One Last Project

 Before we ring in the new year I wanted to get one last project under way.  I still had the blocks from September to piece together.  It was my month for Do.Good Stitches.  The blocks were still trickling in close to November, so I finally have all of them.  I like how it turned out.  

Finished and Sent Off

In the mix of the holidays I was also trying to get a quilt done.  I decided to pull out my walking foot for the quilting.  My only sadness is that some of the fabric got bunched on the back.  I thought I had pinned it well enough, but clearly I was mistaken.  I love the big block look though.  I may have to revisit this quilt pattern.

Flooring!

You know you're getting old when you get this excited about new flooring.  I'm so excited the backroom now has a floor!

The first picture is at about the half-way point in the project.

The project meant the kitties couldn't be down in the basement for about a week, and they took full advantage of ravaging the upstairs at night.  That is, when they're weren't cat napping.

It's so nice that they can sleep down there now.

That Pretty Much Sums it Up

 2020 represented in an ornament:

Big Blocks

 Erica Jackman has a series of large blocks that I really love.  They're fun to put together.  I needed a bigger baby quilt than usual, because the baby is already 6 months old.  These blocks are 24" each.

Finally Finishing Something

It's been almost 2 months since I completed the quilt top, but life has a way of being crazy and getting in the way.  Plus, Joel has been working from home a lot more because of Covid, and he uses my sewing table as his work office.  Since my friend is due this month I thought I'd better pull myself together and finish this quilt.  Nothing quite like a due date to force a finish.  It seems that's about the only way I get a quilt done these days.  

I bought this fabric originally for my nephew's baby quilt and this is now my fourth quilt using it.  Sadly, this is the last of the fabric except for a few scraps.  I was feeling almost a bit nostalgic about it.

I love the shadows from a late Fall afternoon.

2020 Ornaments

 This year's ornaments have mostly a Star Wars theme:

Little Man: He wanted BB8

Little Lady: Her exploration of cooking and baking this year is represented in this ornament

BB and Little Guy wanted light sabers.  That pretty much fits their personality as well.

We obviously needed to get an ornament for the new kitties.  Stella's ornament fits her personality.  Her curiosity is going to kill my Christmas tree.  I can already tell.

Luna's ornament showed up saying Smokey.  When we reached out to the seller he said the customization was for the year - not the name.  What in the world?  It made us laugh so much we decided to just keep it.  We've playfully been calling her Smokey when she gets in trouble.  

This is our ornament from our New England trip over the summer. 

We have a 2020 ornament coming to memorialize this crazy year.  It's not here yet.  

Professional Excitement

 After a full year of working on it, my piano/voice and voice only curriculum are completed!

At Kansas City School of Music the kiddos don't use the typical method books for beginning piano.  Scott and a couple of other teachers came together and designed their own curriculumn that combined all the things they liked for the different method books.  The binder contains the equivalent of the primer level and level 1.  It spends a lot more time on prestaff notes while focusing on technique and form.  My task was to come up with an equivalent for voice.  Young vocal students are required to learn piano at KCSM, because Scott values literacy.  He wants the voice students to be musically literate which is often a problem with vocalists.  About half of my students are combination piano and voice students.  I also have several students who originally came to KCSM to learn piano and then decided they also wanted to practice voice.  They continue on with their piano teacher and I start teaching them voice.  I put together a separate binder for those students.  It's taken a lot of time and revisions, but I finally have a finished project, and all of my students now have their respective binder.  I'm sure I'll have to continue to revise it as I use it more, but I'm thrilled to have such a large undertaking done!

Stella

 It's funny to see the opposite personalities of the kitties.  Stella is our Xena Warrior Princess.  She's always curious, hunting, and pouncing.  If there's something new she needs to explore it immediately.

She sleeps completely spread out like she owns the place.  How is that even comfortable?

She thinks she's one of the humans, and she is very vocal when she wants something.  She has quite a loud meow, and she's not afraid to use it.

Stitches Finish

 I finished this quilt top back when everything first shut down in the Spring, and then it sat there for 7 months.  I finally put the quilt all together.  This quilt will be donated to Linus Kids. 

I finally pulled out this flamingo fabric I've been saving for a "special" project for a very, very long time.  Sometimes you just have to take the plunge and use fabric that is safely tucked away.  

Baby Quilt Finish

 I finally finished the first of 3 baby boy quilts I'm making.  I went with bold red thread for the quilting just for fun.  It makes the stipling stand out a little more. 

I've wanted an excuse to use this cute dinosaur flannel for a while now, so I was excited the colors fit perfectly.  Now that my kiddos are headed back to school next week I may actually have some time to get a few more quilting projects knocked off my list. 

We've Got Walls!

 The basement is coming along nicely.  Sheet rock went up last week.  

This week the walls were primed and ready for paint, and there are now doors!

Now I just need to find some time to paint all of it!

Monochromatic 4-patch

 I loved the monochromatic patches so much from do.Good Stitches that I decided to make a quilt of them.  They're a great scrap buster and you can mix around the design to change things up.  This is the first quilt top I've pieced together in 5 months!  Now that the youngest is at preschool I actually have some time to get a few things done.  I have a couple of friends having babies, so I needed to get out my sewing machine again.

Project #3

 Last year we put a bathroom in the basement.  The way the basement is configured the bathroom is currently in the middle of the unfinished portion of it.  We are in the process of fixing that issue.  The first step was to remove the small closet to make an entrance into the back half of the basement.  We also had to remove the wooden shelving.  The re-wiring of electrical outlets and recessed lighting came next along with the framing.  The last of this process was finished this evening.  

Before:

In process of closet removal:

Finished framing and electrical:

We're hoping to put a bedroom back here eventually.

Insulation and sheet rock is the next step.  Unfortunately, while they were finishing up some stuff this evening, they noticed water started dripping from the ceiling.  (You can see the spot on the floor).  It looks like our dishwasher is leaking.  Never a dull moment around here!  We have to get that looked at and fixed before we think about putting up sheet rock.  I suppose I should just be grateful it leaked before and not after we put up in the new drywall.  

While that was happening inside I was tackling the outside.  I was sad when I realized the really thick roots I couldn't get up last Fall weren't just your average variety of ivy.  Nope.  It's poison ivy, and it's back with a vengeance.  There's a lot more of it than I thought.  Now that a lot of the regular ivy is cleared it's more obvious just how bad the poison ivy was.  No wonder I was breaking out like insanity.  This time I went to extreme measures to avoid getting a rash, and I used the special soap until I was almost raw on my hands and arms.  I wasn't taking any chances.  I'm happy to report I didn't break out this time!  Wahoo! 

This is what it looked like 2 weeks ago after I pulled more ivy.  Unfortunately, even though I tried to get it as much from the roots as possible, it's already partially grown back.  Boo!  I am determined to eventually get rid of ALL the ivy in our yard.  It may take years, but one day I want to be ivy-free!

Delectable Mountain Blocks

We had the same blocks for both July and August, so we needed to make 8 of them.  I didn't get around to it in July, so I was grateful for the extra month.  I really liked these blocks.  I may need to do a quilt using these blocks.  

The only requirements for these blocks were to pick from navy, turquoise, yellow, red, purple or green with a grey to off-white background.