Moving forward on alterations

Last evening I got the zig zagging done on three pairs of pants and hand stitched the hems. This is the bag where I am placing the items that are completed. I put in two pair of the pants - the third pair is lined so I will need to shorten the lining before they are done and go into the bag. By the way, these are not my clothes. They belong to an x-cousin by marriage and her daughter. We are still friends after all these years and I can't say no. So I met part of my time management goal last evening. I didn't get anything done on the zig zag quilt. We will try again tonight!

We finally got some rain last night! It is still overcast so hopefully we will continue to get more. It has not rained for several weeks and the ground was rock hard. No way to easily weed with that hard ground. Here are some pictures of the daylillies this morning refreshed with the rain.

Updates on the zig zag quilt and the TDF

I worked on the quilt while watching the TDF. I get nervous when the crowds are so close to the riders on the mountain stages and it is hard for me to watch so I sew and just look up here and there. Starting with the top rows - rows 1 thru 7 are all sewn together, Rows 8 thru 11 are sewn together, Rows 12 and 13 the blocks are sewn into rows, and rows 14 thru 17 still need the blocks sew to make rows. It is funny to see once the blocks are sewn together how much shorter they are than the blocks just layed side by side - see the lower right hand corner of the quilt. I had to make a few more patches. I did not have enough of the right colors in the pile of patches I had already made.

My favorite rider, Thor Hushovd, won mountain stage 13. That was a suprise to the commentators since Thor is a sprinter, but I have seen Thor rock a mountain stage in the past so I was not suprise - just delighted! Cavendish is still in green and Voeckler is still in yellow as of Stage 15. Today is a rest day. There were a few individal crashes this weekend, but no broken bones - just road rash and stitches.

I wasted a lot of time on Sunday procrasting working on the alterations. I watched a movie, made homemade pizza, cleaned up the sewing studio, did laundry, shall I go on? I broke down and started going thru the pile of alterations and doing the easy stuff first. I hemmed three pairs of pants and have 3 more ready for zig zagging the hems and then I will hand sew the hems. I am going to try and stick with a schedule this week - spend one hour on the zig zag quilt and one and one half hour on alterations to try to put a dent in both.

Steady progress and I want to go Fast!

Just like the boys making steady progress up the mountains yesterday, I am making steady progress on the Xmas zig zag quilt. I added 48 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" blocks last evening - yellow, orange, and fushia. I was digging around and did not find many purple fabrics except for batiks. I may have to move my purple row to a shorter row since I don't have many purples.

I can't imagine going down a mountain 61 MPH on a bike, but that was the average speed yesterday. That would scare the bejabers out of me!

Phillipe Gilbert - I want to go fast!

Plans for the weekend are simple, watch the Tdf, try to get some weeding done, alterations, and maybe make some more block for the Xmas quilt. Have a great weekend!

More patches on the design wall

I added more rows to the Xmas zig zag quilt last evening. I have gone thru the entire pile of patches and now I know what colors in the scrap bins I need to work on next - yellow, pink, and purple for sure. Right now the finish size would be 70" x 85". I will need make it a bit wider and possibly one or two rows longer.

Here is the pile of patches left that will go into baby quilts. This spring I just barely got into turning my scraps into these patches, so it will be interesting to see how many quilts all of these scraps turn into. So glad I bought a bolt and a half of Kona snow in May - I am going to need it to wrangle all my scraps into usable patches!

Yesterday it was a good day for Mark Cavendish of team HTC - he won the stage and is now leader in the green points jersey. Mark is an intense competitor, but has a soft, emotional side that makes you just want to give him a hug. It just poured rain at the end of the stage and I was concerned that there potential for a crash because of the wet conditions, but it was all good.

Today's stage profile - the first day in the Pyrenees - is a gut buster! I could not walk up those mountains much less ride a bike!

On the design wall

I played around a bit and decided to start throwing some of my patches up on the design wall for the family Xmas quilt. I just love zig zag quilts! I expect by the time I am done this will be a queen sized quilt.

The rest day Monday was very helpful to many riders nursing their wounds. The good news is the Juan Antonio Flecha who was hit by the media car was back in the race on Tuesday. He had both elbows and knees bandaged from the tumble he took across the pavement.

Here is Johnny Hoogeland receiving his King of the Mountain polka dot jersey on Sunday after he went down in the same accident as Flecha, but Hoogeland ended up on the barbed wire fence. After the race he had to have 33 stitches in his legs. He got back on the bike on Tuesday and completed the stage. Talk about being tough! By the way, the rider who was reported of having a suspected fracture pelvis - well he broke the head off his femur. He is having surgery and looking at 3 months of rehab. It was unfortunate because he was retiring after this tour.

Another daylilly from the garden. We have been getting some rain, so maybe the ground will soften up and make it easier to pull weeds this weekend.

How do you stay motivated?

Last evening I messed around to avoid tackling this pile of alterations. I need to find the motivation to get these done so I can move on to what I want to do. How do you motivated yourself to accomplish a job you don't really want to do? I keep telling myself to just buckle down and get it done so it is out of my hair. So far that is not working!

This is not the best flower, but after the rain yesterday afternoon this is what was left. I forgot what color this daylilly was since last year the deer at every bud off of this plant.

I have two plants of this color of daylilly. My apricot daylilly was covered with flowers until during the day a deer came along and ate almost all the flowers. It didn't snack on any other plants thank goodness!

I saw Bubba and mom this morning. Mom has her ears perked up looking at me when I opened the window to take this picture.

Here is my pile of patches for zig zag quilts that I have when I started cleaning out my scrap bins. I still have more scraps, but I have over 500 patches (5 1/2" x 5 1/2" including seam allowances) which I plan on using for this years family Xmas quilt. I want to get started on that quilt and have it done before Xmas this year.

Quilty weekend

I got the Dutch wax quilt sewn together, pieced the back, and pinned basted so it is ready for quilting. This is a birthday present for someone and that was what drove the design and fabric choices.

The boys in the TdF had a rough Friday, Saturday, and Sunday - 3 broken collarbones, a broken wrist, a suspected fractured pevis, a broken nose with a concussion, two broken arms, one rider knocked off his bicycle by a motor bike, and two riders knocked off their bike by a car. One of the riders knocked off by the car landed on a barbed wire fence. He and the other rider got back up and finished the stage. The motorbike that hit the rider got thrown out of the tour and I suspect that the car, which was a French media car, will also be tossed out. Here is a picture of the worst crash on Sunday. I hate to see this happen.

I did get an hour and a half of weeding done early Sunday. I was up at 5:40 am Sunday. It was cool out so I was out weeding by 6. So one flower bed is done - yeah. I started on those pesky alterations Sunday afternoon. I think that will be what I will be doing while I watch the tour this week.