Sunday - Time to Pause?

I am looking forward to a little quiet time today.   We had a beach walk this morning, then took the girls out to breakfast.  We have a restaurant within walking distance that does patio seating with a beach view.   Anna is only coming home every other weekend, which is a sign of progress.   It does mean that I spent yesterday fighting for laundry time though.  Somehow after moving her loads forward for her all day, she still managed to leave with the last load sitting in the dryer.  And Sydney, bless her heart, put a load into the washer but never started it.    I am still hopeful that I will manage to produce a set of clean sheets before the end of the day.   

I am also making slow and steady progress on sewing the rows together for the red quilt.   The nine patches are made from 2 inch squares which makes each block 5 inches unfinished.   I cut 5 inch strips of red and then used the easy angle ruler to cut triangles without the bias being on the outside edge of the strips.   I suppose to cut them from squares you would need to cut each square into quarters.   I did the math on it and figured out that I would need to start with 7.5 inch squares to do it that way.   

I've been digging though old projects, orphan blocks and random stacks.   These hexies are giant and random and are older than my youngest daughter!   I am not feeling that I want a to finish this quilt and so I will repurpose these into tiny hexies to add to my rainbow diamond blocks.   I think that I will find a nice movie and some scissors and settle in for some hand work prep time.   I had wanted to sort through all of the randomness before we moved two years ago, but somehow it all just got dumped into boxes and carried over to the new house.   It feels good to sort through it all.   

I will link up with Kathy's Quilts and Oh Scrap! today.   Looking at what others are accomplishing will be a nice inspiration for continuing to make progress on my own projects.   

Sunday Progress

 

I saved out the bigger scraps while ironing some strings for little log cabin blocks.   I will work on those during virtual tutoring from 4 to 5.  I used to have extra help available during our lunch hour at school, but we have three lunches now and so we have been having online sessions on Sundays instead.  There is no way to know how many people there will be, or when they will come, so having something nearby will help pass the time if there are lags.  

My main goal today was to finish this quilt for Kurt's friend from work.   It took most of the afternoon yesterday and 37 flights of stairs to get everything assembled and ready to go.  By that time I was too tired to quilt!

So first thing this morning I decided to jump in.   I was about halfway done when my top thread ran out!  Well that put a bit of a damper on things.  I had another spool which was the same color, but it was much thicker and didn't tension the same.   I have a line of quilts ready to go, but I'll have to find the right thread first.  Joann's was out, but they have a truck coming tomorrow.   I have a spool ordered online, so we will have to see which works out first.   I hope you are having a restful or productive Sunday.  Having both never seems to work out, but if you have any scrappy or hand stitching to share, but sure to check out Oh Scrap! and Slow Stitching Sunday.  

Binding Time

 I just finished sewing the binding onto Anna's dorm room quilt.  I'm settled in now with Princess Bride on HBO ready for the hand stitching.

  It has been great to have a few days at home.  In between sewing there have been exciting summertime projects like organizing the tupperware an scrubbing the tile.  I just got my welcome back letter from school.  Still a few days to go though, so I'll enjoy them while I can. 

Back to Quilting

I was happy to see that the ScrapHappy Saturday post went up as planned.  It is always a little scary to be away from all technology and know that there isn't any way to fix a problem if it pops up.  By Saturday, we were on our way back from Yellowstone to Salt Lake City getting ready to fly home again.  I'll post some vacation pictures soon, but for now I have quilting updates.  

It feels good to be back home again and to have time to spend in front of the sewing machine. It has taken the better part of the last three days to get Anna's dorm room quilt to the flimsy stage.   

 We ordered some extra wide backing fabric for the reverse.  I think there will be enough leftover for pillow shams. 

 The half hexie pattern was slow and required lots of starts and stops.  These are all the leader and ender squares I finished while making sure all the pieces lined up row by row.  I'm just about out of 2.5 inch squares.  The four patches will be joined into 16 patches and add to the collection of blocks for later. 

While emptying photos off of the good camera, I found 429 pictures of Sydney playing lacrosse.  Her summer season if over and she is chilling at home doing not much of anything for the next few weeks until school starts again.  

Sunday Puttering

The girls had a garage sale this weekend which led to some much needed tidying up and clearing out.  We let them keep any money they made, so the motivation level was high.  While moving things around, I found this blue Dear Jane block from last summer which just needs a little bit of hand work on the applique.  Most of the block was paper pieced, but the triangles at the bottom need a bit of slow stitching time. 

Ryan is having a birthday party today, and though I am mostly trying to stay out of the way, I pop out every now and again to make sure people have something to drink and to refresh the snacks.  In between that, I've been getting rid of junk mail by turning it into move hexies for my slow stitching project.  Anna punched them for me while I was working on her quilt for a bit, but she has moved on, leaving me to punch my own paper piecing templates.  It is actually quite fun to see what little bits of text show up while I am sewing the hexies diamonds together.  Sometimes it is a coupon for a discount on air conditioning and sometimes it is a new dentist offering free consultations.    It is nice to put all this wasted card stock to good use. 
The house is starting to look pretty spiffy with all of these summer projects.  I'm sure it will all be back to normal soon enough though.  Entropy has a way of getting the better of all of my good intentions.  Speaking of which, I think the laundry just buzzed.  I'll go move it along and then head over to visit Kathy for Slow Stitching Sunday.  

It's the Little Things

 I was finishing off the last of a tin of chocolates from Valentine's day today when I noticed that the size and shape seemed just right for my hexie diamonds.  Look how perfectly they fit!  I know I'm not the only one to get excessively excited by finding just the right container for an ongoing project. 

 I ran out of card stock to prep more fabric on Sunday, but, there always seems to be a supply of junk mail incoming from colleges these days.  With Anna being a senior and Ryan being a junior, the mail never seems to stop.  I've been using my scrapbooking punch to cut more templates.  The bigger hexagon is 1.5 inches which is just petite enough to be adorable.  Someday I'll make something from the smaller size.  My someday list always seems to be growing. 

I also got the blocks all prepped and the sashing strips ready for the t-shirt quilt.  I'll get those sewn together soon.  It's been a crazy week at work so far and it's only Tuesday!  The quarter ended today and there are lots of meetings this week.  Friday is a teacher workday though, so I'll be able to tie up all the loose ends before the last quarter gets into full swing.  Where has the time gone?  The kids are already picking classes for next year!

Not So Slow on Sunday

Somehow yesterday turned into spring cleaning day.  I hadn't planned it that way, but Kurt got out the pressure washer and one thing led to another.... You know how it goes.  So today was going to be my relaxation day.  Somehow a morning run led to a grocery store trip and then the errands began.   My mind is still not adjusted to the time change yet, so I'll sit and ponder that a bit.  Florida has just passed a law to stay on daylight savings time all year round.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.  I think it will lead to a lot more of going to school in the dark.  The more evening daylight part will be nice though.  

 Just back now from picking out fabrics for Katherine's T-shirt quilt for graduation.  I don't usually take commission quilts, but I made one for each of her older brothers.  One thing leads to another again.  The request was for Tiffany blue.  I couldn't find just the right shade, but I am really fond of the flannel backing.  The fabrics are in the washer now, so I think I'll just sit here and rest for a bit while they finish up.  I promised a final layout before the end of the day. 

 I've been sewing a few more hexies in the evenings.  Just blue and purple so far, but green is up next. 

I went through all the lime green scraps to cut one of each for my collection.  Then I found some extra circles and background fabrics cut away from behind the circles of two years ago and turned all of those into still more hexies.  It looks like I'll have plenty of handwork to keep me busy on the next long trip.  I've got flights to Paris and Kansas City to look forward to this summer, so hexie diamonds will be a nice way to pass the hours. 
Linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday and Oh Scrap!

Superbowl Sunday

 I thought I had cleaned up and organized everything at the new year.  Still, I keep finding extra blocks all around the sewing room.  Hiding in a stack leaders and enders were plenty of multi color four patches to finish off the borders for four squared.  It needs a good ironing and then I'll dig for some backing fabric. 

 I've finally decided on a new handwork project.  These hexie diamonds are simple and small enough to carry along without too much thought or planning.  I had planned originally to border each block with white all the way around.  It is a lot of white though. 

Now that I have finished a few, I think I might snug them together a bit more tightly.  I kind of like the little three hexie shape that forms between the blocks.  It might make a nice secondary pattern.  Plenty of time to figure that out though, isn't the long slow decision making process one of the best parts of handwork?
It is Superbowl Sunday and we have been invited to a party for later.  First though, there is time for puttering around the house with normal weekend chores.  Kurt has gone to drop Ryan off at robotics, and we ordered some groceries online for pickup.  One of the other teachers at school does her shopping that way and says it is a big time and money saver because you don't end up putting so many impulse snacks into the cart.  The online shopping part was certainly easy and quick.  We will see how the pickup goes.  It will be a busy week at school, but fortunately Kurt is home again.  He's had a lot of weeks out of town lately and it is always nice to have him back home again. 
I've been watching The Tudors while I sew now that I've finished off The Crown and am up to date with Victoria.  It is a bit spicy and not something I would put on the big TV where the kids would see it.  Always interesting to watch a historically based show when you know the major plot points if not all the details.  Henry has already been through two wives and is just starting on number three. 
I'm linking up with Oh Scrap! and with Slow Stitching Sunday.  

Handwork Hexies

I've been thinking lately that I need a new handwork project.  Though hexies seem like an obvious choice, I wasn't sure where to go with them.  I planned out several fabulous medallions for later.  For now, I want something simple and discrete.  After much pondering and pinteresting, I decided on some 9 patch diamonds in the colors of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Check out this Simple Things blog post for and idea of where my diamond hexie blocks are headed.   There was a larger rainbow diamond block on pinterest that was tempting too, maybe next time. 
On Sunday I dug out some light blue to put together my first diamonds during Victoria.   I'm enjoying this show as a replacement for Downton Abbey.  It is on in the same time slot on Sunday evening, which is a great time to settle in for stitching and TV viewing.
Before the speech last night I found enough fabric for 5 blocks of lavender.  Unfortunately, I couldn't start watching the speech until after the 9 pm robotics pickup up, and I was fast asleep on the couch before the second standing ovation.  Kurt has been out of town this week though, and I'll take advantage of the alone time after the kids have disappeared upstairs to sew a bit more.  Right after banana bread that is,  it is fresh from the oven and smells so good!  Hopefully I'll make it awake past 9:30 tonight.