Setting Steel Beams on the Shop

It warmed up to 32 degrees yesterday and I kid you not, it felt like shirt-sleeve weather. It was possible to walk outside without my face hurting. I know I’m posting a bit more than usual, but we have some family members who are interested in seeing the progress on the shop. You can skip these posts if you’re not interested, although there is some sewing content at the end.

The husband set the 50’ steel beams on top of the two storage containers yesterday. They are there to support the roof trusses on that side of the garage.

He had already maneuvered the boom truck into position. Our boom truck is an old Flathead Electric truck that we purchased a few years ago. It is almost as handy as the forklift. In addition to the boom, it has a big auger for digging holes.

It was short work to get the beams lifted and placed on top of the storage containers:

Once they were placed, he welded them to the containers. Notice that he is wearing that really nice auto-darkening welding helmet that his wife bought him for Christmas one year:

The shop is all ready for trusses. Now that the weather is nicer, though, the husband might be working on some paying jobs, so I am not sure what the truss-setting schedule is yet.

I had to walk over to the other property to get some of these pictures, and I was struck by just how much snow is in the yard. I don’t have a good way to give perspective other than this shot of one of our fruit trees, but the snow in the yard is up to my waist, and I am not short. And that’s snow that fell, not drifted:

Our house sits on a corner that is in some kind of meteorological abnormality. You could drive half a mile north or south of us and there would be half as much snow as there is in our yard. Long-time residents of the neighborhood remarked on it to us when we moved there, and it has been borne out every winter. It’s almost as if the clouds get to our house, bump up against the mountains, and drop all their precipitation.

We’re ready for this to start melting, believe me.

While the husband was working on the shop, I continued to plow through my unfinished projects pile. I got a top, batting, and backing basted together and ready to quilt:

The pattern is the Remixed Geese quilt from Robert Kaufman.

I made this several years ago—quilt tops seem to be required to age in my project pile before they get quilted—but while I was in Spokane last week, I got a sunny yellow print backing fabric for it. I had forgotten how much I loved this top. I loved making it and I love how it turned out. It’s not a big quilt, but big enough to be a nice lap quilt. I’m keeping this one for me. I’m probably just going to quilt allover loops, which is my default machine quilting pattern.

I listened to the latest Love to Sew podcast while I basted this quilt together. The subject was sewing machines and I thought they gave good, balanced coverage of both vintage and modern machines. One of the hosts sews on a 1964 Kenmore, so that may be why.

I also picked up some gray backing fabric in Spokane, and that is all ready for the red, black, and white quilt top made from the leftover four-patch squares. I need to pick up another quilt batt at Joanns because I don’t have quite enough leftovers to piece a batt together.