One off the frame and another one on...

Hunter had a sleepover last night! So I had three 8 yr old little boys, they were WILD but they had a great time. They stayed up all night and napped a little after I got up this morning. LOL! Actually there are still here and I will be taking them home shortly.

The weather was nice today and melted all of the snow! :) The boys were outside playing actually in the edge of the woods trying to build a log cabin. Oh I do love country living! So while they were playing I finished quilting this quilt. The boys were in plain view while I was standing at the frame so that worked out great! So the quilting is finished and now it awaits binding but that will have to wait a little while. Actually I have 3 or 4 that need binding but I will get to them when I can. After quilting this one, it takes my flimisies down to 30!!

I just can't tell you how good it feels to get them down to a total of 30! In this remaining 30, I have several LARGE ones that would be considered queen and king sizes.

I also loaded this customer quilt top on the frame a few minutes ago. A lady that works at one of our local banks had 2 beautiful tops that were ready to be quilted. This is the first of the two and it measures 72x88. The other one is a little smaller but they are both very beautiful and very well pieced. I have it on the frame now but I probably will not start quilting on it until after Church tomorrow.

Got some sad news earlier. My Great Uncle passed away this morning. He was 90 yrs old and had been sick for a while now. He was a very sweet man and will be sadly missed. I have so many great memories of this precious man and his wife while I was growing up.

Well, I guess it is time to get the boys to start cleaning up Hunter's room before I take them home.

Kristie

A Quick Project

Well...we got another snow! :( I am sooooo tired of it. I usually love the snow but this has been a hard winter for us here. I took this photo yesterday but we got a few more inches after the photo was taken.

I was working on my Scrappy Windmill quilt and I ran out of thread!! That just burns my butt! Anyway, I need to hurry and get this quilted and off of the frame because I have received 3 customer quilts this week. I will be going this weekend to pick up the thread and get back to quilting!

Here is Donkey! As you can see, he got his tubes out but he still has the stitches in. You can't see them in the photo because they are on the other side. Silly cat has found a way to take his cone and use it to scratch his stitches!!! He has torn a few of them out, so we are hoping that is will still heal good.

Little Hunter is having a sleepover tomorrow (Friday) School is cancelled for tomorrow but as of right now 2 of his little friends are still coming! Wish me luck that I survive THREE little 8 yr old boys!!! I have been cleaning the house, I don't know why because I'm sure it will be wrecked by the time they play.

I did work on a quick little project tonight! Here are two plastic bag dispensers. Made with fat quarters they go together in less than 10 minutes! The orange one is for me to put in my new kitchen since I am doing it in orange and I figure I will give the other one to my sister or someone.

It is almost midnight and we are still up. Hubby is working on his "process analysis" paper. He is still in school and is doing great! I'm so proud of him, I know it was hard for him to go to college after being out of school for 20 years.

Kristie

My Oldest UFO...

I finished up the binding on my purple wall hanging or table topper, whatever you want to call it. With it being on the wall or table you will not see that back, thank goodness! I had some major problems with the bobbin. Actually I think most of it was the thread that I used, so I ended up tossing it.

I was looking through my quilt tops and decided to quilt this one. It is my oldest quilt top, probably 10-12 years old. You can tell that some of the fabrics are older ones. As I looked at this top, I really wondered about some of the placement of the blocks. I think I just sewed them together and didn't lay it out and look at it from all angles. I try to pay more attention to that stuff now, but then again, I think that you can really over think it sometimes. This quilt is called "Scrappy Windmills", nothing fancy.

I got it loaded on the frame and got one pass quilted. I was having some tension problems but that was because I messed with it when I had that purple wall hanging on there. I am trying a new panto too, I think I will really like that design once it is all finished. It measures 92x96 so it is another large one. I have several big ones that need quilted so I hope to get those done this year.

Speaking of quilt tops....I have them listed at the top of my blog under "flimisies" As of right now I have 30 tops to quilt. Well...actually, I have a few more but they are small crib quilts and wall hangings so I will not count them. But 30 sounds great to me, considering I did have 75 that needed quilted!!!! You can see a photo of those 75 piled on my bed on my sidebar.

I hope to work more on this top tomorrow afternoon. Mom has physical therapy in the morning and Donkey has to go back to the vet, that will take up my morning.

Kristie

FNSI and Don King?

I'm sure most of you are thinking...Don King??? Well what do you think? Do you see a resemblance? LOL! This is my little Smokey and he needs a haircut in the worst way! We thought he looked like Don King, a troll or maybe one of those old pencil toppers that had the hair. What do you think? Do we have a celebrity lookalike??? LOL!

Last night was Friday Night Sew-In and I got a couple of things accomplished. I did get the binding finished on this HUGE quilt for mom. She was very happy to get it and it was finally finished. It has the softest muslin on the back and is so soft.

I also got this little wall hanging loaded on the frame. I thought I would get it quilted last night because it was so small but I was wrong. First I tried to use invisible thread and that was a mess. I couldn't see to thread my machine and then I needed to adjust my tension for that and I really didn't want to mess with that last night, so I just changed the thread!!! Now the purple thread looks great but it is a different weight than I usually use and the bobbin is not perfect. So today I will adjust it a little and hopefully get it done!!!

And not to leave out Jazz and Donkey....Jazz all clean and brushed after his bath.
And my precious Donkey....as you can see he can't get comfortable. He has a tube on both sides so it makes it hard for him to lay. He is still fevered but not as bad as he was. He is eating good so that makes me happy. He goes back to the vet on Monday to have it flushed out again.
Have to go to the grocery store. :( Richard will be taking me since our road is soooooo slick and it makes me too nervous to drive when it is like this. But I also don't like him going to the store with me. When he does we end up getting very little on my list, more junk food and he is always in a hurry! Anyone else have a husband like this????

Kristie

Don't forget...

Don't forget like I did.....FRIDAY NIGHT SEW-IN, is tonight!!!! If you haven't already sign up here! Tonight I think I will try to finish the binding on Mom's quilt. She hasn't said anything but I'm sure she would like for me to get it done so that she can have it.
Kristie

Puttering Along...

Thanks for all of the well wishes for Donkey! I'm sure if he could talk he would thank you all. He seems to be feeling a little better today. Yesterday was the first time the he had used the litter box for several days and that had me worried. He is still draining a lot but the worst part is the actual bite. The skin had rotted at that site and he to be cut out around it and cut down to his backbone. It is now stitched and looks a little odd shaped back there but the hair will grow back and I think he will be fine.

I haven't been sewing a lot lately. Just so much going on with Donkey and having to hand feed him. And then the weather makes me stiff and achy. My right hip and leg is giving me fits, so I have been spending some time in bed reading.

A few days ago I did get these two blocks made. This is for a new quilt that I am working on. I will post a link to the pattern when I can, for some reason I can't get my little link thing to work today. Anyway, I fell in love with the pattern when she posted it. I did have to change some of the fabric coloring around since I had to work with the fabric yardage that I had on hand. I had been saving this Civil War Reproduction fabric for some time now just waiting for the perfect pattern to use it on. Anyway, these were my sample blocks. Most of the time I try to make a sample block before I cut out the whole quilt to make sure the dimensions are correct.

I'm ashamed to say that I am just now working on the binding on Mom's quilt that I gave her for Christmas! Shame on me!!!! This thing is huge and that is why I kept putting off the binding, I think it measures somewhere around 96x122 if I remember correctly. As of right now, I am somewhere around the half way mark on sewing it down on the back. (See my little Smokey buried in the quilt)

We got more snow last night! No school today!!! There was school on Tuesday, Wednesday and it dismissed 2 hours early on Thursday.

I'm off to take care of Donkey and get this binding done!

Kristie

Donkey's Home!!!!

Thank God, my baby came home!!! I cried the whole way home with him!! I won't go in a lot of deal of the procedure but I think the vet was even grossed out with it. Here he is when I got him out of the carrier. As you can see he is still loopy from being put to sleep.

I will not do a close up because it looks so bad but he has several stitches right at the left of his tail. That was where the bite was and they had to remove that area because of the infection and stitch the hole up. As you can see, he also has two drains. This is the way that he has been since we got home. Like I said he is just too out of it to move and he also has had lots of pain medication. Poor guy, I sure do love him. Anyway, unless something happens, he goes back to the vet in 5 days to have it flushed out again. I'm sure glad he is home and on the mend.
I snapped this photo at the vet's office. Nice little animal quilt design on his building!!!

I did sew two blocks yesterday and I will post those in a few days. Not sure when I will be sewing because right now, I have to take care of my big baby and see if I can get him to eat. He has lost so much weight during all of this mess.

Kristie

Donkey Update

Just wanted to drop by and say that Donkey, the cat is having surgery as we speak! :( When I had him at the vet this morning the vet said "I just don't know how this will end" So I have to go and pick him up at 3pm to bring him home. When I asked the vet about him he said "50/50 chance" It is just so hard when we are so attached to these little critters. So if you don't care, say a little "kitty prayer" that he will pull through and he will come home...

I'll update as soon as I hear that the surgery is over...
Kristie

My sick little Donkey

Just thought I would stop by for an update. Nothing going on here and I haven't even been sewing to amount to anything. I've been a little stiff and aching in the hips and my right leg is giving me fits but I'm sure it is just this cold weather. It is about time for another cortisone shot too but my doctor has been out of town and my appointment isn't for another 2 weeks.


I did prep this block yesterday for the Civil War Block a week. I haven't done the applique yet. I decided that I just didn't feel like doing needleturn applique and truly I'm not that good at it so I will do machine applique on it. Just haven't gotten around to changing the foot on my machine and sitting down to do it. I'll get to it in a few days...

I have been reading some. I've spent a lot of time in the bed the past few days because of my hips and leg so I decided to do a little reading since I had not picked a book up for a while. I did read this one and it was pretty good.
And then I started on this one earlier today while I took mom for her physical therapy. So far it is good. I'm sure you all know Donkey, our cat....well he is sick. A couple of weeks ago he got in a fight with another cat. A stray cat to be exact. That other cat bit him in several places but the worst was at the base of his tail. I noticed that he had been just laying around the past few days and figured it was time for him to be wormed so I did that. But then yesterday he was up in my lap and I was petting him and as I ran my hand down his back I felt a HUGE hump on his back at the base of his tail. When I say huge I'm saying it is probably the size of my hand and the place felt very hot. So I called the vet....long story short...it had to be lanced and he is on strong antibiotics. He doesn't want to be messed with at all right now. He has been hiding out in Hunter's room. He has to go back to the vet Wednesday to see how he is progressing.


I didn't know this but this is not uncommon. The vet said that when cats fight that is one of the places that is usually bitten first and that abscesses from those bites are very common. So anyway....I just hope that all ends well with him, we are really attached to him and I would really hate to see anything happen to him.

I'm off to do some laundry........ :(
Kristie

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~~"Blessed are all they that put their trust in him."~~
~~ Psalm 2:12

A Better Day

I'm in a much better mood today than yesterday. LOL! I'm sure Richard is happy about that. Oh well, I guess everyone has days like that. I slept in this morning and it felt great but wasted alot of my day. There has not been any school at all this week so far and probably will not be.

Today I did manage sewing the center part of the blocks for Bonnie's Mystery quilt. I don't have all of the 600 half square triangles finished yet so I will have to work on those maybe tomorrow. I have loved how everyone elses mystery quilts are turning out so that makes me that much more excited to get mine finished.

Oh and this morning I did cut up all of those pieces of scraps that I sorted the other day. I cut them into usable sizes and put them away. But I do have more sorting to do so there will be a bunch more scraps.

This evening for supper I fixed a huge pan of baked spaghetti and garlic toast. We had plenty so I had Richard to take out some to Mom and Chantal so they would not have to cook this evening. Then after supper Hunter was asking for something sweet.....so I made a batch of these...

"No Bake Cookies" We all love them and I'm sure most everyone in blogland has ate them. I can remember that mom used to make them for us all of the time when we were growing up. They are my favorite too. They are almost gone already!

Oh....and I am punishing Richard for calling me "CRANKY" yesterday...he is watching "Gone With the Wind" with me right now!!! LOL! My favorite movie and he hates it!!! LOL! That will teach him to call me CRANKY!

Kristie

BLAH!

I have felt like "Blah" all day! I've had a little bit of a headache, nothing major but just enough to make me feel bad. I've not really felt like doing much today and Richard said I was even a little "CRANKY" LOL! Whatever!

I did rip out my tablerunner that was beginning to look like a rug and ended up making some trivets! I'm much more satisified with these.

Do you remember these tubs that I have shown over the past couple of weeks?

Well, I decided today was the day to sort through them...I had everything in there...

from yardage, to fat quarters, strings, pieces to be cut into squares and strips, and also some that was smaller than a 1/2 yard but larger than a fat quarter that had been cut on. I even had some of my Civil War fabric mixed in there. So I got that all put away.

I even found this wallhanging or tablerunner. I had pieced it out of fabric samples. I also had the backing and binding cut and with it.
Here is the tub of scraps that need to be cut into squares and strips.

And lastly here is the photo that I just took! It is pouring snow!!! We already had several inches on the ground but now it is pouring again!
Not sure if I will start cutting on those scraps tonight or just wait. At least they are sorted.

Kristie

Bouncing Around

After sorting through a few things yesterday I decided late last night to work on something quick! I know I had several other things that I should have finished up first but you know me, I just bounce back and forth. So I dug those purple scraps back out and made this little thing. It measures roughly 24x24 and since the scraps were all different sizes I just strip pieced it and then just threw the leftover pieces in the big crate with my other strings and strips. Not sure what I will do with it but maybe I will think of something. I also cut the binding for it and will probably quilt it soon, I should be able to find a small piece of scrap batting to use for it.

Mom, Hunter and I left early this morning around 8:30 for her doctor's appointment. All went well, he said she was doing fine now. We had a few hours to kill before her physical therapy appointment later in the afternoon. So first we stopped by McDonald's because Hunter thinks that is the only place that he can eat. :( I don't like McDonald's at all but we stopped anyway. After lunch we stopped by two furniture stores. I will be needing a new couch when we move in the new house so I just wanted to look around to get some ideas. I found one that I really liked, nothing fancy but felt like it might hold up for a while with Hunter bouncing on and off of it. You know how kids are...you tell them to be easy and sit down and that just makes them rougher. Anyway...if it is still there when I go to buy that is the one that I want.

By the time we got home from her physical therapy it was going on 4pm. I am sooooooo tired and I know she is too. So I didn't really feel like dragging out anything major to work on this evening so I decided to start something new.... :( LOL! I am making a tablerunner out of wrapped cotton clothesline. I was doing fine until Richard walked by and said "Oh! Are you making a rug?" Hmmmm....it does sorta look like a rug doesn't it? Anyway it is still rather small right now as you can see it by my machine. So I will work on it over the next couple of days. Who knows what it will end up being, a rug or a tablerunner. I will just sew on it until I get tired of it and just call it done then. One thing that I don't like about it is that I changed colors on the side instead of the end. I think if I had done it on the end it wouldn't have been so noticeable, but after it is all finished it may not be that noticeable.

I think I'm going to go take a HOT soaking bath. My right hip and leg is throbbing from so much walking and sitting today.

Kristie

Sorting through the piles...

Well, I'm snowed in today! :) Actually I guess we could get out if we really needed to, but I'm perfectly happy staying in today, too cold for me. When we first got up our water was frozen off, so Richard had to thaw that out. It didn't take too long for him to do that, the best thing was "no busted pipes"

So while he was doing that I was doing this...trying to tidy up one of my cabinets that I have quilt stuff stored in. I am planning to tidy everything up over the next several months so that I will not have to sort through everything when we do have to pack up and move in the new house. Hopefully when we do get moved in I will be alot more organized. Alot of the problem now is that I don't have any extra space.

Several of these things I had forgotten about. Here are some paper-pieced flying geese that I was making out of scraps. This may end up being a small wallhanging or a table runner.

Here is a basket of purple scraps that I planned on using for a string pieced wallhanging or tablerunner.A little container of recycled papers that I had precut for small string pieced blocks. These are extra homework papers that belonged to Hunter that the school had sent home with them over SUMMER break to work on if they wanted to. Let's just say "Hunter didn't want to" and I didn't make him, I really didn't want him to have to do school work during his break. So I cut them up for quilt blocks! LOL!
I finally found the red binding that I had cut for Hunter's sailboat quilt! The quilt is quilted, now it just needs this binding on it.
Several hundred yo-yo's! Some are done and some still need to be sewn. I usually work on these on the go, doctor appointments and stuff like that. This one will be for Hunter, it will probably end up the same size as Andrew's yo-yo quilt which had 2000 yo-yo's in it.
Here is the shelf in this cabinet that all of this came out of. You can see it is still a mess and you can see there are more yo-yo's in there. Several patterns, some pantos, books, junk, and a little bit of everything.
And here is another tub of fabric that needs sorted. I showed another one of these the other day. I have 4 or 5 of these that need to be sorted. This ranges from yardage to strings.

I also pressed some of my Mystery pieces. I'm still plugging along on this project. I really do like how everyone else's is turning out. So I'm anxious to get mine done too.

Here is another photo of my potholder blocks that need to be trimmed up before I can layer them for quilting. As you can see by the "Halloween" fabric with the eyes, I used everything!
So after I sorted through that stuff, I settled down with Hunter to play a game of Monopoly! Oh he beat me soooooo bad! But it was lots of fun spending the "special time" with him.
Now it is almost 3:30 pm, I'm off to take a short nap and then to finish up supper! Hopefully I can do a little bit of sewing late tonight.

Kristie

North Star Block #2

I just finished up my North Star block! This is block #2 for the Civil War Quilt Block a Week! Check out the blog such interesting History to go along with it! I'm loving this!!

Early this morning I went to the dreaded grocery store! :( That drives me crazy but I guess that is a part of life. And the worst part is putting it all away when you get home. Anyway it is done, my block is done and now it is nap time! LOL! Just a little nap and then I will be back up and clean the house some before we settle down for our movie night. Well, Hunter and Richard watch a movie and I will sit here and do a little bit of sewing but at least I will be in the same room. :)

Kristie

A Day Of Sewing...

I have spent most of the day sewing! I started out sewing because I was stressed out over the school bus driver that did not come up here to pick up Hunter this morning. Last night we got a light dusting of snow, actually it looked more like a frost. Anyway Hunter was waiting on the bus and it never came. I called the bus garage to see why and he said that the bus ran on every road in the county except ours!!! He said that the bus driver called in and said that the road was too bad with snow!!! Here is one of the photos that Richard took of the road as he took Hunter to school! Do you see snow on our little old dirt road????? NOPE! If you look close you can see a little bit of snow on the main road at the bottom of the hill but not our road! And yes, I know Richard needs to clean his windshield!!! LOL! This is his old truck that he does everything with. This is not the first time this has happened. This has gone on for a few years now and what it boils down to, is that Hunter is the only kid on this road and he doesn't want to come back here for one kid! I called everyone that I could think of this morning and we plan on taking these photos to the next Board of Education meeting!!!
Okay, I'm done complaining now! On to the sewing!!!! In my last post I mentioned that I needed to make a million pot holders. I wanted a few for myself, Chantal wanted 50! LOL! and Crystal (her bestfriend) wanted a couple of sets. I already had 6 finished so today I string pieced 22 blocks to be used as pot holders! That will be 4 for Crystal, 12 for Chantal and 12 for me.....right??? I think my math is right! LOL!

Now I just need to trim up the blocks, get them layered and get ready for the binding! This will be my take along project as I take mom for her physical therapy and doctor appointments. I know it would be faster to do the bindings by machine but I so enjoy the hand work.

I have this large wooden crate/box thing that I have my strings and narrow strips in, this is what I found as I returned from putting a load of laundry in the washer! Silly Donkey!!!! He thought the box was all for him! LOL!

I'm tired and I need to clean my mess up! I moved my sewing machine to one of those tv table things and put it in front of the couch so that I could sit on the couch and sew. I found that is much easier on my hip, if I plan on sewing for a while. So now I have threads all over the couch!!! Off to clean and then on to bed!

Kristie