Saturday, February 25, 2012

Just a quick little thing...

Today was mostly spent cleaning house and running errands. Not fun at all! Well, let me take that back, right now I am enjoying cleaning my new house, but I'm sure with time that will get old too. I had to do my grocery shopping and stuff like that. This evening we had company over, my aunt and uncle stopped by for a while. We had a nice little visit, she is a quilter so that is always fun. We just mostly talked about quilting and looked through some books.

It was getting late when they left so I really didn't have time to load a customer quilt on the frame like I had planned to do this evening but I did load on this little tablerunner on that I had pieced several months ago, actually back in September, for my kitchen table. The only reason that I put this little thing of mine on the frame was because I wanted to try out a new quilting pantograph called "ground cover" I always want to practice new designs on my own things or scrap fabrics before I ever do them on customer quilts. I just would not feel right quilting a design on someone else's quilt that I wasn't sure of before hand.

So here it is........it only measures 24 x 48 so it isn't that big really but it fits my table nicely. These are 6 inch log cabin blocks.

It will probably be a while before I get to the binding but I think I will use this fabric, what do you think? This green fabric is also used in the runner. It is hard to get a photo of the quilting but this is the best that I could do. I really like the design and the quilting on it is really dense. I used a scrap pieced of cotton batting that I had so it worked out great.
This morning I stopped by the post office because I had a package there and picked this up. A small shipment of Hobb's Poly-Down batting. I ordered 4 packages of 120x120 king bags to keep on hand. My other batting that I have on rolls measures 96" wide and I also have a few bags of 110x110, but sometimes I get a quilt that is larger than that. Actually, I have one here that will be quilted in the next few days that measures something like 114x118!!!! It is huge and very beautiful and believe it or not, I was told it was her first quilt!!! How amazing is that to make your first quilt that big???? I wasn't that brave.....my first quilt wasn't much bigger than a baby quilt. :) A friend of ours just called and said that they may stop by tomorrow. I just love them too death, they are wonderful friends and love her heart, she just had a stoke a few weeks ago, so I will be happy to see them. I spoke to her on the phone the other day and she said she was doing much better. If they do stop by tomorrow, maybe I can hand sew the binding on my tablerunner while we talk. I always have to keep my hands busy. So just in case they do stop by tomorrow, I think I will run upstairs now and load that customer quilt on the frame so that I can get started on it tomorrow evening! I have lots of quilting to get done next week!!!!

I'm off to the sweat shop.........
Kristie

Friday, February 24, 2012

Hey There Y'all

First off, let me show you a few quilts that I have done over the past few days. Actually, there was one more but for some reason, I didn't get a photo of it. It was a very pretty patch quilt and the fabrics had butterflies on them. I'm not sure of the fabric line but it was really cute.



This first one was a beautiful "Tossed 9-Patch" in 30's fabrics. It was so pretty and fresh looking. Just makes me want to dig out my 30's reproduction fabrics and make one, but I don't have a clue where they are. :) It reminded me so much of Spring!
In this photo you can see the fabrics a little better, I just loved it! This is another one that I quilted and I just loved it too! These quilts will certainly bring you out of the Winter Blah! This is a "Happy Hour" quilt. Again the fabrics were so bright and pretty. I hated to see them leave. The first two (the 30's and the one that I didn't get a photo of) were dropped off at the quilt shop this morning and the Happy Hour and the antique scrap quilt that I did last week are on their way back to Ohio. I got a new shipment of batting in a couple of days ago.....and I don't have a clue where I am going to put it!!! LOL! They are huge rolls! Right now they are just sitting in my sewing room but I need to store them somewhere, I'm thinking I will store 2 of them in the guest room since it will not be used that often and if it needs to be used I can just move them back to the sewing room. I need to get Richard to put my batting bar back on my frame so that I can store the roll that I am using back under my frame. As you can see, my sewing room is still a mess. I'm hoping within the next couple of weeks the walls will be painted and hopefully I can get my huge pile of quilts refolded and put away. Mom is going to help me do some painting over the next couple of weeks. Well actually, she will be painting and I will be quilting! I got a little behind on customer quilts because of my side pain. I am still having some pain but it just mostly feels like a bad cramp now. So I take some Motrin and it is tolerable. So expect to see several more customer quilts over the next several days!! I've got to get caught up! :) I got my results back from the PAP test that I had and all was normal with that, thank goodness. So as of right now, I have another pelvic ultrasound scheduled for April 20th (I think) to see if it has grown any over the next 2 months. If it hasn't then I don't plan on having anything done as long as it doesn't bother me and like I said I'm not even having pain on that side. She assured me that if I did have to have it removed that I would only be down for a couple of days and then I would be back to normal. So that was good news.


Well, my oldest son, Andrew turned 19 today! Hard to believe that he is 19. I'm so proud of him, he is such a good boy. I'm proud of both of my boys. So what are his plans for his 19th birthday on a Friday night??? HOMEWORK! He has some homework and an online test that he has to do tonight.


While I was at the quilt shop this morning, I picked up a few fabrics!!! I will not be doing any sewing for myself until I get caught up on customer quilts but I got them to put in my stash. I picked up 12 yards. The blue, dark brown and the print beside it were on sale/clearance. I got them for $2.50-$3.00 a yard!! The beige print on the right end, that is the one that I was using in my Everlasting Wreath blocks, I wanted 3 yards but they only had 1.5 yards of it, so I will have to find more of it online. It is a Bonnie Blue Basic, I almost hate to order it online because I know it will cost so much more than the $6 per yard that she sells it for. I just love that her fabrics are $5-$6 per yard.
Anyway, I will order it and put it back for later when I get back to working on that quilt. Right now I want to finish my log cabin blocks. I have been working on those when I have to sit down and take short breaks from the quilting frame. It works out great that way. I usually quilt at the frame for an hour or so and then take a break and sew a block or two instead of going back downstairs. That way I can get the customer quilts done and a few of my blocks too!!

That is all for now, I have to check on supper!!! Salmon, corn on the cob, green beans, cornbread and German Chocolate cake for dessert! Giggle, I hate fish or seafood of any kind so I will be having a Hot Pocket!!! :)
Kristie

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Weekly update...

I mentioned in my last post a week ago that my back was hurting pretty bad and didn't know why.....well....that night I ended up at the ER. I just went to our little local hospital and they are not that great but I just didn't feel like making the hour trip to the other hospital. When we got there their first question was, "have you ever had a kidney stone?" I was in severe pain at the time so my BP was over the moon. Short story....my pain was in my left lower back and hurting through to the front side, but most of the pain was in my back. They did blood work, urine tests, and a CT scan. No kidney stones! But something did show up on my ovary. So then they did a pelvic ultrasound and told me that I had a 4.1cm cyst on my RIGHT ovary and sent me home. Well, that still did not explain why I was having so much pain on my left side and as a matter of fact, I have no pain whatsoever on my right side. They told me to follow up with my family doctor and gynecologist.

Tuesday I saw my family doctor. Still don't have a clue why I am having so much pain on my left side. He gave me some pain medication, muscle relaxers and set me up for physical therapy starting on the 20th.

This afternoon, I had an appointment with my gynecologist. Still don't know anything really other than I am to have another pelvic ultrasound in 2 months. She said by the size of it, she really didn't think it would go away on it's own. So I guess I will know more about that in 2 months. As far as the pain in my left side, she mentioned something about diverticulitis. My mom has that problem once in a while. So now I guess I will be going for more tests next week.

As for now, I am still in pain, not nothing like it was Thursday night. It is just hurting just enough to drive me crazy. It's all not a big deal, just slows me down on things that I need to do.

Very little sewing has been going on but alot of laying on the couch and in the bed! LOL! I sew at the frame for a few minutes and then have to lay down, I am more comfortable laying down instead of sitting. I've had the same quilt on the frame for a few days and I really need to get it off soon.

I have sewn a few more log cabin blocks. I now have 100 of them done. I have a design planned that will take 168 blocks so I need to get the other 68 of them done. I really like working on these blocks.
I used EQ to figure out the design that I wanted to use. My stupid computer has had the lick and I've lost some of my programs and EQ was one of them. Now my problem is that I can't find my disk to reinstall it! With all of this moving stuff going on, who knows where it is. I just love playing around with EQ so now I'm a little down that I don't have it on here anymore. The good thing is, I still kinda remember how I was going to set up the blocks for this log cabin quilt.

I know this post is not that interesting to most of you, but hopefully I will be back in a couple of days with more quilty news!
Kristie

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Another one off the frame...

This morning got off to a slow start. Nothing major, but I was loading a quilt on the frame and realized that I couldn't use that backing and I will have to pick up another one for her this weekend...no big deal. So I put all of that away and loaded another one on.

This is an antique top that I quilted today. I always wonder as I am quilting these older tops about the people that pieced them. What was going on in their life at the time, were some of these their clothing or their children's, just stuff like that. This top is not exactly straight and square but it wasn't that bad to quilt.

Here it is all quilted! I have 3 more that belong to this same person and one of them is another antique top. It has "Donkeys" on it, I want to keep it! :) The backing that she sent was a vintage sheet. It has warm & white batting and it turned out very soft. I now have the backing loaded on for another quilt. It is a beautiful star quilt. It has a pieced backing with the same fabrics used in the quilt top. This one will take me awhile since the design she wants has a ton of quilting in it. I hope to get started on it tomorrow afternoon. I'll show you more of it as I am quilting it. I think this one measures in at 96/96.Andrew is doing much better today. He is still pretty sore but moving much better than he was.

I know this post is rather short but my backing is killing me for some reason and I'm going to lay on the couch for a bit and then maybe take a hot bath.
Kristie





























Tuesday, February 7, 2012

More Progress...

Today was a much better day...at least for me. :) I'm sure Andrew would not agree with that, he is soooo sore. The day after is so much worse, that is when the soreness sets in. He still still finding bumps and bruises everywhere, but he will be fine, thank God. This evening, Hunter crashed on his bicycle and skinned his little arm. Nothing major but he needed loved on too. :)I did get some sewing done late last night (I couldn't sleep) and today. I'm working on a customer quilt too. I'll post a photo of it tomorrow. I think she said it was called "Happy Hour" I'll have to look at the paperwork to make sure, anyway it is cute.

I worked on more log cabin blocks last night. I now have 50 of them and I still haven't decided on a setting for it yet. I'll decide on that later, right now I just want to get all of the blocks made. As I was sewing my log cabin blocks, I decided to play around with a pattern that I've had for a while. It is called Everlasting Wreaths. I got it at Laundry Basket Quilts and it is by Edyta Sitar, she has beautiful patterns. I'm thinking that I will just leave this by my machine and that way I can make one or two while I am working on something else.

After I get several more blocks made I will switch the blocks around so that I don't have the same fabrics so close in the quilt. I just wanted to show you how it was looking so far.
I mentioned the other day that I was thinking about using my Courthouse Steps on my bed. I put it on there to see how well it would fit.
I like it on there pretty good. Now I can't wait to get my walls and bed painted and it quilted!! It was a little long but I just tucked it up under the pillows sorta like a bedspread. I would rather have a quilt that is too big than not big enough. That's all that I have for today! Hopefully tomorrow I will have more quilty stuff to show you!!!

Kristie

Monday, February 6, 2012

Mothers intuition????

Ever get one of those sick feelings in the pit of your stomach that something is wrong and you just can't shake it? Well, that was me this morning. Andrew worked a 12 hour shift last night and got off at 8am this morning and Richard and Hunter left for school at 7:30am. I sat here with that feeling and just couldn't shake it. I needed to go upstairs and quilt but I was afraid that with the machine running that I would not be able to hear the phone ring if someone called. So I tried to get my mind off of having a bad feeling and went through some emails and stuff like that. Then at 8:20 Richard called. As soon as I saw his cell number on the caller ID, my heart started racing. I answered and it was nothing he was just trying to give me a phone number for someone. After I hung up with Richard and went and got dressed and was brushing my hair when Andrew calls at 8:45am. That is when I knew....

I answered the phone and all I heard was...."Mom, I'm okay...but..." Needless to say that I lost it. He had an accident and they were loading him in the ambulance when he called. He swore that he wasn't hurt bad but his back was hurting. He tells me that they are taking him to a hospital 90 minutes away from me!! (Long story there....we live in KY on the WV border and when you wreck in WV they take you to a WV hospital. He works in WV so that is where they took him.)

Let me tell you that was the longest trip that I ever drove! Here I was going 85 and 90 on the interstate trying to get there.

He was okay, just banged and bruised up pretty good and some back injuries. Nothing was broken but he was still in alot of pain. You just don't know how much praying that I did on my way and how many times that I thanked the Lord once I found out that he was okay.

You can see here that he is okay. He has some seat belt burns on his stomach and bruising from the air bag too.

The cute thing about it all.....look at the underwear that he had on!!! LOL! Sesame Street! Oh well, at least they were clean! :)

He hit some black ice and hit the guardrail, then bounced over and hit the hill and turned the truck over!! The police said that he was only going about 45mph, just when he hit the ditch and hill it sorta ramped it and flipped it over.


He is home and will probably not feel like moving much for a few days. I'm just thankful that he is okay and that God was watching over him.


Now.....MOMMA NEEDS A NERVE PILL! LOL!


Kristie

Sunday, February 5, 2012

My Courthouse Steps is finally finished!



I know in my post yesterday I said that I was going to clean up my sewing room, well that didn't happen! LOL! But look what I did get done!!! Finally my Courthouse Steps quilt!! This baby is pretty big measuring in at a nice 94x106. The lighting wasn't the best today but maybe you can get an idea of how it looks. It has a total of 224 blocks that are 6 inches and I even mitered the borders. I had never tried that before and it really wasn't that hard. I'm not sure why I hadn't tried it before. I counted the pieces and it has a total of 2916 pieces. :)




Can you see little Smokey up there? I had just hung that quilt top up there and ran downstairs to take photos and he was already crying. I think he even threatened to jump if I didn't go back up and get him. :)Here is a close up of the blocks with the border fabric. This is before I cut it for the borders. I'm hoping to get it quilted soon. I just need to get caught up on customer quilts first.


I'm glad to have it finished, I had been putting it off forever. I'm really pleased with how it tuned out.


This afternoon we drove to town and had supper with Richard's mom and grandmother. We had some very good lasagna, garlic bread, and pineapple upside down cake. We had a nice little visit with them. Then stopped off by Walmart for dog food and toilet paper. :)


Now that we are home, I really need to get upstairs and clean my sewing room so that it will be nice and clean in the morning when I load another customer quilt on the frame. I'm thinking this next one should be fairly easy, or at least I hope so.


Kristie

Saturday, February 4, 2012

30 Blocks!

This morning after breakfast I went out and spent some much needed time with the horses before the rain set in for the day. Spending time with them always relaxes me. Anyway, I took them out a bag full of Honeycomb cereal. They love that stuff, eat it right out of my hand. I remember Ole Jim, my old mule that I loved so much, he loved those things. Honeycombs and animal crackers were his favorite. I used to have to hand feed him animal crackers while they were putting shoes on him to keep him still.

After I came back in, I cleaned up the house real quick and colored my hair. Yep, it was time. My hair is naturally very dark so the first sign of grey really shows. I will be turning 40 next month but the way that I was looking you would have thought I was turning 90. LOL! Oh well, life goes on.

While I was up in my sewing room today, I snapped a few photos of Hunter. I know they are black & white, but for some reason after playing around with them, I could get them changed back. :) This was taken from the top of the stairs.
Doesn't he look comfy? He was watching the movie Rio.

I worked on my log cabin blocks today and now have a total of 30 of them. As of right now I want somewhere between 144 and 168 of them just depending on the setting that I use. I figure I will just keep moving them around until I finally decide. I really enjoy making these things.

Here is my ever faithful companion, Smokey. This little guy makes every step that I make. He always has to be somewhere near me. He is getting old and the stairs are hard on him so I have to carry him up and down every time. If something happens and I have to take something upstairs and can't carry him at the same time he stands at the bottom of the stairs and cries, breaks my heart to hear him do that. Can you see the thread on his face?

This is what I will be tackling tomorrow afternoon! Yep, my sewing room looks like a bomb has gone off in it. I've been so busy quilting these quilts for people that I just haven't had a chance to put everything away. Can you see that pile of quilts back there? There is a loveseat buried somewhere under it. :) Just to give you an idea of how tall that pile is...that wall behind it is 12ft tall. This is not counting the pile of quilts that are downstairs. All of these have to be refolded and put away.....somewhere. That is a problem right now because we have so many things that are not finished. I need the linen closet finished so that I can store a bunch of them in there, the upstairs bedrooms need to be finished, I will put several in there. Actually, I'm not sure where they will all go, but I do know that they can't stay where they are now.


I guess that is all for tonight. I want to relax a little before bed.


Kristie

Friday, February 3, 2012

Talking paint...

This morning I had to make a quilt drop off at the quilt shop. I did pick up a couple of fabrics but I have already put them upstairs in my sewing room. One is a red, I had some of it and used it for my log cabin centers and I wanted all of the centers to be the same in all of the blocks. I picked up an extra yard of that. Also I picked up a half yard of some beige background print just to add to my stash. I'm not going to be working on any customer quilts this weekend, I will start working on those again on Monday. This weekend I hope to get my sewing room cleaned up and work on my log cabin blocks.


I've been looking at paint samples until my eyes are crossing. As of right now the only rooms that are painted are the main bathroom and Hunter's room. I posted photos of those before but here they are again.
So here are a few of the paint colors that I am thinking about for a few of the other rooms. Nothing is set in stone yet, but I think I like these colors. This first sample is what I am thinking about painting the main part of the house. This would be for the living room, hallway, my sewing room and the 40 ft wall upstairs that over looks the living room. We figured up the square footage and would need about 15 gallon of paint for this!! I know it sounds like alot but these are big rooms and I have a 22ft tall wall in the living room and that 40ft wall that over looks the living room is 12ft tall! So with so much to paint in these areas I didn't want to go too crazy. This one is called French Toast. What do you think?
This is what I am thinking for the kitchen. It is called Suddenly Saffron. It is an orange/brown color, actually more orange than brown but not a bright orange. My kitchen is 20x20ft so I will need several gallon of it too.
My bedroom is what I really didn't have a plan for before we moved in. Here are a few photos and maybe you can tell me what you think. Here is my plan....my master bedroom is also 20x20 and has 2 windows and a set of french doors that will eventually go out onto a private deck. My bedroom furniture is all antique pieces. This is the dresser that I have in there but I don't have the mirror up there yet, I was trying to wait until I painted the walls.
And here is our bed, complete with the original metal springs! I'm thinking that I will paint the bed a flat black or a dark bronze. I know that may sound weird but I've had the bed white for years and decorated with blue/yellow/white. The other bed that my grandmother had was dark. I would like to maybe use the Courthouse Step quilt (that is still not finished) If you remember it has darker fabrics and beige background fabrics Most of them are Civil War Reproduction fabrics. So now that I have told you that long story....here is the paint that I am thinking about for the master. It is called Tea Stained. It is a few shades darker than the paint sample for the living room. Now that I have bored you all to death talking about paint colors. I will leave you with a photo of our supper for tonight. Rotisserie Chicken. I put the rotisserie rub on it and popped it in my little rotisserie oven and it was done in about 2 hours. Served with mashed potatoes, peas and rolls. Hopefully tomorrow I will be back with some log cabin blocks to show!!!
Kristie

Thursday, February 2, 2012

On a roll...

The past couple of days I have been at the frame quilting, but my work week is almost finished! This weekend I will be cleaning up my sweat shop and working on my log cabin blocks. This is a quilt that I quilted for a lady and I also did the binding on it too. The quilt shop sells this as a kit and I think the pattern is called "5 to 9" My camera was going dead so the photos are not as bright as they should have been. This one measured 55x80. Here is an up close shot of the quilting. It is quilted with a panto called "lush leaves"
This is the one that I have been working on this morning. It's not very big something like 35x45. She is planning on using it for a wallhanging in the nursery. I think she said she got it at Joann's. At first she wanted an all over design quilted on it, but when I tried to do that I started getting huge skips when I hit the animals. It has a ton of layers so I think that is why it was skipping. The backing is flannel, warm & natural batting, the top is flannel with fleece applique animals. But like on the lion's nose, that is 7 layers thick!!! So I called her and explained this to her and she just said "do whatever you can with it" Now I am in the process of picking that out and plan on just outline stitching where I can without getting into the parts that have so many layers. That should work well and like I said she is not going to use it as a quilt but a wallhanging. I will be doing the binding on this one too. I should have it done sometime tonight and will be delivering both of them to the quilt shop in the morning.
That is about all that I have been doing. I have unpacked a couple more boxes, but a lot of those boxes can't be unpacked until we get some more stuff done on the house. I have a ton of kitchen stuff still boxed up, because my upper cabinets and island are not done yet. Hopefully we will start on those in a week or so. I also plan on jumping in and doing alot of painting too. We just needed a little break from having to rush around and work our butts off trying to get moved in. I'll post more house photos as we get things done. I'm really excited about getting some of the painting finished so that we can get the crown mouldings, baseboards, and door facings done.

I've been trying to get my quilting done during the day while I'm home alone that way I can have some family time during the evenings. Hunter still doesn't like school, but makes straight A's. When he gets home all he wants to do is play and burn some of that energy off from being at school all day. Andrew....I don't see alot of him. He is going to school full-time and working 2 jobs! So that is 7 days a week! I'm not sure how long he can stand that, but I am happy that he wants to work. Like I said he is going to school full-time and then working his main job at the behavioral health center on the weekends, 12 hour shifts on Saturday night and Sunday night from 8pm to 8am. Then his other job he is working at the taxidermist shop under the owner and learning that trade as well. I've always told my kids that you can never learn too many different things because you never know when you will need something else to fall back on someday. Anyway he is working there on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. And Richard.....he is still going to nursing school and graduates in May! :) Right now along with his class and lab work he is also doing clinicals at two different hospitals. Yesterday he got to assist with a delivery!! He was a little excited about getting to do that. BTW...it was a 8lb boy! Other than that, nothing else has been going on.

Now I guess I had better get back to work. I have some laundry to do and then get back up to work in the sweat shop!
Kristie