Sampler progress and digging more

Here is my progress on my zebra sampler. It has been too hot to walk at lunchtime so I stitch instead. Here is where is was

and where I am at now

I spent another two hours working in the yard last night digging up another ornamental grass. I decided to go after the big one and get it out of the way.  It has been in the ground for at least 10 years. 

Here is how wide this puppy was! I was dreading this.

Remarkably this one came out much easier than I had anticipated. I used the mattock to cut it into pieces instead of the chainsaw.  I had to pause every 4 or 5 swings to catch my breath.  That darn mattock  probably weighs at least 10 - 12 pounds so it takes some effort to swing that thing!  I ended up getting eight plants out of this clump. Here are the four I planted at the fence.  FYI- that pile of leaves and branches was dumped there by my neighbor several years ago.  Half the pile was on my property.  I moved some of it last night so I could plant those last two clumps.  I don't like looking at it so I guess I will have to move it farther down the hill.  Ugh!

Then I threw the other four clumps into holes at the end of the new bed I put in last year. This is just a temporary placement for them. I may need a few more of these in the future so I want to keep them alive.

Here is my row of plants. I am anxious to see them grow! It was forecasted an 80% chance of rain today, but that changed and now it's down to 50% later tonight. I am glad I gave the plants a drink of water last night.

So I am down to two clumps to dig out. I will divide these and replant smaller chunks in this bed and find a home for anything I have left. I need to add soil/sweet peat to this bed so I ordered 5 yards of sweet peat. I don't want to dig these up until the sweet peat arrives which is Friday. I can't wait to see that mountain of goodness/pile of work when I get home from work on Friday! Tonight I will start digging up the Shasta daisies I want to thin out and loosen the soil so I can work in the sweet peat on Friday. At least that is the plan unless it is raining.  I figure I should have this bed done this weekend and then I can spend the summer enjoying it.

3 down, 3 to go and some cross stitching

I was tired when I got home from work and since it was so beautiful outside I decided to sit in the garage and do a little cross stitching on my zebra sampler while I enjoyed the weather. Here is what the sampler looks like now

After sitting a while, I finally managed to muster up enough energy to dig out the next ornamental grass. Here is the one that was next

That clump yielded 6 plants

They are planted. That makes 15 plants so far along the fence. I think I should have planted them close together because I am almost to the end of the fence.  No, I am not moving them!  LOL!!

So now I am halfway done so have three more to dig up. I have found that the hardest part is cutting them into chunks even when using the chainsaw.  The root ball is not easy to get thru!

The one tulip bloomed yesterday! I forgot to look to see if it was still there this morning or if the deer found it.

The weather has been cooperative so I have been able to keep on schedule removing one clump of ornamental grass a day. Rain is in the forecast for tomorrow (Thursday) so we will see ...

Back to the t-shirt quilt and digging

I was told yesterday that I wouldn't be getting the backs of the t-shirts so we are going with Plan B. That plan is to use whatever gray t-shirt scraps I can find to use as joining material. Here are the t-shirts that have been hanging on the design wall in no particular arrangement. This will be changing as I put this quilt together.

I dug around at home to see what t-shirts I could find to use for this quilt. Here is the stack I found so far.

I did find some light and medium gray pieces that will get me started. I think I will have to go to a Goodwill and find a few more.

It was time to dig out the next ornamental grass clump.

It went so much easier. It was a smaller plant, but the process went so much smoother. I got four clumps out of this plant. Look how deep the roots are!

They are all planted now and I am liking the way they are looking along the fence.  You can tell where I stopped - that is at the place the where brighter green day lilies are down the hill.

Four to go! That last one at the far edge is going to be a booger to get out. It has been in that spot for over 10 years.

Here is my one lone tulip that a critter located here for me. So far the deer have not found it. I thought I ought to take a picture of it and enjoy it before the deer find it. You can see how close it is to the house, but the deer come right up to the front of the house to eat the early growth of the day lilies so it doesn't bother them.

In this area last year I only had a few daffodils including one or two white ones. This year there are loads of them! What a pretty show.

I just wanted to follow up on the shopping trip on Saturday. Everyone was wearing a mask at the quilt shop. When I got to the bulk food store in Sugarcreek, only about 40% of the people were wearing masks! What the heck! The age range was from 20's to 70's so it wasn't one particular group that was not wearing a mask. Last time I was there in November, 95% of the people were wearing masks. I picked up what I needed and got the heck out of there! We took a drive to Berlin, Ohio and the place was packed! There was very little masks wearing by the people walking around town so I found a place to turn around and left. It seems the more rural areas haven't got the message that there is a pandemic going on or else they just don't care anymore! I would say most of the people were tourists coming to Amish country.  There was a line out the door at one of the restaurants and no social distancing was happening.  I will not be going back out there until next winter when all the tourists are gone and hopefully the pandemic is in decline.

Candy buckets, project bags, and ornamental grass

I got the second candy fabric bucket done, loaded with candy, and delivered on Saturday. I spent all day Saturday visiting family.

I did get a 10x13 vinyl project pouch made for one of my blog readers. I had some small scraps of vinyl, so I decided to make two small bags - an 8x10 and a 8x6.25 - while I was at it and it used up the 2" and 4" strips I had left.   I decided I needed the 8x6.25 to put in my project bag to keep the floss separate.

I did hit one quilt shop while I was out on Saturday. They had just put a bunch of fabric on the clearance shelf so here is what I picked up for $6.00 a yard The fabulous Marcia Derse. There was 4.75 yards!

I liked this green and I thought the spider fabric was cute.

Then I got a yard of this tone on tone print just because.  It was regular price. 

I was having a hard time getting motivated to do anything Sunday, so I worked on my zebra sampler. I got the zebra done. I next had to figure out how much space I needed to leave for the motifs right above the zebra. I don't want to stitch those until I have the location of the border on the right figured out so I can center the heart. So in order to figure that out, I need to stitch the alphabet. I have the horizontal border started then I can start on the alphabet. I have to think about what to stitch since I don't have a chart and that things might not end up exactly as the picture.  I call this improv cross stitching!  LOL!!

Later Sunday I finally decided I needed to do something physical so I decided to start digging up the ornamental grass. The plants had gotten too big for this bed so it is time to divide them.

This is not going to be a easy job! I now have a process figured out so taking out the rest of them should be a little easier. First I dug around the clump, then went around again pushing the spade down to lift the clump out of the ground, then I tried dividing the clump by thrusting the spade into the clump. Well, I got no where with that technique and trying to cut the clump with a knife was fruitless. Then it dawned on me to use my little electric chainsaw to cut up the clump. I know the dirt is not good for the chainsaw blade, but whatever! I got 5 chunks out of that clump! Those clumps weighed over 5 pounds each.

Here is the plan for the clumps; planting them along the property line.

I got out my mattock to chop some holes for the clumps. This is similar to mine. It is better to use than a shovel because it will chop thru roots and there are a lot of roots in this area.

So now they are planted. I'm not looking for perfection here. There were some big roots that I just had to dig a hole where I could. The dirt was easy to dig thru; to roots were the challenge. I think this will look nice once the plants start growing in.  It is about 30' from the top of the hill where I started to the end of the neighbor's fence.  I have plenty of space for the rest of the divided clumps.  All that green is day lilies that never bloom.  I don't think they get enough sun.  I will probably get out the string trimmer and keep cutting them down.  Eventually they will stop growing. 

Here is one gone, 5 to go. My plan is to dig up one clump each night this week. It took me an hour and a half to dig up and replant the first clump. It ought to go a bit faster since I won't waste time trying to divide the clump with the spade. I will be replanting smaller clumps of the ornamental grass in this bed.

One down, one to go

After a reflexology appointment and a spur of the moment pedicure, I finally made it home. All I had time for was to get one of the candy buckets sewn together. The interfacing really wrinkled, but it is not the end of the world. So here is the first one finished. I will finish the other one tonight.

I don't have any big plans for the weekend except to work on the black and white star quilt. Have a wonderful Easter!

March accomplishments, cookies, candy buckets, and Mother Nature is being mean!

What I got done in March Finished - the music quilt

Dog quilt

Christmas stocking

pillowcase

Lots of vinyl project bags

and finished the floor in the laundry/utility room. I guess I had a better month than I thought!

Last night I did dishes, baked cookies for work, and worked on the candy fabric buckets. As soon as I put the cookies on the file cabinet at work this morning, my fellow employees were helping themselves. They are good with a morning cup of java or tea!

Woke up to snow this morning! Mother Nature is being mean!