A gobble start

 I ordered some Aida cloth and it arrived yesterday. I got a start on Gobble Gobble from Melissa at Pinkern Punkin Quilting and Stitching. My honey comb is my needle minder for cross stitch. I had to search for colors to work with but found a good mix. I had transferred the pattern onto a notepad of squares, since my print out was too tiny to read. Good thing I grabbed it from hubby when he was done with his math classes. It will come in handy for making patterns easier to read!

 

I got another squishy in the mail as well from Pieces of the Past. I had ordered 3 of the mini applique quilts that were marked down. They came to just under $25 each and include the pattern and all fabrics for the top and back. Not bad. I think notions are marked down this week.

Slow Sunday in November.

 As November is a new month, I'm going to be stitching one of these hexagons each day! I finished prepping these yesterday, so they are easy to grab at lunch and get one stitched up. These will be grouped into fours and added to my QAYG hexagon quilt from a few years ago that insists on being bigger. I have 2 additional rows already stitched and need 2 more to make it the 88x88 that it wants to be. Each row needs 12 sets of 4, so this will be a long term project over the next couple of months. The blues were at the top of the scrap bins, as you can tell from the pull of fabrics. 

I have not made progress on adding the last 8 circles onto the String of Beads but hope to get it completed this week. 

Linking up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Marching season is officially over with the long practices. They go down to just a couple hours after school on Fridays until the 2 December parades are done. They got an overall Exceptional rating - one step down from Superior they got the last two years. The guard and visual did get Superior ratings. The music was not as spot on as their Thursday performance at the football game. It was a great show, and they should be very proud of all their hard work this season. Would you believe I didn't even take a photo? It was a long ride to get to the venue - Greg and I headed 45 minutes to pick up Grandma and then continued 40 minutes further to the venue. Same route back, and around 8, we decided to do dinner out with Grandma before returning her home and chatting for a bit. It was nice to have adult chats without the kids! Greg and I got home just before 11 and Emily rolled in about 11:15. Aidan put the outside light on for us, as he stayed home and finished applying to colleges, which were due by midnight last night for the early applications. Fingers crossed he gets what he wants in January!

Winter Guard try outs are this week. Emily will do that at the first one, and then she heads off on the Junior class Civil Rights trip for 5 days to Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. 

Looks like I should have lots of time to 'play' this week, if only I would put down my phone and stop scrolling and playing games!

The county Pre MPA from October 21,2025.

This is all the bands. I think we are about halfway through, Belleview HS.

RSC and Table Scrap Challenge

 The TSC for October was Denim. The RSC was light or dark neutrals. Linking up to both on Saturday!

Hmmmm.

Looking at fabrics as I was attempting to tidy up my working area this week (photo's later as it might scare people!), I saw some cowboys riding horses on a black background with lots of browns. Darks, checked. Cowboys wear denim jeans. Check! I have a winner.

Since I have finished a quilt or two in the last bit, I actually have batting extra's again, so it was the perfect time to prep more hexagon blocks to add a couple more rows to the hexagon quilt. I started this in 2021 and it is asking to be made a bit bigger. Since it is a quilt as you go style, I am able to accommodate it's wishes!

My finished edges are 2 inches with the templates I have. I use the outer two - the 3 inch and 2 inch. I cut backgrounds using the 3 inch and then batting and eventually more fabrics with the 2 inch. I do need to find the box of clips I bought a month ago so I can prep all of these. 

I prepped this one.

Got it stitched up this morning after walking the dog. Technically a finished little quilt. It will be added to 3 more for a grouping of 4, and then I think 12 groups of 4 make a row. 

The back.

We have one last marching band performance to go see today for their MPA. Their time was set back an hour so it will be a little cooler when they perform. We are having cooler weather in Florida this week, I'm not complaining though. I much prefer cooler temps - in the 60's when they perform tonight.

The girls are molting - at least the 2 Barred Rocks (black and white ones) and they look so funny without their feathers. No eggs for a while as they are building their feathers right now. I think I get about 1 egg a day now. I put a couple dozen in the fridge so they will last a little longer before I need to buy some. 

You can see all the feathers in their big run. The coop looks like something was plucking all the feathers out! Just a natural occurrence.

A close up shot of the girls. Their feather pins are blue, which makes me chuckle when I see them. So far it looks like just these two, but I think Poppy will soon. I think the two younger ones molted in the spring, so I'm not sure if they will again in the fall this year. 

I mentioned I finally went into the sewing area and attempted to pick it up a bit. You might want to stop now, if cluttered mess gives you hives! I did the side section, that I did not photograph first and got that tidied up a bit. Lots of papers into the big shredding box and old suitcases went through and will be tossed out. These are from the 80's and 90's so old without wheels. Then I tackled all the bins of overflowing fabrics. Not a great solution, but 3 contained bins instead of all over the floor helped. I did manage to find the missing colorful Flowering snowball parts I was cutting out a few years ago each month! Still a lot more to go, but I can move around in there now. 

The mess!

Slightly better mess! 

I'd better start lunch. I made chicken stock with a carcass yesterday and will be using that in a potato leek soup today. Chilly temps call for soup and this is a favorite of ours.

Enjoy your weekend.

squishy mail

This is package #2 of squishy mail. The first (which is not where I remember putting it) was some yard cuts of KT line Wheatland. I think about 6 different fabrics in blues and greens. This below photo is half yard cuts (mostly) from Pieces of the past which is doing a 20% off through December as they close down that part of the business. I have neutrals to go with this already in the stash.  I suppose that means I need to start making bear paw blocks for the boy's graduation quilt.

I have one more package in transit. Pieces of the past had 30% off their applique kits last week. I looked. Then went back later in the week and picked up 3 of them. For 17x17 quilts - provided the pattern, all fabrics for the front and the back and I think the binding to complete it. Just needs a batting. The discount brought it down to about $25 each. Reasonable for all that I thought. Not that I needed more projects....

I've added a few more circles to this one. I just have 8 circles to go and it will be a top. I think I will carefully add a little white border - one that fits a stencil I have so maybe 3 inches? Then a green binding. That will make it about 53 or 54 inches square.

One kid has Academic meet today. They have won the 2 they have had so far with their new captain - my kid! Who would have thunk it? The girl is actually home on time today - a rarity. Hubby has a Dr. appt with the VA this afternoon. 

 

Slow Sunday Stitching

 I was adding green circles to the green peel joins yesterday, until a big black dog decided he wanted to be a lap dog and take a nap with me! Spoiled Bear.

I have added stitches to finish off the inner part of the hoop on this cross stitch I started over 20 years ago. Time to get it finished off. This is in a book Quilts for All Seasons by Paula Vaughan. January. I've done both September and August years ago.

I also got mail this week! The Jenny's Christmas box for 2025 arrived this week. I believe there are a few still available for sale at Missouri Quilt Company. I can't wait for December 1 to start opening one present a day through Christmas! It's my present to me -  this is my 3rd year and I ordered it around December 27, 2024. I still have lots of projects from previous years to do, like this embroidery that I pulled out. I'll be adding stitches to these projects throughout the week.

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitches. Sit back, relax and remember to breathe this week. 

 

Saturday

 

I had a finish this week and used a brown binding to finish it off. 20x20 four patch was hand quilted. 

Last night was a football game the band played at. They have one more football game before their music performance evaluation for their Stranger Things show. The views at sunset are always amazing. 

There was some drama. Seems the lights were flickering in the band room after practice, then filled with smoke and the lights in the locker room went out. Electrical.  They moved to the chorus room. Other buildings on campus were affected. By the end of the game, all power to the school buildings were off. The electric company was on site waiting for everyone to be off campus.  The sheriff was kind enough to drive over and point the headlights on the door to the band room. We will see if electric and the ac units are fixed for Monday. 

Today, I want the kids to finally fix the porch screens and then we will trim bushes out front. That's my plan anyway!

Linking up with the RSC. 

Oh, if you are in need of fabrics or kits - Pieces of the Past is closing down that part of her business. I grabbed a bunch of fabrics over there for Aidan's graduation quilt and just got a few applique kits - that come with everything but batting. Not that I needed them, but at 30% off, I had to do it!

Four patch finished.

 I finished the binding this morning. A photo of the front and the back. It shrunk a bit to just under 20x20. 

I have a little more picking up of the house to do and some grocery shopping for a couple of things. I need another pepper for the fajita chicken for dinner tonight.  Then I'm going to tackle the mess of a sewing room. Mostly, stuffing all the various boxes of bits of fabrics into one big bin and then putting a cover on it! It is in great need of organization since there are lots of extra bins of projects now shoved in there from my office. I'm giving myself 1 hour to do that, then I get to play. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Mid week check in

 Monday - after working I had Aidan's 17 year physical. He got there a minute late according to me and 16 minutes according to them... but I know I confirmed the 3:45 not 3:30 time. Sigh. They finally got us in at 4:40. He is good, lost 20 pounds over the year and is now in a healthy range.

Tuesday - I got off work early (noon) as Greg has gotten Gout in his foot and so I was tapped with bringing his dad to the Urologist. So, 30 minutes to pick him up, 45 minutes to the doctors office, nearly 2 hours there and then returned him home to his assisted living.... I opted to not head home and instead went right to Emily's Pre-MPA (Music Performance Assessment) in town. I did a quick Popeye's for dinner then got there to help out at the table to hand out the kids food. Then watched the bands all perform for a couple of hours. I got home about 9:30 last night.

This is all the schools marching bands in the county. 

Our school with their Stranger Things Performance

Emily during the performance - clarinet in the middle of the photo. 

Wednesday -  laundry - as the cat is being a pest and peeing on my bed. Arrggg. Sheets are washed again with the quilt. I did finish the hand quilting on the little 20x20 four patch quilt after work so I'll trim it up and make and attach a binding tonight. I'm planning to do order out tonight - we have a local fundraiser at Red Robin for 20% of sales going to our local county's girl scouts. I'm going to try the family burger deal - looks like $11 for a built your own burger at home with fries. We will see how it goes.

 This is the top of the little quilt but I do love the look on the back as well.

Reading: Hope Holloway the Seven Sisters Series of books on audible. She is a great storyteller and I admit, I bought 5 extra audible credits so I could binge listen to all of them. I'll be checking out her other series soon, but I've got a libby book checked out I need to listen to first. I enjoyed how she wove the storyline around all the family members and kept it interesting. 

Time to go uncover the cutting mat in the sewing area and get this trimmed up and a binding made and attached for hand stitching later tonight. 

Weekend

Today will be a bit of a relaxing day after a busy start to the weekend. I'll be putting some hand stitches into both the little four patch quilt (20x20) and adding 21 green circles to the string of beads top where the green peels meet to make those connections look prettier, while watching the F1 race this afternoon with my son.

 I spent the weekend at an adult Girl Scout Encampment and got to bring my daughter with me who worked as a 'minion' assisting at the rotations and helping in the kitchen. We were slated to leave Sunday morning, but there were some plumbing issues in the cabin the teens were staying at, and the girl was exhausted and popped a migraine headache Saturday evening. We headed out after the bonfire and made our smores before we packed up and headed home for the evening. I think we got home about 9:15, as camp is about 25 minutes from us and thankfully there was no delays on I75 for the one exit to get home. 

This was my view early Saturday morning out of the new units that I had never stayed in called Firefly. 3 units were built on the side of a lake they worked on reclaiming from a marsh over the last 10 years. It was an open unit built on the second level with 8 bunk beds in a big room. Then a bathroom section closed off with a sliding barn door with cubbie holes for 16, 3 showers on one side with 2 sinks and 3 bathrooms on the other side with 2 sinks. Underneath the sleeping section, is a screened in 'unit house' with picnic tables and a storage section. I think it was the nicest place I'd stayed in on camp grounds. Thankfully, they installed AC units in each of them, and they were working. It is still in the mid 80's here in Florida during the day although it is getting down into the low 70's and mid 60's overnight. 

My first rotation was doing a craft with wet tissues. We got to play with paint, stencils and try a new technique. It was interesting. Not sure I'd do it again but was fun. 

Our next rotation was archery. I am right handed but ambidextrous. When I play mini golf, I do it left handed. Normally I maybe hit the target once. I tried shooting left this year, and that felt much better. Of the 6 shots, I hit the target 5 times! We (me and Lynne) skipped the next morning rotation and stayed at archery. The group my girl was helping with had off time, so I had asked if they could shoot, and the instructor said sure! So, I had them come out and they did get to shoot. Em used the harder bow for the first time and hit the target a couple of times. After lunch and some down time, I had 2 sessions. The first one was learning how to use a compass and we found points around the Cricket field area. The last session was letterboxing and Geocaching. I opted out of searching for them around the camp (600 acres) as I was helping at dinner and needed to be in the kitchen.

We headed home after the fire and our smores. They had another option this year I want to try, but did not as they were taking a lot longer. I guess it was a crescent roll, wrapped the end point around the end of a small 2 inchish dowell then around the end part and squeeze it to the end. Then roast to cook it over the fire. When done, it should slide off and be a little cup which they added some pie filling to for a dessert. They had apple, cherry and peach. I want to give those a try at home and see how they are!

Friday night they had all kinds of crafts out for people to try. Someone had brought the compass clips with paracord as their swap. Emily and I tried that, she was much better at it than me! This was my 2nd attempt with help from her. She looked up a video on how to do it and hers came out great with orange and grey. There was also lots of diamond art coasters to do. Those were fun. I did not start one of those until close to 10PM, and so mine did not get finished. It was fun though, so I'll open the project I have in the sewing room now and work on it!

Time to throw in some laundry and get a few things done to prep for the week. I'll visit the links later tonight and see what fun hand work is being done around the world at Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching.

Mid week - The Boy's HS Graduation quilt project.

 The boy had decided this summer he required a graduation quilt, like I have made for all my nieces and nephews. He finally figured out the types of fabrics/colors he prefers. I did a quick question on the Ravelry group and got some great ideas for the types of fabrics he wanted - civil war type colors in green and blue. Nothing bright, essentially. Some great links and ideas - led me to Kim Diehl, Kansas Troubles fabrics and some great shops that carry reproduction lines. I showed him some books by Kim (too bright still) and a KT one - that's more like it!. I then pulled a little quilt I had made with my KT line I got back when he was a baby. Yup - those colors exactly in greens and blues. 

So, some checking and a new line is out this month by Kansas Troubles - Wheatland. Gorgeous!

Perfect. I verified I could go scrappy a bit and not all the same fabric - so have 3 green and 3 blues in the cart at Fat Quarter Shop.  He likes the Bear Paw pattern so we will see how it goes. I have some Butter Churn neutrals to use with it but can get more KT neutrals if needed.  I'll order them today and then that will be the main focus for a bit. Deadline - end of May 2026, but I'm willing to let it slip to August 2026 =). The turkey might require it to be hand quilted.

I've been hand quilting after work in the afternoons. I have one corner of the 20x20 piece to be hand quilted still. No marking, just doing the lines by eye on the 2 inch squares.

I love how the back looks! This is using the Tuscany Wool batting I'm using with the BITA on the frame. A bit thicker than the last batting I used but it needles well. I did piece this one together so that zigzag stitch down the middle is a big bump.

Quilting Practice

 I had pulled this 20x20 little piece of four patches to play with hand quilting and practice the stitches a bit before tackling the quilting frame. I used some leftover batting cut off from the one on the frame - so a wool batting. 

The front of the little quilt.

The back - I love how this is looking! 

I am just eye balling the straight line on this one. So far so good. The middle part is done and I'm working on finishing one orner.

Since dinner did not defrost quick enough - guess the salmon needed to come out of the zero freezer well before lunch! So, Emily had asked for Air fryer potato wedges,  so I found a recipe and played with the air fryer and made a test one for my afternoon snack. Guess it was good, since Greg did not get any!

I've got another batch that just finished, fresh green beans boiling in beef broth and some Berber chickens - Kiev and Cordon Blue. 

Tomorrow will be the fish on the grill. Last night Emily and I did steaks on the grill for dinner.

A finish for Sunday

 I needed a panel I had purchased to be turned into a baby quilt for today. Well, that got changed to midnight last night, as Emily really wanted me to go to horses with her instead of the baby shower today. I will, so I had to get this done for 11:30PM last night before I left to go pick Emily up at school after a marching band competition in Orlando yesterday.  Did I get it done? Yup! Washed and dried and everything!

The blocks were being guarded on Friday while I worked. I managed to get the last few blocks made, a few surrounds swapped as they were the same next to each other and into an almost top Friday. I had 2 long seams to sew Saturday. Then it got sandwiched..... would you believe the 45x54 quilt had a music fabric for the back that was 43 inches? Sigh. I added a black strip to it. Then used that cut off as the binding for it.

After some errands to get the corresponding board book for ABC by Dr. Seuss, after dropping Emily to school in the morning then hitting the Market of Marion for some fresh veggies, it was an afternoon of sewing, preparing for machine quilting and quilting. Then a binding was made and I settled in after dinner to hand stitch the binding down.

A run through the washer with color catchers and a dry, and it was rolled up and popped into the bag with the book and a note of the washing and care instructions. Essentially, normal wash and dry. Use and abuse, lay on the ground to catch spit up - much easier to wash this than clean a carpet, drag me around, snuggle with me, build forts, have picnics, teach me the alphabet and colors, etc. I'm made to be used.

Since that is done, I'll go back to stitching some green circles onto the String of Beads top where the green peels join to make them look a little nicer. I prepped 22 but only need 21 I think.

Then back to hand quilting practice on this little piece.

I'll also be hanging pictures and quilts in my office once I finish moving things in there. The bare walls want some color added to them!

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.