Tetris Week 2 and Family time :)

Yesterday morning, before the ickiness of the day hit me.... I had a successful couple of hours, "playing" tetris and piecing together the blocks into Week #2's placemat.

It was a great project to use up some batting strips from former projects.  They were pieced together with my walking foot and a wide zigzag.  With four more placemats planned over the next 4 weeks, I may tackle some of those strippy batting scraps :)

Regarding the end of the day yesterday...

We DID go out to eat at a local bar-n-grill.  And my mood DID improve while playing tic-tac-toe with Candace on the brown-paper tablecloths they use :)

PLUS, while there, it hit us:  It's WEDNESDAY NIGHT!!!  Many of our former volleyball teammates were showing up right around 6:00...decked out in flipflops, shorts and tank tops-----it was VOLLEYBALL NIGHT!  OMGoodness!  We haven't played in a few years, but it was nice to chat with everyone for a bit ... and even enjoyed watching some of the action before leaving to head to the library.  At the library, the girls and myself picked out some movies, ONE of which I've been meaning to see for quite some time....

So today, while cutting beans, I slipped the DVD in.  

WHAT a great great great chicky-flicky love story! :..)  (those would be tears falling from the eyes of the happy face)  Yup!  Big ol' tear jerker :)

And right now....we just put in....

We're ready for some laughs,..... hopefully :)

Happy Thursday!

QOV Mystery #28; Tetris; and some quilting

After dropping Cassie off for Volleyball camp, I came home and started sewing right away.  No gardening needed today since we took care of picking produce yesterday.

QOV Mystery #28: Star Path was first on my unwritten agenda.

Forty flying geese blocks were asked for, using the stitch-n-flip method.  With these units finishing at 3"x6", double-sewing for bonus HSTs was a definite!!!

The top stacks show the 40 units called for in this step;  3.5"x6.5" (unfinished)

and I elected to sew up the bonus HSTs right away into similar flying geese units; roughly 3"x5.5" (unfinished).  I can only only ONLY hope that ladies are NOT throwing away that "waste"!  Still incredible to think about all the bonus units possible by simply double-sewing. 

Melissa posted week #2's Tetris blocks, so I played the game twice and got to work laying out the pieces.

They haven't been sewn yet, because I needed to pick up Cassie from volleyball camp.

When returning back home, I got busy loading Diamond Fields onto the quilt frame and everything that goes with setting up a new quilt (cleaning, oiling, winding bobbins...).   

Before quitting at lunch time, I sewed through 2 full bobbins worth.  The wedding is next weekend;  I should have no problem getting this finished without even needing to push for the deadline.

Shortly we'll be heading out for day #2 of swimming lessons.  And you know what?!?!.......I can see taking a nap on the beach today;  I'm a bit tired.

Happy Tuesday.

Tetris plan; Framed Rectangle progress

Ann Marie shared a great idea with me for my Tetris blocks:  Placemats!

Using six blocks (the duration of the QAL) as suggested by Ann Marie would give me a placemat larger than what I would like, so I decided to play this week's pieces again to come up with another Week 1 block.  I played it MUCH better this time (pictured right) only have 2 "open" spots.  I was even able to get part of the final orange square into the grid.  Woo-hoo!

Anyway....using some green yardage at 1.5" and 2.5" strips, I ended up with a 10" x 17" placemat.  Tonight at dinner, Candace asked "Why do you only get one, Mom?"  

LOL

I set Christmas Goose aside for the day and picked up the prepped Framed Rectangle units.  I was a bit tired (still am!), so I wanted to do something simple.  The thought of cutting and organizing shirts for some Goose blocks did not sound very appealing!

All 10 Block Bs have been pieced and 20 of Block Cs.  

Cassie was sewing downstairs with me again this afternoon;  no pictures of her today :(  But as I was wrapping up a cycle of Block Cs, she commented she was hungry.

4:45PM.  YUP!  Me too!

Everything was shut down.  Dinner was prepared.  Sweet-n-Sour pork; definitely one of our favs.  I've shared this recipe about three other times in the past.

Judy has been posting about her double-yolkers lately, so I'll jump on that wagon for a brief moment.  I'm not sure which chicken, but we've had our share of double-yolkers lately too.  Could it be Big Mama (after going a month or so NOT producing eggs because she was sitting on them and then playing Mama Hen)?  Such a shame to toss the yolks of a double-yolker, but I only needed the white.

Baby Robin has flown the nest!  We think this is the only baby that survived the spring/summer.  S/he has a distinct noise/call that attracted my attention when coming back from the garden this morning.  After a little bit of searching, I finally found her/him bouncing along the bottom of the hand rail.  Do you see the little fuzzies still left on the head?  The location of them almost gives an appearance of fuzzy eyebrows! :)

But I don't wanna stop!

Whahoo!  What a great day :)

Even with a meeting this morning at school, and then a trip to the quilt shop, I was still able to get a good amount of sewing done!  Kind of a gloomy day, so no gardening done today.  

To start off this morning....Melissa Corry posted the first week's pieces for the Tetris quilt along.  Intriguing for sure!  While waiting for the girls to finish breakfast, I printed a blank grid and "played" with this week's pieces.  Check out the links on my sidebar if you're interested in playing along.  We just started :)  Melissa and many others are making the blocks with 5" nickels ... I'm just tinkering around with 1.5" squares.

I really have no clue what I'll exactly do with my blocks, but for now, I'm just enjoying playing along and remembering the AWESOME game from years ago!

And because Cassie enjoys the game so much too----SHE'S PLAYING ALONG!  Using these small pieces will really help her learn and practice meeting up seams. 

It's fun seeing all the different blocks created based on how you strategize in the game!  Cassie and I put the orange block unit in the same spot :)  The blue one is also in the same spot----but after that, NOTHING else was played the same.

While she was playing around with other fabric, I was back to work cutting up more shirts to work on the Christmas Goose blocks (Bonnie's Goose in a Puddle pattern).

 More units await....

{{and notice the Framed Rectangle units pushed to the side.  Darn that Startitis!}}  >:|