

 Well, I have not seen the very disappointed boy yet this morning. After an 11 hour day at the FIRST Robotics competition yesterday we all are exhausted. They were extremely disappointed to not advance but we are trying to find the positive with him - your Lego Robotic run time increased from the last competition and you did much better on your project presentation. All in all, it was a great experience for them and they really have grown this year and learned to work as a team. Another positive - he was offered a spot in the AICE Robotics program at the high school he plans to attend. He was offered a spot in the AICE program already so will be in both programs next year. He plans to do something in engineering in his future. This was his team - Issac, Aidan and Payton. So far 2 of the 3 are in the AICE Robotics program... the 3rd one is waiting on a spot to open up.

With all that time yesterday I did not sit and take a single stitch while there. Too much going on and we were trying as the parents to make sure the boys were where they needed to be all day. Their Coach (teacher) had 7 teams there and the other Coach got pulled in as a Judge so it was all on him. 3 teams had Robot malfunctions so he was out straight trying to fight fires all day. 

Today is a prepping day - I'll be playing with interfacing and adding it to some tops so I can cut parts for a Memory quilt. Yes, not much progress but the pile of 6.5 inch squares is getting bigger. I just need to add more variety from the clothing provided and then I can start playing with layout. The goal today is to get all the cutting done.

I hope to relax tonight with some slow stitching. Since the month is nearly up, I really need to stitch down the teal butterfly before March begins. That will be this evenings task I think. I also need to finish up the red one from last month! These are called Erin's Butterfly and I found the pattern in Great Scrap Bag Quilts by Jan Halgrimson.

Looks like this week is advanced band extra practices after school for the girl for the upcoming competition. They had a concert for preliminary judging and more experience playing in front of an audience on Thursday evening. They did really well. I was impressed with how good they sounded as a Middle school band. 

Linking up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers. 

Hexagons... more prepping and stitching.

 I have 5 sections stitched together. I managed to get one section together this month.  Excuse the rest of the mess!

I have been working on making the final hexagons needed for the last section. I had 4 sets of 4 to start the month and I have stitched and added 5 more sets of 4. 

I have the light greens ready to be stitched together. That leaves 4 yellows to stitch and 3 light blues before I can get the last sets ready to go. I doubt I'll have all the sections stitched this month... unless I take them with me to the tournament Saturday and have lots of stitching time there. It is progress though.

February 2022 Table Scrap Challenge

Well, with a Teal and Improv prompt for the monthly challenge - this is about as improv as I get! A strip of teal scraps sewn together and I played a bit with the quilting and did more than I normally do. A wavy line in the teals - to attempt to simulate water/waves. I went with straight lines on one side and a mix of straight and wavy lines on the other side.

 I pulled this fun teal print for the backing.

I had some teal with white dots print that worked for the binding.

The finished topper.

Linking up on Friday with Joy for the Table Scrap Challenge and Saturday with the RSC.

A long weekend (thank goodness!)

 I seem to live in my car lately and yet, the hand stitching is not making much progress. I am getting higher in a few of the games on my phone, though!

I found this little stack of nine patches in the drawer so added a couple of teals to the pile. These were using 2 inch squares.

I was playing with teal for the improv prompt of the table scrap challenge yesterday. I had this and then the other pile turned into the start of a placemat.

I added a grey to each side. Not sure I am completely happy with it. It might get some creative quilting on it or it might change completely between now and next Saturday!

I did prep a slew of the needed hexagons Thursday and got the purples and oranges stitched up. The orange just needs to get into the group of 4 still. I was waiting on pins for the 4 yellow ones but I should have them back in the tin after the ones stitched up yesterday. These should keep me busy for the hand stitching department. My 'hope' it to really concentrate on the memory quilt this weekend and make progress. It has been sitting way too long with me being nervous making it. So I'll institute the 'just do it already' mantra and work on it a bit Saturday, Sunday and Monday in between Robotics prep, cookie booths and anything else my kids come up with - oh yea - I need to figure out how to use the big telescope for next weeks girl scout meeting. 

On the way home from the second kid pick up on Tuesday night I pulled over and snapped a few photo's of the sunset. Earlier we were driving through an area with trees and the big ball of sun was making it look like they were on fire! (At least that is what Aidan said and seemed a little leery as I kept driving!)

It was a truly beautiful sunset and the photos do not do the sky justice. 

Another shot was of this guy in the back yard on Thursday afternoon. The chickens were making a ruckus so I went out and this guy flew right past me and landed on the fence. I managed to get a photo before he took off and away from the yard.

Linking up Saturday with the RSC where we are playing with teal/aqua and Sunday with the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

With a busy week - lets see what happened for dinners.

Monday - leftovers from the Superbowl snacking and a ham and cheese quiche.

Tuesday - corned beef and cabbage. I used my pressure cooker for the cabbage as I loved it cooked that way growing up. Seems Emily is my kid as between the two of us we nearly ate all of what I had cooked for cabbage that night!

Wednesday - I got the beef stroganoff started and left it at the point of adding the sour cream. I texted Greg and Emily when I left school (20-40 min away depending on traffic) and they had the pasta ready and the stroganoff finished when we walked in the door.

Thursday - both kids were late pickup (advanced band practice and robotics) so they all got Sushi (California Rolls) from Sams. Yuck! I had leftovers.

 I 'think' the horse evaluation team advanced from last weekends competition.... so I have a feeling there will be more practices for that in the future again. 

Superbowl Sunday

 I really don't follow football. I will be watching the game tonight though.... seems an Ohio team made it in and even my non sport watching hubby will watch tonight!  He is from Ohio. Kids are home - so we don't have to pick them up from Grandma tonight. She will be watching the game too - that Ohio thing. 

I have watched 2 olympics hockey games.... USA won both! I do love watching my hockey games. Seems Peacock is $5 a month and allows us to watch Olympics and the Superbowl. We don't have cable or Dish or Direct TV. We instead have Hulu (not the livestream one), Netflix and Amazon Prime and use free Tubi for local news.

Kids needed a down day. Emily had a full day at the Florida State fair in Tampa yesterday for the FFA Horse Evaluation Team Competition. She is also fighting a cold so another day of rest will help. She had horse riding scheduled this morning... and asked 45 minutes before if she could cancel it. Yup - resting is on tap for the day. The boy had 4 hours of 'thinking' and teamwork on his Robotics presentation yesterday morning after lots of hours working on it this week after school and before. He needs a brain free thinking day as well.

I enjoyed sleeping in until almost 9 today.  Coffee was made and ready when I got up (thanks hubby!). A quick run to Walmart to pick up some game day foods (shrimp for the boy, I'm planning wings, Em and Greg will do Taco Salad.... and picked up guac and fresh salsa too). 

I'll be working on cutting up clothing for a memory quilt for a few hours today. Tonight during the game, I'll be working on some crochet - to finally make the Stepping Texture Hat kit that I have had for a few years. I found a youtube video on how to do it Friday and watched it. I hope to have a completed hat tonight!

I'll also put a few stitches into the hexagons as well. They are now into 3 columns and need to be stitched together into a section.  Love seeing Curious George in this batch.

Linking up with Kathy and the slow Sunday Stitchers.

Sewing?

Not so much! I did press the laundry basket of reds that had to get washed and rewashed last month due to someone being in a mood (Peanut). Sigh. It is all pressed and back on the shelf smelling normal. 

I moved boxes around a bit in the garage/sewing room. Someone got an electronic drum set for his birthday (Greg) and it will live outside my office. The 3 D printer (he got it at a great deal - under $200) is also in there as well. Well, I did tell him he needed a hobby or two! 

I pulled this pile of teal scraps and placed it on the ironing board. Peanut decided to help by holding it down. So.....

I pulled the purple hearts I appliqued last year and laid them out. I have 4 leftover with this layout. I pulled white on white FQ's that should give me the 25 squares of 5.5 that I need for those open spots. I have not decided if the setting triangles will be a purple or white yet, but I can decide after I cut and lay out the white squares.

That is about all I got done on Thursday on my day off - well, I did get the kitchen floor mopped - which it really needed!. Something about updating all my girl scout records for cookies as well and coordinating dropping off and having parents pick up their girls cookie orders as well. It is cookie time after all.

Friday was a wash - Emily was home sick and I logged off work with zero ability to concentrate and feeling off. Much better today, thank goodness.

Saturday - Emily was off to school for 5:30AM for her day over in Tampa at the state fair competing with the FFA for the horse evaluation team. I took Aidan to school for 9-12 (well, 1:30!) so they could work on their FIRST robotics presentation boards/oral presentation and come up with their themes. It appears when you move on to Regionals there is a 10x10 area for each team -canopy area needed - and then you need to 'bling' it out! Who knew? We found out at the parent meeting Thursday night! Canopy ordered - as I was looking into getting one anyway.  Purple Lights someone had- they have purple t-shirts coming for their team of the BMS Panthers. A banner is being made - he had banners for all the other teams but this was a first for a Panther team moving on! One parent is creating a rolling cart for them to bring their robot, computer, boards and all their parts to each area as they compete. Us parents (Moms) came up with the hand out of candy in standard envelopes with a sticker of their name on it and it will be in a mailbox painted purple on their table for a hand out. Their presentation is a solution for small package theft - a secured mail box prototype. For costumes.... we got the boys (3 of them) to buy into wearing hats. Jeans, purple t-shirts and purple lighted cowboy hats! Lets hope they are memorable to the judges! It will be an interesting experience in a couple of weeks. The boys have been putting a lot of time and effort in since the week before the first competition. They have been staying late 3-4 days a week after school until 6PM and Fridays have been going in early for 8AM so they can have 3.5 hours to work on it - they have Robotics as a double period first thing on Fridays. He opened up Saturday mornings this week and next week as well for extra work. Not many teams are taking advantage of this but the 3 boys on the Panthers have been. 

While they were working I did a little stitching on hexagons and listened to my audio book. These are into 3 columns of 16 hexagons now.

Some wildlife.... I saw 14 wild turkeys on my lunchtime walk this week. This is just up the street from my house. 

I have about an hour before I need to go pick up the girl from school for 6PMish so I think I'll see what teal I can play with in the sewing room.

 

Birthday Sunday!

 Someone turned 14 today! He requested his Dad's cheesecake with raspberries. I went looking for cream cheese yesterday.... thank goodness Aldi had some since Walmart was completely out! He is 5 feet 9 at this point... and way too tall! (I'm a little under 5ft2 and now officially shorter than the girl!) Slightly shorter than his Dad but I'm sure he will be 6 feet by his next birthday and the tallest in the family. I might have mentioned he was too tall so he crouched down for me with a big smile!

I started this dish cloth in the car line waiting on Aidan for late pick up this week - when I remembered to put my phone games down! I tried the double moss stitch one from this free site. This will live in the car console for a few weeks as I anticipate 4 late pickups for him each week until the regional competition on the 26th. I think I got this yarn at Dollar Tree for a dollar. Should be fine to wash dishes with.

The chickens got some honeydew melon yesterday.  This is all 7 of them. Poppy is now done her molt and I got a green egg on Friday. All are laying again.

Lots of hand stitching going on! I finished putting the 4th section together this week. This is 4 sections laid out and is half of the quilt - 88x34. They still need to have the sections stitched together.

These are the sets of 4 hexagons that will make up 3 sections of the quilt.

These are the 'extras' for the 4th section. Just documenting so when I remember to prep these I know what I need! I need to add some and get these all into sets of 4 still. Looks like I need 4 yellow, hmmm how did I get extra browns? I already have a set of 4 together... oh well, 2 browns, 1 purple, 1 pink, 2 orange, 2 dark green, 3 light green, 3 light blue and 4 dark blue. I have brown, black, red and teal covered already.

I think my OMG for February will be to get these 4 sections assembled so that at the end of the month I will have all 8 sections assembled and then can finish them up in March. 

Linking up with Slow Sunday Stitchers and One Monthly Goal.

RSC in Teal

I got a little time to play with teal. There are so many shades and variations for the teal/aqua. I kept the greenish ones together in one block, the teal in one and mixed them in the third.

Since the Crossed Canoe Die was out - I went ahead and cut out some in aqua and white. I love how they came out.  A whole quilt of blues and teal/aqua would be oh so pretty.

The photo did not come out great, but on a walk Thursday night the sun was in a smoky haze and it was glowing red! Crazy sky and within half an hour it was past and back to normal. 

Aidan got his Chicken Tikka Masala for a late dinner tonight. I left it mostly prepared and on the last simmering step when I went to pick him up late from school (robotics working on their project for the next competition Feb 26). Greg made the rice in the quick cooker and we ate when we got home around 6:30. Emily is in route back to school from Tallahassee - should be back to school sometime around 9PM although I think it will be a little later than that. Hopefully we are home by 10PM. I moved her horses to 1PM on Saturday so she can sleep in. She was up around 4:30 this morning to get to school for 5:30.  Me..... I'm hoping the rain holds off so I can take the truck and pick up 69 cases of girl scout cookies Saturday morning. 

I'll link up with the RSC Challenge Saturday morning.

 

Mid week....

The start of a crazy month and no stitching since Sunday! So, it is a wildlife blog entry.

Monday Greg headed up to Gainseville for the night for a sleep study. Emily and I had scouts and a stop to get ear buds for both kids as Aidan's had broken and he needed new ones for school.  They have computers in all the classrooms for them to work on in the various classes. 

Tuesday was early drop off for Emily for Horse Evaluation practice with FFA. Since Greg was not home - I had to have the boy get up early too and bring him. Normally Greg does this drop off and I get the regular one. We hit DD after dropping Emily to school and we parked at Lake Lillian - a little pond in a neighborhood about 7 minutes from their school. We were chatting as we ate breakfast (the boy had finished waking up by that point!) and watching the birds. 

I think these are white ibis.

Muscovy ducks we think. They came out of the pond and waddled toward me!

Some regular ducks were just paddling around the pond. our view from the car.

Tuesday the boy opted to stay late - so the girl got picked up normal time and taken home. I made some taco meat and then headed out to pick up the boy for 6PM from school.  After eating and doing his homework - it was a 'quick' trip to Kohls to pick up a flannel shirt for Aidan. He wears it as a light jacket when it is cool and his last one ripped on Saturday - it was a small and he is now a 5 ft 9  young man and a medium to large is a better size! It only took him 30 minutes to pick one.....sigh. He stayed to work on their robotics project for the next competition Feb 26. He will probably be staying late tonight and Thursday and wants an early drop off Friday. I told him not a problem - we are happy to get him to/from school (20 minutes away) for him to work on his project with his team. Friday will be a very early day - Emily will be up in Tallahassee with her grade for civics and exploring the state house and other things up there. They have a 5:30AM drop to school and a 9 or 9:30 PMish pick up. Her early horse eval days should be over after the State Fair competition on Feb 12 - another early drop to school for her to get to Tampa with the FFA. 

Girl Scout cookie pick up is this Saturday morning - I'll get a workout lugging cases of cookies from the truck into the house!

Emily will add to some late pickups with her extra band practices this month and a concert or two in the next few weeks. 

They are  keeping me hopping! Wishing the road project  that will be going through my house had progressed on time and we would have relocated a lot closer to the school of their choice with less driving time. With morning traffic - we plan on 50 minutes to get there for early drop offs. So far the late pick up traffic has not been too bad and it is about 25 minutes to get there. Lets hope the gas prices don't climb high in the next month!

Hopefully I will have a little progress to show tomorrow. I think I just have a Zoom girl scout leader meeting this evening... which I can stitch through!