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.

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. 

Slow Sunday stitching.

 This was Emily yesterday riding Lance. They decided to change things up since she has been riding Marshmallow for a while. She used to ride Lance a couple of years ago so they got along great! He is a very tall horse.

I have been trying to make progress on hubby's quilt in the evenings, but this usually happens.....

Notice the quilting hoop with the dog on top of me and it? Yes, he does not want me to work on 'his' quilt! Hubby mentioned I might need to make a new one for him, since the dog seems to have claimed this one! Nope. He will have to work it out with the dog when it is done! There are 35 blocks that I had machine quilted about 15 years ago. The thread is looking horrible, so I am slowly pulling it out, one block at a time. I did decide to hand quilt them, so I am doing a little unpicking, and then a little stitching..... when the dog allows!

I have 8 of the blocks hand quilted - and I can tell I have not quilted regularly in a while since I am building that callus up on my push middle finger on my right hand. I don't use a thimble, never could get used to it, so I'm taking it slow to build it up again. I have 3-4 quilts in the hand quilting progress (bear paw, cat and mice, Frosty) so once that finger is back to 'production mode' I'll try and keep it that way with a little quilting each day. 

11 blocks have been unpicked and are ready for hand quilting. Which leaves 16 blocks left to unpick. I think I'll work on hand quilting a couple of blocks today. First, will be a quick trip to Lowes to get new seeds (we did not have luck with the old seeds we planted so will try again. The good news is the shade blocker is working great and Emily's pumpkin is starting to turn orange!). Then a quick stop at Aldi's since baby bella mushrooms are 99 cents this week! I see beef stroganoff in our future this week along with some santa fe rolls and we will try a Nigerian Jollof rice recipe Aidan found as well. 

Linking up with the Sunday Slow Stitchers.

Happy Easter

 I see lots of wild bunnies on my walks around the neighborhood. This one stayed still and the dog did not notice him and walked right by last week. 

We hosted my in-laws for Easter. I did a small ham with a brown sugar glaze, scalloped potato, prosciutto wrapped asparagus, green bean casserole and rolls. There were not many leftovers so they must have enjoyed it. Desert was half of Emily's red velvet birthday cake or chocolate cream pie. She turned 14 on Friday and made and decorated her own cake. It is very yummy.

The kids and Greg pitched in with cleaning up the house and the back patio just in case since the temps were heavenly in the upper 60's today. Quite a change from the close to 90's we have been having. After the grandparents headed home, the boys fixed the irrigation heads that the dog attacked last year. Now we can water the lawn again, since we have not had rain in forever and it is pretty crunchy. The boys headed to Lowes yesterday - Aidan DROVE - and picked up some flowers for the front triangle bed. It got weeded and planted this afternoon and looks a lot better.

 I need to grab some mulch to put down since I raked up all the old and got rid of it. Emily trimmed bushes and cleared out the back part of that bed and it looks a lot better now.

I have been working on hubby's quilt and unpicking the machine quilting I did on it about 14 or 15 years ago. I have 12 of the 35 blocks unpicked and I decided yesterday to hand quilt around the pattern in the block. I have 2 blocks hand quilted. Either the cat or the dog or both have managed to get teeth marks and punctures in the quilt on top of the thread pulling up. Repairs are being made as well. I reinforced the binding last week that was pulling apart. I have not been able to make great progress on this since every time I start working on unpicking, someone decided to jump up and be a lap dog!

The boy is watching a 2021 F1 race and I'm going to sit with my feet up and add some more hand quilting into this quilt. 

Linking up with the other slow Sunday Stitchers.