Exhausting three days

I think it will take a couple more days to recover from this weekend. I forgot to take pictures of the chocolate muffins and oatmeal cookies I made for the band and crew for Friday's show. They went over big! I did get another six tote bags made to take Friday and then finished up the last four in that batch on Saturday.

I have 10 more bags to sew together and then all 92 that I had cut out over the 4th of July time off will be done. I have made bags out of corduroy, cotton, upholstery fabric, drape fabric, some kind of fuzzy material, twill, and duck. I haven't made any out of lightweight knit fabric; not sure how those would be, but if someone passed to me some double knit I think that fabric would make some sturdy bags. All of these tote bags are used at the merchandise booth for my nephew's band. I make the bags big enough that an album will fit in them. Michael's sell albums as well as CD's. Some people hesitate buying an album because they don't want to carry it around. Give them a bag and they buy. Most people are very surprised and excited to get such a nice bag with their purchase. I get comments that we do it right! When Michael announced to the crowd about the bags at the VW show, we got slammed and I think sold merch because they knew they were getting a bag. I have people come to the booth and tell me how many of my bags they have! Here is the merch booth all set up at the show on Friday in Lorain, Ohio.

The band left about 1:45 on Friday to head to Lorain. Here was my view of the stage from the merch booth. Here is a closeup and a shot of the crowd. It was a beautiful evening. By the time I got home it was after midnight.

I was still tired when I got up on Saturday. I did laundry, dishes, and got ready for the next show. I left the house at 4 p.m. to head to Ravenna, Ohio with the band. The stage was scary. They had two flat bed trailers side-by-side and threw plywood to fill in the space between the trailers. Talk about a tripping hazard! Then there was a narrow, steep set of stairs that were not fastened to anything to get on the "stage".  They guys had to lift all the equipment up over their shoulders to place it on the stage.  Geeze!  

We had a decent crowd and sold a little bit at the merch booth.

The event organizers had chalk for the kids to draw on the street. Michael's girlfriend did a little street art of her own.

After the band was finished playing there were fireworks! This is the third show this year there has been fireworks.

I was midnight when I got home. Sunday I mowed the front and side yard. I was using every ounce of energy I had to try and get thru the day. I trimmed until the batteries ran out. I cut out and made three boxy pouches for gifts.

I worked on a project bag - another gift. I will finish it tonight.

Things I had shopped online for started showing up. A wool batt that I needed to stuffing smalls.

Some black and white fabrics from an estate sale. There was some yardage and some small pieces; over 15 yards. There was this Nancy Crow stripe, 4 1/4 yards, I just had to have.

On Friday my sister and her husband stopped while I was running around getting ready to leave for the Lorain show. They had flown in to go to her class reunion. Only got to visit for about an hour and I had to leave. It was still good to see them.

Again with the tote bags! LOL!

This is beginning to feel like a part time job! LOL!! I got another 16 bags sewn together. The lavender ones on top of the pile are flannel!  They look gray in the picture.  Yes, I will make a tote bag out of just about any fabric!

So here is the pile of 51 sewn so far this week. The band has two shows this weekend. The band has a big following in NE Ohio and that is where we are headed for one of the shows. Gonna need lots of bags!

I pressed and sewed another 20 handles too so that will give me another 10 bags to sew together tonight.

I will be off tomorrow so I will catch up with you on Monday. I hope to get my mowing done, a few more bags sewn, and who knows what else! Have a great weekend!

Tote bag progress, been shopping

I got 20 bags sewn together last evening. Yeah! I have another 10 ready for handles and six that I need to press the tops of the bags and mark for the handle placement.

Next I will have to dig around and see what I can come up with for more bags. I have this bolt of very stiff gold and black plaid. It is wide so I will be able to get a lot of bags out of that bolt. The orange and black fabric - there is around 8 yards that was given to me for bags, but I have been on the fence about cutting it up. I kind of like it and it would make a fun backing. I don't have a quilt in mind for it, so I just may make a couple project bags and cut the rest for tote bags.

While I was sewing the wind started and it was getting dark. A big storm cloud moved in and then it started to pour. It only rained hard for about 10 minutes, but we will take what rain we can get!

I talked to one of my brothers yesterday and he had a couple projects for me. He would like a baby quilt for a friend and it is going to be a fun one! I need to incorporate skulls, checkerboard, and mushrooms. I am going to add guitar and music fabric too. It took some searching to find the black and white checkerboard fabric. I still need to find some mushroom fabric that I like. I have plenty of skull, guitar and music fabric. Here is what I pulled so far.

Since it will be hard to coordiante all these different subjects, I think I will make a chevron quilt like the Buffet inspired baby quilt I made in 2013.

The other project will have to wait until I get measurements from him, but it sounds like it will be the shortest drum riser curtain ever. LOL! I have plenty of that fabric on hand. My shopping lately has been a wool batt for stuffing smalls cross stitch pieces (I ran out of wool batting I had), bought a two 10 yard bolts of fabric that were on sale at a crazy good price, and found some older black and white fabrics that I know will be useful. One piece was a Nancy Crow stripe I just had to have.

Tote bag progress, expired tags, and rain

If I hadn't fallen asleep when I sat down after I got home from work, I could have gotten a few more tote bags done. I did get 15 sewn together.

This morning, I got 12 bags ready for handles. That means I pressed the top down 2" then folded 1" under, pressed then marked 3" from the side for the handle placement.

On my way home I was in the right lane and the cars in the left turn lane also had the green light. A car in the left decided at the last moment they didn't need to go onto the interstate and pulled in front of me - no turning signal of course. Only one brake light worked, and their third light didn't work either. We stopped at a light and here their tags expired 3-24-2023! Where is a cop when you need one? I took a picture and sent it to the tips line. I have my doubts that anything will happen. I would be willing to bet they are driving on a suspended license and have no insurance.

We got a pretty good downpour yesterday afternoon. The asphalt was so hot that after the rain stopped the road was steaming.

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A busy 5 days

Last Wednesday the band had a show in Cleveland. People were already claiming their spot at 3 p.m. and we didn't start until 6! We had a great crowd.

The merch booth was right next to the stage and we went thru the 15 bags I had made.

There was Zumba before the show and the Shaw H.S. band played at intermission. I got to bed a bit before midnight.

Friday when I was running errands I saw the blimp.

It was so hot running errands. I hit Hobby Lobby for red fabric to bind the t-shirt quilt. I found some picture frames that were marked down and will use those for framing counted cross stitch. I have foam core and cut that to fit the frames. Now I just need to find the straight pins I use for stretching the linen.

Friday the band had a show in Morgantown, WV. That is a 3 1/2 hour drive. I left my house at 10:15 Friday morning and got to bed at 3:20 a.m. Saturday. We got the merch booth set up, but about an hour before the show rain was coming.  We rearranged everything to get it under the tent and covered the t-shirt road case and one of the merch cases with the covers to keep them dry. The rain cleared up about 15 minutes after the show started.

More people kept showing up and the place was almost full by the time the kids were done playing. They got a standing O and then we got slammed at the merch booth.  We ran thru probably 40 bags! Michael got to play a solo at the end of one of the Prince tribute band's songs. The Prince band was good and they were really nice guys.

Saturday was rough and it was hard to get moving after being up so late. I did get started on pressing and stitching handles for more tote bags. We went thru so many in those two shows and we have two more shows this upcoming weekend. Between Saturday and Sunday I got 102 handles pressed and sewn.  Every evening after work I will be sewing together tote bags. I have my fingers crossed that some more fabric will be gifted. I have cut up everything that has been given to me except for that bolt of black and gold plaid fabric.

I did get the six placemats done. I am happy with the way they turned out.

Placemat progress

I got a bit of quilting done on the placemats. I decided I am going to get these finished then get back to the t-shirt quilt.

I will be away for a few days. My nephew has a couple shows. I hope we get to see part of one of the bands we are opening for. It is a Prince tribute band and they looked pretty good with the videos I saw online. I will catch up with you all on Monday!