Making progress!

Here is my progress on the small. I worked on it a bit last night after I came in from working outside, a bit this morning before I left to go get blood drawn, and a bit done while I waited 50 minutes for my turn. I know I can will have this done for Saturday. Sorry, it is a bit wrinkled!

When I got home from work I decided to work on the front bed and cut down the ornamental grass.

I put the hedge clipper attachment on that battery powered hand held device my friend gave me for my birthday.

That little thing cut the grass down like a hot knife thru butter! It only took me 15 - 20 minutes to cut the plants down, but it took an hour to clean up the mess. Four trips with the wheelbarrow and it is not looking too bad. At least the worst of the mess is cleaned up. I think tonight I will work on raking the gravel out of the grass and shoveling up the pile by the curb left from the one time the city actually needed to plow this winter. The pushed the snow here along with the gravel.

Geeze I was tired after that! It was overcast and a bit cooler - only 52 - but this is still fabulous weather for NE Ohio in February so I am not complaining! Before I sat down to stitch, I opened the box of fabric that had arrived. I wanted some of the Robert Kauffman Wishwell Weather Report fabric like Wanda was using in her monkey wrench quilt. I am late to the party buying this fabric. Wanda gave me a couple leads on where I might be able to get some. This bunch I got from 5 bucks a yard.com. I bought all they had of the colors they still had except the Sea Glass light green color. They still have 5 yards of that. I paid $6.99 a yard.

So that I would get free shipping I bought a few yards of three other Rober Kauffman fabrics that were reduced to $5.40.

I am still looking around to try and find a few more pieces of the Wishwell Weather. On Etsy one person was charging $10.41 at half yard! Forget that! I found another place that has some at full price, $11.95.

Furiously stitching

First, did I ever have the wrong Monday for President's Day! LOL!! I did get my sister's Valentine present ready and it is going in the mail today. I received an email from a friend and she is coming over Saturday for the day. I am not sure what all we are going to do, but it will be fun to hang out. Last time she was over I gave her a cross stitch small Vintage buttons. She had some vintage buttons and I gave her the stuff she needed to finish it herself. She wanted one for her sister so I told her I would stitch one for her and she can help her with adding the buttons and finishing it. I messed up the first one. I will finish this one myself since the small border on the lower edge doesn't bother me.

So now I am stitching like a crazy person trying to get one done so I can give it to her on Saturday. I only had about 2" of the border done when I started on it yesterday. So the border is done and I got a good start on the letters. I can get a half hour of stitching in before work starts, and I can get another 15 - 20 minutes at lunchtime after my walk. I will stitch any chance I get over the next few days even if it is for just a few minutes here and there. It all can add up!

I think I will have enough floss. I had another floss bobbin of 936, but the color is a bit off. What I am using came from that lot of floss that came with the Magnum box I bought last year so who knows how old that floss is! This is what I have left.

It was 52 when I got home from work so I decided to get an hour of work outside. I needed to cut back this zebra grass.

It only took about a half hour to cut it down and clean up the mess.

Next I went after the center bed. Besides the leaves there were clumps of some weeds coming up all over the place.

I got out my handy dandy new hoe and went at it! What I was surprised at is that I didn't find was any daylilies coming up in this area. I had cleaned them out last fall and I must have done a pretty good job.

I barely put a dent in the clean up for this bed, but as long as the weather is in the 50s, I will work an hour in the yard each night after work to get a head start. I was outside about an hour and a half because there was visiting with neighbors during the clean up.

Project bags, pin basting, tote bags, and my new hoe

I tried very hard this weekend to not waste any time and get some stuff done. First the project bags. They are done and I made a few more. I love making these.

Saturday morning, I had to make an emergency trip to the car shop. Friday as I was leaving work one of the headlights died. I cannot drive on dark country roads without both headlights, so I took some knitting and a cross stitch project to keep me busy while I waited for them to fit me in. It only took 45 minutes instead of the estimated 2 hours, so I did get a solid 45 minutes of knitting on that scarf; it is almost done. After stopping a couple places, I headed home. Next project was to get the chevron baby quilt pin basted. I had gotten the top sewn together Friday night. The baby is due March 9.

I had to take some time to clean up the studio. It was bad! Next, I finished a small I made for my sister for Valentine's Day. Ok Kathy don't look! Yes, I am running late, and the post office is closed today because of President's Day so I will get this and a couple of things for her in the mail sometime this week.

On Sunday it was so nice outside I had to go out and try my new hoe. I hadn't even taken it out of the box yet so with doing that I did a bit of cleaning up in the garage while I was at it. Here is my new hoe.

I have been dreading digging up the daylilies in this bed by the house. I circled where the daylilies are located. They are so hard to dig up and they have been in this location for 10-15 years.

I also had this stump that I have been unable to get out.

Well, my new hoe cut thru the daylily roots like butter, and I was able to dig around the stump, cut the roots and get it out! Who knew a hoe could make such a difference. I wish I had one of these 30 years ago!

I love my new hoe! Here is what the bed looks like now. It is too early to sow seeds (I saved lots of coneflower seeds from last year), I will just let this bed sit and see if any daylilies I might have missed show up.

The last project I worked on was tote bags. I needed to press and topstitch more handles. Once those were topstitched, I had time to sew four bags together.

I have six more bags ready to sew together, three bags I will have to cut some fabric for handles and then all of the regular sized bags from that 162 I cut out a couple months ago will be sewn together. I then will work on the bigger bags for drumheads. I think I have around 15 of those.

Saturday night there was a beautiful sunset.

Yeah it is Friday!

I got the binding pressed on all the project bags and I got three sewn. I will finish the other three tonight. It doesn't take very long to stitch them, but I was tired last night and just couldn't get them done. The small sized binder clips hold the binding in place so nicely and keeps the corners folded. They are inexpensive too!

I took a walk around the yard since it was 68 degrees in February in NE Ohio! This weather is crazy! I saw that my Lenten roses are starting to bloom. The bed is a mess and I need to get it cleaned up!

This weekend is going to be busy. I have a small cross stitch piece that I need to finish so I can mail it, I need to get started on that chevron quilt - the baby is due March 9th, I need to get caught up on tote bags; I need to get twenty made, and since the weather is going to be decent, I need to try and get the Lenten Rose bed cleaned up. Have a great weekend!

One more step done

Getting these project bags completed has become a slow process. It seems my evenings just fly by. I did get the vinyl fronts trimmed. I finally figured out an easier and more accurate way to trim them; it just takes a bit more time. Tonight I can start to press the binding edges and maybe get a couple of them finished.

As soon as I got home from work I wanted to try out a recipe for Cinnamon Bun Scones that I found yesterday. They came out ok, but I am planning on tweaking the recipe. The dough came out way too soft to roll in a pinwheel. I had quite a mess on my hands, but managed to get them rolled.

Progress on the project bags

I am trying not just set partial projects aside. Those can pile up very quickly so I am working on getting the rest of the project bags finished. Last night I got the zipper units sewn and attached the vinyl fronts.

Tonight, I will trim them to size, then start the final assembly. The black bags with stars are for my sister and the other ones are for me unless someone wants one. I can always make more!

Scarf and small

Yesterday after work I had a hair appointment, so I didn't get much done when I got home. I will show you the progress I have made on the scarf. I will knit up the remaining yarn of this second skein and I have a small ball from the third skein not shown here. Once I run out of yarn it will be done!

I also finished stitching another small. I was way off on starting in the center! There is enough linen at the bottom to make this into a small, but I stitched this to give someone, and I am not happy to pass on so little wiggle room. I plan on stitching another one and will keep this one for me.

The ladies at work were very happy with the boxy pouches and the project bag. I believe they will be wanting more.