Fabric chosen

I was exhausted when I got home from work. I had over 11,000 steps and 55 active minutes. I ended up having to climb this ladder just to the point where my head was up to that temporary wood railing so I could talk to the roofer. I was left alone on the job site for about 4 hours so there were thing like this I normally would not have to do.

When I got home I did managed to make some biscuits and a pot of chicken, brown rice, and bok choy for meals for the next couple of days, wash a load of clothes, shower off all the dust from work, then just sit down for a little bit. I dug thru my scrap bins of vintage fabric and came up with some pieces for the Dresden plate. The pieces have the same tone to them - kind of like they have a light tea dye to them. I am not crazy about that larger print so I may look again and see if I can find something else. I am guessing these fabrics are from the 40's because that dull tone is what I have seen a lot from that period.

The next layer that goes on the MRI walls and ceiling finally is underway. Here is the ceiling. I haven't seen how this is being installed or the reasoning behind the parts that are hanging down. I might figure it out over the next couple of days.

Dresden plate problem solved!

Thanks for all your solutions to my Dresden plate problem. Before I read any of your solutions I had been thinking about what to do. You know the saying great minds think alike? Well, Wanda and I are great minds as we both have the same solution. To try it out I just pinned four more pieces together and now the ring is complete! I just used four of the same fabric to try this out.

The lady that had cut these out would have run into the same issue. I wonder what she would have done? The cardboard template for this Dresden plate called for cutting 12 pieces of 12 different fabrics. It should have said 16 fabrics. So now I will have to dig into my stash of vintage fabric and cut pieces to fill in the space.

Yes, my bins are a bit messy, but I do have yardage in there to cut from. I do love vintage fabric. I need to hook up with someone who would be interested in producing a fabric line with some of these vintage prints. Some of them would fit perfectly into what is going on with fabric prints these days and don't look dated at all.

Houston, we have a problem

I spent the weekend sewing. I sewed together the first Dresden plate ring and we have a problem. The pieces are not the right size so I cannot make the ring

So now I have to decide what to do. One option is to cut them to the correct size. I have a template that I bought and used a long time ago and was able to find it. Here is the template laid on one of the pieces so you can see the size difference.

Another option is to see if I added more pieces so I could close the ring. Or maybe I could just make half circles or quarter circles and then I would not have to trim all the pieces. I will have to see what might work best.

It rained most of the weekend.

The only time I went outside was after my neighbor knocked on my door so I could show him and his cousin the small tree that we had talked about a couple of weeks ago that they could cut down. They were cutting down some other small trees and his cousin was looking for more to cut down. Men and their chainsaws! I haven't heard from the tree company about when they will be over to cut down that huge pine tree.

I spent most of the weekend working on the project I can't show you. I now have 6 out of the eight rows done! This is taking me a lot longer than I thought it would, but I like the results.

What a week

I am so glad it is Friday. It has been a crazy week. My sewing plans for the weekend are to work on the project I can't show you yet and to get started sewing these Dresden plate pieces together. Remember these? The pieces were in a bin of fabric scraps that were gifted to me. The pieces are just begging me to be made into a quilt. I need to go thru my stash and see what I can find as far as some vintage white/off white fabric to stitch the plates on.

I started marking the pieces where I have to start and stop the sewing. I plan on hand appliquéing the rings, so after they are sewn together I will press a 1/4 inch under at the centers and the curves.

I had to move my desk and stuff yesterday from one side of the construction area to the other. The contractors needed to get into the space we were at. Here is my space as of the moment.

Over the last couple of days I have been collecting rocks turned up by the contractors moving dirt around where the rest of the new parking lot will be. They are getting ready to pave the lot so the rock gathering will be over very soon. This morning I loaded the car. The rocks are not big, but they are still a good, useable size.

Here is a picture of the site from my window. You see where the cars stop at the center left? Just beyond that is the parking lot they are working on. The street is going to be repaved also.

I have been tired this week so I don't feel like I got much done. My arms and wrists are feeling much better so maybe it was a good thing I didn't do much. Have a great weekend!

Pressed and ready to go

I got the rest of the pink and lavender blocks pressed. Now I just have to get the project I can't show you off the design wall so I can start arranging these blocks.

I decided I wanted to bake some flatbread tonight, so I mixed up a batch of dough, put it in an oiled container and it is now sitting in the fridge at work. I have the lid opened enough for the gas to escape. I will take it out of the fridge about an hour before I leave work so the dough has a chance to warm up and rise. Since the rising time is an hour and a half, making after I get home is just too late for me. I have done it this way before and works great.

Last night I went and got my hair cut so I didn't have time to do much. I did stop on my way home at the Home Depot to get a space heater for work. The heat is not going to be turned on until mid-November - maybe- so after sitting here trying to type with very cold hands on Monday and Tuesday, the problem is now solved.

I also have been using my new tea thermos. It keeps the tea hot for a long time and I can get hot water from the hospital cafeteria.

The guys are finishing up adding another layer of fire resistance plywood to the MRI room. It is not pink because it is from a different manufacturer. Next layer - copper!

Back to the pink flannel blocks

I fired up the iron and started pressing the blocks I had sewn together last week. First I clipped off the corners of the seams. This help to reduce the bulk.

I still have a few more to clip and press

And yes I have tiny triangles all over my floor! LOL!!!

The construction guys finished up with the FRP sleepers and plywood in the MRI room. Today the copper is scheduled to be installed.

What I did this weekend

Let's start with sewing. I worked on the project I can't show you and I pieced together some scraps of some silk screen prints on a heavy cotton to make some potholders. The one potholder I have is awful so I needed some new ones bad! I got one done. It is a bit too big, but it works.

I used these buttons which were in my Grandmother's sewing stuff to attach a loop.

Here are the other five I have pieced, but I am going to cut them down. They are just too big.

I worked on trimming up Bubba Jr. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I just keep nipping away at it until I get it just the way I want it. I just keeping taking little bits off then stepping back and looking at it to see how far I want to take it. Here is what it looked at the beginning

and here what it looks like now

I brought three rocks home from work. When the contractors are digging around on the site, rocks show up! The big one was way heavier than I thought. Once I picked it up I wasn't about to drop it so I walked to the car as fast as I could. Oh my wrists were sore all weekend especially my left one.

The little ones came in handy. Here is where I put them.

I transplanted some Shasta daisies into the center flower bed.

and I move rocks to where I am going to need them to finish the edging around the center bed. I will have to dig out the edge a bit and set all the rocks, but having them moved to where I need them helps.

So all the rocks that I had in the driveway

are now down to this small pile

Bubba gets a haircut

I was tired last evening from being woken up by the water department flushing the fire hydrant at 11:51 p.m. Wednesday night. I am on what is call a dead head hydrant. This is a hydrant that is not on the loop but an off-shoot. When they open the hydrant fast is causes a phenomena called hammering. This hammering or vibration from the pipes shaking transfer into my house and it sounds like a NASCAR stock car is revving it's engine in my bedroom! Needless to say it wakes me up abruptly! This has happened in the past and I have called the water department to complain. They do a better job of slowly opening the hydrant or flushing it during the day, but then that stops and they do it in the middle of the night again. So in a nutshell is what I did to try and get some action:
1. called the water department at midnight to complain and they guy had me leave a voice mail for the supervisor
2. I call 311 around noon - the city information line since I had not received a response and they transferred me to water department. Somebody answered the phone, but everyone was in a meeting.
3. called the police department to file a complaint against the water department for disturbing the/my peace. Unless there was damage or something criminal no charges could be filed.
4. Called the city council lady - EUREKA! She was great. She listened to my issue and was sympathetic. She said you must be having a hard time at work with the lack of sleep. I said yes. It took me a while to get back to sleep after being startled. I gave her the history of my dealings with the water department over this issue for the last 15 years and she was impressed that I had three solutions to the problem. She is now trying to resolve the problem. Yeah!

Since I was tired I didn't want to do anything too strenuous in the yard so I decided to give Bubba a haircut. I have needed to do this so now was the time. Here are the before and after. You can hardly tell I did anything! LOL!! This is just the start of the haircut, but I did get a wheelbarrow of stuff cut out of the center area.

When I was working on Bubba my neighbor came home and I asked him if he heard the racket Wednesday night and he said yes. He had no idea what was going on. I gave him the council lady's phone number and asked him to call her to back up my story. He said he would so this might help the cause of solving the problem.

At work the concrete contractors are installing curb and curb with gutters. They were rockin' it yesterday! It is fun to watch the extruding machine that makes the curb.

The MRI room is getting it's next layer of FRP -fire resistant plywood - over the steel sheeting. The copper layer is starting on Tuesday so the guys have to get the FRP done!
Here are the sleepers they will attached the 4 x 8 sheets to.

Have a great weekend! I took two Excedrin to get thru today and I am looking forward to getting some sewing done this weekend.

Lavender in the ground

It was another beautiful evening so I decided to spend an hour working on that center flower bed. I moved 8 half wheelbarrows of dirt, set some rocks, and now the lavender plants are in the ground! Here is where I left off on Tuesday

I had to tear out more of the plastic edging that I am replacing with the rocks

And this is what it looks like now. I plan on transplanting a clump or three of Shasta Daisies to the left of the lavender to fill in that area.

The new lavender plants are placed in the middle behind the three plants I already had. I fertilized all the lavender and gave them a big drink of water.

I ended up spending 1 hour and forty minutes, but I am happy to have gotten so much done. Here is a shot of the bed from another angle so you can see what I have left to do. I only have a few of the bigger rocks left so I will have to be creative and transition into using smaller rocks.

By the time I cooked food for lunches and got a shower there was no time to sew. Maybe tonight.

Oops I did it again

You would have thought I learned my lesson by working in the yard 4 hours on Sunday and getting so sore. Yes, everything from my chin down hurt. Monday my legs were really hurting. But no! When I got home from work yesterday it was so nice out that I decided to spend an hour working on that center flower bed. Well, 2 1/2 hours later I finally stopped. LOL!!! It was hard getting out of bed this morning so I took two Excedrin so hopefully that will be enough to get me thru the day. Tomorrow I will know if I did it again and overdid it.

Here is what the bed looked like before

After weeding, hauling and spreading 8 wheelbarrows (half full) of dirt, and moving rocks here is what it looks like now.

It looks a bit bare right now, but I need to add a bit more dirt before I transplant the three lavender plants I bought months ago. My neighbor was out and he helped me move a big rock that was sitting on the dirt pile. It was just to heavy for me to move. Here is a picture of the rock with my foot beside it so you can have an idea of the size. It had to weight 80 or 90 pounds. Together it was not too bad to lift. I would guess I am about 1/3 the way done with this bed. I still need to add mulch, but I will wait until I get all the rocks set. The mulch in under a tarp in the backyard and I have to push it uphill. Talk about loads of fun! LOL!!

So, no sewing happened.