Red Hexagons RSC25

 This week I added a red flower to my hexagon project.  I think it's going to be a hexagon table topper?  Who knows how big this project will be?  I am just going to keep adding random flowers to it until I'm done.

Here's the before progress:

I'm working on this project in the hall of the school during a state testing date.

Here it is with the red flower added.  I've seen people whip hexies together in what seems like no time.  I'm still at the sloth stage.  Speed will come with practice.

I'm linking up at Angela's blog, SoScrappy, for the RSC25 here.

Charm Basket Progress -- Slow Sunday Stitching

 

15 charm baskets completed this week.

223 baskets of 202 needed for the quilt are now complete.  My baskets are trimmed to 4.25" vs. the recommended 4.5" unfinished block due to wonkiness.  52.5" x 64.5" finished is the quilt pattern size. I'm getting close to having all of my wonky basket handles sewn.  

The pattern does not call for wonky, but mine are wonky because instead of cutting all the of the blue backgrounds by hand, I used my 3" die vs. the size recommended on the pattern.  This caused the bottoms of the baskets to turn out a little different from each other.  Then I eyeballed the basket bottom when sewing it by machine to the handle.  BUT look at that second basket in the top row.  I still think it is adorable even though it is so wonky.  It gives this quilt a more personality feel vs. a perfectionist feel.  I LOVE it.  It definitely shows my personality of not caring what others think and making it my own.  LOL.

 The quilt pattern is called Charm Basket by Laundry Basket Quilts.  It is an Edyta Sitar design. I also stitched circles on two Dicey blocks this week in blue (Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2025.)

I'm linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching here.

 

Dicey -- Red

I had time to stitch one Dicey block in red:

You can read why I started this quilt here.

I'm linking up at Angela's blog, SoScrappy, for the RSC25 here.

Hexagon Flower Project

I threw these pieces in my sew-to-go bag.  I'm actually starting to run out of basket handles.  I'm working through the little learning curve on hand stitching hexagons together.  I decided not to go with a pattern and just keep stitching making random flowers and threesie buds.

I have stitched hexagons before.  Iit's like riding a bike.  I need to get back into the practice.

Slow Sunday Stitching -- Charm Baskets

At this rate, I estimate I will be done with baskets in two or three more weeks.  Stay tuned.

19 charm baskets completed this week.

208 baskets of 202 needed for the quilt are now complete.  My baskets are trimmed to 4.25" vs. the recommended 4.5" unfinished block due to wonkiness.  52.5" x 64.5" finished is the quilt pattern size. I'll be cutting the rest of the baskets pieces this week and then see what that makes before I decide on the larger than suggested quilt size.

 The quilt pattern is called Charm Basket by Laundry Basket Quilts.  It is an Edyta Sitar design. I also stitched circles on two Dicey blocks this week in blue (Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2025.)

I'm linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching here.

 

I moved and split a lot of plants yesterday... buttercups, lupins, a poppy (fingers crossed the poppy isn't mad at me), rose campion, purple things that I don't know their name, foxglove, forget-me-nots and day Lillies.  It's raining this morning.  Perfect timing.  I tried to move things that I googled that "deer do not eat" to the exposed areas.  I then moved the lillies that they seem to LOVE to eat to the more protected area.  Hopefully the lillies do not attract them to the pole barn flowerbed where the deer have not seemed to dine yet.

Dicey Blocks in Yellow RSC25

 Here's three more Dicey blocks in yellow:

Welcome spring!  I'm ready to start working outside with my plants and such.  :)

You can read why I started this quilt here.

I'm linking up at Angela's blog, SoScrappy, for the RSC25 here.

Ohio Spring Break

 It's Spring Break this week.  I had big warm plans to get into the longarm room at the other house and clean, clean, clean.  Brrr.  I went up there one day and got chilled.  Oh well.  Time to do some prep. work.

I had fun fluffing through the neutral scrap bin and pulling out some pieces to run through the Accuquilt die to make blocks for my Dicey quilt.  Here's 14 blocks.  That should keep me busy for a while.  I'll also have to dig through the bright scraps to pull out pieces to cut and shape with my Applipop circles.

I did get outside a couple days this week when the sun was shining.  

The little green plants in this part of the ditch in our drive way are all transplanted Foxglove plants.  They were coming up like crazy near the pole barn in almost zero nutritious dirt for them.  It was sandy with rocks.  Ironically, the deer left tons of hoof prints in my dirt.  I threw a plant in random hoof prints and sprinkled a little dirt on them.  My Google search  for "Do deer eat Foxglove" said:

"No, deer are generally considered to avoid eating foxglove, as the plant is toxic and unpalatable to them. "

I guess we'll see if this above statement is true, because something is pulling the entire Foxglove plants out where they are growing near my ocean container shed and dropping them about three or feet from whre they were planted.  It's like something is spitting it out.  Maybe it is just the chickens scratching and weeding them for me...  Ha ha.

Hopefully this will be a good fit for this ditch/deer trail highway area.  I'm not sure what colors the Foxglove are.  I'm thinking pinks, pale yellows, and whites.  We'll see what also happens when Mr. Roundup Sprayer goes down the driveway attacking weeds that I can't mow in the ditch.

Regardless, I was outside two hours and seem to become chilled.  It was indoors to cut and sew and clean my desk area.

The little yellowish plants with the tips popping out of the ground on the top of the photo are red hot poker plants.  They seem to be not yummy to deer too.  We shall see.  The colors might nor might not blend together nicely.  Only a few of my red hot poker plants bloomed last year because I only got a few of the adult plants when my friend had me dig them away from her tomato plant.  They are red/yellow/orange on one plant.  

I also had the chance to clean out the chicken coop.  The ducks make a mess in the coop when I have to water them inside.  Now that it is warmer they will get outside every day and I can water them in the chicken yard.  Woohoo for non slippery wet chicken coop floors.

Our stick-picker-upper was happy to be busy.

My other big excitment during spring break was that on Monday I got a CPAP.  Yuck.  I'm not used to it. According to the app they had me install, I'm getting better sleep.  I do think my husband is getting better sleep because he said I don't snore all night.  I still need to get used to rolling around with the hose and such.  I also don't get up to go to the bathroom as many times during the night, so that's progress.  Glad I had the week to get adjusted before going back to school.  Lovely, huh?

I don't know what part of spring break was most fun... the photo above or filing our taxes.  LOL.

The Kid

Our son has been having fun "dating" his girlfriend.  They have been best of friends since they could crawl.  

We went to see her in a play.  She did a great job with her speaking part scene.

Her character was killed in the play.  She did a great job.

Of course our son is a pro at taking selfies on the timer...

His girlfriend was sick and could not go to the Night to Shine Dance.  He still looked shiny.

Bob Evans lunch.

Of course they always love selfies...

And when he's riding somewhere with me, that's a time for rest.  It wouldn't be a road trip without a photo of him sleeping in the passenger seat.  Ha ha.

Spring Flowers

 Here's a few pics of what's growing here in Ohio:

Poppy that came up from the original poppy plant is above.  My fancy chicken that lays beautiful blue eggs got into the protected fence area and decided to trim it way back to this.  Whew.  So glad some of it is left.  This is about as big as when it originally started.  It grew huge last year.

Below is the chunk of poppy starts I cut off of the huge plant around Thanksgiving.  Poppies don't seem to like to have their roots disturbed.  I took a chance to split them and it looks like it worked!  

The ducks are ready for a swim.  It was dry enough this week for all of the chickens to have a nice, social dust bath.  I wish I would have snuck up on all the chickens as they were getting a drink form the "pool" showing off their nice fluffy, healthy butt feathers.  Maybe next time...

Lambs ear is coming up nicely after being "groomed" by the chickens.  It seems that nature always just knows what is needed and what to do--except for when the deer trim my plants way too much.

My Rose Campion didn't do anything last year.  They were baby plants.  They survived the winter.  Hopefully they will bloom this year.  I hear that the deer don't seem to bother them.  If they grow nicely, I may move some of them to the orchard area where the deer graze almost everything else.

I thought for sure the daffodils would bloom by the first day of spring.  Here they are the day after.  I continue to dig the bulbs out of a bed that is in the shade.  I replanted these last fall.

I planted these in the ditch.  These came up.  The ones I planted closer to the deer trail did not make it.

Hoping my Accuquilt "grandma's flower" garden blooms.  I'm still practicing how to put together the basted hexagons.  I'm not there yet... Practice and patience are on order.

Completed Charm Baskets -- Slow Sunday Stitching

I'll be arranging the baskets just like the quilt pattern.  There will just be more of them to make a larger quilt.  They are in straight rows.  There is a blank half basket at the top of some of the rows to offset them.

18 baskets were added to the finished pile this week! I have another pile to trim for next week.

189 baskets of 202 needed for the quilt are now complete.  My baskets are trimmed to 4.25" vs. the recommended 4.5" unfinished block due to wonkiness.  52.5" x 64.5" finished is the quilt pattern size.  I'll be making the quilt slightly larger so that it is more usable for my family.  It will be a "living room" quilt. The quilt pattern is called Charm Basket by Laundry Basket Quilts.  It is an Edyta Sitar design.

 I'm linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching here.

Happy stitching!  It's getting exciting around here.

 

The NEW Slow Stitching Project... Drumroll Please...

I'm starting to prep for my next slow stitching project.  I have decided to attempt a hexie project.  I made TWO pieces.  Then I researched it a little more and I think I like the Bonnie Hunter way of putting them together.  I'm going to need to prep more fabrics to be able to start this to do it Bonnie's way.   

I tried a hexie project like this but I wasn't ready.  I made a couple long pieces and never got them together.  I'm confident in my slow stitching skills and seriously enjoying hand stitching that it's time to revisit the process.

My first option might be this...  The two photos below are from Bonnie's blog:

Close-up photo from Bonnie's blog (Quiltville Snips & Quips).  My hexies are larger than these.

I'm thinking I'll make bright flowers with yellow centers and flowery printed neutrals for the background.

My second option would be this pattern free (right now) from the Accuquilt sight:

I'm leaning towards the Accuquilt project first.  Stay tuned.  

I still have just a few baskets to put together.  I have time think and digest comments and suggestions.  Here's my sew-to-go baskets that need to be sewn.  I expect these to be done by the week end.

I am subbing in the elementary gifted class today.  Typically that teacher leaves a very easy lesson plan for the sub.  I think she likes to see how productive and motivated her students are when they are left to do the work themselves.  I'll be there to help, but I'm pretty sure most of their work will be on their computers.  That will be a nice break after being in kindergarten for two weeks.  Whew...

Basket Process & More Prep

 I can't believe how much I enjoy sewing these basket handles on my lunch and planning periods.  I also can sew during "quiet time" in kindergarten, "iPad time" where I can monitor that the kids are on the correct site, and study halls.  It's like I'm a professional applique master.  Ha ha.

The little plastic container of basket handle "sets" was overflowing with baskets that needed to be machine stitched.  I set out as many baskets that will fit across the cabinet and press and pair as I go.  I love to see how others complete processes.  Some days I stitch two at a time.  Other days I make myself complete the whole step before sewing the next step.  One of my favorite scrappy projects consists of mindless sewing where I just chain piece similar pieces together over and over.  It just all depends.  

Below are all my baskets sewn and pressed.  They are ready to be trimmed, counted, and blogged about.

171 baskets of 202 needed for the quilt are now complete.  My baskets are trimmed to 4.25" vs. the recommended 4.5" unfinished block due to wonkiness.  52.5" x 64.5" finished is the quilt pattern size.  I'll be making the quilt slightly larger so that it is more usable for my family.  It will be a "living room" quilt.  The quilt pattern is called Charm Basket by Laundry Basket Quilts.  It is an Edyta Sitar design.

The last of the baskets have been cut for now.  I see about four duplicates... I can live with that.  We'll see where the pieces below get me row wise and size wize and go from there.  I can't believe how quickly this project came to be.  I can't express how much I love to stitch during my lunch and planning periods.