Thursday...

 I managed to get the blocks sewn together yesterday afternoon on the stars and nines quilt. Only one set of 4 got swapped around in the sewing =) I plan to head to Joann's today to pick up a cotton flannel backing so it is soft. Maybe I can get this one pinned tomorrow for machine quilting this weekend. It looks like we 'might' get a little cool front to kick the temps into the 80's..... might become outdoor weekend work between weeding and working on the 'new' coop since we can't intermingle the chickens until they are the same size. This works out ok, as we need to separate the chickens for a bit after bringing them home from the fair in February..... and we will have an area to separate out if anyone gets sick. Speaking of sick... Myrtle is separated in a recycle bin with a heat lamp and wire fencing on top as she had a respiratory infection. We got the antibiotic Monday and she is a lot more feisty now - she even flew up out of the cage when Emily took the top off to change out her water this morning! Still sneezing a little but her breathing is better.

In between those seams I made a 16 patch block in red and started cutting out one of my stashbuster blocks....before I was asked to help make cookies in the kitchen by Ms. Emily. Peanut butter hershey kiss cookies were made last night. I have not had one..... willpower for the win! Ignore the toes that need a painting in the photo! Maybe that will get done this afternoon?

I also knocked out a 1.5 hour online training for girl scouts that needed to get done before Saturday for our fall product sale. Now to do the training and set up the troop for Clover  and Cheddar Up payments. Hopefully those are not as long.

Unfortunately 4 of the catfish have not survived in the tank. Seems the water PH went really high and they prefer a low ph. The last one perished this morning. We are currently changing out the water a little at a time to try and get the ph lower. I went out to get deionized water yesterday and picked up a few other things while at the grocery store. Got home and was missing a bag. Darn it - self checkout and left it at the store. Called and yup - they had it. I had to head back and get it.... it was the expensive bag - frozen shrimp, pork chops for tonights meal, can biscuits for last nights meal and a package of burrito's for the freezer for Gregs quick meals after getting home late from work.

Stars and Nines...

 I managed to make the yellow blocks I needed Sunday and decided 48x60 was going to be big enough so I laid out 20 of the blocks.

I seem to have swapped a couple of these around (left side bright green, purple, green and light blue) when I started sewing.... doesn't that always happen? I hope to get this sewn into a top later today after work. I'll have to find some snuggly cotton flannel for the backing of this. I have a roll of warm and natural and I know how I plan to quilt it. A scrappy binding will eventually finish it off.

Sunday... a day to relax....

 Yesterday was a stressful day for some reason. So much to do and not enough time to do it. Today.... I plan to relax and putter with a little of this and a little of that and some hockey watching in the afternoon before I head to pick up the kids tonight from Grandma. 

If you click on the photo - the bottom left is the last one I did. Notice the little penguin in the middle diamond =) 

I plan to add some stitches into block #11 of the Endless Diamond block and get it finished up. I started stitching this at horses yesterday. Then I'll switch to hand quilting on the frame to make some progress on the Cat and Mouse quilt while finishing up the hockey game. I make the middle 4 diamonds, then the corner parts with a color on each side of the white diamond. Then I add the white sides to all 4 corners before adding them one at a time to the middle. They are a little wrinkled since I just pulled them out of the bag I took to horses. Block #12 is prepped and ready to go as well. I try and get one of each color of the rainbow in each block pulling from the scrap bins. Hand piecing lines are drawn on the back of each. Linking up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers and Oh Scrap. 

block#11 

There will be some machine and fabric playing in yellow to make a couple of nine patches and friendship star blocks this morning. Then I'll play around with those blocks added to 18 others (or 23? not sure if I want a 48x60 or 60x60 quilt) and get them sewed together. I had hoped to do this Saturday, alas that did not happen.

First it was horses with Emily.... we left the house at 10 and got home close to 1. Then I made my butternut squash pasta with brussel sprouts for lunch ( and used up the leftover supplies from the last time I made it!) Then it was lots of water testing..... we seem to have gotten a 36 gallon aquarium on sale 1/2 off on Monday for the boy to get fish. We tried the water at Petsmart Friday night and it was too high in the PH so no fish. He was very disappointed! I prodded Greg to help him adjust it and we had to made a trip to the store to get distilled water to swap some out....... a little more testing and it was around 5PM. I had a zoom wedding at 6:30.... the pet store has been understaffed the last 2 times we went so when hubby offered to take him (despite being in the car killing his back)... I let him! It was a good thing too, they arrived home at 6:30 as the wedding was starting! (Congrats to my niece and her husband!)  Myrtle the chicken attended as well - Emily was holding her. This is the one Greg named and is currently in her own 'cage' inside as she is sneezing and seems to have a respiratory infection. Antibiotics are arriving on Monday for her. Tractor Supply gave us another little barred rock in case this one does not make it. Emily named the new one DC - Daisy Chickolotta. She is a baby and about half the size of this one.

After the wedding and dinner was picked up, it was time to deal with the e-mails from 2 of Emily's teachers. Seems she is having issues with submitting things - documents not saving and work not being turned it. 3 weeks in before the teachers raised a red flag? Seems she is too shy to speak up in class. It was an extremely frustrating evening trying to have her show us around in teams, what she could not figure out and her brother trying to be our tech support. Figured out one thing just started so we showed her how to use chat to let the teacher know and ask how to proceed. Just need to do that with the other one... she was 'done' by the time we got to that subject. A very stressful evening.

The boy was tickled pink though - he got to watch his silly fish swim all around and get used to their new home. He got 4 velvet swag sword tail (orange), 3 hb blue guppies and 4 algae eaters called Otocinclus catfish to start.

RSC in red....

 I got a little red sewing in this week. I think I am going to go ahead and make the 2 blocks of these stars in yellow as well so I can sew 20 of these up into a special quilt to mail out soon to someone special for a quilty hug. I hope she will like it. I have been making 3 of these 12 inch blocks each month so I'll have 10 leftover at the end of next month.

As you can see, I also made a cobblestone row in black this week too. I was going to get that one all set to go.... but wanted to use the stars and nines for this special quilt so that got bumped up in the priority.

I seem to have finished off 2 of the Endless Diamond blocks this week... so I had to prep a couple more of these blocks for handwork during the hockey game tonight. This is one of the blocks I prepped with my templates and the mechanical pencil and thin pen I use for marking.

Linking up Saturday with the RSC Challenge.  

Thursday

 It was a hand stitching night last night! I got another ED block completed and a great start on the next one. Somehow.... I only prepped 3 of 4 of the white corner kites. Lots of time was spent looking as I could have sworn I had it all prepped! Oh well the middle and 3 corners are all ready and once I make that last piece the 4th corner will be stitched up in a jiffy. Thank goodness my Lightning won the game with a little over 7 seconds in the 3rd period last night. I was too tired for overtime hockey!

I did a little drawing on the white board in my office.... this is what I think the border of the midget applique will be.

I laid out a couple of sides with the vines to check it out this morning. I'll prep some flowers and leaves after work and play around with it some more. I know I can't get all 4 sides to look alike but I'll try and get them similar on the 'curves'. 

Here is a comparison shot of the chickens from last night while Emily was cleaning the babies cage while Greg and I were supervising the chicks.... and watching the sky with lightning in the distance and big dark grey clouds blowing by. 

These ladies are about 10-11 weeks old now. We think eggs might start by weeks 16-20ish.

These are the babies - we think the bigger ones - the Barred rocks are older by a couple of weeks than the little Easter eggers. One of the Barred Rocks is smaller, sneezing and breathing heavier. We will see if she makes it. She is eating and drinking so fingers crossed.

Endless Diamond - found the original inspiration!

This photo popped up in my facebook memories today! This was the original quilt that I saw and fell in love with the pattern. 

This was my original attempt at drawing the block. I still have this piece of paper!

My version of the hand pieced block. Mine is a lot brighter than the original I am noticing.  A little bit of the brighter colors sure do make it sparkle. I have the 9th block in process and the 10th is already cut out and marked and sitting next to my chair. 

 

FaLaLa Sew Along.... Starting 9/21 at Jacquelynne Steves Art of Home....

Jacquelynne Steves from The Art of Home did a wonderful beginner to quilting sew along earlier this year. She is starting a free FaLaLa Sew Along 9/21 that will run 6 weeks soon. This will be a holiday or Christmas table runner. A few little embroidery blocks and she always has a fun setting. Will you be joining in? I signed up for the e-mails to deliver the instructions to me... we will see if I actually do them though! I could see some cute projects with the embroidery of the wreath and the holly leaf.

You can find the link to sign up here.