Well that was dumb!

After work I had to go get my car e-checked. I waited until this week to do it since I am having to take another detour on my way home and the e-check place is not that far out of my way from that detour. Right now I have to take two detours on my way to and from work. It seems like the detours are moving around and this has been going on all summer. Some mornings I really have to think about what route to take to work! Anyway, in case you don't have e-check, it is where you have to get the emissions checked so you can get your license plate sticker; what a waste of time. I have to go every other year. The state runs the operation and they use to charge you over $20.00 to get the test done! I still pay by way of taxes, but at least I don't have to pay again at the test site. Oh, of course my car passed. Not all counties make you do this. What really bugs me is the trucks spewing black exhaust don't get e-checked. How does that make sense? Ok, enough of that.

Once I finally got home I needed to water the plants. It has been hot here - almost 90 everyday - and everything needed a drink. I also needed to water the neighbor's pots since they bake in the sun all day long. All of that took over an hour and even with a good, stiff wind I was sweating. I was working on getting some project bags ready for shipping and realized I did a dumb, bonehead move. Two of the bags were made with a directional print. One of them the print goes in the right direction, but for some dumb reason I didn't look twice and the other one the print was upside down. Ugh! I can't send that to someone! I didn't have enough of that same fabric to make another one so I had to find something else. I got started on cutting the pieces and I will sew it together tonight.

A new project and cross stitch progress

Last night I had a suprise visit from my nephew who has the band. He was on my side of town to buy an bass amp. He brought it to me so I could make a cover for it.

He brought the cover I had made for another one of his amps so I could make the new cover the same way except for one minor change. He wants a zippered pocket for the cords, picks, and tuner. That will be easy enough. I used the car cover fabric, put a layer of batting, then backed it with flannel and quilted the pieces before I sewed the cover together.

We use to have to bring our own PA system to some gigs. Several years ago after we got caught in a horrible storm, my brother wanted me to make covers for the PA speakers. I made one, but shortly after that we were not booking any gigs where we had to furnish the PA system. Michael brought me the one cover I made for the PA speakers to cut up and use the fabric for his new bass amp. No sense in wasting all that fabric! I figure this will be a project for this weekend.

I made great progress on the pastel deer pillow cover. This is so much more enjoyable to stitch than the black one was. I was so bored stitching black thread. Here is where I was on 9/9/2021 and where I am today.

Here is a close up so you can see the color better. I am using one strand folded in half so the colors blend most of the time, but there are times where I get just pink stitches or just lavender/periwinkle stitches.

Flannel blocks and lots of cross stitch

My neighbor is on vacation so another neighbor and I mowed their grass and our own grass Friday evening. After that I watered, so after two hours of that I was done for the evening. I was glad to have the mowing done so the rest of the weekend was for fun stuff! I got another 75 - 85 flannel blocks sewn together

Saturday I wanted to watch the Notre Dame game while stitching, but the game was on Peacock! Really? What the heck! After a conversation with my son I am going to breakdown and get rid of DISH and get the internet. He can hook me up with Hulu; he is allowed to give out his password to 5 people. I did spend most of Saturday doing cross stitch. I finish this small piece. I used some 28 count Lugana that I have had since the 80's and one strand of silk buttonhole twist over two threads. The Lugana is a light sage color although it looks tan in the picture.  I ran out of the black  buttonhole twist, so I used a 10 yard spool of a dark brown. I didn't have enough dark brown to stitch the 1889 so I used another brown. The difference in color is hard to see in the picture. I need to get some walnut shells to stuff it.

I then started a pincushion. I had bought a piece of 32 count gray linen and wanted to try it out. I am using Weeks Dyeworks Garnet.

I also worked on the pastel deer pillow top, but I will save that for my Tuesday posts. I watched the Browns lose to the KC Chiefs and called it a weekend.

More flannel blocks and TGIF

So last night was sewing together more flannel blocks. Big surprise - not!  LOL!!1. As I was sewing I watch a movie "The Rainmaker" with Matt Damon. I had never seen it.  It was made the same year as Good Will Hunting. I thought it was good. Here are the blocks I got done

I am looking forward to a quiet weekend with lots of sewing and probably some weeding and mowing. The forecast is for temps in the high 80's up to 90 so I will definitely be giving my new neck fan a workout! Have a great weekend!

More 9 patch blocks and deer cross stitch progress

I did better last night and got a nice pile of blocks sewn.

To show you my progress getting these flannel 9 patch blocks stitched together, here is a picture of the piles when I started and where I am now

I finally finished stitching the black deer piece. The next step is to turn this into a pillow

I have gotten started on the second deer pillow top. I am using a varigated thread and it is much more interesting to stitch with than the black. The floss is varigated from pink to periwinkle.

Better than nothing

I had things to do around the house so not a lot of sewing got done. I did get a few flannel blocks sew which is better than none sewn!

I forgot to show you the early birthday present I received from my nephew, brother, and SIL. It is a rechargeable neck fan! My SIL wears one all the time. I had a small one I bought but it was on a cord and was heavy.  It hurt my neck.  This one is so lightweight I don't feel it on my neck. I used it during the show on Saturday until the power ran out. I need to get it charged back up so I can wear it weeding and mowing.

A busy holiday weekend

It was a busy four days. Friday I took a half day of vacation so on my way home I stopped at a veggie stand/garden center and got a bag of peaches, stopped at the library, a cross stitch shop. When I got home I started on making some vinyl project bags. I finished those up on Sunday. I made some smaller bags that can be used to keep packs of needles or your scissors in and needle books. Now I just have to find some mailing envelopes that are big enough so I can get these in the mail.

Saturday the band had a gig so I made cookies. This time I made Pan banging chocolate chip cookies. These are big cookies and I can only bake 5 at a time so it took over 4 hours to get 4 batches of dough baked. Everyone liked them. This picture is just part of the ones I made. I ended up with 46 so that everyone got 3 cookies.

The gig went pretty good although it did lightly rain on us during the show and when we were loading out. I had a great view of the stage.

Here is some of the early crowd before the show

The merch booth

Right next to the merch booth was this cool area of stacked rocks. I would sit and watch the show from here when I didn't have any customers and it wasn't raining.

By the time we packed up, drove back to my brother's house, unloaded the trailer and van, and I drove home, I got to bed at 1 a.m.  On Sunday it was nice and sunny out so my brother, SIL, and Michel had to lay all of the equipment that got damp in the driveway so it could dry out.

Monday I finally had time and the energy to stitch 9 patch flannel blocks together. Here is what I got done before I had to mow and trim.  I also had to drag out the hose so I could water my neighbor's flower pots.  I am so glad I have a really long hose!