ScrapHappy Saturday - Waiting

It is a new month!  I must confess to not having finished my baby blues.   Most of my sewing this week has been hand sewing of binding as we wait for the power to be restored after Ian.   October is scheduled either for lime and light green or for light neutrals as we work to finish off the rainbow.   Please feel free to finish up the blocks that you are going to need for your quilts.   Assembly is right around the corner!

The storm damage was minimal here, we still have water though we have been asked to conserve.   We have made quite a dent in the nonperishable food stash, but with everything around us back to normal, it feels odd to sit in a dark house.  Fortunately, it is quite cool post Ian, so not having an air conditioner has not been a problem.   I am sure most of the fridge and freezer will need to be tossed, but I guess this is a good excuse to do a little cleaning

I think we will try to reattach the downspouts to the gutters today, the upper elbow was knocking against the sliders in the wee hours of Thursday when the eye of the storm was approaching.  That was our mostivation to fasten the last of the shutters to wait out the worst.   The eye was large and lasted most of the morning on Thursday before the bottom of the eyewall made its way through with much less ferocity than the top.   The surfers were out in force, whooping and shouting in the waves.  I won't have much contact today, as my computer has just switched to battery saving mode. Enjoy your sewing, and welcome to the new month!

ScrapHappy Saturday - Storm Prep

 

It will be a weekend of watching the tropics.  Sydney is home from Gainesville for her first weekend visit, so sewing is not going to be high on the priority list.   Kurt was gone all week, and he is back just in time to start following Tropical Tidbits for the latest storm updates.   There might be a couple of days off midweek to sew the windy days away.   How are your projects all coming along?  Misterlinky is below.  Please keep us all up to date on your progress.

ScrapHappy Saturday - Loving Baby Blue

The weeks blows by in a blur of activity right now.  I have kids lined up to sign up for college visits and ask for advice on applications and essays followed by meeting with coworkers and then time to get work done.   I've got little guys rummaging for felt and glue for flags.  Then there is the administrivia that still comes creeping back.  The learning curve is steep, and it is something new everyday.  So far I am a big fan of the new job.  

The morning sunrise photos are getting just a bit harder to capture as the days get shorter.   If the sun rose straight over the horizon, I could still capture it and not get stuck in morning traffic, but with the usual banks of clouds delaying the appearance of the sun, it is often making a late start right now.  The clouds do help make such striking colors though. I look forward to finding out what the day will bring each morning.   

Sewing is isolated mainly mainly to weekends, but I have not been brining home lesson planning and grading, so there is time now that didn't use to exist.  I got the light blue star sewn together and the bright green is waiting for its turn.  I have cut out some parts for black and brown stars, but I don't think I have enough fabric variety yet.  Grey and black can coexist nicely, I will just have to rummage in the bins to find out what is there.  I will pull out another block collection today and take evaluate its progress.   I know September isn't really the end of the year yet, but it is starting to feel that way.  Holiday plans are just around the corner!

Rainbow Scrap Challenge -- Rounding out Collections

 It is time to start evaluating my project to figure out which one need more blocks.  Here are the Carpenter Stars so far.  Definitely a need for baby blue, then maybe a lime green and a brown and a black block.  I am liking he way these come together with the secondary pattern.  I pulled baby blue 2.5 inch strips, so that one will be next on the list. 

How are your blocks coming along?  I know that September isn't the end of the year yet, but I am still starting to enjoy the idea of putting some tops together soon.  

 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - September

 

A new month!  Is there anything more fun than digging into a new bin of scraps!  I know we did blue earlier this year, but it is a color that truly needs more time to digest for most of us.  When I don't know what color to choose for a gift, I almost always go with blue because it works for everyone.   We are waiting on the rocket launch again.   It is scheduled for 2:17 today.  Hopefully things will go  better than Monday.   Because we are still waiting for the Artemis, here is a photo of a rocket launch from last September.  The halo effect is still one of my favorite visuals.   

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - Rounding up Orange

I finally got some orange blocks sewn last weekend.   Everything is cut, it is just a matter of sewing up the last bits.   We got a bit carried away with clearing out Sydney's room.  The plan was always to rotate her furniture up to the main bedroom and then convert her first level room with attached bathroom into the sewing studio.   Most of our old furniture went up to the cabin where the leather and oak seemed more fitting.   We are still working on putting all the pieces back together.  Kurt decided to invite all his work friends over for a launch party on Monday morning, so now the disaster of our furniture rotation plan needs to get fixed sooner rather than later!   

Sydney sent us a first day of school photo.  She started classes at the University of Florida on Wednesday.  Still waiting for more details on how everything went.  So far she needed a new computer because hers was full, then dropped the class that needed the giant program installed on her computer and added a new class about sustainability which should be more relevant to her major.  There was also some mechanical gator riding mixed in with exploration of the new campus and photos of food from the dining hall.   

The sky was exceptionally orange on Thursday.  I usually wait until the sun is coming up for my daily sunrise photo, but I was in a hurry to get into school that day because there was a lot going on.   Kurt was out of town this week and staying at the cabin while working out of the DC office.  He is home now though and can help try to reassemble the disruption that we started last weekend.

Light blue is the color for September, just in case you couldn't polish off blue the last time.  If you did manage to deal with all the blue earlier this year, then this is the perfect time to start catching up or assembling.  The end of the year is right around the corner!

 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Empty Nest Edition

 

Sydney moved into her college dorm on Thursday.   We have officially moved out the last of the children.  What a strange feeling to have just the two of us rattling around the house together.  Good thing we still like each other!

I did manage to finish the binding on her t-shirt quilt just in time.  She was very specific about which quilts to include and where to put them.   It starts with her daisy girl scout shirt and ends with senior powder puff.  So many memories!

Work hasn't settled down quite yet, but it has been lots of fun learning how to do so many new things. It is a huge change to have time in the day to cross things off of the list rather than trying to get all the extras done while teaching all day.    

The orange scraps have been waiting patiently for their turn.  So far I have stacks of nicely trimmed strips and squares along with a handful of partially assembled blocks.  I think I will get a little bit done this morning.  When Kurt gets back he is going to want to survey the disaster area that was Sydney's room.  It is going to be my new sewing studio, but some work needs to be done first.  

ScrapHappy Saturday - Nothing Rhymes with Orange

 

The first week of the school year is officially done!  It is so nice that we almost always start on a short week. Such a huge change to not be in the classroom every day.  I am having plenty of time with the kids though, and they are starting to come in for help with resumes and applications.  Lots of training so far and figuring out what I am supposed to be accomplishing.    

The family was all in Virginia this week moving Anna into her new apartment at Virginia Tech.  She is having fun getting settled in.  Because she was in dorm for 4 years of undergrad, this is her first apartment, and she is full of questions about how to do things like setting up electricity and getting and Wi-Fi router.   Sydney will move into her dorm on Thursday and we will officially be empty nesters.  What a strange thought!  All those years of raising kids and having them around all the time just to suddenly have them all move out.

ScrapHappy Saturday - And so begins Orange

 

Counting down the days until school begins for real.  I think things might calm down a bit then.  I am probably wrong about that though.  I have managed over the years of RSC to curate a nice collection of orange.   A few are already trimmed into squares and strips for my blocks this month.   I will have some time to sew orange today, but I also need to make the flags for our homerooms.  I will probably pop into work for a bit and try to get some things ready for the start of school.  We will train the teachers on homeroom Tuesday, the day before the kids come back.  Then we will meet with homerooms every day for the first week which should give us a chance to start decorating our flags.  I had a 4 hour training session on Thursday when I finally got a full picture of how the new job is supposed to work.  All summer I kept asking when the training would begin.  Somebody dreamed up the job, funded the job at every secondary school and that somebody had have a clear vision of what  we are all supposed to be accomplishing.   So now my head is full to bursting with new information and things to do.  

ScrapHappy Saturday - Last Purple weekend

 

Just two more days left in July.   I am working frantically steadily to get caught up.  I think that I can!  Though everything looks like a bit of a mess at the moment, all the pieces are in the works and the scraps have been sorted and cut.   Now I can spend today and tomorrow getting everything sewn together.  Many have already guessed that August will be orange this year.  I used to struggle with orange, but through the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I started to enjoy the variety and spark that it adds to quilts.   I have a reasonably sized basket now and I have tried to work it into quilt backs and bindings this year to keep bulking up the scrap supply

It is a busy time at school right now.  Surprisingly there have been so many teachers in for pre-pre planning.  For me that has meant lots of running around and checking on new people, meetings to discuss curriculum and training sessions of various sorts.   Official pre-planning will start next week which will mean lots of meetings.  We are all still defining my new job together, so it has been lots of fun with new things to learn.   Today is for sewing though!