May table scrap challenge

 3 hours to spare! 

My favorite flower is a tiger lily or ditch lily found all over Vermont. I was gifted a bunch from a co-worker for my first house. The divided ones after 3 years ended up at my parents camp. I look forward to seeing them again in July.

The Carolina Lily pattern was one I've been wanting to try. This challenge was the perfect fit. Orange, favorite and lily.

Hand stitching binding completed at 8:35 pm May 31! Linking up with the Challenge.

A new block

 

I got a little sewing time in yesterday before a splitting headache did me in. I have always wanted to try making a version of these Carolina Lily blocks and with the orange table scrap challenge it was the perfect time to give it a try. I need to hand stitch the stems and then get it quilted and bound. Hopefully that will happen later today. I'm hoping to post a finish on this Wednesday, the last day of the ABC Challenge link up. Wish me luck. Oh, I found this free pattern over at thefatquartershop. 

Slow Stitching Sunday

I had planned to start quilting on the Frosty's... but I ended up not getting any quilting in this week after finishing up hubby's repairs and then doing some seam repairs on my Celtic Solstice quilt from 2013 (finished it in 2015 and it is used a lot in my house being one of hubbys favorites). I took a few days off from stitching and enjoyed watching hockey games this week. The Florida Panthers are fun to watch and it will be interesting to see who they end up playing in the Stanley Cup Finals.

When the F1 race started this morning, I grabbed the Bear Paw quilt, since it was marked and might have had a needle with thread left in it all ready to go! Note to self, either mark the Frosty quilt for the cross hatch, or find some masking tape to use and place by the quilt!

My Mom used to make baked beans a lot growing up (Saturday night hot dogs and beans) and now she is requested to make them for certain events as people love her beans. We don't have the soldier beans available in Florida, so I tried using Navy beans which are a much smaller bean. It smelled right, and tastes right, but the bean size is just not what I am used to. Sigh, I guess I will have to bring some home with me when I am up in Vermont next month. That, or order them online. My Mom uses the recipe on the back of the bag of the Maine Soldier Beans, but adds the high amount of molasses and omits the onion. The sugar is brown sugar. Oh so yummy. I also got my bean pot down to cook them in rather than the big pot my Mom always uses to make hers. When I pulled it out of the oven last night to check it Aidan asked 'What is that?' I said,' A bean pot'. His response "is that really a thing?' Ayup, bean pots exist! The stoneware did a great job cooking it and it is glazed so I can use dish soap to clean it up after. I got this back in the early 90's and I admit, it might only be the 4th time using it. 
 

Time to go get some groceries and then I think I'm going to play in my sewing room today with a little pool time later this afternoon. Enjoy your Sunday. Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

 

RSC finishing up Orange.

 I got all 3 things done this month!

The kites were the last finish last weekend. They are pretty fun to make.

The scrap jar was completed at the beginning of the month. I still have 3 to make this weekend and then need to assemble them into a top.

The split nines I shared last week.

I have yet to figure out the ABC Table Scraps Challenge but have all weekend to play!

The kids are done school as of Friday. Emily is at Band Boot Camp for Marching with the High School Band all day Saturday. Aidan has an F1 watching weekend. I have a 3.1 mile walk to do before the end of the month... and it looks like cooler weather so it will get completed Saturday morning. Linking up with the RSC on Saturday.

A little scrap jar progress.

 The month is flying by and I need to get a twin size quilt into a top and quilted and bound before June 24. I did 3 more of these blocks on Sunday afternoon. I think I have a teal and a medium or light blue left to do and will pull some browns to make a 16 patch in that color to finish things off. That will be 12, 16 inch blocks. With a sashing and a solid outside border - maybe 4 inch, it should fit a twin size. This will become a donation quilt up in Vermont to the homeless shelter.

The girls have figured out the perch. Blackberry likes to be on it. There was peeping a little bit ago, but it must be nap time as all is quiet. It should be an interesting work day with the chickens hanging out near my office!

Repairs are finished!

 I finished the last bits of hand quilting on the Labor Day Quilt I had made for hubby years ago. There was a lot of thread pulled out of this quilt! The 35 blocks have been hand quilted now, going around the design. I have warm and natural batting in this, so it does not need much quilting to hold it together. The binding was already fixed, and I think I have patched up all the little holes from animal teeth or claws. It will get a turn in the washer and dryer Sunday morning and then hubby will be happy to have it back. 

I think I'll work on adding some cross hatch in the Frosty McChill quilt. I have done some machine quilting on it already but wanted to hand quilt around the design and add some filler in the background area. I just moved the binding fabric for this - must remember to put that onto the cutting table and make the binding for it so it is ready to go.

One week left of school for the kids and we have one more awards ceremony for Emily's 8th grade this week. She played clarinet at the high school graduation early Saturday morning. 

We have some additions to the family. We still have 3 chickens that are 3 years old and laying. Emily has been bugging us to get more.... so we got 4 chicks on Friday night. 2 easter eggers and 2 Rhode Island reds.

From left to right - Ivy (Poison Ivy name from Aidan and given to the most noisy one!), Eggnog - an easter egger, Buttercup and Blackberry - the other easter egger. It will be interesting to see what color eggs the easter eggers will lay. They are crossed with a blue laying egg breed, so it could be brown, white or any shade of blue or green. Our current one, Poppy, lays the best green eggs. The RI's will lay large brown eggs. Our current 2 Plymouths lay large brown eggs. We get 2-3 eggs a day and it will be 5-6 months before these ladies will start producing eggs.

These two are content to just fall asleep in your hand! Buttercup and Blackberry. The dog was too curious, so they live in the sewing area/my office area which can be closed off from the dog.

Since they were moved in there and it is a 'collection' area of anything and everything from the rest of the house, I spent some time with Emily going through things. 3 garbage bags of things discarded, and others put in a proper place. A stack of now empty containers of all sizes and more room to walk around.... or sit and watch the chicks! The best news.... I didn't find any new projects! 

Linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers.

RSC and some orange

 I got a little sewing time in on Thursday and finished sewing the dark green split nine patches I had cut out last month, and did a light and dark in orange for this month. Wish I would have turned a few of those 4 patches in the brighter orange block, but oh well. 

These blocks set this way remind me of this quilt I finished in 2017. I called it the cube quilt.

I also found a grey snowflake strip of fabric in the lights bin to use for the kites for next week. It will be an early start tomorrow getting Emily to the high school for 7AM to play for the graduation that morning with the band. I think they are headed to their Grandma's for the day after that to help her put back everything after the new carpet was installed earlier this week. They went over last Sunday to move all the things out of her hutch and other furniture and the bottom areas of the closets for her. 

That means 2 days to twiddle my thumbs! I mean.... sew? Maybe think about painting the living room or the bedroom? I hear we are picking up 4 baby chickens tonight as well, so it should be an interesting weekend to see how the dog handles that!

Linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge on Saturday. The kids have one week of school left before I have 2 kids in high school! 

Progress and foot pain

 It is almost summer, so for some reason I get foot issues! Very frustrating. My heel started hurting after Easter - probably from being barefoot in the kitchen all day on hard cement floors. I did lots of research the last few weeks and found a stretch - similar to the one when I had the Achilles issue. Point the front of the toe towards you to stretch the muscle that runs along the bottom of the foot. I also found this shoe insert that still feels a little strange but oh boy, does it really help with the pain! I got mine off Amazon.

Samurai Insoles' Ninja Orthotics- Quick Relief for Plantar Fasciitis

I've also been wearing my sneakers in the house, (new ones, I got a pair of Ryka's the end of April and within 3 weeks they were falling apart, and the soles were all gone! I got a pair of Asics and they are not melting on the pavement! Yea.) Rolling a golf ball under your foot amazingly helps a lot as well, when the dog is not trying to get that ball from under your foot!

I have been working on hubbys quilt repair. I have unpicked all but one block - and I'm leaving that one since the quilting on it looks fine and is not pulling out. I have hand quilted almost all of those unpicked blocks and I think I have 4 left to quilt. I have gotten a bunch done the last 2 nights listening to my audible book while quilting. It took me a couple of chapters to get into it, but then I could not turn it off! The Darkling Bride by Laura Andersen. I finished it last night around 11:15PM!

Time to head into the sewing room and see what trouble I can get into with orange scraps.

Just busy and no stitching

 Just busy with kids. Emily had her FFA banquet last week. She had to go up on stage a handful of times. This is a photo of the horse evaluation team. 2 certificates, chapter animal and all local fair participants.

Aidan had awards ceremony for 9th grade. Got a varsity letter for academics with a 4.0. Also 2 teacher recognition awards. He is the tall one next to his friend Payton. They had the same schedule this year.

I got a hair cut! It was below my shoulders, so it was time for a summer cut.

Yesterday was driving for Greg's eye exam  in Gainesville. All good news on that front. Thank goodness. 

Em is playing at the high school graduation on Saturday so had practice this week for it. Kids are done school next Friday. I just have one more awards ceremony for Emilys 8th grade next week. Then the crazy traveling summer begins!

RSC - Scrap Jars

 I pulled out some orange and my 16 patch orange block and got to work on it this week. I pulled the black one as well since I had cut out the white parts for 2 already last month. Lets just say... I might have forgotten how I was assembling them! I could not figure out why I didn't have the 2.5 inch squares in white cut.... so I promptly cut those out along with the squares in black and orange. Well.... I seemed to have forgotten I was putting a half square triangle there in the corners! Oops! I got a couple of four patches instead. I did not have enough of the black paw prints to get 4 triangles, so I had to dig in the stash and find another black. Not shown, the 4 big triangles in black that I cut out first. You know, the part that should be white! Sigh....

I did manage to get through the errors and have both the orange and the black scrap jars completed for the month. I need a twin size quilt that I said I would make to donate to a charity this summer. I am thinking these blocks would make a great quilt for that since they are nice and big finishing around 16 inches.... so, I might just finish off making them this month. I checked and I only need to make a brown 16 patch block to go with the 5 others I have in the block container. I have a red, yellow, light blue, teal and a green... and a cream and another teal but I think the cream would not work in this quilt and 4 blues would be too much. 

I'll be sharing these on Saturday with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge where we are playing with orange.

Progress on Labor Day Madness

 It does not look like much but I have been making progress on this quilt. I had a quarterly meeting on Zoom this morning and I was able to get a little hand quilting in. I believe I have 15 of 35 blocks left to hand quilt and of those, 6 to unpick still. Lots of progress made since Sunday's post.

I had company while I attended my video meeting this morning. It's a tough dog life! My meeting started later than I was thinking so I was able to get a walk in with him this morning.

The Carnita's I was making yesterday did not get done in time for dinner last night (Aidan and I had baked flounder with potato and green beans, and Emily made stir fried rice for her and her Dad). Note to self - when you buy the 10 pound pork butt on sale (for $1.29 a pound!), cook it overnight or it will never get done! It did turn out yummy from the bits I taste tested when I pulled it late last night. I have a 13x9 and a 9x9 glass container packed full of the meat and sauce. What we don't eat tonight, I'll seal for the freezer. They make great taco's and enchiladas.