Tote bag, power washing, samplers, and fun mail

I didn't get the label on the quilt or a picture taken, but I did get the tote bag cut out.

Things got a little crazy last night. When I got home from work the house had not been power washed. The fellow called and said he got behind on his second job and was 10 minutes away. So while he was setting up the neighbor called me and said he would be over to mow another neighbor's yard since they are on vacation. I needed to trim back a pine tree so he could get his riding mower between the tree and my flower bed. Geeze! So I spent time running around getting the clippers, boots, and gloves so no sewing was going on. Two hours later the house was clean. Here are some before and after pictures

Next big job - that deck. Here is the sampler I finished for Sampler September. The stitched area is 12 1/2" x 6".

The next one I am working on is the Chloe Lincoln sampler whose birthday is 201 years earlier than my sister's birthday. This is how far I have gotten since Saturday. The design at the bottom is what caught my eye.

Here is what it will look like finished.

I also received some fabric. These were on sale. I got several for some projects I have planned.

Binding done and lots of outside work

I managed to get the last 10 inches of binding sewn before I went to work. I will attach a label tonight, make a tote bag for it, and then take a picture of the entire finished quilt to post tomorrow.

Friday I finished stitching that sampler and pulled out the next one. I will show those tomorrow. Saturday I was tired but I forced myself to get a few things done. I had been wanting to shape up the spruce so I got the ladder out and I think it looks so much better.

I noticed that some animal had gotten into the zucchini and torn a piece off that had a tiny little zucchini growing. Grh!

I had been noticing that the deer had been picking at it too so it was time to fence it in since the plant was still producing.

Next it was trimming and mowing the front and one side yard. Then it was onto watering the neighbor's flower pots. They are away for a few days so I am watching over the place. It was interesting to get a different view of my front yard.

After I watered my plants I spent a little time in the garage clearing out this area of everything but the table, the box on the right, the shop vac, and a couple thing leaning against the wall. I wanted to work on this area more, but I was getting tired. This area is my project for the week so I hope to have it in shape by the weekend.

I went inside, watched football, and stitched. I got a phone call late afternoon from the power wash guy to tell me he had a cancellation for Monday afternoon. I said your coming here! So Sunday was all about getting things cleaned up for the power washers. It finally dawned on me that I might be able to use my little chain saw to cut up the stringers from the deck steps so I could pitch them.

The chain saw worked great and I was careful not to hit a nail. That job is done!

While I had the chain saw out I trimmed back the mugo pine so the power wash guy to get to the house.

I had three bags of mulch leaning on the house so I decided to clean up this area where weeds were growing in the mulch. I then dumped the three bags so that got rid of those.

I had to cut back the marigolds since they were right next to the house.

After 4 hours of that I had enough! Got something to eat, turned on the Brown's game, and spent the rest of the day stitching binding.

Binding progress and a little less cruddy

I haven't been all that ambitious about getting things done the last couple of days. I now have one long side of the binding hand stitched on the flannel quilt.

I took a walk around the yard last evening and two red poppies greeted me.

I had lunch with a friend yesterday and she brought me a goodie bag! She found this Halloween stock monkey which is just cute as can be! Then she had taken her grands to a huge candy store near Cleveland and brought me the sugar skull tin and the green sugar skull.

The tin had some candies in it and when you push the lever at the side of the green skull it opens up and has a sucker inside.

I think I might have found someone else to build my deck and someone else to power wash my house so yesterday was a good day! I also took it upon myself to clean up a table in the office. I had cleaned the top with Fantastic, but it was still disgusting. I tried out some Soft Scrub with bleach and a scouring pad which looked like it was going to work.

As soon as I got to work this morning, I got the t-shirt rags wet and started scrubbing the tabletop. It is now a lot less cruddy!

My plans for the weekend are to mow, do some more trimming out back, get the binding done on the flannel quilt, make a tote bag for the flannel quilt, and work a bit more in the garage. Looks like there are some weeds that need evicted so I may try to get to those. Have a great weekend!

Ready to hand stitch

I feel like this is the quilt that will never get done! I did make more progress last evening by getting the corners mitered and the top trimmed. I don't know if you all do this step or not - when I get a side trimmed, I press the binding to the outside to crisp up the seam line. I have a girlfriend that I showed that to the last time she was visiting and she had never done that. It just make the binding roll to the back easier and makes for a nice finish.

I got a whole 5 minutes of hand stitching done.

Distracted by shiny objects

I got distracted last evening. Here is what I did manage to get done on the flannel quilt - the binding is sewn on and it's now ready for me to miter the corners. I will not have this done to pass off tomorrow, but that's ok. It's a Xmas gift so I have time.

So what took my attention away from the quilt? Well, I got another bundt pan in the mail. I got it from eBay. I love the texture and will be making a cake soon to try it out.

The cross stitch needles I ordered arrived. These Piecemakers 28 tapestry needles are hard to find. These are Brenda's favorite and I wanted to try them.

Brenda is one of the two lovely ladies on the floss tube Brenda and the Serial Starter. They are my favorite floss tube to watch. I have tried several different brands of cross stitch needles - DMC, Bohin, and John James.

DMC are awful, Bohin are ok, and John James are my go to. So I had to sit down and try out the Piecemakers needles. I could tell right away they were a bit shorter than the John James needles. I will have to stitch with them a bit more before I make a final decision on them.

On Tuesday I show the progress on my sampler so here is where I was last Tuesday and where I am now. There was a big change in the second row. I ripped out the G, H, I & J then started stitching at the beginning of the row. The original sampler had this row in a differnt stitch which I cannot find the name of, but apparently it took up more space than what I did. That meant I after I stitched A thru J I had room left so I just winged it with the rest of the letters.  I still need to finish the N. 

I forced myself to quilt cross stitching and headed up to the kitchen to make chocolate zucchini muffins for work. The boss man had brought in two zucchini that he picked and they were huge! He had been on vacation out west for two weeks and these puppies got big! The one I took home was 5.4 pounds and nearly 18" long!

I ended up using a zucchini from my garden that was much smaller; I just didnt have time to deal with that big boy. The muffins turned out good and so far they are a big hit at work. I ate one when it was hot out of the oven and it was amazing!

My last distraction was looking at my collection/pile/horde of needles. Yesterday I read Vicki's post (Colorways by Vicki Welsh blog) where she showed a late quilter's group member's sewing notions that she was getting ready for the group's October fundraiser and talked about how much stuff she had. Well, my drawer is stuff with packets of needles. 

I sorted my needle packs into groups so now I need to decide which I am going to keep and which I will donate.

The weekend's accomplishments

I did pretty good this weekend, but it did have it's ups and downs. I did get the flannel quilt quilted and have some of the binding sewn on. Sunday was the quilting and this morning before work was a bit of the binding.

Friday evening and Saturday I was not feeling energetic at all. There was a big tussle at the pharmacy for about a week to try and get my meds from the right manufacturer. It got to the point of taking nothing or taking it from the wrong manufacturer and suffering the side effects. I chose the latter and the side effects hit me Friday and Saturday. I get low grade headaches that come and go, and it sucks all the energy out of me. Saturday I sat most of the day watching some football, home-improvement shows, movies, and stitched on that sampler. I went to bed early and sleep in so Sunday I was feeling a bit better.  Besides quilting on Sunday I went thru the garage and cleaned up the paper from junk mail, etc., made a pot a chili, and then went out back to do some trimming. I had a bunch of weeds with white flowers on them along with random other vegetation that needed cut down. The stems were too thick for a weed wacker, so I got out this

Yes, I had to bend over, but since I was on the slope it made it a bit easier to bend down and give the area a haircut. I drew a line where the weeds started. I still have a bit more to cut back, but first I will have to rake. We need a hard frost to kill the mosquitoes though. I was starting to get bit and it was only 5 PM!

Thirty-five minutes of trimming was about all I could do. I did water a bit and saw that the three jalapeños were growing quite nicely.

Glad it is Friday

I now have 100 of the 143 blocks quilted on the 9-patch flannel quilt. That means it is 70% quilted.

I got to go to the job site for the project I am on. We are replacing this bridge.

Here is one of the several footers that will be part of the pier that holds up the new bridge. The hole is 50 - 60 feet deep. The guys were getting ready to fill it with concrete. The red hose is to suck the water off the top of the concrete that gets pushed up as they force the concrete to the bottom of the hole. We didn't stay around to watch as it can get messy.

Then we went over to another place where we have to rework an off ramp.

My plans for the weekend are to get the flannel quilt done and get some trimming done around the backyard. I will need to go to the grocery store as the cupboards are getting bare and to stock up so I don't need to leave the house on the weekends for a few weekends. There will be some football watching and maybe I can spend a bit of time in the garage since the weather is going to be nice. I received a lot of compliments on the chocolate zucchini muffins so I think I will have to make another batch next week.  Have a great weekend!