A new addition to my sewing room...

 I've been busy in my sewing room that past few days and it feels great!  I have a little more progress to show on my Green Scrappy Bargello that was a UFO.  I have the blocks off of the wall right now and have taken my design wall down, more on that later in the post.  Anyway, I still have several strip sets to press and cut to finish this one.  

A few more bowties to add to the pile.  

Do you remember a while back when I showed you the 1200+ HST's that I had in blue and white?  Well I worked on sewing some of them into sets of two.  There are over 400 sets here.  I figure I will work on these a little at a time so that I will not get overwhelmed with them.  

 A week or so ago I was complaining that my lower back was hurting because I had been bent over at the cutting table.  I was explaining to Richard that the table was too low.  First he said that we would pick up some of those riser things to make it taller, but I told him that I really didn't want to do that because the table wasn't big enough anyway.  You can see the little round table in this photo that I took back in May.  Looking at this, my sewing room has changed so much since May.  

 The bookshelf is now moved over to the wall where my antique ironing board with my Featherweight sits (the green thing in the left of the photo).  That big wall where the bookshelf was is now my design wall.  Which I took down yesterday because if you look real close....the room is not completely painted!  :)  The paint stops at that beam beside the window and from there over it is just primer.  Hopefully that will be painted sometime this coming week and I can put my design wall back up.  I did just have a big piece of Warm & White hanging there but Richard said that he thought we had a few extra pieces of that silver insulation board in the outbuilding leftover from the house.  So I will wrap those and it will look much neater.  Anyway....back to my cutting table.

The other day Richard was cutting some lumber and I asked him what he was doing.  He said, "building you a bigger cutting table and taller so that you don't hurt your back"  Gotta love that man!  He is soooo handy to have around.  Now he made my sewing table a long time ago by using a new hollow-core door and built a frame and legs for it.  It is rather low but fits me perfectly because I'm only 5ft tall.  I loved it when he made it.  My cutting table is made from another hollow-core door just like the sewing table, only taller.  

 I am loving the new "L" shape sewing and cutting area!  I still have to paint or stain the legs and frame on them but I am just so pleased with them.  Since we already had the door and the lumber was just scraps it didn't cost anything.  The doors are 3ft x 6.5ft so I have plenty of space.  Now I need to hang a quilt of some sort over my sewing area.  To give you an idea of how much wall space is there,  that window is 8ft tall.  It all just looks empty right now.  Can you tell that I was watching "Gone With the Wind"?  It is one of my favorite movies.  Oh and I moved that little ironing board off of the table too.  

 Hunter loves it too!  He has been coming upstairs while I am sewing and sitting on the stool and draws, does homework, or just plays around.  I enjoy the company.  Speaking of Hunter, he is sick.  The school called yesterday and said he had a temp and that I need to pick him up.  He is home again today, he was up and down most of the night.  Every time the Motrin wears off his temp goes back up.  The school said there were a bunch of the kids sick.  

Believe it or not, I have one of MY quilts on the frame!!  Yay!  Since January the only thing of mine that I had quilted was a little mini.  This one is nothing major, just a Halloween lap quilt.  It isn't even really pieced.  I had a piece of fabric and sewed some borders on it.  LOL!  Is that cheating?  I haven't even started the quilting on it, I just loaded it this morning.  Once I get it finished I will give it to my niece and nephews.  Hunter already has one almost like it.  

I have several more pillowcases cut out that I will be working on this week too.  Our pile is growing.  If anyone else is interested in making some pillowcases for donation, click on the tab at the top of my blog.  All pillowcases go to, "For Jamie's Sake" Over the past week or so, I've received more of them.  This first photo is 10 pillowcases that Janet from IL sent.  I don't think she has a blog, Janet if you do, please let me know.  Lots of fun fabrics that I'm sure the kids will enjoy.  

 This set of 20 is from Annie in WA.  Such a wide range of pillowcases.  She also sent along some books to donate, I took a photo of them but for some reason it turned out blurry.  One of the books was, "The Goat Lady", oh my gosh, that is a great book.  

 Thanks ladies and thanks to everyone that has donated.  I can't wait until we meet our goal of 100 pillowcases and I can deliver them.  I will have to take some photos because I know they are anxious to get them.  

I'm off to do some housework.  UGH!  It is rainy and cool here today.  Richard has his wood planer and saws on my front porch cutting and working on the wood trim that goes around my front door on the inside.  I can't wait for him to get it finished and stained.  The bad part is, he is working on the porch and there is sawdust everywhere out there and he keeps tracking it in on my front rug while he is measuring and such.  I guess I can hold my tongue until he gets it done.  :)
Kristie

Featured Quilt of the Week ~ 2

It is "Featured Quilt of the Week" time!!  This is where you can post a quilt on your blog for the past.  It could be from a few months ago to several years ago that you would like to show.  When you post on your blog be sure to link back to my blog (this blog post) so that everyone can look over the quilts and blog hop!  The linky thing will be at the bottom of this post!

Here is my quilt!  It is called "Road to Dixie"  This is a quilt that I made years ago.  Not sure how long, I would look in my books that I keep to be sure but I'm guessing 8-10 years ago!  

I got this pattern out of a quilt magazine and noticed a while back that the pattern had been republished in a quilt magazine.  I don't remember if it was the same one or not.  Anyway, looking at this photo I realize that I must have lost my mind!  Look how wide I made those borders!  LOL!  Now here is a little funny.....this is STILL just a quilt top!  Yep!  It is still in the pile to be quilted.

I remember that I cut this out during the night after Richard would go to work.  It took me a couple of nights to cut it out and a couple more to piece it together.  If I remember correctly it only took me about a week to finish this top.  

I had lots of fun piecing this top.  Seeing it again really makes me want to dig it out and quilt it!  Maybe I will get to it real soon.  

Come on and join in!  I'm going to try to do this so that everyone can link up on Thursday or Friday at the latest.  Check back often for added blog posts and see all of the quilts!

Design Wall Monday

 My design wall this Monday morning is a little bit of a mess.  Lots of odds and ends on there.  Just several different projects in the works.  

First off is my Wheel of Fortune or Road to Fortune, it is called both.  This is the UFO that I started working on the other day.  I still only have 4 completed blocks done but have a few more half blocks ready.  I do love this one but I think I need a better selection of scraps than I currently have so that may make this one a slow finish as I gather scraps.  

Then at one point I got a little bored but didn't really want to drag out anything major to work on.  I made 2 more blocks for my scrappy stars.  We are making 2 blocks a month so these will be for October, but by the time October comes around I will probably make a couple more.  These are great to use up those scrap 2.5" squares.  

 I've also added a few more bowties.  I can't remember my exact count right now but I have it written down upstairs.  

 I also worked on my block for Barbara Brackman's block of the week.  I made the block that was posted last week, it is the one on the bottom.  The one for this week is a hard one, so I will try to get it done sometime this week.  

 Last but not least, I pulled another UFO out to work on.  This one is an older scrappy bargello, (quiltville pattern) that I started doing in greens.  I had to do a ton of pressing because it was all smashed in a box.  

 I had 11 blocks finished and the strips sewn together for another 13 blocks for a total of 24 blocks.  Well, now I know why I put this one away....I didn't have enough green strips to make the 48 blocks that I had intended.  :(  I will work on it as far as I can get with what I have.  

I pulled a few more green strips from my 2.5" strip tote and now I have enough for a total of 30 blocks.  I may be able to get one or two more done over that but for now that it all.  I will just get it as far as I can and see how I like the size.  My biggest problem is the OCD in me that wants it to come out even on the sides and bottom. LOL!  

So that is what I have on my design wall!  To see what others are working on go over to Judy's blog and take look.  

Oh, I got a few more pillowcases in for donation, I'll post those in my next post!  If anyone else is interested in donating pillowcases for a good cause, click on the tab at the top of my blog to read the details.  
Kristie

3 finishes in 9 days!

 3 finishes in 9 days!!  It feels great! I've finished 3 UFO's and I'm working on my 4th.  So here is my "Road to Jericho"  I know the green border looks a little odd but I just used what I had.  

Now it goes in the pile to quilt with the others.  I really need to start quilting some of them.  I have close to 40 that need quilted!  UGH!  I think I have some backings, I just need to dig them out and match them up.  

Here is my other UFO that I am currently working on it is called "Wheel of Fortune"  I think I am really going to like this one once it is finished.  I only have 4 blocks finished but I'm not sure how many  I will make in the end.  

 Here are the 15 bowties that I finished during these UFO's.  

 It feels great seeing some progress on this stuff.  Now maybe I will not feel guilty if I decide to work on something new...
Kristie

Featured Quilt of the Week #1

So I have this idea and I would like for you all to join me!! Last night while I was trying to fall asleep I was thinking about past quilts that I had made and what they meant to me.  

Unless the quilts are gifts most of the time mine are just folded and put away until it is time to get them back out and refold them to keep them from creasing.  Lots of times no one sees them after I post them on my blog and put them away.  

So I thought that maybe once a week we could post about our past quilts or quilty projects that have been forgotten, sorta like an online quilt show.  Lots of time I get inspiration from my past quilts and maybe we could all inspire each other!  I'm sure we all have tons of past quilt photos on our computers or we could even drag one out and snap a photo of it, it wouldn't take that long to do that.  

Maybe we could show the photo and post the story of that quilt, why it was made, if it was made for someone or even what was going on in our life during that time.  

I'm thinking that we could do this once a week, on a Thursday!  After we post it on our blogs we could link it back to here so that it would be easy for everyone to go through all of the links for inspiration.  So whatcha think?????  :)

So here goes my first one.  

This one is called "Pieced Tulips"  

This is a quilt that I made 9 or 10 years ago and is one of my favorites.  I love scrap quilts and when I started quilting it seemed that I could make more quilts if I used scraps so I would buy 1/2 yard cuts so that I would have more of an variety in my quilts.  I really never knew anything about color placement and I'm sure there are not really any rules for that but some people may think so.   :)  

I still have this quilt in my pile and I've always thought of making another one.  I got this pattern from an old quilt magazine that I had, I don't even remember which one but I know that I still have that magazine because I saw it a while back.  

Now I hope I can get this linky thing to work, if not I will delete this post and start over.  :(  

Post on your blog about one of your past quilts and link back to this post!  Not my blog but this post.  Make sure you are linking your post and not your whole blog.  Click on the "Add your link" button below and it is simple to link to your post!  :)

Design Wall Monday!

 This has been a good past few days of sewing!!!  I finished up an older UFO!  This makes 2 UFO's that I have finished this week and I am working on my 3rd!  So this in the one that I finished up this weekend!  I started it back in January 2011, set it aside, got it back out and worked on it a little more.  Then in July 2011 I got it out and cut some of the pieces the wrong size and had to find more of the navy paisley fabric.  I was aggravated at this point so I set it aside once again.  Then finally I got it back out over the weekend and pieced the last 14 blocks and assembled the top!  I am soooooo happy that it is finished and really pleased with how it turned out.  

I know it is hanging a little crooked on the wall but that is because there is a big picture hanging behind it.  I promise, it is straight.  :)  I put it on Andrew's bed and it fits his queen size bed really well.  

Hunter had to jump in one of the pictures as I was trying to snap them.  Silly boy, can you tell he is a goofball?  

I wish I had more of these fabrics, I love them.  The navy looks almost black in the photo but I promise it is navy.  The pattern came from Mary at Mary Quilts.  I loved it when she first posted it. I had to change around some of the color placement to fit the amount of fabric that I had.  

This is the UFO that I finished earlier in the week.  It is called "4 Patch Flip"  This was one that I had cut from my scrap basket a year or so ago.  

 Here are the bow ties, baskets and a block from the other UFO that I started working on, it is called "Road to Jericho"  I've made one before and loved it.  This was also one that was cut from my scrap basket around the same time as the 4 patch flip.  

 I got in a little bit of piecing on my 3rd UFO.  I hope to have it done in a few days.  I had this one cut out but had not started on the piecing.  

 Then I decided it was time to clean out my scrap basket.  This is a basket that I have on my cutting table that all of the scraps go in and when it starts running over I sort through them and put them into different piles.  Here you will see in where I started sorting...

I have 1.5" strips, 2" strips, 2.5" strips, reproduction strings and strips of assorted sizes and some fabric that I am collecting for my Scrap Jar Star quilt that I want to start real soon.  

 I received a wonderful box of goodies in the mail from a very special lady and I sorted through all of that and pressed the strips.  I can't wait to get started making something with those....maybe another log cabin quilt????

 I also cut out a bunch more bow ties!!!!  They are sitting by my machine and are ready to go!  

 And last but not least...another good mail package!  Pillowcases from Janet!!!!  Yay!  If anyone else is interested in making a few pillowcase for donation to "For Jamie's Sake" please let me know, they would be greatly appreciated.  Here is a link to the original post.  

 I guess that is all for now, I've got to clean the house, clean out a horse stall, do some laundry, fix supper and hopefully get a little sewing in before the day is over!  

If you want to check out more design walls check out Judy's blog.
Kristie

A Finish....finally

 Here it is 2:22am and I'm wide awake!  UGH!  Why do I do this?  I have to get Richard up at 5:30am and then I have a doctor's appointment at 9:45am so it will be a very long day....

I went to bed around 9:30pm and read a few chapters in a book that I have been reading.  I wasn't the least bit sleepy and all that I could hear was Smokey laying on the rug beside the bed snoring away.  Love his heart, he is old and snores sooooo loud. :)  I got up so that I didn't wake Richard up and went upstairs to the sweat shop.  

I was so sick of NOT finishing anything.  I just jump from project to project due to lack of interest and never end up finishing anything.  So since I knew it was going to be a long night, I pulled out my "4-patch flip" blocks that I pieced back in October 2011.  When I pieced the blocks I had planned on making two lap quilts, but since I had 60 blocks pieced I figured I would piece 3 more and make 1 larger quilt.  I did a 7x9 setting and added a 6 inch border.  The photo are not that good but hey it's after 2am.  Since Andrew is not here tonight, I put it on his bed so that I could snap a few photos.  I will try to get a better photo of it later....maybe.  I know it is not completely finished and needs to be quilted but that will come later.  

Andrew's bed is a queen so I'm guessing this would be a good full size quilt.  It does hang over the edge but not far enough for a queen.  

You can see a little bit of the brown border.  Nothing special just a plain border.  I'm sure when I look at this quilt later, I will wish that I had change some block placements.  I was just sewing them together...

This is the clock as I was turning my machine off....  UGH!  

 Oh and while I was sewing the blocks together I got a few more bow ties done too.  16 more to be exact!  :)  And those baskets on the design wall were done earlier today.  That makes me 52 baskets now.  

 While I was up there I popped in a DVD, Rob Roy.  I had not watched it for a while and it was actually the first thing that I saw.  :)

 I guess I had better try to wind down and go to bed, it's 2:37am now and I have to get up at 5:30am......
Kristie

Design Wall Monday!

 Here is my design wall this Monday morning!  I have several projects up there, some I am working on and some I am trying to decide what I want to do with the blocks.  So here we go...

First up are my Grandmother's Choice blocks!  The one on the right is the block for this week.  I'm not much for Y-seam blocks but hey, it was only one block!  

I've added 3 more basket blocks to my pile.  I now have 50 of them made, now only 241 more to go....  :(

As I mentioned in my last post, here are 102 of my bow ties!  Now, I just need to cut out more of them and have them ready for my leaders and enders.  I need to use them as my leader and enders and  NOT sew them all up at once, like I did here.  

 And lastly, my scrappy diamonds, you can read about those here.  I still have them up on the wall and I do believe that this is the setting that I will use for them.  This is not one that I plan on completing this second, but sometime this winter.  Looks like a good project when I am snowed in...

 I'm not sure how much sewing that I will get in today.  I have lots to do and lots of house cleaning.  UGH!

For other design walls, check out Judy's blog.  

Oh before I forget, if anyone else is interested in making and donating pillowcases "For Jamie's Sake" please let me know.  You can read more about it here.  

Why are kids so snappy when you are trying to get them to get ready for school?  Shewww....Hunter was hateful this morning!  That makes for a long morning when I have to get on to him.  I hate doing that but man he was a bugger this morning.  :(  As I am typing this he is getting on the school bus, I sure hope his teacher fairs better than I did this morning.  :)  

I'm off to get my day started!  Everyone is gone and now I have lots of stuff to get done. 
Kristie

Cutting and Sewing...

 Well, here I go again not being able to sleep at night.  So I usually go upstairs and piddle in my sewing room.  I can't run my quilting machine because it is directly over our master bedroom and it wakes Richard up.  :(  So I dug around in some tubs and did a little bit of cutting.  I ran on to this UFO.  I started it back in November of 2009 and got all of the string diamonds finished.  I put it away because I needed to do all of the tiny strips between the blocks.  If you click on the post from November 2009 you will see what I am talking about.  Considering that was the reason that it remains a UFO, I think I will take it in a different direction.  Not necessiarly right now, but maybe this winter when I'm snowed in.  :)  I think I will just sew my diamonds together and call it finished.  To me, finished would be better than it staying in a tote unfinished....right?  I just threw a few of the blocks up on my design wall to see how it would look.  Actually, there is a pattern in the same book that looks like this.  You can see a photo of it in this post.  So as of right now, that is the plan that I have.  

Then I started playing around with my cheddar bow ties.  I think I only have something like 60 or so of them done.  Not a lot of them and to be honest, I've never been happy with them.  I think it is just the fabrics that I used.  So I have a plan for those.  I need a baby quilt soon as a gift, so I think I will sew those together for the baby quilt and move on to something else.  

I've made several bow tie quilts over the years but one quilt that I have wanted to make for years still stands out in my mind.  It is a bow tie and they are the same size as my cheddar bow ties, just different fabrics....not cheddar.  It is on the cover of McCall's Vintage Quilts, the Spring 2001 issue.  It is an old one, but I decided that it will be my NEW leader and ender project.  

So this is the point where I have to laugh at myself.  Since I was up and could not sleep, I started cutting mostly from my civil war repro scraps.  Not all of them are repros but what isn't blends in.  So I cut, cut, and cut, for a long time.  I cut out 102 bow ties before I stopped.  I figured that 102 of them would last me a while using them as leader and enders.  This is where it got out of hand, I sewed a sample block.  Then I sewed another because I liked it and it was cute.  Then another, and another, and another....you get the idea, right?  Here are some of them up on the wall.  I don't have them all up on the wall, but over the past couple of days, I have sewn ALL 102 of them!  Now I am back to square one and have to start cutting again.  This time, I will save them for my leader and ender project.  For the quilt shown on the cover of the magazine it will take 810 bow ties.  :)

Now on to some good mail!  Yesterday I got my first shipment of pillowcases!!!  Phyllis sent 10 pillowcases!!!!  As far as I know Phyllis doesn't have a blog, but if you do please let me know.  I have corresponded with her through email for a long time and she is such a sweet and caring lady.  Thank you so much, Phyllis!!!!  They are beautiful!

If anyone else would like to donate pillowcases to "For Jamie's Sake" please let me know.  You can click on the "pillowcase donation" button at the top of my blog to read all of the details.  I'm shooting for a goal of 100 pillowcases!  I'm sure these foster kids will truly appreciated them and I pray they can comfort them in some way.  

This weekend is our county fair, they call it Septemberfest!  Lots of stuff going on it town.  Tomorrow morning at 11am is our parade.  It's just a small town but most everyone comes out for it.  If the rain holds off we will be riding in the parade with our Church group.  Hunter is super excited about it too.  I just hope that it doesn't rain.  :(  The weatherman is giving severe storms.  UGH!  

Now I will leave you with this photo of my silly cat, Donkey!  As I went out this evening to Cocoa the goat back up, this is what I saw....Donkey was on a stakeout!  He was just waiting for a bird to go in or out of the birdhouse.  Silly cat!!!  

Have a wonderful and Blessed weekend!
Kristie

Another Machine Find...

 Friday being the last day of the month, I headed to Goodwill because on that day everything is half price.  Guess what I found for $10!  Yep!  A sewing machine in a cabinet!

You can see that the cabinet looks rough but in the end, I used some Old English polish on it and it looks so much better.  So here we go......

 A close up of the machine before I raised it up!  A little grungy, so I had to do lots of cleaning.  The first thing that I did was clean, oil and grease the machine.  

 Here is the buttonholer.  Everything this is there in the box and it looks like it has never been used.  

 This is all of the attachments.  I checked the manual and every piece that is listed is there.  

 After cleaning, I did some adjusting and test stitches.  She sews perfect and the zig zag is too, but I just didn't get a photo of those stitches.  

 So here she is!  Cleaned and ready to go!  She is a White 2775!  Not sure of the year yet, I can't find a lot of information on the White's.  

 The cabinet looks so much better after using the Old English on it.  I will be moving it....somewhere because it looks odd below that big picture.  :)

 I was so excited about finding this baby for $10!  I couldn't wait to get it home and cleaned up so that I could try this baby out.  I am well pleased with her.  

On to some other exciting for me.....my precious little sister, Chantal got engaged Saturday night!  YAY!  She is so happy!  She and Ronnie have been dating for 2.5 years and I mentioned a little while back that they bought a house on the property on right side of mine.  Mom is on the property on the left.  I can't see either house from mine but at least I know they will be fairly close.  Ronnie has already moved in the new house and she still lives with mom until they get married.  No date is set yet, but they are both excited and we are all very happy for them.  

Chantal is 13 yrs younger than I am but I don't think we could be any closer than we are.  She and Ronnie have been super good friends since the 4th grade.  Funny how you go years being best buddies and then realize that there is something more there.  :)

So it looks like there is a wedding to plan and that means there is a wedding quilt to make!  :)  

Kristie