Hit the ground running

There was no messing about when I got home from work yesterday. The elastic for the bands came. Yeah!

But the first thing I did was to plant the zucchini. They are now sitting on the kitchen table. I did push the table closer to the sliding door so they would get the morning light.

After I got the mess cleaned up from that I headed out to meet a coworker for dinner. She is the lady that took the project bags to sell and works out of the office 2 1/2 hours away. She was staying in town for meetings so I offered to take her someplace for dinner. She was hungry for Italian so I took her to a local place. She had baked spaghetti and I got a pizza big enough for leftovers. Here is what was left of my pizza.

When I got home from dinner I needed to get a start on the bands. I cut the lengths of elastic 5 1/2 inches and marked a line at 4 1/2 inches for my overlap.

These bands are so small I knew there would be no way to hold the layers in place while I sewed them. I decided to run a bead of glue in the overlap area, fold the elastic over, and clamp it with a binder clip. I didn't know if this would work, but I went ahead and did all twenty I needed to make.

This morning I had a few minutes to try and sew one of the bands and I was successful! It is a bit fiddley to get the elastic under the presser foot, but it didn't take too long to sew. These just seem so small, but they are elastic and they need to hold the wireless transmitted tight to the guitar strap.

I decided to quickly cut out and prep fabric and interfacing to make a boxy pouch to put the bands in. Much better than using a plastic bag in my book! I will whip that together tonight so I can hand these off to my brother tomorrow (this would be another brother not the one who needs the bands).

In my package from Wawak with the elastic, they tucked in a sheet of stickers. This is the first time I have ever received these. This is the same place I bought that thread and zippers for the project bags.

I had to stick the SEW one on my Yeti I carry every day with my water.

Still busy.

I had an appointment yesterday afternoon so I did a couple errands afterwards so my evening was short. I did get a bit more stitched on that little sampler

I need to get my zucchini seedlings planted. It has been only a couple weeks and they are going crazy in their plastic bag greenhouse.

I promised one of my readers that I would post pictures of the yarn winder my Dad make me. She knits beautiful sweaters and had shown on her blog how she loops her yarn around a thread cabinet so she can make the hanks into balls. I don't even knit that much so I feel like this winder is a waste on me! I bought some yarn a few years ago with intentions of knitting myself a sweater so I grabbed one of the skeins to demonstrate how the winder works.  The X piece turns as the yard is pulled. 

I got a message that my elastic has arrived for the wireless bands. Yeah!

Sampler and more sewing for the band

Yesterday I had such a busy day at work I was dog tired by the time I got home. It was all I could do to get a bite to eat and just sit to try and get a second wind. I did finally stitch a bit on that small sampler. Here is where I was, where I am now, and what it will look like when it is done.

You see that phone holding down the linen in the second picture? That is my new work phone I had to go and get set up yesterday. It is an iPhone 15 and I have to learn how to use it. Everything is swiping, but there are no directions on what to do to get things to work! I don't use my work phone but for phone calls, texting, and going on the internet so I should be able to figure it out or ask someone who can show me. The phone is 6" long. I did get a phone call on my personal phone from my brother. His buddy on tour needs some bands made for holding wireless transmitters on the guitars he is the tech for. I don't know which fellow in the band, but I will find out. It will be another piece of Patty on the stage! My brother thought I had made the ones his buddy had, but they had rivets holding them together (really? they used rivets?). I did not make those. They got me some measurement so I order the elastic last night which will arrive tomorrow so I can get started on them. My nephew is going to the Springsteen show on Sunday in Columbus so I can send them with him. I need to make twenty. Here is what the band looks like.

My brother said if his buddy likes them, he will want more. I did get a good night's sleep so I do feel better today.

Harley quilt progress, stitching, and yardwork

No, I didn't fall off the face of the earth, I have just been so busy. I got a bit more done on the Harley quilt this weekend. Only 7 more shirts left to quilt.

Saw momma in the backyard. She looks pregnant. I saw her and her twins she had last year on Sunday. Her daughters didn't look like they were expecting.

I bought a new fry pan from Lodge. It is carbon steel. I tried it out and it worked well browning some chicken and it cleaned up easy. I bought the 10" pan; I think I should have bought the 12".

My order came from eQuilter. I bought fabric that was on sale and had a ten dollar coupon. This fabric I bought for the back of a future Harley quilt. They didn't have enough of the white with the black skulls, so I bought a piece of the dark with the same skulls on it. It is really hard to see the skulls.

To fill out the order so I could get free shipping, I bought some fabric for project bags.

I finished stitching this sampler. I am going to overdye it to age it.

Here is the next piece I am working on; another small sampler. It was very hard to put down and work on something else.

Saturday I spent a few hours outside doing yardwork. The front yard was looking like a hay field! I got the debris from the ornamental grass cleaned up, trimmed, then mowed. I got in about an hour of weeding and cleaning up the center bed; there is more to do. On Sunday, I helped my neighbor cut down her two big ornamental grasses. She hasn't done it before and the plants just look awful. Between the two of us it didn't take too long to get the plants cut and the mess cleaned up. I then decided to shovel for ten minutes to move the dirt from next to the garage to the fill in the tracks left by the skid steer when the fellow pulled out the steps and landing. I figure if I just shovel for 10 minutes I won't overdo it physically. Shoveling is hard work! LOL!! The dirt is fairly loose, but I have to keep picking out bricks and chunks of concrete. Here is what it looked like before I started. I forgot to take an in progress picture. Once I get the ground leveled out, I can finish painting the foundation that I couldn't reach because of the steps.  

Let's get physical

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth! LOL!! I have just been so busy. Work has been physically demanding with all the shipments of stuff we have been getting lately. Yesterday a truck pulled up with two large crates that had tool storage boxes in them. Because of something else on the dock, I couldn't use the dock plate so the driver and I had to drag the smaller box off. It is the one in the picture with all the stuff on top. The other tool box was so heavy! I cut the cardboard off of it so we could see what we were working with. Between the pallet jack and me pushing, we got the thing turned around in the truck so we could open it. Inside was all the other stuff that had been ordered. No wonder it was so heavy compared to the other tool box! We had to unload the tool box before we could drag it onto the dock.

It took us about a half hour to pull the stuff out of the tool box. What wouldn't fit on top of the smaller box, I put here circled in green.

They call this a 6" bridge clamp, but it is really overall about 12" in length and weighs at least 25 pounds! We only received part of what we ordered so there is another 44 coming of this size. There were 4" ones too.

Then a fellow dropped off a bunch of safety supplies - gloves, vest, glasses - from the home office. Thanks goodness I had ordered myself this two-wheel dolly or otherwise I would have to try and drag all these boxes all the way to the safety supply room. Let's just say I was tired when I got home from work!

I was so tired when I got home I fell asleep in my sewing chair. I did do a couple things around the house once I woke up, but no quilting happened. I have been working on a sampler. I don't remember where I got this picture, but I am stitching it just off the picture. I don't get too concerned with exactness. Here is the picture and where I am right now. Once I get it stitched, I will over dye it to age it.

Spectacular!

That describes the total eclipse I saw yesterday. My neighbor took some fabulous pictures

Here is when we were in total and it was as dark as night. There was no light whatsoever! I know you can hardly see anything, but there was a silver of light and two solar flares!

On a not as exciting note, I am now more than halfway done with the Harley quilt. 14 of the 25 shirts are quilted. I was glad to get the middle one quilted.

I did get the ornamental grass cut down that borders the front of my property. There are 7 plants and I ended up using my little electric chain saw to cut them down. The stems get so woody! I still have some cleanup to do, but I was glad to get them cut back before they start to grow.

The home office had some eclipse treats and the boss man who was at a meeting there brought a few back to our office. Unfortunately, I threw the cookie in my bag, and it got broken. I should have taken the picture before I put it in my bag. It was a cute cookie.

One more done

I got one more shirt quilted last evening. It had a lot of detail outlining so it took a couple hours to quilt.