Sunday stitching

 I've been making good progress on this stitchery this week. I just have a few more of the sea green to stitch above the peach shell, and then the backstitching and words will be the last steps. I forgot how fun it is to cross stitch - I think the last time I did was around 2005.

I'm still adding blocks to the flying snowball quilt. I'm in the final stretch on this one and have hand pieced over 40 blocks. The final count is 49, so a few more to go. They did all get marked for stitching during a staff meeting this week, so that task is completed.

Today, I'll be deciding if I hand quilt or machine quilt my BITA quilt. It is 90x90 and I'm not sure I'm up to trying to machine quilt that on my machine. I am planning to move my quilting frame (which will fit this!) into the front room that I have cleared out this week of the futon, coffee table, extra boxes. I'm hoping to finish clearing out in there this week and get it painted, so I can move my office in there along with the quilting frame and maybe throw a tv on the wall in there as well. I've also got some more weeding to do in the garden, so that can get tilled and planted soon for fall. Slow progress all around, but progress is happening. 

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Thursday

The girls enjoyed some outside time Tuesday. I let them out right before it rained. They stayed out and enjoyed pecking for bugs in the rain. It is so funny to watch them shake off the water in the rain. I'll try and grab a video next time. These are our five girls. Maple, Poppy, DC, Buttercup and Nutmeg.  Poppy and Nutmeg give me the pretty green shelled eggs.

Another pretty sunrise this morning on my walk with bear a little after 7AM.

I've added a couple of the shoo fly blocks to the completed pile. I also got the rest of the parts marked for hand piecing during a quarterly staff meeting at work on Tuesday. 

No photo - but I also spent a slew of time looking for a specific green print fabric in the sewing room to fix the quilt I made for hubby 17 years ago. Seems there was a rip (dog nails I assume) on one triangle block. I never did find the exact fabric, so I went with a similar color. The tear was in the triangle part of the block, so I cut it a bit bigger, and appliqued it down on top of the original. It worked and is back on the bed.  This is a photo of the quilt from when I pulled the machine quilting out and then hand quilted it last year I think. The pattern is from the Nickle Quilts book.

I'm hoping to get the BITA pressed and sewn together today. We will go visit my FIL. Hubby needs to do some banking for him and has to go to his bank in Lady Lake for the file transfer, since he can't do it online for some reason. Since he mentioned it last night, I assume he wants me to go with as he has had all week to do it but waited for today, my day off. Sigh. 

I did get my package from Missouri Star in the mail Tuesday night. lots of pretty things in my bundle  =).

These were all daily deals, except the 50 clips which were a weekly special... but I somehow got them for $4 instead of $10! 2 jelly rolls and a 2 yard cut of a green leaf print on tan. 

Tuesday already?

 This was my view as I took Bear for a walk this morning around 7AM. The sun was just starting to come up. One kid had left for school 20 minutes before, and the other was moving around and getting up to leave in about 15 minutes. Bear was waiting patiently for Mom to walk him since 6:30. I'm going to need to get a reflective vest soon for these morning walks. I do wear a bright t-shirt but we have little traffic on the streets I walk.

The next street over explained all the sniffing. 5 turkeys on this neighbors lot. 

Across the street from this is the trailhead/nature preserve area. It's about 2.5 miles from the greenway that crosses over I75 in Ocala

This shoo fly got hand stitched yesterday after work. I tried to tackle weeding of the garden, but it started raining with thunder.

While stitching the BITA blocks together, I had a stack of 2.5 inch squares that turned into this 20x20 little quilt. I pulled 2 of the original colors out and replaced them with similar hues from stash. The black and white (four patches on the side) will go on the back I think. 

String of beads

 

I got one teal block completed last night  (top row 3rd from left) while watching a new to me series, The Librarians on Amazon prime. I guess it was a TNT series back in 2014. I'm 2 episodes in and one block to go hopefully tonight!

 Then I need to decide what color circle for the centers, a yellow for all or different? Something to ponder today. I'll have to learn how to use my applipops circles now! Someone tell the voice in my head it does not need a border with more green peels. It really wants to be done like this. Thanks!

Aidan has an ear infection but the drum has not burst. Got meds last evening. She said it will get worse before better  in a few days.  He asked that we cancel guitar tonight. We will see if he stays after school for academic club or not. 

Slow Sunday Stitching.

I'll be picking up some stitching after I finish this post. I will probably add some applique to the sting of beads blocks in teal/aqua as they are the last 2 needed for that project. 

I have a feeling they will go with me to the quick care later this afternoon with 1 or 2 kids for ear checks. Aidan can't hear out of one ear now and knows when the 4 hour Advil wears off. He does have a movie with friends at noon, so I'll take him after that, if he can stand it. He might opt to reschedule that and do the quick care. It took a while to figure out what quick care or ER is on my insurance plan. Ridiculous. 

Emily said her ear hurt before leaving at 4AM on her 18 hour day to FSU  yesterday.  She has a high tolerance for pain and gets them a lot. If hers is still bothering, I'll pull her with us as well. I think they are both day 3 or 4 of ear pain, but told me late Friday for both. Sigh. They are both doing Advil and swimmers ear drops.... but it's not helping so must be an inner ear one.

Progress on the cross stitch. I forgot how long these guys take! The starfish is now done and below is a clam shell that will be outlined later. 

 

I have one long seam to sew for this to become a top. I need to press it first, as a set of 8 rows and a set of 7 rows will be easier to press than the whole 15 rows. This one is a big one - 90x90. I got the last 7 rows stitched together yesterday - 105 blocks.

A couple of flowering snowball blocks got hand stitched the last few days as well. 11 more of these blocks to go to reach the 49 needed for that quilt.

 

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Progress on the BITA assembly

 When you have 15 in a row of 6 inch blocks, it takes a wee bit of time to get them all stitched together!

I laid out the next set of 4 rows with my first pieced 4 rows up above. I just wanted to make sure no like colors were together or the same fabrics anyway. I did snap a different photo of this first but noticed too many darks together so did a little moving of blocks. I took a break for lunch at this point!

Lots of sewing (and getting my steps as this is laid out in the living room and my sewing area is in the 'garage area'. It should be a garage, but the model home had it as it's office area and it was never converted back when we got the house from the bank on foreclosure back in 2011 from the builder.

Of course, the last 3 columns somehow ended up looking like that! Sigh. Well, I had to mess it up at some point! A little unpicking and I swapped those 4 in the bottom left around, and got it all sorted out.

The second set of 4 rows is all together as one unit. 8 of 15 rows done, 7 to go! 

Dinner last night was beef stroganoff. I use this recipe from the Tast of Home Magazine. I used to make it with the steak, but have switched to using ground beef. I use less butter, just a Tbsp or two to cook the onions (I use a whole one) and mushrooms. Very different from the one my Mom made growing up with the condensed soup. My Dad always requests this when I go up to Vermont. 

Tonight, I was thinking fish taco's but the girl was not in the mood for it and is home late tonight (6:40ish after marching practice). The boy is late with Academic club - so around 5:30ish. School is out at 3PM. I figured everyone likes pizza. I was thinking to order it, but hubby immediately said Publix dough? Sigh, I need to go get more Power Zero's for Emily anyway, so I guess I'll make a sheet pan pizza with one dough and a stromboli with the other. Picky people don't like my homemade quick dough, so I'll go grab the $3 dough from the store.

I've got some zucchini that needs to get used.... so it will either become zucchini bread or zucchini cake with cream cheese frosting. I'm leaning towards the bread since Emily made no bake chocolate cookies last night. She goes through the cocoa powder pretty quickly. I have looked at Sams the last couple of times to get the big container of Hershey's Cocoa. They have been out. Went looking online and OMG, the price for cocoa is ridiculous! Surprisingly, the King Arthur Flour Cocoa was not too bad and is double dutch processed, so I ordered 2 bags of that a few weeks ago. 

I should have a quiet weekend. Emily is away all day Saturday (4:30AM-11PM) is the away time for the football game day at FSU. Aidan has testing for ACT in the morning. Sunday he has a F1 race then is seeing Hamilton in the theater with his friends. Emily I'm sure will be sleeping, horses and then doing homework.  Aidan has said he'll help get the 2 big screens on the porch done Saturday for me. It is starting to not be as sticky and hot at night so I'm 'hoping' to sit out there a bit in the evenings and stitch listening to my audiobooks. If the screens are fixed, I plan to let the cats join me! I purchased the latest Jennifer Chaverini book to listen to next. I had read all the Elm Creek series, years ago, but it appears there might be 2 at the end that have come out in the last few years that I have not read yet.  From the 2012 last book I had read, some new ones were released in 2019 - The Christmas Boutique, 2024 -The Museum of Lost Quilts and 2025- The World's Fair Quilt.  I think I purchased the Museum of Lost Quilts as an audiobook. I'll have to check Libby and Audible for The Christmas Boutique as well as the latest one. 

Hoping to get another set of 4 rows stitched together this weekend, get the garden all weeded and planted for fall. I'll worry about tackling the front room next week, once the futon is gone. I've been wanting to get those 2 rooms (dining and front room) and the entry way painted for over a year and I'm going to get it done this month... I hope. I'm shooting for next weekend so I have tall people to help with the tall parts I can't reach. (I dislike heights and ladders). My goal is to move my work computer and desk into that area along with my quilting frame. I'll relocate Aidan's computer games (flying and his F1 racing chair) to my office area in the garage.... with a door I can shut while he is racing! Greg's drum set will also go in there and Emily will probably put her music stand in that area as well since she goes in there with doors shut to practice her clarinet and sax now. The office area is a 10x10 room with 3/4 cement walls. That's my plan anyway. We will see what happens. 

 

What I've been doing....

 Not too much but some progress.

All the original 36 flowering snowball and shoo fly blocks are pieced. Time to dig into the next pile to get to the 49 block total I think this quilt wanted. Stubborn thing! At least the next set are all cut and most are marked for hand piecing.

I've also been adding thread to the cross stitch. 

On tap today - the dog has been walked. Big thanks to the neighbor driving by and warning me of the bear in the area headed our way. We modified our route a bit this morning to avoid it and thankfully did not see him. I have a feeling my Bear dog is about the same size as that bear would be. (just under 90 pounds) Grateful we did not meet up with it! Note to self, bring phone with me, cued up to a loud horn sound.

I'll make breakfast and then we will head over to visit my FIL. Hopefully all the things he requested have arrived for delivery to him. When home, I'm going to sew! I have 4 rows of 15 sewn together for the birds in the air quilt. Time to add another 4 rows. I'm hopeful for more, but will be happy with that amount.

I got a bite on the futon in the front room. I put it and the mattress up for sale again a few weeks ago and someone bought the mattress with the pretty cover. She did not want the futon and said I could relist as she would just bring it to the trash. I said, OK. Relisted it Saturday and got a bite last night. Hope that is out of the house this weekend! I think no rain Saturday, so I'll put a coffee table and an extra tv (that was given to us as MIL thinks we are the place to gift all old things, grrr) out by the end of the driveway with a free sign. We live on a busy road, so they should go fast. 

Saturday should be a quiet day - Emily is gone all day to a game up at FSU with the band. Aidan has a ACT test in the morning and will probably go to lunch with buddies after. He is getting pretty independent so should be fine next year at college. 

Lets see, I asked hubby for ideas for dinner. He listed the ones he liked and since the kids say 'whatever', I went with his ideas!

Monday -(this was my addition) French Dips with baked sweet potato fries. I saw a digital coupon at Publix for $11+ off a beef shoulder in the bag, which was also on sale at 6.99 a pound (was in the $8 range) I had to look up the cut, more beefy flavor than a chuck roast but needs slow cooking. I called and verified then went to the store and got one. A little over 7 pounds came down to $37 after the coupons. Not bad. I did the work to cut off a bunch of the fat and silver skin. One cut went into the crock pot for french dips - and I should have cut it bigger as Emily ate most of it! Another is a 2.25 pound roast that is seal a mealed in the freezer. Another is 2.5 pound of chunks for stew beef. Not bad with the price of things now a days.

Tuesday - hubby requested meatloaf. I had picked up a big bag of russets, so did 4 baked potato and also made mashed potato and a bag of frozen peas with it. Hubby and kids like mashed and peas together. They are weird!

Wednesday - I had chicken fajitas down, but needed to cook up some brussel sprouts. I made 2 meals. Aidan and I like a brussel sprout, butternut squash and bacon dish, while the other 2 like a mexican skillet meal with chicken and minute rice with onion, peppers, corn, salsa and cheese on top. It is quick - takes about 20 minutes to make.

The kids take leftovers for lunches, especially when they like the meals. I'm down to 1 baked potato - I think Aidan was taking those for lunches. 

Tonight he wanted beef stroganoff which I serve over egg noodles. I'll have a salad on the side with it.

Friday, I have fish taco's on the menu, but we will see how many leftovers we have left. Emily is late that day and I think Aidan is as well now that Academic club started. The sponsor asked him to be captain of the Varsity team as he is the geography guy, so will be up on the panel the most for questions. He was quite pleased. 

Wow, this is quite the rambling post! Another update is we got new internet. They came last week and instead of fiber that they said was available (it's not) they have a cable modem. Hmmm. It is 1GB.  They came again on Tuesday and pulled the cable (it took forever for them to get it to the house from the box by the road. Lots of roots!). They got it hooked up inside to the existing cable in the house. Fast, but not as expected. We had DISH at one time and Greg asked if I remembered if we have multiple tv's on it (so we had a splitter). Yup. The guy went up in the attic and pulled that off. Boom, 1GB! Greg already had a mesh network installed in the house (cement walls do not work well with wifi), so he hooked it to that. Much faster and no drops at work for me! We will keep the other for a month in tandem just to make sure the new one is stable. Aidan should be much happier playing his games on the computer - especially his F1 driving one.