Plans Change

What a long strange week it has been.   On Monday, the older of my two daughters found out that she had been accepted into graduate school at Virginia Tech.   She was so excited!   Then on Tuesday she learned that she was also in at Rhode Island University.   Now she has to choose!  So we hastily scheduled a trip to Rhode Island to get a feel for the campus.   

By Wednesday we had plane tickets, a rental car and a hotel along with lab tours, lunches and meetings for Anna to get check out the program.  I had sub plans and filled out leave paperwork and told my kids to be good while I was gone.  I even found my coat which hasn't been worn since 2017.  In normal times there would have been in person interviews, but given the state of Covid, everything was online.  Then we found out that there was going to be a big snow storm moving into New England and everything was cancelled.   Poof!  All that planning for nothing.   So now the same plans are now rescheduled for next weekend and Anna was able to do a Zoom meeting with two of the professors she would be studying under at RI.  We have a driving trip planned for Virginia over spring break.   Kurt and I have been shopping for houses or land outside of DC, so we will combine both trips. Sydney, the younger daughter, is coming along as well so we will throw in a theme park visit for her.  

Then, just as things were settling down again, Sydney has found out that she is accepted to the University of Florida, which is now her first choice of colleges.  Fortunately, she has already been on tours and seen the campus, so she is excited and happy.   

So I have an unexpected weekend at home to FINALLY sew some of my aqua scraps.   The quilting frame was set up for three weekends in a row and I focused hard on getting 10 flimsies quilted.  So far only one has been completely finished with binding sewn, but I will share each as a I finish the last stage.  New York Beauty was a quilt of my own design.  I sketched each of the blocks out and then charted them onto freezer paper with a compass, protractor and rulers.   The fabrics combined batiks with my favorite hand dyes from Vicki Welsh.  I started in 2014 and then finished it during the lockdown of 2020.   It was first on the list because I took it in for a faculty and staff art show at school.  So now the dog has been walked, the husband is off playing tennis and I am ready to play with some scraps!  Misterlinky is below, please share your own scrappy progress.  

Marathon of Quilts

Rainbow Crumbs is fresh off of the frame.  I used a square spiral in grey thread.  I was afraid that it would have too much contrast against the white, but it seems to blend in just fine.   

That brings the finished count to 8 so far.   This is the third and last weekend that I plan to leave the frame set up.  Two weeks ago was a three day weekend and this is a four day weekend.   Tomorrow it will be time to get back the family room.   First though, some celebration for flimsies quilted.  From top to bottom of the stack: Rainbow Crumbs, New York Beauty, Hollow Nine Patches, Temecula Sampler, Chopsticks, Connecting Threads Star Sampler, Squared Away, and Streak of Lightning.   I shall be sewing binding until the end of time, but that is something to think about on Tuesday when the quilting has paused.  

The closet isn't even half empty though.  Still in waiting from left to right: Yellow and Green Chevrons, Sister's Choice, #FullStop, Baby Nines and Churn Dashes, Garden Trellis, Dear Jane, Strings, Sprouts, and Postage Stamps.   I can comfortably cross two more off the list today and tomorrow.  Piecing the backings and getting the quilt loaded on the frame are the hard part.  I've taken care of the easy finishes, everything else will need a bit more effort.  

ScrapHappy Saturday - Diversions

 

I haven't gotten much further than ironing and cutting on my aqua and teal scraps.  With the quilting frame set up temporarily in the family room, I am trying to focus on getting as many flimsies quilted as possible before it is time to disassemble everything on Monday.  I have a sampler quilt which was a block of the month from Temecula Quilt Company many years ago.   I didn't want to start it until Dear Jane was done.   I'm trying out different quilting ideas because quilting the Dear Jane is a terrifying thought.   The bobbin ran out just in time for Sydney's Lacrosse game last night.  They have won one and lost one so far.  

There was a second sunrise this morning over a cloud bank.   It is colder today than yesterday, but still beautiful compared to the bitter chill of last weekend.   

Mid Week Update

 I am posting on a Wednesday!  I got an email this morning from a RSC22 participant without a blog and wanted to share.

Mary has her teal plus blocks done along with a few reds to catch up from January.   

It was a pretty good sunrise this morning.   We had our first Lacrosse game of the year on Monday.     (A painful loss in the bitter cold).  Things are warming up now, and we are headed into a 4 day weekend!   Kurt has work people in from out of town, so he has been busy with company dinners and happy hours.   School has been calm though, and I am thankful for that.  Parent conferences are Thursday night which will take us nicely into a Friday off.  We will have the second lacrosse game then.  Anna is still waiting to hear about grad school applications.  Sydney is still waiting on college acceptances.  Ryan is applying for summer internships.  So much going on!  All good though and all moving forward.   For a Wednesday it is a win.   

Happy Weekend!

It was finally nice enough yesterday to walk on the beach.  I am not getting my steps in these days!

It was also science fair award day.  Sydney has already figured out that she was likely to win first place, based on the judges that she got.  It was a nice surprise though as everything went wrong with her project this year.  From not having an appropriate lab to not being able to get her planned procedure approved.  She persevered though and will be able to move on the the state competition which was a sad all virtual affair last year.   

These are all current and former students who are so excited.   I counted a lot of my AP Bio and homeroom students among the award recipients.   So proud of them all!

I got New York Beauty loaded up on the frame first thing this morning.  I added a simple border yesterday and got everything prepped.   Just simple wavy lines for this one as there was a lot going on with the patterns and colors.  

Lizzie jumped on the batting as soon as I loaded it up.  She is magically attracted to any quilting related supplies on the floor.   

Here is the quilted New York Beauty Quilt.   I have the binding cut already, so that will be next on my list.   I will check out Oh Scrap! first though, and catch up with ScrapHappy Saturday from yesterday. I hope your Sunday is scrappy AND happy as well.      

 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Moving on

It was a beautiful sunrise and the weather is much warmer.  

Last weekend was a three day sewing marathon 

 

Squared Away was the RSC challenge quilt from 2018 which was a collaboration project with Mari, The Academic Quilter.   I did some detail quilting on the sashing and cornerstone areas and just meandered in the blocks.  I'm thinking that a bright pop of yellow would make a nice binding for it.   There is a blue bandana print on the back.   

Then Streak of Lightning came next.   It is just random leader and ender nine patches with setting triangles offset to form the zig zag pattern.   I loaded it sideways and put long wavy lines in the red with loops in the blocks.   I save extra blue from the Squared Away backing to bind this one.  

Then I had just enough steam to load up the next quilt while we watched winter Olympics together as a family.   It sat ignored all week as school consumed everything.  Sydney was stressed getting ready for science fair which was yesterday.  Anna was stressed getting ready for her second interview with Virginia Teach which was also yesterday.  I was stressed with difficult students, parents and others at school.  On Wednesday I wasn't sure I was going to make it.  By Friday it was looking up though, with Admin support in yet another parent conference, Anna feeling good about her interview day, and Sydney confident after science fair judging.   She has a packed day with Lacrosse, work and awards tonight.  I'm wide open until the awards though, so Chopsticks will be first up.   I'm thinking of some fairly geometric alternating wavy patterns.   

I hope you have some sewing to look forward to this weekend. Mr. Link is below, please share your progress and see what everyone else has been up to.    

Scrappy Happy Sunday

 

I set up the quilting frame yesterday, which took most of the morning.   When Sydney is off to college in the fall it can live in her room on a permanent basis, but until then it gets temporary real estate in the family room as needed.  With a long weekend to enjoy and another one coming up for President's day, I should be able to finish a few quilts.   I chose this one because it had backing and binding ready to go.  If I can get the top trimmed and machine stitching done on that then I will have something to do during family time for pizza night.  I suspect we will watch some Olympics together.  

Next, I pulled everything out of the closet to decide which is next.  There are only 4 with fabric for backings together with the finished flimsy.  I guess I will have to keep my eyes open for more backing fabrics!  I've been burning through stash much faster than I have acquired new fabric during COVID, so I don't feel bad about a little shopping.   

So instead of grabbing something ready to go, I started puzzling together 10.5" squares to make pieced backings for two more quilts.  These are solids to use as the backing for #FullStop.  I would like to get this one finished up to bring to a faculty and staff art show that we are having at school.   I'll have to play with the color placement and do a bit of pressing, but I was able to find enough solid scraps to cover the quilt.   

Then I started working on this random collection of floral prints that I had set aside for Garden Trellis.  It is a really ugly collection so far, but I will see what I can do to make it more cohesive.   I was thinking of adding a border or two to this quilt as it is set on the diagonal with bias edges.   

For now though, the sewing space needs a bit of organization. It looks like a fabric bomb exploded in there will all the digging for fabric and quilt frame pieces.   Happy Sunday! I hope you are all up to something scrappy as well.  I am linking to Oh Scrap.   

ScrapHappy Saturday -

 

What a long strange week it has been! It was all wrapped up yesterday with a phone call at school that left us all standing outside in a field for an hour and a half while bomb sniffing dogs searched the campus. On the positive side though, it is a three day weekend for no particular reason.  I plan to take full advantage of the extra day by setting up the quilting machine and trying to finish up some of my completed flimsies.  Because the frame does not stay set up in the new house, I tend to quilt in spurts and there is quite a backlog of projects from which to choose.  I did get a start on the teal and aqua scrap collection.  It looks like chaos, but really there are lots of pieces ready to go in all of the sizes that I need for my projects this year.