A little progress on the rail fence, more clean up, and a free plant

I had to run errands after work so I didn't have as much time to quilt on the rail fence. I am now 42% done.

I still made time to head out into the yard to do more clean up. The yard wagon was loaded up after my half hour of work.

I wanted to clean up around this lavender to see if it was indeed a plant that had rooted off of the main plant that was pretty much dead.

The stem had been laying on the soil and yes it had rooted! A free plant! I carefully dug it up and moved it. I will have to keep my eye on it and make sure it stays well watered. Once I get the area around the lavender cleaned up I am going to find a couple stems to pin down and see if I can't get more to root. Any new plants will help replace the ones that are dying.  This bed is starting to look better!

In honor of President Obama's library opening today I am posting my quilt that I made to represent him. The front is Dutch wax African prints and the back is Hawaiian fabric. I made this back in 2011.

Rail fence quilting progress and flower bed clean up

The quilting on the rail fence is coming along! I am now 38% done with the quilting.

I headed outside after 6 PM to get my one load of weeds etc. or a half hour of yardwork accomplished. It was getting overcast; I wait until after 6 so I am in the shade. This is the mess I am tackling

It didn't take very long to fill the garden wagon! I cut back the dead parts of the lavender bushes, dug up more thistle, and cleaned up leaves along with some wild strawberry vines and some creeping charley.

After about 15 minutes outside it started to sprinkle as the dark clouds started to roll in.

I quickly had to dump the wagon out back, gather up my tools and head inside as it the rain was coming down harder and the thunder was getting louder. It rained hard so there was no way I could have worked thru it. I got this one spot somewhat cleaned up. Better than nothing!  I didn't have time to look closer at that lavender plant that looks mostly dead.  There is that bit of green by the rock edging and I don't know if that is attached to the original plant or an offshoot.  Lavender plants have a lifespan of 7 years so it looks like the older plants are dieing off.  

Progress on the rail fence and what's going on in the yard

The rail fence quilt is now 27% quilted. I keep having problems with the thread jumping out of the bobbin and goobering up so there is more stopping and starting.

It was so nice out last evening I decided to see what was blooming out in the flower beds. The conflowers are blooming and the Shasta daisies are starting to bloom.

What was about to bloom was thistle! Yikes! It needed to go!

I jumped into action and started pulling weeds and thistle. I decided since it was cooler that I would try pull weeds every evening for a half hour or until the garden wagon was full - whichever came first. Here is my first wagon full which I concentrated on pulling the thistle.   I did not need the thistle going to seed!

Quilting, mail, baking, and being a roadie

By Friday morning I had the rail fence quilt top sewn together. The top measures 81.5 x 90.5.

By Saturday it was pin basted and by Sunday I had 16% of it quilted.

On Sunday I needed to get up from the sewing machine and move around so I decided to pin baste the other quilt that belongs to the same person as the rail fence quilt. The butterflies are appliqued by machine and are made out of a knit material. I had to resew a couple of places where the seams were not lying flat. I was not going to take this quilt apart! Fixing those two seams helped a lot and I can work in the excess fabric in a couple other places. So now this quilt is ready to be quilted. It is smaller and measures 70 x 83.

I received a bunch of zippers from my sister's friend who was at the retreat. These will come in handy!

A lady I met at the retreat sent me this cute pincushion she stitched and a sweet little tomato. I had sent her one of the new scissor pouches in fabric that matched the curved top pouch I had given her at the retreat.

Friday I baked more oatmeal raisin cookies for the show in Pittsburgh and birthday cake scones for the show in Cleveland.

We left about noon for Pittsburgh on Friday for a show with my nephew's band. We had a whole van full and my SIL provided us with lunch. I had already eaten the bag of fruit before I took this picture.

It was hot and there were not many people. We got everything loaded up in 45 minutes and I was home by a little after nine. It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive one way.

On Saturday we headed to Cleveland. This is only about a 45 minute drive one way. It was not quite as hot as Pittsburg. There was a good crowd and Michael was the headliner. Everyone pitched in loading and unloading the equipment. I got home about 9 which was nice.

Three more seams to go!

I made good progress on the rail fence quilt remake. I got another 4 row section sewn together.

I also got the rest of the blocks sewn into the last two rows which would be rows nine and ten. This leaves me with only three seams to sew and the top is back together!

I needed to water last evening since I wasn't sure if it was going to rain or not. When I was dragging the hose around the house I spied poppies that had bloomed! These has self-seeded from the seeds I broadcasted last year. The seeds were from a friend. I saw many more plants that were going to be blooming soon.

As I continued to drag the hose to the front, I saw the rabbit again. She has been hanging around a lot and my neighbor thinks she has a nest under my blue spruce. She was only about 10 feet away and didn't move even when I was hauling the hose around. I guess I am not that scary! LOL!!

Eventually she moved closer to the blue spruce. She likes eating the clover that has bloomed.

I was done with watering a little after 7 and I kept hearing thunder. I thought the rain might go around, but since I watered it did start to rain shortly after I went inside. It rained hard and the lighting was vicious.

Better than nothing

I had a busy afternoon and evening so all I got done on the rail fence quilt top was getting two more rows sewn together.

I had my monthly appointment with my wellness guru and he was running behind. After I was done there, I stopped at the grocery store then headed home. I needed to update my little containers for my supplements I get from my guru. I have a group of containers for morning and one for evening. This is my evening group. I already had some set up, but I needed to add the new supplements I just bought. Now I have enough set up to last me 11 days.

We got a little bit of rain sometime early this morning. My coneflowers are starting to bloom.

It is forecasted to get up to 90 today! Too hot too soon! Next week it is supposed to be in the 70's which will be much more tolerable!

Progress on the rail fence top

I now have the bottom four rows sewn together and the next two rows staged on the design wall.

After that I decided to go ahead to prep the rest of the blocks by pressing and trimming them. There are 90 blocks in this quilt top.