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!  

ScrapHappy Saturday - Catching Up

Working hard on getting caught up before school starts again. I have three days before teachers are back for pre-pre planning. I think I can knock of blue and purple in that time.  Last week was busy with leadership things and training before the official beginning of the year.  This year is strange because in addition to the usual mandatory pre-planning time, there is also pre-pre planning.  It is entirely voluntary, but they will pay teachers who want to come in early to set up their rooms and get a head start on lesson planning and curriculum.  

There were a few good sunrises this week.  We even managed a morning beach walk yesterday.  It gets so hot though that by 8 am we were both dripping sweat.  I got a haircut yesterday and have an appointment to get an eye exam on Monday.  All the things teachers squeeze in during summer break.  We even met friends for dinner!  My teacher friend who is also wrapping up all the loose ends before the big transition back to working life and her husband who likes to mock us for talking about school too much.    

ScrapHappy Saturday

Summer is going fast! I've been working on getting Sydney's t-shirt quilt finished before she goes off to college. I should have the blocks all sewn together this morning and will run out for some backing fabric.

I am working three mornings a week in July, getting things ready for the new job.  Its been incredibly busy, but so nice to have time to do all of the things that they have always expected teachers to do outside of regular work hours.   There is an extra option for paid time in the classroom before the start of preplanning this year, so hopefully we will all be able to prepare for the new year together.   Next week I am running a welcome training for our new teachers.  So many fresh faces!  The old guard is fading fast.   Our newest Florida education issue is not being able to have any books in the classroom that have not been approved.   They think they will have an approval process in place by January though.   I am feeling bad now about leaving my library of biology novels for the new teacher.  I will have to go and make sure she hides them away until we find out which books are banned.   So far we have been assured that it is still OK to wear rainbow colored shirts, but other districts have already warned against that as well.   Probably a good time to NOT be in the classroom right now.  I am sure I would say something inappropriate and get myself in trouble.   

I did find some more sewing time this week to make these "unpaper towels" for Anna's new apartment in the fall.  After looking through several tutorials on Pinterest, I decided to use flannel on one side and extra t-shirt fabric leftover from the quilts on the other.  After measuring paper towels, I decided to cut the flannel to 11.5 inches and lay it on top of the oversize t-shirt backing fabric.  Then I sewed along the edge of the flannel, leaving a gap for turning and trimmed the backing fabric even with the flannel.   I even made a basket to hold them from extra 6.5 inch squares of the flannel.  I think the flowers are quite festive and went well with lots of different colors of extra shirts.   

ScrapHappy Saturday - Purple

It has been a fun vacation week in the mountains.   Each day I go out and pick some of the local  Virginia Wineberries.  They are actually a nonnative invasive, but the berries are pretty tasty.   

I had enough to make some jam.  I've never canned anything before, so that was fun.  I am not sure that I did it entirely correctly, but time will tell.   There were so many seeds!  Next time I will have to try a seedless version.   There are enough frozen berries thought to take home and try to make some wine.   That is something else that I have never tried.   

We are still trying to get the piles of lumber under control,  This one was practically gone until we went to clear just a few branches that were falling into the driveway.   

Last time we were here we cleared all sorts of vines and dead branches from a group of apple trees down at the base of the driveway.  We were pretty sure the trees were all dead.  We were shocked to find loads of apples growing happily on most of them.    

We also had plenty of time to go to a local winery though, so it hasn't been all work and no play.  We will head out bright and early in the morning.  I have a nice stack of hexies to keep me occupied when it isn't my turn to drive.   I will try to pick out the purple ones first!

ScrapHappy Saturday - Holiday Weekend

 Happy Holiday weekend for those in the US.   We watched fireworks last night at the nearby 4-H campgrounds.

It has been a calm week full of tasks such as taking the dog to the vet and getting Sydney scheduled for wisdom teeth removal.  

I did have some sewing time though and whipped up this mini quilt for a friends birthday.   Then I got carried away with the leftover nine patches and spent two days sewing the rest together into random color combinations.   

We are at the cabin this week and waiting to see how the weather will turn out before deciding on inside or outside chores for the day.   Either choice is likely to start with a trip to town for supplies.  

July is all about purple this year.   I hope you can find an opportunity this weekend to dig into your purple bin and sew what you can find.   

   

ScrapHappy Saturday - Last Blue Saturday

 My big accomplishment for the week was finishing off this t-shirt quilt.   

It is huge.  She wanted it full sized and it is large even for a full sized quilt.   We were both bad at editing though, and ended up keeping fronts and many of the backs from the shirts as well.   I finished up the binding during an all day marathon of "The Flight Attendant".   The lead character just kept making one bad decision after another. I guess it does help you feel better about your own life not being a total train wreck.  

Sydney's t-shirt quilt is waiting patiently on the wall.   Hers will be twin sized to live in her college dorm room.  

Another beautiful day has begun.  It has been brutally hot in the middle of the day, but the mornings and evenings are still idyllic.   That means more time to sew in the middle.   

Given that this is the last Saturday in June, I will mention that July is going to be the purple month this year.  Which is perfect for me given all the little purple bits I have leftover from the t-shirt quilt.   

   

ScrapHappy Saturday - Home Again

 What a long strange summer it has already been!   It hasn't felt much like a break yet, but I am starting to settle into a new summer routine.  We drove back from Virginia on Monday.   It is about 12-13 hours by car and we are getting pretty good at the drive.   When Kurt goes up for work, he will fly, but with all the kids and the supplies we are still taking back and forth, it made more sense to drive.   

With the new job, I am working this summer, but it is a minimal amount.   I have two mornings a week scheduled in the office during June and then I'll bump it up to three mornings a week during July.   So far I am doing most of the normal summer work that I would have done on my own.  What a nice change to pace to have them offering to pay me to do work.  That isn't something that often comes up for teachers.   In addition to college advising, I am also still handling gifted, homeroom and new teachers.   This week I started on the gifted curriculum and paperwork planning.  Next week I will jump into the homeroom lessons.   

That still leaves plenty of time for quilting though.  First up is to start working through the list of three t-shirt quilts that I am supposed to do this summer.   With so many requests piled up, I decided to invest in a heat press.   It makes quick work of getting the stabilizer attached to the shirts which is always the longest and most tedious part.   

The first quilt is a full size quilt for a wedding in July.   So much bigger than I usually make t-shirt quilts, but with the new press I had all of these shirts ironed and cut in not much more than a day!   There is still one more row that doesn't fit on the design wall, but you get the idea.   She is  a fan of purple and lilac, so I tried out three shades.   So far I am liking the lightest one best.   Not sure if I will go with cornerstones or not.  I prefer them for sewing the rows together, but it adds more color to an already busy collection of blocks.   

How are your blues coming along?  Clearly I am not quite there yet, but Anna has moved her things out of the sewing room again, so I can get things set up again soon.   This should have been the last time that she came home again to stay.   She is going straight from her summer job to her new grad school apartment in the fall.   I will shift the sewing studio into Sydney's room when she goes off to the University of Florida at the end of August which will leave us two extra rooms for whoever is home to visit.   That is the working plan in any case.  Things seem to change quickly around here.   

  

ScrapHappy Saturday - Blue Skies

Not lots of blue scraps yet, but plenty of blue skies.   We have worked so hard at the cabin for the last two weeks and it has been so much fun!  I sleep like a log every night and then wake up ready to start again the next day.   Much of the work is just new house things like cleaning and organizing, picking out paint colors.  All much fun.  Then there is the land that has been sadly neglected.  So much trash to haul away and lumber from old out buildings to be burned.   So far we have only dealt with the main three acres.  The upper seven remains untouched.   I haven't taken many photos because everything is half done.  These are a few of the structures which have been taken down.  I am watching the fire now as we try to burn the last of what can be burned and Kurt hauls a load of the rest to the dump.  We have made quite a few trips to the dump and had quite a few fires!   Still more to go, but progress is being made.  

Ready to head home again and switch gears.   I will be working some this summer with the new job and I have a couple of T-shirt quilts to make.  One for commission and one for Sydney to take away to college in the fall.   

ScrapHappy Saturday - Let's do Blue!

 

It's a brand new month!  Looking forward to making some progress on blue.  Why is there so much blue in my bins?   I've whittled down lots of colors, but blue always seems to fill up first again. 

There is still plenty of work keeping us busy in the mountains.  Yesterday we tried to free some apple trees from vines and made a trip into town for supplies.  Then we cut fire wood and made mulch.   The next time it rains or gets too hot outside, I will finish getting the kitchen put together.   Always nice to give everything a good solid cleaning before getting too many things put away.  I will bring a sewing machine the next time we come up and try to find a desk to put it on.   One thing at a time.....

New Month, New Color

I love that each month brings a fresh color. A chance to clear out the leftovers of the old and sort through something fresh and new. So now it is time to put away the greens and dig into the blue bin. Like green, blue is one of those colors that tends to dominate the scrap pile. Feel free to divide and conquer by focusing on the bright and dark shades. Save the light and baby hues for another month. 

 No new photos to share yet as we are running on cell phone data for the moment. The internet people will be here tomorrow though, so looking forward to having more than two bars! I caught a horrible head cold just before the trip up to Virginia and then tried to ignore it and power through. We were all having so much fun getting settled in. Ryan (middle son) is tearing down sheds and Kurt (DH) is trimming trees while I run around behind them hauling rubbish away. It is sorted to be taken to fire pit, compost heap, chipper shredder or cut into logs for the fireplace. I've also been mowing and trying to kill some of the grass to replace it with lower maintenance ground cover. It is supposed to rain tomorrow, so I'll keep working on cleaning out cabinets and installing shelf liner. That will help with the organization as nothing seems to have a home quite yet. We did find some $3 pots at the flea market though, after realizing that we forgot a few essentials along the way.

ScrapHappy Saturday - Last Green Day

It is the last Saturday in May and I have sewn 0 green scraps. June will be blue (bright and dark), so I will try to catch up then. Thursday was the last day of school, so finding sewing time should get much easier. First though, we have a bit of time at the cabin which will involve very little sewing. So far I have not even migrated a sewing machine here. We'll be back soon though and the organizational process will be ongoing. I brought hexies, so hand sewing will keep me busy in the evenings after battling the wild outdoors all day. More updates to come.

ScrapHappy Saturday - Rush to the Finish

 

Anna graduated from college last night and will be off tomorrow to nanny for a new baby in New Hampshire before starting her graduate program in Neuroscience at Virginia Tech in the fall.   I was not there.  

Because Sydney was also graduating from high school.  She will be working this summer at Pac Sun before departing for the University of Florida in the fall.  

It has been quite a week!  I have been working diligently to move out of my classroom and begin preparations for my new job as a Career and College coach at the same school where I have been for the past 12 years.   The students seem excited to have someone available to guide them through the process and are already asking for help.   

And because nothing good ever happens in isolation, the movers are coming any minute to pick up the furniture we are having taken to the cabin in Virginia.  It would have been so much more efficient to just keep the furniture where it is and buy something new for up north, but I thought our existing stuff would fit better with the mountain vibe.   I am excited to pick something more beachy and less wood and leathery to live here.   We found something we liked looking online, but we will be sitting on lawn chairs until we get around to going and looking at it in person.   We have a day bed from Anna's room to sleep on, so if we can find a card table somewhere, all of our basic needs will be met.  

The green scraps are still sitting happily sorted and trimmed waiting for things to calm down for a hot minute.   Just to top off all the crazy, I have jury duty on Monday!  Life just keeps trucking along.  I hope you are having some nice calm sewing time though.  I will enjoy your progress and wait for the relative calm of summer break.  I will only be working two or three half days each week which should leave plenty of time to catch up on green and move on to the new color for June.  

ScrapHappy Saturday - Catching Up

 

"Life move pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it"

My life has moved faster than usual in the past week.  I think it was last Thursday when they posted a new job opening at my school.  The district is creating a new position at all of the middle and high schools to have a new College and Career Counselor on staff.  I knew that they were going to be creating the job, but I assumed it would require counseling credentials.  When the announcement was finally made, it was listed as a "specialist" instead of a counselor and I met all of the requirements.   Thinking that this might just be the change that I need right now, I discussed with the family and eagerly applied.  Much drama ensued and the job description changed several times during the week, but in the end, it was a job that I wanted very much to do and it was offered to me!   

So now I need to move out of my classroom and get a new teacher ready to take over AP Biology, learn how to handle all the new job responsibilities, attend training sessions and planning meetings and move into an office.  I also need to wrap up the semester, submit final grades, pack and move furniture to the house in Virginia..... I am sure there is more, but right now I am just making lists and contemplating the future.  I did get to start in on the green scraps though.   I got all the ironing and trimming done.  I was just ready to start sewing blocks together when Anna declared that she was coming home for the weekend.  Most importantly though, I need to make some serious progress on Sydney's t-shirt quilt, because graduation is just 6 short days away.   

ScrapHappy Saturday - Rainy Day

The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play. Not an outside day, and the sewing room has been filled with everything that used to be in Ryan's room. On the up side though, Ryan is home for the summer!  We are all going to see the new Dr. Strange movie as a family and then I will tackle the sewing room and make some room to move out the green and sage for May.  Sydney's T-shirt quilt is first on the list.  Conveniently, she has requested sage and forest for her dorm room colors at the University of Florida next year.   Just 13 days until graduation, not that we are counting down of course!

 

Home Again

 

This was the before photo that I posted while we were away this weekend.  The sellers took care of quite a bit of cleanup before the closing, but we found plenty to keep us busy.  

It is amazing how relaxing hard work and fresh air can be.  We got half of one of the chicken coops taken down.   There was lots of wire and posts and mesh all intergrown with vines and roots and all sorts of fun.   I used the empty space in front to set up compost bins, so hopefully there will be some compost in progress the next time we are back.  

Kurt and I both took turns pressure washing.  I love to pressure wash, but there was also lots of random scrap lumber to be hauled to the fire pit and so many bags of mulch to be spread.  

The pressure washing made a huge difference.  The rubbish removal is an ongoing process.   There isn't trash pickup there, so we learned how to drop off at the local dump.  

New Month, New Color

 The colors for May will be sage and forest green. 

We got a lot done today.  Here are some before photos as we are not in a Wi-Fi rich zone here.  We cleared out lots of rubbish, though there is still lots to do.   We pressure washed and took down a chicken coop and spread lots of mulch.   

 We made a burn pit and had a huge fire, though there is still more to go.   It was wonderfully relaxing even though we are both tired and sore from hauling rocks and wood and random bits of everything.  We met our new neighbor and learned how to get to town and back.  Tomorrow is back to real life again, but it has been fun living in the mountains for the weekend.  

ScrapHappy Saturday - Late Start

 

Off to a super late start today.  We are at the new cabin for the first time after closing on Friday and I had to wait for Kurt to install an internet thing on the roof before I could get a signal to post.   The closing was super smooth, although we were all sweating a bit due to lack of communication ahead of time about the broken septic system.  It is all fixed now though and we are starting to settle in.   We walked around the property yesterday after closing and met a neighbor who drove us around the upper acreage that they seem to use mostly for hunting.   We are pressure washing this morning and clearing out rubbish.  I will be sure to post more photos when the internet is less sketchy.  

ScrapHappy Saturday - Transitions

 Every week, I keep thinking that things will calm down any day now.  Sometime soon it will be true.  The end of the school year is in full swing.  AP test prep, end of the year presentations, celebrations, awards.  All good, just as always, all at the same time.  

I do have time to sew this weekend though, after a couple of power grading sessions to get caught up.  Less than a month till graduation!   I guess I should get to work on Sydney's t-shirt quilt again.  Deep calming breaths.  All is well.