Rain, rain go away.....

I can't remember the last time we saw the sun! It has been cloudy all week and rainy the last couple of days. The other side of town got 8 inches of rain yesterday! We luckily have had constant rain instead of deluges so the moat on the lawn has not filled up and the sand has been able to absorb it. (Yes, I figure if it is a moat then I live in a castle!)

It makes me think I need to work on some hand quilting outlining the rain umbrella's today. I started free hand 'rain' and 'raindrops' on the quilt but.... I am straight line challenged so that little bit will get pulled out and the herra marker will be put to use to assist with the rain lines after I get all the umbrella's outlined.

Progress is being made on the Book Club hand pieced quilt along. I have one row and one sashing together. The second set should be assembled and attached today as well. I was able to mark the rest of the sashings for hand piecing yesterday so they are all prepped and next to my chair for little bits of time here and there.

The kids are BOTH going to Grandma's for a rainy day today.

I might try and get the first set of sheep knitted on Aidan's pillow. That has not come out to play in a while. I think I'll try and get it moving along this month as he has been waiting a while for it. This is the last photo I have of it.

Of course the girl wants her crochet blanket too.... that occasionally will get pulled out and I add a row or two while waiting on things to bake or when I have a few minutes of down time. This is an old photo, it is probably 17 inches longer now as that skein is done and another is almost done as well. I think I was getting about 11 inches a skein with this blanket stitch.

Linking up with the other slow stitchers at Kathy's Quilts. 

Saturday.....

It is a rainy and dreary day today and will be again tomorrow. Me, nowhere to go and plenty of time to just 'be'.

After a lazy start (ok, I finally took a shower and got dressed around 10:30!), I wandered into the sewing room to see what it looked like! 8 dark green blocks lined up ready to sew on the sewing table. Ok, those got sewn together.

All of them so far this year! Each set of 4 makes a 12 inch finished block.

Angela let us know pink was the color for June. I think she is going to make me wait until October for Purple! I pulled the pinks from the wall. (must empty a bucket or two and find pink scraps).

I had one grey 2 inch square left over from last month so made one cobblestone block.

I am busy pressing and cutting strips in 2.5 and 2 inches since I seem to have NONE in the pull out drawer in pink. Well, I didn't check the 2.5 but nothing in the 2 inch section. Hopefully I'll have more completed pink blocks by the end of the day.

Some reading, some quilting, some piecing by hand and machine will happen today. I think a rematch in scrabble is on tap as well. Lets hope I can get those high numbers and find a good place to play them.

Linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

On a side note - how come soup tastes better with toppings? I am fairly new to adding toppings to my soups but boy, do they sure raise the taste. This is lunch - leftover chicken enchilada soup topped with avacado, lime juice, cilantro and sharp cheddar cheese. Oh so yummy!

Thursday.... a day off work

It has been a while since I have had a Thursday off work! It felt really good to sleep in on a week day.

Emily wanted muffins, so I made double chocolate muffins for breakfast. I didn't have oil.... and no applesauce so I mashed up a banana. It worked!
Then - hair cut time! I think my last cut was the end of January.... I felt so much better and there was a lot of hair on the floor when she was done! I hit it before the rush and was the only customer when I arrived! Next up was stopping by the bank drive through and depositing Emily's birthday checks.... from April! Off to fill up the car with gas.... the prices sure have gone up from the $1.55 I last filled up for. It was $1.82 a gallon today. Then it was to Aldi.. and pick up some canola oil for the pantry and a bunch of veggies, strawberries and milks for the kids (lactaid for Em and regular for Aidan - I use the lactaid milk when I cook so Emily can eat everything without belly aches). They had a full case of meats! Usually they are completely out ... so I got a little package of chicken breasts and a skirt steak.... the steak will be fajitas on Sunday for me! The chicken Aidan cooked one up for his lunch and shared with Emily. The other 2 got made into Chicken Enchilada soup. So yummy and I forgot they don't have enchilada sauce there so I made my own.
Then it was time to cut the sashing strips for the Book Club setting. I had checked and the person I was going to drop the extra guinea pig things off to was home so the kids and I headed over there. (The second guinea pig Jimmy Jr. passed away last Tuesday - I had just got a chewy order so there was a couple bags of bedding, timothy hay, pellets and chew sticks - I figured with all the goats, chickens, pigs, turkeys and the cow they had they could use it.) We got to hold the 3 baby goats that were born on Sunday morning too! Another stop at the ATM to deposit the troop check I had left on the shelf this morning... and then I got sewing time! I needed to finish a couple more of my stars and nines blocks in dark green so I cut and sewed all the blocks for that. I just need to press and then sew the sets of 4 blocks together. 3 sets of dark green done!

The last nine patch is still under the presser foot.

The children insisted they needed dinner. I went the easy route - I put some berber chickens in the oven (kiev and a asparagus and cheese one for Aidan) and peeled and cut up some sweet potato to bake for sweet potato fries with honey mustard dipping sauce. After cleaning up it was time to settle in with some slow stitching and I have one row of 3 blocks sewn together and one row of sashing and cornerstones. I think I'll wait to sew those 2 together tomorrow along with marking more of the sashings for hand piecing. It is all pinned and ready to go. Notice the toes - Emily gave me a pedi over the weekend. Her toes are a sparkly lavender.

Sophie was lovey dovey tonight and leaning against me on the end of the recliner. She normally is down there but not touching me.

There you go... my exciting day off. Lots of cooking and a little sewing. I seem to have gotten out of the scrabble rematch game Aidan wanted to play tonight.  I guess I did really good last night and actually won the game! That never happens... but I got the Z and put it on a triple word score... and used it twice! Zoo and Zig :) I seem to have gotten most of the high end tiles and used them all but the Q. Oh, must remember to grab the mask from the car and throw it through the wash tomorrow. It got a workout today.

Heart update....

You know what happens when you lay out blocks in a house with cats!

They think you laid them out for them to SIT ON! Silly Peanut.  I just counted and have 13 more prepped. So I guess you can get 40 - 5.5 inch squares from a yard of fabric? I have 2 bonus hearts prepped but ran out of the background. I have no clue how these will land in a quilt but they are coming along nicely. 

Greg is having a bad back pain day.... so I took an hour off work this morning to bring the kids to school to drop off Aidan's textbooks and library books and pick up Emily's summer reading - 2 books this year. No ruberic for the report again this year so I asked the 6th grade Cambridge ELA teacher about it on Remind. She was at school and went and checked as she was not happy it was not handed out last year with the book. Turns out they are preparing to be paperless to begin the school year.... makes me wonder if it will be virtual again. 

I took another hour off to meet up with my bowling team captain to collect my money awards from the league I bowl in on Thursdays. I have opted not to bowl in the fall, I'll take a year off and see how things are next year at this time. Enclosed space with a bunch of lovely ladies - but I don't want to be the one to make them sick. I do have to say as I was waiting, there was a league going in, all older (Over 60 - most in the 70-80 range) and ONE single person wore a mask. One...... out of at least 30 that went in! Sigh.... Their choice but I do not want that on my conscience!

OMG for June!

How is it June already? I completely missed my OMG for May. I did not even get it pinned for quilting! I decided to try something 'new' this month for a goal.

My goal is to get the Book Club Quilt I have been making into a top this month. It has been hand pieced so far and will continue to be hand pieced. I guess I'll need to decide how to finish it!

Linking up with One Monthly Goal.

Now I must go pick up the Chinese food I ordered for dinner.... our favorite Chinese takeout restaurant finally opened up yesterday! So excited they are back and want to keep them in business - local family run. 

RSC dark green

I had to hunt for the dark greens as I have a lot of the sage greens but wanted these blocks darker.  I plan to make one more of the stars and nines blocks in these darks..... maybe later tonight. Aidan picked out the greens for the stashbuster block

Linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I'm excited to start playing with pink in June.

Sunday....

Kathy reminds us each Sunday to slow down and enjoy the relaxing properties of hand stitching. I did manage a little hand stitching (and prepping) this week and completed my last hand pieced block for Book Club, Elizabeth.

I have very little of my darker purple fabrics used in the blocks... but I do have enough of the light print to finish it off.

I am so happy I decided to do this sew along. I enjoyed doing last years and was so happy to learn tips and tricks on making templates and how to prep, mark and sew curves. That just opens the door to so many more projects and patterns I feel comfortable tackling now! A big thank you to Patty and Kristin for hosting and sharing your knowledge. These are my 9 hand pieced blocks that will finish off at 9 inches each. Everything needs another press and then I'll finalize the layout and decide if I put colorful cornerstones or just use the light fabric for sashing and cornerstone. I think I'll use it for the on point sides..... if I have enough of the light print. This will be all pieced by hand and hand quilted when done. Linking up with the Book Club - Hand Pieced QAL.

I have plenty of hearts prepped for hand applique sitting next to my recliner. I was not successful on one a day....it was a crazy month of May this year..... but I have them there and prepped and they will get worked through here and there in June.


Yesterday morning I had my first aid/CPR class - 3 of us in the class with 1 instructor. Socially distanced and wearing masks (except for cpr) after hand washing on entry and a temperature check 97 F for me! I was happy my co-leader chose this time slot too - so I got to spend time with her in the 4 hour class and chatting a bit by our cars after (socially distanced of course). I must say.... getting up with an alarm at 6:30 was difficult! It has been a couple of months since I have had to be up that early in the morning! With the standard guidelines for girl scouts (buddy system is girls always go places in pairs) and the current CDC guidelines.... I am not sure when we will be allowed to meet in person again. Sigh, I really dislike zoom (probably because I dislike seeing myself on camera!) but I guess I am going to have to figure out how to make it work if needed in the fall. I think the girls can work on their bronze award this summer and get it done, that is my goal with them.

Technically the kids are done school tomorrow. Aidan has 2 tests to complete - math is being put up tomorrow...yes, she taught new skills the last week of school and scheduled a test for the last day! He has a 20 question robotics test to complete as well but I believe he said everything else was done. There will be a science game - are you smarter than a 6th grader on zoom Monday afternoon that she invited the family's to attend and participate. We will also return books Wednesday and I'll have Emily pick up her summer reading material at that time.

Emily just has to do her PE today and I'll send the paper to her teacher and she is done 5th grade! Her awards were Thursday evening on Zoom after picking up the award packet that morning. Each of my kids has the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence hanging in their room now! Aidans is gold and Emily's is silver. I guess the difference was gold if you get a 5 on one of the 4th grade FSA testing. She was about 3 points from a 5 in math. The rating is 1-5 with 5 being excelling. She also got a leadership award and the coveted 'Golden Bear' from her teacher. One girl and one boy in each class gets it. She received the golden bear in grades 2,4 and 5.

We watched the Crew Dragon launch yesterday. The clouds blocked us from seeing the plume from our house in Ocala but we watched on tv. So exciting. The kids are planning to watch the docking at the ISS around 10:29AM EST. Will you be watching?

Linking up with Sunday Slow stitching and Book Club.