Quilting progress, leaf blowing, organ cover fit, and radon results

First, I found that your comments were going to my spam box! What the heck? I think that is now fixed. I got a bit more quilted on the courthouse steps quilt. I only have three more blocks to quilt.

I was so nice outside last evening, I decided to leaf blow the front and side yards. Here is the before and after taken from the garage. I have a lot of leaves to blow in the back yard, but I was getting tired of wresting the leaf blower after an hour so those will have to wait.

My brother sent me pictures of the organ cover with the organ inside. He liked the new cover because it was stiffer than the old one so it made it easier to put the cover on. He was able to get the cover on by himself. I think it fits better than the old one ever did.

My radon reading are in. Before the system was installed the reading were 2.9 to 7.6. The readings for the last 12 hours were 0.0 to 0.4. I would say the system is working! Have a great weekend! I will be breathing easier!

Great progress on the quilting, the concrete dust, and where to buy ribbon

The courthouse steps baby quilt is at least 60% quilted. It is a smaller quilt so the quilting is going fast. I really like this one and I may have to make a few more.

Wanda, the installer used a shop vac when he drilled the hole so there wasn't any dust. I had asked about that before he started the installation.

Cherie, my bobbin holder is something my dad had made. It fits into a wooden sewing box he made. I took the thread holders out - I have two - and use one for quilting thread bobbins, and one for regular sewing thread bobbins.

Vicki, you might try Wawak Sewing Supplies for grosgrain ribbon. I buy all my zippers for pouches from them along with thread and hardware for bags. Their service is outstanding and I get my orders in a couple days.

Courthouse steps baby quilt, radon interior installation, construction progress and yes, there is more!

I got the bobbins wound and a little bit of quilting done on the courthouse steps striped baby quilt. I like the soft gold color which I think will blend nicely with all the different fabrics.

Speaking of chili, I do not put onions in my chili. I hate onions! I use lots of chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, a little pepper and salt. I think it is delicous!

I remembered to take a picture of the radon final interior installation. There is a hydrometer that shows the fan is working. I will get the results in the next two days to see if the radon readings have gone down. They didn't caulk around the pipe going thru the wall or the electrical wire.  I will take care of that; I have caulk and a caulking gun.

Progress is slow at the neighbors, but there has been progress. The footer has been poured and some rebar installed. They moved the CMU from the driveway into the hole.

My brother picked up the organ cover yesterday and said he would send me a picture of it with the organ inside. He thought the way I made the new cover was great and it ought to last for years.

It is finally done! Strapping anyone?

The organ cover is finally done thank goodness. I was certainly feeling it in my arms and shoulders from wresting it. I sewed on the end handles. I first sewed a piece of strapping to join up with the handle strapping. I did four rows of straight stitching and then zigzag the handle and ends. The handle at the end makes it easier to grab and hold on to the organ while it is being moved. It takes two people to move it.

Lastly I added the top flap. There is no stress on this piece so I only sewed it on with two rows of stitching. Slapped on some Velcro to hold it in place and the cover is done!

I bought the 2" wide strapping from HomeSew. They are going out of business so everything was 60% off. They were sold out of the 10 yard rolls so I bought the 100 yard roll. I used 10 yards making the organ case so I have about 90 yards left - LOL!!!  Anyone who needs some strapping I would be glad to sell you some! It cost me about twenty cents a yard.

The next projects I am going to work on are baby quilts and tote bags. I have seven baby quilts to finish. Three are pin basted. I am going to start with this one.

The tote bag is not the ones I use for the merch booth. I made several of these fancy ones, but misplaced/lost my cutting sizes. I will have to figure out the measurements and sew together one to make sure I got everything right. Here is the one I made myself that I can use as a guide.

Organ cover, soup, and assembly

I have been working on the replacement organ cover for my nephew and it has been a battle. I bought some 59" wide twill fabric and lined it with some wide stiff fabric that someone have given me a bolt of. I needed to make this cover without any seams meaning any two pieces of fabric that were cut. The organ is heavy and the previous cover fabric was nowhere near tough enough.

I layered the fabric and marked it for where the strapping needed sewn. I pressed on some iron on fleece for the bottom and ends.

I pinned the layers together then sewed on the strapping. The strapping is what is carrying the weight of the organ.

I needed to box the corners. Again I didn't want to cut the fabric so I folded them, sewed the seam with a straight stitch and then a zigzag stitch

I flipped it over to the right side and pushed the triangle towards the main body. I sewed thru all the layers twice. This seam is not going to come apart!

I went back to the wrong side and topstitched with two rows of stitching the triangle to the body of the case.

I did this for all for corners. It was like wrestling a bear! I trimmed the top edge and added a wide binding to catch all the layers. The plaid fabric was a couple inches narrower than the green fabric so I wanted to make sure I caught all the layers and that they were securely sewn together. I worked on this over the last four days and it is almost done. I still need to add some strapping with a handle at each end and a top with velcro to hold it in place.

Besides fighting with that cover, the radon guys came Saturday around 9:15 am. By 1:00 they were done. Drilled a hole in the side of the house, drilled a hole in the slab, installed a lot of pipe and ran an electrical line for the fan. I forgot to take a picture of the final installation on the inside.

They set up the radon sensor to record the levels after the installation. I will know the results later on this week.

Sunday I cleaned up the kitchen, made two pots of soup - chili and Stanley Tucci's kale and bean soup. I had to make a quick trip to the store because I had no red kidney beans for the chili. Yes, I put beans in my chili!

When I got back from the store I went over to my neighbor's house to see the progress. The masons were forming up the footers for the new porch. This hole had to be 8 feet deep!

I decided I needed to put together the replacement chair. I bought an office chair for where I work and the hydraulics died - yes, I had to buy my own chair. There was a warranty on the chair so I got credit for a new chair. The new chair had been sitting in the garage for at least 6 weeks. It took me longer to find a hex wrench than to put it together. I did put the one part on backwards, so I had to unscrew four screws and fix that. By the time I was almost done I found the hex wrench which was included. Ugh! It was called Part D and was never mentioned in the instructions. I had the chair put together in about 40 minutes with half that time looking for the right hex wrench. I will use this in my sewing room

The chair I was using at the sewing machine I salvaged from the hospital job I was on about 7 years ago. The hospital left it in the area that was going to be demolished and even though it was a little ratty, it worked. That is the fun part of some of the jobs we get - rooting thru and salvaging perfectly good stuff that is left behind. This will now be my garage chair to sit in when I need to rest a bit when I am doing yardwork.

I "fixed" my chair at work by finding a couple metal plates and holding them in place with duct tape. It keeps the chair at the right height. Not pretty, but it works!

Wristlets done

I tore apart and fixed the mistake now I have the two wristlets done. I am happy with the way they turned out.

My friend at work picked the zigzag quilt and the log cabin quilt. She really liked then. Woohoo!

I messed up and oops I did it again!

Last evening I decided to make another one of those wristlets. I decided to look at the pocket in the almost finished one

and discovered I messed up. No lining on one side! I am going to try to take it apart and fix it. It's going to be a bit of a pain to tear out the stitching since I stitched it twice to make sure it didn't fall apart - LOL!!! What a silly mistake.

I am almost done with the second one because if I am making one I might as well make two!  The pocket is fully lined this time!

This was at the mail box today.  Oops I did it again; bought more fabric!

I wasn't going to buy anymore fabric; I have plenty! BUT Keepsake Quilting was having a promotion for 25% off their clearance fabric. The clearance fabric was already at a great price so an extra 25% off was crazy. I thought I would just take a look and I found some good stuff! These are additional fabrics for some projects already planned. I ended up with 16.5 yards for $5.01 a yard! It is all good stuff that normally would be ten to eleven dollars a yard. I also ordered enough to get free shipping, because why not!

A woman at work saw the dragonfly fabric and wants me to make her a project bag out of it. She is very fair and will probably cover half of what all this fabric cost me.