Endless Diamond progress....

 I had a relaxing afternoon stitching on the back screened in porch watching the chickens yesterday (and the cat on the other side of the screen watching them too!). I have 4 blocks left to sew into pairs to go with all of these. 

This was the start of the afternoon.

This was by the end of my stitching! 7-8 pins seemed to work well.

After I get the last 4 sewn into pairs, it will be time to work on sewing pairs together. This one will be a 5x4 setting so the last set of 2 will be a row rather than a square. Now to just remember that when I am sewing them together!

Dinner was leftover burgers, beans and mashed potato... nice and easy so I could find and prep a girl scout meeting for tonight. Nothing like waiting for the last minute! I found a couple of virtual slideshows for a junior staying fit badge and a cadette the science of happiness badge for next week. Mine is a dual age group with some in each category (Grade 4-5 and I have my 3 older girls in grade 6 as first year Cadettes). I already have my stress free place picked out for the staying fit badge! It might just be my sewing area! We will see what the girls come up with for theirs.

I've got about 25 minutes before I start my meeting so I think I will go prep some light blue hexagons. 

Happy Easter...

 A little late posting today but.... the kitchen needed some clearing and picking up before the in-laws arrived for the Birthday BBQ today... which kinda trumped the normal Easter fare. Someone thinks she is turning 12 this week! Can you imagine? She would not get a good shot by the cake.... silly girl. I think Dad had fun adding all the candles to the cake and lighting them. Good thing there is a fire department right down the road a bit! 

So, I am enjoying some comfortable temperatures on the cleaned back screened in patio. Laying out my Endless Diamond blocks for pinning into sets of 2 to be hand stitched together.

 I have managed to get 4 sets of 2 done in the past week. 

Everyone is on their own for dinner (plenty of leftover burgers, brats, beans, orange salad and pasta salad - with the taco salad, cheese ball and deviled eggs available as well).  Hey Mom - Papa Tom's favorite things were the taco salad and the orange salad!

The Grandparents came over to help celebrate Easter and Emily for a couple of hours before they scooted back to their houses. At least the eggs got sent home with everyone.... 3 dozen and we have plenty left! Poor Tom has missed out on 2 dozen eggs as his son keeps forgetting to take them when he heads that way.

One kid wanted the traditional Easter Egg hunt this morning... so I filled the plastic eggs late last night  and had a helper hide them around the house. It got a bit more difficult this year - something about color matching that made it a little bit trickier to find. There were 40 eggs hidden - 20 each to find. Em found hers.... Aidan took longer and finally found the last missing one this afternoon when he moved a speaker by the front computer and said 'found it'! That Easter Bunny sure was tricky this year.

Linking up with the other Slow Stitchers at Kathy's today.

RSC - light and bright blue!

I have to say - I love sewing with blues! They are the biggest part of my stash and scrap bins and always make me smile when I play with them.

I tugged out these 6 baskets that did not make it into this quilt. 

I had more of the background print - just enough to add 2 - 6 inch squares and 6 setting triangles and 4 corners. It turned out about 24x16 and is pinned for hand quilting. I need to figure out what I will do but I'll work on outlining the baskets first. I made these back in 2017- I think I did one a day in the summer.... up in Vermont for some of them.

This might have made sewing the topper a wee bit interesting. Someone does not like days I do not work.... where he can nap on my desk right next to me. He decided he might try this spot.

I had some catch up to do on the hexagons and as of Friday, I think I am all caught up. I might be shy one green, but I'm calling it good anyway! 2 blues were tugged from the blue basket of scraps and sewn up while relaxing with a few episodes of NCIS while the kids were at school. I think I am finally up to season 10.  Time to prep more.... and I will have no issue with repeats in blue!

I made these churn dashes years ago (2014!) with the challenge and my goal is to get them into a top this month. They finish at 6 inches. I checked back and finished off the other half of them in 2018 for the Little Lambs charity. I think this one is headed there as well but will be a straight setting instead of on point.

I'll link up Saturday with the RSC. Emily and I will be off to horses in the morning at the new/old location where my phone does not have service... unless that has changed in the last 2 years. I've got the gate code and will plan on 30 minutes to get there. We will see what the new owners have done to the farm and arena.

 

OMG for April.

 After compiling my Spring UFO potential list of things that might get finished this quarter in yesterday's post, it made deciding on my OMG really difficult! 33 things on the potential list (yes there are more things lurking that did not make the list!)

I selected getting my Churn Dash blocks into a quilt top in April. Bonus is to get the whole quilt finished but since life happens, we will go with a completed top as the goal. This is going to be a donation quilt for the Hands 2 Help Comfort quilt challenge. I used a white dot print in most of the blocks so I got a bit more of that for the sashings. I'm not doing cornerstones as I want them to float.

For the size requirements... I'm going to add a finished 1 inch sashing to these all around and it will get finished with a scrappy binding eventually.

Linking up with OMG for April. I just want to thank Patti for doing this linkup and inspiring us to move projects along each month.

Spring UFO 2021

 Since I successfully finished off 3 of my quilts from the Summer Challenge,  5 from the Fall Challenge, with another 3 finished  in  the Winter 2021 Challenge,  I guess this is working for me as motivation to get things finished so I'll continue on for the Spring 2021 UFO Ravelry challenge.

Since I never know what I am in the mood to work on.... lets just throw a whole bunch of things out there and see what sticks shall we?

Block Collections.

1.) Knowing that light and bright blue is April... I thought of these 6 baskets that did not make the original quilt. I think they will make a cute table topper of some sort so they are getting added. ***Finished 4/22/2021. Table topper April.

2.) I know I have at least one more cut and in a baggie somewhere to fill that open spot for a 7x6 setting. These are hand pieced.... and might need a little fixing along the way.

 3.) Hexagon flowers on a black background. These are a stack of blocks I hand pieced a few years ago then hand appliqued to the black background a couple years after that!  Not sure if they will become one or two quilts....

4.) Crumb blocks.... might these end up in a quilt? Or the start of some baskets?

5.) Sweet Confetti blocks - I have 96 of these made.... need to be put together and quilted.

6.) Midget Applique quilt from Sentimental Stitches. I need to add  more flowers and leaves and the vines... and the bottom yellow border. This one is completely hand pieced.

7.) Ella Maria Deacon blocks - make a few more and finish them off into a top. I believe I was making these by hand. Patterns from Sentimental Stitches.

8.) Purple applique hearts... need to figure out how they want to be set.

9.)  this quilt that has been an on and off, leader and ender for years. My scrappy irish chain. I believe I had a bucket of 2 inch squares next to my sewing machine for a while and would make sets, and rows and blocks in between sewing other things. I think it wants to get competed.

10.) Midget block collection - I started these in Vermont in 2010!

11.) Civil War Blocks

12.) Churn Dash blocks

13.) Endless Diamond Blocks - 21 made.  20 will make the top I think. All hand pieced. Almost a top 4/2021 hand piecing.

14.) Birds in the Air block collection

15.) Harmony - hand pieced project started March 2021... already behind but hoping to catch up this quarter.

16.) 16 patches - because you never know when you need a quilt and they might make a quick Hands2Help one.  *** Finished 4/25/2021

17.) stars and nines - I have a few blocks hanging around still that want to get sewn up. ***** Finished 4/24/2021

18.) Lets go fly a kite- because it might have percolated long enough in my head already.

19.)  Flowering Snowball

20.) Round Robin.

21.) Cat and mouse is on the frame in process of hand quilting but has been sadly neglected.

22) This one stayed on the list - needs quilting. Vermont Quilt Festival Booth Hop from either 2008 or 2009. I have backing for this and it is 71x71.

23.) Green Tumblers - a hand pieced top. 

24.) Hoarfrost - top is done will it get quilted this year?

25.) Baby Bear Paw quilt top ** Made back from a class in 1999 I think from Yankee Pride.

26.) Trip around the World

27.) Y2K Joann's BOM - quilt top

28.) Blue and Purple 9 patch with muslin top Made in the 90's. Have a back for this 50x60.

29.) Tumbler flag - this did not come out how I imagined.... It might get reinvented after taking parts out. We will see.

30.) 1857 Quilt Along Top

31.) Spring Hexagons - not sure if this wants to be bigger or not.... 

32.) FCQG baby quilt challenge. 40x48 have a backing for this.

33.) Triple Irish Chain - green. 80x80 I think. I did find both fabrics extra with it... Might need a green or cream border first or both... Made in the early 2000's.

Well, I dug a little deeper since some are springy and might want to get worked on. We will see.

Sunday...

 Sunday will be a day of running for me. I neglected to get a couple of things needed for my crafting kits for the girls in my troop yesterday, so will pop out this morning to get them. Section things out and deliver to everyone for tomorrow nights crafting session through Zoom for our meeting. We are making a button project and then painting some wooden eggs for decoration. The button project showed an egg... but the girls will probably be pretty creative. I ordered the wooden things and buttons from Amazon. Just need mod podge and containers to distribute that and the paints and brushes from the troop supplies. 

I will pick up some more white dot fabric while at Joann's for me for sashings for the churn dash blocks I plan to piece together for the Hands2Help project.

I did have a hand work finish this week! I finished the hand quilting on  my hand pieced quilt along 2019 quilt in blue and white.  The first photo shows the quilting better.

I started hand stitching the Endless diamond blocks together at horses yesterday. Hopefully I can keep working on getting these into sets of two and then sets of four and into a top in the next little bit. Since they are hand pieced, I'll continue and hand piece them together into a top as well. Emilys riding place is moving again back to the original farm where she started riding. They had beautiful places to walk around the property while she rode (no real place to sit) so instead of stitching I get to walk and enjoy nature again while she is riding.

I had cut out more of my hexagons and this is the last batch for the month that needs to get folded and pinned for hand stitching before the end of the month. 

Instead of one a day this month, I am doing them in batches. It all works and I will have 31 green added to the bucket by the end of the month.

I am so excited that Florida opened up the vaccines to age 40+ as of tomorrow.... and I was able to schedule an appointment for tomorrow morning after dropping off the kids to school! Hubby gets his second one this week through the VA. Looking like travel to Vermont to see my family will indeed happen this summer! 

Linking up with the other slow Stitchers on Sunday. I hope to catch up on the linkups from the weekend in the next few evenings.