Busy times

I had my wellness guru appointment after work. Then made a stop at Menard's on my way home since I was on the east side of town. When I got home I had to gather up the rest of the recycling and trash for pu today and sort out my supplements I got from wellness guru. Then I headed out for a walk which I walked longer than I had planned on. Didn't find any coin. :( I did get a bit farther on these two thread beds. They are ready for final assembly.

A little progress, cookies, and some coin

I didn't have a lot of time to sew. I did get a few of the pocket units for the thread beds made. They still need trimmed to size.

I made oatmeal raisin cookies for the guys at work. While they baked I did dishes.  That killed about and hour and a half of my evening.  I was quick to get compliments  this morning like "These are really good".

I have been trying to go for a long walk and for the past three days I headed up to the high school and middle school to walk the parking lots. It is a mile walk to the school.  On the first walk I found 3 cents, the next day I found a dollar, and last evening I found $3.10. $2.75 was all in one place. Looking for loose change gives me something to do while I walk. I do listen to music, but just walking can be so boring.

Thread beds, a new tool, fabric purchase, and more thread beds?!

I finished up the construction of the 20 thread beds.

All I have left to do is install the snaps. Those handheld pliers for installing the snaps were so hard to use so I broke down and bought the tabletop unit. Here is The Hulk!

I had to try it out so I put a set of snaps on a scrap. It works so nice and easy.

I ordered The Hulk with the dies for installing plastic snaps, but there are other dies I can get for metal snaps, rivets, grommets and bag hardware.

I received my first fabric purchase for the year. I had enough points on my credit card that this was free! I placed an order because the Fabric Shack had some of that flaming scissor fabric. I had bought a yard or two sometime in the last couple years and used it all. I just had to snatch what they had left because I think it make cute project bags, thread beds and curved top pouches. All the fabric was on clearance and I bought enough fabric to get free shipping.

I am having such fun making the thread beds I decided to cut out more of them. I used that half yard piece of the giant polka dot that I got in that shipment. It must have been the end of the bolt since there was about 23" which worked out great for getting two thread beds out of it. Here are a few that will be finished shortly.

Six almost done

Six of the thread beds are done except for the snaps. I feel like I am making progress now!

My plan for the weekend is to finish up the rest of the thread beds and get some more yardwork done. Have a great weekend!

Yard work and thread bed progress

How did I miss cutting this down the other day when I had help! This is Zebra grass and it gets huge.

The grass was getting long, but I really didn't want to cut it because I had a few grape hyacinths growing in the grass and I liked seeing them.

I broke down and went ahead and cut the grass in the front and on one side of the house. This made it easier to clean up the Zebra grass since the grass was shorter. I still had my neighbor's hedge trimmers, so I got after the Zebra grass. Three trips to the debris pile in the back and the mess was cleaned up.

I headed inside to press the interfacing on the thread bed lining pieces. I also got the pieces trimmed to size.

The next step is to center the lining piece on the outside fabric

Mark three quilting lines with blue tape and stitch along the tape

I am almost done with completing these! Next, I positioned the flannel piece, sewed it in place, flipped it back and topstitched it.

The pocket unit is in position.  I will press the self-binding around the entire outside edge and add the green needle felt piece and my label as I topstitch the binding.

I will add a snap and then it will be done!  Wait until you see my nifty new snap tool!

Thread bed progress

The pocket units are all sewn together!

I cut out the fleece iron on interfacing for the interior lining piece which doesn't show that much except for the space between the flannel and the pocket which those cover most of it up.

The next step will be to press the lining to the interfacing, then trim to size.

Thread bed progress and more spring trimming

After work I went across the cul-de-sac and cut down my neighbor's ornamental grass with another neighbor's hedge trimmer. Becky is a sweet lady and doesn't remember to cut her ornamental grass so I do it for her. I already had cut it down before I remembered to take a picture.

There was a lot of walking back and forth across the cul-de-sac because it would sprinkle, then stop, then sprinkle, sleet, sprinkle then stop. I couldn't let Eric's hedge trimmer get wet so I kept having to take it back to the garage.

I needed the weed trimmer so that was another trip to the garage. Then the battery died which meant another trip. Are you getting the idea of what this was little job was like? LOL!! I got a charged battery and was almost done and the string ran out! Geeze! It stopped raining long enough I could bring out the hedge trimmer again and give the grass one more haircut. The first pass was just to get the bulk of the material cut down. Two trips to the dump the debris in the back of my yard and I was done. I texted Becky and she was very grateful for me doing this.

Next was getting back to the thread beds. I needed to press the 2 1/2' strips to make the binding for the pocket unit. I like to press it so that one side is just proud of the other so when I sew it I can make sure that I catch the binding on the underneath side. I pressed all 20 of these.

Three of the pocket units are sewn together.

They are now trimmed. 17 more to go and that part of the thread beds will be prepped and ready for final assembly.