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.

A Day

Today was a day. A good day, but with enough stuff to fill a week. I had run last night, so I didn't need to do it this morning. That allowed me to go to work early and try to get some stuff done. I got a new computer over the summer, and I keep finding out that the programs I need have disappeared and I don't have the installation discs anymore. So that was the morning. It was a review day before tomorrows test in chemistry, so that part was easy. The broadcast class at school runs announcements and they wanted to do a segment on the new forensic science class. I prepped one of my classes yesterday and told them to pick something that would look cool and do some sort of lab or demo on it. They went crazy with it. They were looking up recipes for fake blood, making up dental molds, doing spot tests for drugs, explaining the markings on spent ammunition -- all with no input from me. I just sat back and pointed them in the right direction if they asked. I can't wait to see the segment. The teacher who runs the class seemed to have an idea in mind, because he came prepared with crime scene tape and then staged the kids very deliberately. The other forensics class was taking visible prints and one of the students who is in the yearbook class wanted to take pictures. I spent the day wishing I had done my hair this morning. So that took me to lunch. I had volunteered to help out with the academic team because I have run a group in the past. That meeting used up lunch. After that I spent an hour trying to get my *&%$# web site for school up and working. I won't go into the details, but I consider myself fairly literate in technology, and it was too complicated for me to do. Rushing home, I had half an hour to do e-mail and phone calls trying to set up the girl scout troops for the new year. I have a new kindergarten daisy leader, and suckered talked the first grade leader into taking four new girls. I'm still working on setting up two new troops for the second and third graders because we have so many girls on the waiting list. I was unsuccessful at talking the 5th grade leader into anything, so that is a problem for another day. By then the school bus was ready to arrive, so I went to meet it, which is required for kindergateners. I got the best hug from Sydney coming off the bus, and she told me all about the handsome boy in PE. She doesn't know his name, just that he has handsome hair and eyes. Then followed homework and an early dinner. Our neighbor came to stay with the kids because it was parent night at school tonight. They have two sessions, but we have three kids, so reinforcements were needed. Kurt did one session and came home to relieve the neighbor, and I did two before heading to the girl scout leader meeting to try to talk more leaders into taking more girls. I picked up a teddy bear to decorate to a charity auction, and the packets for fall sales, which is magazines and candy. I got a candy bar on the way home to call dinner, and now I am in my jammies ready to enter grades in because they are due tomorrow. All good stuff, but it would be even better spread out over 13 days instead of 13 hours.
Speaking of good stuff -- I won Amy's 100th post giveaway. I won! I was doing a little happy dance when I got that e-mail. Amy is my quilting twin, and I think I must have been sisters in a previous life. I'm serious. Go look at her blog and you will see the similarities.

Chaos -- More or Less?

I cut out some setting triangles for my crumble chaos blocks and set them together in a lap sized quilt. Having no more specific option in mind, I was thinking of making several quilts for the nursing home trip with the Girl Scouts. So I got them all laid out, enjoying the colors and the freedom and then called my husband over to look at them. First his jaw dropped in confusion and then he asked he asked what effect I was trying to achieve. Is it that much over the top? He doesn't think the elderly will enjoy that much color. Specifically, he thought if everyone got to choose a quilt, that the poor person left to choose last would have to take this one and be really unhappy. Harsh, isn't he? So I changed out the blocks to make it less chaotic. Still, is it all that strange or is he just being too conventional?
Today was just a regular day. Everyone is starting to settle down into routines. Sydney made a new friend in her class. Anna met two new girls on the bus. Ryan had a good time at recess. I spent the evening calling potential Girl Scout leaders and trying to talk them into starting new troops. Everyone has the same story, so busy, too many things to do, not enough hours in the day. I'll keep plugging away, it's so sad to think of all those little girls with no troop to go to. I'm always tempted to try to trump them on the I'm too busy excuse, but that would be counter productive I think.

Second First Day!

The kids were FINALLY back in school today following Fay. For Sydney it was her first day of kindergarten. For Anna and Ryan it was their second day of school after a 4 day delay. Sydney has been looking forward to this day for years. It has just about made her crazy to walk Anna and then Ryan to the bus every day and not be able to get on it herself. She didn't even pause when the bus came, but just hopped on and grabbed a seat. Kurt, of course, followed along behind the bus to make sure she came off on the other end and went to the right place at school. It really wasn't necessary for Sydney's sake, but we've done it for the other two, so I didn't want her to get cheated. She never showed a moment of uncertainty, but waited with her friend from the neighborhood playing rock paper scissor until the bell. When it was time to go, she jumped right up and went straight to the right room.
Each of our children is so totally different. Sydney is either wonderful or horrible with nothing in the middle. Anna is our queen of melodrama, already practicing to be a teenager at the age of 9. Poor little Ryan went to school with his shirt buttoned all the way to the top, and a leather belt neatly fastened around his shorts. I don't want him to be a geeky little guy, but I can't turn him into something he isn't. It is good to recognize that each child is unique, but sometimes I wonder if it would be easier if they had something in common.
I'm hoping we can settle down into some sort of routine. The weather channel said something about a storm named Gustav coming to get us, but I'm going to pretend to be oblivious for now.

Why I Love to Blog

After finishing up my crumb blocks, I was thinking about layout options and setting colors. I laid out several choices in the formal living room and asked my husband to look at them the next time he got up. At the same time I posted a blog entry and asked for input. My husband, sitting 20 feet away from the blocks in question, has yet to look at them. Quilt Pixie from the depths of cyperspace says she likes the red, but have I thought about black. So, here are some black and red choices, any votes?

My Favorite Quilt

Amy over at Amy's Passions has just posted her 100th entry. As part of her giveaway, she is asking for favorite quilt stories. My favorite quilt (that I made) is a t-shirt quilt called Road to the Marathon. I made it to celebrate my first two marathons. Around the outside are all of the shirts from the shorter races I did in training, and then in the middle are my marathons, Space Coast and Miami. I looked and looked for running themed fabric, but couldn't find any. Instead I chose a bright tie dye with electric blue corner stones. The back is orange flannel and it is SO soft and cuddly. I later found running themed fabric, which is made into blocks, but still not put together in a quilt. So congratulations, Amy, on your 100th post. May it be the first 100 of many more to come.

Crumby Sunday

I kept going with the crumb blocks today because I was having so much fun. I just kept sewing scraps on randomly from the brights bin until I got to about 7 inches and then squared everything up at the end. Whatever I chopped off went back into the bin to be recycled. No plan, no measuring, just mindless chain sewing. The bin is pretty empty now, so I'll move onto the muted colors bin next. 36 blocks done, all from scraps most people would have thrown away (insert maniacal laugh here).
I was thinking of doing a diagonal set and offsetting the rows to get a zig zag effect. I tried it once before but did bad math and ended up lobbing off all the points. Maybe Amy can help me with the math. How big do I need to cut the setting triangles to go with 7 inch blocks? I'm testing the "red is a neutral" hypothesis. I didn't have much for reds, so I also pulled out a pink, an orange and a yellow as well. I'm having trouble deciding, what you y'all think?

Quilted Tile

"I've messed up massively and I need your help." Those are words you never want to hear in the middle of a bathroom remodeling project. We had finished the bathtub portion of the tile work and were moving over to the shower portion. I say "we" but I really mean Kurt was doing the tile work, I was watching the talking word factory with Sydney and eating popcorn. In transitioning from one section to the other, he worked from the right to the left, and then shifted over to the left and worked back toward the middle again. When he got to the part where the left and the right were supposed to meet, they didn't. Somehow his math skills were off and he was shifted by half a tile. So I spent the rest of the afternoon helping him peel (thankfully) still wet tiles off the wall and repositioning them. Anyway, it occurred to me in the middle of all of this scraping and sticking that doing tile is so much like making a quilt. So even if I wasn't quilting, I was thinking about quilting while all of this was going on.

Then last night the men's marathon was on the Olympics. I recorded it so I could do some sewing and then fast forward through the commercials. I still ended up watching the end at about the right time, but I managed to get a batch of crumb blocks done while it was happening. My scrap bin was overflowing and I had already done a couple of sessions of cutting squares and strips. Those drawers are all pretty well stocked, so I decided to go for random piecing. I did segregate the scraps in to brights, muted and pastels. I was trying for random, but I can only push myself so far out of my comfort zone. Each color family is getting squared up into a different size, and I'll set them all aside for a rainy day. I also got the final border on my Dad's Plaids quilt yesterday, so I'll be getting that ironed and layered sometime soon.