Courage and how to make fringe

Yes, an odd combination of topics, but I had to talk about a couple of TdF riders that showed such courage.

First, Alberto Contador, a Spanish rider who has won the tour twice officially and was in the group to possibly win again. He was going along just fine on stage 10 uphill and as he was eating he hit a dip in the road. He only had one hand on the handlebars so he lost control and crashed. He fell heavily on his right knee and was bleeding profusely. The doctor stopped by, wrapped up his knee, and he got back on the bike. He rode in the pouring rain for about 10 miles before he said goodbye to his teammate who had ridden with him to get Alberto back to the peloton.

Alberto had to abandon. He rode 10 miles with a fracture to his tibia below his knee! He said he stopped because he could not get any power out of his leg. Here he is getting off the bus to talk to reporters.

Next is Andrew Talansky, an American rider. Andrew had crashed three times and had hurt his back. On Stage 11 he just kept falling back farther and farther. He finally stopped and his back was killing him. Andrew sat on a guardrail while the race director for his team talked to him.

He sat there for about four minutes, had a bit of a cry, and he decided he wanted to get back on the bike. Meanwhile the race is going on and he is really behind now. He still had 48 miles with two climbs to the finish line. Andrew is his team leader for winning the yellow jersey and he was in the top 10 so there was still a chance for him to win. He had no teammates and rode by himself with a team car following the last 48 miles. He came in under the time limit so he is still in the tour.

The TV people had kept a camera on him which is unheard of. He was the last guy out on the road all by himself, but he is such an important rider that his ride was newsworthy. Meantime at the finish they were giving out the day's awards and Andrew was still on the course. Here is the split screen when my man, Peter Sagan, received another green jersey and Andrew is in the bottom right still riding. Andrew made it to the finish. Let's see if he can ride today.

Now the fringe for Michael's vests. I cut the fabric a bit wider than what I needed and cut it 8" high. I lined up the cut edge with the edge of my 24" ruler. I put on my brick weights to keep the ruler from moving and used another smaller ruler as my cutting guide.

I used the 1/4" marks on the 24" ruler as my guide for cutting the fringe and cut from right to left.

The rotary cutter can't go all the way to the edge of the fabric and it leaves me just the right for keeping the fringe in one piece and for sewing it on the vest.

Here is the fringe all cut and ready for me to position and sew on the vest. I did get the shoulders sewn and the vest topstitched last night. All that is left is to add the fringe.

I also got some pieces cut for the four covers I need to get made for the band. Three of the covers will have clear tops so I got those cut out. I am breathing a bit easier as the covers will not need to be to MN until Friday the 25th.

The sewing machine is running at full speed

Monday night was Michael's concert. It was only a half mile up the road from where I work. I got there about 4:30 to help set up. Lots of people showed up, but it began to rain with the sun still shining about half way thru the first hour of the show. We lost about half the crowd.

The crowd that stayed was treated to a great show and the band did a fantastic job. My job is handling the merchandise sales and we sold some CD's, t-shirts, guitar pics, and one vinyl album.

We started to load out at about 9:15 and it started to rain about 9:30. It just poured! We had a couple of tents up so we gather the equipment under those until my brother could move the trailer into position to load. What a mess!

Tuesday I had to run errands all morning and in the afternoon I quilted one block on the drum quilt

before I needed to start working on a vest for Michael. It was hard to sew because I was so tired. I only have to sew the shoulders, topstitch, and make and sew on the fringe.

I realized that I should have interfaced the fabric for the vest as it is not very heavy. It looks like suede, but it is on the thin side. I talked to my SIL and told her I was ordering interfacing for the next vests I need to make. I called the company last night, ordered the interfacing, and it should arrive on Friday. I have four more vests to make asap.

The this morning I open my email and there was an email from my brother who is out on the road. The Crows want more covers! One of them needs hook and loop on it so I called WBC Industries where I can get their brand of hook and loop in colors for the best prices. They said they would ship it out right away this morning and I should get it by Friday. Here is a drawing for the cover that needs hook and loop. There are three other covers that need made besides this one.

So between making vests and covers I need to find time to go to work! LOL!! No quilting the rest of this week!

Where are all my basting pins?

I started pin basting the drum quilt on Friday evening and ran out of pins before I was done. My pin buckets were empty.

On Saturday I decided to machine quilt the ocean quilt so I would have more pins for the drum quilt. I first quilted the beach and took those pins and pinned the drum quilt, but I still needed more safety pins. I then finished quilting the jungle part of the quilt on Sunday morning while I watched the TdF.. It still wasn't enough safety pins.

So now what? I went to look for any quilts that I had pin basted. I found three. So I took out some of the pins at the edges that hold the batting and the backing so the backing doesn't get folded underneath as easy. I also searched around the floor and the area beside my machine where I keep tools and thread for any safety pins that might be hanging around.

I still needed to pin baste the border on one side.

I managed to come up with just enough pins to pin baste the border.

I wanted to at least get started on quilting the drum quilt and I managed to get two blocks quilted plus a little bit of the border. These blocks finished at 14".

My pin bucket looks like this now.

I had bought about 10 bulk bags of safety pins from Home Sew, Inc. years ago. I had so many I told myself that if I ran out of pins I needed to quilt what I had pin basted and not just buy more pins. I may have to break that rule.

I am getting fewer and fewer Japanese Beetles on my zinnias. I didn't find any this morning and lately I have been finding only two or three on each visit. They are flowering. I have Green Envy and Candy Cane varieties.

My man, Peter Sagan, is still in the green sprint point leaders jersey. I was a rough couple of days as the riders had two hilly stages with intermittent rain.

This is a terrible picture, but you can see Peter is rockin' bandages on his elbow and knee from a crash on Stage 6.

Between quilting sessions yesterday I made oatmeal raisin and French butter cookies for the gig tonight.

Working on a plan

I have become overwhelmed with things to do. I sat down yesterday and got my calendar updated with all the gigs I will help out with my nephew's band. I will slip in vacation days after gig date especially if the gig is a weeknight.

Next is figuring out a plan for all the quilts I need to get quilted. If I am not sleeping, at work, at a gig, or volunteering at the museum, I will be quilting for the next 4 1/2 months! I added one more to the mix after talking to one of my brother's yesterday. I now want to get this music quilt top quilted in case I need it for a thank you gift for a musician that might end up playing with Michael. Date that it needs completed - July 31.

Next in line is the ocean quilt. Due date - Aug. 17.

Then there are the birthday quilts - due date - end of September

Throw in a quilt or two for QuiltCon and my niece's graduation quilt and I have a lot of quilting to do!

I got home from work and speed watched the TdF before I headed off to the museum to work. Overnight one more rider abandoned due to injuries the day before and another abandoned early in the stage. There were 41 crashes in Stage 5 which equaled a lot of sore bodies. Thanks goodness Stage 6 was not as dramatic, but there was some light intermittent rain, but there were hard cross tail winds that proved difficult. My man Peter Sagan was involved in a crash. He only hurt his elbow a bit. He is still the leader in the sprint green jersey competition and the white jersey for the best young rider. Here he is receiving his awards after Stage 6.

Have a great weekend!

Life at warp speed

Well, that is what it feels like these days. I got a call yesterday morning that the tree removal company was going to be at my brother's house at 2 pm to take down the tree. I decided to take a half days vacation so I could be there. I took stuff over for my lunch and sat there on his front porch since the house was hot. I brought my computer and worked on balancing my check book and updating my stash spreadsheet. So here are some pictures of the tree removal.

They will sent a different crew to grind out the stump. I am so glad this is done.

I got home about 3:40 and was beat, because I had stood in 92 degree heat for the tree removal. I sat a bit and then rewound my tape to watch Stage 5 of the tour. I was raining and they had 9 sections of cobbles schedule in the day's route. The cobblestone sections are farm paths. Two sections of the cobblestones were flooded so the organizers change the race route, but there was standing water along the other 7 section and it was muddy! Here are the riders nice and clean waiting at the start

Standing water

The dirty boys at the end of the race

And here is the king of the mountains all cleaned up receiving his new jersey for still be the leader in the king of the mountain competition

Peter Sagan is still the sprint point and best young rider leader. The fellow yesterday, Froome, that had crashed, well on Stage 5 he crashed again on his left side and then crashed again on his right side. That did him in and he had to abandon. There were so many crashes yesterday I couldn't count them all. The roads were like riding on ice and they had the tire pressure very high so it would be easier to ride over the cobble section, but it made it hard to keep the bikes upright on the regular pavement. There are going to be a lot of sore riders today.

While I watched the tour I sewed together the purple and gray quilt blocks.

This morning I had some time before I needed to head to work so I got started on the next section of the ocean quilt. I am taking a cue from Angela Walters and added bubbles to my swirls. This seemed appropriate for the ocean part of the quilt.