Sewing and concerts

What a weekend! I was busy sewing and going to concerts. I needed to get the project bag and thread beds done for a custom order. While I was at it, I made a few more just because I was in the groove. This is the project bag that was ordered. The lady wanted a thread bed out of the same fabric which I forgot to take a picture of.

Then she wanted one out of a multicolored batik. I had cut out fabric for four and got those made.

I wanted to see how many project bags and thread beds I could get out of 3/4 a yard of this purple moth fabric. I didn't have quite enough for the zipper strips for one, but I found a batik that was complementary to the moth fabric.

The lady also wanted a thread bed out of flamingo fabric. I got one finished for her and have three more to finish.

With these thread beds and project bags I realized I needed to get myself organized! I kept having to stop what I was doing to cut out pieces I needed. I gathered up the trays left from the bottled carbonated water I buy and used those for the pieces and parts I need for thread beds. The vinyl I need for project bags is bigger so I am using the lid from a copier paper box. I spent a couple hours just cutting extra vinyl pieces.  Then I ironed on interfacing to strips of flannel for the thread beds and cut those to size.

I needed to get a curve top pouch made for my niece for her birthday. She lives in Georgia, so I needed to get it in the mail. Her mom, my sister, had picked out some fabric, but I looked everywhere and could not find any more of that print. I found this print and I think my niece will like it.

I also made a bunch of scissor pouches. Some I needed to get in the mail. I found a place to set up The Hulk that was not on my big table. This makes it easier to run back and forth to install the snaps.  This keeps The Hulk out of the way and not cluttering up my big table.

I got everything ready for the post office trip at lunch today.

I have 8 more days to get the Harley quilt done. Yes, it is still not done. I'm 75% done now. I am almost done with quilting the black t-shirt thank goodness!

Friday evening, I went to Cleveland with my brother and SIL to go to the Springsteen concert. My brother that works for the band got us tickets. It was a great show. I got to bed at 12:45am; it was almost a 20 hour day for me so I was tired!

Saturday, I had to get up for an 8:30am appointment for bloodwork. I made a couple stops on my way home then got to work in the sewing studio. I had lunch then fell asleep for a while. I sewed some more and then headed downtown to see my nephew play with Mark Lee Shannon. Mark was member of the Michael Stanley Band. There was nobody there because of the weather.  The tent was for the sound crew.

The band still put on a good show. Michael played the organ as well as the guitar. My brother, his dad, is in the black shirt to the left tuning guitars.

This was the sky when we were packing up. Yes, I jumped in and help roadie.

Michael is helping out another band next Saturday so I will be going to see that. It is at the local venue so doesn't take long to get there. Hopefully the weather is better!

Progress on the scissor pouches and zippers galore!

Yesterday was crazy. I did manage to get the scissor pouches turned right-side out at lunch time.

I had my zippers from Wawak shipped to the office and they arrived! I ordered them on Tuesday and they showed up Thursday - 200+ zippers, three different types, and all different colors! Whomever they have picking orders is amazing!

I did not have time to go thru the zippers and sort them last evening. I had left work early to go to the dentist for a checkup and cleaning. I had enough time before my appointment to go to the bulk food store and get more organic raisins and oatmeal for cookies for the band this summer and go to the credit union. I bought two big bags of oatmeal and six containers of raisins. I will vacuum pack the raisins this weekend to keep them fresh. My SIl siad there has been al lot of talk on FB (I don't know how to use FB) about my cookies. Several people mentioned that they were hoping I would still be touring with the band and have cookies so I stocked up on supplies.

I didn't get home until 6:02 from the dentist; they are good but slow and it's an hour drive for me. I looked at the yard and it needed mowed in the front and on the sides. We are forecasted to get rain all weekend so I thought I had better mow and get it out of the way. I didn't get very far and the battery for the mower ran out of juice. I put the battery on the charger and started trimming. By the time I got the trimming done the mower battery was charged up enough to finish the yard. So now it was almost 7:00 pm and I was getting tired. I unloaded the car, washed a load of clothes, and got ready for bed so no sewing happened.

The studio is a humming!

Making progress! I got the project bag done for the order I am working on. This fabric is so cute! She wanted bright and wanted animals.

Then I finished one of the TBs except for the snap. She ordered three TBs so I will install all the snaps once I get them all made.

Momma visited the front yard. She stopped for a quick snack in the grass and then headed back to the woods behind my house. I haven't seen the twins in a few days. Maybe it is too cold for them to be out. It got down to 47 last night.

Kathy, here is what California Poppies look like when they start to come up. I love the feathery leaves!

My project at lunch will be to trim and turn these pieces right side out. These are for scissor pouches

The two bolts of iron on fleece I ordered arrived. I will use this for project bags and TBs.

I got my labels ordered too! The last ones I bought were from an etsy shop in Bulgaria.  This is where I got the last bunch of labels I had ordered.  The lady is so helpful and I will have them in just a couple of weeks.

Progress on the thread beds. thistle, and shopping

Still working on the thread beds (TB) and project bag. Last evening I got 8 of the interfaced lining pieces quilted onto the outer fabrics. I stitch 3 lines on each TB. There will be two more lines of quilting once I sew on the flannel part; that will happen this evening.

I finished out my evening by pulling thistle plants out the the center flower bed. The plants were getting big and I needed to remove them before they went to seed. I pulled 76 plants. I had no idea there would be that many.

I have been shopping sales online for fabric for thread beds and project bags for my next cross stitch retreat. I do have quite a stash I can pull from, but at $6.00 a yard for top quality fabric how could I not buy it!  I also picked many fabrics that I would not normally buy. This was from eQuilter

These pieces were from Handcock's of Paducha

I placed an order for zippers that I will need for the TBs and project bags. It will arrive tomorrow! I have more fleece iron-on interfacing coming too. I think I will be all stocked up with supplies although I do need to get more labels. I need to get on that!

Cutting out a project bag and thread beds

I worked on cutting out the thread beds and a project bag for someone at the retreat who wanted more. She wants one project bag and three thread beds. Of course, to me it makes no sense to just cut the pieces and parts for one thread bed out of three different fabrics. I cut the rest of the flamingo fabric I had and got enough for four thread beds. I had loads of the multicolored batik, so I went ahead and cut four thread beds. The jungle fabric was just part of a yard I had left so I was able to get the one project bag and one thread bed out of it. I needed to check to see if I had any coordinating zippers. The fleece is ironed on what I call the lining pieces too.

Once I cut the vinyl pieces then I will be ready for assembly. It is just as easy to make four as it is to make one thread bed. I need more zippers so I will placing an order today. I also cut out those little scissor pouches out of any scraps that were left; no sense just tossing them into the scrap box! Saturday there was a newly born set of twins. I hadn't seen momma for a while. I saw her last Thursday and I saw the twins for the first time on Saturday. The twins looked to be only a day or two old. I saw them in the backyard early this morning, but it was still too dark to take a picture.  Here they are in the neighbor's yard.

It was HOT yesterday! It got up to 87! As soon as I got home from work, I hauled out and hooked up the hose so I could give my transplanted coneflowers a drink. They needed one after baking in the sun all day. It is forecasted to be up in the upper 80's again today then cool off with rain the rest of the week. No, I did not get the rest of the backyard mowed yet.  LOL!

Harley quilt progress, pulling weeds, and scissor pouches

I managed to get more quilted on the Harley quilt and am now 60% done. I have 17 days to get this done - no problem!

I did spend a couple hours between rainstorms on Saturday getting one flower bed cleaned up. My sweet peat mulch was wet even though it has been covered, so it was like hauling concrete up the hill in my yard wagon to the front yard from the back. Here is the before and after.

I transplanted a few coneflowers that were right next to the sidewalk. They would just get cooked being next to the sidewalk. I circled where I put the little transplants.

One of my landscaping lights would not stay upright so I pulled it out to figure out what the problem was. The holder had a split so Gorilla tape to the rescue!

After mulching with the very wet sweet peat, I sprinkled the California Poppy seeds that my friend had sent me.

One of the women that was at the cross stitch retreat I went to a couple weeks ago wants more thread beds and a project bag. After texting back and forth with pictures of fabric, she picked what she wanted so I need to get those made. I also started going thru scraps to find pieces that would be big enough to make those little scissor pouches. This is the mess!

This pile I have ready to trim to size and will take to work to do that at lunch time instead of stitching on a sampler.

Here is the pile that needs sorted for size. Since I plan on making lots and lots of these, I will be going thru the all my scraps first and hopefully make a dent in those. I also have some scraps of the iron on fleece left from project bags and thread beds that I can use for these.

and here are the few that have interfacing and are ready for sewing together.

I finished the weekend out by getting 3/4th of the back yard its first mowing of the year. I am going to try and get it finished tonight. I was just too tired to do the hard part of the slope.

Harley progress

The quilt is now 30% quilted. I finished quilting the two black shirts at the second to the last row. I needed to take a break from quilting on black and quilted the pale green shirt at the bottom.

I am so glad it is Friday. My plans for the weekend are to quilt on the Harley quilt and to pulled weeds weather permitting. Rain is in the forecast for Saturday and Sunday so let's hope I can still get in some desperately needed weeding.