TGIF

I had a hard time dragging myself out of bed this morning. Besides still not feeling all that good, it was -6 degrees. Last evening I was tired when I got home from work so I didn't do much. Over the last couple of days I have been knitting a bit. I had knitted a scarf out of this yarn, but I didn't like the size of the scarf so I tore it out and I am starting again. This was expensive yarn.

It is going to be very cold all weekend so I may not leave the house. Have a great weekend.

Progress on the t-shirt quilt

I made good progress on the t-shirt quilt yesterday. I am now 58% done with the quilting.

It was so cold yesterday. It was -4 when I got up. By afternoon it was up to 12, but there were windy conditions. I didn't bother to look and see what the wind chill temp was. I bundled up and took out the recycling and trash. Then I had a small amount of shoveling at the bottom of the driveway where the plow had been by. The snow was very slushy and if it froze, that would make a big lump of having to get thru to get into the driveway so it needed to be removed. I did a bit of cooking and sat in front of the space heater. It is only day 6 of this cold and I feel a bit better today, but my head is still very congested. I'll be ok in a few more days.

Catching up on the goings on

Monday we get to work and the parking lot wasn't plowed. I got stuck a couple of time trying to figure out the best place to park and rocking the car back and forth to try and pack the snow down. Eventually one of the superintendents brought up a loader from the job site and cleared the parking lot.

I went to lunch with a couple of guys. I don't do that very often. We went to an Asian place and I got crab ragoon and a Philadelphia roll. The crab ragoon was great but I thought the sushi was mushy. I couldn't eat it all, my appetite is not great with this cold, so I took the rest with me. I felt so bad I had that for my dinner and did nothing the rest of the evening except sip tea and sit in front of the space heater.

Tuesday I had to go to the yearly company meeting. I took my box of Kleenex, cough drops, Excedrin, and sat and sipped tea all day. Here we are in line for breakfast. The eggs were barely warm.

The room was packed

The speaker in the afternoon talked about the Mexican dry cartels and how the majority of the drugs from Columbia and Venezuela are funneled thru Mexico by the Mexican cartels across the boarder and not by boat. I ended my day with this.

I took a sick day today since I feel lousy.  All the foreman, superintendents, project engineers and managers are at company training today. No one is working on site since it is -4. No reason for me to sit by myself all day feeling bad.

Quilting and shoveling

I worked on quilting the t-shirt quilt as much as I could, but between feeling lousy with another cold and having to shovel, at times it was a struggle. I am now 40% done with the quilting

I did get a few more pouch sandwiches made too. I don't remember exactly how many are in this stack, but it about 54. I am done with this step for now, so I will start quilting them soon.

I finally went outside Sunday about noon and started shoveling. There was 7 inches in the driveway.

I only got 2/3rds of the driveway done. My fingers were so cold I just had to go inside.

I warmed up, fell asleep and got something to eat. The snow plows showed up around 4 so I headed back outside.

There was another 3 inches! I had found my ski gloves. They are very warm and kept my fingers from getting cold. My neighbor came over and helped me shovel the rest of the driveway. This morning there was another 1 1/2 to 2 inches of snow so I shoveled that before I left for work. It was a slow crawl the 5 miles to work. Our parking lot had not been plowed so I got stuck a couple of time trying to park.

Batting used up and the red and yellow hourglass blocks

I used the last of my scrap batting to make more quilt sandwiches last evening. I will now cut some off the roll and continue to make sandwiches.

I was trying to remember why I had these red and yellow blocks.

With the way I made them there ought to be two of each fabric combination, but I only had one block. I was looking for a picture of another quilt and came across this quilt made in 2020. I don't remember why I made this quilt or who ended up with it.

I am glad it is Friday. A big snowstorm is predicted for the weekend. I am good with rations, so I don't plan on going to the grocery store. I didn't want to spend any money today to be in solidarity with the ice protests in MN, but I had to take my car in to get a headlight and a fog light bulb replaced. The low beam warning light for the passenger side started flashing on my way home from work yesterday. It was dark driving to work this morning and I am obsessive about having the lights working on the car. Sorry I am putting safety first, but I don't plan on doing any other shopping today. I was glad the shop was able to squeeze me in today. Have a great weekend and be safe wherever you are!

Fixing ski pants

This morning there are 16 mph winds with 33 mph gusts. It sounds like a freight train! the temperature is 26, but with the wind chill it feels like 9. Burr!!! I spent much of my time last evening working on fixing this pair of ski pants for one of the guys at work. They belong to his wife and were expensive.

I had to open up the lining so I could get to the hole. The seam allowance was so narrow that the only way to fix them was to topstitch each seam. For extra security I put a piece of ultrasuede under the seam and sewed thru that.

It was a bit of a battle to get the lining out of the way and the ultrasuede lined up. Once the lining got caught so I had to rip that out and start again. Another time the ultrasuede folded back on itself so I had to rip that out and start again. In the end, I conquered the problem and it is fixed! I had to hand stitch the heavy knit lining back together. It took me an hour to get this done.

The other thing I accomplished was to get that jacket I fixed the cuffs into a box for mailing. I will run to the post office at lunch and that will be one more thing off the list!

Pouch patterns and cutting tips

I didn't get any pouch sandwiches assembled last evening. I had my monthly wellness doctor appointment and then I ran two errands since I was on that side of the county. For me, it takes so much longer to run errands in the cold. Dealing with gloves, a scarf that gets in the way, digging thru pockets for a Kleenex, credit cards or reward cards, having to put the backpack on and off (my work laptop can't be left in the car - it's a rule so I have to take it with me), it is just a plain battle! All of this takes so much time!  By the time I got home, it was almost dark. I put the cold groceries away and finally got to sit down about 6 and eat my sushi.

Ok, enough complaining! LOL!! Here are the measurements for the curved top pouches which Joyce asked for. They are fairly simple to draft. Let me know if you have any questions. I cut mine out of mat board to make the templates sturdy.

I had looked at my Jan. 10, 2025, tutorial on how to construct the pouches, but I didn't show how I cut them out after the fabric has been quilted. I couldn't find anything to cut that was quilted this morning, so we will be pretending that I am cutting a quilted sandwich. Place the pattern on the fold of the fabric. Notice that I have placed the fabric on a smaller cutting mat. This is so I can move the pattern and fabric around easier to trim it.

Lay a straight edge along one side and use it to help you cut the excess fabric.

Rotate the cutting mat and trim the other side

Rotate the mat again to trim the curve. I hold the pattern down with my left hand and trace the edge of the mat board curve free hand.

I use the rotary cutter to cut the fabric at the notches as far as I can.

I then use scissors to finish clipping the corner of the notches.

Your pouch will look like this when cut out

More progress on the pouch sandwiches

I worked last evening making more pouch sandwiches. Here is the newest stack of 31.

I did sort thru my orange pile, and my pink and lavender pile and found fabrics to let go of for pouches. I already cut and used a few of the fabrics before I took this picture. I still need to go thru the blues, blacks, grays, and b&w fabrics.  I have no idea why these pictures are blurry.  

Of course with all this cutting, scraps are generated! Here is my pile right now. I already sorted a few and placed them in the containers I had previously sorted. Yes, I have more scraps, but I figured that after I get the next 21 pouch sandwiches made I will have reduced my stash by at least 25 yards!

I was asked by anonymous where I got my pattern or did I design it myself. Well, I got the idea from someone who made a pouch out of a placemat. I took that design and changed it by adding a boxed bottom and quilting my own fabric. I also reduced the size to make a medium and small pouch as well as a large one. The way I installed the zipper was a bit different too. I used mat board to make templates so that I could cut the pouches out using a rotary cutter for the majority of it. I posted a tutorial of how I construct the pouch on Jan. 10, 2025. I didn't post the size of the templates. I never thought to do that. I will do that tomorrow.

Prepping for making small curved top pouches

My arms are still sore, but not just from shoveling. Friday after work I headed to the mall to pick up my order. I wanted to get a few more steps in so I parked at the opposite end of the mall from where I needed to pu my order. I didn't think two sets of twin sheets and one queen set would weigh almost 14 pounds. They were wrapped up tightly in one package. I did stop for a minute to rest my arms just before I headed out the door to the car.

On Saturday my arms got another workout from beating on my drum at the protest for two hours. The wind gusts kept wanting to blow my setup over so I had to wrestle it to keep it upright.

There were a couple hundred people there. I took this picture close to the end of the protest. See that sky? Well, I was walking to the car and a squall blew in of graupel. That's graupel on my pants.

I stopped at the grocery store on my way home and the roads were getting covered quickly. It did stop about 10 minutes after it started. After getting something to eat and falling asleep in my sewing room chair for a short nap, I decided to work on putting together the pieces for making curved top pouches. I already had 67 pieces of batting cut to size so it was time to use the scrap pieces I had found when I sorted my scraps. I also decided to go thru the piles in the fabric storage room and pull-out pieces that would work for pouches and/or fabric I didn't like. Here is what the shelves looked like before and after. I still have more to go thru, but I found a lot of good stuff for the pouches.

I started sandwiching the pieces together; a bottom piece face down and press,

a piece of batting

the outside piece of fabric, pressed all three layers

trim the excess fabric and repeat 66 more times!

I have all the little sandwiches sorted by color

I used all the batting pieces I had so I took this pile of batting scraps,

sewed them together, and ended up with 52 more!

I still have a bunch of fabric pieces that need paired up.

In case you are thinking I have lost my mind, I am making these for a retreat I am going to as little gifts. I first want to get the sandwiches made, then I will start quilting them. I got so wrapped up in this I didn't get any quilting done on the t-shirt quilt.