Best intentions, but ...

Long day yesterday. Left for work at 5:42 and got home at 4:03. I was already tired and that long day did not help. I had the best intentions to quilt this t-shirt block when I got home.

The sewing machine was already set up with brown thread, but after striping the bed to wash sheets, and doing dishes while I cooked my asparagus for dinner I was just too tired. I sat down to eat and that was it; I just couldn't move. I feel better today so I will be stitching that shirt tonight since I can't do any work outside as it is still raining. In case you are wondering, those angel wings are metallic.

What a busy weekend

Friday night I quilted on the Harley quilt. Saturday I was up early and quilted on the Harley quilt. Sunday I also worked on the Harley quilt. So I now have it 33% quilted. I am down to 25 days to get it done.

On Saturday when I just couldn't quilt one more stitch, I decided to clean the garage. My goal was not to stop until the trash bin was full. After about an hour and a half I noticed that the rain was coming in and the yard needed mowed. We are forecasted to get a lot of rain in the next week or two so I thought I had better mow the grass before it gets out of hand. I did get the trash bin about 3/4 fill and about half the garage cleaned. The recycle bin was completely stuff and I loaded the car with five boxes of stuff that needed to be taken to work. The garage is looking better, but I have the other half to clean. I was doing my best to be brutal and just get rid of stuff.

At 7:30 p.m. my neighbor and I went to get something to eat so that was it for the day. I rained Sunday early, but the sun finally came out after noon. About 8:30 a.m. I heard a loud bang. It sounded like something hit the roof. I looked out back and a tree had fallen. I got dressed and texted the neighbor to let them know what had happened if they had heard the noise. The tree grazed the house, but didn't do any damage. The neighbor lady came out to see what was going on and helped with cleaning up what we could with my little electric chain saw. We were out there about 1 1/2 hours. I wanted to get the branches out of my flower bed. Too bad the tree didn't fall about 10' to the right of where it did. It then would have hit my pitiful deck that needs replaced and the insurance company would have helped pay for the replacement!

After cleaning up the tree, I sewed a bit on the Harley quilt and did some laundry. I headed over to my brother's house about 3 and did a couple hours of yard work over there. I had to quit when the trash bin was stuffed full. I had lots of sticks so a garbage bag would not work. So say the least I am tired today and my shoulder is sore from trying to get the mower started.

I was up very early this morning, 3:45, and made scones to take to the IT guys.

TGIF

I am now making a little progress on the Harley quilt. I got the yellow shirt done

and I got this brown shirt quilted.

I have 28 days to get this quilt done so my plans for this weekend is to include some serious time at the sewing machine and make a dent in getting this quilt quilted. I did bother figuring out the percentage done since I only have the two shirts quilted, but I will have a number on Monday for sure.

Meanwhile I have been looking for some good online quilt shops. I have looked at and bought fabric from Bloomerie, Hancock's of Paducah, The Nuts and Bolts Shop, Fabric Shack, Missouri Star Quilt Company, Bear Creek Quilting, eQuilters Fabric, Keepsake Quilting, and Connecting Threads. What are your favorite online quilt shops? I am asking in case there is a shop I have not heard of. I do try and check out the brick and mortar stores when I can.

Have a great weekend!

A long day

It was a long and busy day yesterday, but good. The only sewing I managed to do was to stitch the hem back in this pair of pants this morning. They belong to one of the men at work.

I did get to my dentist appointment - an hour away - and my tooth is now fixed. He had to clean out the food debris and grind off the old cement. Surprisingly it didn't hurt although I jumped once when the assistant shot my tooth with air. It took some wrangling, but it is fixed. After that it was back to work at the site for a long meeting, then finally back home. I was so tired from all the driving.

Better than nothing

My evening was taken up with a hair appointment so by the time I got home I didn't have much time to quilt. I got a little bit more done on the yellow shirt and that is better than nothing!

I have a dentist appointment today to hopefully get my gold filling cemented back in. I am thinking maybe something else is going on and that is why it fell out. I will let you know tomorrow!

Started on the Harley quilt

First thing I had to do was mow and trim the grass last evening. It was long! Of course, I just got started with the trimming and the string trimmer ran out of string. It was a struggle to get the thing apart. I managed with the use of a small hammer to get it apart and get the string wound on the spool. At least the mower started on the fourth or fifth pull. After the front was done, I had some dinner watched the news and went to bed. I was tired. This morning I was up early and got started on quilting the Harley quilt. It isn't much, but it is better than a stick in the eye! I wanted to nail down the logo first. I find that if I quilt the background first, a large logo like that poofs up and is harder to get flat. You can just see on the back of the quilt the lines I quilted around the logo.

31 days to get this quilt done. Yikes!

I think I have lost my mind!

It was a busy Easter! I did spend time quilting on the 16 patch quilt and it is now 65% quilted. I did fold it up and put the Harley quilt next to my sewing machine. I will start quilting it tonight. I have 32 days to get it finished.

Saturday I went to visit family and take them to lunch. There is a quilt shop where they live so I had to stop and shop the moving sale. I think I have lost my mind with all this fabric shopping I have done lately! I found great fabrics on the $2.99 rack and on the 40% off the last lowest price rack. Everything else was 20% off. The lady prices most of her fabric at $8 and $9; a few are priced at $10. I need to make more baby quilts so I bought yellows, pinks, blues, and aqua with the thought of lights, mediums, and darks to go with what I already have. I have most of the fabric washed and ready to go. I ended up with 35.38 yards for an average of $5.26 a yard before tax.

I took the family out to Texas Roadhouse for lunch. It was nice because they weren't very busy at 1:30-2:00. I brought my leftovers home. Later on that evening I was hungry so I put my leftovers on a plate, put them in the microwave, then went downstairs to eat. I was looking at my rice and there was something odd in it. I found a gold filling! At first I thought someone at the Roadhouse lost their filling in my rice, but I felt around my mouth and here it was mine! How it ended up in my rice I have no idea! I am just glad I found it and it doesn't hurt. I called the dentist and left a message. They will call me today and hopefully I can get in quick and get this taken care of. Yes, it is quite a chunk of gold!

Sunday I went to my brother's house for lunch. I passed out boxy pouches again this year to everyone and they were all happy to get another one. I received an 8" chocolate bunny and some other treats.

I also came home with a check for fixing those clothes a while back and more things that need fixed including a drapery panel that the side hem came apart.

45% quilted

Quilting the 16 patch quilt is addicting. I just can't stop! I now have 41 of the 90 blocks quilted.

I am down to 35 days until I have to have the Harley quilt

done, so I guess I had better switch gears and start working on it this weekend.

Have a wonderful Easter!

Better than nothing

I had a long day yesterday. I left for work at 5:30 a.m. and didn't get home until 5 p.m. You do the math. I made some dinner, did a load of laundry and only had the energy to run thru one bobbin on the 16 patch quilt. Getting a little done is better than nothing!

I did get the woven iron on interfacing I ordered from HomeSew. I use this for the boxy pouches. It is 60" wide and a little over 5 bucks a yard. I bought 5 yards. I think this is the best woven iron on interfacing I have used.

I finally got around to contacting Cuisinart about the pan I bought in December. Here is the pan with mac and cheese in it.

I like this pan except that the bottom is not flat. When I go to stir something without holding a handle the pan rocks and spins. That drives me crazy! I had to send customer service pictures so I put a ruler across the bottom so they could see that the bottom was not flat.

I couldn't find an All Clad pan with the two grab handles. All they had was one with one grab handle and one long handle. The two other All Clad pans I bought have flat bottoms and sit on my glass top perfectly. Yes I paid a lot more for them than what the Cuisinart pan cost me, but I still wasn't expecting the Cuisinart pan to have a rounded bottom. We will see what happens with this.

More babies

More babies means giving more baby quilts. I got the labels on two quilts and they are ready for gifting. This is the last girl quilt I have on hand and I have three more boy quilts. I guess I had better get busy making more girl quilts.

I spent some time last evening doing some cooking and I cleaned my kitchen floor somewhat. The floor is tile and it needs a good hands on my knees scrubbing especially in the grout lines. That is a job I am dreading. At least the steam mop got the tiles looking much better.

Progress on the 16 patch and Harley quilt

I got a bit more quilted on the 16 patch quilt. I now have 31 of the 90 blocks quilted.

I still need a few more safety pins to finish pin basting the Harley quilt so I will continue to quilt the 16 patch until I get enough pins. If I just didn't have to go to my job every day I could get a lot more done! LOL!!!

Lots done

I started out the weekend washing and ironing fabric. The Kona cottons I ordered arrived. The only issue I had was that each yard was wrapped separately in a plastic bag and taped shut. It took a long time to unpackage them and what a pile of plastic bags I had! I thought I took a photo of the fabric in the plastic bags, but I must have done something wrong because I can't find it. Here is what I bought - all 24 yards.

The fabric is all washed, pressed, and ready to use.

I wanted to see how that thread from Vicki was going to look on the 16 patch quilt, so I spent most of Sunday machine quilting. I needed the safety pins for the Harley quilt anyway. I had a hard time stopping quilting. The thread looks so good! I got 28% of the quilt quilted.

I pressed and pieced the backing for the Harley quilt and then I started pin basting it. I used up all the safety pins in my Halloween bucket so as I removed the pins from the 16 patch quilt, I would put them in the Harley quilt. I am about 85% done pin basting the Harley quilt.

The design wall looks so empty. I was looking for something else and decided to put the flannel four patch blocks that I had made a while back up on the wall. I only had a little bit of the white background baseball fabric; I am trying to use up what I have.

I have some scraps of the medium blue hockey fabric and the cream so I will have to make a few more of those to fill in the blanks.

I did spend some time cleaning the leaves out the flower bed, trimming the lavender plants, and digging up the tiny thistle weeds coming up. The daffodils in the big center bed bloomed faster than I thought they would. They look so pretty. I especially like the ones that are very pale yellow. I have one hyacinth that I am surprised has survived the deer. They did chomp on the leaves, but have left the flower for now.

Throw in doing laundry, dishes, making pizza from scratch, and a trip to my brother's house, and it was a busy weekend.

Bits of this and that

I got the bobbins wound for the 16 patch quilt. I am going to use yellow on the back and the variegated thread from Vicki on the front. I was afraid I wouldn't have enough of the variegated thread for both the top and bottom threads since the 16 patch quilt is on the large size. Since the back is mostly yellow, I went with the solid yellow.

I have been washing fabric and have a pile to now iron. The fabric with the skulls is for the Harley quilt.

I forgot to show you two pieces I bought a couple weeks ago at a quilt shop where my son lives. They were both on the clearance rack. I got two yards of the leaf print and took the 5 1/3 yards that was left on the bolt for the other print. I had some of that print in my stash. I like that print so much I just had to buy it! It could be for a back someday.

I got a thank you card for the flannel quilt this morning. This is an example why us quilters receive so much joy from giving the quilts we make away.

Have a great weekend!

2nd finish of 2019

Yeah it is done! It was hard to get it finished last evening because I was so tired, but I put my nose to the grindstone and push thru. I did have to sew the label on this morning. The quilt is now sitting on my co-worker's desk for her to take home to her husband tonight. The backing is a light gray flannel. I quilted it with a gray Aurifil on top and a light gray Connecting Threads Essential light gray for the bobbin thread. The size is 67 x 82, and I used Warm & Natural for the batting.

So what is next? I want to get started on quilting the 16 patch quilt, but I need to have the Harley quilt done. My nephew's band playing in Lorain, Ohio and in May and that is where the lady lives that I need to give the quilt to. The t-shirts quilts take long to quilt since I outline the lettering and motifs so 5 1/2 weeks is not a lot of time to get it done. I also have to spend some serious time working at my brother's house and mine. I need to get the Harley quilt pin basted so I guess that will be next on my list.