DH in the Backyard with an Axe

I was puttering around in the study, ironing and organizing some leaders and enders and odds and ends. Kurt was in the backyard working on a new clubhouse for the kids. I could tell by the determined footsteps straight to the downstairs bathroom that something was up. Sure enough, when I called out, "Do you need any help?" The answer was an affirmative.
Apparently it was due to the hot humid weather that the axe became slippery and bounced off of the 4 x 4 and into his shin. He tried to ignore it, thinking it was just a scratch, but when the blood started seeping into his sock, I guess he decided to have a look. Thankfully the urgent care clinic is close and convenient, letting us avoid the dreaded emergency room trip.
It took less than an hour to get 4 stitches and an updated tetanus shot. We made it home again in plenty of time for the Iowa game on TV.
Ryan and Sydney were nice enough to make chocolate chip pancakes for dinner. Aren't they great little pancake flippers?

So after all of that, I did eventually make it back into the study again and worked on finding all of the parts of this project that got lost somewhere along the way. It is a scrap block by Bonnie Hunter from Quiltmaker Magazine. It's been a while, but maybe it was called Carolina Crossroads? It is a little long and skinny at the moment so I might cut out a few more blocks for the edges and quilt it up for a snuggler for the kids. Or maybe I'll try something creative with an asymmetrical border to get the proportions right without making more blocks.

Another one Bites the Dust

I am rapidly crossing things off of my to do list, and that is making me feel free to start new projects. Here is a mugshot of my finished Carolina Crossroads. I ended up using a meander for quilting. I was doing a grid, but I didn't like how the back was turning out.
Here is a close-up of one of the stars. They don't stand out that much on my quilt. I think If I were to make this quilt again, I'd fill in the middle with darker colors to make that part stand out more. I'm not sure how my quilt ended up square, everyone else's I've seen have been rectangular.

Anna wanted to help me with my picture taking, she thinks it is so cool that she is on the internet!
I spent an hour this afternoon and whipped up a sample lap quilt for the nursing home. It's about 36 by 42, and I'll have to see if that is a good size. I'm trying to come up with a pattern simple enough for the girl scouts to do successfully while still coming up with a decent end product. I used a quilt as you go technique with a simple stripy pattern. The girls could use the sewing machine to add a decorative stitch, and choose the width and arrangement of the strips. I'm guessing if I can finish the entire thing in one hour, that they should be able to do it during a half day workshop.

I put the final border on Carolina Crossroad and finished piecing the backing on Sunday. I pressed them both and hung them neatly in the closet with the other two flimsys waiting for quilting. As soon as I get back into quilting mode I'll be ready to take off.
I also put together another fabric shopping bag, although I refused to look the directions while I was doing it, and messed up the bottom seam somehow. I'll try again though, eventually I'll have enough to go shopping!
I have a doozie of a cold and slept for 13 hours yesterday! I even stayed home from work today, which I never do. I like to save my sick days for when the kids get sick, which always seems to happen when Dad is out of town.
I didn't have much energy for things quilty, but I organized some scraps, and picked all the quilt stuff up off the floor. This is what my formal living room looks like without a quilt on it! It looks too empty doesn't it?

Weekend Update

I finished piecing the back for the Carolina Crossroads Mystery and put on the first border. I also finished the blocks for Running Stitches and as I suspected, I made 30 of each, not 30 total. So now I have enough for two quilts and need to decide how to make them different. I thought about making one with a regular straight setting and then cutting down the other set to make them sit on an angle. I think I'll put the blocks away for a bit and let them simmer, or at least half of them.
My mom called to say that one of my cousins had accidentally shot himself in the head and died. It wasn't one I was close to, but it is still a shock. He left a 3 year old daughter behind. My moms sister is going to take in the little girl and asked if we had saved any of the little princesses clothes. We had just given away two big batches of 2Ts and 3Ts to different neighbors, and I'm really regretting that now, but it's too late. I think I should make her a quilt at least, I'll have to find out what her favorite color is. Pink and purple would be my guess based on my own girls.
I took my oldest daughter to see the Hannah Montana movie this morning. I bought the tickets online, and chose the first showing of the morning. I'm so glad I did. We walked right in without any trouble. The line of people waiting to get in as we were leaving was really frightening. The mall was full of groups of mothers and daughters who had either just gotten out or were ready to go in. It was pretty cute to see everybody in their 3D glasses.
My husband finally finished the stained glass inserts for the front door. We've been talking about doing stained glass since we moved in 4 years ago. It was supposed to be my project, because I'm crafty. As much as I've tried to cut glass, I've just never been very good at it. I'm so thankful that he picked up the project and took care of it so that I could stop feeling guilty about not having done it.
Now he's started painting in the little princesses room. He had already done superheros for our son, and the youngest decided that she was old enough to pick her own theme. This is the same daughter that was a ballerina spider kitty cat princess for Halloween. For her room she wanted a strawberry shortcake mermaid, castle, rainbow, and my little pony. I think they've worked out a compromise of some sort.
My local quilt shop is having a super bowl sale and we have been invited to a friends house to watch the game. I think there will be 3 or 4 other couples there as well. I need to think of some tasty or creative appetizer to bring, my husband is voting for meat of some sort.

Progress

I finished two more dear Jane blocks. They are Molly's Muffins (G-13) with 13 pieces and Pie Sale (H-6) with 21 pieces. I really like the way Pie Sale looks, I could imagine a whole quilt out of this one.

I finally finished putting the Carolina crossroads top together, now I just have to decide on borders. My husband says that the top is complicated enough, I should only use plain borders. He says that about all of my quilts.

Our baby doll is on oxygen! I used to laugh when all of our babies would nurse, kids notice everything! They were fascinated at Christmas with their baby cousin and wanted to know why he had tubes in his nose. I wonder what they would do to their babies if we went back to visit now and saw his new feeding tube?

Robbed!

This is the spot in our minivan where our radio and XM receiver used to be. Why would someone steal the faceplate to a radio and leave the radio behind? Why does my husband refuse to lock the car at night? Am I going to have to drive from pawn shop to pawn shop to buy back our stolen merchandise AGAIN? At least this time, unlike the last, my dear husband didn't leave my purse unlocked in his car while I was giving birth to our third child. And at least it was just our car that was broken into, and not our home this time. Still, I've cleaned more fingerprint dust than anyone should have to, and spent more time in pawn shops than I would like to. SIGH...
I would have been fine just being robbed, but it was hard to explain to the kids. We simply said that bad men had broken into the car and taken daddies radio. MY little princess with the earnest wisdom of her four-and-a-half years looked at me quite confused, and said, "Mommy, I thought bad guys were imaginary." We spend so much time telling her that all the bad things are make-believe and that she shouldn't be scared, how do I tell her that bad guys are really real even though monsters are still just pretend?

I was up until 1 last night finishing up the blocks for Carolina Crossroads. Now I just have to decide the sashing issue and I can get the top made. I don't have any large yardage for the back, so I was thinking about doing the Bonny Hunter 10 inch square thing. I did find the label last night, so that is ready to go. I just want to add the final piece count after I decide about the borders and such.

To Sash or not to Sash?

I was happy enough with my Carolina Crossroads, I thought it looked quite nice actually. Then I saw all the people who were adding sashing strips to the quilt and changing it from a diagonal to a straight set. Well, I've already made the setting triangles, so there is NO way I'm going to change the setting, but some of the quilts with sashings added are quite nice. And so now I have to decide which I like better. I see the stars without sashing, but my eye seems to find the massive checkerboard first. I like the way the exact blocks used are camouflaged and the eye flows over the quilt in the original design, I think it makes it look more complicated. But each block is highlighted by the sashing strips. And so, now I must decide, to sash or not to sash. I've still got 9 more rail fence blocks to sew together, so I guess I can mull for a few minutes more. If I leave it on the floor of the family room for a couple of days, I can assault people who come to the door and make them vote.

It's begining to look a lot like A QUILT

I got my side triangles finished this afternoon, but haven't had time to do the corners yet. Still, I couldn't resist, putting together my thoughts on the last set of squares and seeing what they would look like together. I think I must be pretty close, there are only so many logical ways for the rest of the squares to fit together. I love the way the two squares play so well together, making a secondary pattern, you almost can't tell where one ends and the other begins. I wish I had a design wall big enough to play, but my husband is quite used to coming home to a quilt in the formal living room. It's even cold enough now that we had to close all the windows, so the blocks won't blow away:)

Diversions

These are two options for sashing the Elm Creek Quilt. The strips are two inches, the purple is a plain sashing square, while the pink uses corner triangles to turn the sashing square into a flying geese star. I like the star effect, but it might be adding too much business to an already complicated quilt?
I am almost done with my next step for the Carolina Crossroads mystery. I planned to get it all finished this weekend. Then my daughter came home from school telling me that one of the girls in her class got checked out early for leader daughter camping. I said, "That's silly, the leader daughter camping trip isn't until next weekend!" Well, I guess I was off by a weekend. We managed to be packed and out the door in 23 minutes flat! We made it halfway across the state and hardly missed a thing. So my sewing plans got a little waylaid along the way. I didn't even have a chance to grab handwork on the way out the door :(
The kids are all off school tomorrow, so Dad is going to stay home with them in the morning. One of the advantages to being a teacher is supposed to be that I have the same days off as my kids, but sometimes our schedules just don't sink up. At least next Monday is a "holiday for all" And thanks to my poor scheduling capabilities, I'll have an unplanned three day weekend at home.

Getting ready to shift gears

Thanks Tamera and Ila for you comments on my recent post. I'm still new to blogging and have not yet figured out how to respond. Any helpful advice out there? If I click on the comments, it will let me comment on the comment, but it only seems to list on my site, not to go back to the sender. Is that right? Or is it considered appropriate to follow the links through the senders homepage and respond via e-mail? Is there some brief manual out there on the etiquette of blogging that I should Google? I lurked in the background of the Quilt Maverick ring for over a year, but have just now started to participate thanks to the Carolina Crossroad Mystery Group. I have to say that I am enjoying keeping track of my progress and creating a record of what I do. I've even learned a few handy HTML codes.

Speaking of progress, I cut out the rest of the hourglass blocks for step 5 of Carolina, and finished bordering the John Deere Quilt. I still plan to piece the back to that tonight and get it off of the living room floor before the school week starts. I've enjoyed spreading my quilts out all over the house over the break, but I'm sure my husband would like to sit down to breakfast without moving a cutting mat, or lounge on the couch without peering over an ironing board! Still, it was nice while it lasted.
I'm trying to look forward to getting back to school, but I've had such a nice break that it is hard. to do. I had to look up my own syllabus online to remember where we are supposed to start the new semester (stoichiometry in chemistry and the benthic zone for marine science -- aren't you glad you asked?). I was afraid that tomorrow was a Girl Scout night as well and was ready to have an anxiety attack, but I was off a week, so I can wade back in a little more slowly -- whew!
So with all of that looming, I slipped out of the house this afternoon to catch a "chick flick" and enjoy a few minutes without the kids. I really do love my kids, but if I had to play another board game or referee another heated negotiation I was going to get a little grumpy. So I saw PS I love you, even though the review said it was full of "shallow tear". I have no objections to shallow tears, having been known to tear up over a McDonald's commercial. It was just what I needed, and put me down south by the fabric store where I picked up some green quilting thread and a can of spray baste. Life is pretty good most of the time.

Almost forgot about a Sunday Stash Report. I used up lots of yardage in the borders and backs of the Pinwheel and John Deere Quilts. Even though I bought some remnants and three new reds, the amount out is still more than the amount in!

Step 5 half done

I was surprised to see step 5 posted already, but I was home today on winter break with the kids and decided to jump in. I cut fabric for 50 squares, but worried that I didn't have much variety in my reds. Most have already been cut and fed into the 1.5 inch strip tub. I was surprised to find so few in my 2 inch tub, and very few in the stash. I like the way to new blocks look, I'll just have to decide whether to use what I have or go get a few more reds. Given that we are supposed to have the coldest night in at least 5 years tonight (it could freeze!) I think I'll make do with what I have.
I seem to have a very small stash compared to most of the bloggers I read, but I'm not as prolific as them either. I try to have a few things on hand to fill in and in planning for future quilts, but never in large quantities unless it's needed for something specific. I haven't really found my "quilting voice" yet, so I'm not sure what I would collect if I were to try. I guess my fear is that I'll get lots of something, say jewel tones or reproductions, and then decide that's not really my style after all. I tend to like scrappier quilts, so having bits of lots of things tends to work for me.

Step 4 est finis!

I finished step 4 of the Carolina Crossroads mystery quilt today! We got back into town late last night and I was able to steal minutes between unpacking and laundry and more unpacking and more laundry. Bernie (my sewing machine) was in the shop while we were gone. She had been acting up for a little while, but I didn't want to give her up with so much Christmas crafting in the wings. There was a software update and she should be as good as new. I had to break out Ken (my old sewing machine) to fill in while she was gone, and it just wasn't the same. I sewed on him for a lot of years, and and tried my best to make it work, but in the end, he just couldn't handle free motion quilting. I spent hours sewing and resewing a quilt for my new nephew last Easter, and even after all that, still ended up sending it away with eyelashes on the back. I showed it to my husband, who thought for a minute and said, "I see what you mean, that really isn't acceptable." A gift certificate for a new machine showed up for my anniversary. Even though it seemed like a lot of money, my husband finally put it into perspective by saying, that a new machine cost less than our TV, and I probably spent more time on the machine than in front of the TV.
Back to Carolina Crossroads, I have to assume now that the blocks are going to be set on point. That should make these little guys the setting triangles I suppose. We still haven't broken out the Companion angle ruler, I'm still guessing that is going to be used for the center of the block. I'm having fun making these little guys, even more so because I don't know how they are going to turn out.
I think I'll work a little more on my bow ties quilt this evening. I had planned to pack some handwork for our trip, but we ended up rushing out at the last minute frantically and it was left behind. I've missed having something quilt related to work on. Something about making the shapes and colors come together is soothing.