ScrapHappy June

A new month is a new color here at the rainbow scrap challenge.  So finish up the last of your pinks and pull out teal and turquoise.  Anything that is not quite blue and not quite green will work this month.  Think of warm Caribbean water.  

ScrapHappy Saturday - Last Pink Saturday

It is hard to believe that May is almost over.  Even more so than usual, the end of the school year has kept me busy.  The fun is not quite over as Anna and I are off to Paris and Barcelona in just a few hours.  I'll be back late next Saturday, so I'll be sure to schedule a post for next Saturday before we head out to the airport.
I've got plenty of hexie diamonds to work on while sitting on planes, trains and busses.  Hopefully I'll be able to add some pink to this slowly growing collection.
How are your pinks coming along?  The linky party is below.  Please share with us all.  I'll try to check in as long as the wifi holds out.


   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

ScrapHappy Saturday - Graduation Weekend

It is graduation weekend and  my sewing room has been turned into a guest bedroom once again.  Kurt's dad and sister have come for the weekend.  The ceremony was last night and I was able to go up with Anna while she got her diploma.  We had three teacher's children graduating this year and we were all there with them as they walk across the stage.  Anna was off to project graduation right after and is just now home again.  She just got back from science fair Thursday where she earned second place for her project modifying a 3-D printer to make cartilage.  She gets to name an asteroid!  Today though, I think that she will sleep.  I've got some hand sewing pulled out in case there is time.  Maybe while watching the royal wedding and drinking a bit of tea?    Just three more school days until summer vacation.  Not that anyone is counting.

   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

ScrapHappy Saturday - Smells Like Roses

It's been a brutal week.  It went fast though, and the weekend snuck up on me.  The first week of AP testing is done.  Mine is on Monday, so I hope the kids will be ready.  I'll go in bright and early to make them pancakes before the big test.  Anna is off for science fair bright and first thing tomorrow morning.  She'll be back just in time for graduation next Friday.  Where has the time gone?
Still, even with all of that on the horizon, things are starting to calm down.  I was spending a lot of time working on switching my curriculum over to new textbooks next year, but there were a few funding hiccups, so all of that might not be necessary after all.  In a wait and see mode on that, sewing the day away sounds like a super plan.

I seem to have plenty of pinks to keep me busy for a while.  Having two girls means that pink in one of my big scrap bins.

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

ScrapHappy Saturday - Tickled Pink

Roll out the rose and pink, and new month has begun!

 Mari has posted directions for the new squared away block.  I'll post a link on the Squared away tab and here when the pdfs file for the tutorial is ready to go.

I finished my blocks earlier.  I was really happy with how the darker rose added nice contrast to the pink scraps.  

   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

Almost May

I'm looking forward to digging through my pink scraps today to get ready for May.  Pink and Rose will be the new colors this month.  I hope you were able to take care of your yellows.  

Slowing Down Now

Binding time is quilting's reward for having finished something.  Catherine's T-Shirt quilt is fresh off the quilting frame and ready for binding.  I'm looking forward to slowing down with some calm slow stitching to finish everything off. 
Things are starting to wind down for the school year too, so finishing up is a theme right now.  End of Course and AP exams are just around the corner, along with one more science fair leading us right into graduation.  What a long strange year its been.  I'll ponder all that while I'm sewing down the binding.  

Sunday Quilting Fest

I'm determined to get Katherine's graduation quilt finished today.  I took a break when the bobbin ran out, thinking that I was about halfway done, but now that I look back at the flimsy photo, I think it is more like two thirds.  I'm right in the middle of the Finding Jesus shirt near the bottom left.  Yay!  I really like the butterfly and monkey block on the bottom row.  It is half pillowcase and half PJ pants.  I'm sure they must both hold fond memories. 

I really like the flannel that I found for the back.  I got not quite enough on purpose so that I could work in a little bit of the border fabric.  I even have enough of the border and sashing fabrics to make a coordinating pillowcase.  Such a nice finishing touch, don't you think?

Choosing a quilting thread is always a trick on t-shirt quilts because there is so much contrast in the shirts.  I tried many shades of blue and teal before reverting back to my default of grey.  Not too dark on the white shirts or too light on the dark shirts. I used teal for the back though, and it is virtually invisible.  I'm doing some loops in the background, but sticking to a less dense meander in the shirts to avoid detracting from the design.  Also it makes it easier to avoid the heavily painted areas of some of the shirts.  It goes quickly, which is a bonus.  

When I went to pull the quilt photos from the memory card, there were more fire pictures.  This is our backyard fence -- the same one that blew down in the hurricane.  

This was the view from upstairs.  Its our neighbors pool screen on the right.  We were all really lucky the wind wasn't blowing the other way.  There is still a thin line of unburned buffer foliage separating us from the burn zone.  I'm thinking that thinning out vegetation might come up on the list after the quilt is done.  

I graded 560 essays last week between the last AP test and the final practice AP test!  I was so tempted to save them for the weekend, but I knew that the kids would want to see Infinity Wars and so I powered through until 11:30 on Thursday night.  I'm so glad that I did now that it is done.  Best of all, they were the last essays of the year!  Well, at least until I go to AP reading in June when there will be thousands of essays to grade.  

Having procrastinated enough, I'll go wind one more bobbin and finish this quilt off.  If I can get the binding on this afternoon then I can have a bit of a movie marathon while sewing binding.   Sounds like a lovely way to spend a Sunday evening.  My little guys have their Biology EOC tomorrow, so  We'll have to take a breather before shifting into less stressful learning activities.   They won't want to do anything at all ever again, so we will have to work together to find a nice compromise.  

ScrapHappy Saturday

April is almost over.  I hope that you are all making better progress on your yellow scraps than I am.  The month has zoomed by!  I'm not sure that May or June will be much better, but I have high hopes for a calm July.  Until then, thanks for sharing all your projects, it is much more fun to read than the 320 essays I just finished yesterday. 
Today is actually unscheduled, which means I'm off to finish this t-shirt quilt in time for graduation.  Borders are next on the list. 


   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

Brush Fire

While I was in Orlando this weekend for Academic Team, this is what was going on at home.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt, and the damage was minimal.  Our house is fine, but it got way too close to some of our neighbors.  The ringer on my phone was still off from the awards ceremony, so I didn't know anything about it until I woke up this morning. 
Anna had just gotten back from babysitting and was up in her room doing some homework when she saw flames from her bedroom window.  She woke everyone in our house up and the kids all went around warning neighbors.  It got closest to her friend Allie's house, three doors down from us.  Allie was just getting home from prom while her dad was in the backyard spraying everything down with a garden hose.  Kurt loaded all the photo albums and computers up into the car and sent the kids off to WaWa to get slushies while firefighters battled the blaze.  It was a long night to say the least.  So glad it wasn't worse!