Baby quilt top 5 done - onward!

Here it is all sewn together.

I cut the centers for the next top, but I messed up this morning. Instead of 6 1/2" x 6 1/2" I had a piece that was 6 1/2" x almost 6". I recut the pieces so now they are 5 3/4" x 5 3/4". I will just have to be creative to make up the difference. I wonder what I will do?

Weeding, digging, and sewing Oh My!

I sat down for dinner last evening and the next thing I know it was 6 p.m.! It was a nice cool evening so I decided I would weed one of the flower beds a bit. Here is the before.

It looks better now. We had some rain the night before which helped soften up the ground. I rained last night too a bit. When pulling weeds I found about a half dozen zinnias coming up from seeds that must have survived from last year. I still need to plant my seeds - coneflowers and Shasta daisies - and I will do that tonight since the high today is only forecasted to be 68. Since the front yard faces the south it is just too hot to work out there when it is in the 80's and 90's.

I promised one of the fellows at work that I would bring him three more Lenten roses so I went around back and dug those up. Here they are in buckets. I gave them a drink of water and took them to work with me this morning. He has a shady backyard and a deer problem so this plant is the solution for both of those issues. I have given him some of these before and he really likes them. He is impressed how much his have grown and filled out in such a short amount of time.

I was up early this morning and sewed together one more block of the current baby quilt top.

Baby quilt top 5 progress

I cut more white and black strips and a few more gray strips last evening to fill in the empty spots. I cut the strips 3 1/2". The solid squares were cut at 6 1/2". I got two blocks sewn together into one of the three rows that will make up this quilt.

This top will end up being approx. 35 1/2' x 45". I like this layout and may make a few more like it.

UFO update, Road trip with the band and another baby quilt top

It that time to update my UFO progress for Vicki's blog and website - Colorways by Vicki Welsh. I started the year with 28 UFO on my list. You can see them on my 1/5/16 post. I have finished three items on the list, and I have three items in progress - #21 I am using some of those parts for the baby quilts I am making for UFO #27, #26 - I have one quilt made and I have started to machine quilt it, and #27 - I have made four baby quilt tops so far and have number 5 on the design wall.


Saturday I was up at 5:30 am to make cookies to take on the road trip with the band. I had to be at my brother's house at 8. We headed to downtown Sandusky, Ohio and play for Bike Week. There were motorcycles everywhere! We had an easy load in and load out. It sprinkled just a bit. The stage was on a barge on Lake Erie which was kind of cool except the movement of the stage was starting to Michael sick and his bass player said afterwards that a couple of time the stage moved so much he messed up his playing.

The band played for 2 hours and 15 minutes straight. The stage crew leader said Michael's band put on the best show he saw all week. The kid worked so hard he broke the screw that held his guitar strap and cut his finger from playing. He said he was bleeding all over the guitar and it was affecting the strings as the wouldn't reverberate very well. So rock n' roll!

I was busy at the merchandise booth! We sold more CD's at this venue that any other one I have ever worked. After the show it was just crazy with all the people wanting to meet Michael and have him sign CD's. We got free burgers for dinner for Michael mentioning a place during the show three times. We ate in the car and headed back. I go home about 6:30. I was a bit tired. It was an hour and 40 minute drive one way.

Sunday I did laundry, cooked a bit, cleaned, and made myself a new rug. Friday we were cleaning out one of the construction trailers and tossing all kinds of stuff into the dumpster. I saved the carpet samples

I thought I could tape them together and replace the pad I had under my sewing chair. It was disgusting!

So now I have a new rug for the cost of some tape!

I sewed together the baby quilt top that was on the design wall.

And I have another one started. I need to cut a few strips of white fabrics as I have used up most of what I originally cut.

Another baby quilt top in progress

For this top I combined some pieces from another UFO project with the strips. The log cabin in the upper right is sewn together, but I still have the rest to sew. I will have to construct this with partial seams in some places in order to put it together. That make is a bit more interesting visually and mentally.

I still have quite a pile of strips so there will be more of these coming!

Have a great weekend!

Orange log cabin top is done

It was too hot - 89 degrees - to be outside last evening so I spent my time sewing together the orange log cabin baby quilt. You can see that I rearranged the strips a bit. I thought the other arrangement shown the day before was too boring.

It is now hanging with the other two tops I have made from the strips I cut last fall. I will probably wait until I get 8 - 10 tops done before I start finishing them. It will be like mass production! It will be nice to have my stash of baby quilts rebuilt.

I still have this pile of strips for more baby quilts. I will be arranging them today on the design wall for quilt top number four.

and I have this pile of scraps. I have several ideas on how I am going to use these scraps in making at least two more baby quilts from them. I will be adding white or off white to them.

I bought a 12" fan yesterday at the grocery/discount stuff store. I had bought a small one last year and it has worked well for being so inexpensive. This one was $13.99. It took about 5 minutes to assemble. I like the way the guard is attached with clips. That will make it easy to take it off to clean the blades in the future. I bought this for the bedroom for additional air movement with the AC. With the fan I don't have to turn the thermostat down as far. Also, the fan was quiet which is surprising for such an inexpensive fan.

Next baby quilt and work around the house

Here is the next baby quilt out of my UFO pile of strips. I did have to cut a few more strips to have enough for this. It looks a bit out of whack, but once it is sewn together it will be fine.

I did some dishes last evening while I cooked dinner, did a load of laundry, and tried to start the mower. Here are pictures of the grass that didn't get mowed when the mower ran out of gas and I couldn't get it started again.

Well I couldn't get the mower started so I broke out the weed whacker and used it to cut the grass in the strip and not the area next to the woods. I was sweating so bad that I couldn't see thru my glasses so I called it quits. I will go back and do the section next to the woods tonight even though it is suppose to be 90 today. By the time I get out to whack the grass, this part of the yard will be in the shade. Yesterday it got up to 89. That is just too hot for this time of the year.

While I was weed whacking I did a bit next to the house too. There were a couple of cora bells that never did very well where they were planted so I dug those up and moved them. Then as I was going after the weeds I saw a little toad. He was only about an inch long. I had a watering can some water for the cora bells so I gave him a little shower. He seemed to like it because he didn't jump away.