Thinking Day

Sydney's Girl Scout Troop had thinking day last night.  It is a chance for lots of different troops to get together and learn about other countries.  Her troop chose France, they sang Frere Jaques, built an Eiffel  Tower and posed for pictures as Mona Lisa.  It has been a busy week and the weekend doesn't look much better, but for now I am going to steal away and sew a bit.  I have some orange plans underway and can't wait!  

Beautiful Backgrounds

There is a quilt shop not far from the museum for the Girl Scout outing this morning.  We made a quick stop and got for lunch before heading home.  Because I had a gift certificate from Christmas and no particular quilts in the works, I hit the sale wall and focused on backgrounds.  Sydney added a couple of her own choices too.  She didn't quite agree with my neutrals are always necessary philosophy.  Everyone seems happily involved in playing with friends now, so I think I'll sneak in to sew a bit before somebody needs me. 

Chaos Theory

It is hard to remember the last time I saw the dining room table.  I know it is under there somewhere.  Buried under lego blocks and Girl Scout bags and craft supplies.  The regional tournament is this weekend, and with no hope of going on to state, that should free up some space.   All of the recycled gift bags are going to leader daughter along with the craft supplies.  I will cook a big fancy meal when it all goes away so that we can eat at the dining room table as a family.  Until then I have goody bags to stuff and crafts to organize and clothes to pack.  I am looking forward to a camping weekend. 
Sadly that means I won't be here to sew on scraphappy Saturday.  Has anyone noticed that the new color is green?  I'll leave a scheduled link up box and hope that it all works as it should.  I'll have my handy i-pad, but I don't think the wild outdoors has wi-fi.  Have fun thinking green thoughts and I'll check back in on Sunday. 

Cerulean Sky

I'm thinking of calling this one Cerulean Sky.  I didn't have much time to work on it today, but I am so close to getting the blocks done that I am debating finishing them up now versus getting to sleep at a decent hour and starting fresh in the morning.  I think tomorrow is fairly open.  There is laundry of course, and Ryan has a Lego Robotics thing in the afternoon.  Not too much at all 

Today was ice skating for Anna at the same time as Girl Scouts for Sydney.  That took the morning.  Then after lunch there was an OM meeting which Kurt led, while I took Anna to Girl Scout rock climbing. She and her friend Sierra spent a huge chunk of time hanging upside down when their arms were tired from climbing. 

Plodding Along

Miraculously, I managed to get everyone to their respective activities today at the appropriate times. They even had all the right stuff. I had a little notebook with lists and phone numbers and gate codes and a car full of presents, snacks, robots and skates.  I wasn't sure it was all possible given the number of time conflicts involved, but with a little help from our OM team mates it all went off without a hitch.  We ended up back home in the afternoon with a couple of extra kids for play dates and then lost Anna when she went to go see a movie with her friend.  Fortunately the kids all think scrambled eggs and toast is a perfectly acceptable dinner, and we had a nice early night. 

I thought I would collapse as soon as the kids were in bed, but I decided to get started on the next step of the mystery quilt instead.  I am forcing myself to include lots of variety in my string blocks, but it is hard to do.  There is a certain safety in white on white or cream on cream.  I'm working in batches of 5 so that I can string piece and still get some blocks finished along the way.  I'm never patient enough to do huge sessions of chain piecing without wanting to see something finished come out the other end.

Wonderful Wednesdays

So I'm getting ready to dive into the new Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt called Roll Roll Cotton Boll.  The pattern calls for green pink and brown.  I started sorting through the scrap basket last night and realized that I definitely need to use blue.  All those extra blues from my little Dear Jane need somewhere to go.  So what about the other two colors?  I could swap the blue for green and keep the pink and brown, or I could go with a more homogeneous mixture of blue, green and brown. Decisions, decisions.  Either way, I'll need to add a little more variety to my collection of scraps.  I think I'll take advantage of the free shipping on orders over $50 at Connecting Threads. It's so nice that they let you order a fat quarter of any fabric without dropping a lot of money on a coordinated bundle. 

My good friend Meisje (pronounced Meesha) came over today to work on a sewing project for the upcoming Leader Daughter camping trip. Her daughter Sierra is a good friend of Anna's and they were supposed to play.  Instead they wanted to help and collected scraps to turn into their own little craft projects.  Meisje wanted to make team flags out of felt that the girls could decorate and then use to mark their campsites. Maybe she wanted to do it, or maybe I suggested it, either way, it seemed like a fun craft project. So she rotary cut and I sewed and soon enough, we had a stack of adorably cute flags ready for decorations. There is a whole team point thing going on that should be lots of fun.  I also put a vote in for trick-or-treat for trail mix on Friday night.  It's going to be a fun weekend. That reminds me that I said I'd do campfire songs.  I should pull those out and make some copies. 

Still Ending the Year

Today I spent some time sorting through the scrap basket. I tend to throw anything into a basket that is leftover or extra. I enjoy cutting strips and squares mindlessly from time to time, and so tend to pull out the pieces that are largish. What is left are the humblest crumbs that I'm sure most people would toss without a backward glance. I've pulled a few out to make crumb and string blocks, but the basket was overflowing and needed some more drastic attention. Working my way down the basket was like an archeological dig of quilts past. A bit of green parrots from the back of the I spy, still more pieces of whirly giggles, extra bits from the nursing home series, wow, how long ago was the Dresden plates quilt? I guess some of those have been fermenting for a while. A more user friendly organization was called for.
Having seen several spectrum quilts recently, I was inspired to sort my crumbs chromatically. How pretty do they look hanging out together like that? I've got some mixed crumbs still in the works, but as soon as those are finished off I'll try a few monochromatic blocks and see how it goes.

This evening was our end of the year meeting for Girl Scouts. We swam, ate some ice cream and played Just Dance on the Wii. I think that was my last end of the year celebration. Tomorrow swim team starts. I guess that means that summer is really and truly here at last.

How Cute is That?

I threw together a couple of test blocks for the new pattern Bonnie was showing at Quiltville.com. I'm using 2.5 inch strips and pairing up dark and light. I think I can get one dark square and one light square out of each strip pairing. I'll have the girls pull out some strips for me, I think they'll have fun matching them up. I'll call this one Tic-tac-toe. I was planning on Hop scotch, but it really looks like more of a three in a row kind of quilt. I'm on a bit of a children's game series right now in case you couldn't guess. I've got the binding sewn on Whilrygiggles and am going to try to get one more done before ice skating starts again so that I can do the hand stitching there. That's my plan at least. I was going to cut squares this morning but ended up putting everything except a cutting mat into a carry along bag. The best laid plans......

March Madness

It's been two weekends since my last post. (Sounds like the Catholic thing where they say it's been two weeks since my last confession) Last weekend was the big camporee for the Girl Scouts. That required quite a bit of planning and work on my part, and quilting took a back seat for a while. So did house and yard work, so that has taken of bit of catch up and recovery work. It was a nice weekend though, and I think the girls enjoyed themselves. This weekend was the camporee for the Boy Scouts, which was Kurt's job, leaving me home to work on the catching up. It was finally nice enough to venture out into the yard, and I spent 8 solid hours out there cutting out the dead foliage. This winter took a big toll on our landscaping, I can already see some of what is lost, but I think some of it will come back with a little patience. I'm exhausted now, with lots of sore muscles to remind me of my hard work.
Last week at school was our big accreditation visit, so there was a bit of effort needed there as well. That seems to have gone well, though it was a bit stressful for everyone to have lots of visitors traipsing about. There is only a week left until spring break, and that includes half a day on Friday as well as all of the 1oth graders gone on a college visit for one of the days. Not many teaching days amongst all of that, but I'll get as much in as I can.
There are two ladies at work getting ready to have babies any minute, so I decided to take some time this weekend to work on baby quilts. One is going to be girl, so I chose pink and green for that. I based it on a stripy quilt that I designed for the Girl Scout nursing home project a couple of years ago. I think it is soft and feminine, though Kurt thinks it looks like something for a little old lady. (Sometimes I wonder why I keep asking him what he thinks -- he can be brutal). The other is based on a pattern that I saw in Quiltmaker magazine and uses strip sets and four patches surrounding squares of novelty fabrics. I used 2 inch strips instead of the 2.5 inches in the pattern, and increased the size of the center squares as well. I think I changed the corners a bit too, though I don't have the pattern here to check. Looking at the photo, I'm thinking I could have made them a bit larger still to be equal in size to the total size of the 16 patches formed where all the corner squares meet. I've got the blocks put together now, though they aren't in the pictures. Now I've just got to find something for the back and get them all layered up. They aren't large, so it should take long to get them quilted and bound.

Spinning Stars and Cookie Booths

This morning was ice skating as usual. I took the girls to that while Kurt took Ryan to football. We aren't always so sexually stereotyped, but he is one of the assistant coaches and I take rotary cutting to work on during ice skating. Last night I pieced together some green and light 2 inch strips and got them all pressed and ready. Those went with me to ice skating and I worked on cutting the parts and pieces for Bonnie's Star Gazing quilt from the Scraps and Shirttails book. The pattern calls for 2.5 inch strips, but I'm using those for the GS Happy Blocks, so I modified the pattern a bit to help out my overflowing 2 inch bin. I was feeling an urge to work on something new, and this pattern keeps popping back into my consciousness.
I couldn't do much more until after cookie booths. We did a pretty good business in front of a gas station with a carry out pizza shop. It was lunch time and there was a lot of traffic as people came and went with their pizzas. Sydney came with us even though she is in a different troop, she did a fabulous job and stuck with it for longer than some of the bigger girls.

Finally, I was able to get back to my machine and start putting some blocks together! I think most of the quilt is somewhere in the pipeline, but these are the only blocks that are done so far. I put my design wall in the family room and asked Kurt for his opinion, much like a cook would ask someone to taste a dish and to see if it needed more salt. I was getting a mish-mash kind of vibe from the quilt and he is a fan of uniformity. Imagine my surprise when he said that I should try using more colors! He thinks all of the greens look too much alike and he thought they were all the same at first. Really? Maybe we just need better light in the family room, because those greens look pretty different to me. It isn't too late yet, so I'll work a few more blocks through and maybe mix in a few more fabrics. I'm not sure how big this quilt is going to be yet, so I don't know how many blocks I will need. I guess I could figure those things out and plan accordingly. I tend to skip that part and end up with lots of half finished extra bits at the end of a quilt.

It's That Time of Year Again

Cookie time is here. My nice clean study is now full of Girl Scout Cookies! I've gotten a couple of orders out already. Now to see how many more I can get out of the house before Saturday.
I almost made it through the whole day at school today. I had planning the last two periods and took off a few minutes early to try to catch a quick nap before getting the kids from aftercare. I was tutoring after that and then doing the cookie thing. Wow is that cruise starting to sound like a really good idea. I was going to prep a few more DJ blocks for handwork, but I can't seem to find the freezer paper. I remember taking it to school when we did that rotisserie chicken dissection, but I was almost sure I brought it back again. It isn't all that easy to find, I looked at the grocery store on my way to the GS meeting Monday but couldn't find any.

Rather be Quiltng

No school today, so the kids and I were home together. I thought I would finish up the last of my quilt marathon projects, but life got in the way. Anna wanted a ride to a play date and then a parade of random children started coming in and going out. Between keeping up with all of that I managed to fold a couple of loads of laundry. I got one and half borders put on Christmas lights and pressed whirlygiggles, but that is about it on the quilting front. I was very much hoping to finish borders and backing today so that they could be hung nicely until I'm ready to quilt them. I may sneak in for a few minutes after the kids are in bed, but I should really figure out first what I'll be teaching tomorrow.
I pulled a couple of rock climbing pictures off the camera as well. They all had a lot of fun and want to go again next year. Tomorrow there is a Girls Scout leader meeting, cookies are due and we are signed up to serve snacks. Kurt will be headed off to the school board meeting where they will continue to argue over rezoning. Wednesday will bring football and that is as far ahead as my mind has wandered. Sigh, the nicer the weekend, the harder it is to go back to the work week.

Still Freezing

Still waiting patiently for things to thaw around here. Our neighbors just put in a whole yard full of new landscaping and they are keeping things well wrapped hoping to save some of it. Most of are palm trees are getting pretty brown around the edges and I'm not sure how many of them are going to make it. The ones in our yard we really care about are really too big to cover very well so we are just letting natural selection decide which will survive. Maybe spring will bring new landscaping for us as well.
The heater tried valiantly to keep up this weekend, but the temperature just kept slipping down by a couple of degrees per hour over the course of the day. Thank goodness we had so many quilts to keep us warm at night!

I was browsing at Hancock's of Paducah and stumbled on some Girl Scout Fabric! I had seen the Boy Scout version, but this is the first time I've seen these. I promptly loaded a fat quarter bundle of 20 fabrics into my cart and zoomed to the checkout. I'm not at all sure what I will do with it, but I had to have it anyway.

Again to the Finish

2nd Finish today!! Woohoooo! OK, so it helps that both of these quilts were almost done and just needed finishing touches, but still, they are done now and I get do do a little happy dance. Imagine what I could have accomplished if I hadn't been busy until noon with ice skating and errands. So here is the Happy Sock Monkey quilt, my model for the Girl Scout charity quilt project. 80 happy blocks quilted in 4 sections and ready to pass on to Miss Sheila, my co-leader, who will hand stitch the binding. Now I'm off to check the list and find out what's next.

Girl Scout Happy Blocks

Tonight was Girl Scouts. I had them try out the happy block pattern that I am planning to organize as a charity quilting project. It has been on the back burner for a while now, but I'd like to get the kits out there to other troops so that they can work on them in their own time. The girls are doing fairly well with the sewing these days. They remember more each time about how to put the pieces together and then orient them in the machine. It is always interesting to see what the parts are that give them issues. I just kept saying, "jelly side together", "match the edges", and of course, "don't sew your fingers". With three machines and 8 girls we finished 20 blocks in an hour and 15 minutes. That should be about right for a typical troop to do in a single meeting.

6 Sleeps

Last night was Girl Scouts. It worked out well, 'cause it was the only night this week without an ice skating rehearsal or performance. Anna also had a chorus performance this afternoon and the kids have short days at school. It all works out well though with finals at my school. There are some advantages to teaching when you have kids in school.

Santa is coming in just 6 short days and then I'll be boring you all silly with adorably cute photos of the new puppy currently known as Phoebe. I'm pretty sure she is the one on the right. Just remember, I held out for as long as I could.

Little Bits of Lots of Things

I keep waiting for one of those lazy days of summer where the kids will magically entertain themselves and I can sew the day away in my jammies. I could be waiting for years before such a thing happens. Until then, I'm carving out little bits of time after the kids are asleep to move my projects along one step at a time.
We started today with a free movie. On the way home, we had to stop at Target so that Anna could use a gift card she got for her birthday (thanks Aunt Barb!). We also picked out a puzzle to work on together. We worked on that together after lunch. Before the dishes were done, we started negotiations for a sleepover and tried to get in summer reading and a few chores. By then it was time to drop Anna off for the sleepover. Ryan and Sydney wanted to pick up a movie and then we stopped for an early dinner. I did manage to drag the kids through Books-a-Million in the midst of all of that where I found my very own copy of Quiltmaker with the Christmas Lights mystery quilt! I read through that while the kids did baths and such and then we watched the movie while working on the puzzle some more.
They were nestled all snug in their beds by 8, when I zoomed through blogs and e-mail and got in a little machine time. I got the Sock Monkey blocks finished off! This is going to be the sample for the happy blocks pattern that I am using for the Girl Scout service project. I've got about three quilts worth of blocks cut and kitted up so far. I need to finish writing up the directions to go with those. They are based on the pattern at Mary Quilts (sorry, can't do the link, bloglines seems to be broken). I don't think I mentioned that I got a community service award at the last Girl Scout leader meeting of the year. Myra, the leader of the troop who is organizing the service project, and Ashyln, who runs the service unit, both wrote really nice letters about the service project and the quilts I had donated. It came with a pin and a lovely bunch of fresh flowers. I got the yellow HST blocks done for the Christmas mystery and have the black HST blocks ready to cut out. I still need to square up the split squares, but they do look all bright and cheery together.
We're supposed to head out to the theme parks again in the morning, so I should really get to bed early tonight. The kids have each taken a turn to sleep downstairs one of the nights that Dad is out of town. I've got Sydney tonight so I'll be fighting for the covers for sure. It's amazing how strong she can be from the depths of sleep.

Sleepover

Not a lot of sewing has gone on at my house lately. Last weekend was Anna's sleepover party, this weekend was the Girl Scout sleepover party. It feels a bit as if we have opened a hotel for 9 and 10 year old girls.

We had all sorts of badge activities planned, but the girls just wanted to swim. We definitely got the swimming badge well under control! Dinner was Tacos in a bag with ice cream in a bag for dessert. Breakfast was pancakes and muffins in a bag. (I guess you could say we had it all in the bag:). We did do some badge work after swimming and before the movie, so I guess we were somewhat productive. Three girls were fast asleep before the movie was over and the rest spent the wee hours of the morning chattering away in the toy room. This morning brought more swimming and they were all out the front door by 10. Now I'm in need of a nap and a visit from a cleaning lady. She was just here on Thursday, so I guess I'll be the cleaning lady today, right after my nap that is.

I've had an occasional odd moment to putter in the sewing room. I worked on a pattern for a water bottle cozy before graduation yesterday, and on Friday I snuck in and did some cutting and organizing of happy block kits. Nothing photo worthy unfortunately. I did get my Things Quilters Say fabric panel in the mail, so I should be able to get that quilt moving along soon enough.

Monday is the last full day of school for me. Tuesday starts finals and those days are early release for everyone. I've been in massive cleaning and organization mode at school, getting prepared for moving into my new classroom! I don't want to seem too anxious, so I am waiting patiently for the current resident to pack up her belongings before I settle myself in and find a home for my stapler and my tape dispenser. I get so much joy out of the little things in life.

I hope everyone is doing well, I've had time to read all my usual blogs, but not much time to comment. Just one more week and I'll have time oozing out of my ears -- comparatively anyway.

Welcome Flimsy

I have officially gotten my Welcome quilt to the flimsy stage! (For my non-quilter friends, that is the un-quilted top.) I sincerely hope that I didn't misspell anything else. It's all fastened down now, so it would take some work to undo. There are some potential backing fabrics auditioning on the family room floor right now. I went crazy buying this fabric for my Elm Creek Sampler quilt, so there were plenty to choose from. I added in some fat quarters that I won in a giveaway a tiny bit ago, and I think they mix together happily. The tub isn't even close to empty yet, so I'm thinking of adding in some of the lights and putting a wonky log cabin on the someday list. I am patting myself on the back for starting this one and getting it to this stage in just 20 days. Thanks to Patchwork Penguins UFO challenge, I'm doing well on my list. I guess spring break had something to do with my success, but I'm still smiling from ear to ear.

I just got back from the Girl Scout SUM (service unit meeting). I dropped off my Buttons and Bowties quilt for donation. It was my March UFO and I just never quite liked the color combinations on that one. It was much easier to say goodbye to that one than the Scrappy Irish Chain last month. I worked forever on that one as leaders and enders and was super happy with how it turned out. I need to start thinking about the Happy Blocks project again and try to put something together before the next SUM which is the last before summer. I got some more of the sock monkey fabric in from Fat Quarter Shop, so I should be able to put a sample together to show everyone the plan. After I come up with a plan of course.

OK, I just spent half an hour putting in all those links. Somebody please follow them so I don't feel like I've shamelessly squandered my time:). Fringe is on TV and I watched a Hulu marathon of it this weekend. I had never seen it before then, but now I'm feeling attached to the characters. I think I'll watch while I plan out the Welcome Back and scrounge for some batting. Happy Tuesday everyone. It's almost hump day.

Girl Scout Monday

Tonight was the night for our Girl Scout Troop to take a tour of the pet shop.

Look at the adorable hats we got.

We worked on our Caring for Animals Badge. The ladies who work at the store did a very nice job of telling us about all of the different animals and what kind of care each needed. The girls were so excited to hold and pet all of the animals.

I had a little time last night to work and started putting together the letters for Star light Star bright. Looking at the photo, the top of the second S seems to have disappeared. I still need to make two more blocks for the bottom. I'm always surprised at how long a twin sized quilt is. This will be another donation quilt, so it needs to be the right size. I want to spend a few minutes puttering away at the welcome quilt, but I need to get to bed early. I've been up until midnight too many evenings recently and I am in serious pain from lack of sleep. I even tried to take a nap this afternoon, but Sydney prevented that from happening. I spent all afternoon at school finishing up grades and preparing for an electrophoresis lab tomorrow. The kids are all counting down the days, so getting anything done is like pushing jello up a hill.