Stoppin to smell the roses----AND some quilting, too :0)

As Amanda joked in her comment, "do I ever stop to smell the roses?"
Well, today, as stated last night, I had intentions of having some time with the girls today since DH was going to be working.
However, plans changed a bit earlier than expected, because DH decided to just TAKE THE DAY OFF. Wooo-hooooo! We had a relaxing morning, some coffee, cereal, cartoons, and the lot. By 9:00, it was time to get the day started. All three girls headed outside with "Dad," so I took ONE HOUR for myself downstairs finishing up the 4-blocks for Cathy's 60th quilt.

Candace came in from outside around 10:00, so it was time for a mid-morning snack. Yogurt was the snack of choice---that and apple juice. While she was snacking, I snapped a few photos of the Scarecrow wall-hanging that had been resting on the back of the couch. (And yes, now you can see that ugly styrofoam wall I was talking about the other day. The walls obviously haven't been finished yet downstairs).
The satin stitch can now be seen :0) I also did a little quilting; the pumpkins were outlined and some of the shadowed lines were enunciated with stitch lines; the jacket was outlined; and I'm still thinking of adding some REAL buttons to the jacket directly over the painted-on ones.













Post snack, Candace and I headed back outside to see what Dad was up to. He was putzing in the garden; so I grabbed a hoe and started weeding/hoeing the rows of corn. The day was ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!!! Slight breeze; mid 70's; partly cloudy. For the next hour or so, we worked on the garden, weeding, and even though it's almost July, we decided to plant yet a few more rows of beans, corn, and some peppers.

Lunchtime was at about 12:30, where I fried up some potatoes, and we had some Chicken fingers and pear slices. Afterwards, I can't really recall what all took place. But throughout the rest of the afternoon, I floated between relaxing with the girls inside and "putzing" outside in the garden with DH. I ATTEMPTED to get Candace to relax and try to nap, but HMPF! That didn't quite happen.

By 5:30, it was supper time----brats and hotdogs on the grill. Naturally, Candace was getting a little whiny; so it was NO SURPRISE that after supper, she ZONKED out on our bed. I took that opportunity to head outside with DH once again---this time to clip Champions' (horse) hooves---they were SO LONG! Cassie took THAT opportunity to jump up on Eddie and try to stroll around the meadow bareback with him. However, Eddie is stubborn, and doesn't enjoy riders---he didn't budge much! Once Champion was clipped, though, she climbed up on him and enjoyed about 20 minutes strolling around the pasture. He's such a good horse! (pony).

By 7:00, I was able to have "me" time, and headed (of course) downstairs to work some more on Cathy's quilt. Since all the 4-blocks were completed this morning, it was now time to tackle cutting all the strips into half-triangles and quarter-tris. The magazine that has this pattern also offered a FREE "Triangle Corner Template," but now that I've been using the Easy Angle and Companion rulers via Bonnie's patterns, I set the little "marti-mitchell template" aside. (sorry Marti).

Once the triangles were cut, it was time to start piecing again......
....and piecing is a "piece" of cake with this lovely seam-guide!!!

What was I piecing???? LOTS and LOTS of flying geese!



72 of these...........










Then came 72 of these---which I reallllly only thought I would get pieced, and leave behind the machine in a lovely chain to tackle tomorrow.


But then, BLESS Cassie's heart---she came downstairs around 9:00 (hey---it's Saturday---I'm not so picky on bedtime on Saturdays) and decided to help me cut the chains apart and stack them in piles of 10.




So this second batch of flying-geese went together by 9:40. Yeah....... (Cutting all those dog-ears really can get annoying, though).




To end the evening, I couldn't NOT put together at least ONE complete block. So.....here it is....ALMOST perfect....one little black corner doesn't match up (bottom part of the block), but I'll take it :0) The border around the block (almost not noticable) is the green fabric we (MIL and me) chose to use as the sashing.



Tomorrow's plans??? Don't know. DH IS going to work on some side jobs with a buddy, so it will only be me and girls. I was thinking of having Cass calls some friends to see if they want to come over for "pony rides." :0)