2 inch Trip quilt is finished!

 

This finished at 60 inches square and was cat approved last night. My sister mentioned it looks like a crocheted afghan when I added it to my 2024 Quilt Album on Facebook. I guess it does with the bright colors. 

It was an early morning start with a 6:10 blood draw for Emily then some donuts from Dunkin and then to school for her 7:30 class. She got there around 7AM and a friend was there already, so she was going to chat with her or read her book. She did make the Winter Guard Team, so now Tuesday and Thursdays will be that practice, Mondays will be Symphonic band practice after school until 5 until their winter concert in December. Fridays are marching band until 5PM until after their 2 parades in December. Busy girl. The boy arrives home tonight from their Civil Rights Field Trip - of course it is an hour after his sister is done! 

Just sharing here since it is really bugging me. I have a friend who's husband is Chinese heritage. He is an American citizen. Things like this happen way too often to him. Last night he and his teenage daughter were leaving McDonalds. He daughter was in the car and someone yelled at him to 'go back where you came from' and THREW a drink at him. He was able to avoid most of it, but THIS IS NOT OK! This happens way too often to him, whether alone or out with the twins who are now teens. What has happened to people in this country?

I'm going to go sew and puzzle a back together from odd blocks and hope that calms me down. Next up is the Chip Block for machine quilting.

Slow sunday binding

 I had so much fun yesterday at Hammer and Stain Ocala! My original choice had some issues with the design going onto the board, but they had this one in stock and I think I like it even better. Sometimes things are meant to be! I had a plain wooden plank. I opted to do a light stain with a touch of white in it. I selected the colors to use - and love how the brown letters turned out. I'm going to go back next Saturday and add a welcome to the back with a little red truck with a Christmas tree in the back for the o in welcome. That way I can just turn this around after Thanksgiving and I'm all set for Christmas!

I might have done some birthday shopping after that. Well, in my defense, Missouri Star Quilt Company sent me a $15 off an order of $60 for my birthday and my MIL might have gifted me some birthday $ to spend on me only! Got to love my MIL! She is a keeper. 

So..... I got myself a mystery end of the bolt box. I got one 2 years ago and it was so fun and still providing me with useful fabrics. Since those were on sale for almost half off, and not included for my birthday code... I 'had' to go looking and added these two sets of fabrics. I might have searched for them a few weeks ago but did not get them. Since I had that coupon.... the price was right to get them! This will let me make that Christmas Tree quilt I posted a while ago. I have bright yellows for the stars and plenty of lights for the background.

Wilmington Essentials - Emerald Forest 10 Karat Gems. Wilmington Essentials - Red Carpet 40 Karat Gems

I'll be working on stitching the binding onto the trip around the world quilt. I hand pieced this with 2 inch squares quite a few years ago. (December 2014 was the start time on this one). I machine quilted it Thursday. So close to a finish. 2 sides left to stitch.

This was me being lazy and forgetting to add the corner triangle.  It actually worked out ok!

Linking up with the slow Sunday stitchers.

Progress on the Trip Around the World quilt.

I had a nice chunk of time on Thursday and was able to piece a backing, pin and machine quilt this hand pieced 2 inch trip quilt. I also made and attached the binding to the front. I'll work on hand stitching that down the next few days. I forgot to add the corner bits...so I decided to leave it so they have a corner edge. We will see if it works with the binding or not! I had a quilting pattern in mind, that is the hardest part for me. I had graph paper and was drawing on it and came up with a continuous line quilting so that it does a line through every other row. If I have a plan, it makes the process so much easier!

 You can see the quilting a little better in these two photos. I used my walking foot and a 3 for the length. The standard is 2.5 on my machine for sewing so it is just a smidge bigger. I started in the middle square, went to the yellow, then the dark blue, then the purple, etc. 

This is what I am greeted with after walking the dog when we go out to 'check the chickens'. All 5 come running as they know I'll throw some seed in for them to eat. 

My angel trumpet is in full bloom.

At horses yesterday, Carolyn gave me this as a birthday present. My birthday was back on Monday the 4th. I opened it and said - a crochet hook and seam ripper, neat. She said, no it's a horse! OMG! I turned it slightly and it is indeed a horse! How neat is that. 

My birthday present to me is a trip to Hammer and Stain today in an open class. I am going to make a welcome plank for the front of the house for fall. IT should be a lot of fun. Carolyn, signed up as well and picked a different project. Emily is off to school for Winter Guard try outs. We will see how she does. She is the only one left from the practices that has never done this before. I'll pick her up at 1 and see how it went. The boy is in Montgomery Alabama on his Civil Rights Field trip doing a walking tour and then visiting UAB later. 

I have Monday off from work. So... I could either piece a backing for the Chip quilt and get that ready for machine quilting.... or clear out the front two rooms and give them a much needed painting. I'll decide later today after I go play with some paints and make a nice welcome to fall decoration.

A little sewing.

 It was an early morning with a 6AM drop of Aidan to school. I forgot a photo on drop off in the dark, so he kindly sent me a selfie at their lunchtime stop at FSU. His buddy Peyton is on the lower right in blue.

After heading in to the doctors for a blood draw and then a long doggie walk with Bear, I tackled some sewing. I found a slightly different pattern to make the bowl cozies. This one uses only one layer of the special batting. I might have messed up the first one... so the seams on the brown are wrong side out. Oh well, I noticed when I turned it inside out.... so it got finished and I used it for my lunch warming up a bowl of pasta from last night. I made three more correctly. 2 will go into the raffle basket and one will go to Shannon who is a girl scout organizing all the raffle baskets. These have a cute hook on them. I think I like that addition. I used 10 inch squares for these.

I had searched through cut offs of backing fabrics and figured these two would be big enough together for a backing. 

I placed a quilt top on the floor and Bear knows his duty and promptly sat pretty on it. After a treat, he laid down for a photo.

This is my hand pieced trip around the world with 2 inch squares. It is time for this one to get done.... and I am going to machine quilt it! I just want it done and off the list. I have the roll of batting out  since I could not find enough long pieces to make a franken batting. I had cleared out all the parts and pieces making the QAYG hexagons. This one is about ready to get laid out and pinned for quilting. I don't have to pick up Emily until 7:30 tonight, so plenty of time to pin and maybe get started on the machine quilting? We are going with leftovers since it is just Greg and I. If Emily wants something we can stop on the way home for her dinner. =) More sewing time!

I also threw the cat and mouse into the wash and dryer today. It is nice and crinkly now. All the blue markings came out fine. Time to cut a batting and pin a quilt.

Election Day

 Please use your voice and vote today! I voted early and my ballot has been counted. Do your research and vote on what matters to you.

We have always had fair and honest elections. Let us hope that it is a peaceful transfer of power like it has been since the beginning of this country.

It is another crazy week in my household with lots of various timed pick ups and drop offs. One is heading on a field trip for Civil Rights this week to Alabama and Georgia. Hopefully the hurricane will veer west and not affect their studies in Selma, Montgomery, Birmingham and Atlanta. That means we have to actually drop the girl to school again in the morning! This is an optional trip ($215 and $115 goes to the kids for food at stops) through their Cambridge AICE program. 

I have been thinking of what will be the next hand quilting project. I have narrowed it down to these 2 options. I am staying away from blue... since the last few have been blue, and I wanted a change of color.  Excuse the mess in the backgrounds.

This one is about 72 inches square. I got a pretty purple floral backing that fits this size. I think it needs to be bigger though..... and I do have extra of the two purple fabrics. I'm thinking a 2 or 2.5 inch lighter purple then a 5 inch darker purple? I have the quilting thread for this - dark purple and a darker tan.

This one just needs a 5 inch black butterfly print border added to it. Each of the hexagons are on a 6 inch black block. I have a handful of colorful threads to quilt this one with.

I think I'll add the borders to both of them and then decide.

Yesterday at lunch, I prepped some more hexagons. It is looking a little like Christmas in this photo! Maybe I'll pop some cheerful Christmas music on while I work today. I have 3 more purple ones to stitch this week at lunches before I will get to these later this week. One a day is keeping this one moving along.

Crochet

 Switching things up a bit. I usually knit my dish cloths but I've been wanting to try some crochet patterns.  I'm going to make a basket for a raffle at sister's retreat the end of January.  It got delayed from last weekend due to damage at the girl scout camps from the 2 hurricanes.  Lots of tree damage on the 600 acres. I'm thinking a couple microwave cozies in girl scout cookie fabrics, some dish cloths and things for an ice cream night. 

I found this link for a farmhouse dish cloth from Amanda Crochets.  I just need to go around it with double crochet to finish it off. The test one will be for me and the next one will be for the basket. I might try a couple more patterns. I got this yarn at Walmart for under $10. 

Marching band is down to just one practice on Friday's after school instead of Monday,Thursday,Friday. She is trying the winter guard rehearsals so has Tuesday, Thursday until 7:30! Try outside are Saturday.  She has never done this so we will see how she does.

The boy is busy with academic club this week then an early drop to school Thursday for him, 6am for their 5 day civil right trip. Ther are heading to Alabama- Montgomery, Selma,  Birmingham, then to Atlanta. 

These kids sure keep us hopping.

Finished Cat and Mouse Quilt!

 The cat and mouse was put on the frame mid March 2020. It was not making progress.... so February 2024 I basted it on the frame and took it off for hand quilting in the hoop. The hand quilting was finished on October 30th. I made the binding on Halloween and finished hand stitching it down yesterday afternoon. It is currently 59x69 but needs a gentle washing so it will get a little smaller and snuggly. I think I might have made the cat blocks back in 2014? Then did the mice a few years later. I think it got to the top stage in 2019 or 2020.  It is nice to cross this one off the list.

The whole quilt in the sun.

A better shot of the quilting. The triangle of cheese for the mice is in the light teal border and the butterfly's for the cats are in the dark teal border. Those butterfly's were so fun to stitch. 

The backing.

With the clocks going back an hour last night, the dog did not get that memo! The cats were content to sleep in, but someone thought he needed a walk... at 6AM (new time!). Turns out.... F1 Qualifying was happening in the rain in Brazil, so I got up but watched that fiasco with Aidan and put the doggie off for a bit. He did get a nice long walk and then helped me with photo's out back after feeding the chickens some seed treats. I need to hack another pumpkin open for them and pop it into their run. I might have forgotten to carve Halloween pumpkins this year..... oh well, the girls will eat them!

Greg and I did head to The Villages new High School yesterday afternoon to watch Emily and her bandmates compete at their MPA for marching band. They did well and got straight Superior's across the board! That is the best ranking against the rubric, so they get another metal pin this year at end of year awards. She was a 11PM pick up at school last night so we enjoyed that extra sleep time. 

My handwork will switch to the QAYG hexagons today, I think. I need to do my one blue from yesterday and today to finish this set of 4.

Then I'll work on stitching the singles into twosomes, then everyone into sets of 4. I need 12 sets of 4 to make a long column to attach to the existing quilt to make it wider. I think I need at least 4 columns.  I've been doing pretty good at doing one each day on my lunch break. It is time to prep a few more - it looks like I need red, green, purple and dark blue to add to the mix. Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

The happy doggie Bear after his walk with lots of sniffing of wild turkeys! We saw a set of 14 along the way a few times. He is so much better walking on a leash from when we first got him in April 2022. He is a very strong 85 pound boy. Don't mind the slobber... lots of sniffing today. Got to love that doggie smile.