RSC Saturday in orange.

I made some orange chickens last weekend to add to the collection. They are happily laying me eggs =)

Linking up on Saturday with the RSC.

I've not made much progress on the binding, since as soon as I touch this BITA quilt, someone lays on it! I put it on the floor last night to find where I had clipped for hand stitching, and he laid down on it immediately. I might have told him he could have part of it on the couch if he moved so I could find the edge I wanted. He looked at me, got up, waited while I settled it on me and the couch and promptly jumped up and laid down on it curled up beside me. I got a little stitching in, so one side is done. I hope to add some more tonight before an early to bed for me. I've got a 5AM alarm set for Graduation.

I has been a long week! Tuesday night was awards night for Juniors and Seniors. It lasted a little over 2 hours with scholarships and various awards handed out. The Cambridge Aice medals and sashes were handed out. The Valedictorian sash and awards were handed out - 8 this year with 5.0 GPA all four years. My guy is one of those. His Psych teacher sent me this, his buddy Issiac and Aidan with her after the ceremony. Emily got recognized for 4.0 or better in her class.  Emily was anxious to get moving as we were going out to dinner (almost 8ish by the time he came out) and she had 2 big tests the next day. 

Wednesday night was a Girl Scout planning meeting. Thursday was a parent meeting for Band after their icebreaker for incoming 8th graders. They are making some changes next year and wanted all to be aware. Tonight, trying to clean up the house a bit and figure out what to have ready to munch on after Graduation tomorrow morning. It starts at 8AM promptly, and with new security measures in place this year we are getting to the school 1.5 hours before that to hopefully get through and settled before the ceremony. Over 400 graduates. I'm thinking just some breakfasty type things made in advance - like scones and muffins. I've got watermelon and pineapple to cut up for a fruit salad. We can cook up eggs and sausage or bacon if anyone wants. 

The boy requested cheesecake with raspberries so his Dad is making that for him now. I also have lunch things I can put out and make later that morning. It will just be us, Grandma and I think my brother and SIL will pop by after the ceremony for a little bit. They moved down to Florida this week, arrived Tuesday with 2 cats and purchased a house today! We welcomed them with a 6:30 AM call time at the kids school =) .

 

Pink Chickens for the RSC

I made a couple of pink chickens this week. I had made 2 pink ones a couple of years ago and decided to add a couple to the collection. I have 4 purple and blue ones so will work away at adding other colors of chickens to the mix this year. Linking up with the RSC on Saturday morning.

I had some yellow hexagons prepped and got them stitched up and quilted this week. I need to make a set of 4 pink ones to stitch this month.

I saw another Little House block was released on Thursday, so I grabbed some pretty purples and made the 6 inch block. I will be adding some log cabin strips to surround it this weekend for that sew along over at Melva Loves Scraps. 

I saw there is a local quilt show on Saturday, so I plan on heading to see that and oooh and awww over quilts, vendors booths and raffles! The boy is having a long day and enjoying Grad Bash at Universal on Friday evening with lots of other high school seniors around Florida. He should get back to school around 4AM... and has the car there so can get himself home. The girl was home with an ear ache and all stuffed up and slept until after 10. She will be helping her Dad build some cat walks in the house this weekend so the cats can venture into the living room and kitchen area up high in the recessed walls. We will see if they venture out. They do not mix well with the dog..... they run and he chases.

Good news, we put my FIL's house on the market last month and it is under contract for a 30 day closing! Fingers crossed all goes smoothly with the buyer.

 

RSC Chickens

 I had a lovely unscheduled weekend and was looking through my block collections... once I found the boxes they were in! 

I decided to add a few chickens to the flock in red and green for this month and last. I had plenty of blue ones already.

Yes, three of the purples are a different size, since I turned the chicken body on the wrong side and then just went with it the first month I made them. The pattern is free at Sew Inspired Blog - Chicken Quilt Block.

. That will be fun to fit into a quilt! I might need to add eggs and a coop! We will see. Looks like I need to add some orange, black and white and brown birds. The red polka dot one makes me smile! 

I'll link up sometime on Saturday with the RSC.  It will be a busy day for me as I'm chaperoning and driving a group of kids to FFCC Championships in Orlando. It worked out both groups are quite the timeframe apart, which should work out to see both programs and awards despite being about 30 minutes from each other as JV is performing at a different school from Varsity. It will just be a very long day - 6AM until Midnight with the getting ready, driving and standard perform and wait for awards time.  Knitting will go with me in my backpack. That was easy to do while watching and waiting last competition. 

RSC Chickens

 

I did manage to sew together some blue chickens this week. They were happy to join the flock. I still need to pick out some blues for the Arkansas Traveller blocks and the string of beads blocks. I'm not sure the AT blocks will get done, but I should be able to prep the beads blocks as a hand work project for my trip up to VT. I suppose I should pack Saturday, as we are leaving on Sunday morning. 

Linking up with the RSC on Saturday.

RSC in pink and yellow!

 Since I did not get any yellow sewing in last month, I'll do both pink and yellow this month!

I got a little sewing time in on Thursday morning and cut and pieced 4 chicken blocks. I even remembered to do the big part of the chicken correctly, so I didn't have to modify the parts to make it work! I had that purple one right next to the machine for reference as I stitched.  I did 2 in yellow and 2 in pink. I might make a few more of these later in the month if there is time. The red part is 3-D. 

I had the parts cut out and in process for 2 more of the potato chip blocks so those got stitched while I was doing the chickens above. I think I will get out my 2.5 inch strip die and cut a bunch from the stash wall so I have a variety of fabrics to choose from. I'll go through the white bin as well and try and get some usable parts cut. It is overflowing and needs taming.

Linking up on Saturday with the RSC. Head on over and see what scraps are turning into.

The boy has 2 Cambridge college level tests today and then a review after school for Mondays exam. He said the math one was a killer yesterday and all their brains were fried after it. He thinks he did poorly, but we will see what the results are in August. This is one that gets sent over the pond for grading at Cambridge. He got invited to a surprise moving away party at the middle school this evening for his old Robotics teacher. He is moving north and will be teaching elementary next year in the Carolina's and starting a Robotics program at his new school. A bunch of the kids from high school who were in his classes are planning to attend and wish him well. He had them for 3 years in middle school with the robotics program and the boys helped out at the after school program with him last year for volunteer hours and helped at a few local tournaments the last 2 years for him.

Hopefully I can get a little yard work done this weekend. Pull some old bushes and plant new flowers, trim some hedges back and just tidy up before the humidity hits the crazy levels and I hibernate in the AC for the summer!

Table Scrap Challenge

 I just finished the last stitches on the little chicken block. The challenge for March was birds and purple. Well, a chicken is a bird and it is purple! I had fun making this block and decided to not put the red comb onto this one. He will be a chick instead of a chicken. 

Here are the girls in my back yard today. Well, 4 of the 5. Maple, DC (Daisy Chickalotta), Buttercup and Poppy. Eggnog was following me, so she was at my feet wanting attention.

Linking up with Joy and the challenge.

Happy Easter!

 We had a nice non-traditional Easter meal today with Grandma. Aidan worked to get the Big Green Egg back into working order and it is now up on some cement blocks to stabilize it and make it a nice level height to use. 

The kids cooked salmon on the grill last night for dinner and today Aidan was the grill master and cooked up some burgers and brats for our lunch with Grandma. It is a lovely partly cloudy 80 degrees today and right now Greg and the kids are outside in the back yard. The chickens are roaming free while they move the cage run attached to their coop run a little as they have dug up all the grass and made plenty of craters to take dust baths in. With the hawks around and the dog, it is safer for them to be in their safe area most of the time. The dog is inside with me watching those chickens and wanting to be outside with them!

Now that our company is gone, I'm going to relax with a little stitching. This purple chicken needs a red comb appliqued to it's top and then some simple quilting and a binding to finish it off. The pattern is from Sew Inspired but since I messed up how I placed the big rectangle mine is a little different.

This month I want to make progress on my Brimfield Awakening project. I have various charm packs that I will be using for this but I need to decide how I'll lay them out. Until then, I'll keep making the parts and then decide how the colors will flow on them. 

I did get one of the cats hand quilted this week. Each cat will be quilted differently. I think the next one will have circles or swirls after I get it outlined. 

Linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers.

I do love a prime rib (only the girl is with me on this one in my house - so I just have to fight her for it!) and since it is on sale now with the holiday, I got another one yesterday. It cooked up today and this is how it looks when I pulled it out of the oven. It is resting now, then I'll cut it into slices (the bones were cut off and tied back on by the butcher - those get sealed and frozen for soups!) and will seal a meal them and freeze them. Emily and I will pull them out for a quick dinner (her) or to add on top of salads for lunches (me). It will be gone by the end of June. This one was an 8 pounder. The last one never made it to the freezer and the remains are a beef barley soup in the fridge. 

RSC Wrapping up Purple.

 It was a pretty productive month in purple. Some Arkansas Traveler blocks, some hand applique Sting of Beads blocks and some chicken blocks. 

This guy needs a red comb added by applique and then some quilting to finish him off as the challenge for the month. The cold I have had for a week is kicking my butt the last couple of days so it is not quite done yet. The challenge was purple and birds. Well, a chicken is a bird! I hope to get this guy finished tonight, so I can link up with Joy tomorrow. 

Note to self, pay attention to the way you lay out the big rectangle before sewing the two bottom parts on. The first one I had the long part side to side. I seem to have swapped that when doing the other 4 so I had to make some modifications to make it work. It will all work in the final scrappy quilt.... that just allows for some alternate space things... like eggs! I might unpick the two on the right and add a 3-d comb to those as well. I was going to leave them as babies as it takes a bit for the red combs to come out and get bigger, but I like the look with the comb better.

Linking up with the RSC on Saturday.

After sleeping in (10:30!), I have been moving slowly today. I did go get some groceries - the boy decided to go with to pick out snacks and their salmon for dinner. He now has his license as of last week and has driven himself to his guitar lesson without anyone else in the car this week. He drove today as well. Only Grandma is coming over tomorrow for Easter as my step-FIL is not feeling well with a cold and my FIL doesn't like to stray from home anymore. Since the kids are not too crazy about ham, and Grandma and Greg don't care, I offered an alternate meal and everyone liked that better. So, we will be having Brats and Burgers on the Big Green Egg tomorrow. We have not used the Big Green Egg in a while, so Aidan opened it up and got it burning hot last night to clear things out. He'll clean the grill grate tonight and has already scraped out all the old charcoal and bits out so we can put some fresh in. They are going to cook the salmon on the grill tonight for them. I'll be making some soup with the prime rib bones - some beef and vegetable barley I think. I might have picked up another Prime Rib from Publix today.... to cook off tomorrow and then seal a meal slices for the freezer. 

RSC recap

 It has been a productive week for me.

I was able to get the Scrappy Kites from last years RSC quilted and bound this week for a finish. This one is a 42x50 finish and hopefully will be donated as part of the Hands2Help this year.

Then I moved onto sewing the split nines from last year together into this top. It is 48x54 with each 6 inch finished block. 

I finally made a chicken block in purple! I used the pattern from Sew Inspired. I made the red part a little different. I sewed them right sides together and then turned it out. I see I need to 'fix' that part on the lower
left to make sure it is sewn securely together, it must have come undone a little too much when I turned it. 

I will be making my Arkansas Traveller blocks today, but the fabrics are already picked out and ready to run through the Accuquilt Die, so the hard part is done!

Linking up with the RSC Challenge.