Yardwork and sewing

What a beautiful weekend! I took a half day on Friday. I cleaned house for about an hour then a quilting friend came over to look at what hand dyed fabric I had left. I sat and sewed for awhile until my 4 cubic yards of sweet peat was delivered.

I went back to sewing and by Sunday I had this quilt top done. This is the veteran's quilt top I will be sending to Vicki. It is made with homespuns - something I don't use anymore. It turned out 52" x 69".

I still have a pile of homespun so I will probably put together another top and see if that will take care of the rest of this. I want to make binding for the first top so I will do that first before I start cutting what I have left up.

Saturday evening I worked in the yard for 2 1/2 hours and I worked another 2 1/2 hours on Sunday morning in the yard. I spread Preen down first, pulled any weeds, and then dumped and spread my sweet peat. I got the center bed done and the bed next to the house. Notice how the daffodils are not open in the yard, but the ones next to the how bloomed.

Then there is the bed that needs a lot of help. This first picture is after I had already dug out an ugly bush on the right side.

I then started to dig an edge around the bed so that I can install a brick edge. I have a bunch of bricks my brother had given me years ago and I am finally going to put them to good use. I also bought some landscaping fabric for this area because I have a real bad week problem here. I transplanted two Lenten roses back farther in the bed so they will get shade from the mugo pine. Where the bush was I transplanted a hunk of ornamental grass from one of the two plant that I gave a haircut to a couple of weeks ago. Man, that was a battle and a half trying to cut a chunk of that out! I used a sharpened shovel and two different knives and finally after almost an hour I was able to free up a piece. That root system is tough! So here is the bed as it sits right now.

Here is what my sweet peat pile looks like now. I covered it with plastic because the wind was howling and I didn't want it to blow away! It is also suppose to rain so now it won't get as wet. I could be a couple of weeks before I get that other bed done to the point where I can spread it with the sweet peat. At least it is easier to get the car out of the garage now!

I also worked on sewing together the multi layer blocks that I had used for the lecture last week. The shape of these came out very rectangular and I would have wasted a lot if I had cut squares. I decided to cut rectangles and see what would happen. I have the six blocks sewn together. I needed to add borders on the top and bottom to make the piece bigger. I scoured my cutting table and my scrap basket looking for enough fabric to make the borders. I had only one small piece of the dark blue, one piece of the blue with white squares, and one piece of the Dr. Seuss white with the blue shapes. I cut up what little I had left of the blue with the circles. I still had plenty of the word play cream and the green striped fabrics. At the left side is the binding. I was too tired last night to sew together the borders. This will make a cute baby quilt to add to my stash.