Slow stitching Sunday....

Today is a family day at home (a rare occurrence at my house). The kids had their first Christmas with Grandma H last night so we have way too many new toys in the house! I will pull a bunch of things from their rooms and the play room tomorrow while they are at school to make some room. We decided Grandma is not too great at Operation but Aidan and I rock! We each got 5 parts out of the minion without that buzzer going off!

Grandpa A will come over later this morning for a visit. After that I have Christmas cards to write out and get into the mail tomorrow (must print off the kids school pictures today to tuck into the cards). At some point I really want to watch the Polar Express since I got outvoted last week for the movie night! The kids each did their Polar Express at school this week in the library which included Em wearing her pj's to school on Friday for her movie. While I watch it I will either add some stitches into Hugs and Kisses or into my new hand piecing project of a trip around the world quilt. Maybe I will do a little of both!

Linking up with Kathy and the slow stitchers today as she reminds us each week to slow down and relax with some slow stitching.

We did breakfast with Santa yesterday morning and I got this picture of the kids on Santa's lap. They both were all smiles! I have a feeling this might be that last year for a both kid picture like this :(.

Scrappy tops are coming together....

I was able to sew the diagonal set of the churn dashes together this morning. I did take a break and grabbed Wendy's for lunch  and took it in and ate with Aidan at school in between the sewing. I've done lunch with both kids for the month at school...Another thing checked off the list!

Those tops are starting to pile up from the rainbow challenge. The bottom of the pile above is the RSC Sampler.

The middle quilt top is the 16 patch stars.

I just have another set of the churn dashes to figure out what to do with them! 72 more little churn dashes will come out to play sometime soon. I also have my birds in the air blocks from a couple of years ago wanting to be put together. The also want to be hand quilted with a baptist fan pattern so they will just have to wait patiently in the drawer until Hugs and Kisses is close to being done before they become a quilt top! Bossy little blocks they are!

I'm thinking I only need a couple of hours at work on Saturday... so maybe I'll skip out and head home and pin and quilt one of these little guys? That is probably a dream... but you never know what will happen. Saturday morning starts out with a pancake breakfast with Santa before I head to work and Greg takes the kids to Grandmas where they will go to her town's parade. We'll do Christmas with her on Saturday night. It is hard to believe the kids only have 5 more days of school before winter break!

Linking up on Saturday morning with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Take a peek at all the links and get some ideas for next year's challenge. I think I have decided on some of the things I will be working on - the 25 patch wonky stars, a scrappy strip of each months color - 3.5 inches by 60 or 70 inches long sewn onto some muslin with a little cream strip in between each one, adding my black hexagons around the hexagon flowers from 2014 and the RSC 2015 sampler. Have you been thinking of how you will use your scraps next year?

I'm blaming Carla....

Carla posted this last week and I admit I was a little intrigued.  It is a hand pieced Trip around the World quilt with 2 inch squares. Well, I have a little basket of 2 inch squares and strips of 2 inch fabrics that I have been trimming off from scraps this year. I pulled a few and while waiting at the dentist with the kids today I got this far. That includes drawing the 1/4 inch sewing line on the back of each of them. Thanks Carla for posting about this so I had something to do for the hour I was waiting on the kids today.

A chance to sew this morning!

I was able to finish sewing the rows together for the RSC Sampler quilt. I really like how it came out. I think it will stay like that and just get quilted into a snuggle size quilt with a dark brown or tan binding. Someday.... this pile of quilt tops is really getting out of control!

Then I started playing with the churn dash blocks. I split the blocks in half and have 6 each of my 12 colors in this quilt for the diagonal layout.

Plain layout with sashings....

I am leaning towards the diagonal layout with some white triangles around the edge to finish it off and then a scrappy rainbow binding. What do you think?

I just got back from lunch with Emily at school today. We spent all day yesterday in Orlando at the GI specialist to see about her tummy issues. Just have to take her for blood work tomorrow morning to check for Celiac (fingers crossed it is negative) and then schedule the lactose intolerance testing for January. I think I'll attempt to sweep and mop the floors quickly before starting to sew these churn dashes together. Think I can keep the cats from messing it up until I get it sewn together? Yea, me either! That is why I took the picture =) I hope I can find more time to sew this week but it is a busy one. Blood work tomorrow for Em and early release from school. Thursday is bowling in the morning for me and then I take the kids from school 15 minutes early for their dentist cleaning. Friday I have lunch with Aidan at school. Saturday morning is breakfast with Santa and then I get to go to work. Busy, busy at my house again!

Slow Stitching Sunday..... hand quilting progress.

It feels so good to be working on hand quilting my Hugs and Kisses quilt. Now.... to figure out how to keep Maxie off the quilt so I can quilt it. As soon as I pull it on my lap - she climbs on thinking I put it there just for her to snuggle in! Silly cat. That is Maxie - notice she is on the quilted tree skirt? She loves quilts that girl.

I am just outlining each of the peels in the block and then one line through the middle of the 'border'. I think I need to start using my new tool - the Hera marker to mark those line for me as they are a wee bit crooked when I just wing it! It might have something to do with that cat being on the quilt... So far 4 blocks are done and the fifth is nearly done. 44.5 blocks to go!

Hubby was in charge of dinner last night... which meant I got to go with him to pick up the kids from Grandma so I could get dinner (at Outback!)... so no sewing last night. Tonight I plan to snuggle in under my quilt and get some quality stitching in while we do an early movie night with the kids - The Polar Express. Aidan was looking through the cookbooks this morning (yes, he is 6!) and decided we are having scalloped potatoes with ham for dinner tonight with buttered corn. He and Dad will be in charge of making dinner.... from scratch! Finally using some of that Easter ham from the freezer. Right now they are making an egg scramble with ham, cheese and onion for their breakfast. I believe they will also be making some gingerbread men at some point today as well. Some good Daddy and boy time today while Emmy is with Grandma for her sleepover. I get to escape and head to work for a few hours.

Head on over to Kathy's Quilts and see what other slow stitching is happening around the globe today. Remember to reward yourself with some peaceful stitching time during this very busy time of the year.

Wednesday - a sewing break...

I took a break from lots of phone calls this morning and sewed up a twinkle star block so I can finish off my RSC Sampler quilt. Now to find time to sew the blocks together......

Design floor Monday....

Time to play with the RSC Sampler blocks! I laid them out in a 9x11 setting and I think I just need one more block - a light blue twinkle star. Now comes the decision - sashings in grey, cream or white? I am thinking a light creamy white but we'll see what happens once I start cutting.

I also had to quickly do the Christmas snakes for the countdown... since I completely forgot to do it last night! The kids will get the first thing - a light up ornament (penguin and snowman) after school. This is the planning stage before I put everything in and tie each day off with a piece of yarn. The kids enjoy it and it saves me the 'how many days' question over and over again. They just go count the snake!

Thanks to Cyber Monday - the kids are done for Christmas and things will ship where they need to go. Now I just need to order the Christmas cards and get those out and then I can relax. Mom - I called on Emily's pictures and they had not reordered it like they should have. I ordered it today so I'll just bring the CD's up with me and print them out up there for you and all the siblings.