A second post today!

I forgot to add this to the post today. I joined 15 other quilt artists in a group project. We each received a piece of a photo, backing, and batting. We had to translate the photo into fabric. Our group leader assemblied the pieces and submitted it to the IQA in Houston. It was accepted! My piece? The bottom right corner - yes, the piece that looks all green with the black lines. The photo was all green except for a tiny bit of red and orange. It looked like celery and lemon grass. I used my hand dyed fabric for the background and every color of green Sulky rayon that I had for the quilting.

Some like it hot - not me!

I was just listening to Robert Palmer "Some like it hot." It was miserable at the museum last night. We were outside under the canopy and after it rained, it was so humid! Not many people showed up because of the weather so I left early since there was nothing to do.

I pulled in the driveway at 8:15 and there was momma teaching Bubba how to eat my daylilly flowers in the front yard. They ran off to the side of the house and I got a picture of Bubba (thru the window and screen) and one of momma giving me the evil eye. If you click on the picture of momma and make it bigger you can see her better. She was under a pine tree and the light was fading so the picture is dark. After I open the window and told momma not to teach Bubba to eat my flowers, they walked off into the woods. I don't think momma got the message!

I plan on going to Home Depot at lunch and pick up some supplies for the bedroom redecorating/improvement project. So my goal this weekend is to get the closet done, finish the flag quilt and work on those alterations again.

Have a great weekend!

Chipping away

I now only have 12 square feet left to quilt. Here is the corner section that is left to be quilted.

Tonight I am working at the art museum selling beer, water, pop, and tea. I have not worked the last three Thursdays because of the TdF. It is raining right now and 72 degree, but it is a little muggy. The rain is suppose to clear out, but a long as it doesn't get as hot as last Thursday was I will be a happy camper!

A little more quilted

I mowed a bit, made meatballs, and quilted 2 square feet on the Dutch wax flag quilt last evening. So now that is 32 square feet done and 17 square feet to go. Little by little ...

More quilting done and a bedroom project

Last evening I got another 3.5 square feet quilted on the Dutch wax flag quilt. So that is 30 square feet done and 19 square feet to go.

Do you remember this from May? I did the first pass thru this room to clean it up and get rid of any trash since I could hardly walk into it for all the stuff. Well, I am going to transform this room by Aug. 20, because my quilting friend is coming for a couple of days of nothing but quilting. Last time she slept on the couch. I have a plan and it really will not take that much to get the room in decent shape. My plans are:
1. Move all the stuff somewhere!
2. start with the closet - rip out the old wood shelf, rip out the old door frame, patch, paint, and install Closetmaid shelving
3. the room - remove wallpaper border, remove baseboards, patch holes (there are about a billion - teenage boy - not mine - does that explain it?!), prime and paint the ceiling and walls, pull up old tiles, prime floor, install new floor tile, replace baseboard, paint and trim windows.
Yep, sounds like a plan!

More progress on the dutch wax flag and the tour is over

I now have 26.5 square feet of the quilt quilted - 22.5 feet to go. I had the TdF on trying to catch up on Friday's stage on Saturday since Friday evening I went to see my nephew's band play. Those kids played on under the shelter during a downpour to a small crowd that was brave enough to stay. When I say I watch the Tdf while I machine quilt I really mean that I listen and look up every few minutes to see the time gaps or if there is a problem. It makes me too nervous to watch some of the mountain stages when the crowds of people get so close to the riders. This way I hear what is going on and keep up with the progress of the stage. Hope that answers your question Janet.

Speaking of the TdF - congratulations to Aussie Cadel Evans Team BMC for the GC yellow jersey win, Isle of Man Mark Cavendish for the green jersey, and Team Garmin Cervelo for the team win (this is the team Thor Hushovd is on), Pierre Rolland for the best young rider jersey, Jeremy Roy for the most aggressive rider prize, and Sammy Sanchez for the King of the Mountain Jersey.

Cadel Evans

Flag quilt and Tdf

I switched projects last evening and decided to machine quilt on the flag quilt. I got 4 1/3 square feet done in about 2 1/2 hours. I was watching yesterday's stage of the TdF and I kept stopping to fast forward the tape thru the commercials so that slowed me down a bit. For the blue section I am using a varigated blue thread by Coat and Clark called Star. I am not a fan of Star thread because of the knots I find in the spools. That drives me crazy!

Speaking of the Tdf:
Yesterday's race profile

Going up hill (aka mountain)

Summit of the first climb

Going downhill

Riding thru the valley

Heading up the climb

The summit of this climb is in the clouds. The boys had a total of 38 miles of climbing yesterday.

Zig Zag quilt progress

I decided to work on the zig zag quilt last evening instead of alterations. I got rows 12 thru 15 sewn together in a group. A few more seams and the top will be done.

Here are a few pictures of the Alps from last night's TdF.
You can see the roads cutting right to left. They were biking from the lower road up to the upper road.

Another part of the climb. You see the road on the bottom right? Well, they are headed to the road on the upper left!

These S curves can be tricky, but so beautiful like a ballet as you watch the riders snake there way thru the curves. Here they are going downhill.

Today is going to be a brutal day in the mountains. There was a snow storm a few days ago on top of one of the mountains they are going over today. The weather has gotten warmer so hopefully the snow is gone.

Rethinking my time management

On Manday I said I would spend 1 1/2 hours working on alterations and a hour working on the xmas zig zag quilt every evening. Well, so far I have gotten my time in on the alterations, but nothing on the quilt. I am not freaking out since I don't need to have the quilt done until xmas, but I am learning more about how I use my time. After work tonight I need watch Stage 17 of the Tdf, cut up some meat up that I bought for soup and get it in the freezer, and then cook something for lunches and dinners so I may not get too much sewing done at all. This will be a lot to squeeze in 4 1/2 hours.

Last night I did get the lining shortened that pair of pants I showed you yesterday. I hemmed another pair, but I didn't get the lining shortened.

How about this smile?! Thor won yesterday's stage which was the first stage into the Alps. Voechler is still in yellow and Cavendish is still in green. It was cold - 51 degrees - and I rained hard on the riders toward the end of the stage.

Moving forward on alterations

Last evening I got the zig zagging done on three pairs of pants and hand stitched the hems. This is the bag where I am placing the items that are completed. I put in two pair of the pants - the third pair is lined so I will need to shorten the lining before they are done and go into the bag. By the way, these are not my clothes. They belong to an x-cousin by marriage and her daughter. We are still friends after all these years and I can't say no. So I met part of my time management goal last evening. I didn't get anything done on the zig zag quilt. We will try again tonight!

We finally got some rain last night! It is still overcast so hopefully we will continue to get more. It has not rained for several weeks and the ground was rock hard. No way to easily weed with that hard ground. Here are some pictures of the daylillies this morning refreshed with the rain.

Updates on the zig zag quilt and the TDF

I worked on the quilt while watching the TDF. I get nervous when the crowds are so close to the riders on the mountain stages and it is hard for me to watch so I sew and just look up here and there. Starting with the top rows - rows 1 thru 7 are all sewn together, Rows 8 thru 11 are sewn together, Rows 12 and 13 the blocks are sewn into rows, and rows 14 thru 17 still need the blocks sew to make rows. It is funny to see once the blocks are sewn together how much shorter they are than the blocks just layed side by side - see the lower right hand corner of the quilt. I had to make a few more patches. I did not have enough of the right colors in the pile of patches I had already made.

My favorite rider, Thor Hushovd, won mountain stage 13. That was a suprise to the commentators since Thor is a sprinter, but I have seen Thor rock a mountain stage in the past so I was not suprise - just delighted! Cavendish is still in green and Voeckler is still in yellow as of Stage 15. Today is a rest day. There were a few individal crashes this weekend, but no broken bones - just road rash and stitches.

I wasted a lot of time on Sunday procrasting working on the alterations. I watched a movie, made homemade pizza, cleaned up the sewing studio, did laundry, shall I go on? I broke down and started going thru the pile of alterations and doing the easy stuff first. I hemmed three pairs of pants and have 3 more ready for zig zagging the hems and then I will hand sew the hems. I am going to try and stick with a schedule this week - spend one hour on the zig zag quilt and one and one half hour on alterations to try to put a dent in both.

Steady progress and I want to go Fast!

Just like the boys making steady progress up the mountains yesterday, I am making steady progress on the Xmas zig zag quilt. I added 48 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" blocks last evening - yellow, orange, and fushia. I was digging around and did not find many purple fabrics except for batiks. I may have to move my purple row to a shorter row since I don't have many purples.

I can't imagine going down a mountain 61 MPH on a bike, but that was the average speed yesterday. That would scare the bejabers out of me!

Phillipe Gilbert - I want to go fast!

Plans for the weekend are simple, watch the Tdf, try to get some weeding done, alterations, and maybe make some more block for the Xmas quilt. Have a great weekend!

More patches on the design wall

I added more rows to the Xmas zig zag quilt last evening. I have gone thru the entire pile of patches and now I know what colors in the scrap bins I need to work on next - yellow, pink, and purple for sure. Right now the finish size would be 70" x 85". I will need make it a bit wider and possibly one or two rows longer.

Here is the pile of patches left that will go into baby quilts. This spring I just barely got into turning my scraps into these patches, so it will be interesting to see how many quilts all of these scraps turn into. So glad I bought a bolt and a half of Kona snow in May - I am going to need it to wrangle all my scraps into usable patches!

Yesterday it was a good day for Mark Cavendish of team HTC - he won the stage and is now leader in the green points jersey. Mark is an intense competitor, but has a soft, emotional side that makes you just want to give him a hug. It just poured rain at the end of the stage and I was concerned that there potential for a crash because of the wet conditions, but it was all good.

Today's stage profile - the first day in the Pyrenees - is a gut buster! I could not walk up those mountains much less ride a bike!

On the design wall

I played around a bit and decided to start throwing some of my patches up on the design wall for the family Xmas quilt. I just love zig zag quilts! I expect by the time I am done this will be a queen sized quilt.

The rest day Monday was very helpful to many riders nursing their wounds. The good news is the Juan Antonio Flecha who was hit by the media car was back in the race on Tuesday. He had both elbows and knees bandaged from the tumble he took across the pavement.

Here is Johnny Hoogeland receiving his King of the Mountain polka dot jersey on Sunday after he went down in the same accident as Flecha, but Hoogeland ended up on the barbed wire fence. After the race he had to have 33 stitches in his legs. He got back on the bike on Tuesday and completed the stage. Talk about being tough! By the way, the rider who was reported of having a suspected fracture pelvis - well he broke the head off his femur. He is having surgery and looking at 3 months of rehab. It was unfortunate because he was retiring after this tour.

Another daylilly from the garden. We have been getting some rain, so maybe the ground will soften up and make it easier to pull weeds this weekend.

How do you stay motivated?

Last evening I messed around to avoid tackling this pile of alterations. I need to find the motivation to get these done so I can move on to what I want to do. How do you motivated yourself to accomplish a job you don't really want to do? I keep telling myself to just buckle down and get it done so it is out of my hair. So far that is not working!

This is not the best flower, but after the rain yesterday afternoon this is what was left. I forgot what color this daylilly was since last year the deer at every bud off of this plant.

I have two plants of this color of daylilly. My apricot daylilly was covered with flowers until during the day a deer came along and ate almost all the flowers. It didn't snack on any other plants thank goodness!

I saw Bubba and mom this morning. Mom has her ears perked up looking at me when I opened the window to take this picture.

Here is my pile of patches for zig zag quilts that I have when I started cleaning out my scrap bins. I still have more scraps, but I have over 500 patches (5 1/2" x 5 1/2" including seam allowances) which I plan on using for this years family Xmas quilt. I want to get started on that quilt and have it done before Xmas this year.

Quilty weekend

I got the Dutch wax quilt sewn together, pieced the back, and pinned basted so it is ready for quilting. This is a birthday present for someone and that was what drove the design and fabric choices.

The boys in the TdF had a rough Friday, Saturday, and Sunday - 3 broken collarbones, a broken wrist, a suspected fractured pevis, a broken nose with a concussion, two broken arms, one rider knocked off his bicycle by a motor bike, and two riders knocked off their bike by a car. One of the riders knocked off by the car landed on a barbed wire fence. He and the other rider got back up and finished the stage. The motorbike that hit the rider got thrown out of the tour and I suspect that the car, which was a French media car, will also be tossed out. Here is a picture of the worst crash on Sunday. I hate to see this happen.

I did get an hour and a half of weeding done early Sunday. I was up at 5:40 am Sunday. It was cool out so I was out weeding by 6. So one flower bed is done - yeah. I started on those pesky alterations Sunday afternoon. I think that will be what I will be doing while I watch the tour this week.