Still working on the linen piece

I sewed together the two halfs and the right side unit is assembled. I have been so tired that I have not made much progress. We had a bid opening this week - I hate bid openings - and all I have done for eight hours a day is push paperwork and answer the stupid phone.

I don't have anything on the calendar this weekend! I am not going anywhere or talk to anybody! I am going to hermit and hide! I don't have any particular plans of what I am going to work on this weekend so Monday's post will be a suprise to you and me. Have a great weekend!

Almost there on the linen piece; update on the wool quilt

I finished sewing together the bottom section. Tonight I will sew the long seam which will join the top and bottom sections.

Of course I am not done playing because I still have a few scraps left. Here I added pieces at each side. I will sew together each side in units and keep auditioning them until I like the way it looks.

Now an update on the wool quilt. My brother called me from Boston and said he won't need the quilt this tour. The crew he is on is flying everywhere so he doesn't need a quilt for a bus bunk. This is unusual - most crews do not fly from town to town - they use buses. I cleaned up all the parts, pieces, and the top placing them together in the fabric storage room so that the next tour he goes on I can easily find everything and make the bus bunk quilt then. Another UFO!

Stats on Low Volume, Linen piece progress, and the duck

I forgot to post the stats on the low volume quilt. I used 3" strips to make 5 1/2" blocks. The quilt ended up being 50 3/8" x 45 3/8". I already have a baby in mind for this quilt. The last baby this lady had I gave her a bright orange quilt and the kid is a handful! I told her for this one I would give her this low volume quilt and maybe the kid will be calmer!

I was really tired last evening so I did not get a lot done on the linen quilt, but here is the latest view of it. I added two more striped units - one on either side of the one that was already pieced.

The pile of scraps continues to dwindle. The only pieces I have thrown away are 3/4" wide or less. I still need enough to fill in the spot on ther right side in the middle. I took some of the pieces and used them elsewhere.

I saw momma duck yesterday. Here she is getting ready to crawl into the bushes to sit on the nest. I keep watching to see her leave so I can go take a peek.

Another project and an update on the linen piece

My blogging buddy, Glen of quiltswissy.blogspot.com, was having a little blog get together for using up scraps by making a zig zag quilt. I decided to join in since I had nothing else going on (ha,ha!). I went thru the patches I had already made - I checked with Glen, this was not cheating - and ended up going thru my scraps to find fabric to make a few more blocks for this piece. I was going for a low volume look. So here is my top done. You will also see that the background white is not all the same white. I have a combo of white and snow white. I just pulled the scraps of whites I had left and used them.

When I was looking thru the scraps for the zig zag quilt I found two pieces of the french linen in yellow. They were the end pieces from the binding. What a score! See there was a reason I decided to join Glen for this challenge! If I had not have joined, I would not have found these two pieces of yellow linen! Here is the linen piece so far. The next picture I pulled the sections apart from each other so you could see easier what was sewn together and what still needed sewn.

Here is the pile of scraps that are still left. Whatever I don't use in this piece I will use up making some pin cushions. I am trying to use every bit possible. Now that I think about it I should have saved the small slivers of trimming for stuffing the pincushions. Oh well, too late for that.

I did get the front yard weed wacked and mowed between the rain drops. I started weeding the big flower bed last evening. The grass that has grown into the bed is a bigger pain to get out than the weeds. In fact there were not that many weeds, just leaves, dead stuff from last year, and lost of stubborn grass. I am going to have to get the pitch fork out to losen up the ground - the hand trowel is just not doing it.

Linen piece is coming along

I worked on the linen piece for a couple of hours last evening and got a lot done. Maybe if you enlarge the picture you can see that the top 1/3 is all sewn together except for the pieces at the far left that were a last minute thought. I need to add that brown horizontal piece at the bottom left of the checkboard looking section. I sewed together many of the pieces for the row of patched just above the long blue horizonal piece. I decided I didn't like what was going on under the blue section in yesterday's picture, so I played around reworking that area.

I have a family thing tonight so I have this bag my sister made that she needs me to finish. I sewed on the tri-colored rope cording and before I head down the highway I will flip the edging to the inside and stitch it down. One more thing done and out of my house!

Making progress on the linen piece

After downloading some music, taking out the trash and recycling, I settled down to work on the linen. I put the blue section together

I then started to move and arrange the pieces to plan out my next move. I got this far

and then moved them around more

I am still thinking of a few more arrangements so the end product will not look 100% as it does right now.

A little more done on the French linen improv piece

I was really tired when I got home from work last evening. Between working in the yard for almost 3 hours on Sunday and the heat at work - our A/C is broken - I was beat. I watched the new series Frozen Plant that I had taped, dowloaded some CD's, and did a little sewing on the linen improv piece. Here is a section I am working on. I have the left side sewn together and the pieces on the right are layed out. I am trimming each piece as I add it.

I do have one large piece of this fabric left that I dyed in blue. It is 35" x 70" and I will use it for any fabric I need to join sections together. What ever is left I will use on the back and for the binding.

The sunrise was beautiful this morning - just a big glowing orange ball! Here are a few of the shots I took:

The sun is now behind a big old gray cloud which is great for anyone driving east!

I made time to play

I trimmed the rest of the blocks I had made last weekend and put them up on the design wall. I had almost enough for a green and brown quilt and almost enough for a turquiose and brown quilt. I told you that I just get cutting out fabric and don't count. Once I get to the end then I see what I need to finish. I needed to make five brown blocks with green centers, one brown block with a turquoise center, and one turquoise block with a brown center.
Before:

Here are ther tops all sew together:

The dafodills next to the house are in full bloom with all this heat we are having. The ones in the yard have not flowered yest. I think the ones next to the house get the radient heat from the brick so they bloom first.

On Sunday I decided to play a bit so I pulled out all the scraps I had left from the French linen quilt I made my nephew last year. I did not want to waste any of this fabric so I saved almost every scrap. I press and hung them on the design wall grouping them by color and length. I don't have any plans on how this is going to turn out and that is what playing is all about.

I did get one section done. These were pieces that were cut off the sides of the blocks that would result in pieces already sewn together.

This is a piece I will work on when I have a little time here and there.
I did work outside a bit in a flower bed in the backyard. Here is the before:

Two hours and fourty five minutes later it looked like this:

I am not done in this bed, but at least I got all the debris and a lot of the weeds pulled. There are some plants that have not come up yet - the lily of the valley ( that is in the lower left corner), the hostas, and cora bells. The fence is to keep the deer from eating the hostas. I am eventually going to do away with the hostas all together, but I want to plant some spinach and endive so I will need the fence to keep the deer from eating that.

The last thing I did was make St. Patrick's Day cookies for work. Hey - better late than never!

Tops are done!

Both tops were finished last evening - yeah!

The binding is cut

The dafodills are just about out

Momma duck was out this morning and I followed her when she went back to the nest so now I know exactly where it is at.

I am getting a book from the library about ducks so I can read up. I think the ducklings will be hatched in two to three weeks.

Tonight my nephew is playing with the Jammin' Paul Band.

Saturday after I get back to the house from getting my haircut, I will work on the getting the rest of the green and brown blocks into a quilt top and start on pin basting. I will try to spend some time out in the yard if the weather is nice. Have a great weekend!

More progress on the green and brown quilts

I was tired last evening so I just sat and watched the shows I had taped from the night before - the last 45 minutes of the Biggest Loser, Southland, and Storage Wars Texas. I also did a little cooking so I would have something for lunch today.

I had some extra time before I headed out to work this morning so I did get four rows sewn together on one of the quilt tops. I could have sewn a little more if I didn't have to drop off a book at the library and get gas before work, but at least I have the first one almost together.

I am seeing a pattern - if I worked hard one evening, the next evening I am too tired to do much, then the next evening I am fine and working hard again. Hum? I either have to pace myself or figure out a way to recover quicker.

I did find in my stash that I have enough of these two fabrics for binding for the first two green and brown quilts.

Progress on the green & brown quilts and the flower beds

I managed to get all the blocks on both green and brown quilts sewn into rows. Tonight I will sew the rows into tops. I hope to get the backs on these and pin basted by the weekend so I can start quilting them. We will see ...

After sewing I went outside to work in the flower beds since it was in the mid-60's. I never remember it being like this in March! I cleaned out the small bed next to the house. It did not take very long to do. Check out the yellow on the daffodils - the flowers will be bursting out very soon!
Before:

After:

Then it was on to the next bed. Since it was so hot last summer and I didn't get to the beds in the fall when I got sick, the grass had taken over this bed. We had a nice rain yesterday morning so the ground was nice and soft, but I still needed a shovel and some brute force to get the grass pulled. I did not get this bed done, but I got a significat amount of junk cleaned up. I could see that the deer have been eating the tops of the daylillies, but these are a hardy, tall orange lilly and they grow like crazy so they will be fine. Most of my other daylillies have grown so fast the deer missed their opportunity to munch on the young leaves. If it is nice again tonight, I will head out to try and finish this bed. I have some kind of nasty, viney weed that is also in the surrounding grass and it's tough to pull out. I have a feeling I am going to be fighting it all summer!
Before:

Currently:

Now that the time has changed I am at work at sunrise. Here is a shot of this morning's sunrise.

A little progress, some planning

I was so tired when I got home yesterday that I didn't do much. I was on my feet all day filing and putting books together in a pair of shoes that are not the standing on your feet all day shoes if you know what I mean. I do realize though I need to get working on my stamina or I will never make it thru two days on my feet working at Miller's Dry Goods in Charm, Ohio for the anniversary sale in May. Yesterday was a wake up call now I just have to work on a plan. I have seven weeks to get myself together.

I did get a couple of rows sewn together on one of the green and brown quilt tops. I forgot my camera at work so I will post an update tomorow.

In the meantime I hung a different piece at work since everyone was tired of the Cheetos piece. After I made this piece I thought it was too plain so I splattered painted it after it was quilted and bound.

Here is yesterday's sunrise I forgot to post. Today it is raining so nothing but gray out there.