Slow Sunday stitching.

I enjoyed some binding stitching on my scrappy Irish Chain quilt this morning while watching a very entertaining F1 race on tv. I finished the machine quilting on this Friday evening and have not spent much time on the binding yet. I do hope to finish it in the next few days.

I did have a big finish last Sunday with my Endless Diamond quilt. I hope to hang it in my office today. 

Linking up with Kathy and the slow Sunday Stitchers where I hope you will get a little relaxing stitching time in today.

Friday night sewing....

After work I started in with some straight line stitching on the scrappy Irish Chain. I figured I'd do the 3 lines following the chains around the quilt. 

So much orange in this quilt! I must have been using lots of orange 4 or 5 years ago when I was stitching this!

After a brief break to call in a Chinese order for dinner, run to Pinch to get shock for the pool and pick up the chinese and eat dinner..... I finished the last half of the quilt.

Trimmed it and made the binding and attached it to the top. Aidan happened to be in to check on Peanut so I asked him what color for binding. 'I don't know - the golden brown maybe?' I pulled some along with a dark brown, a medium blue and he pulled a dark blue. Emily wandered in. 'Let Peanut choose!'. We decided the dark brown worked best.  I had a perfect size of leftover snowflake print for the backing.

Now to hand stitch the binding to the back of the quilt. Could this be my second finish for the week? We will see. I left those open spaces free of quilting. Something might end up in there... or not. Time will tell. Finished quilt size is 52.5x67.5.

Garden Path blocks.

 I cut and made the final dark purple Garden Path block today - in the upper left hand corner. That gives me 16 - 12 inch blocks. I'm debating if I add 2 orange and 2 light/bright green ones to the mix. 48x48 is a little small so I think I'll add another 4 and maybe some kind of a border to make it a little bigger. We will see. 

Thursday night we headed to Inverness and went with Grandma on an Air Boat ride! That was an experience. I didn't bring my phone so no photo's but the scenery was amazing. We did see birds and a turtle but no gaters or snakes, thank goodness. 

Linking up on Saturday with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Table Scrap Challenge 2022

 July is purple and the prompt is circles. While digging through a basket of scraps, I found 4 pinwheels leftover from a baby bunting quilt many years ago. One was a light purple. Hmm. What about circles? How about attempting quilting circles on my machine? I gave it a try and while it is no where near perfect, it was fun to try and I might need to try this again sometime. 

I did my second attempt at machine binding and it went better than last time but still needs work. That whole practice improves the skill is correct. 

Linking up on Friday with the table scrap challenge.

Endless Diamonds is completed!

 

Endless Diamonds - 48x60 inches-  is finished. I used aurofil thread to hand piece and YLI to hand quilt it.  The binding was finished late last night. A thank you to Emily for holding it up for the photo before she let the chickens out this morning. 

Binding time!

 

The binding stitching has started on the Endless Diamonds quilt! Hand pieced and hand quilted. I have enjoyed making this quilt and I love how it turned out!

Linking up with the Slow Sunday stitchers.

Rsc in purple

 

I am thankful we have one more week of purple!

I did get the 16 patches made but still need a garden path block in dark purples. I also found my bucket of purple scraps which will help making the garden path blocks and probably a crumb block or two.

Emily did an escape room with some friends last night. You are locked in a room and need to solve clues to get the door unlocked in an hour. Another Dad and I were in there with the 4 of them and  an older sister. They solved it with 2 minutes to spare! It was fun! I think I need to bring my boys and see how we do as a family.

Linking up with the RSC. 

Today Emily has horse riding for the first time in a month. Aidan has F1 qualifying to watch. I have tomatoes to can this afternoon. At some point, I need to trim this quilt and make and attach the binding! Oh so close to a finish! I finished quilting it last night around 11pm. 

One block to quilt!

 

I have one block left to quilt. I need to move the hoop to the last corner.  Bear the dog was laying on his quilt sleeping... as soon as I laid this out he hopped onto it! Silly boy.

This was Bear right before I put the Endless Diamonds quilt down.

Progress

 

All blocks are complete! They all need a good press and I know there will be some seam fudging already as I sew it together. 

My **personal** computer was sent away last week and it is killing me doing everything on my phone. Sorry if I have not visited blogs. I hope to catch up when my computer arrives home. It never worked well since I got it, something with the battery. They finally got the empty box to us on the third try to ship it back but I had it with me up in Vermont by then. I do have my work laptop working fine but I don't do anything personal on that one.

I have been logging off work at 3 and then spending time in the sewing room working on this, this week. Peanut is happy with me being in his space for the extra time. 

Meals this week have been pork schnitzel with au gratin potato and peas. Steak and zucchini, and tonight is chicken with lemon and capers over rice with salad.  I got a good deal on the pork and steak. I cut the second loin into chops 10- 1 inch chops for 2 meals and seal a mealed them for the freezer. One t-bone steak is in the freezer too. I think Thursday might be rissoto with baked fish. Trying to mix things up a bit. I might make a spinach quiche for breakfast too. 

A long time UFO

Scrappy Irish Chain. 

I searched and searched for these blocks on Sunday. Looks like I need 15 alternate blocks and 2 - 25 patch blocks before I can start assembling this one. This was a leader and ender with 2 inch squares quite a few years ago. 

I was going to sew the hearts together this month with purple as the RSC, but that one thinks it wants hand quilting where this one said it would be fine with machine quilting. Are your Quilts as outspoken as mine are? 

 

Slow Sunday stitching

 Progress has been made on the Endless Diamonds quilt. I have 2.5 more blocks to quilt! I am hoping to get this one finished in the next week. 

I have added some granny squares to the piles. I have 11 medium blue, 6 dark and 4 light. I did see that Joanns has these blues in stock in case I need more. 

The girl has found a knitting project she wants to try. We went and got all the yarn she needs and we will see how she does with it!

Linking up with Kathy and the other slow stitchers.

RSC Crossed Canoe blocks

I cut 2 purple crossed canoe blocks and got them stitched up this week and added to the collection. We had red in January, teal in February, Yellow in March, Pink in April, Dark green in May, Dark Blue in June and now Purple in July. 

I use my Accuquilt and my Crossed Canoe Die to make these. I cut 2 6.25 inch squares of background and the color to make each block. Swap out the middle of each and you get 2 blocks of each to make my block.

First I put the middle and corner triangle together.

Then add a side. The extra bits are cut off so everything lines up really nicely.

Add the other side and you get one part of the block.

With 4 parts together you get a Crossed Canoe block. These are really easy to put together. 

Linking up with the RSC on Saturday.

 

Home again

 I did 2 days of driving and we arrived home Tuesday night before 10PM. All the animals were happy we were home. We noticed the change in temps in Georgia with the heat and humidity when we got out of the car. I did not miss that at all!

Turns out things were closed on Monday - the fort and the museum in NY - so we altered the route. Instead of Philly we were going to hit Gettysburg but... it would have been around 7PM Monday and the kids decided they just wanted to get home, so we altered the route again and got home. They did get to see the skyline of NY and Aidan was watching the planes land in Newark as we drove by.

Turns out, we really like Panera Bread! We hit it once on the way up and twice on the way home. Emily wanted 'healthy' and got the Green Goddess salad each time. Aidan loved the spicy chicken sandwich and tried the pizza on the 3rd try. I did the Mediterranean bowl twice and then the salad on the last night. I'll be making that bowl for my lunches at home I think! Pretty easy with the quinoa, hummus, yogurt, lettuce, tomato, cuke, kalamata olives and feta cheese.

The car has been through the car wash and all the bugs I hit in Florida are now off the windshield and front of the car. I visited an Aldi and got some produce and milk into the house (would you believe the things I left in the fridge were still there, untouched by hubby?).

This one sat pretty for me this morning for a photo. I see he has claimed a few more of Emily's stuffed animals for tug and toss games.

He also got his first bath yesterday morning. He does love the water.

Peanut is waiting for me to go sew so he can get attention. Ollie has been sleeping on me at night and getting lots of petting when he wakes me up! Spoiled boys.

Emily is outside filling the dog pool with water and he is playing with the water stream from the hose. Such a silly boy. Time to get dressed and see what trouble I can get in today. Back to work tomorrow.

Sunday in Vermont

Today is our last day in Vermont before we head home. The weather has been beautiful (Mom says it's too cold but I love the 70's and lows at night in the 50's - well 48 this morning was chilly!). 

The loons had twins. They have been hanging out in front of the camp. This is Mama and babies.

We took Grammy and Grandpa to the North Branch falls for a walk and to see the waterfalls.

We have been enjoying Maple Creemees and went to a Mountaineers baseball game in Montpellier.

The kids and I have been kayaking on the lake quite a few times.

I managed to hit the wrong button and the wifi was down for a bit so some puzzle making happened. This is the family puzzle my sister put together from photo's from my nieces' wedding last fall.

Emily has been baking - she has made a cake, brownies, pecan scones and pecan pie, then chocolate chip cookies!

Some photo's of the mountain views from the road between Elmore and Stowe. 

Mama duck and 3 babies.... we only saw one with her this morning though.

Aidan on the swing by the lake waiting on the boat ride.

We climbed the mountain on Saturday. All I can say is, boy am I out of shape BUT I did make it up there with lots of stops!

The kids went ahead with my niece and her boyfriend and their uncle.

I hung back with my sister Terri! Here we are at the top.

On a boat ride yesterday afternoon with the mountain that I climbed in the background.

I have not dipped into the hand work bag much while here. I did hand stitch the binding on the RSC Squares quilt, and have been doing a little crochet - with a few granny squares to add to the pile. A knitted wash cloth got finished and I found another in the hiking bag yesterday (from October encampment with girl scouts I think!) and Emily is working on that now. Maybe some quilting will happen down by the lake this afternoon.... we will see. I know a kayak paddle is planned and I need to pop into town to get waters and snacks for the drive home as well as something for dinner tonight.

RSC Squares is officially finished.

 I finished hand stitching the binding last night. I was enjoying stitching on the screened in porch listening to the loons call each other until the light went away. 

All of my siblings will be coming over today (4 of them) for burgers and dogs on the grill and to visit. It looks like it will be in the low 70's so I don't think anyone will be going into the chilly lake today. 

Sunday in Vermont.

I am really enjoying the 70's with no humidity in Vermont. Much better than feels like 100+. We are spending lots of time outside and in the fresh air. We do love the screened in porch overlooking the lake. My parents have owned this property since 1964 and I always spent my summers here growing up. We got done school and moved out here (45 minutes from our home) and then moved back right before school started in the fall. Lots of great memories have been made here and I'm so glad my kids can enjoy it as well.

I think I started this blue knitted dish cloth at an Encampment with girl scouts in October. Emily has added some stitches to it in various places. It was stuck in my backpack for a long time and then was in the back of the car. It finally got finished Friday. I also added a granny square that I was crocheting on the new swing with canopy out by the driveway looking down at the water. Very peaceful.

Aidan has a F1 race this morning and maybe I'll get some stitches in on the binding of this quilt. It seems people take it to cover their legs and snuggle up in whenever I want to work on it! Linking up with Kathy and the other slow stitchers.

I have our meals planned for the day and the kids and I might try to scale the mountain this afternoon.  I think Mom likes the break and having meals just planned and made and presented! Steak on the grill with baked potato and green beans. It was to get cooler tonight, so I planned potato leek soup. Tomorrow is lots of siblings and family coming over for dogs and burgers on the grill with lots of salads. Maybe 17? It will be good to see all my siblings and some of the nieces and nephews. 

 

RSC in purple.

 I guessed and made a garden path block in purple at the end of last month. Here it is with the last dark blue one.

Emily got her maple creemee last night and is a happy camper. Creemee is soft serve in Vermont.

The kids did a little fishing and after dinner we did a kayak paddle. Enjoying our time up in Vermont.

Linking up with the RSC.