Done Done

I finished up the quilting on Old Hurricane Road this weekend. This is my first experiment with sybolism in my quilting. The swirls in the pinwheel and four patch area represents hurricanes and the spikes in the bricks represent palm trees. I haven't had tons of time to work on it (work, kids, cleaning, laundry, meetings, girl scouts, LIFE) but I did manage to finish the last of the handstitching on the binding this afternoon.

I even got it put onto the bed in the study/guestbedroom/sewing room. It took a bit of reorganization to find the daybed in there under all of the fabric, but a little sorting and putting away made a big difference. It will all need to be cleared out in a couple of weeks when my mother-in-law comes to visit, so it's good to get a start on it. I love the way the big flying geese are flying around the edge. I think the daybed shows that off nicely.

Only 7 more school days until winter break. We are all feeling a little grumpy right about now so I hope the week off will restore our spirits! It may be just my imagination, but everyone seems to be a little stressed right now.

I spent a big chunk of the day shopping for new insurance. I had to get the new car added on, so I thought I'd go ahead and get some more quotes while I was at it. We've kept our car insurace with State Farm because they have our homeowners. They are now plannning to pull all of thier homeowners insurance out of the state of Florida, so I might as well shop around. Finding car insurance was pretty easy, but I'm struggling on the homeowners. Everyone seems to think our house is worth twice as much as we paid for it even though the market has seriously crashed and we'd be very lucky to be able to sell it for what we owe right now. There are 13 houses for sale on our block, 5 of them are short sales, and then there are three forclosures that I know of that haven't come back up for sale yet. I guess I'll keep shopping, it's still a long time before hurricane season comes again.

Camping and Such

I worried a lot about the weather being too cold to camp this weekend. Although it did get a little chilly at night, it was quite nice during the day. This was the weekend for the annual leader daughter camping trip hosted by our Girl Scout Service Unit. I took both girls for the first time this year as it is Sydney's first year as a Daisy Scout. Much camping fun was had by all, from geo-caching and fishing to s'mores and campfire songs. We found two caches in our first try with the GPS, but didn't manage to catch any fish. I'm pretty happy about that 'cause I didn't bring anything to clean or cook the fish with if we had caught any. Honestly, I forgot to bring the bait, but Girls Scouts are always prepared and everyone else seemed to have plenty to share.

Sydney took a little power nap in the afternoon while Anna was off to do a mail-box trail with her friend Meredith. The day ended with the required campfire songs and s'more roasting session. I'm always amazed at how readily we hand sharp pointy stick over to young kids and sent them over to a roaring blaze with only a hat or bandana for protection.

Ryan was pretty excited to have all of us girls out of the house and had all sorts of "boy time" planned for the men folk at home. They were both a little sad that there was no football on TV, but they still managed to have some quality time together.

Most of the weekend was booked, but I did manage to lay out my Old Hurricane Road quilt on Sunday afternoon while everyone else was busy with an Odysey of the Mind practice. This is my UFO of the month for January, and I'm running out of time to get it finished up. I got a few rows quilted before dinner tonight, and I think it will finish up pretty quickly. I'm going to put some palm frond like shapes in the dark colored rectangles and some sort of circular hurricane type shape in the pinwheel areas. I'm tying it all in to my theme of "Florida in the Fall". I'm hoping by the time I get this one finished up I'll have come up with some inspiration for my Double Delight border.

Backings

It's 11:40 and I should have been in bed an hour ago. I have a troop meeting tomorrow night and really need to have the formal living and dining room back into some sort of shape by then. Usually I just grab everything and throw it into the guest bedroom, but I always end up forgetting what went where when I do that. So this time I decided to go ahead and get the backings for Hurricane Road and Dad's Plaids pieced so that I could make sure all the pieces were together before key parts got put away and used for something else. If it weren't already so late I'd go ahead and piece the binding strips so that I can be done done. As it is, I'm hot and sweaty from fighting with big pieces of fabric, but I've got two completed tops folded neatly together with their backs, hanging in the closet waiting for a basting party. Now I'd better go and try to get some sleep or I'll be bleary eyed for a whole new week.

Hurricane Road has a Home

I decided that my Hurricane Road quilt should live on the daybed in the guest bedroom. I think the colors look happy there. I have two finished flimsies now to get layered and basted and then I can switch into quilting mode for a bit. I've added lots of leftovers to the scrap bin, so I'll have to give that some attention before I decide what is next. Since this quilt was a new project, it seems fair that I should spend some time on something old next. I may give some attention to the smaller experiments that I've been playing with lately and turn one or two of those into finished projects. The best thing about finishing something is being able to look forward to what is next.

WooHooo!

Lookie at what I made! I finished up the last border tonight right before I had to head out to a girl scout leader thingie and did a little happy dance. I think it's only about 3 weeks since Labor day, so that's not bad for a whole quilt. Especially not considering how hectic things have been between work and kids and running and life and all that stuff. I think I need a little time for me, no matter how busy things get. I get more relaxation from my few minutes with pins and rotary cutters and little bits of fabric than I would from a yoga class or a massage. I did go out for lunch with a girl friend today and we got pedicures, so I guess I got two doses of relaxation today. I'm calling this Hurricane Road, but when you say it, you have to hum the Holiday Road song from Chevy Chases Family Vacation movie.

So Close

I got the inner border measured and sewn on, and all of the flying geese put together for my Hurricane Road quilt. I just need to sew the goose border onto the quilt and then put on the outer border and I should be good.
Bonnie's design called for pinwheels and four patches in the corners of the border, but I'm out of all of those, so I think I'll use more flying geese and just have them turn the corner. I'll look at it in daylight tomorrow and see If that is still what I want to do. It's after 11 now, and probably to late to make any design decisions. I'd better go turn in or I'll be all bleary eyed in the morning. This is my week for car loop duty, so I need to get in earlier than usual to be ready before my duty starts.

Finally a Fairly Finished Top

I finally sewed the last seam on the Old Hurricane Road middle! I'm still pretty sure that the top and bottom are not quite right, but I'm declaring it good enough. Bonnie's pattern ended up at 57.5" X 78.5 while mine ended up a much smaller 55 x 75. I guess super sized seams will do that for a quilt. The geese are all done, I just need to measure the seams and see if I had already switched to the zig-zag foot when I started them. If so, then I'll just keep going with the wrong allowance for the border. Although now that I think about it, that might make the math a little rough. 19 geese at three inches each is a 57 inch border so I guess I need to cut 1.5 inches top and bottom. Of course 75 divided by 3 is 25. so the long sides don't technically need an inner border. For consistency though I should put something there, so if I increase each edge by one, then I'll need to cut 2 inch strips to make it work out. I think that makes sense. Amy would probably be able to tell me if that is right. It was an easy day at school today. We had a guest speaker in Forensic Science and started electron configuration in Chemistry. I do an analogy with and apartment building and lazy but poor college students to explain the orbitals. Either they are all really smart or I'm just a good explainer, because almost everyone seemed to get it on the first time through.

Could I Possibly be More Oblivious?

I never switch feet. I just slap the quarter inch foot on my Bernina and go in fast forward. If I do ever switch, it is to the darning foot for free motion or the walking foot. The Girl Scouts on Monday made fabric shopping bags which need a zig-zag foot. I had just sewn the last diagonal row of Old Hurricane Road together when I realized that I had been using the wrong foot all weekend! Most of the top was done, with just the last few rows left to sew on. All with a 3/8 inch seam allowance. I'll be curious to find out what the final measurements are. I thought the blocks seemed to be shrinking up an awful lot, but I just kept going, oblivious. Lesson learned, if something seems strange, it is better to check right away. I decided at that point is was best to save the rest for tomorrow when I can reassess in the light of day.
I spent most of the afternoon prepping and painting in the master bathroom. Kurt has been plugging away in there for ages and I was starting to feel guilty for not participating. Also, he is not to be trusted with a tube of caulk. There is a certain amount of finesse in the finishing work that he seems to be lacking. So I got the woodwork all sanded and caulked, taped off the edges and got most of the trim freshened up. There was a bit of repair work to be done from the baseboards that he reattached after Jeanne a few years ago. I tried to fix it at the time, but I think I handled it wrong and hurt his feelings. All of the holes in the walls have been filled and sanded and the wall paper mural has been removed. I just need to finish up the woodwork and then the walls should be ready for a fresh coat of paint. We are going with a color called Pale Sand 4. Most of the house is Pale Sand 2 or Pale Sand 1. This is just a slightly darker version of the same thing. It is sage green right now, but I think beige will go better with all the new tile. I am of course wishing now that I hadn't painted the closets green as well. One thing at a time I guess.

Slowly Coming Together

Weekends are a wonderful gift. Friday I spent entertaining the kids while Dad went out to play. This morning he paid me back by taking all of the kids to ice skating and letting me sleep in. I usually do a long run on Saturday, but we're doing Sunday this weekend, so I got two entire extra hours of sleep! Glorious. I puttered around while everyone was gone, alternating between cleaning up the house and putting together some quilt blocks. I am starting to figure out the whole diagonal setting thing on Old Hurricane Road. It is coming together bit by bit. The entire upper corner is together and pressed, and all of the middle rows done, but not on the quilt yet. I've just started to turn the bottom corner, but I think it will come together a lot faster than the top, now that I have an idea of how it works. I still keep looking back at the layout diagram, thanks to Bonnie for doing all that work. As I'm sewing away, I still keep pondering a smaller version in spring colors.
This afternoon we had birthday parties at 12 and 2 so we did the divide and conquer. I was drafted for the ice skating party (more skating!) and Kurt volunteered for the water slide party in the neighborhood so that he could watch the Iowa game on TV. Nobody was horribly hungry for dinner after all of that birthday cake and pizza, so we had a simple meal followed by baths and bed. Everyone is fast asleep now (including my husband) so I can finish putting my top together with no guilt. I won't stay up too late though, we're doing our long run in the morning over the causeway again so that we can do some hill work. I think 11 is the lucky number, but I'd better check the schedule so that I am sure.

Slowly, Painfully

I must be missing some spatial recognition synapse in the depths of my gray matter. I had the OHR all laid out previously and ready to sew, but couldn't quite get the ends figured out and had to put it all away. So I got it out again yesterday and decided I was going to get the top put together this weekend if it killed me. Running and training meetings ate up Saturday, but I was full of hope for today. Surely I could get one simple task completed in the course of an otherwise unscheduled day. In the middle of 14 loads of laundry, regular weekend cleaning (even though the housekeeper was here just 2 days ago!), supervision of children, grocery shopping, and planning for a Girl Scout meeting, I managed to get about 5 rows put together. I just kept fussing with the different edge pieces to try to get everything to line up straight. I know it wasn't that complicated, but it just wasn't clicking for me. I think I need a book called diagonal settings for dummies. Maybe if I had been able to spend a couple of uninterrupted hours, I could have made it all happen, but that just isn't an option around here.
Tomorrow is a teacher workday for me, but a regular school day for the kids. This may be one of the ones they had to give back for Tropical Storm Fay. I'm supposed to do CPR training in the morning and then a book discussion in the afternoon. I read most of the book this summer in Jamaica, but I'd better go "refresh my recollection" as they say in court. I'm thankful that it isn't a regular school day, because my tests aren't graded yet, and I'm giving another test on Tuesday that isn't written yet. Kurt keeps rolling his eyes at me and telling me that I'm over committed. I'd have plenty of time for the drudgery if I gave up all the fun stuff. Other than that I'm not sure how I'm supposed to make everything fit.

Girl Scout Sweat Shop

One of the moms in my troop donated a HUGE roll of upholstery fabric to the troop. Her mom got it to recover a sofa. The sofa never got recovered, and she was looking for a good home for some wayward fabric. Our first badge this year is going to be the eco-action patch, which has do with trying to save the environment. One of the options was to find out about alternatives to plastic grocery bags, so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to have the girls make their own reusable fabric shopping bags. I've got the handy tutorial that I worked up this summer, and the bags come together in about 10 minutes of sewing time. There was enough fabric on the roll to cut out 16 bags! We'll practice some of our sewing machine skills at the same time, and warm up for the quilting project that we have scheduled for November. While I was at it, I dug through my box of donated fabric and pulled out the rest of the heavier weight fabric to cut out 12 more bags. Rotary cutting is so therapeutic for me, I could just slice fabric into little bits all day long. I'm not exactly sure what we will all do with 28 fabric shopping bags, but I've been mulling over trying to sell them at a Girl Scout leader meeting with a flier inserted about the evils of plastic bags. If we sell them for $5 each, we will have enough money to pay for most of the batting for the nursing home quilts.
I also found a really easy tutorial from Crazy Mom Quilts that uses a tuna can to make an adorable pin cushion. I'm going to have my girls do this as part of the sewing badge, and they can practice fancy machine stitching on the fabric that makes up the sides of the can.
I was at a school coordinator training session all day, and it was just so long. It's all good information, I just have trouble sitting still for that long when I have a never ending "to do" list running through my head. I was disciplined enough to get up early and get my long run in before the training, so at least I could feel smug about already having 10 miles in for the day.
I don't have anything officially scheduled for tomorrow. There is a free symphony concert that is going on for the kids. Every so often it is good to have them do something culturally enriching. They have a petting zoo after when the kids get to try out all sorts of different instruments. Last year we took the whole Girl Scout troop and it was a lot of fun. So I should try to talk everyone into that, but my main agenda item is getting my OHR quilt top put together. All of the blocks are done, and they spent a week laid out on the dining room floor. Then the housekeeper was coming on Thursday and I had to pick everything up and put it away so she could clean the floor. Now it's partially reassembled, but I'd better get it together before the Girl Scout meeting on Monday or I'll have to start over again.

Gaggles of Geese

I cut out the geese for the border on Bonnie's Old Tobacco Road Quilt this afternoon, but I didn't have much time to work on it. Anna had a play date this afternoon and then there was a Cub Scout Pack meeting tonight as well as a Girl Scout Team meeting. I let Kurt take the kids to his meeting, which made mine more relaxing. Then when I got home, I used my favorite double pinning technique to get the geese ready to piece. Maybe tomorrow I can sit down in the afternoon and get them chained through the machine.
I'm doing two labs tomorrow at school, so I need to go in early and get the prep work done. I ran this morning and had to rush out, still sweating, forgetting to bring the iron that I needed to heat set one of the types of fingerprints. We'll have to do that tomorrow instead.

Finally, Something Quilty!

My plans for quilting the nights away while Kurt was out of town turned out to be overly optimistic. I spent my precious few hours after the kids were in bed grading papers and folding laundry. Not fun, but necessary.
Hannah dropped a bunch of rain on us Friday morning during school bus time. It was fine for the rest of the day, but I hated sending the kids off to school looking like drowned rats. As I hopped in the car to head into work, I noticed water running down the wall of the garage through the ceiling. Apparently our roof has sprung a little leak. I climbed up after work to see what the problem was, and I think it is easily fixable. I think they should have put flashing on the edge that meets the roof and didn't. So I spent the afternoon reading up on oversized, preformed kickout flashing. I don't know if reading about it means I can install it, but even if we end up calling a roofer, at least I'll have a concept about what to ask for. There was also a popped nailhead, which could have been the culprit, so I put that on the honeydew list. When the kids got home, they had a friend over to play and I weeded and pruned around the pool enclosure while they swam. After bed time, I bagged up three huge trash bags full of toys, too small clothes, and miscellaneous rubbish from the Sydney's room and the toy room. I didn't hide the fact that I had cleaned out tons of stuff, but I didn't make a big deal out of it either. So far nobody has noticed anything missing.
By Saturday morning, Kurt was back, and I was finally able to get out and run. We went to the causeway and did almost 10 miles of hills! After that the rest of the day was consumed with more play dates and entertaining the kids. Oh, and a little nap after my hill climbing.
Sunday I went out to run again, and decided since I was already sweaty and grubby, I should do some work in the yard. I have been wanting to do some more caulking around the windows since we had the damp windowsill during Fay. The caulking led to some touch-up paint on the trim work, and getting the ladder out for all of that made me want to do some pruning and weeding in the front of the house. That took my up to lunch time with just enough time to shower and run to Target for a birthday present before an afternoon ice skating party.
Finally, after all of that, I had some time to start working on OHR again. I put the rest of the brick units together and then ironed all my new fall fabric so that I could cut the solid, fall colored bricks. I laid it all out after dinner, even though I haven't got the edges quite right yet, I'm liking the way this is turning out. I'm glad I did the color controlled scheme, with each region of the quilt makes nice little rows. I think it would look really cool with bright yellow pinwheels, green four patches, and blue bricks. A sunshine in spring version of the quilt. I am definitely going to do the geese border, but I should be good and do some school work tonight rather than cutting them right now.

Step Four

I got the four patch and pinwheel units for my Old Hurricane Road quilt laid out and cut out some of the bricks before realizing that I didn't have enough brown and rust to cut out 108. I probably could have forged ahead and gotten 90% of the way done with step four, but with Kurt being out of town next week I feared I would be out of fabric and stranded at home with the kids. So I left him to feed dinner to the gang and made a trip to Joann's Fabric and Jason's Deli, my favorite "just for me" getaway. I now have a lovely assortment of fall hues, and a pleasant print for the back. Now if I find some lonely evening hours to spend with my sewing machine, I'll be all set.
I'm a little anxious to have Kurt going so far away with yet another hurricane brewing out there, but if we canceled every thing we had planned every time there was a hurricane, we wouldn't get much done in the fall. He's supposed to be flying back on Friday when it is supposed to be skimming the east coast, but that is too many "supposed tos" to make any plans around.
It's already 9:25 and I need to get last weeks chemistry tests graded before the morning. I could have done them at any point this weekend, but I was having such a good time with my mystery quilt that I didn't want to switch gears. I'd better get busy or I'll be all bleary eyed in the morning.

Mostly Done

I have finished ALL the four patches and pinwheels for the first and second steps of the OTR mystery quilts. I haven't done the little angled bits for the diagonal setting yet, but I'm bleary eyed already after a late night last night. I have such a short attention span as a quilter. I think that is what makes it hard for my to do color controlled quilts. I had picked out a very pretty bundle of fat quarters with dusty shades of blue, green, red and beige. Well, after seeing the same green square go by a couple of hundred times I started to think I should branch out and started pulling different greens out of my stash. Then I remembered doing a pointalism exercise in high school art class and having to use complementary colors to add depth to the work. So out came the teals and the purples to liven up the bunch. So much for color controlled. I still need to press the pinwheels, but those little guys are really bulky in the middle and need to opened up and mushed flat before I get the iron out. Tomorrow is another day. I'm not even logging on to bloglines tonight because I know I would be too tempted to peek at the next step. I'm not very good about leaving presents alone under the Christmas tree either.

Round 1.5

If orange and yellow, and brown are the colors of the tobaco fields of a North Carolina fall, then my colors are appropriate for a Florida fall. I chose green for the palm trees and blue for the rain, I might add red for hurricane warnings with some purple and brown just in case. I'll have to see what the next steps bring. I'm doing color controlled, and so far I have pieced 124 green 4 patches and 231 blue pinwheels. I'm too tired now to start another round, so I'll return the family room to habitability and call it a night. I've been watching marathons of labor day "chick flicks" and catching up on the weather on the commercials. Even with Gustav over Cuba at the moment, we are getting occasional rain bands. Key West is getting 55 mile gusts, which is faster than what Fay brought. We're still watching Hanna, but she shouldn't be a concern until the middle of next week.

The kids all had good days today, this is a picture of Sydney helping wash Dad's car. She decided she didn't need a bath tonight because she had already taken one in the bucket.

Old Hurricane Road

There isn't any tobacco around here except at the 7-11, but hurricanes seem to be on everyones mind, so maybe I'll call this one Old Hurricane Road. Fall is that time of the year for us. I wasn't going to do the mystery this weekend, because we were supposed to be out of town. Plans changed, but I still wasn't going to do it, because I don't have much for fall hued tones in my stash. Then I remembered a beautiful bundle of fat quarters that my mom got me for Christmas last year which I've been saving for something special. It was blue, red and white with a patriotic theme, but in dusky sorts of shades. I pulled some more greens and some purples, and I should have enough choices to keep my options open. I was a little worried that I didn't have any brown and thought about using the red there, but then I remembered a packet of 10 inch charms that I ordered with teal and brown. The teal part looks a little lonely now, but I pulled several browns out. I already had plenty of 4 patches for the first step, but I'm thinking of making more so I can use a more color controlled palate. Four patches come together so quick, and then I can use these for the Irish chain that I have kind of started. While I can tell myself that I don't need a new project, my last two mystery quilts were finished and bound while other UFO's sat waiting.
I got up early to run this morning, I need to do lots of laundry today, and grade some papers for school, other than that I should be able to do a little sewing.