Good Neighbors

As I mentioned before our tractor is down and we had handloaded 5 of these railroad ties. Then our good neighbor drove past the house and then in a few minutes here he came with his BIG loader!!!! The photo is dark because it was getting late, but he had all of them loaded in about 5 minutes!!! Thank God for good neighbors!!!! We will be taking this load of railroad ties off in the morning. Wish us luck on getting a good price!



No quilting for me today! My schedule has changed alot since Richard is no longer driving a big truck. He is working here at home at the sawmill, so I teased him that I also work a part-time job at the sawmill too. I have to help load the logs, stack the lumber that comes off, and help drag the ties off the mill. This and do my other housewife duties!!! I'm not complaining, I know it is life and I am enjoying the time that Richard and I get to spend together even if we are working. I know that I stay busy but he works so much harder than I do. I know his back is hurting, he hasn't said anything but I can tell by the way he is walking. But he is not a complainer!!!

I hope to get a few more blocks done on my Love Letter quilt before mom comes home on the 10th. She teased that she wanted me to have the top completed, but that is not going to happen! Mom will be coming home on the 10th which is also my sister's 24th birthday!
Kristie

Lifes Blessings

This morning I recieved such a wonderful blessing! I won't go into alot of detail on here but it really brought me to my knees. Lets just say that the Lord is so good to me! :)

I haven't had a chance to do any sewing today. Some of you already know but Richard is no longer working at his old job. Things are very tight here but we are trying to make ends meet with the sawmill. Cutting lumber and railroad ties! The tractor is down so we are having to pull the logs to the house with the truck or Ole Jim the mule. Anyway, it is really hard work for both of us but we are just thankful that we have the sawmill to fall back on. I was out walking around the property today while Richard was sawing and took some photos. Here are more photos of my house in progress. You will see my chairs sitting upstairs. That is were I go sit and dream!!! If you have noticed we haven't been working on the house the past few weeks because of the sawing taking up so much time. As you can see all of our windows are sitting here too. Also inside we have all of the plywood and roof felt paper to cover the top. With Winter coming soon we have to at least get it coverd with the plywood and felt paper and that should hold it until Spring. Right now we can't afford to complete the roofing but we are hoping to do that with the tax return. We had not expected for things to turn out financially the way that they have. But today I noticed that the leaves are really changing and we have to get it covered before bad weather hits. So we will have to jump in and do that. We still have some work to do on the front rafters and get the rest of the beams up. Most of the upstairs is pine and popular and that just will not hold up through the snow. If we don't get that done, then we will have to completely redo the upstairs in the Spring.




Now these photos were taken while I was standing upstairs. Right now it is a mess from where we have been cutting but eventually this will be my big backyard. If you look close you can see my piles of firewood that I cut up MYSELF with the chainsaw. Oh and you can catch a glimpse of a couple of the horses.





I had to take Hunter in to the doctor today, mostly for a checkup and allergies/sinus things. So on the way I took a couple more photos of the area that I live. We live less than 5 minutes from the lake so it always makes for nice photos.





Hopefully tomorrow I will have some quilty photos to show you!!! I only need 23 more blocks on my Love Letter quilt!!!!!
Kristie

Lots More Blocks

Here are my latest blocks! Seven more that brings me to a total of 98!! Only 23 more to go! I have worked very hard trying to get several done today but you can see that one of them didn't turn out too well. I may redo it before I put it in the quilt. I think I was just getting tired.









Last night I was sewing and I got a couple of photos of Donkey. He loves watching me sew. I have really gotten attached to this cat, and to think I was afraid to get a cat!!! He is my big buddy!



Tomorrow will be another busy day, not sure how much sewing that I will get done. Richard and I will go back to sawing railroad ties! This being Sunday and we had been working very hard trying to get the trees cut, pulled to the sawmill and started sawing, we were just very tired today. He went deer hunting, and didn't get anything :( I just sat here and did my sewing and played with the boys. Hunter had a million army men in the living room and Andrew practiced his guitar all day!! He is getting so good. He can play about everything but when he and Richard plays together they play Bluegrass! Richard plays the fiddle, Andrew the guitar and Hunter is learning the fiddle and guitar! Of course, I can't play anything but a sewing machine! hehehehe!
Kristie

Lots of photos!

Here are a couple of photos of some of our property where we have been cutting timber! Right now Richard is cutting and hauling them out to the sawmill to cut up for Railroad ties! We will work on cutting up the tree tops later. I have my own chainsaw so I will cut up alot of them for firewood. We use the firewood through the Winter in the fireplace and try not to use the furnace so much.


This is a photo of Hunter and Donkey on the couch last night! I was trying to get a photo of Hunter sleeping, he sleeps with his eyes half open! But it didn't really show up very well in the photo.


This evening was Hunter's fishing day with his Cub Scout group. We all met at the lake for the boys to fish. Good thing we only live less than 5 minutes from the lake. We had a great time, I only wish that Andrew had been with us. Andrew went to his dad's for the weekend. :( Hunter had a wonderful time, I took lots of photos of him and Richard and some of the lake.







And finally last night, I got a chance to sew another block for my Love Letter quilt. This now makes me 91 blocks, I just didn't have the energy to do anymore. I hope to get back to work on it tonight.


So now, I'm off to fix a later supper and maybe do a little bit of sewing!
Kristie

Life On The Layne Farm

No post for a few days and not alot of sewing going on. I really needed a break for a couple of days. I would love to finish up my Love Letter quilt soon and move on to some others. I on a NO BUYING spree for fabric and anything quilt related for a while. I do have alot of fabrics in my stash so I will be trying to use it up.

Monday was our quilt guild meeting. It was a nice meeting and I must say that they are a truly wonderful bunch of ladies! I had nice long phone conversations with Brenda and Sandy, the guild president a few days before the meeting. I just wish that you all could meet them in person, they are just really super nice ladies. Here is a baby quilt that was made by a lady in the guild named Helen. See, my sister and sister-in-law both work for a peditrician in town and we donate quilts to be given out to the children in need. They are given out on a as needed basis. So each and every quilt is greatly appreciated.



Life in general has been a little rough here lately. I am so thankful that I have such a loving husband and wonderful children. So here is the story...I had been really down for a couple of weeks and hubby came home for working in timber on Monday and this is what he brought me...

He hand picked me a wild rose! This little rose meant more to me than if he had went out and spent hunderds of dollars on a gift. I am truly blessed to have such a great husband.

Today Richard cut some trees to haul off to the log yard. Wouldn't you know of all times our tractor would break down! The tractor has forks on the front so it would have been perfect to load the logs on the trailer. We don't have a big log truck so we loaded them on the hay trailer. And the trailer is not strong enough to hold over 4 logs or so at a time, they are oak and VERY heavy. Here are some photos of our evening. It took Richard, Andrew and I, all to load the logs.



Of course, while we were loading the logs Hunter was with us but playing with his trucks...or so I thought. He was being really super quiet and that is not like Hunter, I walked over to see what he was doing....he was playing with a baby lizard!! Boys!!!

Tomorrow, we will take the load of logs off to sell and then come home and load another load!
Kristie

Back To My Dear Jane

I needed a little break from all the pink and brown Love Letter blocks so I decided to work on a few Dear Jane blocks! Here they are, but as you can see they are some of the easier ones. I still have a long way to go on them, I think I have 31 blocks and 2 triangles done. But this is my long term project.







Tomorrow will be a long busy day. I have a quilt guild meeting at 10am. I'm excited about going, I missed the last two meetings. Then Hunter has a Cub Scout meeting at 5:30pm. Then on Tuesday after school he has football practice for 1 1/2 hours!!! I think I may take some yo-yo's or something to work on while he practices!
Kristie

A Little Bit Closer!

These are my latest blocks! One of them have 81 pieces in it. I now need 31 more blocks to have them all done! I really wanted to buckle down and finish them up quickly but I just don't see that happening. I'll just do a few a day as I have been. Oh, and I got my 2nd row together but just haven't had a chance to get a photo of it yet.




I needed a little change from all of the pink and brown so I made a Dear Jane block. This is the block G-4 called "Shutter Bug", a fairly easy block with 29 pieces. I may do a few Dear Jane blocks in between my Love Letter blocks to give me a change.


Hopefully tomorrow I can get a few more blocks finished. It sure feels good to be this close! After this one is finished I will concentrate more on my Civil War Diary and Dear Jane quilts.
Kristie

More Blocks!

Here are my latest blocks! I still need one more before I can sew my 2nd row together. And a total of 34 more blocks to finish my quilt. I am slowing making my way to the end.






Yesterday Hunter had Flag Football signups at school. It was really short notice. He gets home from school at 4:30pm and had a letter from school saying that signups were at 6pm. He really wanted to join but I told him that if it cost alot then we couldn't do it right now. So Richard and I took him over there and signed him up, it only cost $6 and that was for some kind of insurance stuff that they HAD to buy. Their uniforms will be furnished by the school, which is great! But their uniforms are just shirts and sweat pants. This is Flag football so no tackling!!!! He is soooo excited! I will have to take photos!

Right now the boys are mad at me, they are cleaning their room. I told them that anything that was in the floor was going in the garbage!! They are messy little bugers!
Kristie

First Row Together!

I'm still putting along on my blocks! One more done! I know that is not alot but one is better than nothing! At least I can see the end in sight!



I needed a little change from doing the blocks so here is what I did....I sewed the first row together!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It sure feels good to see it going together! I didn't have room in the house to get a good photo of the first row so I took it outside and pinned it on the gate. You can see Autumn and Jingle Bells behind it being nosey! I think they were a little confused about what was going on!



I didn't do my block in order, I just bounced around on them, so I have a few more to do before I have the second row ready to sew together. May work on that later this evening.
Kristie

Weekend Progress

I'm getting closer!!! Here are a few more blocks and now I only need 39 more! I'm sure you all are getting tired of seeing them, but don't worry, hopefully they will all be done soon!!! :) I am really getting burned out on this quilt but just can't quit this close to the end. And silly me left the harder blocks for the last. Well, actually they are not hard just more pieces...like I counted one and it has 81 pieces in a 6 inch block!!! And I think there is one that has more than that in it!







I didn't get any sewing done today but I have been glancing through some magazines and books. Trying to figure out what I want to do after I get this top finished. I know I still need to work on my Civil War Diary and the Dear Jane but they are long time projects...know what I mean?? I have several UFO's that need to be finished but somehow they are just not calling to me right now.

Richard went yesterday and picked up our old truck! Now don't laugh at it but this is our LONG TERM PROJECT! Like I said, our Mammy and Pappy truck! He traded some things for it to his brother so right now we don't have any money in it. It does need alot of work but we plan on restoring it over the next several years and when we finish it will be "Show Quality" So I will have our truck progress photos just like I show a million of our house photos... Anyway, we have a ton of work to do on it, so it should be a nice hobby for us. Thank God, hubby is good at doing autobody repair and auto painting!!


My plan for tomorrow is to do a few more blocks in the morning, clean house, fix dinner and take Hunter to his Cub Scout meeting at 5:30pm...
Kristie