This weekend, I'm enjoying the quiet, no jack hammer, no excavator. Just quiet.
No chunks of concrete or dirt hitting that huge sturdy trailer. Just quiet.
Just for fun, there were two giant sanitation trucks woking just up the street too. Different project. Not noisy, at least I don't think so.
The church pastor started a four-part series today with football analogies. And last night I got started on the banner to coordinate with the series. "Getting started" was pressing the green fabric and adding the stripes.
This morning I got up early and added the football.
The white stripes are just basted on since I'm sure I'll at some point take them off and use the green fabric for someting else. The football is stitched too but also fused with Wonder Under. I'm hoping it will pull off.
I kind of like that football.
I usually email a friend in a nursing home by 9:00 am. This morning I just didn't have the time, so I sent her a picture of the banner on the ironing board and a brief explanation.
She emailed back saying, "That's nice, but it's a mess." It just needed 30 more minutes.
This week I made her project and later today I'll take it to her. As you might expect from a pattern printed on a little card, it went together quickly.
I like it because it used all the fabrics in the charm pack. The pieces left over are duplicates. Part of the fun of a charm pack is getting to enjoy all those 5" fabrics.
I did buy the background fabric with the tiny acorns and pumpkins, but I found the gold binding fabric in my ridiculously large stash. I considered, but only for a moment, of seeing how long I can go without buying any fabric.
It would be a good goal, but sometimes, like with this background fabric, the right piece just isn't in my house.
It starts today. The big excavator is in the driveway, taking down the old stone retaining walls and removing the concrete on the driveway. Dirt and concrete all go in the big dumpster trailer.
It's less noisy than I thought it would be. And bigger, whatever than means. I knew the project would be big, but maybe I didn't realize just how big.
I'm trying to not consider all the pieces of the project and just look at what's happening now. These changes are the big ones. Some of the smaller ones, the repairs, won't even look different when they're finished.
I'm thinking about color of the new block retaining wall. A pretty tan, I think, would look best with the strange tan-ish brick on the house. I have a couple of days to decide. I think the thing to do will be to walk around the neighborhoods and see what other people have done, color-wise.
Earlier in the summer, there was one monarch caterpillar on the milkweed plants, just one. I looked hopefully every day.
Just when I was about to give up, there were suddenly three. And it's just so thrilling to see those little striped creatures.
I have plans for more milkweed next summer.
A couple of weeks ago my friend and I went to Apron Quilt Strings Quilt Shop in Maysville, KY. The day was pretty, the quilt shop had many lovely fabrics, and we rode the Augusta ferry across the Ohio River after the shopping.
One of the fun things about Apron Strings is that the have a sale room, called The Vault, open just on Fridays and Saturdays. And in The Vault were some panels perfect, if you bought two, for a baby quilt. So I bought two.
As these things go, I quickly had a request for a baby quilt. A little sewing, a little free motion and the quilt came together. The backing has little paw prints, actually little kitten prints, but all the animals have paws.
The stripe on the binding was part of the panels, and you know how I like a pieced binding.
I've loved the bright pink flowers on my back porch this summer. The pink colors are almost shocking. Petunias and impaients.
I'm been lazy with gardening this summer. Including with these flowers.
I brought them home from the big box store and arranged them on top of the soil in the big planter - and never planted them. And yet, somehow, they thrived, root bound in their little pots except for a few roots that escaped and found the soil.
Maybe I'll do the same next year.
Last year's morning glories came back this spring, but never took off. A few vines trellised up the upright railings, a few purple flowers ame out, and then nothing.
