Hemming, raining, and quilting oh my!

I was getting ready to go out for my walk when the neighbor showed up to have me look at her dress for her brother's wedding on Saturday - yes, tomorrow. I only have to shorten the front a bit and trim the tulle so not a bad job which I will do tonight.

By the time she left it was pouring rain so I guess it was good that she had come when she did. Otherwise I would have been walking around the neighborhood and with all the lighting that there was .... well you know.

I still needed 5,000 steps for the day so I spend the rest of the evening walking around the house briskly. I could only go in circles so many time before I would have to stop for a few minutes. I would check to see where I was at with the number of steps and then start again. I did managed to get all my steps in, but no quilting.

I did manage to get a bit of quilting done before I went to work this morning.

I don't have any big plans for the weekend so more than likely it will be quilting, weeding, walking, and I may work on straightening up the garage a bit. My brother from SC is coming in for the weekend so I hope to see him and I may go to the neighbor's house for the wedding reception. I sure it hope it doesn't rain on Saturday for their wedding.

Batting, mowing, and quilting

When I pulled up to the house after work there was a big box to greet me. JoAnn's had sent me a coupon for an extra 15% off my total purchase and batting was 50% off so I bought another roll. After tax and shipping the cost was the same as the sale price, but I did save the tax and shipping.

The roll of batting I had was dwindling and I was waiting for a sale before I bought another roll. I wish I had kept track of how many of these rolls I have bought over the years. I am guessing this is number six or seven. That is a lot of batting!

I was waiting for a neighbor to show up. She needs a dress hemmed. While waiting I got one more block on the teal and purple quilt quilted. So now I am 36% done.

The neighbor never showed up so at 7 p.m. I decided to put on my big girl pants, suck it up, and mow. I was dripping within 10 minutes. I needed to get the rest of my steps in so I killed two birds with one stone. It is raining today so it was a good idea that I did mow last evening. When I was done I took some pictures of my flora and fauna. LOL!
My free daylilies that I brought from Dover to Akron. The deer seem to be leaving them alone as I have lots of flowers!

My three year old cone flowers I grew from seed.

Shasta daisies I grew from seed last year. I didn't have but three or flowers last year. This year - lots of flowers!

And in the back where it is shady my Lenten roses are thick and full.

When I weeded the other day I dug up a couple of extra cora bell plants and gave them to a young fellow at work. The plants were not doing well since they were planted in full sunshine, I had no place else to put them, and I have more of them in the back. It is fun to share plants anyway! He said he has a place for a couple of Lenten Roses so I will dig those up and send them on to a new home.

Well, it is time to report in my Big Dream Project progress on Vicki's Field Trips in Fiber blog. My dream project is myself and it is a big project! I am a chunky monkey and I am trying to undo the years of sitting on my backside. I have not been as dedicated to getting my steps in lately as I hate the humidity so I have been staying indoors and my other lame excuse was I needed to get the wedding quilt done. After I walked enough yesterday an electronic badge from Fitbit popped up on my phone yesterday afternoon. With getting that badge my focus to get moving has been reenergized. I received my Serengeti badge which means I have 500 lifetime miles.

So to keep moving to get my 10,000 steps in yesterday I decided to get out in the yard and work on cleaning up the flower beds. The humidity was down to 57% and the UV index was 3 about 6 p.m. so I could work in the yard without long sleeves and get some work done before the mosquitoes were active. Here is what needed attacked

Yes, it was a bit easier to get the weeds out with all the rain we have had, but I was still sweating like mad. At times I had to stop because I could see as my glasses were fogged up and the sweat was dripping into my eyes. As I crawled around in the dirt, I could feel the moisture radiating up from the ground. After an hour and a half I got about 1/3 of this bed cleaned up. I had a pile of Sweet Peat left from last fall in this bed that I had dumped there so I first put down some Preen, spread out the Sweet Peat, then sprinkled another layer of Preen. See the rocks?

I put them there so I would remember where I planted the zinnia seeds. Yes, it is a bit late to be planting seeds, but I figure with the heat and moisture they will grow fast. I had bought this pack of pink zinnia and some of the green envy that I grew last year, but the green envy pack has disappeared. Oops!

This was a good start now I just have to make time to continue. I still needed a few more steps last night to get my 10,000 so I walked to the end of the cul-de-sac and keep making laps until I got my 10,000 steps. Let's just say I was a bit wiped out after that! So the teal and purple quilt sat again with no progress.

The night off

Monday night is Top Gear night at my house so I didn't get any quilting done. That's ok - I needed a night off.

My sister called and I spent about an hour on the phone with her and downloaded some CD's all evening. Then the rain came. I am going to rant right now. I have Dish for my satellite provider and I lose a picture when it rains or snows. I get the dreaded blue screen

Dish collect millions of dollars every month from their subscribers and can't keep the system from cutting out because it rains, snows, or I have had it cut on a perfectly sunny day! I never had this problem with DirecTV. So why do I stay with Dish? I just don't want to go thru the hassle of changing back to DirecTV. I had changed to Dish years ago because DirecTV was in a fight with the network that broadcasted bicycle races. I didn't want to miss the Tour de France so I switched along with thousands of others. Once DirecTV started losing so many customers they settled with the network, but I wasn't about to switch back at that point. I just know when I move again I will not have DISH.

Here is the rain last evening about 8 p.m. The it rained hard at 3 a.m. for an hour. We have had enough rain for now, but it looks like we have a chance for more almost every day for the next week.

Wedding quilt - DONE! - finish 9 for 2015

Yes, it is done as of 9:15 am Sunday morning. That is with 6+ days to spare! It turned out 79" x 95". I used warm and natural batting and an assortment of thread for the quilting including King Tut, Signature, Aurifil, Connecting Threads Essential, and a dab of Star cobalt blue I wanted to use up.

I matched the binding to the color of the blocks.

Next! I retrieved the teal and purple quilt from the UFO pile and started quilting on it again. I had 8 blocks done out of the 36 or 22% done. I managed to get 4 more blocks quilted so now I have it 33% quilted. The deadline for this quilt is July 10 so I will be pounding away on this quilt for the next couple of weeks.

I did get another order of fabric in the mail on Friday. I just had to have some of the skeleton on a bicycle fabric. I have the fabric washed, pressed, and placed into my stash.

Wedding quilt countdown - 8 days to go

It was too hot to be outside last evening so I spend the whole time quilting and I made huge progress! I went from 65% quilted to 83%! I now only have 5 more blocks to quilt.

It looks as if I will have this quilt done this weekend including the binding. I haven't received the invite to the reception so the label will have to wait until I have the couple's names.

This morning I noticed that my Shasta daisies are blooming. I grew these from seeds I planted last year. I only got a couple flowers last year, but this year they are blooming like crazy. The best part is the deer must not like them since I still have flowers! Just don't look at the weeds that are in the picture. Since I am almost done with the wedding quilt I think I can take some time this weekend to get some weeding done.

Have a great weekend!

Wedding quilt countdown - 9 days to go, MQG meeting, and a fabric purchase

I didn't get a lot of quilting done between after work, the MQG meeting, and this morning, but I did get 1 1/2 blocks quilted so I am at 65% done with the quilting.

This one block was extremely difficult to quilt because of the print. I could not see where I was quilting! I had to angle my lights to cast a shadow in order to try and see where I was going.

Here is what the back is looking like.

There were three of us at quilt group last night. I brought the wedding quilt as it will be long gone before next month's meeting. Joanna brought two pieces that she wanted out opinion on binding. This rising moon piece is gorgeous! It was made with fabric from Vicki of Field Trips in Fiber.

The second piece is shown here with the three possibilities for the binding. We agreed on the purple at the bottom was the best choice. Joanna likes narrow binding and we all thought the purple would frame it nicely.

Hancock's of Paducah was having a sale and I broke down and bought some fabric. It averaged out to $4.75 cents a yard including shipping! How could I not buy it? I have two pieces on backorder, but this is what came yesterday. Yes, more music fabric. I think I have enough now.

I love indigo blue batiks and these were only $5.99 at yard.

These are just odds and ends.

I have a project in mind for these.