Thursday, August 31, 2017

Good progress and a lost dog

I was so tired when I got home after work, but I made myself stitch on the R.E.M. quilt anyway. Only 8 days until I have to turn it in to the show! Yikes! Here is where I was
and this is where I am right now.


Yesterday I was out on the job site and there was a dog running around. It was very friendly and when I called to her, she came. We have bulldozers, rollers, trucks, and backhoes running on site and I didn't want her to get run over!
There is only one gate so she could have a hard time finding her way out of the site too. She had tags and one of them had her address. It was right down the street so one of the guys found me a piece of rope I could use as a leash and I took her home. The owner said she must have snuck out of the fence. I never know what I will be doing at work!

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Five more to go

I finished up with the t-shirt I had been working on. Here it is done

Here is the next one I am working on. With this one I have five left to embroider in the next 9 days. Yes, time is getting short!

and this is what I have done so far.

Here are the green pants. I would have liked to dye them again to get them darker, but the show is Friday and there is not enough time. I will just have to do it later.

My one zinnia is starting to bloom.

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

A bit more stitched

I hope to finish up this shirt tonight and move on to the next. I have five more shirts that need at least some embroidery on them and I have 10 days left to accomplish that. I worked on the lower part of the shirt. Here is what it looked like before
and what it looks like now

Monday, August 28, 2017

Stitching, dyeing, and a party

What a busy weekend. I stitched a bit Friday after work, but I also had to take the interior trim off my front door and paint around the edges as my new door was going to be installed Saturday morning. Here is the old door. See the rot?

and here is my new door

Saturday evening I went to a 50th wedding anniversary party. Michael and a bunch of other musicians played. The couple is a real supporter of the local music scene and all the musicians volunteered to play for free. Here is the happy couple dancing with a little girl. I don't know who the little girl was. Michael is in the background wearing red.

The food was great too. Everything from shrimp and chicken on skewers to mini cupcakes made by one of the waitress.

Sunday was all about stitching. Here is where I started on this shirt
and here is where I am at now
To finish off the weekend I decided I needed to get those pants dyed. The dye my nephew brought me was more of a grass green so I added a bunch of yellow to get more of a lime green.

I soaked them overnite in a bucket of hot water to exhaust the dye out of the pants per instructions via Vicki Welch of Colorways by Vicki Welch. Since I didn't have time to mess with them this morning I decided to dump the water and changed the water to let them soak all day. I will wash them tonight and hang them to dry only to keep them from shrinking. I took out the hem because my brother said to do that in case my SIL had to let the hem down as Michael keeps getting taller. I will have to stitch the hem back in before I hand them over. So far I am very happy with the color. I had to continually stir the pants as I was dyeing them so keep the color consistent.

Friday, August 25, 2017

Six and counting

I did manage to get a bit of stitching done after I broke down and trimmed and mowed the front yard. My yard was quite a mess and it does look better, but there are lots of weeds that need pulled. I have one volunteer zinnia plant that came up. It is on the yard side of my edging so I had to be careful not to cut it down with the string trimmer. I got a pair of scissors to trim around it. I think it is going to be a dark pink flower.

It took me an hour and a half to do the yard. Just as I got done my brother showed up with the project my nephew called me about earlier that day. Michael wants to wear the dashiki he found at a thrift store for a show and needs me to dye a pair of white thrift store pants bright green to go with the dashiki.

Here is the stitching on one of the 6 shirts I have left to do. I am planning to stitch each face in a different shade of blue. Here is the before

and the after so far

I am finally getting my new front door installed tomorrow morning. Of course I will post picture! LOL!!

Have a great weekend!

Thursday, August 24, 2017

AHIQ #24 and progress on the R.E.M. quilt

It is time to post about the third quarter AHIQ project which is the use of words in a quilt. I have had the idea to make a quilt using sayings and quotes. I just found my notebook where I have been keeping the sayings I have collected so therefore no progress has been made in constructing a quilt.

Now I could say my improv R.E.M. quilt somewhat fits the rules of the AHIQ project this quarter because it does contain lettering and words, but I started this quilt back in April way before the third quarter AHIQ was announced.

Yesterday was crazy therefore no post happened. Things are quiet again - yeah! I did get another t-shirt stitched and finished.

I have 15 days to get the last 6 shirts done. An extra day off for Labor Day will help.

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Rough day

I am just tired. Tired from the long day Friday and tired from the heat and humidity. Last evening I had to push hard to get anything done. I did some dishes, emptied the trash, but only stitched a little bit. This is the shirt I am working on now

I did stitch a little bit this morning before work. I put the skein of floss in the picture so you could see that the color of it is pink.

Monday, August 21, 2017

Big weekend/big progress

Friday was the last show for the season for my nephew's band at Rockin' on the River in Lorain. We arrived between 2:30 and 3 p.m., unloaded the trailer, and set up the merchandise booth. We had the big merchandise sold here sign up (you can see it on the ground behind the tent) - it extends above the tent, but it was windy so we had to take it down. We were afraid the whole tent would be blown over despite it being staked down.

Here is the stage.

Michael's band opened up for an Aerosmith tribute band. In this area tribute bands are a big deal and are always the headliners. We had the biggest crowd ever and they loved the band. I was very busy selling CDs, EPs, t-shirts, LPs, and picks before and during the show. After the show there must have been 75 people in line. The fellow that runs the show could not get over how many people were in the line! I sold all the CDs we had and only had 8 medium shirts left. Everything was going like hotcakes! It was crazy! I couldn't sell the stuff fast enough. The Aerosmith band asked Michael if he would play with them for the last song in their finale. Here he is on stage in the red shirt jammin' with them. They were really nice guys.

After the show we headed home. I was so tired. I got to bed at 1:45 a.m. I finally drug myself out of bed on Saturday and spent all day watching movies and Live PD while I stitched. I did get to stitch a bit before the show on Friday. Guess what? I ran out of green floss again! I almost have the Monster done.

I did a bit on this shirt. I am not sure what I am going do or if I am going to do anything with the lettering, but there is a least a little stitching on this one.

Next I started on this shirt.

I finished it on Sunday

Sunday afternoon I got started on this shirt

I pushed hard and got it done

I have seven shirts that still need embroidery added and I have 18 days to get them done.