Happy St. Patrick's Day, pouch progress, etc.

I was too tired to make cut out cookies for the guys at work so I made French butter cookies which are a shortbread cookie. I put in some green food coloring.

I quilted all day Saturday on the pouch units. I quilted another 5 on Sunday morning and got 23 done.

Here are the empty spools of thread. Some of the spools just had smaller yardage so it was good to get them used up.

I still have 30 units to quilt, but the table is half empty now!

I need to get two pouches finished so I can give them to that lady that I had made the other 24 pouches for. She needed one more for the retreat and I made one for her husband that had admired the pouches. I only have a few zippers in my stash right now, but I found a couple that would work.

My SIL texted me about the t-shirts she sent me for a quilt and that she was busy making a new sign for the protest she was participating in at the local Tesla dealership. She later texted me that CNN was at the protest, so I turned CNN on. There she was with her new sign "Don't support a N**i" sign. There were lots of people at the protest and they have been at that dealership a lot.

The fellow running for city council stopped by on Saturday to give me the thank you cards and instructions on what to write, so I will be busy the next couple of days working on those. I know our Irish great-grandmother and grandmother would approve of our civic activism!

Another pouch, Barr Owl nest, Lenten Roses, and t-shirts for another quilt.

I got another unit quilted for a curved top pouch. I think this novelty fabric will make a cute pouch!

I took a walk around the yard after work. It was so nice outside! Here is the tree where the Barr Owl's nest is located.

The Lenten roses are blooming nicely! The white flowers are the same ones from the picture I posted the other day. They have grown! Then there is a purple/pink one that has lots of flowers.

My nephew delivered to me at work my SIL's t-shirts. She had texted me that she folded them into groups so I will have to find out her thoughts on how she wants them put together into a quilt.

I am looking forward to the weekend. I have some outdoor work I would like to do and will be working on the pouches. I think I will have to make some cookies for Monday for St. Patrick's Day. I think shamrock cutout cookies would fit the bill! Have a great weekend!

In demand

I only managed to get one more unit quilted. I can get two outside pieces or two lining pieces out of a third of a yard therefore I have two pouches that will be the same.

While I was quilting the phone rang and it was my nephew. He has a box of my SIL's t-shirts for me that have found their way to Ohio from California via a musician friend. It's a long story! Anyway, he wanted to know when he could drop them off to me. While I was on the phone with him my son called. I called my son back and we were on the phone a long time. I hadn't talked to him in quite a while. While I was on the phone with my son, there was a knock at the door. Geeze, I was in demand last tonight! I opened the window downstairs to find out who it was. I thought he was probably a salesperson, but it turned out he was running for City Counsel for the ward I live in. I talked to him a bit and my son was listening on the phone. He got us both excited about his mission and thoughts on the current climate locally. My son is going to spread the word to his friends about this fellow and I want to help the man out so I will be emailing him to find out what I can do. It feels like a positive contribution and very grassroots to try and do something.

Busy evening

I needed to get the downstairs cleaned up. This is where my sewing studio is located. I spent a good hour vacuuming and straightening up. Along with that I took out the recycling and trash bins, put some groceries away, and started a load of laundry. The place was looking better. Then water meter guy showed up. The city has contracted some company to put wireless reading devices on everyone's meters to make it easier for billing.

While the fellow was doing his thing, I found another piece of scrap batting to cut up and make units out of the last seven sets of fabrics for pouches.

The guy wasn't done until almost six p.m. I still needed to get my minutes in on the exercise bike so there was no time to quilt.

One quilted and a bit of yardwork

I only got one pouch quilted last evening. I was tired when I got home from work so it took a while to get motivated.

After I started some laundry, it was just too nice outside to stay inside. I got my handy battery powered trimmer

and trimmed back the lavender plants. Here is the plant next to the house before and after it's haircut

Next I cut back the plants in the center bed. It smelled so good as I was cutting them. Cutting them back now will encourage growth and hopefully I will have lots of flowers for the bees! I have lots of cleanup to do in this bed and I will try to do a little every day. It is only mid-March so I have time before the hot weather comes.

Since trimming the lavender didn't take that long, I decided to trim down the ornamental grass that a planted two or three years ago along the neighbor's fence.

It is all cut down, but I didn't clean up the debris. There are about a billion sticks from the neighbor's trees, so it is going to take some effort the clean this side yard up. The wind blows down the hill and so maybe that will help move some of this down the hill and to the woods. It is going to take a leaf blower and some serious raking to clean this mess.

I then took a walk around the yard and saw some of my Lenten Roses have flowers on them. The two beds of Lenten Roses need some serious clean up.

I need to mail some plants to a couple of people so I had better get out and do some work in the beds.

Curved toped pouches

I am going to be working on these the next couple of weeks. I am making them for an event I am attending. I have no idea how many I will end up making, but I got a good start on them this weekend. Here is the pouch I am making.

I needed a place to put the layered units - lining, batting, outside fabric - so I set the folding table back up.

I needed batting, so I went thru almost all my batting scraps and ended up with a nice pile of pieces.  Geeze, I had a lot of scraps!

Next was quilting the units. I didn't take the time to see how long it took me to quilt the fabric for one pouch. I will have to do that.

I would quilt a few pieces, then change up jobs and cut them.

I now have a nice stack of 15 pouches ready for zippers and finishing.

I would rotate jobs - quilting, cutting, and making units - which helped keep me focused. After quilting fabric for the 15 pouches, which was almost 26 square feet, I was too tired to quilt anymore. I then switched to just cutting fabric and making the units. I went thru most of my novelty fabrics to try and find some fun fabric for pouches rather than just prints. I figure I used around 23 yards of fabric and of course I have a new pile of scraps. Here are the 45 units I have waiting for me to quilt them.

I have fabric for 9 more pouches that I need to cut batting for.

I don't know how many hours I put in on this project on Friday and Saturday, but I did spend 11 hours in the studio on Sunday working on these. I want to get a few more layered up before I put in my zipper order. Saturday morning, I woke up to this.  It was mostly gone by noon.

4th finish for 2025 and a continental breakfast

The third baby quilt is done. It was the same size as the other two - 41.5" x 46".

The final event for the Women in Construccion week was a continental breakfast. We all received a bogg bag.

I brought some leftovers back to the office I work at.

My plan for the weekend is to work on quilting the fabric to make more of those curved topped pouches. I have some batting and fabric cut, but I know I will need more. Have a great weekend!