Plugging away

I needed to get a label on a baby quilt so I could get it in the mail. It is for a friend of my sister.

The next phase for the boxy pouches is to iron on the interfacing to the outside pieces, iron on the interfacing for the handle and fold and press the handle. After I topstitch the handle, the parts will be ready for assembly.

What I got done

I always think I can get more done. This is what I accomplished this weekend. I started cutting fabric for boxy pouches and project bags on Friday night. Saturday I cut more and also cut out fabric for a baby quilt

On Saturday I took a road trip to a store that is called Fabric and Freight. A lady at work told me about it.

I looked around and didn't find anything I needed, but did buy two yards of a skull camo print and two yards of 60" wide flannel. The skull print was $3.99 a yard and the flannel was $5.99. It was good fabric too. They had a lot of lower quality fabric so you had to really look.

I walked across the street to a meat market that I had also heard about, bought a pork loin roast and headed home. My neighbor stopped over to pick up two pairs of pants I had fixed and we visited for about an hour. Then it was back to cutting fabric. Sunday I finally got the interfacing cut for the boxy pouches and project bags. All I have left to cut is the vinyl for the project bags. I ended up with 11 boxy pouches and six project bags. The weekend was speeding away!

I did laundry while I was cutting interfacing, then it dawned on me I have to make the weekly 10 tote bags! I was watching football, sewing the tote bags, and did dishes during halftime and part of the third quarter of the Eagles 49ers game. I got the tote bags done and by 6:30 p.m. I was tired.

I did get the next 10 tote bags lined up for next Sunday and dug out the zippers for the bags so I am all set to get some bags sewn together this week. I didn't touch the t-shirt quilt except to push it out of the way! LOL!! I just took me a lot longer than I thought to find the right fabric for lining the boxy pouches (each fabric is different), press the fabric, and cut out the lining and outside fabrics.

Weekend plans

I spent last evening digging thru my stash for fabric to take to work. I don't remember how the subject of those boxy pouches

and project bags came up but several of the ladies are interested. The company has been hiring so they have not seen some of the things I have made. The boxy pouches I have left, well, they are mostly winter, Xmas and sports fabrics, but I did sell six and also five project bags. Several of the ladies asked for different fabrics so I brought a couple tote bags of fabric for them to look at.

I will certainly be busy this weekend. I first need to finish the t-shirt quilt so I have a quilt finish for January. Next, I will start cutting the pieces and parts I need for boxy pouches and I need to make more project bags for me. I will cut out more than what they want so I have extra. Have a great weekend!

Fabric purchase

I had a box show up yesterday with some fabric I ordered from eQuilter. I had a $10.00 coupon, got free shipping and everything I ordered was on clearance. The fabric ended up being $6.97 a yard. The blue with ducks on it was bought for a baby quilt, the purple with keys is for backing smalls, the skeleton fabric is for the back of the next Harley raffle quilt, and the cutlery fabric was bought as an option for a woman I work with who wants some placemats for a Mother's Day gift. The cutlery fabric is a Japanese import and is a linen like fabric. It is really nice stuff!

I spent some time looking for fabric to go with the cutlery print in case the woman wants the placemats with a different fabric on each side.

Then I went digging for fabric for the baby quilt. Blue, green, and yellow are the colors the parents are using to decorate the nursery. I haven't decided what design I am going to make, but I pulled these fabrics as possibilities.

I am leaning toward a chevron design, because they look like I put in more effort than they really take.

Mending fences

Last evening, I got the last four tote bags done out of the batch that I should have had done on Sunday. At least now I am caught up.

The first thing I needed to do as soon as I got home from work is mend my fence. I saw several deer hanging out in the bed next to the garage where my cora bells are planted. The wet snow had knocked down a lot of the netting fence and they were inside the fence area looking for dinner. Ugh! I jumped out of the car and yelled at them. After parking the car, I gathered up wire ties and the roll of mesh fencing. I headed out to fix the fence and they were back already for another attempt at destroying my plants. I walked after them yelling and got them to move farther down the hill. 45 minutes later the fenced area now has two layers of netting. That ought to keep them at bay for a while.

I got a small start on appliqueing the Girl Scout sash to the t-shirt quilt.

It was snowing this morning. When I was walking back to the garage from taking out the garbage I saw that the snow was collecting on my satellite dish. May have to clean that off when I get home from work.

I'll be checking on my fencing too!

Tote bags and knitting

I had to have something to keep my hands busy at the long day of meetings, so I knitted. Vicki had sent me two and a part skeins of yarn she wanted to get rid of several years ago and now it is being turned into a scarf. Yesterday I got 21 1/2 inches knitted. There are 42 stitches. At least the day wasn't a total waste.

The trees looked so pretty on my drive home.

I was tired when I got home. The place we have the winter conference at has the most uncomfortable chairs! I hurt all over which just drains my energy. I did get six tote bags sewn together

and I made 5 quarts of white chili so I won't have to cook for a few days.

Busy weekend

I made some progress this weekend, but of course for me it's never enough. I got the binding finally sewn on the t-shirt quilt. I then stitched on the badges on the sash and Brownie vest that will be appliqued on the back. My sister said I should sew them on since some of them were not attached very well.

I stopped and got a yard of duck cloth on my way home from work on Friday. After washing I got two tote bags made. One if for a lady at work that asked me for one.

I didn't get my 10 tote bags made but I did get the handles made so I will put those together tonight.

I did hem a pair of dress pants and shortened a part of ski pants for my neighbor.

We got some snow and I had to clean off my dish since it was blocking my signals.

Today I am in company meetings. It's going to be a long day.

My brother called me and said the guitar tech was happy with the pouches. Whew!

Pouches are done!

I took a day of vacation so I could get the wireless pouches done. I ran to the grocery store at 7 a.m. then got to work on the pouches at 8:15. I finally got the last one Scotchguarded at 6:39 p.m. I did take a couple short breaks to get something to eat, but other than that I was at the sewing machine. I used these plant cages to hang the pouches to dry

Here is what the finish pouch looked like. I put a sharpie in picture so you could get a sense of how small these are

I was shocked that the hook and loop tape I ordered on Wednesday showed up yesterday! I am now well stocked for any emergency sewing projects.

Pouch progress

I worked for two hours last evening on the pouches. I decided to work in groups of 10 so I could get some sense of how long this is going to take. I managed to get one completely done.

I have one with the tab and hook and loop tape except for the long strap.

The other eight have the tabs and loop tape sewn on and are ready for the little piece of hook tape and then the long strap. I think it will take another hour and a half to finish up the 9 pouches. I am going to have to take a day of vacation to get these done which is ok. I need to get these to Fed Ex by Friday.

Yesterday I was asked by a woman I work with to make six placemats for her MIL for Mother's Day. I can do that! I found some really cute fabric on sale online. It is at least an option for her. Once the fabric arrives, I will gather some companion fabrics from my stash and give her some choices. She also wants one of my totes. Add those to the to do list!

Off to the races!

I finally got a number out of my brother on how many wireless pouches to make. He gave me 40 to start with. He got the prototypes and there is only one slight adjustment that I have to make! I got busy last night cutting out hook and loop tape parts.

I cut up the duck cloth I had washed. It shrunk just a little. I got 28 pouches out of the 2/3 yard piece and a few pieces for the tabs. Now I need to get these sewn together as fast as I can.

I thought I better look at my hook and loop tape and inventory how much I have on hand.

I definitely needed more 2" loop and I bought more 3/4" loop and another roll of 3/4" hook. I will use most of what I have on the pouches. Since I have to pay a small order fee, I went ahead and got a 25 yard roll of 1" hook (I had none) and two rolls of a dark gray loop and one roll of turquoise hook that were in the clearance bin. I get my hook and loop from WBC Industries in NJ. It is so much less expensive that buying it at a fabric store! Now I will be well stocked for the future projects that they needed yesterday!

Wireless pouches are out for delivery

I had a busy weekend filled with lots of different activities. I did get the two prototypes sewn together and two road case covers made for my brother. I got them shipped out Saturday morning and they are arriving this morning. I will find out which design they want and how many I need to make.

After shipping the box, I stopped to pick up some black duck cloth, then met an x-cousin for brunch. We hadn't seen each other since before the pandemic. We had a nice visit and will be making plans to go to dinner soon. I got home and I just relaxed the rest of the afternoon. I got up early Sunday and headed to a couple grocery stores. I needed chicken. Whole chickens were on sale, so I bought four. They had Clorox bleach that was some special marketing item during the pandemic and now they were trying to get rid of it. It was two gallons for 5 bucks! It was regularly priced at $6.79 a gallon. I now have enough bleach for several years! I just couldn't pass up that price! I also picked up some Xmas wrap that was dirt cheap. When I got home, I decided to cook the chicken three ways: in the crock pot, oven roasted in a dutch oven, and in a pot on top of the stove. It took me from 4:00 to 6:00 to pick the meat and clean up the mess. I now have chicken for making white chili. I ended up with almost 10 pounds of cooked chicken meat.

I made a pot of white chili and got four quarts. Meals for several days!

I did get 10 tote bags sewn together. The pile of unsewn bags is getting smaller and the bin of finished bags is getting full! Right now we have 10 shows booked. I know there will be a few more added to the schedule so I will need every bag I can get made.

The rest of the weekend was laundry, sorting thru paperwork that needs shredded, and cleaning up.

Last night's learning curve

Yesterday had it successes and bumps. I had to scan 23 drawings and put them together into a pdf to send to an architect. We have a big scanner. I don't use it very often, but I was successful getting the drawings scanned and sent. Here is the big machine which also can print drawings and a look at the screen as it was scanning one of the drawings. It is pretty boring work, but it went smoothly.  

As soon as I got home, I went to work on my first attempt of making a wireless cover. I have made these before, but the units were bigger and I made them out of lamb leather. The lamb worked out well because there were a lot of openings and since leather doesn't fray you could cut a hole in it wherever one was needed. These new pouches will be made out of duck cloth and lots of velcro. The unit is tiny compared to the size of them in the past. I tried using the old one they sent me a guide and here was my first attempt.

The unit has a button on each side for opening the battery compartment. The guitar tech wanted to see if I could make and elastic band to put around the battery compartment so when he pulled the unit out of the pouch the cover wouldn't fall off in case the compression of the velcro strap pushed on the little buttons. Done.

The next issue was the velcro strap used to hold the unit on so it doesn't flop around. There is a piece of velcro on the guitar strap and on the back of the pouch to hold it to the strap, but for extra security there is a long piece of velcro to wrap around the guitar strap. As you can see in this photo is sits too low on the pouch

So I took the pouch apart and will shorten the tab that goes between the anntenna an the cable hook up, then I can move the velcro more toward the center, but still trying to avoid the strap going over the battery compartment buttons. Yes, a lot of fidding around to get everything just right. I think I will also change the velcro from 1" to 3/4". The unit doesn't weight very much and even with batteries I think the 3/4" will hold it fine.

Here is what an old unit looks like attached to a guitar strap

Once I get the size right, I will send it off to get approved and then I can make "a bunch" of these. What is a bunch? Well, here is a picture from 2016 when I got a backstage tour. Here are the guitars that were used at that time and I can imagine there will be just as many this time.

This group doesn't even include the backup guitars! I was told there is other stuff that is needed to be made so I am going to be busy! What a great opportunity to sew for a rock star and to help out my brother!