Progress on number 4, sushi, and the concrete was placed!

I made good progress on baby quilt 4 last evening. I am now 62% done with the quilting.

I had an appointment for a free deep hair treatment after work last evening. Another birthday month treat! They just keep coming! :) I decided to stop at a new sushi place that was just down the street on the way home. The sushi was ok, but their crab ragoon was the bomb! Best I have ever had!  If you don't know, crab ragoon is a cream cheese and crab mixture that is wrapped in a wonton then fried.  

The contractors placed a few more rocks then they concreted the porch, steps and driveway. That is big progress. It will be nice to get the neighbor's lawn tractor out of my garage. He didn't know if he would need it or not while the construction was going on, so it has been stored in my garage for a couple months. Once the concrete has set up for a few days, he will be able to take it back to his house. He had a new trench drain put in front of the garage doors so the concrete has to cure for about a week before it can be driven over.  I have no idea how the rest of the front area will be landscaped. We will see!

13th finish for 2025, and what a weekend!

Here is the third of seven baby quilts done! It finished 40' x 47".

I only left the house to work in the yard and go see my neighbor's landscaping project. Saturday I spent 3 hours leaf blowing the yard. The leaves were wet from the rain on Friday night. I needed to get them off the grass so the grass could dry out. I needed to mow one more time before winter came. After three hours of wrestling the leaf blower I thought my arms would fall off. There were a lot of leaves! By noon on Sunday it was 50 degrees and the grass had dried out. It took an hour to mow and trim.

I was looking for bigger pieces of batting to sew together for baby quilts. It ended up I didn't have any big enough pieces, but what I did was cut pieces for some curved top pouches I want to make for a retreat I will be going to next year. I figure I might as well get those cut as I was going thru the batting scraps. I got 68 pieces cut

and I still have this pile of pieces left. These are not big enough, so I will have to sew pieces together to get the size I need.

Made of pot of Stanley soup. I sure tasted good after I came in from mowing.

Saturday the workers came with these huge rocks for my neighbor's project.

Sunday they were back with more rocks and started the formwork for the steps. Today they are placing the concrete for the steps and porch. I don't know if they will be doing the driveway or not today. At least with the concrete it will seem like they are getting nearer to the end of this job.

I also did laundry, rewound the hose again (I had done it a couple weeks ago, but the hose was cold and it was hard to deal with), caulked a hole between the brick and trim at the front door that the wasps like to try and make it a home, and caulked around the radon pipe and the electrical wire for the radon. I'm thinking they should have done this, but whatever! It's done now!

I found back and binding fabric for the next four baby quilts. I already had the binding for the red one made.

Got the fourth baby quilt pin basted and got a little start on the quilting.

There was a beautiful sunset last evening.  Eventually the sky turned to fuchsia as the sun went down.  

My arms and shoulders are still a bit sore. I rubbed Voltaren all over them last night when I went to bed and I think that helped.

Almost quilted, the next quilt, and the neighbor's project

I only have 5 1/2 blocks to quilt, about 18%. I will have to dig around tonight for some binding. I am sure I can find something that will work. This is number 3 of 7 and my goal is to get this one done this weekend.

Here are the four pieced baby quilt tops that still need finished. Since I have pink quilting thread on the machine, I think I will work on the two tops on the right. I have some larger batting scraps so I think I will sew some of those together for these quilts and get some of those batting scraps used up.

The contractors were working again last evening at my neighbor's house. I couldn't get a good picture of what they were doing. That black truck sat there for the longest time! They were picking up kids that the neighbor to the left of the construction watches. That small excavator was removing dirt. The new stairs are going to be farther left of where the old ones were and the driveway is going to be widen to the left which is where the old stairs use to be.

I am hoping we don't get much rain today or Saturday. I need to blow leaves. I also plan on making soup and working on baby quilts. I am going to try my best not to leave the house all weekend. Have a great weekend!

12th finish for 2025

This quilt finished 40 1/4 x 47 1/2". I had 7 baby quilts that needed finished so this is number 2 out of 7. The backing is a little dark, but I used up what I had of this so that's one more piece used up. The picture is a bit dark, but it is what it is!

I got started on quilting the next baby quilt. This is the last one of the 7 that was pin basted. I am quilting it with a light pink Aurifil thread and King Tut thread on the back. It is 37% quilted!

The contractor showed up at the neighbor's house about 4 to start working and worked after dark so I have no idea what they were doing. I will have to check it out tonight!

Almost done!

I am over halfway done with hand stitching on the binding for the green 9 patch quilt. Woohoo!

I received a beautiful birthday card from my sister and her family! This year's birthday celebration is going on for the whole month! I hung it up with the cards she has sent me previously.

The neighbor's yard project is making some progress. The block has been laid for the porch walls/foundation. Looks like they are installing drain tile too. It is still a long ways from being done.

I forgot to show that my friend I visited gave me some fabric cut to size for tote bags for the merch booth. I will be making those again before I know it!

Green and floral 9 patch and more about the trip

I finished quilting the green 9 patch. I dug around to find something for the binding and I came up with this piece.

It was crooked at one end and had a chunk missing, but I still had enough to make the binding. I have the binding sewn on. Tonight, I will sew the mitered corners, trim it, and then it will be ready for the hand stitching! I didn't have any more of the hand dyed green I used in the blocks so I went with picking up the color of the flowers.

Saturday afternoon my friend and I took a road trip to several nearby towns to roam thru junk shops and their small businesses. We visited Harmony which had many log cabins and buildings that were on the historic register. Such a cute place.

My friend found this lovely handmade shaker box that was on the top of a cabinet in one of the shops. It was priced very well so I bought it.

Then we went to Mars! Just a small village but with lots of personality!

Later on that evening I took my friends for sushi. It was a new place in Wexford that was all you can eat. They had a huge menu!  Adults were $34.99 each.  That got cut off in my picture.

You paid a flat amount - beverages were extra - then the server would take your order for the first round of food. We ordered appetizers and soup.

Then the server would come back and you could order more of whatever you wanted. The rules were you had 1 1/2 hours to order and a total of two hours to finish. If there was an excessive amount of leftovers, you got charged for that over and above the flat per person rate. The sushi was so good. They didn't bring large amounts of anything which let you try more different items. We had not eaten lunch, so we managed to get our money's worth!

Sunday we had the pastries and fruit for breakfast and I left for home at 10:20 am and got home at 12:10. On Friday my friend did cut some strips for me on her die cutter. She stacked them in a salad container that she had left from moving all her scraps into a drawer unit on wheels that she just bought. Her blog is See More Quilts.

I did come home with a jacket of her husband's that needs the cuffs repaired. It's an easy fix for me. I had a great time.