A Labor Day Finish

 After a day and a half of nonstop stitching, OMG is done.  Hoping to get something other than the traditional receding rectangle photo of a quilt on the ground, I enlisted a couple of quilt holders with a ladder.

 They were happy to hold it for a split second, long enough to snap a quick photo.

 And then, they were off again!  We were lucky to get in the quick photo shoot before the rain started to pour.

Here is the back.  A nice paisley print with some pink peacocks.  One end was just a touch short, and needed to be stretched out with a tiny bit of extra border fabric.  

Things are not looking good for Irma.  As soon as the rain lets up, I should head out and make sure the hurricane supplies are restocked just in case.  

Quilting Interrupted

Company is coming.  We thought that I was going to keep my machine set up instead of taking it up and down each time, but my in-laws can't manage the stairs, and so the machine has come apart again.  Kurt's parents will take our bed and his sister will sleep in the study/sewing room.  I'm not all the way done with putting things away, but it is a start.  It always goes well for a while and then I grab a big basket and hide the rest away until later.

 I got the first third of the OMG Churn Dashes sewn together yesterday.  It takes quite a while to match up all the seams.  I am loving the way it looks though, so I will keep sewing slowly but surely.

The other two thirds are ready to go.  Maybe next weekend when company has gone?  

Until then, I made sure to  keep out the Broken Dishes quilt for hand quilting.  

And the basket of circles is all prepped and ready to go.  Between those two, I should have plenty to keep me happy until the sewing room is mine again. 

Home Again and Ready for a Nap

We were in Hilton Head this weekend to visit with family.  After all the recent travel I wanted nothing more than to stay home, but it didn't quite work out that way.  I was worried that it would be super crowded on the holiday weekend, but it didn't seem that way at all.  We had a nice time visiting with Kurt's parent's and siblings.  We each had our own condos, so there was an occasional break from the chaos.  Most of the time though it was lots of good loud family fun.  Many card games, a few trips to the beach and plenty of time to catch up on what everyone has been up to.  After this it will be Thanksgiving before we will be able to see everyone again.
I did take along my orange peels, but did not get many stitches taken.  I think it was last weekend that I worked on my nine patches.  It looks like there are 12 ready to go in orange.  Slowly but surely this quilt will come together.  As busy as it has been in the transition back to school I will remain grateful for whatever small snatches of sewing time I can steal away.  

Design Wall Monday June 29, 2015

 It's been a while since I put the churn dashes up on the wall.  The wall isn't big enough though, and I needed to know how many of each to make.

So I sat down with some graph paper and colored pencils and started counting.  I will need 400 blocks, so far I have about 150 completed.  Now that I have a plan, I can keep going without having to do another big display.  So my design wall today is more virtual than tangible, but extremely useful nonetheless.  I am linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times, so be sure to go see what everyone else has up on their design walls today.
I spent most of the morning helping Anna to finish painting her room.  Now that it is reassembled, I will enjoy some sewing time this afternoon.  Our neighbors son is in town for a visit and he will be be bringing his family over for an afternoon swim, but other than that, it should be a pretty calm afternoon.  This might just be our only week of uninterrupted summer vacation and we are trying to enjoy every minute.  I gave each of the kids a day and asked them to play something special they wanted to do.  Ryan wants to go to Taco Bell for Dorito Loco Tacos on Tuesday.  Sydney wants to stay up all night watching movies and eating popcorn on Wednesday.  Anna wants to have a home version of cupcake wars with Sydney on Friday.  That just leaves Thursday, I think I will take the gang out to see Jurassic World.  Soaking up every minute of summer!  

And So Begins Summer

 Yesterday was post planning, and so I went in to finish off grades and polish off the last of my checklist.  When I got home, I started sewing tiny little nine patches.  Now that I have a shoe box full of nine patches, I am ready to start turning them into bigger blocks.

Most of them will go together with two inch squares to make slightly larger nine patches.  The rest will be the center of these little churn dash blocks.

I had a meeting with the Costa Rica Team first thing this morning.  On the way home again I had to stop for this Sandhill Crane family walking down the street bobbing their little heads in unison.  Now that I am home again, I think that  I will cut out some more parts and make a few more blocks.  Then I will clean the house a bit and do a bit of laundry.  And so begin the lazy days of summer.  Well, maybe not lazy, but definitely summer.  It will be a short summer this year as they shift back to an earlier start date, and with several trips on the horizon, I plan to enjoy every minute of home time.  Starting right now.

ScrapHappy Saturday -- Green Grass of Home

This is where I decided to head with the tiny nine patches that started as an Omigosh quilt.  Instead of the shoofly blocks with little on point four patches, I'm going with my own personal variation -- little churn dash variants.  There are a few little bits sitting next to the machine waiting for their turn, but this hasn't been my best week for sewing.  With school starting Monday there is lots to get done this weekend.  I hope you are all sewing though, and I hope to check in on everyone soon.
Use Mr. Linky below to share what you have accomplished so far with your greens.