Down the rabbit hole

I spent a lot of time last evening thinking. Thinking about how I should cut up the pieces I had left to get the most out of them for borders at the top and bottom of the t-shirt quilt. I finally got brave and just started cutting. I plan on dividing this piece in half once it is sewn together so the curve of the sleeves not be as noticiable; not that I mind looking at the pieces and know they were the sleeves. Here is where I am so far.

The rabbit hole I have gone down is getting back into cross stitch. I could stitch for hours! I dug around my small bin of fabric (shoe box sized) and the few charts I have to figure out what I could stitch next so I could try out the Leo & Roxy floss. Cherie, who is a blog reader, sent me flannel and was the receipent of several of my vinyl project pouches, sent me a cute chart that had some black in it. I found a piece of 28 count natural linen (one of my favorite fabrics to stitch on) and went to town! I decided to make the birds black instead of the called for caper. I stitched enough of the bottom area to be able to start the black. The floss did stitch nice and smooth. I am looking forward to stitching more with it.

This project fits nicely in one of my bags.

I have been keeping up with my wrecking journal everyday. Here are yesterday and today's pages. On today's page I pressed so hard my pencil broke. I am sure that would have gotten approval.

Busy evening

The weather was beautiful when I got home from work I wanted to be outside for a while. I hauled the hose around the yard and gave most of the plants a drink. I noticed a couple of my Shasta daisy plants look dead, but that's ok I have lots of them. They died from lack of water. Oops! There were lots of bees on the lavender and the marigolds which I liked seeing. The Calafornia poppies are all filled back in and blooming after I cleaned the old stuff out a few weeks ago. They never disappoint.

I roasted some broccli for lunches, speed watched Monday's night's Voice (I fast forward the singer's sob stories, the coaches banter, and commercials), and took out the hems in the sleeves that I had cut off for the t-shirt quilt.

The more I look at this quilt the more I think I will be needing to add a border at the top and bottom to get the lenght I want. Between the sleeves, the backs of the gray and white t-shirts, the leftover bits from the basketball jersey and camo bibs, I think I have enough to make the borders.

Better than nothing and new floss

I didn't get much done on the t-shirt quilt, but I did get the camo sashing pieces sewn together so that is better than nothing.

I spent part of my evening watering my cora bell bed and the ornamental grass hedge. We haven't had rain for over a week and things were dry. I was excited when I got the mail; the Leo and Roxy floss I had ordered about a week ago from www.evertote.com arrived! I thought that was fast since it came from Canada. I kept hearing about how wonderful Leo and Roxy floss was so I just had to try some for myself. It is considerably more expensive than DMC, but the floss is hand dyed, beautiful, and so smooth almost like silk. Now I just have to figure out a project to try it out on. I have a feeling I wish I would have bought more and probably will buy more.

Progress on the pastel deer pillow cover - it's coming along. Here is where I was and where I am

I have been doing my journal everyday. Today was to pour, spill, drip, spit, fling your coffee HERE. Since I don't drink coffee my leftover tea from yesterday was dumped on the journal.

Where is my head?

Sunday it finally struck me - October is almost here! Where did September go? It is now less than 3 months until Christmas - YIKES! I finally got my head out of the sand and started to look at what I need to accomplish in the next few months. Number one is the t-shirt quilt for a guy at work. He wants to give it to his son for Xmas. I spent all day Sunday cutting up the shirts and pressing on the interfacing. A big hurdle was to figure out what I was going to do with this pair of camo bibs. They don't go with the t-shirts color wise.

I spent about an hour taking them apart and running over different possibilities in my head. I finally decided to cut strips out of the bibs and use them as a sashing. I don't have much t-shirt fabric left to make a border, so adding lengthwise strips will give me close to the width I need. I am making a twin sized quilt. I think the lengthwise sashing will spread the camo out and create a design feature. I don't know! I am making this up as I go along! LOL!! So here is what I have so far.

Here is a close up of the camo fabric. It is kind of ugly. I did save the patch pockets and I may add those someplace.

I'm glad it's Friday!

It has been a crazy week! Yesterday afternoon I had a doctor appointment and I was there for two hours! Geeze! I stopped on my way home at JoAnn's to get some outdoors thread for the new cover I need to make to replace the one the puppy destroyed. I guess right the color! When I got home the samples of the new vinyl fabric for the cover had arrived and the thread color match was spot on. Now I need to order 6 yards of the vinyl.

Wanda had asked me how my transplanted ornamental grass was coming along. It was spitting rain a bit, but I walked over and got a picture of it. It is bent over because I think it is reaching for sunlight. Here is what the fence line looked when I planted them and how it looks now

I had been working on my Friday night cross stitch project during the week this week. I just couldn't set it down. I changed the design just a bit. I put smaller hearts at the upper right and left sides, and instead of a heart above the bird I put a tiny skull. I would have put the year, but I was down to my last bit of floss to finish the skull. That thread at the right is all I had left of one skein I had bought of a hand dyed floss. My sister thinks she has some of that floss so she will look when she gets home. I need one strand about 10" to put the date on and I am not even sure where I would even stitch the year. I will have to think about that.

Have a great weekend! I won't be going anywhere on Saturday since all the streets will be blocked with the marathon. They run right thru where I live so traffic becomes a nightmare.

I did not fall off the face of the earth - LOL!!

I took a day of vacation yesterday because my sister and her husband were flying in and stopping for a visit with me on their way to their next destination. I spent the day making homemade pizza and pan banging chocolate chip cookies as well as cleaning house. I made two pizzas to make sure there was enough. I only got a picture of the second pizza after we demolished the first one and part of the second. It was really good. My house still smells like pizza this morning.

I made a single batch of cookies. I made up a container of them that they could take with them. They were tasty! My sister had seen the ones I had made for the band on my blog and was hoping I would make them for her. She was happy! This container of two is for a guy at work that takes my personal packages to the post office and mails them for me.  That makes life so much easier to give him the money and get stuff mail so I don't have to take the time to do it.  He goes to the post office everyday anyway to pick up the company's mail.

My sister and BIL brought me a birthday present! My birthday is not until November and I already have received two presents! That is two presents more than I usually get so I feel pretty special! They brought me this very cool ceramic sugar skull from their trip to Coszuml. I love it!

Then a journal which is really funny and I will share with you my journey as I wreck this journal.

And a pack of hand sanitizer and wipes. Her daughter is an emergency room/ICU nurse and brings these to my sister and her Dad all the time. I will keep this in the car; it will come in handy!

I handed off to my sister her needlebooks I had made, a pillowcase she wanted, and her son's keyboard bag.  We had a wonderful visit.  I hadn't seen them since Thanksgiving last year.

Pastel deer cushion progress and gave Bubba a haircut

Here is my weekly update on my progess on the pastel deer pillow cover. Here is where I was last Tuesday and where I am now.

Since there was a chance of rain today, I needed to get the front and one side of the grass mowed last night. Before I could mow I needed to cut back this zebra grass. It was sticking out so far it was hard to mow the grass. Here is Bubba before and after I gave him a haircut.

It did rain this morning.

Quilting - but not what you think!

Friday after work I like to work on this cross stitch piece. It will be a pincushion: a bit big but whatever. I made some good progress while I watched John Wick and part of John Wick 2. Here is where I was and where I am.  I just noticed I missed stitching the little flower on the side of the right triangle.  Oops!  I will have to fix that!

Saturday I cut out the fabric and interfacing I needed to make the needlebooks for my sister. I also got the rest of the project bags done while I watched the Notre Dame game.

Here are the project bags I sent to one of my blog readers, Cherie, for sending me flannel. I love that she has already put them to use!

Next I worked on the amp cover for my nephew. This is where the quilting happened. I used the fabric that Cherie sent me to back the car cover fabric and used the grid to quilt the pieces so I didn't have to mark any quilting lines. Here is the front and back panel that got quilted while the last hour of John Wick 2 and John Wick 3 were on TV.

Finished!

Fits pretty good. I may adjust the handle opening. It could be a 1/2" wider. I was asked to add the pocket so he could put a cord, some picks, and maybe a tuner in it. I finished this on Sunday morning.

I just found out last week that the car cover fabric I use to make equipment covers has been discontinued! Yikes! I quickly went on to ebay and found a twenty yard roll for sale! What luck! I put in an offer and they accepted it. The roll showed up at my door on Saturday.

Here is the roll I had. I have no idea how many yards are on it, but I am happy with the amount of yardage I now have on hand. I kept my search on ebay in case any more gets posted. I found a place on the west coast that has some, but they want twenty dollars a yard! Last time I bought it from my supplier it was around eight dollars a yard. People were buying this for making PPE which I can't imagine wearing a suit or mask made out of this stuff.

My next project on Sunday was to work on another nephew's keyboard bag. Here is his special keyboard.

I totally redesigned from what my nephew had in mind. Here is the front and back quilted - see more quilting! LOL!!! Worked on the bag when watching the Browns play Houston.

It took me about 6 hours to make this bag. I had the strap and it's hardware leftover from something and I had saved the parachute clip from something. I never throw away straps or hardware. I never know when I might need them! This bag was not easy to construct and I never want to do another one. I sure hope it works for him. I wanted to get this done since my sister will be in town Wednesday and I can just hand it off to her and not have to mail it.  It turned out 8" side by 16 1/2" long. 

I had only seen part of the first John Wick movie. I just decided since 1, 2, and 3 were on this weekend I would watch them. There is a lot of shooting! I mean a lot! More shooting and fight scenes than I have ever seen in a movie.  All the shooting got a little old after awhile, but I stuck with it. Wick gets shot - more than once, stabbed more than once, beat up many times and like the energizer bunny he just keeps going. I was a bit lost and had questions about where the plot was going, but by the end of third movie things were a bit clearer. The end of 3 left the plot open and I thought there has got to be a number 4; I want to see what happens next! After a search I found Keanu Reeves is shooting number four right now and it will be out May next year. Oh that is a long time to wait to find out what happens next.

Progress on the project bags

I got the replacement project bags finished. I couldn't mess it up this time since it was an all over print. These are all wrapped and ready to mail.

I also got this 6" x 9" bag done. I like to use the little bags for extra skeins of floss, scissors, and extra needles.

I have this small bag almost done.

Do I ever have a list for this weekend! 1. amp cover 2. finish the gray owl little bag 3. make some needlebooks for my sister - she and her husband are coming to Ohio for a quick visit so I want to hand these off to her so I don't have to mail them 4. need to work on the 9 patch flannel blocks - so that is for starters. Mowing at least the front yard will have to happen too. Have a great weekend!

The list just keeps getting longer

I am in demand! My to do list just keeps getting longer. I don't mind though; it makes me feel needed. After my sister saw the needlebooks I have been making, she asked me if I could make her a few to match some of the vinyl project bags I had made for her. I can do that! She liked the little pocket for scissors or her traveling cutter. She sent me pictures of some of her bags so I could see if I have matching fabric and the cutter for size.

Then I got a call from the person I made a cover for. His new 75 pound 8 month old puppy decided to alter the cover and not in a good way. LOL!!! This cutie has been destructive in more ways than one from what I was told.  It is in that phase.  I was asked to find tougher fabric to make another cover. He said the cover worked great and fit great.  He thinks the current cover is a total loss, but I can fix that! I don't know if he wants me to fix this one or not since he needs one with tougher fabric. I am on a mission today to find a tougher fabric for that project.

Elle, the project bag with the upside down fabric will still function, but after mulling it over I decided to go ahead and make a new bag. I also like to make a smaller 6' X 9" bag and a needlebook to match. I got a bit farther last night on these bags and finished the needlebook.

My shipping bags finally showed up, so Cherie your bag is going into the mail today. I had to bring in the garbage bin and the sky was so pretty.

I have a few flowers on my Shasta daisies after I have given the plants a haircut at the end of July when the first flowering was done. This was a surprise. I wasn't sure if they would bloom again or not.  There are more flower buds; they are just hard to see in this picture. 

Then I have this lavender plant that sprouted up. I am going to have to carefully dig it up and transplant it. It won't survive the winter because I know I would kill it when I shovel snow. Ugh! Snow shoveling; not looking forward to that.