It is Friday for me!

I finally received my package from Hancock's of Paducah with the three pinks I ordered that might match the pink in this quilt top

The color in this photo is not spot on. number 1 is slightly darker and number 2 is slightly lighter, number 3 well, it's isn't even close. I am going to use number 1. It is better that the other pinks I already had.

I also got this cute fabric on sale that I will use on the back.

I had to run to the hospital this morning and check on a few items, then head back to the office. The heat is getting to me. It was hot inside the hospital and it is humid and hot outside. I am taking tomorrow off so I will say to all to have a wonderful weekend!

I did not fall in a hole!

I spent Monday and Tuesday at the job site; I will get to that in a minute. First the weekend. I got two more baby quilt tops made. I decided since I had to make more 16 patch blocks to use up what I had leftover from the 16 patch quilt, I mostly cut solids in pinks and purples. Once made I divided the blocks up into more boy looking blocks and more girl looking. These are the two tops.

I took the left over 4 patch strips and hung them up on the design wall to see if I had enough for another top and I did. I got the top two rows sewn together last evening.

Saturday I spend and hour or two weeding the center flower bed. I got a new tool to help me dig the weeds up. It worked great until it came apart. I put it back together and pounded the head into the handle and did that whenever it loosen up. I will take it apart and put some Gorilla glue in the plastic fitting. Maybe that will keep it together. The thing only cost me 7 bucks.

It was cool outside on Sunday morning so I got the squash in the ground. I hauled 5 or 6 loads of dirt over to the bed first. Once I got them planted I installed fence; I don't want the deer eating my plants! I had this fencing for years so it was time to put it to use. I made an opening so I can get inside to weed. I always keep old shoestrings and I used those to tie the door closed. So far the plants seem to be doing fine. This ended up taking 4 1/2 hours.

Monday and Tuesday at work consisted of counting materials for handrail and crash rail plus moving some materials out of the mechanical rooms. The hospital had been complaining about the pile of stuff outside for months - this is a pile of pieces and parts for hand and crash rail. These boxes are 241" long!

Ruth and I had to measure, count, and haul all of this to the trash. I was dirty and mice had been living in the boxes. It had been sitting outside since last fall. The dumpster was on the other side of the hospital so it was a long way to push this stuff on a cart and wrestle it into the dumpster. We swept up the dirt and debris, then got out the hose and wash the area down. It looks a lot better.

Next we had to go up to the mechanical room and move 15 fire extinguisher cabinets and boxes of countertop brackets to the container storage unit we have. These should have never been put in the mechanical room. It took three trips to move the cabinets, brackets, and the empty pallets.

I ended up with over 16,000 steps and almost 7 miles on my fitbit yesterday. Can you say tired? LOL!!!

Nice progress

I decided that since I am cutting up half fabric width strips I might as well make 16 patch blocks first and then deal with the leftovers pieces and make 8 parch blocks or stick the single 4 piece strips in a separate quilt top. So last evening I did good and got all the 16 patch blocks I could out of the strips I had already sewn together.

I have more strips to sew together so I may change around these blocks. Here is the pile I still have to sew. The prints were all leftover from the big 16 patch quilt and I cut more solids to go with them.

The sun is out today! What a relief from all the rain. No rain in the forecast until Monday so I am hoping to get some yardwork done. Number one job is to move more dirt to the bed where I am going to plant my squash. The plants have gotten big and need to be put in the ground. Have a great weekend!

Another top done

This top turned out 40.5" x 51.5". Could be for either a boy or a girl.

I started laying out pieces for sewing together the next batch of blocks.

I stopped at the library after work since the copy I reserved of Bruce Springsteen's new CD Western Starswas waiting for me to pick it up. I will be putting this in rotation with the other CD I have been listening to for two weeks which is Gary Clark Jr. This Land

Rows are ready

I got the other two rows of units sewn together last evening. Tonight I will sew the rows together and then I will have another baby quilt top to put in the pile.

Last Wednesday when I was out at the job site my boss (Pam), a laborer (Ruth), an I were at the end of the workday and they were partaking in some peanut M&Ms. I was resisting and said I made biscuits the week before and gained 2 pounds so don't even get me started on the M&Ms. Their eyes lit up and the conversation turned to biscuits. They both carried on about homemade biscuits, so I promised I would bring them some next week. Next week is today and here are the biscuits I made last night for them.

The Shasta daisies are starting to bloom! In the front bed the transplanted plants are a bit behind the others.

Then in the center bed, three of the plants are blooming, but the rest are behind a bit.

Pink issues

This quilt has found a home.

Now all I have to do is quilt, bind, label, and ship it. I went digging for some pink fabric to match the solid pink and of course I had nothing even close.

Then fabric for the back - well, I thought I had a piece that would work, but there is no pink in it - just coral. Ugh!!!

You would think with the stash I have I wouldn't run into such issues. I am only fretting about this because it is for a friend of one of my SILs and I want it to be more matched to that pink solid fabric. I order three different pinks for the binding so I hope one of them is close. I also ordered a piece of pink and white for the backing that I hope will look good. It was on sale so not too painful to the pocketbook. So finishing this project will have to wait until my order comes.

My plants are doing good.

Saturday there was a doe and her fawn in the back yard. The fawn is 3 - 4 weeks old.

I spent most of my evening doing dishes and cooking food for meals for the next couple of days. I was tired after three weeks of eating roasted broccoli and cauliflower so I thawed out some spinach and made creamed spinach with parmesan cheese. I also made salmon patties. I have enough for at least 4 meals.

The baby Canada goose at work are starting to look like their parents now. They sure grow fast.

Cutting, sewing, yardwork and music

It was a busy three days! I finished sewing together the first of the tops made with the leftovers from the 16 patch quilt. It measures 41" x 50.75"

I cut solid strips to go with the print strips already hanging on the design wall.

I sewed some of the strips together and sliced them into units to add to the next baby quilt top. I decided to turn the strips 90 degrees to see what that would look like. Here is the top with the two left side rows sewn. They shrank a lot!

I still have a pile of strips to sew together and piles of units to sew into blocks. Look at the design wall where I had all the strips hanging; it is almost empty!

Friday night my nephew had a show. They played for one hour to a sold out crowd and everyone seemed to enjoy the show. They got a standing ovation! The place they played was very nice. Load in was easy, there were VIP areas, food trucks, and the background was beautiful with all the trees.

Michael played one song while walking thru the crowd; people really liked it.

I spent at least 7 hours over the three days mowing, trimming grass and bushes, and pulling weeds. I spent the most time outside working on Saturday morning since the rain was to roll in later in the day. 4 1/2 hours of that and I was tired! It didn't stop raining until about 4 p.m. on Sunday. I needed to check on my plants in pots to make sure they were not drowning and since it was so nice outside I decided to do a bit of weeding in the cora bell bed. Here is the before and after.

It looks better, but I was not happy that the deer have been nibbling my plants. Well, that has got to stop so I decided to dig up some small Lenten roses and plant them among the cora bell plants. The Lenten roses are poisonous to deer. If they are rooting around especially at night they won't want to take a chance of eating a Lenten rose leaf. At least that is my plan. I will have to see if it works out.

I only transplanted eight plants and I think I need a few more. I know my big bed of Lenten Roses will have more little plants; I just need to crawl around and find them. The Lenten roses are slow growing so they won't get too big and need to be transplanted for at least 3 years. Right now this bed is a mess! I need to get the rocks situated, dig out the volunteer thing growing up there in the middle, dig out the grass and pull weeds. It is on my list of things to do.

The cora bell bed had come a long way in the last year. This is what it looked like last spring.

I did a lot of edging too. The back yard along the house needed some attention. Here is the before and after of the area by Lenten Rose bed. So much better!

The first roadside day lily bloomed

The coneflowers are blooming

The Shasta daisies are so close to blooming. It is going to be so pretty to drive up the cul-da-sac and see all those white flowers! I just have to make sure I dead head them this year so they will keep blooming.