Little House block 8

 I think this one took longer to pick fabrics than to sew it up! I debated on making the heart light but went with the purples.  This heart was fun to stitch. I could see this as a future Rainbow Scrap Challenge block =). 

Eight blocks down, one to go!

L

Linking up with Melva and Block 8 of the Little House Sew Along.

Binding time!

 I finally got back to the sewing room last evening and finished the machine quilting on this big BITA quilt. I did need to do some fixing, where the batting and backing were not big enough. Thankfully this was a big backing and I was able to cut off on one side and 'add' it to the other side. There was enough backing to make the binding. I did my math and was less than an inch off at the end. I just made it work. Very tiny seam to merge it and stitched it down. 

I brought it out and put it on the floor by my recliner last night. The dog came right over, sniffed it, looked at me with a smile, and promptly laid down on it and turned and gave me a grin with teeth! Silly boy, he was on a part of this all last night until I went to bed. So, only one strand of thread was used to start stitching it down before we snuggled up and watched episode 2 of Midsummer Mysteries on Roku. I'll be stitching on this in the evenings for a bit and should get it completed before the end of the month.

The kids are off to school, the dog has been walked and I made some french toast with old sourdough bread that needed using. Time to grab a shower and go visit my FIL, who does know how to use a phone! He called Greg Monday night and asked if the house sale went through ok. First time he has called us since being in his assisted living facility. Yes, the sale is through and Greg and I had a nice late lunch out after. Tuesday afternoon we had a social security office meeting. Today is a quick visit to see my FIL and then I'll be in the sewing room making the next block on the Little House Sew Along, then prepping the last 2 orange houses for the RSC to sew up while adding more Bear Paw blocks to the Graduation quilt. 

Happy Mothers Day

 Just another Sunday but I did get to go out for lunch with hubby and the kids. Grandma was not feeling well - low energy and begged off yesterday.  While out for the morning walk with Bear, I met up with a neighbor on the next street with 2 little dogs. We were chatting about vices (She likes BMW fast cars and I like fabric and quilting and crafts). She said, you want a sewing machine? I have an old one from when I was flipping houses. She gave it to me free! It is a Singer and I still need to see if it works. She was happy to get it out of the house as they are making room for one of their kids and their wife to move in for a year while he finishes his degree. I'm hoping to get it working and then it can become one of the kids machines for if they ever want to have one on hand after they finish school.

I've made progress on the cross stitch. I'm almost done with this page and can start on the next one once I stitch the last 'block' in the quilt and the pumpkin on the bottom left. Then the wagon extends to the left for the first page of the pattern.

This finally arrived in the mail yesterday. The Senior photo for the yearbook I finally ordered and got a yard sign as well. Just in time for Graduation in a couple of weeks. 

A little progress in the sewing room

I was able to finish another 2 bear paw blocks for Aidan's graduation quilt. I need to make a bunch more. I'll try and prep another 2 blocks tonight to sew up this weekend. He chose civil war style greens and blues with a darker creamy background. Each block is 14 inches finished, so I need to figure out how many I need. I'm thinking 30+ for a double bed size and this makes 12 I think. I'll start having to reuse fabrics after the next 2 blocks. I kinda went crazy when a site was closing down last year with all their fabrics like this.

While sewing the above I added a couple of orange houses. I'll add the last two when I do another set of bear paws.

I pinned this RSC quilt of Bird in the Air blocks that was sitting on my frame and not moving with any progress. It is now being machine quilted and I'm less than half way done on this 90x90 quilt. I like to think I learned my lesson and am taking breaks and not doing it all in one go this time. I should have pinned it better, I was so used to warm and natural batting that doesn't need much pinning to this Tuscany Wool that needed more. I'm doing a squiggle walking foot stitch every 3 inches or so down the quilt.  I'll work some more on this one this weekend. It is a lot of fun to see some old favorites of my fabrics pop up as I am sewing. 

I'll link up with Angela and the RSC on Saturday.

I'm going to try canning beans tomorrow. I have a pressure canner and have a 32 ounce bag of black beans and Great Northern beans. I'm going to soak them overnight in a couple of pans, boil for a bit in the morning and then pack them into pint jars and see how it goes with pressure canning. They should be done well before the time we leave for the Band Banquet at the school in the evening. Greg found a few boxes of mason jars in the shed when he was clearing out. I'll get them cleaned and run through the dishwasher tonight. I believe the boy is late today, with his Academic Club Banquet. 

Progress

 Since this quilt was just sitting on the frame and not getting worked on... I decided to pin it for machine quilting. Note to self... this actually worked great to pin a quilt. Must remember that. I plan to start working on a nice and easy walking foot wavy line down every 4-6 inches of the quilt. Each block is 6 inches so I believe this one is 90x90. I think I might search for leftover binding and see if I have enough to do a scrappy one. This is Thursday afternoons project. I might see if I can make the frame a little smaller and throw the string of beads on there, or put the 1857 quilt on there and have string of beads in a hoop. Still pondering that decision.

Last night was the last symphonic spring concert of the year. These are well attended by parents and friends. She broke up the Jazz Big Band this year to a separate concert an hour earlier. Since it is the Seniors last concert, she gives the ones moving onto a music degree an opportunity to select a piece and conduct it. There were 3 this year of the 5 pieces played. Each did a great job. The director actually plays their parts with their instrument for them. She has her own mouthpiece. I believe she played French horn, bassoon and trumpet last night!

Aidan actually went with us to the concert along with Grandma. I guess he figured he should go see one of them! He knows a couple of the seniors in the band as well. 

Slowly moving on this Sunday

 I actually slept in until 9 today! My alarm is normally set at 6:30 and on weekends I usually get moving around 7. Not today! 

We had a cold front go through yesterday afternoon that gave us some much needed rain (3/4 inch) and a little cool down of the temps. It will be in the high 70's today... as opposed to the 90's and humid yesterday. 

Grandma and I travelled across town to see the 'fun show' for Winter guard. There were 6 schools represented, and most did their show for the season, then the kids scripted their 'fun show'. This was actually a great run through for my girls team and if they had done this at Championships, they would have medaled. Their fun show joined the two teams (JV and Varsity) and was set to Frozen. It was really well done for just 4 practices! I might have had to watch Frozen last night on Disney plus to get the songs out of my head!

I have not worked much on this cross stitch the last week or two. 

I should make some progress on it this week. I was busy doing binding on my grandmothers flower garden quilt finish. This was started in 2014 and hand pieced (not epp) of the flowers and then hand appliqued to the black background squares. I did machine piece and machine quilt it. 

Some final hexagons got stitched and are ready to be joined into a foursome so I can start stitching the last column of these together to add to the main quilt. I have 2 columns done and will pop this one in the middle, then add it to the quilt.

Since it is cooler, and my back is only slightly unhappy with me, I'm going to try and quickly till the garden area and see if some hot weather crops will grow the next few months in Florida. We will see. I'm trying cucumbers, zucchini, sunflowers, pumpkins and watermelons. I need to get the companion flowers for them this week and pop them in, but hoping to get this planted today. I opted out of setting up tables at a girl scout event, since I knew it would hurt my back. Tilling should not bother it... and if it does, I'm pulling a kid out to do it for me. F1 race today with the boy to watch and then Stanley Cup hockey to watch this evening. 

Have a great Sunday.

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Rsc in orange

 I snapped this squirrel on my walk with Bear yesterday. I might have taken the day off in support of the May Day protest here in the US. 

I did a little sewing and got a couple of Bear Paw blocks added to the Graduation quilt pile. In between I added this orange house block for the RSC.

I was tapped to drive Greg to his MRI on his back Friday and got some hexagons stitched in the car while I waited for him. We had cooked dinner that morning, so the ribs just needed warming and broiling to finish them off. We use the Alton Brown Baby Back rib recipe. An actual dinner at the table with all of us happened, which is unusual with the kids schedules. It was fun to hear about school, teachers and the happenings over the last week. School sure is different from when I went, as they know an awful lot about their teachers and their lives! 

Today is the Winter guard fun show about 35 minutes away from us. Grandma is coming up to attend that one with me. We have much needed rain predicted this afternoon. Aidan has an F1 sprint race and qualifying later today (Miami race) and they are getting the rain tomorrow, so the race will be interesting. Sunday, I'm helping set up a Tea Party event in the morning for Girl Scouts. I've helped with the setup the last few years and get the tables and chairs out and set up for just under 200 people with a few other volunteers. Then do the tablecloths, silverware and tea cups and saucers with paper plates. Sunday night I'll be watching the Lightning/Canadians game 7 of the First round of the Stanley Cup. My guys finally played well last night and scored in overtime to keep the series alive. 

Head on over to the link up and see what pretty oranges have come out to play this month.

Little house sew along

 Melva released the latest block today and after a trip to visit my FIL and then a visit to his house to check on the handyman and pay him, and a lunch date with hubby at Millers Ale House, I got home a little before 2PM. Doggie, kitty and chicken tending and some pool checking and I got a little time to check blogs. I forgot today was a release day but I was looking forward to this block. I had fun picking fabrics and sewing this one up. All 7 blocks are put back onto the shelf with the box of the jelly roll I am using. Linking up with Melva and her fun sew along.

This photo is sideways, but I needed something as a leader and ender and had cleared off the house block things when I pinned the quilt last Thursday. I cut some 'ends' of the purple and creams and made some 2.5 inch four patches. Then I dug into a bin and found these extra's from cutting out Brimfield parts from a charm pack. I'm trimming them to 2.5 inch hst's and will just sew them into sets of 4. No plan, but making use of extra bits. 

I'll move onto cutting some more Bear Paw parts to add more of those blocks for Aidan's graduation quilt... which is coming up way too quickly!

Greg and Emily finished off the Cat run on Sunday and other than me and Aidan grabbing the cats (while the dog is shut in a room) and placing them onto the run... the promptly run right back into the master. We will see how long it takes them to try it out.  We did have one fail, one shelf needed some help to keep it into the wall. Turns out the bit above the slider is solid concrete! Em had fun drilling through that! Greg did a little modification with suggestions from Aidan and it appears to be holding up better. Once the cats start using it, we will see how it goes. I need to rehang my quilts and the hangers that were taken down to put these up.

Flower garden is officially finished

 I finished the hand stitching of the binding last night while rewatching The Residence on Netflix. I do like mysteries and this is a fun series. I really hope they do another one. This one is hand pieced, hand appliqued, machine quilted and hand stitching on the binding. 82x93. It was fun revisiting all the pretty fabrics in this from the last 10 years. 

Sunday, I had a afternoon at Painting with a Twist with Girl Scout Volunteers. I'm not sure about this one. I did not like the 'henna' type stuff that is really light on mine around the edges. It was a fun couple of hours though. 

Now to pin the big quilt on the frame that is not getting hand quilted. Pinning and then a machine swiggle is going to call it good I think. Hoping to get that one finished in May. Not sure about June yet, but I'm shooting for one a month this quarter.

Oh, if you are interested in the MSQC Christmas box, it is on pre-order through the end of April. It is a fun gift to yourself in December and I have loved opening the box for 25 days. I hear there is more fabric this year? Time will tell.

Almost done a UFO

 

An old rsc quilt getting towards the finish line. I just measured this and it is 82x93 inches. I started hand stitching the yellow binding down last night. 

In 2014 I started hand stitched (not epp) the flowers. Another year I basted the edges down and appliqued to the black squares.  Sewed them all together another year and added borders. Then it sat. I rolled it onto boards last month.  I finally pinned and did minimal machine quilting down the long column lines as a squiggly in black. The around either side of the blue border. I added the yellow binding to pull the yellow center color out and finish it off. I'll be hand stitching the binding during hockey games this week. It feels good to move a old quilt top into the almost completed column!

Linking up with the RSC.... sometimes it takes a while but those RSC quilts do get finished eventually!  

Friday

 

I love my Merlin bird app. I think Diann pointed me to this a couple of years ago. The birds were chirping a lot yesterday. 

I spent time Thursday working on this. It got pinned, machine quilted and then I got frustrated making the binding. No discernible right side for my fabric choice threw me. I've not made binding in a while.  Ill try again this afternoon, sine I have hockey time tonight and hand stitching binding wold be a good fit. This is a big quilt, I think 84x93ish? 

Hoping for a finish this month.

Hexagon qayg

 

I was stitching on these Sunday while watching my lightning lose in overtime. The column on each side is completed. 

 I prepped some reds and a couple others to go with 2 that were done as a set of two. No clue where their partners are.  That should fill the three empty spots with the pinks I prepped this weekend. I should have all for this row completed by the time game 2 ends tonight. Then it will be assembly time.

I think I'll just get these 3 sets done, washed a few times to shrink a bit to better match the existing quilt, then add them on and call it done.

That will have this checked off the list so I can work on Brimfield.  I might have got more fabrics for that project last Saturday. 😁

Little house sew along

 

I was able to get the next block completed! I love the little block in this one. So fun to make.

Linking up with The Little House Sew Along over at Melva loves scraps.

Sunday slow stitching.

 I've been plugging away at these Hexagon QAYG blocks to add to the existing quilt. I was thinking 4 rows but might just do 3 as these will become the third row to be added. It is a little blue heavy, but will work overall in the scrappy quilt. I purchased some pinks yesterday at a quilt show and prepped 4 of those to stitch this week. I'll be working the rest into sets of four and then will stitch them together into a column. These are all hand stitched. I've been enjoying stitching these on the back screened in porch in my new comfy chairs while listening to audio books. I finished a CJ Box book Back of Beyond this week. Thank you for the recommendation of the author (Jenny I think?) I'm waiting on my Libby app to have a copy of the next audio book available... but I might just get it off Audible. It was that good!

I've been adding to the bottom grassy part of the cross stitch this week. I'll probably work on the last part in the quilt and then go back to the grassy area this week. Linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers.

I was able to attend a local quilt show on Saturday. Lots of pretty quilts, although almost all were long arm quilted. I did see some variety with machine embroidery, cross stitch worked into quilts - I forgot to get a photo of that one, but it was really neat with various Halloween themed stitcheries. Lots of 1st time showing a quilt awards were noted with a pretty red ribbon on their quilt, at their Ruby anniversary of the guild. I took a few photos and made sure to get the quilter information on the quilt tag.

I loved this one. Lots of hand work went into this one.

A Kim Diehl quilt. Which reminds me I have a kit of her pattern to do!

This one made me smile! Actually, one of the awards to vote on.

There were two of these quilts. I saw this one and went WOW! Two friends bought the kits and worked on them together. I like how this one finished. Although the use of colorful buttons was a neat addition in the below quilt.

A little retail therapy. I felt it was only fair to support those vendors. I think I got something from all but 3 of them. I was low on pinks so was trying to add there. There is a new cross stitch shop opening across town (45 minutes away or so from me) next month. I'll have to go check it out. I might check out the guild and see if I 'fit in' there or not. Now that I don't need to shuttle kids and they are pretty independent, I can get back to doing a few things for me!

Pink Chickens for the RSC

I made a couple of pink chickens this week. I had made 2 pink ones a couple of years ago and decided to add a couple to the collection. I have 4 purple and blue ones so will work away at adding other colors of chickens to the mix this year. Linking up with the RSC on Saturday morning.

I had some yellow hexagons prepped and got them stitched up and quilted this week. I need to make a set of 4 pink ones to stitch this month.

I saw another Little House block was released on Thursday, so I grabbed some pretty purples and made the 6 inch block. I will be adding some log cabin strips to surround it this weekend for that sew along over at Melva Loves Scraps. 

I saw there is a local quilt show on Saturday, so I plan on heading to see that and oooh and awww over quilts, vendors booths and raffles! The boy is having a long day and enjoying Grad Bash at Universal on Friday evening with lots of other high school seniors around Florida. He should get back to school around 4AM... and has the car there so can get himself home. The girl was home with an ear ache and all stuffed up and slept until after 10. She will be helping her Dad build some cat walks in the house this weekend so the cats can venture into the living room and kitchen area up high in the recessed walls. We will see if they venture out. They do not mix well with the dog..... they run and he chases.

Good news, we put my FIL's house on the market last month and it is under contract for a 30 day closing! Fingers crossed all goes smoothly with the buyer.

 

Bear paw

 

Aidan went with the traditional layout for the Bear Paw quilt I am making him. I will be setting it in a diagonal setting since I showed him one I had done as a baby quilt that way and he liked it. So, decisions made and lots of sewing to go! The Graduation quilt - so far. Each block will finish at 14 inches. I have not calculated how many I need yet.

Slow Sunday Stitching

 So far, the day has started off nice and slowly. I got to sleep in, which was nice since we got home from a dinner and visit with Grandma close to 11 last night. It was a nice dinner out and then some CLR games at the dining room table and chatting. Good family times. 

I took this photo on Saturday when I was out gathering eggs. That reminds me, I need to let them roam today since I forgot to let them out yesterday. They have been out in the back yard roaming most of the week as we got some rain... and that means good bugs on the ground to gobble up! 4 eggs - not bad for 3 chickens we got in September 2000 and the other 2 I think we got a few years ago. Looking at the colors - Either Poppy or Eggnog did not lay as they both provide green eggs.

Aidan got me this set of puzzles by Thomas Kinkade for Christmas and I picked up this puzzle board that swivels and has 4 side pull out drawers at Aldi this year. I realized after laying out the pieces, that the plastic is to go over the puzzle while you are not working on it... I'll do it correctly on the next puzzle. I started with getting the pieces turned over and out and started the edges. Aidan has done the majority of the puzzle, but I do add a few here and there as I walk by. 

I've been stitching on the back porch a little this week and got these into sets of four. I dug into the bag and have some more prepped and ready to stitch. I need to add some pink and red to the mix on the next prep round. These will make row three that I want to add to my existing QAYG hexagon quilt that is asking to be made a little bigger. I have 2 columns done and plan 2 more. 

This is the existing quilt at 88x66. 

Lots of progress has been made on the cross stitch this week.

Last Sundays for a reference. I'm going to work on the bottom grassy area before I finish off the last quilt block area, then move onto the first page of the pattern which is to the left of this.

Linking up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers. Hope you all enjoy a little relaxing stitching today.