Oops!

I started sewing the next group of strips for the pink and lavender quilt. They are 2" wide strips.

I then took the strip of two 2" wide strips and sewed it to a 3 1/2" strip.

I sliced those units into 3 1/2" pieces and this is what the block will look like once it is sewn together

This pieced 4 patch will then get sewn to a 6 1/2" block

The big oops is that I sewed all the 3 1/2" strips into pairs! Wrong!!

I have no idea what I was thinking. Oh well, I will rip those strips apart a few at a time. Geeze!!!

When I got home I did see that one of my coneflowers had three flowers that bloomed and a couple more to follow. This plant was shorter than the other three all summer, but it is now about the same height. A late bloomer I guess.

Onward to the pink and lavender flannel

I did good and managed to get most of the pink and lavender strips sewn together. I sewed them together mixing the different prints. These are 3 1/2" strips.

I am going for a random look. I saw this quilt on Bill's Wonkyworld blog and I thought it might look good in all the different pink and lavender flannels I had accumulated.

A good weekend

Friday night I got nothing done. It got up to 89 outside so it had to be close to 100 inside the construction zone. I was having to do some physical jobs so the sweat was dripping off of me. I was wiped out so all I wanted was to take a shower and sit in the air conditioning. I did get busy the rest of the weekend and spent the majority of my time working on the project I can't show you yet.

I did get the blocks for the baby flannel quilt sewn together and pressed. There are 38 4-patch blocks in this pile.

I have three more strips to slice and make into blocks, but I set those aside because I want to layout the blocks I have to see what works design wise. If I need to introduce another fabric I will need the cream flannel to pair with it. I have this blue flannel that would look good with the fabrics already in the blocks.

The heat has finally been turned off! What a relief! I did force myself to go mow last evening. The back yard was very long - at least 8 inches! It took awhile to mow that because I had to go so slow with my little mower. It is going to rain today so I had to get that grass mowed. It needs a good trimming too, but that can wait. Despite it being cooler, I was still sweating pretty good by the time I got the back yard done. Someone needs to turn of the humidity machine!

Thank goodness it's Friday - really thank goodness

Last night after I took a long shower to wash of the dirt and sweat from work (you would never know I have an office type position!) I worked on the baby quilt flannel 4-patch blocks. I pressed the strips and sliced them so they are ready for sewing.

Yesterday I found a couple more rocks on site, but I could only get one of them. The one rock was heavy and I could only carry it a little ways before I had to drop it so it didn't make it to the car. Here is the one I did get

Pauline thanks for your comment. You are a no-reply so I couldn't answer you back directly. Believe me I would welcome some snow over this heat we have been having. I am wiped out from another week of it being in the high 80's and 90's in the space where my desk is location in the construction area. The temperatures are forecasted to finally drop tonight and with the highs next week in the 70's. I sure hope they are right. I don't know how much more of this heat I can stand. I like the cold weather, but not the shorter hours of daylight.

Everyone have a great weekend!

Next flannel quilt

I managed to pair up the flannel and get the pairs sewn together for the next flannel quilt. I had cut the strips at 4". Tonight I will press the pairs of strips and slice them. I am making 4-patch blocks with these. I have no idea how many blocks I will get out of these strips. I just wanted to take the leftover bits and turn them into something useful.

The next two days at work are going to be hard because of the heat. 88 today and 89 tomorrow which means it will be well over 90 - probably over 95 where I am working. I am tired today because it has been so hot this week in here. The forecast says the temperature is finally going to drop on Saturday. I will believe it when it happens.

This group of flannel blocks done

I finished up sewing together the last 10 9-patch blocks for this first of several flannel quilts I had cut out several weeks ago.

Here is the pile of 120 blocks. I still need to press 32 of them.

I will next start sewing together these strips for a baby sized flannel quilt. I cut these strips a bit wider, but I don't remember the width.

Since the quilt top I am working on is on the design wall, I will continue to sew together the flannel into blocks. Once I get that quilt off the design wall, I can then arrange the flannel blocks on the wall and get them sewn together. The flannel quilts are just to use up the flannel and have a couple spare quilts in the stash.

Flannel progress and plants

I finally got that light gray flannel I bought for backing washed. I ripped off a piece to cut strips for matching up with that last piece of plaid I had. I managed to get the strips sewn together and cut so they are ready to be sewn into blocks.

We continue to trade plants at work. Yesterday, Chad brought me some purple cora bells and a chunk of Zebra grass. It was sprinkling out, but I planted the cora bells anyway. They had lost most of their purple color, so I will have to wait until spring to see what they really look like.

I don't know where I might plant the Zebra grass. It likes full sun and this will get very tall.

I dug up a day lily to give to Chad. he thinks it is funny that I don't know what color it is, but the deer eat all the flowers off every year before they open up. Several years ago I covered the plant with netting to keep the deer for eating the flowers, but it has been so long I just don't remember what color they are. He doesn't have a deer problem so the plant is now his.

Sewing and gardening

I never left the house all weekend except to go outside and do some yardwork. I did get some sewing done and the piece I can't show you and a few more flannel 9-patch blocks sewn together.

It was a very warm and humid weekend. I was very tired on Saturday, but between Saturday and Sunday I did manage to get the cora bell flower bed almost done. I want to mulch the bed. I hauled 10 to 12 half wheelbarrows of dirt to fill up the bed and help with the grade. The ground was lower next to the garage and I needed to bring it up to shed the water away from the garage. I dug up all the cora bells that I had planted along the garage a year ago. Poor little things! They were pretty much stuck in clay so that might be why they didn't seem to grow much. They have to be happy now that they are in nice soil which I tossed in some fertilizer. Here is the before

and the after.

I left some space at the one end because that fellow at work said he would bring me some purple leaf cora bells. It took me four hours to get the cora bell bed in shape on Sunday. It was hard to do the planting with the sweat dripping on my glasses! LOL!!!

I also finished up cleaning the big flower bed in the front yard. I dead headed the Shasta daisies and pulled the rest of weeds. It looks a lot better! The bed is now ready for me to work on the rock border. Of course, that will happen depending on the weather, that is, the heat and humidity.

Sewing and plant exchange

I managed to get another 7 flannel blocks sewn together this morning before I left for work.

I was so tired when I got home from work last night it was all I could do to dig up two plants to give to a guy at work. Yesterday, somehow in a conversation gardening came up and next thing I know we planned on swapping some plants! I dug up a clump of Shasta Daisy and a found a very nice two year old Lenten Rose to give him.

The Lenten Rose grew from seed and I didn't even know it was there amongst the bigger plants until I went to dig out one of the bigger ones. The 2 year old plant was much easier to dig up and pot.

The only plant I know for sure he is going to bring me is a purple cora bell. I have green ones, but no purple ones. I can't remember what else he had, but this will be fun to exchange plants.

I am so looking forward to the weekend! I am by myself on the job today, so I am going to try and get thru it. I got a little over 4 miles in yesterday and that was hard because my little toe on my left foot hurt. It is much better today. I stopped at Giant Eagle after work yesterday and got resupplied with Mike's so I don't have to leave the house all weekend. Have a great and productive weekend!

Sewing, mowing, and more rocks!

I got 15 minutes of sewing in this morning before heading off to work. It is better than a stick in the eye! LOL!!

I had another day with lots of steps and over 5 miles. My little toes on both feet now have a blister on them.

When I got home I pulled out the mower and mowed the front and one of the side yards. The grass had dried out, it was long, and since we are expected to get more rain in the next couple of days this was an opportunity to get some mowing done.

After that it was time to unload rocks. The subcontractor loaded the last two rocks left in this group which are the last two big rocks I know of. Oh, there are some bigger ones on site but we're taking about ones that weight 800+ pounds! Those are not coming home with me! LOL!!!

When I was walking around the job site yesterday I noticed some rocks among the piles of debris that the landscapers had raked up.

Well you know I had to gather those up! I ended up with a nice pile of small and a couple of medium sized rocks. The smaller ones I hauled to the back for the new shade garden. I had dumped the smaller rocks from last week and with the new ones the edging is almost done. Here is the before and after

Unless thru digging the subcontractors unearth more rocks, I am done with hauling home rocks. Now I need to make time to clean my car of all the dirt from the rocks. After unloading the rocks I spread weed and feed. It was now 5:30, I was hot, sweaty, dirty, and it was time to call it a day. I still had to make food for Thursday's lunch, get a shower, and open a nice cold Mike's! I didn't get the 15 minutes of garage cleaning in yesterday, but that is not the end of the world. Maybe tonight I will do 30 minutes to makeup for that.

What a day

The last 24 hours has been crazy busy. First sewing - I got a few more strips sewn and cut. I have enough for 24 blocks and I need 32. That checkered fabric still needs sewn and that will give me the last 8. I just need to cut some light gray flannel to go with it.

I got one more good sized rock and a couple little ones.

Yesterday I received my Fitbit Nile badge for walking 4,132 miles.

Then I ended up with lots of steps yesterday. The subcontractors were carrying dust out of the work area into the public areas and I needed to take action. I ended up brooming the aisles on the floor where I am working to at least reduce the crap on the floor that they were walking thru. They are suppose to clean up after themselves. My boss made me send out a nastygram about the mess that will hit them in the pocket so maybe something will finally get cleaned up. All I did was push the debris into piles to get it out of the walking paths.

I had to go and mop up several areas to get up the dust and footprints. All of this took my 3 hours. It wasn't that warm yesterday, but the humidity was high and I was sweating to the point it was dripping off me. The place looks better and the subs are cleaning today! Yeah!!

I was inspired when I read Margaret's blog the other day. She was talking about doing some spring cleaning - yes, fall is approaching, but she called it spring cleaning and knew exactly what she meant. Margaret was going to use the 15 minute method. I had commented and she replied with a lovely email pointing out all the pitfalls and a guideline to make this method work. I decided to put the plan into action when I had told her that my garage needed some serious cleaning. I set my phone timer for 15 minutes and in that time I tossed in the recycling bin all the empty boxes etc. and in the garbage bin all the trash since today is trash day. Next I swept all the dirt that was where I parked, and hung up the yard tools by the time the timer went off. The garage doesn't look a whole lot different, but I was happy with what I had gotten done.

Next I set the timer again and pulled weeds for 15 minutes. I wasn't going to go any longer since I had been at work for 10 hours, I was dirty and just wanted a shower. I made some good progress in those 15 minutes. Here is the before and after.

With all of that I ended up with over 16,000 steps for the day!

A little sewing and a lot of weeding

As soon as I got home from work I headed out to the front yard to weed. Here is the before

The crabgrass still gave me quite a battle even though the dirt was much softer after two days of rain. My arms hurt after and hour and 10 minutes of pulling. I stuffed my five gallon bucket four times to the overflowing point with crabgrass and weeds. Here is what the bed looks like now

Here is what it looked like before I started on this bed two weekends ago

It is cool again today so I have to take advantage of this weather. I will probably work out there again tonight for about an hour. I feel like I am in a race to get some much needed outside work done before the heat rolls back in next week. It is so much better at work too. Such a difference from 90+ degrees to the low 70s! I feel more energized and in a better mood.

I did get a few strips of flannel sewn together too.