Saturday, February 24, 2018

Scraphappy Saturday - Last Purple Saturday

Sorry to be off to a bit of  a late start today.  I have been having a bit of a computer issue.  Hopefully my engineer of a husband can get it fixed, if not, I may be off computer shopping this afternoon.  Until then, everything is fine unless something touches the lower left hand corner of the keyboard.  I have some photos to share, but I will try a bit of a two step process this morning, just in case.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Three Day Weekend


It is a three day weekend for the kids!  Not for the teachers though, we are to report for training first thing in the morning.  Still, it there aren't any lesson plans to worry about quite yet, so I have a bit of extra time to sew.  Most of my sewing time for the last two days was spent ironing and rough cutting these t-shirts for a graduation quilt.  Still plenty of time, but I should get moving on it for sure.  I love the way she sent fun extras to include in the quilt. A pillow sham and some PJ pants are nicely blended in with all the shirts. 
We went out this morning to see Black Panther.  Kurt is a big Avenger's fan and I think that we have seen them all so far.  While we were on our way out of the neighborhood, we spotted the first baby Sandhill Cranes of the year!  It is a sure sign that spring is here.  

Saturday, February 17, 2018

ScrapHappy Saturday - Racing Through the Purple Month


Does anyone else feel that time is accelerating?  The days are just zooming by right now.  I didn't sew a stitch this week, but I was able to sew up some more purple loggies earlier this month.  Spring is always super busy at school.  This year spring seems to have started early.  This weekend looks pretty wide open though.  The kids have activities which will require a few rides, but there should still be some time to get in some fabric therapy.  After this week it is very much needed. 

Sunday, February 11, 2018

What a Day

First, let me apologize for not visiting anyone yesterday.  I had just started on my day, checked in on a few people, showered and started to walk the dog when I got a panicked phone call from Anna that she and Ryan had both forgotten their name badges for the science fair.  So I rushed up to the mall to drop those off and the rest of the day was a blur.  I went around to visit all my students and had lunch with my science teacher friend before coming back home to gather everyone up before going out to dinner before the awards ceremony. 
Special awards are first on the agenda.  Anna had a brand new project this year, and she was worried that she didn't know it as well as she knew her stuff from earlier multi-year projects.  She moved into engineering this year though, which is such a great field for women.  Some of her judges were seriously trying to convince her to change her major into biomedical engineering.  We were so hopeful for a SWE (Society of Women Engineers) award.  We didn't know anything about though a Mainstream Engineering award which was given to a someone from the senior and the junior categories.  Anna was just walking off the the stage with hers when they announced Sydney's name! 
 So Anna turned right back around and gave her little sister a great big hug.  I was in the audience crying like a baby.  As much as sister's can bicker, it is awesome to see them support one another. 
Then the place awards.  Sydney first in junior environmental engineering.  Ryan second in robots and programing something.  Anna first in engineering.  We were all so happy.  The kids had all kind of sleuthed the places out ahead of time  based on who the best of show judges visited on the second day.  They are all so sneaky in their spy craft.  I must say, they were all pretty accurate in their predictions.  We were all happy and ready to round it up when they started announcing Best of Show and called Sydney's name as runner up.  Boy were we shocked!  She had a nice simple little middle school project, but she sure knew her stuff. 
Then the main contender for best of show in the senior division got runner up and we were all stumped.  When they called Anna's name for best of show I thought her head might explode.  She was so shocked that she could hardly get up to walk across the stage.  Best of Show comes with an automatic bid to the International Science and Engineering fair in Pittsburgh.  I have never seen a kid so darned excited about a trip to Pittsburgh.  I'm still not sure she has completely come to terms with the idea.  I think I have her convinced that they didn't give the award to the wrong person by mistake.  
Here they all are with their ribbons at the end of the awards ceremony.  
 And all of us together.  What a night!  I'm sorry to go on so long, but I am so proud of all of them!  The next few months will be busy with follow up contests and next level fairs.  All so exciting!  Today I am a soggy mess of nothing.  We filled out lots of paperwork and tried to catch up on laundry and normal weekend things.  Honestly, it has not been a productive day in any way. 
I do have a few new hexies to add to the mix.  It was fun to dip into some darker purples and think about how the setting might work.  I really kind of like the idea of the little triplets of white for linking.  No need to decide now though.  I think I'll do some more prep work while the cross country skiing continues on the Olympics.  I would have loved to watch figure skating last night, but it is still fun to watch all the festivities, no matter the sport.  I will go now and peek in on the posts of yesterday and see what everyone is up to on Slow Stitching Sunday.  Nothing special in the scrappy category this week for Oh Scrap!  Not that there is much in my repertoire which isn't scrappy.  It is fun to see all the Squared Away blocks showing up.  Here I am as a proud mama again.  Now I think my head might be the one ready to explode!  Happy Sunday everyone.  Thanks for sticking in there with me through the non-quilting stuff.  I'm sure real sewing will happen again someday!

Saturday, February 10, 2018

Scrappy Happy Purpley


I'm looking forward to lots of sewing along with the Olympics. I was up late last night watching the opening ceremony.  I might have dozed off a bit in the middle, but I saw the shirtless Tongan guy and the US and Korea.  First though, it is science fair weekend!

Thursday was board set up and yesterday all the kids were at judging during school hours.  Today it should just be the morning for specialty judging and then awards tonight.  I got pictures of Ryan and Sydney at board set up, but Anna was having a small crisis with her abstract, so I never got one for her.  I'll have to do that today while they are all dressed up. 
Our soccer team made it to semi-finals for state, and they will be playing at the same time as awards.  I think there is only one kid who was supposed to be in two places at the same time. 
So I guess it will be a busy weekend, but Sunday looks wide open, that is a good thing.  Hopefully you will have some quality purple time while sewing along with the Olympics.  There are no countries with purple flags.  Presumably because purple dye was so expensive historically that it was saved for royalty. 

Sunday, February 4, 2018

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.  

Saturday, February 3, 2018

ScrapHappy Saturday - Fresh Start



 A new month is always exciting.  Pulling out a new color and digging in is a little bit like a tiny birthday present at the beginning of each new month. First up this month are the February Squared Away blocks.  Mari has written a great tutorial if you are interested in making these blocks.  Hers are in a 10 inch size while mine are only 7.5 inches.  I also noticed that she used slightly different combinations of colors.  The nice thing about making three of each block is that you can play with different combinations.  I did find after making several blocks that I got so much better about planning out the seams.  After going though a couple of twisted allowances in the first month, I started putting these together as if they were tiny quilts, following the webbing method I learned from quilt in a day so many years ago.
Now that those are crossed off the list, I'm planning on digging in and playing some more with my scraps.  Purple is a pretty big color for me.  Maybe because I have two daughters?  Hopefully I can put some of that purple to good use this month.
I'll be back sometime today with a PDF version of the directions and will post updated links on the RSC18 Sampler tab.  Please use the linky below so we can all see what great purple plans you have brewing for February. Just finished this step, be sure to take a look if you like to save off PDF files for later.  

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Tracking Chart


I got the sweetest e-mail from Stephanie.  She is new to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and posts her blocks to Instagram.  She worked up a tracking chart for 2018 and was nice enough to share it with us all in both PDF and word format.  What a clever way to keep track of your blocks for the year! The funniest part was that she added extra columns because she noticed that we all liked to make a wide variety of blocks.  So you can print out a copy and make handwrite a list, or download the word version and keep it all digital.  Thanks Stephanie!