Butterflies and Angels: Vacation 2018

Wishing everyone in the United States a safe and reflective Memorial Day.  We drove home yesterday, in part to avoid the end of the holiday weekend traffic and so we'd have one day to recuperate from vacation before heading back to work.  We had a fun vacation, though it was shorter than usual.  The Scientist in Training is heading back for summer school this year and My Guy has business trips in the works, so we didn't have a big window for scheduling things this year.   

Most of my stitching time this week was spent on one of my long term travel projects, the butterfly medallion panel.  I spent most of the week working on butterfly number 3 (out of 9 on the panel).

I keep planning to work on this while we are home, but I never remember to pull it out of it's case (hence all the folds and wrinkles).  

Since we got home early Sunday afternoon, I was able to get a good start on the laundry, then go spend the evening in my sewing room.  All the rows of the Christmas Angels quilt are now sewn together. 

Getting this to the finished flimsy stage is my OMG for May.  The plan is to spend most of today in the sewing room.  My Guy is off on a 70 mile bike ride and the SIT has plans with friends.  So I'll have the house to myself for most of the morning.  Hopefully I can get the center all sewn together, finish the pieced border, plus add the two strip borders before the end of May.  

That's all the quilty stuff for this post, so you can stop here if that's what you stopped by to see.  You can read on if you are interested in seeing a few vacation photos.  

Due to the changing dates of My Guy's business trips we opted for a close to home vacation this year.  We spent some time in Missouri Wine Country to start. 

A little wine is always a great way to start vacation. Stone Hill is one of our favorite wineries and we can highly recommend both the wines and their Vintage Restaurant. It's a must visit any time we are in the area. 

We spent the rest of our vacation in the St. Louis area.  Doing the expected things, like visiting the Botanical Gardens. 

Yes, I have lots and lots of pictures of beautiful flowers, but I really loved these leaves.  They look like someone tried to paint them green.  

My Guy and I are both from Missouri.  We were chagrined to realize a few years ago that the SIT had never seen the Gateway Arch.  It's such an iconic part of the state, we really felt it was remiss of us that we'd never taken her.  So we did that this trip. 

Now she's been there, been up in it, so that's checked off the list.  

We also visited the St. Louis Art Museum, but I don't have any photos from that visit.  It's not hard to guess our next activity from the below photo. 

I was amazed to find out the St. Louis Zoo is free if all you want to do is see the animals.  We had a wonderful time, it really is a great place to spend a morning. Schools in the St. Louis area had classes until Friday.  The zoo was really, really busy the morning we went.  I can't imagine what it will be like this next week.  


Our last outing was a place called The City Museum.  

Yes, that's a school bus hanging out from the 10th floor of the museum.  SIT said the listing for the museum said it was a place containing interactive displays of art.  It really was a cross between an art museum and an amusement park.  We had a lot of fun, but we were all a little sore that night from crawling around the caves and other exhibits.  If you have older kids (tweens and teens) this is a great place for them to burn off any extra energy.  

In between all the site seeing we ate a lot of great food (mostly, there were a couple of questionable meals), My Guy rode his bike on the Katy Trail in the mornings while the SIT and I shopped in Old Town St. Charles. It worked for all of us.  Now to finish off all the accumulated laundry and spend some much needed R&R time in the sewing room.    

Linking up with:
Monday Making
Monday Design Wall  

Week 21 of 2018: Stitching and De-Stashing

This was another week of being mostly AWOL from my personal computer.  The reason is a mix of the good and bad.  The good is that we've been on vacation this week in the exotic state of Missouri.  The bad is that I've had to sign on to the work computer every morning for a couple of hours before we head out for the day's fun stuff.  So my vacation plan of spending my morning coffee time reading emails and blog posts didn't work out so hot this trip.  However, I did just barely get in my 15 minutes of stitching time each day. 

15 minute stitching days/week = 7/7 days
15 minute stitching days/month = 25/26 days
15 minute stitching days/year = 137/146 days
Success rate = 93.84%

How did you do on finding time to stitch this week?  You can link up at the bottom of the post. 

Since all my stitching time while we've been on vacation has been hand work, there's been no fabric out. Conversely, I've avoided adding any fabric this trip, so the stash numbers are unchanged from last week.  But there has been visible progress on the Butterfly Medallion embroidery project.

I've been able to grab a few minutes of stitching while I'm waiting for everyone else to finish getting ready before we head out in the morning's and just a bit before bed at night. Those stolen minutes can really add up.  Linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday.  I'm hoping to get back to my sewing room this afternoon once I've taken the top off the mountain of laundry we came home with.  It's nice to get home with a couple of days to spare before going back to work. I'll need them to rest up from vacation.  

If you'd like to share your adventures in finding time to stitch, please link up below. 

1. Julie in GA 2. Melissa G 3. MartiDIY

4. maggie f 5. di 6. Aileen K

7. Shasta 8. Christina's Handicrafts

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Odds and Ends From One of Those Weeks

Do you ever wake up on Monday and wonder what happened to the weekend?  Or for that matter what happened to all of last week?  I've been pretty much AWOL from my personal computer as I seemed to be stuck like glue to the work computer the last week.  It's mid-year review season at work, couple with with the need to wrap up some projects and it's just been completely insane.  So there hasn't been a lot of responding to email and blog reading the last week, so I hope you'll forgive me for being so far behind.  I will catch up eventually.  

The sewing room hasn't seen too much of me the last week either, so there's not much progress there. I did find a few minutes here and there to contemplate the final borders for Vintage Dresses.  I think I'm about there.  Now to decide on the final color, pink or blue. 

  

 Vintage Dresses blocks by Charise Randell, Setting by Kate

I may change the corners so the colored borders better mimic the frames around each block. It's a lot of borders, but I like the 3-D effect you get by moving from lighter to darker from the center of the quilt.  Now that I've got a plan, hopefully there will be some time in the sewing room soon to see if I've got the fabrics to make either one of these color schemes work. 

The Scientist in Training has been home for just a little bit over a week.  She hadn't seen the final version of the her Geek Chic quilt.  To say she loves it is a bit of an understatement, it's become her go to quilt for relaxing.  

 Yes, the SIT has been treating herself to massive doses of Pokeman on the DS and while binge watching Netflix.  It's OK, she made A's in everything but calculus.  (There have been a few breaks for laundry, doing dishes and volunteering at the local animal shelter.)  

I never shared the final name for what's been called around the house as the SITs chem quilt.  Here's the label, minus Mom's message. 

She loves it.  That's the best thank you. 

Linking up with:
Main Crush Monday
Monday Making
Monday Design Wall

Week 20 of 2018: Stitching and Stashing Stuff

It's been a stormy weekend so far in my part of the country.  It is May, so that's kinda par for the course this time of year.  Life has been crazy busy, work especially, so this week's stash report is going to be lack luster, but the stitching report isn't so bad. 

I could have probably found more time to stitch, but after putting in a few 12 hour days this week, finding the energy to do much more was a challenge. 

Days with stitching time this week:  6 out of 7 days
Days with stitching time this month:  18 out of 19 days
Days with stitching time this year:  130 out of 139 days
Success rate:  93.53%

There was just one evening that I was so brain dead that playing with any type of sharp item would have been a mistake. Hopefully your week went much smoother.  Please scroll to the bottom of the post to find the 15 minute stitching challenge link up. 

The stash report is pretty dismal.  There was absolutely no fabric going out this week.  On the good side, none came in either. 

Fabric used this week:  0 y
Fabric used in 2018:  23.00 y
Fabric added in 2018:  7.25 y
Net fabric out for 2018:  15.75 y

Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for this week's stash report. 

One reason there is no fabric out is my stitching time this week was mainly handwork.

I've gotten a good start on the third butterfly in the panel.  This was an easy project to pick up and do a bit before heading to bed. Unfortunately this week is going to be busy as well, so I think there's more hand work in my immediate future.  Linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday this week.  

Hopefully you've had a successful week on both the stitching and the stash busting fronts.  You can link up here and share how your week of stitching went (or didn't as the case may be).  

1. Julie in GA 2. MartiDIY 3. di 4. CathieJ

5. Susanne 6. maggie f 7. Aileen K 8. Shasta

9. Shasta 10. Christina's Handicrafts 11. Deana

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Weekend Stitching: More Christmas in May

Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day.  I certainly did.  My family gave me a day in the sewing room, along with a very nice home cooked dinner. 

Since the morning was taken up with laundry (necessary in order to have clothes for work this week), it ended up just being an afternoon in the sewing room. The time was spent mainly on getting the Christmas Angels quilt all sewn together.  

The top three rows are completely assembeled. I've gotten a good start on finishing up the blocks needed for the first border.  The right hand border is under construction.  So this project is moving right along.  It should be a finished flimsy by the end of the month, which is good as it's my May OMG project.  

Linking up with:
Monday Making
Monday Design Wall