finished projects and major progress

over the last few weeks we've been tearing out a set of steps that went up to the second tier of the garden

last week, between the weather being pretty cold and my back hurting, we didn't get a whole lot done out there

yesterday it was a bit warmer and my back is actually feeling better, so the last bits of the old steps got cut into pieces (yup, I got to use the chain saw again!) and hauled out to the cans to be picked up today (nice timing!)

so this is a picture of what ISN'T there (makes me think of the poem my mother used to recite: "As I was going up the stair, I met a man who wasn't there, he wasn't there again today, I wish that he would stay away!")

next on the agenda is raking up all that rock, pulling up the plastic sheeting underneath it and running the tiller over this area so we can plant garden there

slowly - slowly - let's not get anyone hurt here

when we restring the fencing around that garden area, we'll need a gate

we had picked up lumber from the hardware store in the culls bin -- so the entire investment in the wood for this was about $3 -- nice

and the "wire" over it is what was left from the original fencing project last summer

the DH had built the frame in the garage, then yesterday we used the staple gun to add the "wire"

now he just needs to attach the hinges and we can hang this up in its appointed place -- yippee!!

I finally finished the fringe

since I hadn't done this for a while, I had forgotten how time consuming it was

(and I'm really glad I decided to just do straight fringe -- branched fringe takes even longer!!)

after this was finished, I took a bunch of pictures of it and of several other pieces of jewelry

it makes better sense to do this photography session stuff in batches then I have enough pictures to list stuff for a week or so

now that this is finished, I need to figure out if I'm going to start another piece of jewelry now or just concentrate on finishing some quilt pieces first -- I'm leaning toward finishing some stuff
last night I finished another section on the afghan -- it is now 90% complete

looking good


on the 19th, 20th and 21st of this month I'll be in a conference in Denver for the art quilt organization I belong to (SAQA)

during the 2 full day sessions, I get to take 4 mini classes -- one of which is titled "Promote Your Work Without Apologizing" -- yesterday I got an email from the teacher giving me the homework that needs to be done before the class -- COOL!

and I have to admit that until that arrived I hadn't focused clearly on the fact that this conference is THIS MONTH!!

ok, so now I'm starting to get excited

got to get busy!!