Happy St. Patrick's Day!

My Irish great grandmother Nellie

and her daughter, my Irish grandmother, Helen

No sewing happened last evening. I had a hair appointment right after work. My new stylist had been a big help with dealing with my thinning and breaking hair. My hair is coming back in, but it seems to be breaking off. We had a long talk about products. I had changed my shampoo and conditioner months ago per her recommendations, but we think the styling products I am using are the problem. She recommended to start with a protein booster for after I shampoo and a water-based moose for styling. I will give those a try and see what happens.

When I got home I decided to make brownies to take to work for St. Patrick's Day. While the brownies baked, I did dishes.

It started snowing around 3 PM yesterday and the temps dropped into the 20's. Burr! After having 70 degrees weather, it was quite a system shock. We didn't get any accumulation. This is what is looked like this morning.

The roads had been heavily salted so no issues driving. I got to work and darn it was cold inside! The heat has gone out again. The system was blowing cold air so I shut that off and emailed the landlord. Here was the thermostat said

Thank goodness I have my little space heater. I am still wearing my coat and scarf. Let's hope the HVAC guy can get here soon.

Still quilting

The weekend started out rough. Friday when I got home from work, the electricity was off. The winds were gusting at 57 mph all day. I have a iHome speaker that was charged up so I put my iPod on it and played music while I tried to be productive. I did gather some candles just in case. I got the laundry put away, straightened out stuff in the studio, and found some more fabric I had cut for pouches, but had not sandwiched them. I still need to press these, but I put together 21 more. The electric came on at 7:00 pm; it was out for three hours.

Saturday was all about quilting pouch sandwiches. I got 37 quilted and trimmed.

Sunday I managed to get another 16 quilted and trimmed. I was tired and needed to do laundry and a few other things besides just quilting.

I now have 142 ready for zippers. Besides taking these to the retreat I am going to, I need to make a few to take to my brother's house for Easter as my little gift to everyone.

Here are the sandwiches I still have to quilt.

I have emptied a few spools since I started quilting these pouches. These are both the Sulky rayon (which I am trying to use up) and the quilting thread that goes in the bobbin.

Keep making progress, daffodils, weekend plans

Last evening I got 11 pouch sandwiches quilted! Woohoo!

I even got them trimmed!

I have 95 now trimmed and ready for the next step which is installing zippers. There are 86 left to quilt. I want to make as many as I can for the retreat I will be going to and I need some to give as little gifts for Easter. I didn't have as many as I would have liked when I went to last year's retreat so I want to make sure I have enough this year. They are always handy to have on hand to give as a little gift so any extra will not go to waste!

My plans for the weekend are quilting as many of the pouch sandwiches as I can, see if my neighbor can come help me move that desk extension upstairs

and make cookies for St. Patrick's day to take to work. It's going to be a busy weekend! I took this picture of the daffodils yesterday afternoon and some of them are ready to bloom. Monday thru Wednesday the temps are going to drop into the teens and low 20's so I don't know if that might ruin the flowers. These are next to the house so it stays a little warmer with the heat radiating off the brick so that might save them.

Have a great one!

The pouch quilting continues

I got another 10 sandwiches quilted last evening.

My pile of sandwiches doesn't seem to be getting any smaller. Here are the backs which I haven't posted.

Those 10 are trimmed and will join the others for phase 2 which is zipper installation.

the quilting continues and Lenten Roses

I got another 10 pouch sandwiches quilted last evening. I had to really push myself to get the 10th one done.

I even got them trimmed along with the four left from the other day. I now have 74 at this stage of the process.

There was this ugly spool of thread in one of my Sulky rayon thread containers. It is a twisted thread of purple and black.

I found the perfect ugly fabric in my piles of sandwiches to use that thread on. Ugly + ugly = not too bad looking! LOL!

It was 70 degrees when I got home so I had to take a walk out back to see the Lenten Roses. They have exploded with flowers! I just wish someone would clean out the bed! I guess I need to put that on the to-do list.

More pouch sandwiches quilted

I quilted for three hours last evening and got 10 pouch sandwiches quilted.

I needed to catch up on trimming the sandwiches and I now have 60 ready for zippers and three more to trim.

I feel like I am finally starting to make headway on this project.

More quilting and plants galore

Saturday and Sunday were to be all about quilting curved top pouch sandwiches. I did get 11 quilted Saturday

and 10 quilted Sunday

I also got some of them trimmed to size. Here is the trimmed ones and the pile yet to trim

I am using Sulky rayon thread as the top thread to quilt these. I want to use up this thread which I don't use much anymore. Some of the spools were giving me trouble so I pulled out the Sewers Aid and put that on the thread. The thread quit breaking and shredding so that was a big help!

I needed to go to the post office Saturday. While I was out I stopped over at a greenhouse that was having a 20% off sale. I couldn't walk away empty handed! I bought this Xmas cactus that was half off and a pot for it. I love these cream colored terra cotta pots.

And I bought this little Haworthia. I have one of these that was gifted to me years ago, and I love it. This new one has more white on it and two babies.

After looking around the garage, I saw I didn't have any potting soil so Sunday morning I took a trip to get some and a few tiny pots. Now the cactus and Haworthia are both repotted.

I need more space for plants! As much as I try not to increase the number I have, it's not working and I keep propagating more in addition to the new acquisitions. I decided to straighten all the paperwork I had dumped in this chair in a spare room plus go thru the file to discard expired insurance policies, taxes I don't need to keep, and well, you get the drift! The pile next to the chair is for shredding, the next pile is stuff I was looking for, and the last pile is for the recycling bin.

Now that is cleaned up I have room for a table for plants. I pulled out the extension for a desk that was not being used. The desk is in the fabric storage room and has all kinds of fabric on top of it. The extension was tucked under it.

This extension table is downstairs and is heavy. It is put together with cams so it will be easy to unlock the cams and take it apart. It will be much easier to carry each piece upstairs to reassemble. At least that the plan! I may have to ask my neighbor for a hand.

The daffodils are showing flower heads now and the Lenten roses are blooming! It is a few weeks too soon for this.