Back to the t-shirt quilt

It is the end of February already! Where did the month go? I am now back to working on the t-shirt quilt for my niece. I just need to finish stitching her Girl Scout sash and Brownie vest on to the back of the quilt. Get a label on it and the quilt will be done.

Th quilt is too big to drag to work to stitch on it before work or at lunch if I can't walk because of rain, so I will continue to work on that cross stitch small. I have made good progress since I last showed it on the 23rd. Here is where I was and where I am now.

1st quilt finish for 2023

Geeze!! It sure took me long enough to get my first quilt finish for 2023! Not that I haven't been busy. I forgot to measure this, but it's a good size and will be useful still when the baby becomes a toddler.

Saturday a sewing friend came for the day. I was up at 5:15 and had stuff to do before she came. There was laundry, a trip to the grocery store, vacuuming, dishes, made a loaf of bread for lunch

and made some shortbread butter cookies

My friend worked on a log cabin quilt and I worked on quilting the chevron baby quilt. We had a good day of visiting and sewing! She did bring me a small stack of fabric that was given to her. I can use it to make tote bags.

I did get a package with some more Wishwell Weather Report fabric. Even since I saw this on Wanda's blog, Exuberant Color, I just had to get some. It is an older fabric, but I am having good luck tracking some down with Wanda's help and checking every shop that sends me emails. I got this from Stitchen' Heaven, but I did pay full price.

I have one more package coming from The Quilt Place in Orlando, Florida. They had some Weather Report in their clearance with an extra 15% off and different colors than I have bought so far. That price makes up for the fabric I bought at full price or at least that is the story I am sticking with! LOL!! Once I get the fabric from The Quilt Place I will show you all the fabric.

Ready for the weekend!

I got a bit more quilted on the chevron baby quilt. Then center area is done so it is full steam ahead! I am going to get this done this weekend!

When I got home from work it was 66 degrees out! Time to get out in the yard a bit. I needed to use my new hoe and dig out some daylilies that I missed when I cleaned out this bed next to the house last week. I filled about a one third of a five gallon bucket.

Next, I pulled out the marigold stems in this bed. I will remove the rest of the leaves and pine needles in the cleanup when I go to plant once it is really spring. Here is the before and after.

Neither of those jobs took very long so there was another project I had been thinking about tackling. There is a place in the backyard at the tree line where I have been dumping my yard waste for 20 years. I have shoved at times the top of the pile down the hill, but the pile has just gotten too high. Also, I made a big mistake of mixing limbs with the grassy/weed stuff. The limbs prevent me from being able to shove the top of the pile. So, with my handy dandy new hoe I started on the backside of the pile to move the stuff farther down the hill. I pulled out tree limbs and rotted railroad ties as I went. Here is the pile before and after.  I had worked 45 minutes.

I have a rhythm going now so I think if I work on this in 30 - 45 minutes sessions over the next couple weeks, I could get the pile leveled out. Of course, it all depends on the weather too. Here is what the pile looks like on the upside of the hill. Where I started was at the left.

The deer, 6 doe, gave me dirty looks while I was back there working. This one kept coming toward me looking to see what I was doing in their space.  I was surprised how close she came to me. I told them all to go back to the park where they belong, but they ignored me. LOL! I did not zoom in on her. She was probably 20 feet away from me.

A year ago, I redid some of the plants in the office. I thought I would compare how they looked a year ago with how they look today. This first one was a piece that came off of one of the snake plants that are outside the west conference room. It has grown!

The plants outside the west conference room

The plant at Julie's desk. It is more spread out because it is searching for light. It also took me awhile to figure out it doesn't like too much water.

The building department snake plant. You can see how much taller it is by the distance from the thermostat on the wall.

I am havng company again tomorrow. My friend is coming up to sew for the day. She has a couple projects to work on and I will work on that cheveron quilt. She gets more done when she comes to sew than staying home. Have a great weekend!

More work

My nephew who is the musician, stopped over last night and brought me some projects that need my expertise. Two of his keyboard cases need repaired. Fixing this zipper should not be a problem.

The other case, I am not sure I can get it under my sewing machine foot. I will try, but if I can't I will take it to an upholstery shop that is on my way home from work and see if the fellow can stitch it.

Michael also brought me two suits that need alterations. He dyed the suits and now they need the waists taken in. The jacket for the green suit needs the sleeves lengthened. Once I get the waists fixed then I will have him try them on again and hem them. He likes to wear bright colors so people can see him, kind of like what the late Queen of England did. She said she wore bright colors so the people could see her.

I didn't get much of anything else done last evening other than two loads of laundry. I did work on that small at lunch yesterday because it was raining hard with an 11 mph wind so no walking.  I got a little bit done this morning before work too.  Here is where I was yesterday morning and where I am now.

Fabric and latest cross stitch project

I have to quit looking at fabric, but when you find a good deal out comes the credit card! LOL!! I saw this fabric and I just had to buy some. I actually thought the background was white when I saw it online, but it is arrived it is a light gray. The fabric has a beautiful hand. I bought 3 yards and even with shipping it comes out to about $6.50 a yard which is a great deal.

I gave my friend on Saturday the Vintage buttons cross stitch piece for her SIL. She liked that I did it in olive greens. Now I am working on another small from this same group. I circled the one I am now working on and checked off the ones I have stitched.

Here is where I am right now. The color of the letters changed because I wasn't paying attention. That is what you call making it your own! LOL!

I noticed yesterday that I messed up the border. It won't take too long to rip those stitches out and re-stitch them. I need to pay more attention!

I made a batch of fudge last night. There were these containers left from some a brunch last week. They had little containers of coffee creamer in them. Well, they are the perfect size to put fudge in and give to someone which is what I did. I like this new recipe. You use brown sugar instead of white sugar. I really want to try it with vanilla or peanut butter chips. I did put pecan pieces in it.

Finally quilting

Wound bobbins and got started on quilting that chevron baby quilt. The baby is due March 9th, but I would like to have it finished by the end of the month.

Tote bags, boxy pouch, pockets - the sewing machine got a workout!

What a weekend! First, I had to do some cleaning before my friend came over on Saturday. We worked on tote bags. I had a lot of bags already cut out, so she did the pressing and I did the sewing. She then cut some bags out of fabric that was given to me. We ended up getting 16 done. I kept at the bags on Saturday and Sunday and ended up with 31 finished. I am now caught up with my goal of 10 bags every Sunday.

There are some pieces and parts in different stages of construction so I will get back to those next Sunday. There are 20 bags in this pile.

I made pizza for our lunch.

Here is my bin of tote bags. There are eighty.

I went the grocery store early on Sunday and ended up buying some ceramic pots. They were such a great price! The two biggest ones (the one that is blue and brown and the one that has the irregular edge and is green) were $12.99 and the rest were $7.99. At a garden center or big box store those would have cost $30 - $35 for the big ones and $20 - $25 for the smaller ones.

I cut back the rubber tree at work and have been rooting the cuttings. Three of the cutting when into the biggest pot.

After I took a nap on Sunday, I needed to get another boxy pouch made for a lady I work with.

Last thing I did was to put the pockets on the flannel shirts. I was glad I had enough different colors of solid flannel in my stash that I could find what I needed to match the plaids. The lady asked for just one pocket, but I decided to put two on each shirt. More is better!

My sister received her Valentine Day gift. Besides the project bags and the cross stitch Valentine small, I enclosed a pair of tiny Cohana scissors. She collects scissors and I thought she would get a kick out of these. They do work too! Connecting Threads had some Cohana items on sale (they never are on sale!) so I got us both a pair of the scissors.

I bought myself this beautiful and heavy brass weight that looks like a button. I use it to hold my mechanical pencil and caulk pencil.

I also bought this spool. I think it is ceramic and it has a magnet in it for pins and needles. I am always looking for a place to put my favorite needles for hand sewing and my bigger finishing needle for cross stitch smalls so now I have a place to keep those.

A new project, a finish, and it's the weekend!

A co-worker asked if I could add a pocket to some flannel shirts for her mother. Her Mom had a stroke last year. She gets cold easily and cannot use her left arm very well. She has a couple other shirts that have a pocket so she can carry a fork to the dinner table or carry her phone, but she has four with no pockets so she won't wear them. I found some solid colored flannel to match the shirts so I plan on getting pockets sewn on these this weekend.

I finished the scarf! It is nice and fluffy so it well be great to wear when I go for my walks at lunchtime when it's colder and windy like today. We had some snow coming down this morning. Right now the high today will be 27 with 15 mph winds. The new scarf will get a test walk today! Thanks Vicki for the yarn!

It was too wet last night to work outside. I did walk around the house and the deer are really tearing up the grass with their hoofs. They must be running around like crazy back there to put the kind of dents in the turf that they are making. Thanks for all your nice comments on my yard. I am anxious to start throwing down some seeds, but it is too soon. This weekend I will be getting some cleaning done since I am having company tomorrow, get caught up on sewing together tote bags, get the pockets on the flannel shirts, and try to get that baby quilt quilted. Have a great weekend!

It's done!

I got the Vintage Buttons small done this morning before work - YEAH! I will hand it off on Saturday when my friend comes over. We will find some fabric out of my stash for the back, and I will give her some stuffing and ground walnut shells. Her sister will supply the buttons.

I was tired when I got home from work, but it was so nice outside I went ahead and did two jobs. First, I raked the gravel out of the grass that came with the snow that the plow put there the one time they had to plow. I swept it up and it looks so much better now.

The second job was to cut back the ornamental grass I had planted along the neighbor's fence last spring.

There was a lot of stuff to move down the hill including a gazillion sticks from the neighbor's trees.

I decided to use the leaf blower instead of raking it up and hauling in the wheelbarrow. The sticks kept the leaves and grass from moving down the hill so I had to fight it a bit. There are still sticks that need picked up and some detail cleaning, but the bulk of the material is gone and it looks better.

After that I was really tired!