RSC

 I was playing catch up this month with my Arkansas Traveller blocks. I added 3 each of teal, blue and orange and then laid them out in a diagonal setting. I need one more to round it out. If I did my calculations correctly, with the setting triangles it will be around 68 inches square. 

The potato chip blocks are being stubborn and insist on being made into a bigger quilt. Sigh. I calculate I need to make 17 more 12 inch blocks to make it happy. I have unpicked the boo boo row but have yet to turn it around and sew it back on.  This is a photo of before the un picking. It thinks it wants to be a 6x7 row quilt and it is currently a 5x5. 

Don't you just hate ornery quilts?

I think I'm done for the day. I was up early to take the girl to school for a practice and then they headed off to a marching band competition in Melbourne, FL for the day. I continued on to my FIL's house and did some much needed cleaning while he is in rehab. The initial bit is done after 3-4 hours. I still need to tackle his bathroom and the fridge. We had a maid service come in a year ago, but he fires everyone! Thinks they are too expensive. He can't see well, so thinks it is clean. I'm glad I brought cleaning supplies with me, since there were not any there! After a few loads of laundry and a pick up of the magnolia cones on the front lawn, I'm done for the day. He had a huge water oak in his back yard split and half came down with the storm and landed into his neighbors yard. She called and got someone to come look at it this morning and they are handling that tree and removal and will take down the rest of the tree in the next day or two. Greg came over around noon when the crew arrived to work on the tree as he is the keeper of his Dad's money. His Dad asked us to handle this for him and they gave us a reasonable rate. 

 I'm going to sit with my feet up and add some stitches to my spool and mice while watching another Harry Potter movie. I was so sad to see that Dame Maggie Smith passed away yesterday. She was such a wonderful actress, and my favorites of her are as Professor McGonagle in the Harry Potter series, Wendy in the movie Hook, The Sister Act movies and of course in Downtown Abby. I need to go watch some of her earlier movies. She has had quite the career. 

Linking up with the RSC.

All good here

 Got some good winds but no damage at my place and only an inch of rain. Still need to check on my in-laws places today.

I hope all in the path are ok - looks like it moved through Georgia and is hitting the Carolina's. 

Table Scrap Challenge for September

I had plans and ideas. Alas, it is Thursday before the link up and none of those ideas materialized. I pivoted, and saw this scrap of leaf print on the shelf. My potholders are falling apart so I need some new ones. I remember I got a package of oven mitt batting in the Christmas Box from Missouri Quilt Company last December. I guess making some potholders while waiting on a hurricane it is!

The directions said to use 2 layers of this with a layer of cotton batting in between them with the heat part facing out. I think I layered it correctly. I forgot about the little loop handle on the first one, so that one got sewn on after I did the turn and finished the top stitching. I tucked it in between the 2 layers facing right sides together (well, I had it on the outside, stitched over it and remembered that is wrong. Unpicked it and tucked it into the two fabrics!) and got it stitched in before I turned it. These are just for our use, so they don't need to be perfect! The potholders we had were 9x7 so I cut the inside stuff to that size and did 9.5x7.5 for the fabric.  Dark leaves, check. Useful project, check.

I think I need to go bake something to test them out! I'll link up on Friday with Joy and the Table Scrap Challenge - assuming we have power and internet after the storm. We have yet to lose it in the 13 years we have been here but are prepared if we do. The kids are off school Thursday and Friday. I think I'm calling in being off on Friday as well, since I assume I'll have to visit both in-laws and assess and assist as needed with pick up at their places. So, a nice long weekend. Let's hope the power stays on... since the temps are still around 90 with humidity feels like 100. I do like my AC!

Hurricane Helene....

 Well, it would not be September without a hurricane in Florida. We are inland in SW Ocala, so other than a rain storm with some good winds..... not too much to worry about for my area. They just announced the schools are closed on Thursday and Friday is TBD. They do have a half day on Wednesday that was already on the books, so get out at 1PM for my kids. The latest is that we will start feeling the rain and winds Thursday afternoon to evening. It really depends on where it tracks. We are prepped for emergencies, so not too concerned. I'll fill up containers with water tomorrow afternoon and if it looks dicey, I'll make a carafe of coffee Thursday night. I do have a Coleman camp stove and little propane tanks though, so I could easily boil water for the French press if we lose power =). You know, priorities..... must have coffee in the morning! Here is a Florida map of the counties. I'm in the blue Marion county in the north center of the state (south west area). My FIL is in Lake county and my MIL is in Citrus county.

My FIL is doing better but is still in the hospital. They are just waiting for a bed to open up at the rehab facility. Greg pulled things inside at his house today. If it tracks to the east more... we'll go shut his hurricane shutters, but he is inland as well. 

A little progress has been made on the mice. I got another one completed and the spacer done as well. 

I spent a bunch of time in the car on Sunday. Greg and I went over to The Villages to visit his Dad in the hospital. Then when we got home, Emily wanted to bring the kids car to gas it up. Her first foray onto 'real' roads. I had her Dad go with her. She took the back neighborhood roads there then the 35 MPH road past the elementary school for a mile to the 7-11. She tried the busy SW49th 2 lane road by our house to get home. Once she did that...... I don't think I will be driving much now!

I was taking my car through the car wash and then to Aldi. She grabbed the keys and drove - even did the 6 lane divided highway for about a mile from the car wash to Aldi. Then took the 4 lane divided highway home. She also remembered she needed sneakers after dinner that night- so drove 15 minutes to Bealls, practiced parking in that empty parking lot and drove home on a 55 MPH road in the dusk/dark. When she decides to do something, she goes all in!

Meals.... the never ending battle. I had made stock with the chicken carcass last Thursday and needed to use it so made some Chicken Chili and corn bread on Sunday night. Monday, I pulled brats from the freezer and had those with potato salad. Today, I have pulled pork chops and will be making schnitzel, mashed potato and corn for dinner. I was thinking salmon/cod for dinner, but if it is raining then we'll do Berber chicken kievs. I have not thought further... but there is plenty in the fridge, freezer and pantry for meals.

 

Weekend

 I'll be spending time today with jack the ripper. On Friday, I made 5 more potato chip blocks and added them to the top I had made since it wanted to be bigger. I hear I need to make another 17 blocks for it to be happy! Somehow I flipped the way it was oriented, so the middles look the same rather than staggered for this row. Oops! It will get unpicked while watching the F1 race this morning.

Then I'll be adding some stitches to outline this mouse. Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Saturday was a busy day. After walking the dog, and watching a bit of the F1 Qualifying we headed to the barn. There are two new barn cats that have yet to be named. The orange tabby is very friendly and fluffy. The grey one did let me pet him and pick him up!

Boomer wanted attention and some scratches, so Emily made him happy.

She rode Doc again yesterday and did a good job with him. The pink around the eye is some ointment to keep the fly's away. The fly's were horrible there yesterday. She had just finished a good canter and was waiting for her riding buddy to do her workout.

After having a lunch of the brisket that took forever to finish cooking - note to self a 16 pound brisket takes forever to get up to temp! I pulled it out of the oven Saturday morning at 7! It went in yesterday at 1 after being on the grill to smoke for 4 hours. It was yummy and I have a lot to seal a meal into packages for the freezer.

Greg and I headed to the hospital to see his Dad. He had a procedure Friday and is having another this morning at 8AM. Not a very good 89th birthday present for him. He is extremely weak and tired with no energy. We will head over this afternoon and see how he is after he is back up to his room. Quite a different plan to what we were hoping to do this weekend!

RSC - Arkansas Traveller Blocks

 I just finished sewing the 3 orange blocks this afternoon and decided to lay them out. With this diagonal layout - I need one more block. There are currently 24 blocks - 3 blocks per month for 8 months of color. I think I'll add one more in either purple or green to finish it off. White setting triangles and then it should be about 68x68. It might get a border or two to make it a wee bit bigger. Maybe a 2 and a 4 inch border to frame it? 

It has been a strange week. Greg got a call on Monday night around 5 from his Dad. He was in pain and wanted to go to the ER. Greg drove over to his house (45 minutes with no traffic) and got him to the hospital. They determined a UTI, antibiotics and sent him home around midnight. Tuesday, after finishing work in the early afternoon, I headed over to grab his script from the pharmacy and deliver it with some things he asked for. Then picked up Emily at school on my way home. (she volunteered at the middle school band program helping out with the woodwinds. They get out of school an hour after the high school this year so are helping out the middle school teacher.) Wednesday, I had a girl scout event planning meeting and turned in the wands that Emily had worked on. She stayed home with homework this month. Wands are made of chopsticks, then doodle hot glue on in patterns and then they get spray painted so they are wands for the littles at the Harry Potter Event in November. The bigger girls make their own wands in their rotations. Aidan was gone all day on a trip to UCF in Orlando with the engineering group on his new Saturday adventure. They got to tour the campus, see the labs and experiments and get a feel for the campus. He was at school for 6:30AM and got back after 7PM. It was hot out (feels like 100 with lots of walking on campus)... and it appears his credit card did not work in the water vending machines. He had a headache, and drank tons of water when he got home. After a couple of hours it was better and I got to hear about his day. He had fun, but way too many people on that campus. I guess it is around 77K students.

Thursday - day off so some relaxing and some sewing happened. Then, we got a phone call from the Health Alert people right after lunch. My FIL has fallen and could not get up. (Ok, I flashed back to that commercial from the 80's with the 'I've fallen and I can't get up'!) They sent an ambulance. They called our house and my cell phone. We made phone calls with no answers... then the lawn guy called Greg and said they just loaded his Dad in the ambulance and headed to the hospital. Greg headed over and he was off for testing. He said he passed out and fell and then could not get up. He just was at the hospital on Monday. His birthday is Sunday - he'll be 89. He has been in the hospital or rehab the last 3 birthdays. We were excited to head over with the kids Sunday to celebrate with him at home. Sigh. We will see what happens but at least he was wearing the monitor watch and was able to respond when they detected the fall. Too weak to get up is not a good thing. 

I find I can't concentrate well on hand work while life is crazy/out of my hands and I'm worrying. So, not much progress anywhere else. Emily is a late pick up today, so I need a flexible dinner. I just put some pinto beans into the insta pot. I've got a skirt steak thawing for fajita meat and I know I have some peppers and onions to go with that and some tortillas. There is even some avacado, cilantro and lime in the fridge and things to make pico. That should work for a eat as you want dinner tonight. 

Tomorrow night - brisket! I picked one up at Sams on Monday afternoon and finally prepped it late morning with the salt and pepper rub. It will go on the grill early tomorrow morning and should be ready by dinner time. Someone has been eating the rest of the roaster chicken and it was down to bones when I pulled it out at lunch.... so that is in the crock pot with water, parsley, onion, celery, carrots, garlic, salt and pepper. I'd better go check the beans (they beeped a while ago) and start chopping veggies. 

RSC catching up....

 I know the RSC is darks this month.... but I got a wee bit behind on my blocks so I'm doing catch up this week.

I was good with my Arkansas Traveller blocks until May. June blue, July aqua and August orange need to get made. I spent time on Thursday picking fabrics for the blue and aqua blocks and got them cut this afternoon. I got the aqua blocks sewn up and figured I'd take some photo's and make a post. I plan to continue sewing after this and get the 3 blue blocks sewn up. 

There might have been some unpicking.... how these got turned I'll never know. I was chain piecing them and everything! Sigh.

The three blue sets are ready to be sewn as soon as I post this.

The three aqua blocks to add to the container. Linking up with the RSC.

The blues!

For the non sewing part...

The dog was outside the bedroom door at 7:30 this morning whining for his morning walk. I am unhappy with the weather person who said the last hurricane was going to pull dry air down to Florida. Yup, that has NOT happened! It is still soupy and hot. I am dripping after my walk in the morning. I had some bacon in the fridge so after I made a cup of coffee, I laid them out on the pan and baked them at 375 for 18 minutes. It was the thick bacon and turned out great. I cooked up an egg to go with that... and the rest of the pan of bacon disappeared throughout the morning as people woke up! 

I had gathered these two eggs last night.

After the F1 qualifying this morning, I took Emily to horses where the girls got their barn 'therapy' time. There is a new barn kitten and they spent a bunch of time with her before finally getting their horses ready. They finally got on around 11:30 for their 11 lesson! They had a good lesson with some obstacles, cones and poles they got to trot and canter through. The donkeys were out in one section and were very friendly. The girls walked the horses around the field obstacle course for another 20 minutes while the next person was tacking up. Then they hosed off the horses and gave everyone carrots and turned them out into the pasture. We finally left a little before 1.  

Look at that face!

We picked up Zaxbys for lunch on the way home and then I really wanted to go look at a house in the neighborhood as it was an open house this weekend. I have been looking at houses and photo's and floor plans online, but I wanted to walk through and get the feel. It was nice, but I'm sure it will be sold soon. No extra room for a sewing/office area that I would need.  We are waiting on the county to make an offer on our property as it is needed to expand a road. We will see how long it takes them and what is on the market when that happens.  Until then, I'm going to head on back and get some more sewing in this evening as I listen to an audio book. 

Thursday

 It feels like not much has gotten done this week! Emily was sick last week and missed a couple of days of school. She slept a lot but is on the mend this week. She was kind and shared her germs with me and I slept a bunch Sunday and rested on Monday rather than logging into work. I did get hand quilting done, so more mice have been stitched. Two sides are done. I have 7 mice and 1.5 spools to stitch before I get to the 3 borders. The white border is 2 straight lines, the light teal is a triangle of cheese with a stitched line and the outer blue is butterfly's with a loopy line. I have 3 sides to do for the borders.

The family still insists they need dinner every, single night! Monday, I needed to go get Emily for 6PMish, so I did meatloaf and mashed garlic potato's with peas. Tuesday, I gave the kids options of a baked chicken and rice or chicken enchilada. They asked for lemon chicken and capers (Emily takes hers before I add the capers) with rice and roasted broccoli and cauliflower. Emily wanted lasagna - only meat with the noodles and a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese on top. Nope - leftovers to clear out the fridge was Wednesday. I will make 2 different pans of lasagna tonight. One for Emily and one for the rest of us.... with cheese! She is a late pick up today, so this is a long time in the oven one, perfect for me to pick her up.  I had a craving for Zuppa Toscana soup (copycat olive garden recipe with hot italian sausage, potato, kale) so I made a big batch of it Sunday. I've had it for lunches all week. Yummy. 

This was the look from Bear today. He either wanted me to play or stitch up his lamb and the duck. We played with his cookie doll and I'll stitch up the other animals later tonight.

I spent a bit of time picking out color combo's for the Arkansas Traveller blocks this morning before we went over to visit my FIL. He is doing well.  I have 3 sets of teals and 3 sets of blues to cut out. I just need to prep the white parts for all these and then run them through the Accuquilt cutter. 

I also pulled out blacks and some blue and prepped some more Hexagon QAYG to stitch. 

I am so happy that there is a new season out of Murders in the Building on Hulu. I am very impatient on waiting each week for the new episode to be released. I also searched around and watched the first 2 episodes of Royal Pains, an old show from the early 2000's I never had seen. I've been listening to audiobooks and am enjoying a series by Ellery Adams - Book Retreat Mysteries. All but the last one are free with my Audible subscription. I'm on book 6 in the 9 book series - Murder in the Storybook Cottage. I have a book on loan from libby - that is due in 13 days, so I really need to listen to that one soon. The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose. She wrote The Maid, which I loved. 

I'd better defrost the burger meat and start the lasagna if I want dinner ready to go in the oven at a reasonable time. 

Let's hope I get some time to stitch up those AT blocks so I have something to show for the RSC.

RSC on the dark side

 I spent the week finishing things so not too much for the RSC. I got the Christmas Cactus Wreath quilt finished this week. It is 60x60.

Then I pulled the Ella Mara Deacon rows from a Sentimental Stitches sew along years ago. I hand pieced or appliqued these blocks from my stash. They were machine sewn into a top though. 

I did get all the prepped hexagon quilt as you go blocks stitched and into pairs. I also prepped 4 grey ones. I have more of the clips freed up, so I can prep some more blocks to work on this coming week. I had 'finished' my hexagon quilt a few years ago, but it needs to be bigger and with this method, it is easy to do that. This will be an ongoing RSC project going forward to make the quilt a bit bigger. It is 88x68 right now. Linking up with the RSC.

I have a tab all about this quilt journey.

Hubby gets cocoa beans each month and does the whole process (grinding, melting, etc.). They tend to 'bloom' on him - turn a greyish after they come to room temp. He got a new spoon with a thermometer in it and this batch turned out great! They are the wrapped ones. So he remelted the last batch and the bar on top is from that batch. I think that new tool is the key. He is a happy camper. These are dark chocolate bars with hints of various things based on the beans. It is different every month. I let him and the kids eat those... I'm not a dark chocolate fan. Emily did use some in cookies last weekend and they were very good. I did eat those!

I'm spending the day at a girl scout training event. Learning about being a mentor for the younger awards  - bronze and silver. Those are for the junior and cadette level of girls. The Gold is for the high school level girls. 

Ella is a top!

I finally finished getting the hand pieced Ella Maria Deacon blocks into a top. I only made 25 of these with Sentimental Stitches years ago and put 24 into this top. Note to self, think before doing this again - those setting corner triangles were a bear to figure out. I might have cut 4 different size squares to make them. Oh well, extra parts and pieces will get used somewhere.

I did not lay it out nicely, as I was trying to snap the photo quickly before the dog held it down for me. It is 60 inches square now. I am debating on adding a border, and then either hand quilting or machine quilting it. It will have a blue binding, so that might be enough and my wall hanging mount is for a 60 inch quilt ... so it might stay like this. 

Emily made it through the day at school yesterday and did her Florida State testing in her last class. She promptly went to bed after walking in the door and woke up around 10PM. Went back to bed at midnight and was tired when she woke up at 7AM. We told her to stay home, so she went back to bed. She should be back to normal for Monday school with resting this weekend. She said she felt better, just tired and her nose is still stuffed. We will see if horses happens or not!

I went to an information meeting with Aidan last night for a program offered in our county to students to work with UF and NASA on some engineering things. It is 12 Saturday's through the year with field trips to UF and Kennedy Space Center. Some of his friends did it last year and he is joining in this year. It sounds like an interesting program with lots of networking and exploring different fields for college. I think he will enjoy it, so he is all signed up. He will just miss one week when he does the Junior class trip for Civil Rights Movement. They travel through the south and visit key areas and hit a few college campuses along the way.

I've been listing a few things for sale and have managed to get a few things out of my house! The stand up popcorn maker, Emily's desk and an Accuquilt Go!Me starter bundle. Next up is listing the Futon and a few pieces of other furniture.... the whittling down of 'stuff' is happening.

A finish - Christmas Cactus Wreath

 I finished the binding on this last night. It is dark and dreary out again this morning, so I hung it up in my office for a photo. This is 60x60 and was actually a fun one to stitch. It feels so good to get something finished and crossed off the long UFO list. 

While taking Bear out for his walk this morning, I saw this guy on a neighbors fence up the road. Not sure why he is watering the lawn....I guess he does not have a smart gauge? We had 2.5 inches of rain in the gauge yesterday morning and I dumped out 3.25 inches this morning. We are in the rainy season...but instead of 30-60 minutes in the late afternoon and then clears up, it is raining all evening and overnight. We have very sandy soil, so no issues with flooding when I am. 

The girl went to school. No fever and was better but not great. Probably should have stayed home another day, but she had a test, a paper due and is getting a project assigned today in class she did not want to miss. She will probably opt out of marching practice this evening. I told her to text me if she wants a pick up during the day today. I have a feeling she will fade fast, but we will see. 

Summer 2024 list......

 Since I am finally close to a finish - Christmas Cactus Wreath - it was time to look at the UFO list and see what appeals.

I saw a quilt I gifted my nephew for his wedding back in 2015 pop up on my memories on Facebook.

 I loved those bird in the air blocks so much, I made another batch with the RSC Challenge. They are sitting in a drawer. I got them out and counted them. 98. Maybe I am missing a couple for a 10x10 setting?  Each block is 6 inches finished, so for a 90x90 size, I would need 225 (15x15). I guess these are going back on the RSC list for next year.

Emily had marching band practice after school. She requested water to be brought for her pick up. Seems she had a bit of a sore throat this morning. Was sneezing and blowing her nose and her eyes looked sick to me. Seems a bunch of the band was out and 2 section leaders were out. I'm guessing a wave of sickness went through the band with all the closeness and lack of sleep last Thursday (practice until 6), Friday - game until 10:45 and Saturday for those that went 9AM-1:30AM Sunday.

I went out and got throat numbing lozenges, a couple of covid tests and some chicken noodle soup. Good news, the test came back negative but I think she will be home from school tomorrow.

Christmas Cactus Wreath progress.....

The Quilt got pinned for quilting last week.

I was debating a circular pattern or a straight line square pattern. I decided to try a circular one.  I drew a 3/4 circle to start and with my walking foot and lots of tugging and turning, I continued until I got to the edges of the quilt. 

More tugging and stitching. I did not do equal distance on the circles, just free handed them.

Around and around I went. For a good 1.5 hours on this 60 x60 quilt. 

 

I like it!

I knew I had some leftover greens... but darned if I could find them! I did search in a bunch of areas where I would have put them. Oh well, they will appear at some point. I did have some green that would work well on the shelf. I cut 7 strips of 2.5 inch strips and sewed them all together. Stitched that to the top of the quilt after I trimmed it up and now, I can settle in and slow stitch it to the back. 

I believe I got the pattern and fabrics for this one back in 2006 or 2007. It should be finished and ready to display for Christmas of 2024! =). 

Slow Sunday? Why yes, it will be!

 I am a little sleep deprived today... but not as much as the girl!  Friday night she had a home Football game (marching band) and it ran late so she was a 10:50 PM pick up. We got home at 11:15. At least the roads are clear at that time of the night and no traffic. She got home and threw her band shorts and shirt into the wash.... since she had to be at school for 9AM for an optional HOT day with the band in Tampa. They went to see the University of South Florida play in the Raymond James Stadium and got to play with their band and perform on the field with them for 2 songs at half time! She had a great time. They opted to stay for the whole game, so the busses arrived back to the school at 1:20AM. She had to grab something out of her locker, but they were dismissed from the busses, so we were out of there by 1:35. I don't expect to see her until much later this afternoon. She is exhausted and so happy to have Monday off. 48 kids from the band and 10 adults attended the game from our school.

I've actually done some hand work this week! I started some more QAYG hexagons to make my quilt just a wee bit bigger. I put it on my bed and it is a little small. Thank goodness it will be easy to add to it as I want to make it bigger. I did groups of 4 colors when I made it, so I'll keep with that pattern. I started with orange and then have yellow and pink prepped as well. I'll cut some more out today and get them ready to stitch in little bits of time this week. 

I made progress on the cat and mouse quilt. I have the bottom row done and will move to the side. I had just outlined the mice, but it needed something, so I used the blue to outline the block and the spacer blocks. 

Since Beetlejuice is coming out with the new movie this week, I watched the original movie from 1988 with Aidan on Friday night. He had never seen it. At the end, when the girls are outside the school - one of them is my roommate from college! 

Since the F1 race is done, I guess it is time to get dressed and get moving on this slow Sunday. Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.