Slow Sunday stitching

 I'm happy to report a finish this week! These blocks got their cross hatching hand quilted this week.

This is the finished quilt! 

Time to go back to the bear paw quilt. I had plans to add some stitches in this last night, but after a busy Saturday, I took a hot bath and was in bed by 9! I'll add some stitches in today.

The busy day Saturday - was a very early start to get to a girl scout leaders house for 8, to put up the temporary lending library. We are waiting on permission to place at the lake less than a mile from her house. This is the girls Silver Award.

We got done earlier than expected, so we got Emily the black belt needed for her band concert Tuesday night. Then a breakfast at Bob Evans. 

Off to horses, where she got a private lesson again this week since Kyra is still feeling poorly from a bout of Covid.

Once home, I spent a bunch of time outside in the 'cooler' temps. We did have to bury one of the chickens. Something got in and got one of the reds, Miss Ivy. One of the friendly ones of course! Some patching with zip ties to close up gaps and hopefully, whatever got in won't get in again!

Then it was time to work on the weed filled area we call the garden. It is time to prep for fall planting, so I was busy pulling weeds. I can feel it today too! I still need to do the small grass and then run the tiller through and add the sun shade back up. It was taken down for the Idialia.

I have hopes to pin a quilt for machine quilting today, but a visit to my FIL in the hospital comes first after Grandma (my hubby's parents have been divorced since he was 6!) comes to take the kids for the day. She has yard work for them to help out with.

Bits of stitching will get squeezed in during the day.

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Anniversary and a finish!

17 years ago today, we said ' I do'. I never wanted a big wedding and Greg was good with us eloping! So, we booked a vacation with Sandals in St. Lucia and they threw in a wedding if you stayed for 7 days! 

We dropped the kids off to school and then headed over to see my FIL Tom in the hospital. He is looking good and the infection is clearing up - the white blood cell count is much better than it was. We did get a call later that they will do another surgery to remove more of the bits from the kidney. He was in good spirits and no pain. 

I let the chickens out while I cleaned and filled their waters. After I got them back in, the dog needed to go out and sniff all around where they were hanging out. I added the finishing stitches into the Frosty's today!

While Bear was sleeping on the couch.

Here is the finished quilt hanging up in the dining room for a photo. I really need to find the 'fall' quilts and put them up. 

I went in to look for the fall quilts and the boys thought they needed some attention. Peanut is closest and Ollie is on the end of the bed. 

Time to go pick up the first kid from school. 

 

Sunday Slow Stitching

 I just checked back on last Sunday's post, and I've hand quilted 3 of the Frosty's this week! That means I just have 3 to go. I really need to mark the last 3 with their cross hatching. I doubt I'll have them done for next Sunday, as I am traveling to Vermont later this week for a Wedding. It will be a very quick trip - 2 flying days and 2 days up there. I'm looking forward to seeing my family again and the cooler weather! 

This is the Frosty I finished yesterday, all the lines spritzed out. I do love how those lines look. I've always loved the look of cross hatching. I like the puzzle of creating a continuous line with the strand of thread I am working on. 

I was asked to be a facilitator at a girl scout Sisters Retreat next month. They have a baggie of squares available. I was originally thinking to show how to hand stitch a four patch and then make it into a quilt to donate somewhere. Instead, what about a take with project? So, I cut some 2.5 inch squares and hand stitched them into a block, then a bit of leftover batting and a larger back that I folded in half and then again onto the front. This is how I did the individual hexagons. I need to work on it a bit and come up with an instruction sheet to send with them. Mine finished as a 4.5 inch little coaster. We have a little under an hour time slot, and there are 3 options of things to do at my rotation. A self led t-shirt weaving (story weaving), the quilting and then a nail art.

I hear one of the other facilitators is making sure her session is opposite my session so she can attend. I got morning, she is afternoon. No pressure there!

 

I'm travelling light with just a purse and carry on, so the hand work for the travel days will need to be small. I think some counted cross stitch maybe? I also need to get a few kitchen towels for Mom and make them into the little crochet tops so she can hang new ones from the oven in the kitchen. It is hard to find the old ones and I dislike the new microfiber ones.

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Thinking....

I pulled a few blocks to take with me to the store and left the rest on the floor. Bear the dog thought it needed some changes! 

I was unable to find a plain blue in that same shade... but I found this fun print that will work great as a border! I also found a similar cream print. I think I will take the suggestion left on Monday's post and just do the blue cornerstones in the 'middle' area and then put the new cream print on the outside as a small border. Then the new blue fabric as a second border. So.... I have some unpicking to do. 

I did not touch the frosty's at all on Monday but did add a few stitches in last night. Progress.  I should have this one finished off tonight and then I'll have 4 to go.

 

Slow Sunday with the Frosty's

 I was doing a bit of hand quilting the last few days and since I don't wear thimbles of any kind, my fingers are a little sore. I have 6 of the 12 frosty's quilted. 

Here are the six that are done in the middle of the quilt. I need to mark the next 3 so it is ready when I want to pick this up again Sunday night. I am marking them using the 45 degree angle line on my ruler. These Frosty McChill's were a free sew along with Melisa at Pinkernpunkin blog.

Linking up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers. 

Frosty's in Summer

Three of the Frosty's are cross hatched. I did have some issues with spritzing them out. Little bits of the blue kept coming back! I just keep spritzing them and hope they stop reappearing. Despite that... I marked another set of 3 but I don't think they will be left in nearly as long as the others. Worst case, this is for me and will be hanging on a wall and it really is not noticeable from a little bit away from the quilt. I do notice the blue threads from the embroidery behind the fabric. Note to self, twine it around the back better so they don't show through the next time I do this. It is all a learning experience, so all is good. 

This is the one I will be working on today.

First, a few girls are coming over to finish off the work on their lending library for their silver award. They have to finish it off before the end of next month. 

Then Grandma is coming over later to go out to her requested restaurant for her 80th birthday dinner. She is not a sweets person... but does love her salty treats. We might have gotten 80 bags of plain lays potato chips - the snack size version, which Emily was tasked with wrapping. I suggested an empty big rubbermaid container. She got busy with small boxes, duct tape and wrapping paper. Grandma is going to need scissors to open that gift. Don't worry, this is totally something she would have done to us!

Linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers.

 

Hand quilting progress on Frosty.

 I have yet to find an empty spray bottle to spritz out the blue marker. I need to pop out to a dollar store and find one later I guess. I'll start on the third Frosty tonight.

As you know, I am always trying to figure out dinner around here. I had pulled some carnita meat out of the freezer over the weekend and never got them into cubans. I made some white rice and added lime juice and cilantro and have been having some of the rice, meat with a nice heap of homemade pico for lunch. I added an avacado today. Yummy.

Last night was a late night for Emily, so I came up with grilled greek herbed chicken, homemade tzatziki, hummus and a greek salad (green salad with feta, kalamata olives, tomato, cukes and scallion) with some pita bread. I have leftovers for lunches once the carnita meat is done tomorrow.

Tonight will be roasted zucchini, mushrooms, peppers and onion with some sweet italian sausage and pasta with that cuban bread made into garlic bread since it didn't get used for cubans. 

Tomorrow night will be lemon chicken and capers with a green veggie. Maybe over rice or couscous, the kids love rice though.

Thursday, I kinda got 2 bags of mini avacado's on Sunday (the first bag was under something and I didn't notice until I got home there were 2! 6 mini's for under $2 was a great deal) and they should be ripe tomorrow and Thursday, so it will be taco meat and they can put it on a salad or in soft tacos with guacamole. I am going to try and freeze the others and see how that goes. 

Back to School

 Yes, school started for the kids on Thursday. No pictures were taken! Silly teenagers. I have a Freshman and Sophomore this year. It is a very early start to the day, since Aidan needed to take his elective Robotics class as a Zero period class - it starts an hour before school starts! We live about 30 minutes from school with morning traffic. The kids did pretty good getting up a little after 6:30 to get out of the house for 7:15/7:20 for the first 2 days. Emily will have some long days this week - with marching band practice after school 2 days (3 hour practice) and then football games on Fridays. It will take a bit to get into the new routine, I think. The kids have been sleeping until close to noon during summer break.  Emily has a couple of friends who get dropped off early to hang out with before school, and she has a band pass that she can be let into the grounds and go there around 8 if she wants. 

Emily had horses yesterday and after being out in the heat for a few hours, my energy was completely drained. Emily and Kyra, who rides with her in their lesson group, decided to switch horses. Kyra is working on getting out of her comfort zone. Emily took it as a chance to try out the Western saddle since she normally rides English. The horse Reba was trained as a western horse. Lance, the horse Emily normally rides, was out of commission for a few days with an injury so Kyra was on a different horse yesterday. They will switch horses again once Lance is healed.  

I plan to tackle the office for a bit of a pick up and the sewing room for the same. I hope I can maybe find an empty spray bottle so I can fill it with water and spritz out the blue marking lines on the first frosty! I finally got his cross hatching finished last night. 11 more to go! I was listening to my audiobook while stitching him last night. I'm listening to The Battered Body by Ellery Adams. I think it is the 4th book in the series.

Since the kids went back to school Thursday and that is my day off, I decided to get a few things done! I finally brought my rings to the Jewler to get resized. Those should be ready for pick up at the end of the week. 3 sizes to expand the ring from 2006 when I got it! Then I headed to get a hair cut. I grew it out in 2021 and it has been shoulder length and then I cut it to a chin bob a few months ago. I've lived most of my life with very short hair..... I decided to go back to it. The hair dresser was so nervous chopping it all off, but it turned out great. She went a little longer than I used to wear it, and I now have some wave in my hair (when did that happen, it has always been pin straight! age maybe?) I went from this.

or when dry

to this!

Washing the hair is much quicker and no need for conditioner!

I'd better go see if the dog wants to get up as his girl is still fast asleep! 

Linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Stitchers.

Weekend

I figured I'd do a weekend post this time since I finally got to play with a little yellow this afternoon. I had planned to play yesterday, but I had nudged the boy to attack, I mean trim the front bushes while I was at horses with Emily. He had started before a quick rain storm went through. I decided to go out and help him in the afternoon by weeding the front triangle bed and then loading and hauling one truck load to the recycle yard waste and the second bed went into the back burn pile. It looks a lot better after a few hours of attention. Still more to do but that will wait for another day. The neighbors will be happy they can see down the road of cars coming since the tree got trimmed of the low hanging branches as well.

Mr. Snow Frosty got a little bit of hand stitching added this week but not much. I hope the lines come out ok, since they have been marked for a week now. 

I needed a spot to lay out the kites I have been making with the RSC this year and went with the bed. Ollie was supervising. 

He did nothing to keep Peanut off the blocks though!

What a big stretch!

Saturday was horses for Emily and here she is rinsing off Lance after her lesson. They were riding without stirrups so that her riding buddy could work on her posture and positioning in the saddle. Emily was able to walk, trot and canter with this big guy just fine!

The trainer wanted a photo of the girls and the horses would not look the right way, so another helper was off to the side jumping up and down and trying to get the horses attention. It got big smiles from both of the girls. 

The boy is off to Grandma's today. I have to go pick him up later... and might have mentioned if they decided on Mexican for dinner to let me know and I'll go down early! We will see. 

Emily has Freshman orientation for school tomorrow to get her schedule and walk around the school a bit. They start on Thursday. It will be interesting to see how they do getting up early again. It has been close to noon for both of them the last week. 

Linking up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge where we are playing with yellows for the month of August.

 

Snowy Sunday Stitching

I finished hand stitching the binding on the Frosty's this week. Now I can start hand quilting the embroidery blocks. 

Yes, I know this is not the normal order. I did machine quilt the sashing and cornerstones before I made and attached the binding to the front. I am trying out the blue marker for the first time with this quilt. I marked lines at 1 inch intervals using a 45 degree angle on my ruler. I have 3 of the Frosty's marked for hand quilting. I'll be working on this Sunday morning while I watch the F1 race with the boy.

 

Linking up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers. 

Another day....

 Well, while I was walking Bear yesterday morning we met up with 3 wild turkeys on the way home. They were on our street, so I had to go past them. I did not have my phone with me..... but that would not have mattered as no one was awake in the house. Sigh, Bear saw them as 2 were running away and he is strong. Lets just say my shoe came off and I wrenched my back holding him back from chasing them. I did get him home and didn't think too much about it. Took my shower and logged onto work. After sitting for over an hour... I tried to get up from my chair. Oh boy, my back was killing me. Once I got up I was mostly ok as long as I didn't bend down. Advil was the key and yes I did ice it a bit to get through the work day. 

I have a bunch to do at work after being gone 3 weeks,  so floated working today to get things done.... but my boss never got back to me with approval so I guess I get my normal day off and the work will be pushed back 1 day on the timeline! 

That means I'll wander into the sewing room and see about the split nine patches today and maybe start a Christmas wall hanging that I have had the pattern and a jelly roll for about 16 or 17 years now. 

I did a little binding stitching on the Frosty's last night. I still need to hand quilt around the frosty's and I plan to do a cross hatch behind them in the block. I just need to decide how much space between them. I am thinking one inch and see how it looks with the hera marker. Bad photo but a bit of binding stitched down.

When I posted the animals the other day, I didn't add the boys! Peanut and Ollie have been very snuggly since I got home last week. They said they were bonded when we got them from the shelter, and they tend to be together like this when they are sleeping or looking outside. They do play and chase each other as well. I woke up with one on top of me (Peanut) and Ollie was right up next to the pillow. 

As for meals.... Monday night was some carnita's with cilantro lime rice and fresh salsa. Tuesday Emily made a risotto with the broth I made from the chicken carcass over the weekend. Yesterday was going to be Gumbo, but I didn't think driving was smart, so it got put off to today. I had purchased some frozen crab cakes from Sams so Aidan cooked those up last night with some rosemary roasted potato. He took pity on me and said he'd handle dinner when he saw me attempt to get baking sheets out of the cabinet. I added some leftover salad in the fridge from the previous night to mine. I need to pop out and get andouille sausage for the Gumbo. I think we have everything else we need. We will see how it turns out! 

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.

Slow Sunday stitching

 I spent a bunch of the day in the sewing room Saturday. I got 2 quilts pinned and one quilt quilted! I reached into my mystery box of fabric again to search for a binding and pulled out a mottled blue - turns out it was a wide backing off cut with fabric color ranging from dark blue/purple to light. I thought the multi colors would work great with this colorful quilt. I did a simple wiggle with the walking foot every 4 inches or so. I was able to make and attach the binding and was hand stitching it down Saturday night while rewatching some Harry Potter Movies. I have one side left to stitch down, which I'll work on Sunday.

I pulled various clips to hold the binding down as I was stitching it. I found that little paper clips like the purple ones work great. I got them on sale around back to school time a couple of years ago.

I needed just a little wider for the extra batting to fit the Frosty quilt. So I zig zagged some I cut off when trimming the above quilt, and it became the perfect size.

Frosty is quick pinned.  I hope to get some machine quilting in on this Sunday as well, since that batik snowflake would be hard to hand quilt. I am not sure if I'll add any hand quilting around the frosty's or not. I think this will be a wall hanging - and using warm and natural it won't need a lot of quilting to keep it together. I have enough of the blue cornerstone fabric left to make a binding for this. I'll be linking up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Slow Sunday

 I'm happy to report that the 12th and final Frosty is completed! Now I need to trim them down and decide how I will set them into a quilt. Time to pull out the Bear Paw quilt for hand quilting again. Linking up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Saturday morning I took Emily to horses. She is the last one riding back to the barn after her lesson. Marshmallow was being a pest, but she handled him well.

I watched the F1 qualifying with Aidan in the afternoon, and he is a happy boy with his Alonzo doing well. Dinner was white chicken chili and cornbread.

Bear was being a spoiled boy last night taking over the sofa. Since we were away on Friday, I'll make our corned beef and cabbage, potato, carrot and onion Sunday evening after watching the F1 race in the afternoon.

Saw this shirt in a store on Friday. Oh so true!

Slow Sunday

 I have been making quick work of the Frosty's this week. As it gets closer to the end of this series, I seem to stitch faster! Well, life is a wee bit slower after the crazy busy month of February. That helps a lot! This is Frosty #10 with his o in snow completed, and Frosty #11 just needing his face finished and a few snowflakes stitched above him. The last one is all traced and ready to start. Linking up with the other Slow Stitchers. The kids are off to Grandma's house today for the first time in about 6 weeks. I plan on visiting my sewing machine and relaxing with some fabric. The kids are off school for Spring Break.

I am enjoying a relaxing day (still in my jammies!) today. Despite the time change of losing an hour, I slept in until close to 10! I needed the sleep. It was a long day on Saturday with 4 girls hiking around Camp Wildwood at an encampment for the older girls (grades 6-12 only) and searching for and solving clues to the mystery all day. We met at my house at 7:30AM to head to the camp. I was tapped to help out with the opening ceremonies - to help raise the flag! I just helped unroll it and hold it so it did not touch the ground while it was being hitched to the string and raised up on the pole. My first time doing that! Normally the girls handle it but since it was their encampment, they got to not work and just enjoy their day. 

walking to our first clue at the theater. None of the girls had been out there before!

looking for our troop's clue.

exploring the theater.

we did do a little archery. I even got to shoot and hit the target twice!

After we solved the mystery, we had a couple of hours until closing ceremonies. None of them had been out to the Homestead area - and it was only a 20 minute hike from where we were, so we headed out there for a visit. Relaxing on the porch to enjoy the view of the lake!

The girls decided to stay for the campfire and smores. Ranger Courtney and Toni got the fire started. Since her normal helpers were nowhere to be found (her daughter Cam and sidekick Ally), Ms. Jill and I volunteered to help out at the smores making station. 

A dark walk back to the front of the camp and a car ride home with a full car of girls and my long day was over close to 9PM! 

I did find out this morning that my son finally took the proctored drivers test and passed. We need to schedule his appointment to go get his learners permit this week since they are off school. If I didn't have too much grey hair before, I have a feeling I really will after he has that permit in hand!