Stitching, a new project, and plans for the week

I spent last evening stitching on Cherie's small. I would say I was 65% done. I will post a picture once she receives it. I have a new project. My son's second cousin on his dad's side is expecting and he handed me over some of her late father's t-shirts to have me make a quilt for the new arrival. I need to have the quilt done by October 1, so there is plenty of time to get this done. Kaja, there will be some chunky wedges involved in the construction of this quilt!

I will be taking vacation Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday this week. The band has two shows. At least they are less than an hour away. The weather is looking good for the shows and I will try to get a few hours of yardwork in as long as it is early in the day and it is not raining. Besides yardwork, maybe I can get the B&W quilt done and I hope to get Cherie's small done. Getting down a few more boards from the deck will be on the agenda too. Have a great week and weekend! 

B&W quilt update and three busy days

I am now at 53% done with the quilting on the B&W quilt. I really had to force myself to get that white border done. I was getting bored quilting it. So the white border is all quilted and I do have the white triangles on one side of the outer triangle border quilted.

Thursday night I worked on taking more of the deck down. Those boards are long and heavy. The good news is that the majority of the nails were rusted and the boards were not even attached to the joists! All I had to do was scoot the boards to the end of the deck and flip them off. Here is where I was and where I am right now.

After that pulled 15 gallons of weeds and moved some of the bricks for the gutter guys that were coming on Friday. This pile needed moved and the area cleaned up so it would be easier for the guys to do their work. I finished moving the bricks Friday morning. Here is a shot of new location for the bricks and where the bricks were up by the garage.

Here is some of the mess where the bricks were located and how it looks now. Much better!

The guys arrived about 8:45. I helped them a bit cleaning up the old gutters and gathering up the gutter brushes that I had installed. I gifted the gutter brushes to my neighbor. About two hours later they were done. I also saved some of the downspout for my son. He has a missing downspout and needs extensions on several of his downspouts. Now I just need it to rain so I can see how my new gutters work!

I spent Saturday with my son and his girls. We went to Sugarcreek for brunch, stopped at the bulk food store, stopped at a fabric store where bought some quilting thread - 2 black, 1 dark gray and 1 dark navy

I bought a piece of blue and white plaid fabric to go with the fabric Cherie sent me for the back of that vintage plaid rail fence quilt top.

We then headed to Chestnut Ridge Sewing Center so I could drop off my scissors to be sharpened and hit a flea market. I bought a nice bamboo cutting board for seven bucks! I headed back home and crashed. I spend most of Sunday finishing up laundry and quilting. I did pull another 5 gallons of weeds and watered my marigolds. I forgot to take a picture. They have really gotten big in just three weeks! My sister opened her birthday present so now I can show you what I stitched for her

I finished stitching the red SCISSORS small; this is for me.

I have started another small to send to Cherie for sending me the fabric. I had asked her what I could do for her in return for the fabric and she said she would like one of my smalls, but I had to stitch a skull on it! LOL!! I will show you all that small once Cherie receives it. I'm tired.

B&W quilt progress and three busy days ahead

I now have 32% of the B&W quilt quilted. I only have 256 square inches of the black inner border to quilt. That equals to about a bobbin and a half.

I decided I want to use a tan quilting thread for that vintage plaid quilt. I dug around and I have plenty of taupe quilting thread so that will work!

I am almost done stitching that SCISSORS small. Here is where I was and where I am now. I only have to finish that pair of scissors on the upper left and stitch the date.

I am taking tomorrow off because the contractor is coming to replace my gutters. I have a lot of roof area that flows into standard sized gutters. When we get a heavy downpour the water runs over the gutters. Between the overflow and the tunnels the chipmunks have dug around my foundation, I will get water in my studio. As you know I have been working on culling the chipmunks - 19 so far! I also found out the neighbor's cats have been gifting her with dead chipmunks too so the number of those little buggers is being reduced. The new gutters will be bigger; I am getting the 6" ones with leaf guards. I have gutter brushes in my current ones and I will be giving the gutter brushes to my neighbor. I would hate to thrown them away when there is nothing wrong with them. So it is going to be a busy 3 days. Tonight I have to take down the rest of the deck so the gutter guys can get their ladders next to the house to hang the new gutters, I want to make some serious progress on the B&W quilt, and I need to get after a couple of the planting beds where the weeds have gone crazy. Have a great weekend!

Next project

As I work on the B&W quilt, I am thinking about what my next project will be. After finishing that vintage bowtie quilt for a lady I work with I think I would like to finish at least one of the two vintage tops I have. These I think were in boxes of fabric pieces that my SIL gave me years and years ago. There were these two quilt tops and a start of a third top. This top is approx. 65" x 84" and lays pretty flat.

I was looking around for backing that I could use. I would really like a scrappy plaid back, but I don't have any small yardage of any plaids.  I only have yardage of a piece of navy blue plaid and I think that is too dark for the back. I will have to dig around my fabric storage room and see if I can find something. I really don't want to buy any fabric. The other top is this four patch quilt. It doesn't show in the pictures, but the rows start to veer off starting with that far left row. I think this top could benefit from a border. It is not that big of a top right now. I have lots of vintage fabric and the vintage scraps that came with the top so maybe I could use that to add on to this.

I also dug out this piece of vintage fabric that a friend gave me that I think would make a fun back for the four patch top. I don't think I want to put a print on the back of the plaid top.

There was a beautiful pink and lavender sunrise this morning.

Fun mail

I was excited to receive a book in the mail that I got off of eBay. I had watched a floss tube Linen and Scraps and they showed not this book, but another one by the author. This one was half price so I jumped on it.

It is full of wonderful cross stitch alphabets and some motifs. The book was in near mint condition and was half price.

I made some more progress on that cross stitch SCISSORS piece. I should have it done by the end of this week. Here is where I was yesterday and what it looks like now.

We finally got some rain last night. I hear the thunder about 8:30, but passed out and didn't hear anything after that. We must have gotten quite a downpour since I found water in my lower level this morning. I am going to call the gutter contractor again and see when he can replace my gutters so I don't get water in the studio.

B&W quilt progress

I made some good progress on the B&W quilt. The area circled in blue is quilted. I only have one side and a half of that black border to quilt.  I am at 29% quilted right now.

I spent Friday and a bit on Saturday pressing and stitching the handles for 51 more tote bags. I was not moving fast on Saturday since I had spent two hours out in the heat Friday night mowing and watering. The heat sure took the wind out of my sails!

My brother sent me pictures of the band's new trailer. The old trailer was 5'x8' with a rounded top. This one is 6' x 10' and has 11 inches more of head room. The best part of this new trailer is we can now roll the equipment and road cases on the trailer rather than having to pick them up as the old trailer did not have a ramp style door.  This also means that I don't have to get the two merch road cases packed so quickly.  They always had to be loaded first on the old trailer.  You can't close the merch booth down when you still have customers.  Now the guys can start loading the equipment first and the merch cases can go in last.  

I got a bit more done on the cross stitch piece

and I finished up the items for my sister's birthday present. I need to get those in the mail. As soon as she receives them I will show you what I sent her. The show for Saturday got canceled. Apparently the promoter didn't have the money to pay the band.

More tote bags are needed

It was another busy evening of chores and watering. It was 90 yesterday and the neighbor's flower pots needed watering again along with my marigold seedlings. I also watered the cora bell bed; those little guys needed a drink bad! It is quite a chore dragging my hose to the neighbor's house and then dragging the hose thru the backyard to the other side of the house where the cora bell bed is located. I need to make some more tote bags for the merchandise booth. I have a few bags cut out ready to sew

Then tonight I will start cutting out bags from the fabric Linda sent me. I am taking a vacation day Friday so I will spend some serious time sewing the tote bags. I made 102 so far and they are almost gone! We have six shows this month so I am going to need a lot more bags!  I can sew the bags between making cookies and some of those mini pecan pie muffins for the band and crew for Saturday.  

I started on a new small cross stitch piece.

Saturday the band has a show in a town that is only 12 miles away from my brother's house so that won't be too bad as far as travel time. Right now I have no idea what time the show will be, but I am hoping to get to bed by midnight so Sunday isn't a total waste from being too tired. Have a great weekend!