Wednesday.... shot day.....

It took a few months to get the pain doctor appt for my hubby, then insurance denied the shot last month. The doctor reapplied and this time they approved it. Today is the day! Lets hope that it helps relieve the pain.

I have the 3rd scrappy Endless Diamond block prepped for waiting time. I will start out with finishing off the second block either in the waiting room or the car. Unsure of that waiting space for me right now. 

Block 2

Block 3

I did get a little hand stitching added to the cat and mouse quilt yesterday. I should be able to roll the quilt later today or tomorrow! Sew exciting to see process finally on this. I think this 30 minutes a day will work out well! I figure I get 45 minutes with one NCIS episode on Netflix. 

Dinner is in the crock pot. I pulled 2 of the 2 pound bork butts from the freezer and will be making carnitas today! Yes, I have one small packet in the freezer from last time. I found a big package of pulled pork in the freezer too.. and since the kids had pulled pork at Grandma's on Sunday..... I went with Carnitas. Guess I am in a mexican mood! The recipe I am using is here. The kids gave it a thumbs up the last time I made it...and that was before I broiled it. They were just eating it off the shedding sheet pan!

I did have to make a quick stop at the store last night after delivering the rest of the troop cookie rewards. I figure I added at least 40 miles to the car delivering to 3 houses. I did find out that our Neighborhood Walmart was nearly empty of people around 8:30 at night - so I got the coffee filters that I was out of and some OJ for the carnitas. They had a little bit of school supplies so I picked up a thing of pencils already sharpened for the kids and a notebook and glue sticks for me. I use notebooks for work to jot down notes, etc as I am programming and testing things. Em asked for glue - I think she is making something with it today. I'll wait on other school supplies until we get the supply lists from each of their teachers... although it is probably safe to grab notebooks, pens and pencils. Their backpacks are still working fine for when/if they go back to in person school. 

The kids are starting school virtually for the first quarter and possibly semester. We got a call from Aidan's Robotics teacher yesterday afternoon. He is offering the virtual kids an opportunity to stay in robotics with a before school - zero period - option M,W,F to do the team class. The computers are spaced 6 feet apart and would be groups of 3-4  working on the robots and masks are to be worn in class. This would avoid the changing classes with lots of kids and be a limited number of kids in class....and first thing so if this virus hangs around in the air it would have been done from the previous days classes. He see's swapping it to a first period class once things settle down and they can be in class safely.  That would allow the 20 minute drive time to get home for his rest of the school day. We think it is a 'low risk'... and accepted it since he would have missed a whole year of Robotics if we didn't. The teacher understands... his son is doing virtual the first quarter as well and it sounds like his older child has had the virus. He knows of a few people who have had it - his son was just a few days feeling blah but the other person was very sick with it for a while. You just don't know which category you will fall into 'when/if' you get it. 

Off to shower and prep my 'waiting' bag! Throwing in the above 2 blocks, a book, water, snacks, knitting... just a little of everything. I never know what I will feel like working on.....

Progress....

I managed to watch an NCIS show and quilt yesterday afternoon for 45 minutes! I was so close to the end of the cheese...but a cat was laying down napping against the ott light base, so I could not move the chair to the left to continue! Did I mention the cats are spoiled? 

I started some straight line 1/4 inch from the top and bottom of the 1.5 inch white border.  I might do a gentle curve line in the middle....we will see! 

A box arrived at the front door yesterday. It contained this - a feed and water container for the chickens. Seems like like the cinder block...they are having fun going through it! That won't happen for long as they get bigger. 

Time to go long onto work....

Monday....

I was able to enjoy a lazy relaxing day of hand stitching yesterday. There were walks out to check on the chickens who are doing great in their new environment.

I made progress on my hand pieced Endless Diamond block. I just need to attach the 3 sides to the middle.

I watched a few episodes of NCIS and the astronauts splashing down in the gulf while adding some hand quilting to the cat and mouse quilt. It has been a few years since I have watched NCIS and I noticed Netflix has the series on it so I started with the pilot show a couple of weeks ago.  I had drawn the 'cheese' with a blue marker but I was unable to really see it so I grabbed the plastic template I made and used a chalk pencil to outline a few as I went. I am going to need to figure out what to do in the white sashing soon.... I'll have to see if I have a stencil that will work....  if not it will just be a gentle curve maybe? I have a few days before I need to decide.

Slow Sunday

When I had posted the block that I drafted and the finished block on one of my facebook groups, someone had seen the block and knew the background! She said it is in this book by Jan Halgrimson and I just had to go search for it. It was out of print (1980) and I found a used copy that arrived in my mailbox yesterday. Well, it probably arrived on Friday but I forgot to check the mail. I love the book - black and white and just has drawings of the blocks and the part shapes. So fun!

This is what 4 of the blocks will look together. I love the effect.

Today I plan to start stitching this second block that I prepped this week. It was way too hot to think of stitching on it at horses yesterday... feels like 102 was a bit much!

They always ask who she wants to ride or who she normally rides. Normally it is Prism who canters.... today Julvia was back and asked if she wanted to ride Prism, Elwood.... or Lance! She had said Prism before Lance was mentioned and it got changed immediately. She fell in love with Lance while at camp and boy was he stubborn but she got him to behave. Seems he is even taller than Prince so she was pretty high up! 

He of course got treats after - a couple of carrots and an apple.

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

August OMG.....

Such a difficult decision this month. I 'should' actually plan to machine quilt and bind at least one of my tops this month as the pile is getting bigger. Which quilt will it be? The RSC 2018 sampler or the VQF booth hop?

This quilt is a booth hop from The Vermont Quilt Festival... I want to say 2009 or 2010. I can't remember if I got a day away from one baby or two! 

This quilt is a sampler from the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2018 I believe called Squared Away. 

Coin flip......... and the winner was.........

I think my August goal will be to get the Squared Away quilt - machine quilted and bound this month!

I 'should' plan to work a little each day adding hand quilting stitches to the cat and mouse quilt on the frame.  I think I will have a goal of 30 minutes of hand quilting on this one each night for the month of August and see how much progress I can make. I have only done some butterfly's on the bottom blue border so far. 

Well, I guess that is technically two goals, but since there are 31 days in August I think I will be good!

If I get the Squared Away finished I will be a happy camper.

Linking up with the August OMG.

RSC - finishing up dark blue with some Sweet Confetti blocks.

I could not figure out why it was taking so long to make these blocks last weekend. Turns out... I cut out blue parts for 14 blocks instead of the normal 10 I do! Oops. I had to cut some more white parts out to finish them off. Always good to have extra blocks, just in case.

Linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge on Saturday morning.

The chickens have been evicted from the house and now reside in their coop at night and in the run during the day. They put themselves into the coop about an hour before we shut them in for the night. They were quiet Friday morning when Emily and I went out to open their door. I guess they like their new house. They have been taking dust baths in the dirt.. which is so funny to watch. They sure do dig well! This is Aidan's chicken in his hand....Emily calls it Lilly and after calling it 'Aidan's Chicken' for 5 weeks he is thinking it might be Chickalota. We will see... but I think Lilly might stick to her. Yes, those holes in the top will get tacked down this weekend.

OMG Hoarfrost is a top!

With 4 hours to spare to midnight! I had to do some math calculations after the pieced borders did not fit. Well, first I had to determine if I could chop off a couple bars on each side and be happy... which I considered but then the top and bottom did not fit. The seam ripper came out and undid the borders.... and then I had to measure everything and do some calculations. I was only a teeny bit off on one side and decided it was close enough! My own fault... I tried to change the inner borders into 1 white border but obviously did my math wrong! Oops. 

Finished top ... and it only took me 4 years to get it to this point! The original pattern of Hoarfrost by Canuckquilter called for paper pieced snowflakes.... which I love the look of but really dislike paper piecing. I decided to print out some snowflake coloring pages and did needle turn applique instead for two of them. I guess I had made one back in 2016 so I just added the sides to make it to size. 

Linking up in the nick of time to the July OMG finish link up and the RSC Challenge since it is blue!

Now to decide if I machine stitch it or hand quilt some snowflakes on it.......

I can see a dark blue 'Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow in that white border....