Little by little

Sue Kelly - you left me a comment yesterday - thanks! I don't know anything about the Google+ so I couldn't reply directly back to you.

Last evening I spent some time on the phone with my sister and then baked off the flatbread dough that I had made at lunch and let rise in the fridge. I finally got to the studio to stitch a bit. I first basted the stitching guild lines for the border stitching on the For those about to rock t-shirt. Picked a thread, purple satin floss, and started stitching to see if I like it.

This morning I had a bit of time and finished the orange stitching on the cannon barrel and got a little bit of the green stitching done on the part that holds the cannon.

I won't be posting again until Tuesday as I will not be near a computer. I am taking a day of vacation tomorrow so I will have a four day weekend to get some stuff done. My list? Well it is ridiculously long and unless the national guard come and help me there is no way I can humanly get it all done, but a girl can try - right? Well, of course I will be working on the AC/DC piece and I hope to get started on the Harley t-shirt fundraiser quilt. I have to take my car in for some maintenance so I need to cleaned it out. I still need to weed whack the backyard too.

You all will be proud of me! I got a text from someone begging me to do an easy alternation job according to them. I said no and that I just had a couple of big projects due in August and I just don't have time. Usually I am a softie and help out, but not this time. I have too much to do already!

Have a safe and happy 4th!

Vintage quilts - whacking and stitching continues

It was in the low 70's last evening so I had to take advantage of that and continue the weed whacking/mowing of the yard. The two side yards were my target last evening and after 2 hours and 10 minutes the worst of it was done along with a 2-3 foot swath across the back of the house.
Left side yard before

After

Back of the house during

After

The right side yard - this area is covered with pine straw from the 30 - 40 foot white pine growing there. The were weeds growing in the pine straw so I cut them down to their roots and that is why it looks so bare.

After

What is left to do is the rest of the backyard. My backyard is about 75 feet wide and to the tree line is about 20 feet more or less. I will have to attack this is sections.

After weed whacking I was tired! I sat down for a bit and stitched the rest of the 'Y'

took a shower and watched a bit of the Indians vs. Braves games and then went to bed.

Earlier in the day I had spent an hour and a half moving boxes, rolls of drawings, and filing at the storage room where all the files are kept for the school building project. It was on the warm side in the room and those file boxes and drawings get heavy after a while. I think that is why I was very tired after weed whacking.

I did stop at a second hand shop yesterday and had to look a some quilts they had hanging outside for sale. There was a lovely feedsack hand pieced double wedding ring for $125.00. It had a couple of brown stains on the back.

A lovely star design for $165.00. Some of the fabrics had faded, but it was hand pieced and very well made. It also had a few brown stains.

Then there was a Lone star top for $42.00. It was hand pieced although not as nicely as the other two quilts.

Rolling along

This is the improve piece that will be for the Akron Art Prize this year and I enjoy posting the progress on Ann's Fret Not Yourself's blog once a month. Yesterday lunch time and last evening's stitching produced this result.

I had to go out and water the seedlings and the canna. It was over 90 yesterday. The canna are growing well and so are the weeds around them! I will be taking some early morning time over the 4th to pull weeds. I think I saw one more leaf of another canna coming up, but I am not sure. Once I clear out the weeds I will be able to see better.

This morning I had a little time so I stitched a bit more. I finished the "O" and got a good start on the "Y".

What a weekend!

After work on Friday I stitched on the AC/DC piece, but then the yard was calling me to do something. I hadn't mowed grass in several weeks and it was looking shabby! I can't get the mower started so I decided to weed wack the entire front yard. It took me an hour and a half to do this, but I had no choice. Here is what the yard looked like this morning.

I also received a big box on Firday. I was the Harley t-shirts for the fundraiser quilt. These along with the ones Glenda of quiltswissy. BlogSpot.com sent me, will make for hopefully a cool quilt.

A friend, Dan, who he and his wife are huge supporters of Michael's band and the area music scene, is coming over today to take my poor sick mower to a repair man that he knows. It is sitting outside waiting to be picked up. Dan thinks is probably dirt in the carburetor. I just hope it can be fixed.

I stitched all day Saturday. I have the cannon almost done. I just have a little more orange stitching on the cannon and some green stitching to add to the support for the cannon.

On Sunday I had to be at my brother's house by 1 to head to the gig. I took my AC/DC piece to try and get a few stitches thrown in while I sat at the merchandise booth. Oh, it was hot. I managed to get a couple of the letters outlined in green. The lilac ones I did on Sunday morning before I left.

The gig was at a lake campground and it was part of the Thunder in the Boro event weekend. Lot of bikers.

The stage this time was the flatbed of the tractor trailer. There was no shade and the guys played for 2 1/2 hours in 90 degree heat.

The crowd was small, but those biker people were loving the music! On a whim, Michael decided asked one of the guys to bring up his bike and rev his bike along to Born to be Wild. It was a hoot!

During the song Michael went down and sat on the bike to do a solo then the crowd moved from their shaded pavilion to come over and take pictures of him wailing on the guitar. After the show I asked Michael about that song and if they had practiced it for the event and he said he has never played that song before. Wow! If you would have heard the band you would have never known that!

We got back to my brother's house a bit after 8 and we were all beat. My brother, SIL, and Michael had gotten back from Nashville at 1 a.m. Sunday morning so they were really tired!

We had Michael's new EP CD to sell at the show. I think we sold around 18. Michael gave me one and a signed framed one for my studio.

Michael also just bought a new stool for the drums. He asked me to make a cover for it to keep it from getting scuffed. I will use the car cover fabric I have and add elastic to hold it on.

I was also gifted this beautiful walnut box from Uncle Frank. I needed someplace to put my pierced earrings and now I have a stunning box to put them in! He is actually my SIL's uncle, but everybody calls him Uncle Frank just like everyone calls me Aunt Patty.

Better picture

I finished up the AC/DC stitching with the cheddar yellow and purple. Here is a better picture of it now that this part is done.

Next I will work on the cannon.

I got a little of the stitching started.

You know what I will be doing this weekend. What are your plans? The weather is forecasted to be nice and I have to see if I can borrow the neighbor's mower or otherwise I will be cutting my lawn with a weed wacker. Have a great weekend!

Bit more done!

Here is what this section looked like when I started

and now here is what it looks like. I usually take my pictures in the morning and the lighting is bad! LOL!! The combination of the cheddar yellow and purple looks pretty cool. I will try to take a better picture tonight after I get this done. Maybe the weather will cooperate and I can take this outside for better lighting.

I received my order from HomeSew yesterday. They had sent me a free shipping coupon. I needed some black quilting thread. If you buy 6 - 3000 yard cones you saved $6.75. Shipping would have cost $6.95 so I saved $13.70. I also didn't have to pay tax which around here would have been $3.98. Add that to the $13.70 and I saved $17.68! I needed the black for t-shirts quilts coming up and I was completely out of black quilting thread. Yes, 12,000 yards is a lot of black quilting thread and a lot of t-shirt quilts, but I do use this thread in the bobbin as well as the top thread. I just wish they carried more colors than black, white, natural, and sand.

Yesterday we live streamed the parade for the Cleveland Cavaliers. I don't follow professional basketball, but when you have moved to LeBron James's home town you hear about basketball. It was crazy in Cleveland for the parade! I took a few pictures off of my computer screen to show you. The national news (NBC) didn't show the sheer magnitude of the humanity that descended on downtown Cleveland. I have been in Cleveland with several large scale events going on at the same time, but this was off the charts!

The beginning of the parade route

People piled in the streets. Cleveland made a huge mistake by not putting up barricades along the parade route. People were in the street blocking the path and the parade took 4 1/2 hours to get to the area they call the mall where the stage was set up. The distance - probably not more than two miles.

People were on roofs and hanging out parking decks to get a look

They were even standing on the on-ramp overpasses

The stadium is where the Cleveland Indians play. The street to the right is 9th Street.

From the top of the picture you can see Lake Erie, the Browns stadium and then the mall area crowded with people and the parade hadn't started yet!

Here is LeBron in the parade. He is wearing the yellow ball cap in the Rolls Royce.

Estimates said there were 1.3 million people that showed up. The only problems were some people got overwhelmed with the heat and the buses and the rapid trains could not hand the crowds. The city had even set up a place for lost kids and entertained them and fed them until their parents tracked them down.