2 more long seams to go!

 I have 2 long seams to hand stitch before the 4th and last Harmony block is done. Then I can sew the 4 blocks together for a completed top!

This was Bear the other night while Aidan was watching an old F1 race from 2012. The new thing this week, Aidan got braces put on yesterday. He had them for a year when he was younger, but when you don't wear the retainer things move and his front tooth was getting pushed and crooked and his bite was way off. He is in a load of hurt today but went into it knowing what to expect. One year and then they will put permanent wires on the back of the top and bottom so it should last into adulthood.

Slow Sunday Stitching.

 Yes, it will be a slow stitching day for me! I have a 3 hour timeframe to sit at a Gold Awards workshop with Emily, so you can bet I will be stitching. I did a little prep work yesterday. I had to recut and mark some parts for hand stitching after I swapped the colors and stitched them up a few days ago! Mistakes do happen.

I'll be working on stitching the correct triangle in a square units (with the white triangles not red like I did a few days ago!). Those will be added to the flying geese I stitched last night.

They go in the middle sections.

Might this 4th and final Harmony block get completed today? We will see.

Just in case, I finally prepped one of the string of beads blocks with my consistent green and red for February in the RSC. I am debating if I do a green in the middle one or not. We will see. For this month, there will be 2 reds done I think.

I had posed a question on Facebook - the Celebrate Hand Quilting page yesterday. I have had my cat and mouse on the frame for hand quilting for a couple of years. I tend to use the hoop more than the frame right now, so I had asked about basting the rest on the frame (I really only did the bottom 2 borders and started on the mouse border for hand quitling) and taking it off to work on in the hoop in the living room. They assured me it should work, so my plan is to work on that this week and get that one off the frame and start working on it.

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Back to square 1

 

Wednesday night I cut out the needed parts for the rest of the last Harmony block. I hand stitched these 8 blocks and then pulled the directions to put them together. Attach at the big white triangles. Oops! I switched the fabrics. The red was to be the outer part and white in the middle. Back to the drawing board, or cutting board if you will. At least the flying geese are fine, but these will need to be cut and marked for sewing. 

2024 Table Scrap Challenge.

 Joy is hosting the Table Scrap Challenge again and is spicing things up with a theme this year. January is snowflakes....and the RSC color is Green. An interesting combination. 

I just happen to have some fabric with snowflakes on a green background. How lucky is that?

I was playing with my tri recs rulers last night to prep the last parts for Harmony... and I decided to use them with this fabric. I made 4... thinking I would make them into a star. Then got thinking and remembered some trees I had seen. Hmmmm.  I had just enough of the green to make the middle tree in reverse colors. A quick grab of the brown from that scrap bucket and a set of 5 trees were soon stitched and placed together. I decided it needed to be a little bigger, so I added a 2.5 strip all around it in white. 

I picked up the pile of batting from the floor (shhh. yes, my studio is a mess!) and tossed the little bits and zig zagged these two bits together to made the size I needed.

I did just some outline stitching with my walking foot around the trees and outlined the outer area around the trees. Would you believe, I pulled this fun snowmen with snowflakes out of that mystery box I got for myself for my birthday back in November 2022! How perfect is that? I can use the trees in December for Christmas, then turn it over for the snowmen in January for decoration! 

I do love these snowmen!

So, for the challenge I managed to find some snowflakes, green and used some scrappy batting to make this cute little topper. It finishes at 10x25.

Linking up with the RSC on Saturday and the Table Scrap Challenge on Friday.

Harmony - block 4

 I have been doing a little stitching this week. I have the four corners all stitched. I need to cut and prep the flying geese and triangle in a squares for the middle sections. I should be able to do that later today. 

No riding tomorrow as I managed to tweak my back and pulled a muscle. Good news, I was able to sleep fine last night and today it is not bad, but I'll baby it for a bit. Seems if you bend and reach across your body to grab something from the floor, you can pull a muscle in your back and ouch! I might have done it twice within 2 hours. The first time was not bad, the second I really felt for a while. I guess the hexagon quilt will not get pinned tomorrow, that would be too much bending and stretching. I should be able to play with the machine though! I need to work on my table scrap challenge project - green and snowflakes. It should be fun!

Weekend

Last Sunday's stitching got these into a top. I was planning a small yellow border then my black butterfly one, but I thought it was too bright. I went with a 2 inch light/bright blue instead. It will finish at 1.5 inches and then I'll add a 5.5 inch of the butterfly fabric around the outside today. I'd love to get it pinned for machine quilting, but I doubt that will happen today. Progress at least! I believe it will finish at 85x 97. 

 

I love this butterfly fabric I found. I think it will be the perfect border. Yes, Bear was helping to hold down the quilt. He is really waiting on a walk.

I did get some surgery stitching in this morning with a dog snout through the kitty door looking into my sewing room to view the process. Bear's pickle, snowman and gingerbread cookie are all restitched from their gaping wounds from the tugging game with Aidan or ripping to get to the stuffing. They each got a beat down as soon as they were fixed. I think he is happy everyone is now in the rotation to play rather than being on top of the tv hutch waiting for surgery. The snowman and gingerbread were $5 finds right before Christmas. 

He has been snuggled in with either Greg or Emily this week in the evenings, so I shut their doors and let the cats explore the house. That lead to 2 kitties on me in the recliner. They were happy.

I pulled the parts for the 4th Harmony block. I cut and prepped the twisted triangle -the cream one - and got that stitched up this week. I started assembly but need to make one more of the 'house' units since it is hiding really well somewhere in the sewing space. I have the fabrics, so it is easier to cut and piece it at this point.

I plan to cut out some orange peels today for the String of Beads blocks I'll be working on this year. I got the background and it was a long decision on what consistent green I wanted. I had originally pulled a sage green, but then wandering around I saw this darker hunter green. I held both bolts along rows of various colors and decided the darker hunter green will make the selected colors pop more. We will see how it turns out! For a 60x60 wall hanging, I'll need 25 blocks. The inner 4 peels will be colors other than green. The green will be the outer 4 peels.

linking up with Slow Sunday Stitchers and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I did get the 3rd Arkansas Traveller block completed for the month of green. I wonder what color February will be?

Thursday update

 I spent much too much time working on my day off today. I did get my walk with the dog, my riding lesson and was able to pull Aidan from school for his orthodontist appointment. Not a bit of sewing or prepping yet today.  I'll add a few stitches into Harmony after I finish this post.

I decided I needed help coming up with recipes for meals this year, so everyone gets a week to come up with a few meal ideas. Some went with tried and true and some went with new things. 

Greg had his Birthday week which was back on the 11th. He mentioned tacos and my Mom's spaghetti meat sauce. I added meatloaf one night that week as well. A leftover night and a take out from Pig and Cattle (birthday boy choice).  I had gotten a roaster chicken Saturday at Sams that week after picking up a kid from volunteering at a robotics tournament. It was dinner that night and chicken chili the next night. There were no leftovers of the chili! I guess they liked it on a cool night. The corn bread disappeared as well!

This week was Emily's ideas. Aidan had picked out pork chops at Sams, so I have 3 meals of them sealed in the freezer and some were cooked Monday night with garlic mashed potato and peas. Tuesday was Emily's selection of Pepper Steak, which I had peppers that needed using. It was good and added to the rotation. I had gone to the Farmers Market Saturday and got some eggplant and brussels sprouts. I had brussels sprouts and bacon one day for lunch. Wednesday, I did an eggplant parmesan for dinner and Em and Greg made pasta and finished off the spaghetti sauce. Tonight, Aidan was a big help cooking while I prepped Emily's second recipe of the week - Japanese Chicken Curry. Who knew they did curry in Japan? I read up a bit on it and it turns out it is a common meal there! We even had the curry roux in the international aisle at the store! It took a good hour to make it and we had it with the recommended rice. We all agreed it was really good and we should make it again. Aidan didn't like the carrots in it, but I thought they were really good. There is enough for another meal. It is not spicy at all, more like a savory/slightly sweet stew over rice.  Aidan is looking at recipes from the Georgia/Polish regions. We will see what he comes up with. 

While trimming the skin on bone in chicken thighs for the recipe tonight, I threw those extra parts into the crock pot with some water, onion, carrot, celery and garlic with some frozen parsley stems. A little salt and pepper and thyme and it is in the crock pot for the night on low to make some broth. Some sort of soup will be made this weekend with it as a cold front goes through. I'm thinking potato leek, but we will see. Maybe a Zuppa Toscana? I'll see what I feel like tomorrow or Saturday.

Harmony - I cut and pieced these twisted triangles a couple of nights ago, the only tricky one to piece in this project. I had a set of 4 of the other parts needed, except one of the houses with the triangles at the top. One of those stacks only has 3. I made 4 based on my blog post in 2021, so I have no clue where he is hiding. I'll cut out another one tomorrow to stitch up this weekend. I can begin making the other 3 corners, so I'll work on that tonight. 

Time to stitch!