Four to go

Last evening I got another shirt quilted so I now have four left to quilt.

I checked my nephew's website to make sure I was up to date on the upcoming shows and I noticed another one has been added for this Friday! Yikes! It is going to be nearer to where the lady lives that I need to pass off the Harley quilt to than where I live. So now I have this big idea of getting the quilt done so I can take it to the show on Friday. Everything else except watering the plants and emptying the traps will have to fall by the wayside in order for this to happen. Wish me luck!

Successes and failures

It was a busy three days. Saturday a girlfriend came over and we put together a king sized t-shirt quilt top. She showed up at 9 a.m. and left at 7:00 p.m. We used 63 shirts. She did the cutting and I did the sewing and pressing. There is no deadline for this and it is going to take a while to quilt.

My friend brought deli ham and turkey, and buns for lunch. I made a new cookie recipe - brown sugar toasted pecan shortbread for dessert. Gosh, they were good!

I was exhausted from the long day of putting that top together. Sunday morning I decided to do a few errands. I stopped to get a hose and looked at the plants. Since my attempt to grow coneflowers from seed was a complete and utter failure, I bought a few plants. I had bought three lavender plants a week or so ago from the same place and they are doing well so I went ahead and bought some coneflower plants from them.

I cleaned up all the weeds and clover and got the coneflowers planted. So far they are doing well. Here are my befores and afters.

One of the ladies at work asked for a boxy pouch for a gift so I got that made.

The rest of my Sunday I spent cleaning up my fabric storage room. I would pull a stack of fabric which was messy, straighten the pile out, and pull some fabrics for making project bags. My friend Saturday asked to buy some from me so I need to get some made. I would pull a stack then go sit then get up to straighten the pile. Once the pile was straightened up, I would sit for a bit then put the pile back in the fabric storage room. I was tired so there was a lot of sitting between the straightening up! I got some of the interfacing cut and some of the project bags cut so here they are in que.

I failed to get the Harley quilt completely quilted, but I am down to five shirts to quilt.

Last thing I did was mow the front yard and empty the chipmunk traps again. I didn't have time to trim so that will be tonight. I caught 5 chipmunks between Sunday and Monday. I am up to 13 already this year.  They are so destructive.  

Ready for a three day weekend

Last evening I finished that black t-shirt

and I almost have this one done. After I finish this one I have eight more to quilt.

I saw this pregnant doe in the backyard this morning. Many doe like to have their fawn in the woods behind my house. I think she is getting ready to drop hers.

I got a bit more stitched on the La-D-Da piece. I need to start walking more so instead of stitching before work I need to walk which means my progress will slow down. Here is where I was yesterday and where I am now.

I have a friend that is coming over on Saturday to sew. We are going to put together a t-shirt quilt top. The shirts are her significant other's shirts he has collected from his gun club from shooting events. The rest of the weekend I plan on working on the Harley quilt and getting some weeding done. Have a great weekend!

Progress on Harley quilt, Blackbird done, RIP Miss Tina

Shirt number 21 is over half quilted.

The Blackbird piece is done. I am going to have to get some of my pieces framed; they are piling up!

The next piece I am going to stitch is this La-D-Da freebee. I am using 32 count Zweigart Beautiful Beige fabric and my favorite red which is number 242 Cosmo floss. Here is my start.

When I was a little girl I remember seeing Ike and Tina Turner on tv. I dreamt of becoming an Ikette and dance with Tina. Once I was a bit older I realized I was a short, chubby, white girl and that probably was an unrealistic career path. I couldn't carry a tune either! Years later my brother's best friend, Dave,

was Tina's Tour Manager in 2000. I got to see Tina four times that year. These pictures are not very good; no iPhone back then.

I made a quilt for Tina and Dave gave it to her for me.

Dave stuck a tour program book in front of Tina and she signed it for me. It is framed and hanging in my house. Dave told Tina said she was going to put the quilt in her guest room at her house in Nice, France.

Dave passed away in 2005. His family and wife had a memorial gathering and at that gathering I got to meet Roger Davies, Tina's manager, and several musicians that toured with Tina. I dramatically told the band fellows about how I wanted to be an Ikette, but then figured out I was a short, fat, white girl - well, I got the big laugh I was aiming for! They were all really nice. I also got to meet three member of the B 52's. Who knew that the short, chubby, white girl would someday come so close to a woman she admired. Rest In Peace Miss Tina.

Number 20 quilted, progress on the Blackbird, and things are blooming!

Before I went out to mow and trim a bit, I finished up quilting that t-shirt. I now have 20 out of the 30 shirts quilted! Woohoo!

I made a bit more progress on the Blackbird piece. Here is where I was yesterday and where I am now.

I saw the first bloom from the California poppies. The flower had already started to close up by the time I got around to taking its picture. The California poppies reseed themselves and it is fun to find them in places that I didn't plant them. They are easy to pull out if need be, but I don't care where they pop up. The more the merrier! They spread all summer and bloom late into the fall.

Too much stuff to do

I try hard to live simple. I want to use my time for sewing, but things do get in the way. After work I had to get a prescription. When I got home I needed to check on the chipmunk traps; I had trapped two and I needed to deal with those and set the traps back up. While I was outside, I decided to go ahead and water the flower seedlings and the cora bell bed. I needed to cook something for lunches so it was another hour of cooking and doing dishes. It was now 6:30 and I headed to the fabric storage room to gather up fabric with skulls on them to take to work. A lady at work asked me to make a boxy pouch for her SIL out of the guitar skull fabric for her June 1st birthday. I didn't have any more of that fabric so I brought some of my stash of skull fabric for her to pick from.

Another lady walked by my cubical and saw the fabric. She stopped to look and she thought placemats out of this fabric would be cute for her son who is in the medical field. One more thing to add to the to do list! LOL!!

So no quilting happened on the Harley quilt last night. Tonight I need to mow the front yard.  I hope to at least get a little quilting in tonight. I have been stitching on the Blackbird sampler before work and at lunchtime. I have made more good progress on it. Here is where I was yesterday and where I am now.

I am going to have a friend over on Saturday and we are going to work on sewing together a t-shirt quilt top. That means I need to do some cleaning and straightening up around here! Too much stuff to do! LOL!!

Harley quilt progress, bag finished, and more

What a weekend! I will start with the Harley quilt. I now have 19 of the 30 shirts quilted so I made pretty good progress.

I got a good start on shirt number 20. The design takes up most of the space and there is more outlining I have to do.

My brother came over Friday evening to get the bag/cover for the keyboard. He was happy with the fit and it worked great. One strong person can pick it up as before it took two people.

Here it is loaded on the trailer after the show Saturday night. It sure is a lot better than a moving blanket with ropes tied around it!

Yes, Saturday night the band played at a private party. What a beautiful area! They had big tents for the band and for the people sitting at tables. We had some technical difficulties, but we powered thru it.

The merch booth

This is the house next door and it's stand alone guest house. The lots were huge! Since the venue was close to where I work, I drove myself and got to bed at 11:30. Not too bad.

I did get a bit more stitched on the little Blackbird sampler. I stitched a little while sitting at the merch booth, but it was hard to do because the wind was blowing and it was a cold wind. Thank goodness once the sun set the wind stopped. Here is where I was last week and where I am after this morning's stitching session.

I mailed my sister the t-shirt quilt for her daughter and the tin with the Girl Scout pins. The pins all came loose in shipping, but she had a great idea to add her pins and she even had one of our mom's pins! She made a cute guide showing which pin(s) were whose. All of the rest of the pins are her daughter's.

Pag/cover progress

I was dreading sewing on the 2" wide webbing. Shoving the bag thru the machine was going to be a pain. I did get most of it sewn until I ran out of webbing. I never thought it would take more than 10 yards to do this bag. I needed something strong, black, and 2" wide so I grabbed some fuzzy loop tape and sewed it fuzzy side down. I needed around 30" and that did the trick!

I still needed something for the handles at the ends. The other day when I was cleaning up in the garage I found this shoulder strap from a bag. I had toss it in the house to store away. You never know when you need the hardware, but as it turned out I needed the webbing!

There is enough webbing for two handles.

I still need to sew on the fuzzy loop tape at the top front. This will hold the lid closed.

Tonight I need to add the two side handles, sew on the loop tape, quilt the lid, sew it on the body of the bag, and stitch on the hook tape. I will take pictures so you can see it with the keyboard in it. Meanwhile, I started on another cross stitch piece. I am doing a freebie chart from Blackbird Designs from 2009 called Petites Lettres Rouges. It is another small sampler; small samplers are fun to stitch. Here is what a finished piece looks like and where I am now.

Have a great weekend!