Someone...

Someone made me cry!  LOL!  So here is the story....

Yesterday I was doing dishes and Leo started barking and I heard a knock at the door.  It was Kay, a good friend of mine.  She was telling me that her son was staying with them now.  He works away but when he isn't working he is there.  She needed to clean out a closet and stuff for him.  She brought me 2 bags of fabric.  She is a crafter not a quilter.  She said she had been saving fabric thinking that someday she would make a quilt but she said that would probably never happen.  It just made my day!!!  Look at the goodies!  There was even a purse in there that she had made but didn't like.  It just needs the handles finished.  I felt like it was Christmas.  

 She had no sooner left and there was another knock on the door so I figured it was her again.  It was the UPS guy with a package.  I was a little surprised because I wasn't expecting anything.  The return address just said, "Lowe's Home Improvement Store"  So I opened it and began to cry....

This is what was in the box....

The Jim Shore that I had mention in my post back on the 20th.  I never meant anything by it other than I loved it but it wasn't in the budget right now since we are watching every penny.  There wasn't anything in the box other than the Nativity.  I don't know who you are but I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I love it and it will always be cherished with memories of you.  I hope and pray that my kids always remember the kindness.  

I love Jim Shore stuff.  I only have 6 of them...now.  LOL!  I love collecting them and really enjoy looking at them.  So many different quilt designs on them.  
Kristie

Working on some hexagons...

 Have you been sewing?  I've done very little sewing the past few days.  I had an appointment yesterday so I wanted to take something with me to work on.  I didn't have any of my applique baskets prepped and wasn't in the mood for my yo-yo's so I took my hexagons.  This is my very slow project.  LOL!  It is something that I really have to be in the mood to work on.  So I got a few of them done while I was waiting.  

If you remember the other day I was talking about decorating the house for Christmas and my dreams.  My dream was to be living in this house and we are.  It is hard to decorate when the inside is unfinished, but I'm trying to do it anyway.  Hunter has been helping.    

Here is Hunter's little village.  I let him decorate and set however that he wanted and this is what he came up with.  This is in my kitchen...btw.  Do you see that he made a little thing for the sleigh to slide down?  He is creative.  I was a little excited about it too since this was the first time that I have ever had the room to set it up.  LOL!  Yep!  I bought these several years ago and never had the space to display them, but I knew someday that I would have.  

We have a couple of special buildings.  This one is "Drew's Bicycle Shop"  I bought this one for Andrew.  

This one is "Hunter's Lodge" and of course it was bought for Hunter.  

 I've not bought any new decorations this year, just using what I have.  Here is the dining table...

 One of the things that bothered me about decorating was that I had big dreams of decorating my banisters and balcony area.  Well, since I don't have my banisters up yet, I just had to get a little creative.  Thanks to a friend that gave me the idea, I got a few of my Longaberger baskets out and cut apart an old Christmas tree, added some bulbs and gold picks.  

 Oh, I can't wait to get my banisters and trim finished....someday.

Here is the top of the entertainment center.  Can you tell that those are 2, 3ft Christmas trees on their sides?  :)  

Leo wanted to help too.  Actually, he doesn't even try to bother any of the Christmas decorations.  

He is still on medication for diarrhea, but it is a little bit better.  Still not where it should be but better than what it was.  He has put on 4lbs since we got him.  You can still see his backbone and ribs but nothing like you could when we got him. I'll do a before and after later.  

 I haven't put my tree up yet.  I plan on putting it in the corner to the left of the entertainment center.  I haven't found my ribbon yet so that is why it isn't up yet.  I have a small round coffee table that I plan on sitting it on top of, that should make it a little taller.  

My sewing room looks like a bomb went off.  I have 8 big totes of Christmas decor pulled out in my sewing room.  I'm trying to sort though and pull out what I want to use for this year.  

Mom will be flying home on Friday night, so I'm super excited about that.  She wasn't home for Thanksgiving but she will be for Christmas!!!  That makes me very happy!  
Kristie

After Thanksgiving Sewing

 I've been resting up the past couple of days since Thanksgiving.  We had 22 people here for dinner and I am soooooo tired.  As soon as everyone left I fell asleep on the couch.  Since then I haven't been doing anything other than what I have to.  :)  I have been sewing a little bit too.

I'm sure like a million other people I have started on Bonnie's mystery quilt!  I was so excited about this one since I didn't get to make the one last year.  

Here are my strips sewn together for my 4 patches.  

Here is my basket of twosies. 

My pile of 4 patches that need to be pressed...

I started pressing them but didn't get them all finished.  I figure I will just keep that basket by the ironing board and press a few at a time this week and have them all finished before step 2 comes out. Click here to see how everyone else's part one of Easy Street has turned out.   

Hunter and I spent some time in the sewing room together.  I am sitting at the treadle piecing some strings and he is in front of my at the Kenmore making a toy holster.  :)  It was a nice day.

I finally caught Andrew home and still enough for a photo.  Poor guy he works all of the time.  Last week he put in 80 hours, working 2 jobs.  His classes start back in January so he will have to drop one of the jobs.  I am proud of him but I worry that he is going to fall over from exhaustion.  He is a good boy, well young man.  I'm proud of both of my boys.  They are my world and I feel so Blessed that God put them in my life.  

 I am sooooo behind on blog reading and emails.  Giggle....I have just been too tired to do it.  I'll get caught up in a few days hopefully.  

BTW...Richard put up the door to the master bedroom and Hunter's room this morning!  That was exciting for me.  Very little thing that we get done on the house makes me very happy.  He still has to do the trim around them but I think he is just going to wait and do all of the door trims at once.  We also switched beds out of Hunter's room.  He had bunkbeds and when we moved in the house we only put up one of the beds in his room.  Then the other day Richard's 92 yr old grandmother had to get a hospital bed brought in to her house and asked if we had room for her bed in our house.  So long story short, Hunter now has a full-size bed.  At first he wasn't pleased because he said it was going to take up too much of his room but after we got it set up he liked it.  The reason that his grandmother had to get a hospital bed is because he can't turn herself over in the bed and with the hospital bed she can hold on the the rails and turn herself.  She was here for Thanksgiving and I was very happy that she was able to come.  She is very special to us.  

Okay it is 9:46pm and I'm heading to bed.  I'm tired and we have Church in the morning.  Hopefully after Church I will get to sew a little bit.  

Oh before I go read my SIL's facebook status.  I thought it was so sweet.  John is my brother and Gabe is his 4yr old son.  I thought it was precious.  John smashed his finger really bad the other day and it was all bloody and the nail will fall off then he cut another finger yesterday.  

Gabe came to John and was hugging and patting him on the back and said Daddy I'm gonna pray for you in the morning. John asked him why and Gabe said because you are getting boo boos everyday dad...lol John cut another finger today. So blessed our babies know who to ask for help. I love my little Christian family!!!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone has a wonderful and Blessed Thanksgiving.  My family and I have so much to be thankful for, today and every day.
Kristie

Preparing...

Mostly because of space issues before but, I never decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving. This morning I started thinking about my Jim Shore Santas and Snowmen.  Sooooo....I dug them out!  I will probably move them around some but for now here they are.  

I don't have many of them but I do love them.  I saw one at Lowe's a few weeks ago and fell in love with it.  It was a Nativity that stood 18" tall and that is larger than the ones that I have.  It cost $45 which is a good deal because most of my others cost that much or more, they were gifts.  I didn't buy it, but that doesn't keep me from wanting it.  LOL!  I'm sure I will live over it.  

I am very excited about spending our first Christmas in the house.  I have such big Christmas decorating dreams but they will have to wait a year or so.  Things in my house still are not finished but that is fine with me, we are living in it and that makes me happy.  Our tree, which I will not put up until around the 1st of December or so, is only a 7.5ft tree.  It looked fine before but I think it will look a little odd in the living room with a 7.5ft tree and a 22ft ceiling.  I saw a beautiful 9ft tree at Hobby Lobby when mom and I were there before she left for work.  Oh and I can't wait until we actually get our banisters up on our stairs and the balcony, I want to put some pretty garland on it.  Oh well.....I can dream....right?  :)  As I said, I'm just happy that this is our first Christmas in the house.  

Now on to some quilty stuff!  Are you doing Bonnie's Mystery quilt starting Friday?  A good friend of mine and I are planning on doing it and we have been excited for weeks.  I've decided to do mine in blues, greens, reds, brown and cream/beige.  Late last night Richard picked up the mail for me and my friend had sent me some greens and reds because that is what I had the least of.  

So now I have started adding to what she sent and pulling a few blues and browns from my scrap drawer.  

I have more blues and browns to add to the pile in my stash.  

Giggle, I added the greens and reds that were fat quarter size that she sent to my fat quarter stash.  I'll be using them in the mystery quilt but I was just playing with the fabric and wanted to see how they all looked together in my bins.  

I haven't pulled any cream/beige fabrics yet but I think I will wait and pull the rest of it once the mystery starts so that I don't have a big mess of fabric.  I do like storing my fabric this way because I can see it as I work.  

Today will be spent preparing for Thursday.  Lot's of cleaning to do on top of my other daily chores.  No sewing for me until after Thanksgiving but I'm sure by the time Bonnie's 1st mystery step comes out on Friday, I will be ready to sew!
Kristie

A Fun New Block...

 Things have been a little busy around here, getting ready for Thanksgiving Dinner.  I will be having somewhere between 21-24 guests here.  So lots of cleaning and preparing.  Honestly, I probably will not even be able to touch my sewing machine until after Thanksgiving.  

Hunter had his Thanksgiving Dinner last Thursday at school.  It was nice to go have lunch with him.  Here he is with a couple of his buddies.  

As I mentioned in my last post I have been working on some potholders.  Here they are all layered and ready to do the quilting on them.

I have lots of scrap batting that needs to be used up and these are the perfect use for the small pieces.  

Here are a few of them that are ready for binding.  I'll get to that as soon as I can.  They are fun to make.

 Here is a new block that I made.  I love it but as of right now it will just stay as a single block.  I'm not sure if this is a quilt that I want to tackle right now with everything else that I have going on.  I do love it though.  

 I've had the pattern printed out for a few months but just got around to trying it out.  It is a great use for those small strings and bits.  I got the free pattern here.

 I'll leave you with a quick photo of Leo.  He loves to nose around in my sewing room.  He is doing a little better after his vet visit but still has a long way to go and needs to gain about 20-25 lb.  I hate to see a dog so skinny.  I'm just glad that we were able to save him from being put down.  He loves to play and he has bonded so well with the family...especially Hunter.  

 The only one that he doesn't like is Donkey!  LOL!  Donkey sits up on the beams above our living room and that drives Leo crazy!  LOL!  
Kristie

Living on the edge...

 So I'm sure you are wondering where the title, "Living on the edge" comes from.  Well, everyday when Richard comes in the house, he always asks me how my day was.  The other day he asked, and I started running off at the mouth about quilting stuff and excitedly told him that I had sewn on 3 different sewing machines that day.  He laughed at me and told me that I was living on the edge.  I think he was really making fun of me but it was a little funny because I was really excited.  :)  You can see all three of the machines in the photo, my Kenmore, Singer 404, and my Featherweight.  

As I mentioned this was a couple days ago, but I used my Kenmore to sew on binding, used my Featherweight to work on some blocks for my Rocky Road to Kansas quilt, and then used my Singer 404 to make some string blocks that will be used for pot holders.  The wood crate in the photo holds my strings.  Anyway, I made a mess but it was fun.  

Here are the 10 string blocks that I made that day.  

This evening I brought out one of my White machines and pieced a few more string blocks.  As of right now I need a total of 20 string blocks to be used for pot holders.  I love all of these machines and I figure if I get them and just put them away then they will eventually be in the same shape they were when I got them....locked up or close to it.  So I plan on using them all!  

Late yesterday evening, I loaded a quilt on the frame.  It is not mine but belongs to a friend of mine.  I was really shocked when I saw the quilt because she usually uses more subdued fabrics.  This one measures 88x88.  Here it is as I was loading it on.  

A quick photo as I was quilting on it.  It is still on the frame with very little quilting done to it.  It was driving me crazy today.  It's been a while since I have used Signature thread on my machine but when I did, it sewed just fine.  She sent some Signature varigated thread to use on this quilt and my bobbin thread keeps breaking.  I've adjusted and adjusted and for the life of me, I can't figure out why it is breaking every few inches or so.  I just stopped on it until I can figure it out.  I haven't been back up there to check but now I'm wondering if maybe the thread is old or something....I don't know...any ideas?  

 Hopefully in the morning, I can get back upstairs to the sewing room and figure this out.  Stuff like this drives me crazy, I know I will lay in the bed tonight thinking about it and trying to figure it out.  :(  

I posted my Rocky Road to Kansas quilt top that I finished yesterday.  I am really pleased with how it turned out and sorta glad that it is finished.  It seemed like it took me forever even though I had only worked on it for a month.  It's almost bittersweet.  I'm glad that it is done but I'll kinda miss working on it.  I'm sure everyone feels like that sometimes when they finish a quilt.  Now I feel a little lost on what to work on.  LOL!  I know I have a million UFO's, a BOW that I need to get caught up on, pot holders to make, quilts that need quilted, and Bonnie's mystery coming up.  So I know that I have plenty to work on but I'm still feeling a bit lost.  

Hunter has his Thanksgiving Dinner at school tomorrow so I will be going over and having dinner with him.  They do this every year and it is nice that the parents get to have dinner with their kids, just wish the food was a little better.  :)  
Kristie

Quilt Top Completed!

 It's finished!  Or at least the top is finished.  I'll throw it in the pile to be quilted.  The lighting wasn't the best this morning, I think I had too much sunlight coming through the front door glass.  

It feels great to have it finished.  It seemed like I worked on it forever.  

A total of 30 blocks and a little over 1200 pieces, which really isn't a whole lot when you are talking about a whole quilt.  I know a few of the seems look a little crooked in the photo below but they are not, there is a big picture hanging on the wall behind it and it makes the quilt crooked.  :)

This was a great use of scraps and strings of all sizes.  It was completely pieced on my "baby girl" my 1933 Featherweight!  I love her more than ever now.  This was my first complete quilt that I have pieced with her and she did a wonderful job.  I hope to do more sewing on her soon.  

 On to other news...Hunter had a program for the Veteran's yesterday at school.  He is in the front with the blue shirt and microphone singing.  I was so proud of him.  He wouldn't look at me because he was afraid he would mess up.  He did a great job, they all did.  He loves to sing, his favorites are country and gospel.  I'll have to sneak and record him singing sometime.  :)

 It is only 8:35am so I think I will clean the house up and load a quilt on the frame....

Oh BTW...I think a lot of you have already noticed that I have a tab at the top of my blog that takes you to all of my vintage machines.  Well, it's not like I have a ton of them but I am just starting.  I noticed this morning that I don't have my featherweight on there yet, I'll have to do that sometime today.
Kristie

Saturday Sewing

 I've spent the evening sewing!  That felt great!  I've made 6 rice bags they will be gifts for Christmas.  These things are great!  I made several last year and everyone seemed to love them.  Of course, I have some that I kept for myself.  They are great when you have aches and pains, just pop the in the microwave for a few minutes and you have moist heat to apply.  If needed you can keep the in the freezer for a cold compress.  Either way, they are great.  

Here is what I have on my temporary design wall.  I still need to paint that wall so I just tacked some leftover pieces of batting up there.  Anyway, here are half of my Rocky Road to Kansas blocks. The quilt will have 30 blocks and I have 15 of them completely pieced and those need to be sewn into rows.  

I have the other 15 blocks pieced in sections of 2 so I need to finish getting those blocks together too.  At this point, I'm not sure what I will use for a border but I'll decide on that once I get all of the blocks sewn together.  

Here are a few more photos of Leo!  Here he is sleeping up in my sewing room.  Well, he was sleeping until I snapped the photo.  Can you tell he was sleeping, look at those droopy eyes.  

He and Hunter have played most of the day.  I love seeing him so happy.  Leo seems to be loving his new home even though he has only been here for a couple of days.  :)  

 We did find something out about him....he is completely HOUSEBROKE!  :)  He has been outside during the days and he has been in the house during the night.  When we get up in the mornings, he is doing the pee-pee dance by the door!  LOL!  I don't plan on him staying inside all of the time, only when it is extremely cold outside, it's just that he is new to Hunter and Hunter loves playing with him.  Well, not only Hunter but all of us.  One thing that I love is that when he is in the house, he doesn't even attempt to get on the furniture.  I do love our animals but I don't want them on my furniture.  The only furniture they are allowed on is Richard's recliner.  LOL!  Well...when I am dogsitting my sister's dog, Zoey, she is so used to sleeping on the couch, so she does get on there.  Jazz and Smokey could care less about it.  

Anyway, I'm hoping to get some more sewing done tomorrow after Church.  I want to work on my Rocky Road to Kansas and also I need to load a quilt on the frame.  
Kristie