This brings me to a total of 50 of these blocks so far. 
It is sooooo hot here today! The thermometer read 101 degrees in the shade! Richard was out running fence again today for about 7 hours. I guess he got too hot but he would not admit it! When he came in he got something to drink, got a shower and went to bed and that is just not like him at all. I'm going to get him up in a few minutes and make him eat something. Mom came home today! She stopped by for a few minutes before she went on home. She looks so tired! I think she needs a few days of good rest! I'm glad she is home for a few weeks.
If Richard feels like it later tonight I'm going to see if he will help me adjust the tension on my quilting machine so that I can get those quilted. I have a hard time getting it adjusted by myself and want to pull my hair out so I just leave it to him. :) I have a couple of customer quilts to do then I have a few of my own that I want to do too. We don't have the air conditioning in the new house yet so it will be getting really hot up there but I usually get up around 5:30-6am so I could quilt early and finish it up late of an evening.
Kristie
So while Richard and Hunter were fishing I made a new pin cushion! This was made from a pattern that 
And it even has a little pocket for a seam ripper! 
We had company the biggest part of the day today and she wanted to look at my quilt stuff. She fell in love with my Civil War Love Letter quilt top. She said she didn't know how to paper piece! So what is a girl to do??? Get out the sewing machine, of course!!! Since she had never tried it before I didn't want to show her something too hard, so I dug out a few of my UFO's. This first one is a "Courthouse Steps" I really like these blocks and may work on it again soon. I think today I made 6 more blocks. 
Then I showed her how to do a simple string block. This is one that I had a few blocks done on it. I love working with these blocks they are just mindless quilting and go fairly quickly. I kept these out and plan on working on these over the next several days....or weeks....maybe months... 
And now I leave you with a few photos of Hunter! I thought these were so cute! I know he is dirty but they had been down at the pond fishing for several hours and he is a little country boy, if he sees dirt he has to play in it! LOL! Anyway...Hunter caught 11 fish and he was very excited so I wanted to take some photos. I told him to grab a couple of them and hold them up! 
Then he picked it back up! :)
Now I'm off to bed! Good night!
So now I'm in the process of subcutting them into 560 strips. I think my biggest problem will be keeping them all organized so that I don't get them mixed up. So I dug up some baskets to sort them in. I think once I get them all subcut the piecing will go fairly quick.....or so I hope. 
Now for some farm photos to show I has been going on up here on "top of the world" I made another batch of soap. I know have two batches that are curing and I hope to make a few more batches this coming week. I plan on making some honey & almond and some cranberry & mandarin.
I ran up on this little guy as I was out feeding the horses. Harmless but I still hate snakes!
And a couple of the girls out playing yesterday evening. Cocoa knocked my birdhouse off as you can see in this photo. I tried to get a good photo of Donkey playing with them, he actually likes the goats! :)
And Sweetie chomping on some grass. Love my girls! They keep us provided with milk, cheese, butter and now soap! 
Here it is during the process....
I was supposed to wait at least 12 hours to release them from the molds but I went ahead and did a few after a couple of hours, I'm not a patient person! LOL! So now they are curing for while. With this batch I made "Honey Oatmeal Goat Milk Soap" It smells sooooooo good! I used several different molds the ones in this photo are made using antique jello molds.
I used a few of the crumbles from the spoon and pot to see how well they work even though they have not cured and I am in love! I've used goat milk soap before and loved it, but with this honey and oatmeal in it, it just makes your skin sooooo soft. I think I will make several more batches over the next few months so they will have time to cure really well and I plan on giving some for gifts for the holidays and maybe even selling some gift sets too. 
As you can see this quilt is very "Girly" and very "Spring" looking. BTW, I already had this kit cut out, not sure when I had done all of the cutting but it was nice to just be able to up it up and start sewing on it.
Oh and of course all of this camera flashing woke Jazz up! He sleeps every night with Hunter. For some reason he sleeps down at the foot of the bed not up where he can snuggle with Hunter. Jazz sleeps with Hunter and Smokey sleeps in my room. He sleeps on my side of the bed in the floor straight across from my head. He doesn't like to sleep in the bed because it is too hard for him to get in and out of it so he just sleeps in the floor. Smokey is my baby, he makes very step that I do. When I sit down he is at my feet in the floor, if I go to the bathroom he is right there too. Oh and Smokey does not like the storms that we have been having. He whines and shakes the whole time so you have to hold and pet him to calm him down.
Well it is now 5:40am so I had better start breakfast and call Andrew. If all goes well today I hope to get all of the pressing of the strip sets finished and maybe tomorrow I can subcut them.
Speaking of kit directions....they were WRONG! Don't you just hate that? The directions called for 64- 2x3.5" rectangles for the border when I actually needed 84! Thank goodness there was enough extra fabric to cut the rest of what I needed. I have the binding cut for it so it is ready and will be put in line to be quilted...as soon as I can get to it.
I've been up since 4am this morning! :( A buddy of Richard's called at 4am! He was heading to work but needed to see about using something of Richard's and needed to pick it up before he left! Anyway....I just can't go back to sleep after being woke up like that. When the phone rings in the middle of the night it always scares me too death. I'm always afraid it is bad news.
I'm tired now so all of this may have to wait until tomorrow after Church. I must say it feels great to have gotten this far on it. I guess I just really needed something with some different fabrics than I had in my stash and in my scrap bins. So glad that I started this kit! I'm going to wait until I get this one finished before I work on anything else but I have several more kits so I may think about working on another one. 
Better get off the computer...mom just called and she and my sister are on their way out here. She hasn't seen my stairs and a few other things that we did while she was gone to work for 28 days. I checked on the stairs a few hours ago and they are still a little bit "tacky" I wanted to get a coat of polyurethane on them today but no such luck!
If you look real close in his hand you can see that he brought home a little friend! LOL! Love his dirty little hands! I promise he had a good scrubbing before bed! :) They had a great day working together and he did get paid for it too. 
I didn't get a lot of sewing done today, I've been spending some "mommy time" with mom. She got in from St Louis last night. I saw her for a few minutes last night but I didn't stay too long, she was so tired. Then I spent several hours with her today. Hunter and I went out for a visit and she is coming out here tomorrow to see what all we got done on the house while she was gone. 
A guy that mom works with said his wife wanted to know if I would want a small bag of quilting stuff. Of course she said "YES"!!!! She said that she had taken a class several years ago to make a small quilt and I guess she put it away because you can pretty well date the fabrics in it. She said that her hands had just gotten too bad to finish it. So here is what she sent! 
It measures about 50x50. Also in the bag was a bag of batting to fit it, 3 extra blocks and about 1.5 yards of blue that would be plenty enough for the binding. 
I do love it and I so appreciate that she thought to give it to me, but here is what I am thinking.... As a quilter myself it would break my heart not to be able to quilt anymore and to think that she put hard work into it only to not be able to finish it. Since she had everything for it except for the backing, I think I will find a backing for it, quilt it up, bind it and give it back to her. Of course this will have to wait until my stairs dry and after I get the other 3 customer quilts finished! LOL! I believe that I have a backing that I can use for it. 
It's late and I always get up early, well around 6am. It is hard to sleep in when you live on a farm. The animals start to let you know that they need their breakfast! But I'm not complaining I love all of my farm babies! 
Late last night Hunter came up to Richard and told him that he was in "desperate need" for some money! Now he is only 8 so I'm not sure why he is in "desperate need" for it. The best thing was he didn't at all ASK if he could have some money he asked Richard if he had any work for him to do so he could earn some money! So proud of that! Richard has been running fence for a couple of weeks. Working with barbed wire is hard work because it is sharp and you have to stretch it so tight but it needs to be done anyway. Richard told him that the only thing that he had going on right now was the fencing so Hunter asked if he could go to work for him. The last day of school was yesterday and he had planned on sleeping in very late today but instead he got up at 6am to go to work! LOL! I promise Richard will not work him hard but I think it teaches them to work for their money and that everything can't be handed to them. So here he is after a big breakfast this morning ready to go to work! *Note his hammer and nail belt! LOL! He is so cute! 
I packed them a big lunch to eat because they will not come back up to the house to eat they will just take a lunch break down by the fence. Gee....I wonder if Hunter will be so willing to go back to work tomorrow! LOL! Oh and another funny about it...Hunter also has some army men packed in his pockets to play with! Hehehehe!
My grandmother made this little quilt for the baby too. All hand stitched and quilted. It is hard to see in this photo but it is set up in pink gingham. 
So I had put them away and maybe someday (a long time from now!) Hunter will get married and maybe he and his wife will have a baby girl and I will give them to her. 
Some good news! My momma is on her way home from St Louis today! I've really missed her this time. I had her home for 5 months due to her surgery so it was hard to see her have to go back to work. I may be 39 years old but I still need my "mommy time" Hunter has missed her too. He told her on the phone yesterday that he planned on them staying in the pool the whole time that she was home! :) 
So after we got our morning started we worked on the house some. I put a second coat of stain on the stairs while Richard worked on some stuff in other parts of the house. So here they are so far....
Seems like the camera really picks up the knots in the wood but they really don't show up that much. Richard has sanded and sanded them and they are as smooth as glass. I can't wait to get them done. 
There will be a trim piece that goes against the back of them. We still have all of the trim work to make but right now we are just trying to get the actual steps finished so that we can go upstairs. 
As of right now, I plan on one more coat of stain and then two coats of the clear poly to seal them. After I got them stained this morning I had just walked in the other room and Hunter let Jazz in the house and he ran straight up the stairs and back down! I had little dog prints in my wet stain! I was sooooooooo irked! Had to go back and try to wipe it all out, I'll be able to tell more about it after it dries real good.
Oh and this is my front step! LOL! This big flat rock was one that I found on the other end of our property and had Richard to bring it for our front step! Let's just say.....he didn't enjoy it! LOL! Had to use the bucket on the tractor to get it here and it measures about 2.5ft x 4ft or so and is about 18" thick. 
