My Flower Garden:  Last spring I shoveled out the messy blue rock by the house, tore out the sod and started planting a new flower garden - I'm so proud of how it looks this year

The Downside to Quilting no one tells you about

I am not a quilter - yet anyways - this is a craft I have wanted to master for a long time - I love fabrics and have serious quilt envy every time my boss completes another beautiful one, for five years I have had quilt envy.  I finally did it I decided to start a quilt.

I'm starting the cheater way - I bought a quilt kit for a log cabin quilt - which my boss says is one of the best beginner patterns.  The kit includes all the fabric pre cut and ironed!  All I have to do is sew it together.  It started out really smoothly, I was wizzing through these - I decided to sew the same fabrics for each block one after another - kind of assembly line production - that got a little boring.  Then I decided to complete one block at a time so I can have the satisfaction of looking at that beautiful completed block.  I can not believe how long it takes to sew one block - I worked on this most of the day Saturday and I have 2 1/2 quilt blocks done.  Good thing I picked a Christmas pattern - maybe I'll actually be done by then.

This is one of my boss's quilts she made for her husband - see why I have quilt envy?

Today I learned the downside to quilting - my neck and back have been bothering me since the weekend - I didn't put two and two together yet..... Went to the massage therapist and she said "have you been doing something where you're looking down a lot?, that's what it feels like these knots are from"  duh - quilting - oh yes she tells me, you need to take a break at least once an hour and do stretching exercises.  No one ever told me you could have quilting injuries - running injuries I understand - but quilting?????  On the plus side my massage therapist asked what kind of glut exercises I'm doing because they are really working :-).  (Guess I have to keep running - but very nice to know I'm getting results there)

Here's my first attempts (notice the puckering - not good my seam allowances are not all exactly 1/4")

2010 Concrete Rhubarb Leaves

So after two years of checking these out in magazines and online - I finally got around to making them!  Last fall some coworkers and I got together and made enough to fill our sandbox - but this is a learning process....

First attempt - we patted the concrete out to the edge of the leaves - it slopped over the edge and the finished product and no imprint of the leaf around the edges because of the overslop.  Other mistake - we waited a week to peel the leaves off the concrete - almost impossible to remove dried crackling leaves at this point.

Second attempt - last Friday by myself - I mixed the concrete WAAAAY to runny - it was slidding down the leaf - not good - also they ended up much to thin so all of the GIANT leaves broke in half :-(.  I did get several good smaller leaves that I'm really happy with.  I peeled the leaves out two days after casting - piece of cake - and at that time the concrete was still soft enough that I could kind of sand the edges and break off any rough spots.

So here's my results.....

 

(this one someone else casted last fall and I painted)