So glad it is Friday

I was exausted when I got home from work last evening. It was a crazy day at work! The highlight of the craziness was when the police showed up and wanted to talk to one of the men about what he saw when some thug jumped the fence at the top of the hill behind the building (which happens to be a temporary school building). The thug fell, bounced down the hill, brushed himself off, and took off running. Apparently he had threatened someone the and the cops were chasing him down esp. since there was a gun involved. My co-worked was outside having a smoke when the thug fell down the hill. Crazy! Here is the hill the thug fell down.

Saturday my nephew's band will be playing at two venues so I will be busy all day. My job with the band now is selling t-shirts and his first CD. I plan on making oatmeal cookies tonight so we have a quick snack tomorrow just in case. It is going to be a long day so I will probably take some hand sewing and/or some knitting for the downtime to keep my hands busy and to be at least somewhat productive.

Sunday will be all about working on the Halloween quilt. I really want to get into making more blocks out of this fun fabric I have been collecting for this quilt. If the weather is decent I will try to spend and hour or two cleaning up the next section of the backyard. I haven't been able to get anything done since Tuesday since Wednesday was quilt group and yesterday it rained. I need to keep my momentum going on this huge undertaking!


Have a great weekend!

Modern quilt group meeting

We had our Modern quilt guild meeting at a quilt shop that just opened about a year ago - Sew Deja Vu. What a lovely shop! Stupid me I forgot to take picture of the shelves of beautiful fabric. I could have spent a lot of money because they had so much great fabric! The owners gave a informative presentation on thread and needles and lots of questions were asked and answered. They also provided coffee, soda, cake, cookies, and the all important chocolate kisses!

I was early so I started to shop and found some wonderful pieces on the sale shelf. Only $5.00 a yard! The gray piece is for binding on a quilt and the rest is for the stash.

Then is was show and tell time. I took my yellow and gray baby quilt top I just finished. I fielded more questions about improv piecing.
One lady was really busy! She made this fun quilt and I just love the colors. It was like a warm gray with brown and green undertones. The color reminded me of facial mud. What a great color.

Look at the back! Isn't it great?

She also made these lovely pillows using Jacquie's Quilting Modern book.

And here are the backs - just a cute as the fronts!


It was a fun time and we had the whole shop to ourselves! Many of the member were shopping and the owners were so helpful. So if you are ever in NE Ohio and are looking a a wonderful quilt shop, make sure you check out Sew Deja Vu. Thank you Sew Deja Vu for a lovely evening.

Progess in the backyard cleanup and on the sewing front

I am posting late as we were watching a huge fire down the street from where I work. Huge plumes of black smoke and there were seven huge fireballs that had to be 100 feet high. I don't know what happened, but I just hope no one was injured.
Here is my pile of debris I racked up in the first evening of the big backyard clean up. Two hours and 15 minutes of raking, then weed wacking, then raking again to get a wheelbarrow full of sticks and four wheelbarrow loads of dead grass and leaves. What a mess!

This is what the area looks like now after the clean up. I still need to get rid of the junk leaning against the garage, but over all it looks so much better!

This area is next. I plan on planting all my extra daffodil bulbs in this area so I will have some fun color next spring.

It was 7:45 before I finally sat down at the machine. I was tired, but I went ahead and managed to sew these two section together. Tonight is quilt group (so not yardwork tonight!) and we are meeting at a new quilt shop that opened last year. I have never been there so it will be fun to see what they have.

Next project

The weather is finally nice so I again last evening decided to do some yard work. I got another flower bed cleared of debris, spot sprayed weeds, and then got really brave and tackled the back yard. I will have to attack the backyard in sections because it is so bad. I mowed a section and tonight I will rake. There are a lot of sticks and leaves, and since the grass was very tall I couldn't use the bagger so I will have to rake. I need to keep doing this every night until I get a handle on the mess. It is suppose to rain tomorrow so that will slow down my progress, but I will just keep working between the drops. One piece of equipment I wish I had is a chipper/shredder. With part of my backyard being wooded there are so many sticks and branches that it is hard to keep up. I burnt some stuff last year, but that just takes too long when you can only have a little fire.

After working outside I figured my next project would be the Halloween quilt I am making for my brother, Mike, whose birthday is on Halloween. I had some pieces already made because I used the Halloween fabric for my improv demo at quilt group. Here is what I have done so far. I just randomly stuck them on my design wall.

I have a few groups of pieces that I cut to show how I improv cut the fabric so I will sew those together next. Then it will be a process of cutting and sewing more blocks. It doesn't take long to sew these blocks together, so this is a nice way of getting a little sewing time when I come in from working in the yard.

2nd finish of 2013

This quilt is for my neighbor who is having a girl and the room is pink and gray. I am glad to have this done before the baby has been born! Oh, I did get a voice mail from the fellow that is going to be the grandfather of the baby who is getting the Buffet baby quilt. He loved it! He was almost at a loss for words.



I had four of these blocks sewn together. I had used them for a demonstration at the MQG meeting when I did a demo on improv piecing. I found the pieces for the last two blocks on Sunday so I sewed them together and then decided to sew the six blocks together and make a baby quilt. I added a border and this top is ready for quilting.

My yard is in need of some major TLC. I picked up some crabgrass preventer on Saturday when I was out and about. I didn't mow on Saturday because it kept SNOWING! It was cold and very windy, but Sunday it warmed up to 50 degrees so I was weed wacking, mowing, and spreading the halts. The front looks better, but I have more serious work that I need to do to get it back in shape. I do have a new toy coming that will help with my outside spring cleaning! I will post pictures once I get it.

I am making a date with ...

my paintbrush. I need to get a final coat of paint on the trim in my bedroom so I can install the paintable wallpaper I just bought on ebay. I have been watching for a good deal and found this vintage paper. I put in a offer of $8.00 a roll and they accepted. The rolls usually only have 33' for a double roll, but these rolls are 65' so it was like buying 14 double rolls So doing the math, I paid $5.57 a double roll including shipping. It has a subtle stucco texture. I bought enough to do the bedroom, the bedroom entrance, and the sewing studio.

I got started on the binding for the gray and pink quilt. I just didn't have much ambition last evening. I had to watch the season finale of Southland and after that I was pretty much useless!

When I pulled into the parking lot this morning momma duck was just sitting right out in the open. She was only about 15' from my car. Once I opened my door she stood up and started slowly walking. She keeps her distance but does not seen frightened of people.


My plans this weekend are not to mess around and get some stuff around the house done including a lot of painting, finishing the binding on the gray and pink quilt, and figuring out what is the next sewing project.

Have a great weekend!

The quilting is done

I finished quilting the gray and pink quilt last evening. No yard work because of the threat of rain. I am showing the binding I will be using on this quilt and will work on that tonight after I get some odds and ends done like laundry and dishes.