DWR quilt and more bush wacking

I worked on the DWR at lunchtime and when I got home from work. I had figured out that in order to get this quilt done by the end of August I need to quilt at least two melons a day or a melon and a center a day. I just need my fingers to hang in there! Yesterday I got three melons quilted; that gives me a little cushion in case I have a day that I can't meet my daily quota one day. Just so you know what I am calling a melon, I circled that area in this photo.

At 7 p.m. my neighbor called and asked if he could come over and work on cutting down more of the bushes in the back. He said I didn't need to help, he just wanted to get some exercise. He is trying to get his core strength built up for when he has back surgery. I said sure and got my little electric pole chain saw out and extension cords for him. He is treating my backyard like it was his and has done a marvelous job of cutting the stuff down and hauling it farther down the hill than I ever could. He can also flip the branches up into a pile that I would never be able to do. Here he his starting on the right side of the yard.

The after

The middle to left side of the yard where he limbed up the trees

and the side yard where he limbed up the neighbor's tree that hangs over on my side

I did end up going outside and helping move the branches over to where he was dragging them down the hill, picked up sticks, and gathered up the extension cords. I didn't want to get sweaty last night, but I did. It looks so much better! I will have to get out there and rake up little sticks and use the weed trimmer to clean up the ground stuff; something to do over the 4th! There is a bit more I plan on trimming up, but he got the worst of it for sure!

I also worked in my deck garden. I needed to thin out the bok choy and cut off the leaves on the squash that are below the growing squash. I read somewhere that is what you are suppose to do so I am trying it. The one squash plant is doing better than the ones in the new garden area. I don't think the ones in the garden are getting enough water and the dirt is more compact than the potting soil I used for the deck plant. I know next year I will dig a hole in the dirt and add organic matter and some potting soil to give the plants a better chance.

Got some stuff done!

I got some stuff done this three day weekend! I got the last four boxy pouches done. These were not on my current UFO list so I don't get to cross them off, but they are done nonetheless! I have made more than 150 of these - some gifts, gave some away, sold a few. I still have a big bag of them at the ready. They do make a quick gift.

One of the IT guys wanted 13 masks and the building division manager wanted a skull mask for a friend. I made two skull masks just because I couldn't decide which fabric I like better. Got those made.

Worked on the DWR ring quilt a bit. I finally laid it out to try and figure out how much I have done. I have 40% of the melons quilted and 15% of the centers quilted. I have set a goal of getting this done by the end of August. Let's hope my fingers hold up!

The Gee's Bend top is squared up and I have stated pin basting it.

Outside I got the entire yard mowed in a single session. That wore me out a bit! I spent a few hours weeding as that task was on my to-do list. I cleaned out the remaining weeds, gave the mugo pine a trim, and got the litrophe planted. I could use some more plants, but I think I will let these grow and maybe split them in the spring.

I worked on the big center flower bed and got the weeds pulled. It was so humid it was hard to see thru my glasses with the sweat dripping. It looks a whole lot better. I still need to give the mugo pine in this bed a trim and crawl underneath it to get a few weeds. Here are the before and after shots. I have more weeding to do and that will have to wait until 4th of July weekend.

I have a bare spot in the middle of the bed where two coneflowers use to live. They didn't come up this year. I will have to find something to plant there. I don't want to transplant anything right now while things are blooming and it is forecasted to get into the 90's.

My deck garden pots are doing well since I seem to remember to water them! LOL!! I need to thin out the Bok Choy. When I watered this morning I saw two yellow squash growing!

Tonight I will check the plants in the garden area to see if any squash is forming on any of those plants.

A few more boxy pouches done

I got to work right away after I got home from work and managed to get 7 more boxy pouches made. That makes a total of 31 this week. Along with the pouches I already had, I stuffed them in a big bag and took them to work today.

I have four left to construct. I was just too tired to finish them last night.

I did take a few pictures of the flowers blooming in the front yard. It is funny how some of the Shasta Daisy plants are blooming while others a not quite ready.

The marigolds that I started from seed have flower buds on them!

One of my coneflower plants is starting to bloom too. It seems I have two coneflower plants that did not come up this year.

It is another three day weekend for me so today is Friday for me - yeah!

Pouches and DWR

After work I had to go get my hair cut so I didn't get home until after 6 which limited the sewing time. I did get three more boxy pouches done

and I got the zippers installed for 5 more plus the handles topstitched for 6.

As soon as I get home I want to get the zippers in two more pouches and then it's on to constructing them.

At lunchtime I did get one more complete ring done on the DWR quilt.

I got a phone call from the fellow that was possibly replacing my deck and he had bad news. You can't buy pretreated lumber right now. The big box stores are buying everything available, but it is inferior because the wood is not being soaked in the chemical solution that makes it pretreated very long. He said the solution only goes 1/4" into the wood which is not enough to keep it from rotting. SO now it is just a matter of waiting until the supplies get built back up. Who knew a pretreated lumber shortage would be one of the results of a pandemic?

Productive evening

As soon as I got home from work yesterday there was no messing about! I pulled out the DWR quilt and finished up another ring. I finished one ring at work during lunch and got started on the last of the stitching on another ring, but ran out of time to finish it. I needed to stitch the 1/4" quilting on two sides of the center section and quilt the four melon shapes. I still have not laid out this quilt to try and figure out how much I have done or in other words, how much I still need to quilt! LOL!!!

I then turned my attention to the boxy pouches. I like to get groups of them together that need the same color of thread. I had six that needed white thread so I worked on those and got them done. So now I have finished a total of 24, mailed the two to my SIL, and have 14 more to sew together.

I did take a break while sewing the boxy pouches to go outside and see how humid it was. I have that planting bed with the huge mugo pine and noticed it needed some weeding! There was a lot of crabgrass coming up too. I tried pulling a little out and with all the rain it came out easy so I didn't stop. I pretty much had the bed cleaned up in 20 minutes except for the weeds I would have to crawl under the mugo pine. I forgot to take a picture but trust me it was looking bad and now looks better!

It was a productive evening!

This past weekend's list

With giving myself a three day weekend of course I needed to make myself an impossible list! I had a request for a couple more boxy pouches from my SIL and some floral ones for a lady at work so I started cutting those out on Thursday night. I wanted to give the lady at work a lot of choices. I don't have a lot of florals in my stash so I had to dig deep! Here they are laid out with the linings.

I decided that since I was going to make pouches I would dig out the ones that I hadn't finished a year and a half ago. They never made it on the UFO list, but I knew they were on top of the table in the fabric storage room and I needed to just get them done. What was nice is that they were already prepped with the interfacing already ironed on the outer fabric and the handles pressed.

I had to go back to my blog post in Feb of 2018 to refresh my memory on how to put one of these together. I took me over an hour to do the first one! After that I got a bit faster. LOL!! I have made over a hundred of these so you would think that I would never forget how to construct one, but I was a bit rusty!

I finished up the cutting on Friday and stitched Friday and Saturday. I got 18 done with the yellow and orange ones on top going to my SIL.

My sewing time on Saturday morning was interrupted when my neighbor texted me that he wanted to come over and help me cut down the bushes/small trees at the tree line in my back yard. This was in trade for the mending I had done for him. Two and a half hours later it was getting too hot and the sun was covering the back yard so we stopped. Here is the before and after. It doesn't look as dramatic as it does in person. There was a lot of stuff we cut down and cleared out! He is going to come back and cut down a bit more, but for at least now the bushes won't be in my way when I mow. I think I got the better end of the deal! I felt a bit guilty so I gave him a Cleveland Indians boxy pouch. He travels a lot for work so I thought it might come in handy.

It wiped me out doing that yardwork and I struggled getting some sewing done the rest of the day. By the end of the last night I had 9 pouches with the zippers installed, pressed, and have the handles ready

11 ready for Zippers and the handles ready

Then cut out fabric for 13 masks for a fellow at work.

I got a few things crossed off the list. I will just keep at it until its done!

Progress on the DWR

I finished my stencil for the centers of the DWR blocks and tried it out when I got home because I ran out of time at lunch and I didn't have my marking pen with me. This is a design that was used on other DWR quilts that this woman had made. The owner of the quilt wanted it to be quilted like Grandma would have quilted it. It was an easy request to fulfill.

Here is the first of 40 rings that is 100% quilted. I have will have to figure out this weekend how far along I am on getting this quilt quilted. I think I have 5 rings that only need the centers done so I will work on those so I feel like I am making progress.

I had to stop quilting last evening because my fingers were getting sore and I needed to mow. I mowed the front yard, the sides and over half the back before I stopped. I was sweating so bad it was hard to see. It might rain later today so I don't know if I will get the rest of the back done tonight or not. I am taking a day of vacation tomorrow so I am sure there will be time to finish it in the next three days. Mentally I just can't handle working five days in a row yet. I need some Patty time.

Have a great weekend!

Back to the DWR

Now that I am back to going into the office everyday I am getting back to quilting the DWR quilt at lunch time. I feel I have been working on this quilt forever. I hadn't touched it in months which doesn't help! I had got to get this done!

I have plenty of space in my cubical and the light is good. We are not allowed to congregate at lunch time which is ok by me. I just sit in my space and stitch away!

I need to make a template for the center section quilting design. The woman that owns this quilt sent me a picture of how her Grandmother had quilted the other DWQ she had made. I just need to reduce the size of the melon to fit four in each center.

I was really tired when I got home from work yesterday. I got a bite to eat and laid down for 15 minutes then it was outside to water. It hasn't rained in a while so everything needed a drink. I did forget to take a picture of some of the Shasta daisies that bloom. They are blooming only on one plant right now. I trimmed the front yard, but it was too late to mow. If I didn't have to leave the house to go to work I would have gone ahead and mowed, but now timing matters more as I have to schedule my life around going to work. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful I have a job to go to. It was just so nice working from home.

Dead disposal and more boxy pouches

As soon as I got home from work - yes, I am back to leaving the house everyday :( - my plumber showed up. My garbage disposal quit working and after trying the reset button, checking for anything non-food in the disposal, and checking the breaker I could not get it to work. I didn't have a hex key that would fit to try and loosen the motor, but Anthony had one. He is very smart when it comes to plumbing. He works for a company that is doing the plumbing at the hospital job I had been working on. His one fault is that he like to talk and talk and talk. More talking than work was going on. I finally got up and started doing a few things and said if I didn't have to go to work tomorrow I would be glad to sit and talk, but I have stuff I have to get done. So I went downstairs to the studio and he proceeded to try and figure out what was going on. The final analysis is that the motor is shot, but he managed to unclog the disposal so at least the water drains. When he and his Dad come to put in the new hot water heater they will install the new garbage disposal. Time to get the disposal draining - 20 minutes. Time he was at the house 2 hours! He wouldn't take any money. Last time he and his Dad worked I fixed them stuff shell and cookies to take with them. I will do the same thing again. He was glad that all the work they had done was functioning and that I had no problems.

SO it was now 7 p.m. and there wasn't time to really get into a project so I dug thru my stash looking for floral fabric to make some boxy pouches for one of the women I work with. Here is what I found

Then I have fabric pulled for two boxy pouches for my SIL. I still have to find some fabric for the inside of the blue and orange fish fabric. The other pouch will be that yellow fabric on the outside with the red text fabric for the inside.