Thursday.....

 Well, so much for spending hours prepping clothing for stitching on the memory quilt. Sigh. That is how the week has been going. I got a Pampered Chef Quick cooker that I have been playing with the last week. It does a great job with rice, beans from dry and the stew was good. The boy did not like the texture of the chicken for the chicken that I cooked in it. Will be playing more with this - I did like the black beans and quinoa made in there for my lunch bowls last week. I can't wait to do corned beef as I grew up with pressure cooked cabbage and love it cooked that way (I might have just eaten the cabbage growing up for that meal - a little S+P and vinegar!) Hubby actually used pressure cooking as one of his physics write ups for his class!

Tuesday was a quick dinner then we headed to school for Emily's band winter concert. That's the best photo I could get. She is second row on the right about 4 people in playing clarinet. We heard the chorus, beginner band and the advanced band play.

Yesterday - the tents I had up and airing from this weekend, decided to try and run away in the afternoon (windy!) so they got taken down, stuffed into their bags and put away. I made some homemade sweet potato baked fries and risotto for dinner. I had taken butter out for cookies a few times in the last week and had yet to make them (thinking peanut butter balls (buckeye's) but was missing graham crackers at one point). I decided to make some hershey kiss cookies (peanut butter with a hershey kiss on top). Lets just say as soon as they were cooled for 10 minutes hands started taking them and 'testing' them. There are a few left for now... but the kids are still at school! I had signed up for a Homemade cooking class last night and did not cook along but listened into the program. I'm planning to make it tonight - it was Morrocan Chicken Tangine with couscous. If you have never heard of this website - I highly recommend it. There are a bunch of free classes - and I have been know to sign up just to get the recipe and not do the Zoom (apple cider donuts, orange cranberry scones) .... but, there are a bunch of free things offered with some of them. I did the Farmhouse Cheese board one last week and that give away was from Cabot cheese! This was my single serving version  =)

We have had lots of these guys hanging around on the milk weed bush out front. They will eventually turn into monarch butterflies. I usually have 1-3 butterflies dancing around this area every day. 

This morning was an early start for blood work at 7AM, back home to take Aidan to school for 9 (Emily was an early to school for her horse testing at 8 - her Dad took her). When I got home I put a few things away and then checked online for the 3 grocery flyers - Publix, Aldi, Winn Dixie. Winn Dixie won with a chicken thigh B1G1 deal. I kept 5 out and seal a mealed and froze the others into 3 packs of 5.  While I was doing that - hubby got to steam clean the carpet. Seems Sophie cat (my 17 yo girl) is having some issues and there was cleanup needed on the carpet. I did grab a leek and used up the last of my potato's to make potato leek soup for lunch. Yummy. I had a noon training for troop cookie manager and then a little paperwork for that..... and here it is time to go pick up the kids! That's just how my days tend to go lately. I did finish stitching up these 4 green hexagons during my meeting though. I think I started prepping the last of the browns but have not made it back to the sewing room yet.

I think most of the kids Christmas stuff is ordered. I need to do their Christmas snakes to start on Saturday still. Saturday Em and I have an early start to get to the girl scout camp for Pioneer Days for her age group through hs. (6-12 grades). They are going to do a complete meal cooked over the campfire I believe. It starts at 9 -12 and it is a good 30+ minute hike to where the event will be on the property so we need to get there a bit after 8 to allow time to hike there. No rain forecast but an exceptionally hot day for us in the mid 80's is expected. Mother Nature is a little confused and does not realize it is December!

Time to get ice waters for the kids and some cookies for their after school snack in the car on the way home. Lunch is around 11:30 for them and school gets out at 3:45 so they are usually pretty hungry. 

OMG for December.

 I have had 3 bins of clothing for about 6 months now to make a Memory quilt for a girl at horses. I have promised to have it done for Christmas. You would think it would be close to complete. I did start cutting it out the week of Thanksgiving - thinking I would have 3 whole days to work on it Thanksgiving weekend. But... then I got the head cold from heck and did not do much of anything for a good week. Sigh. It is now December 6 and I really need to get working on it. I think I have a plan - there are a lot of jeans in there and I am hesitant to mix the various fabrics.... so I'll see how much I can get from them. I have cut up 3 pairs so far. I am saving off the not used parts. I think I can do 6 inch squares - and will need about 196 of them for a 'good size' quilt. Some blocks will be pieced and some will be whole. We will see what happens!

My goal is to get this memory quilt cut, pieced and quilted by the end of the month (ok, before Christmas!).

Wish me luck as I am really going to need it. Linking up with Elm Street Quilts and One Monthly Goal.

Weekend wrap up!

 It sure has been a busy weekend! Saturday started off with horses and Emily's riding lesson. She did not ride last weekend as they were all at a show. She was happy to see Reba and get a workout.

We delivered lunch and then the boys pulled the lights to decorate the outside of the house while we packed for the Drive in Campout with girl scouts.

There were over 600 girls there for the night for an evening a tenting, movies and general fun. It did get a wee bit cool - down to 49 F and damp with fog.  This was a shot this morning around 7AM. I got a good 3 dust pans of sand out of the tent when I set it up in the yard late afternoon to let it dry and air out for a bit! My co-leader coined the term 'Sand is Florida's natural glitter' this morning. There was sand everywhere! I have opened and shook off amazing amounts of sand in the driveway from the tarp, moving blanket we had set out, 2 quilts and the mummy sleeping bags... oh, and the chairs! Very thankful for the tray in the back of the CRV that collected a nice amount of sand as well. The car is due for wash and vacuum this week I think. 

Emily was in there - in her mummy bag covered with the quilt laying out on the blanket watching the 3rd movie of the night. There were 5 =).

This is the back of the t-shirt for the event. I love that she organized it by service units. Joining Rivers and Land of the Silver Moon are both based in Ocala. I'm not sure on the rest.

After a couple hours of nap this afternoon (I was up all night Saturday and did not sleep well Friday night), opening and getting the sand out of everything and putting things away I'll relax with a few hand quilting stitches on my Endless Diamond quilt. I started quilting this one on Thursday but have not made much progress yet. 

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

Endless Diamond - the quilting began

 Thursday I finally started the hand quilting on the Endless Diamond quilt. I am just planning to outline within each shape. Simple and no marking involved. 

January sew along....

 I'm in a facebook group where they will be working on this quilt next year. It was a quick decision to join in and I ordered the book. The starting date is in January and I 'should' be prepping fabrics for it. I think I 'really' need to just get the background whites and I 'think' I can pull the rest from my stash.

Feeling better but still bothered by a head cold. It is swapping between my ears and my nose.  According to my facebook memories - I seem to always get a head cold around this time of the year and it lasts a couple of weeks. Sigh.... well, at least I am consistent!

Instead of working on what I should be.... I think I'll pop on a movie and work on crocheting Emily's afghan that is only 2 years in the making. Since I got her brother's quilt enlarged it is time to get a finish for her now.

Slow Sunday stitching...

Well, this 4 day weekend was not what I planned at all! Other than a very yummy and juicy Turkey Thursday with all the fixings, it was a putter around the house with a head cold type of weekend. Sigh. So far - the boy is fine. Emily had it last weekend and is all better. Greg and I are 'sharing' the head cold from Emily. 

I do have a memory quilt I have promised to have done for Christmas so I will be cutting out more squares and strips from clothing provided to prep for that. I have a plan and now that I made the initial cut I am more confident in it.

When I am resting from that.... I'll be adding some stitches to my quilt as you go hexagons in browns for November.

Then I'll start some hand quilting on the Endless Diamond quilt. I pinned it when I pinned something else last month and it has just been waiting patiently for me to finish off Snowman and Silent Night.  This one is completely hand pieced from a template I created based on a photo of a quilt I saw. You can read about my adventure with this quilt under the Endless Diamond Tab.

Linking up with the other slow stitchers on this sunny Sunday in Florida.

 

Table Scraps Challenge for November...

I checked Joy's blog this morning and yup - as it is the last weekend of the month it is time for the table scraps challenge link up! 

I had played with my crossed canoe die earlier this month thinking it would make a cute table runner. I still think that.... but maybe next month!

I was cleaning off the sewing table/cutting mat area and found a stack of these leftover scraps from my 5 inch charms I used to make my applique hearts.  

I had sewed 4 together to get a middle piece that was usable. Well, those got pressed and cut into 6 - 4.5 inch squares and there are 3 - 4 inch ones still to 'process'. I had some leftover 1.5 inch black ends of strips from the Snowman quilt I just finished.  That worked to attach them together. I didn't have enough to go around the outside. I decided to just finish it off with a little machine quilting. I pulled 2 little strips of leftover purple bindings in slightly different shades that got spliced together and finished this off with about 4 inches left over.  I'd say this truly is a 'scrap buster'! If you look close at the bottom you can see the 2 different color purple bindings =).

Linking up with the Table Scrap Challenge.