Lazy Sunday; 2010 BOM UFO; Mother's Day running

Two hours of sewing time this morning was all that was needed to piece together the 24 blocks for Bonnie's Lazy Sunday Quiltmaker mystery; Part 2.  I love that I'm all caught up AND that I'm feeling the quilting mojo returning :)

With deadlines done;  Lazy Sunday all caught up;  and having been so long since I was in any kind of "flow" in the sewing room, I elected to tidy, clean, organize, purge...

...and then I came across a buried stack of 2010 Mystery BOM blocks.

After laying them out and coming up with a sashing idea, I was off and running.

Sashed AND the first of three borders attached.    The next little 1.5" white border is prepped, and I'm planning for a final blue border (maybe 4.5" ??).  With summer looming, I realllllly want to set a goal of quilting all of these flimsies I have laying around all over the place!

By 1:30, I turned everything off and started to mentally talk myself into getting prepared for my 9 mile run today.  It was WINDY out, and I wasn't looking forward to it;  in fact, I was putting it off for as long as I could, HOPING the wind would die down :\  No such luck.

BUT, with a nice-n-easy pace in mind, the 1.5 mile windy stretches were tolerable, KNOWING I would have a 1.5 mile tail-wind as soon as I hit the turn-around.  I ran my 3-mile "Brooke Drive" loop again (x3 today);  it's a great training loop AND keeps me close to home.  I also set up a "water stop" at the loop turn-around, so I know that I'll have a water break every 3-miles.  It works out nicely :)

And my lovely lovely Candace had a Mother's Day snack surprise waiting for me when I got home :)

A Fruit-Veggie flower!  LOL.  Ranch dip at the ends of each carrot;  peanut butter in the center of the apple-slices flower, and a banana stem.  

Cassie brought home her first hardware of the track season last Friday night.  She's been working on her 400 meter run, and Friday she was scheduled to run three separate 400 meter runs.  One of them, a 1600M medley relay (200-200-400-800), she ran the 3rd leg, and ended up helping her relay take a Gold :)  I think she slept with the medal Friday night :)

Y'all know the song..."Back to Life....Back to reality..."

Yup.  Starting to sing that right now.

Happy Sunday.

Mother's Day plants & Nephew's quilt

Does your school's Ag (FFA) group offer a Mother's Day sale too?  I have to chuckle a little bit every year that "mom" pays for her own flowers :)

BUT, I do enjoy supporting the FFA this way;  it's always nice getting some new color into the house with the first signs of Spring.

Caitlyn picked out two of the same varieties, so I put both of them in this larger pot.  Eventually, when the weather is nice enough, it'll make its way outside by the humming bird feeder.

The fragrance of Marigolds is so strong; it's always a must every year.  

The day has been filled with potting plants, giving some TLC to the seedlings (tomatoes and peppers - no pic), loads of laundry, cleaning house... a bit of normalcy, I guess.

However, I also put ALMOST all of the finishing touches on my nephew's Graduation quilt.

{I don't think any of my in-laws know about my blog, so I think it's safe showing pics}

My portion of the quilt was to do the quilting, binding and labeling.

My Mother-in-Law pieced the top.  My part is so minimal compared to everything my MIL had to do;  to me, it only seemed fitting that she is recognized as the main quilt creator on the label;  A special gift from Grandmother to Grandson on his graduation day.

This is ONE HEAVY quilt!  It's long too!  Shown here on my King size bed, it'll be plenty plenty, plenty large enough {{and then some!!}}

All that remains is for me to hand-stitch the label onto the back.  I plan to deliver it to my MIL next weekend on the way to my Green Bay marathon.

Paul is working the night-shift tonight, so I might find myself heading downstairs for some Lazy Sunday mystery piecing.  ALL of my deadlines have officially been crossed off.  Boy, that feels good :)

On the school-front...

My students and I counted down the days yesterday;  15 1/2 days left.  Suddenly, the end is looming incredibly close!  Specially with graduation only two weeks away!

My AP-Statistics students had their big AP test yesterday afternoon.  If there were ever times/days when to NOT schedule an exam...it's Monday mornings and Friday afternoons!!!   Our school day ends at 3:24, and the kiddos were still in the exam room finishing up.  I felt like I was waiting outside a labor-and-delivery room for a child to be born!  Pacing, pacing, biting nails....

When they emerged, after some initial goofy-hugginess and fake exaggerated tears (...LOL... these really ARE awesomely funny kids!!!!).....one of my boys said...."Mrs. S.  I think you over prepared us.  It really didn't seem that bad."  .... to which there were a few other nods of agreement.  

BOY!  That made me feel relieved.

So now, we all wait until July for the scores.  First year AP-Statistics - DONE.

Happy Saturday.

The weekend is over...

Well folkies, after a short snooze with the girls, I spent some time browsing through Bonnie's site in search of a pattern for my Dad's retirement quilt that my mom has requested. I'm liking the "Fun with Bricks" pattern the best, with "Chunky Churndash" second in line.

I've been working on another of her patterns: "Oklahoma Crossroads" and I layed it out today to see how it was looking so far. I figured I could give that to my Dad, but....eh......there's something about it that doesn't fit him. But the "Fun with Bricks' layed out with the diagonal pattern seems to fit. I'm already thinking of a name...."The path of Retirement"....not sure yet.




The ironing is on hold! When I need some fabric, I'll iron it. Otherwise it's just going to sit until I feel in the mood again.
Poop! I wanted to take a picture of some fabric I came across today in the stash that might be a great border fabric for the CC I'm making.

But I did come across two other fabrics that wouldn't be my first choice when out shopping, but I kinda like em!
First of all, this strawberry pattern is screaming to be made into a "Strawberry Shortcake" quilt. Gonna keep my eye out for the perfect pattern...

Also, this rose pattern is SO PRETTY and ELEGANT! It doesn't fit in my house, but.....??? It'll be one of those fabrics that'll sit until that PERFECT MOMENT!







So anyway.....tonight, I finally got back to working on the CC. I started cutting a few more strips of Browns and Greens for part 3 around 6:00pm.
Candace fell asleep on her Dora couch, so Cassie and Catilyn joined me downstairs, plopped a movie in and relaxed after their baths. Meanwhile, I was sewing the strips together into the 3-grouping sets. At 8:00, I shushed them off to bed, read them a story, and then came back downstairs to sew some strips together.

Once I had the strips sewn and cut, I figured----DONE for the night. But..hmmm...it's only 8:50...it shouldn't take that long to sew them together, right??? So, off I went.
30 minutes later, I had only sewn 2 sets of 3-patches together. I wasn't about ready to put another 30 minutes in tonight to finish them up. SO, they will await until tomorrow to get the final pieces together for step three.

It was eerie downstairs tonight, alone. DH is gone for the weekend, fishing with buddies. So after I put the girls to bed and went back downstairs, I didn't turn the radio or TV on. I wanted to hear the girls if they needed me. It gave me time to hear my thoughts....and my first thoughts were..."What am I going to call this quilt? Am I just going to keep it Carolina Crossroads? Should I use the graphic Phyl shared with the group? What if my quilt is found in an antique shop 75 years from now---whoa...that would be weird! If that label is on there, it might be a Collector's item....wow...I wonder if anyone else has thought about that....?"

Then my thoughts moved to --- "Hmm...this would be a great gift to my mom for Mother's Day. Okay....that's about 4 weeks away...that should be enough time to finish this and quilt it. Ooo...but then will I have enough time to make Dad's quilt before his party the first weekend of June?...oh dear...."

I can't express through the right words what joining this group has done for me. I read the posts daily, respond personally to some, but learn so much! The links being shared are great!