Slow stitching Sunday....

Well, knowing I was busy today I kinda did a slow stitching Saturday! I finished off the 2 sides of binding on Aidan's quilt and then... added a little hand quilting square inside each of the 16 stars on his quilt. He was rolling around on the floor in it when it was finished..... he is very happy his quilt is officially done! This quilt is called Twilight Hopscotch from a Kim Diehl book. Aidan picked out the colors and did sew a seam or two and did a row of the machine quilting. Someone does not have the patience for it so Mom had to take over.

I hope to have a couple of hours of hand stitching while at Skyzone today for a birthday party. I have 2 green umbrella's that need to get finished off for the month.. and hopefully I can get back on track with my tiny tuesday posts this month of April. I had time to draw them on the back but will have to pull fabrics for it when I get home from dropping Aidan to Grandma's house.

Wish me luck next weekend... I'll be at the girl scout camp with 9 of the girls from my troop. Friday night through Sunday morning..... we progressed them up to a cabin this year - 4 girls in each room on either side of the adult little room in between. We will see how they do! My one daisy will stay at the other site with my co-leader and her daisy troop so they are all in the same room with adults. She will be with me all the other times though. I expect to be very tired next Sunday!

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers today.

Last green RSC...

Well, it is not the end of the month yet, thank goodness. I have a couple of days left to finish  off some green sewing.

I got 2 of the 4 green umbrella's finished this week.

And finished off the last of the green hexagons adding to their black background.

As for the log cabin blocks... progress was made!

 I pulled the really mostly bright ones out and have created some new ones.  There are 4 more on the sewing machine for those 4 spots.

I have decided to increase the 12 inch blocks to 14 inches.... to make it  a wee bit bigger and then will add a border to add a little more to get it to the 90+ inch range all around. I should have some sewing time today to get those blocks all finished off to the new 14.5 inch unfinished size. Tomorrow... hubby is working so I get to shuttle one to grandma's...pick up another and bring 2 girls to Skyzone for an afternoon birthday party. Other mom - my co-leader is busy and she was having her hubby go but I said I'd take her daughter with me so he can stay home with their other kids. I think the other 2 umbrella's will be worked on tomorrow afternoon...hey - it's 2 hours of waiting time!

Linking up with the RSC Challenge. Now I'm off to Joanns - the whole troop is doing tie dye Monday night and making swaps... so I need to go get the shirts!

Oh, leftover pork loin from the other night has become cuban sandwiches for lunch... love coming up with a 'new' look for leftovers! It also makes hubby happy - he loves cubans and we are lucky to have cuban bread in certain stores near us.

Distraction.....

I saw this quilt photo from celebrate hand quilting a few years ago. The person was hand quilting it for her sister who found it but did not know the pattern. I have searched and searched and can't figure it out. I was thinking this would be a great way to try and use up those 3-4 bins of scraps.... (ok, I know it will not even make a dent in it but humor me!)....

What to do..... I grabbed a poster board and marked the 12.5 inch square from one of my rulers. Searched in some quilting books and found a nice size kite from the Sylvia's Bridal Sampler book - page 89 I believe. Drew 4 of them and placed them in the middle looking at the photo. I figure the colored ones are really the 'center' of the block. Popped one in the corner.... yup, looks right so far. Did a little calculation and marked some dots to draw the lines for the colored slip of fabrics - the red checked and green print. Then extended the lines for the shape between that and the middle kite. Hey - they match! I must have done something right!

Now I just need a reminder that I have lots of quilts in progress, a slew more ready for machine or hand quilting and I really don't need another project right now. =)

Well..... maybe when I finish attaching the sashing to the hand quilt along quilt.... I 'might' reward myself with making one of these blocks... just to see how it goes.....
This will need a name.... I am terrible at names. Oh my stars, circling the stars, ring around the rosie...... I kinda like the last one as the movement in the pattern kind of reminds me of that nursery rhyme. I think that is what I will call this.... 'Ring Around the Rosie'. Now.... to cut the rest of the sashing for hand piecing.....

Tiny Tuesday

I finally got the last yellow umbrella done from the month of February! I need to cut out some of the white backgrounds... in the right size this time, for the green umbrella's of March.... before March is gone!

Hand Pieced Quilt Along..... 18 blocks completed!

All 9 blocks have been completed and I did  2 of most of them to give me 18 blocks. I have 3 of block 6 (including my oops block) and one of block 8.  I decided to lay them out and see how they look.

I did a little rearranging to try and space out the lights and darks.....

Then someone (Peanut) had to inspect it. Some cat chasing may have happened right after I snapped this photo. (Ollie and Peanut with Sophie observing from her perch on the recliner foot).

They are releasing their setting instructions tomorrow for the 9 blocks. They did let us know both are using a 1.5 inch sashing. I think I will as well, with the background white dot print. I found a site with the measurements to cut out setting triangles for 6 inch finished blocks. I'll be cutting into the white for sashing and setting and corner triangles this week and will start to piece this baby together!

Saturday.....

Well, there is green grass and bushes in Florida.... much different from the snowstorm we left in Vermont yesterday .... where my parents got around 18 inches of snow Friday/Saturday. Too bad the kids were not there to shovel for them!

I finished stitching up the green hexagons for the green in the RSC Challenge this week. I think I might have spied a few more sitting on the sewing table.... I think they are multiplying!

I have attached 24 of them so far this month to their black background. I am hand appliquéing them onto the black..... and most of them were basted back in January although I do see that flowered one still needs basting. I originally hand pieced these hexagon pieces into flowers - not EPP a few years ago with the challenge. We must have had 2 months of green =).

I have added them to the red from January and yellow from February. I do wonder what color Angela will pull for the month of April? I have pink, purple, light blue, teal, dark blue, brown and orange left to go. All have been basted except for a handful of dark blue.

I also did a little hand stitching on the Hand Pieced Quilt Along block #9. This is the final block in the sew along. I cut out my second #8 block wrong... those darn flying geese! I keep putting the color and background in the wrong place!  I need to recut that one out to work on tonight or tomorrow. Color placement sure does change the look of these blocks!

I also have some binding to stitch down this evening.... can you tell I am relaxing today? We finished a little quilting with the machine on Aidan's quilt before we left and he picked out fabric for a binding. I was able to stitch it to the front by machine before we left. That leaves 4 sides - 60 inches each of binding for me to sit and stitch down this weekend. I did tell him I'd hand quilt something in orange in each of the 16 stars..... Sorry for the bad light... but I did get all 3 cats! Sophie is the queen at age 14 on my recliner, Ollie (age 1) is on the corner of the quilt and Peanut (his brother also age 1) is not interested and walking right by...until I start to work on it... then he will think he needs to help! Silly boy.

Linking up with RSC Challenge on Saturday, Hand Pieced Quilt Along,  and Slow Sunday Stitching.

Thursday.... crochet and an Awl....

Well, I did get 2 towels crocheted for Mom while I was here..... I might try and squeeze in one more but we will see how time allows. She mentioned an Awl to poke the holes since I hate using the crochet hook to do that. Sometimes if it is a tight weave towel it is a bit difficult to poke that through. Mom mentioned using an awl and got hers out. Wow - that works great. I think I might even have one in my craft room for card making that might get re purposed to do towels. If not... the boy searched on the internet and found them at Walmart and hardware stores for under 10 dollars.

We have been busy and the kids have been getting their snow time in. Yesterday we went out and saw the camp in winter after we did disc golf in the morning.

They had fun sledding down the hill onto the frozen lake. It was a beautiful day - in the mid to upper 40's and sunny.
Tuesday night we did a  free cooking club that my sister signed us up for. We made scones and they were really yummy using yogurt. I'll add the recipe to my blog at some point. We made a batch that night with Aidan's, Tuesday morning with Emily's we added orange zest and craisins and today I added cinnamon sugar to the top of my batch. Grammy has lots of scones leftover!