Another small done, next daily project

Since I had to put the t-shirt quilt on hold until the lady gets me more shirts, I looked around last evening to figure out what to do. It was too hot to work on the deck demo so I decided to finish that small with the buttons. I am happy I am getting better at sewing the opening for stuffing.  I have had a lot of practice lately finishing these smalls!

While I was working on this my sister called. She wanted to update me on her daughter's situation. Her daughter's brand new construction house had a fire. She hadn't moved in, but was in the process of getting things ready to move in. She was having all kinds of problems getting anyone to care. It was an electrical fire and no one got hurt, but the house is a mess with the fire department breaking down the front door, tromping thru the house with muddy boots, and tearing up walls along with the 300 gallons of water they dumped in the house. It helps to bounce ideas and information off of each other and it looks like things are finally progressing in the right direction. Lending moral support is what we all need sometimes! After I got off the phone it was 6:15 and I needed to water. The Shasta daisies were drooping and needed a drink as they have been cooking in 90+ degree temps for the last few days. They look so much better this morning. Here is a shot of the center bed. The California poppies had already started closing up for the night, but when they are fully open this bed looks so pretty!

Now that the 2010 quilt is done, I needed another project to work on. I pulled out this piece I had started a number of years ago. This was to be the fourth in a series for the Akron Art Prize event. I made it using the Jimmy Buffett t-shirts my brother gave me from when he was on tour with JB and the custom printed Hoffman of California fabric the wardrobe lady used to make shirts for JB's band. The Akron Art Prize is no longer so there was no need to push to get this done, but now it will be a great project to work on 15 to 30 minutes a day to get this done eventually.

This piece is free motion quilted and I got started on adding the embroidery just like I did with the other three pieces including the one in my header. The needle was still in the shirt where I had stopped a few years ago.

I stitched a bit on it this morning and I definitely need to get my embroidery rhythm back. I stitched at least a half hour this morning and made some nice progress.  I am using three strands of floss.  The one in my header took me 5 months to embroider and that was working a couple hours almost every night on it so the JB one is going to take a while!