Survived without electricity

When I first got to work yesterday I turned the A/C down low and got the trailer as cold as I could before they turned the electricity off. It went off at 10 a.m. and they turned it back on at 3:30 p.m. The internet didn't come back on though. There was a nice breeze yesterday and about 1 p.m. I had to open the windows because the trailer was getting warm. BY four when I left it was getting too hot for me so it worked out and I survived. This morning we got the internet finally sorted out about 11 a.m. so I am up and running again. Lots of paperwork to catch up on. This is the meter board that they had to remove and just move my meter closer to the fence.

and this is what it looks like now

I worked on the Monster t-shirt and managed to get the border done. The turquoise thread is pretty again the tan t-shirt.

Next I got a bit of the border on this shirt stitched.

The reason I am jumping around from shirt to shirt is I want to first get the border stitching done on all the shirts. Once I get that done I can stitch on the facing binding and then the piece will look a bit more finished for the submission picture. I also want to make sure I have some embroidery on all the shirts then I can go back and keep adding more until I run out of time. I got a couple more patches in the mail yesterday. These will add another layer of embellishment to the piece. I have some other patches already and have been collecting some pins too. I will also add guitar picks that I have from Mike Mills and Peter Buck.

Two borders done

Guess what I worked on last evening? You're right! The R.E.M. piece. I got the border done on the white shirt

and I got the border done on the black shirt

I started the border stitching on this shirt. This is the front and the back of the shirt and I will treat them as one unit.

I had to stop stitching and go outside to water my new plants. I can tell already that they are doing well. One of the coneflowers has started to bloom.

Today will be a challenge at work. The site contractor has to move the trailer's electrical meter closer to the permanent fence on the left of the picture so they can continue to set the sub grade for the future band practice field. Here is the meter panel now. The panel and all the meters have to be removed. All those meters were for the contractor's trailers when they were building the high/middle school. All those trailers are long gone except for the one I am in as the company I work for is the construction manager for the entire project. I have the a/c running full blast to cool the trailer down as much as possible before they pull the plug. I will spend my day straightening up, filing and cleaning. It is suppose to get up 80 today so it is going to get hot in here.

Progress on the R.E.M. piece

After I went to the store to get more matching purple floss, I stitched for about 3 hours last evening and a half hour before work this morning. This is what I accomplished: I finished outlining the 2001, I outlined the circle in a apricot color, and this morning I stitched the border on one side to add the fancy stitching to the backstitching.


The transplanted Shasta daisies are doing well. It is funny how the plant at the far right is a bit behind the others as far as blooming goes, but they are looking good otherwise.

The center bed is looking good with those orange daylilies blooming. I need to trim and mow though!

The deer showed up last night and bit off some of the flowers on this daylily. This is a very pretty peach daylily that sits in the front flower bed to the far left. No fear - that is how it is with the deer around here especially at night. Sneaky boogers!

9th finish for 2017/AHIQ

I got the denim quilt done on Friday night and handed it off to the wife and kids. The kids like the pockets. The little girl said that if your feet were cold you could put your feet in the pockets. The quilt turned out 74" x 82". I used Auriful on the top and Essentials in the bobbin. The batting was warm and natural 80/20. The binding was a batik that I have had for years.

Here is the label. I drew around the kid's hands and Tyler was able to write his name, but mom had to help Mikala write her's.

Since I am overwhelmed with projects that need to get done, I thought I would use this denim quilt as my AHIQ for this quarter. The rules for this quarter was to make a quilt using two different blocks. Well, I have drunkard path and a striped block so I guess I fulfilled my obligation. There is not a lot of detail in this quilt and no blending of the two blocks, but it did take some time to figure out how to put this top together quickly and meet the rules. I do like the drunkard path blocks and especially where the denim fades in color.

Saturday morning I ran some errands. I had a coupon for 15% off at Home Depot so I went and got some plants. My seeds have not come up and I am tired of living with an empty flower bed. I had bought a Pow Wow conflower (a combo of white and pink) last year off the markdown rack and I found three more plants this year. The one from last year is on the left in front of a daylily.

I also bought an Icelandic poppy to see how it would do.

I wanted some lavender and ended stopping at Lowes to get that.

I got everything planted early Sunday morning and now I just have to see how they grow.

Other than planting, I spend the rest of the weekend stitching on the R.E.M. quilt. I had the border done on this block

and here is the finished block

Then I worked on these two shirts

For the white and blue shirt I got the backstitching around the border done and will add more to that and I started outlining 2001 with a purple thread.

For the black shirt I got the backstitching done in a lime green and I will add to that. I have found that doing a regular blanket stitch does not lay well on the t-shirts, so I do a row of backstitching then come back and add the perpendicular stitches. Doing it this way looks better especially when the stitches are bigger.

99% done

I am almost done with the denim quilt. I got the binding on. Which fabric did I use?

I think that striped binding adds a bit of fun to an otherwise dull quilt. I took care of these holes

by sewing a label I saved from the jeans over the holes

I still have these labels to sew on

and I have to sew on the back the label the kids help me make. I will post the stats and the finished quilt on Monday. I will be glad to have this project done.

I plan on working the R.E.M. quilt as much as possible this weekend. I don't have to be anywhere and other than the normal things around the house to do - cooking, laundry, and cleaning up the studio a bit - I will be concentrating on embroidering. I want to get a bit more done before I submit my entry of it to the Akron Art Prize.

Have a great weekend!

Artist's reception, denim quilt, and baby on a quilt

I went to the artist's reception last evening for the Alternate Approaches exhibit.

It is a small gallery, but everything was displayed wonderfully! There was a lot of interest in my piece, I got lots of questions, and possibly a commission. Here are some pictures of the exhibit including my AC/DC piece.

And here is Cortney. She is such a sweet person and has been extremely supportive of my work. I got to meet her Dad and he was a real hoot!

After driving home thru a torrential downpour, I ran thru one bobbin of thread on the denim quilt and another bobbin this morning before work. That means I now have 90% of it quilted! I will be able to finish quilting it at lunchtime and can put the binding on it after work. Yeah!! It will be done for Father's Day! Here is what I have left to do and a picture of the back in cas you were wondering what it looked like.

Lastly, my sister sent this photo of a baby on one of my baby quilts. The mother is a friend of my sister's and the mother finally got around to getting this recent picture of Zach on his quilt. The mother says Zach loves his quilt. How cute is he?