Staying busy

 I feel like such a slacker for the past month.  I'm so behind on blogging, reading blogs and answering emails.  Life just seems like it has gotten really busy and I have nothing to show for it.  :(  I guess it is just me.  Oh well, I will get caught up....I hope.  

In my last couple of posts I showed a few quilts of my own that I had quilted.  That felt so good to do some of my own.  I have the bindings finished on all three of them.  Look how close I came to running out on one of them.  I was starting to panic because I didn't have anymore of that fabric.  

I loaded a king size log cabin quilt on the frame to be quilted.  It is not mine but belongs to a friend.  I've had it on there for 3 days and I only have one pass with the machine quilted.  :(  Not good at all.  

I broke a needle and now it is skipping stitches so I need to do some adjusting on the machine but I just don't want to mess with it right now.  I know that is bad, isn't it?  LOL!  I just can't get myself in the mood to do it.  

So while I have been busy doing NOTHING, I got out a UFO to work on.  It is called, Butterscotch Pie.  It is an older pattern and I started on it several years ago.  I saw it in my stuff while digging for something else and I thought, "hey, I want to work on that"  I was so excited about working on it and then realized that what little bit that I had done were NOT the right size!  ugh!  Some of the pieces I can work with and some of them are really off in size.  Not even sure what happened there.  

Here is one of the blocks that I did this morning.  It isn't completely sewn together but I just put it on the design wall to make sure all of the pieces would fit together.  

 There is a pieced sashing that goes between the blocks that give the quilt a total different look and design.  I want to piece all of the blocks before I start on the sashing.  I'm using lots of leftover bits and pieces from other things.  I think that today I will work on a bunch of those triangle pieces.  

The weather here has been crazy!  Tuesday it was in the 70's, yesterday morning it was in the mid 60's with heavy rain.  Today it is 29 and snowing!!!  Hunter's school let out early yesterday because of flooding in the area and there was not any school today because of the high water.  He is a happy little boy!  :)
Kristie

Another one quilted

 I got this quilt off the frame last night!  It feels so good to get a few of my own done.  I am really pleased with how it turned out.  Now I just have to do the binding.  

I only have one regret with this quilt...I wish that I had made it bigger. :)  It measures 68 x 84.  When I was piecing the top, I got really tired of string piecing the blocks.  Now I wish that I had kept with it and made it at least a QUEEN size.  

 Oh well, I'm still pleased with it.  

 Here is a look at the back, you can see the quilting better this way.  

 I have several more of my own with backings that I plan on quilting real soon but first I have a couple of tops to quilt that belong to some friends of mine.  They are all HUGE.  :(  The first one is a log cabin quilt, I love the log cabin pattern.  I'll post some photos of it once I get it loaded on the frame.  

It has been sooooo cold the past several days.  Hunter didn't have school again on Friday.  We had some snow, sleet, and ice so the roads were too slick.  I love having him home.  Andrew's classes were also cancelled.  Tonight we have a fire roaring in the wood stove and propane heat turned up...I've had a chill all day and I am just now warming up.  Richard said that it was 78 degrees in here right now and he is sweating.  :(  Oh well, I just had a chill.  

I guess that is all for tonight, I just finished up the binding on my Spiderweb quilt and now I need to get things ready for Church in the morning.  Then after Church we are going to visit with Richard's grandmother for a bit and his mom is fixing dinner.  
Blessings...
Kristie

I'm on a roll...

 I'm on a roll!  I just got this baby quilted and off the frame.  Now I have to dig out the binding and work on that this week.  Glad to have another one marked off my list.  

I guess what I enjoyed the most about making this quilt is the fact that I was able to use some really ugly fabrics in it.  LOL!  

A view of the back.  I really like using that Dazzle design.  I think it is something that I will be using more often.  I just like the texture it gives.  

 I do have several more tops that have the backings ready.  It is funny how I will not use my quilting machine very often to quilt my own and then when I get in the mood I usually quilt several at a time.  I think I have 4 or 5 more that have the backings ready.  I guess next up will be a string quilt.  I'm hoping to get it loaded on tomorrow.  It will probably take me a few days because I want to do some fairly dense quilting on it and I'm slow.  LOL!  First I need to clean and oil my machine real good.  
Kristie

Spiderweb on the frame

 I know that I have a hard time staying on track but that's just ME! :)  Yesterday I had planned on doing my dresden centers but then I got an email from my good friend, Janet offering me some deep mustard fabric to try for the centers, so I believe that I will see how that looks before I start with the brown.  

Since I decided to put my Dresden's on hold for a few days I loaded a quilt on the frame.  It is my Spiderweb quilt that I finished back in July of 2012.  I started it in June of 2011, LOL so it had taken me a few years to get to this point.  Oh well, at least it will be finished soon.  

I had several red bobbins ready to go but they where a tiny bit darker than the red in the quilt.  Not that it mattered really but I wasn't sure if I wanted that DARK red thread going all though my spiderweb blocks.  I thought since they had so much movement going on that I might just use something that blended with the blocks a little better so I went with a beige/gold color.  It does show up in the borders but that is fine, I just didn't want the blocks to look so busy.  I got a few passes quilted and I think I will stop for the night and finish it up tomorrow.  The quilt measures 74x74 so it will not take too long to quilt.  I'm using a design called Dazzle.  

Here is the view that I had from behind my quilting machine.  LOL!  The boys having fun with their quilt.  :) Leo kept laying on his cars. :)  

I think Leo finally got tired and moved to his own quilt....boys.  LOL!  

 Hopefully tomorrow I can post a photo of my Spiderweb quilt completely quilted.  I have the binding ready....somewhere, I just have to find it.  
Blessings...
Kristie

What do you think?

 I haven't done any sewing today but I have been planning...  I mentioned the other day that I wanted to get my Dresden Plate finished.  I was able to order the background fabric and the border/sashing fabric for it.  I put it up on my design wall to get a better idea of how it would look.  How do you think it would look if I used that dark brown for the centers too?  

I will probably cut one circle out of the dark brown to see how it does look.  I'm getting excited about working on it.  

Here is Hunter with his little road quilt/playmat.  He loves it and that makes me happy.  :)

Speaking of Hunter, he loves to draw.  I think he does a great job for a 10 year old.  Here is one that he did the other day, a Boxer.  I'll probably post a few of his drawing on here from time to time.  I am so proud of both my boys.  :)

 Here is Leo, being nosey.  The flash of the camera flips him out.  LOL!  The silly thing even chases his shadow.  :)

 I guess that is all for now.  Hunter is wanting to use the computer.  Hopefully tomorrow I will start on my Dresden centers.
Kristie

A very productive day!

 Today has been a good productive day as far as quilting goes.  I got all of the blocks for Hunter's quilt completed, sewn together, the border on and it quilted!  :)

He loves it!  

I added a 6 inch border to it to make it a little bigger.  I quilted it with the "Happy Times" quilting design.  I also used Hobb's 80/20 batting.  I really like how it shows the quilting.  

 This is my favorite block, the Church.  

 Here is a closeup of two of the houses.  For some reason Hunter said the the red house was the mayor's.  LOL!  

I sat down this evening and sewed the binding on.  It is completed and his a happy little boy!  :)  That makes me happy!  

I'll be honest, it felt good to quilt one of my own.  I was digging through a tote that I have and found several tops that have the backings ready.  I think I will work on getting those quilted as I can.  I think the next quilt of mine that I quilt will be a "Dutch Girl"  It is a very special quilt to me and it has a story behind it....stay tuned for that one.  

I'm off, I'm tired and almost ready for bed...hopefully.  Hunter has a friend staying over tonight and I'm hoping that they don't try to stay up all night.  LOL!  We have Church in the morning and I don't want them trying to fall asleep.  :)  
Kristie

Sewing Roads...

 We finally got my design wall finished!  Richard was gone so I had Hunter to help me cover it with the Warm & Natural batting and we got it up on the wall.  I will take a photo of it next time.  I took one but when I loaded it on the computer it was really blurry.  Anyway, I am very pleased with it.  

Since we had to cut part of the insulation board off at the top to make the angle of the ceiling, I had a little piece leftover.  I squared it up, covered it with batting and fabric and made a little thing to put my ribbons on.  I have a couple more somewhere, I will have to dig those out.  These two are 1st place for my Log Cabin quilt and 1st place for my yo-yo quilt.  

As soon as Hunter and I got the design wall attached to the wall, Hunter went and grabbed his quilt blocks that we had worked on last year.  I guess it was last year, maybe the year before.  LOL!  He started sticking them on the wall.  I asked him if that was a hint for me to work on it. LOL!  I let him design it how he wanted.  It will have a border on it too, just a plain green one.  The pieces of fabric in the upper right corner are his idea.  The brown is for a big dirt field that he can take his little cars and do donuts.  LOL!  Boys!  The other green piece below it has grass on it and he wants that to be just a big grassy field.  My favorite block is the little church.  :)

I'm hoping that I can get it all sewn together and add the borders on it this weekend.  Then I may try to quilt it next week. Oh and I forgot, I have one more house block to make for it.  :)

We finally got all of Andrew's college paperwork straightened out.  I was stressed and he was stressed, it was just a big mess.  Now all is well.  Thank you Lord!  
Kristie

Design wall in the works...

One year ago today, we moved into the house!  I've loved every minute of it and feel so Blessed that we were able to build this house.  It has been a hard road but well worth it.  The house still isn't finished but that is fine with me.  Some of the stuff we have we just haven't gotten around to doing it, like the upstairs bathroom.  

Richard promised me that he would get to it soon.  We've had the toilet, sink, tiles, and everything before we even moved in the house.  LOL!  So hopefully within the next few weeks he will get to that.  I've had him busy....

Yesterday we finished painting my last two walls in my sewing room!  :)  We've had that paint for about a year.  LOL!  Oh well, it is done now.  At least the painting is finished but we still need to get the wood trim put up but he is making that so it will take a while longer before that gets done.  

If you remember a few months ago, I took down my temporary design wall and used the batting.  My plan was that once we finished the painting that I would put up my permanent design wall. We had leftover insulation board from building the house and I already have another piece of batting for it so the measuring of the angles is what had me waiting.  So after a few sad faces Richard decided to do it for me!  LOL!  He is a softie!  :)

Here he is measuring!  I have 2-- 4x8 sheets to make a 8x8ft design wall.  One thing is that my ceiling is angled so it has to be cut for that.  We also had to allow room to put up the wood trim later and cut out for an outlet near the bottom.  

So here it is ready for the batting!  That will have to wait until tomorrow since I am tired and I have to dig out the duct tape.  :)  It is just leaning up against the wall here but when it is attached to the wall it will be 6 inches off the floor to make room for the baseboards.  My computer desk will be in front of it on that one side but that is fine with me.  I'm just happy to be getting my design wall back.  Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to post a photo of the finished project.  

This has been a crazy week for me.  As I mentioned before, Andrew started back to school this past Monday and his paperwork is in a horrible mess.  I've had to make several trips to the college and they assure me that they will get it all figured out.  Meanwhile, he is loving his classes.  

Hunter's school was cancelled today and the rest of the week.  He returns on Tuesday.  Due to the spread of the FLU they have decided to close all of the schools in the county and clean them real good.  Of course, Hunter is very excited that he doesn't have to go.  

I guess that is all for tonight.  I know it is only 7:30 pm but I am thinking about going on to bed soon, I am so tired.
Kristie

Stash Building

 Oh joy!  What makes a quilter happy???  FABRIC!  If you have read my blog for a while you will know that I have been sewing from my stash for a few years now.  I'm just thankful that I had a stash to quilt from, but after a few years it is really lacking.  It seems like when I find a quilt that I want to make, I don't have the fabric for it or maybe not the right colors.  This gets me depressed and then I just don't want to quilt.  Sooooo....the other day I received a gift certificate for Whittle's fabric.  Oh, I just love Whittle's!  Anyway, I am so thankful for the gift certificate, you just don't know how excited that I was.  Of course, I didn't waste any time ordering fabric!  LOL!  

It arrived today!  

I mostly just did some stash building.  Here are 50 fat quarters!  10 green, 10 blue, 10 brown, and 20 background colors.  

These are half yard cuts.  I love the brown in the middle and the green on the end.  I wouldn't mind to have some yardage of those.  

 Also you can see in one of the above photos that there is some yardage.  I've been wanting to finish my Dresden Plate quilt for a long time but just didn't have the fabric to do it.  I had a picture in my mind of exactly how I wanted it to look before I even started it. I wanted my plates to be scrappy but darker, warmer tones.  I also wanted the background to be a warm beige with dark brown sashing strips and borders.  That is exactly what I got for it!  :)

Here is a better photo of the brown for the sashing and borders.  I can't wait to get started on it!!!  

I want to cut into that fabric tonight but it will have to wait a few days.  I mentioned months ago that I needed to finish painting my sewing room.  I've had the paint since we moved in last January and part of my sewing room is painted.  The other 2 walls just have primer on them.  I had taken my temporary design wall down, since it was just a big piece of warm & natural batting, I used it on a quilt.  LOL!  So my plan is to get the last two walls painted tomorrow, but Richard will have to help me because at one point the wall is 12ft tall.  We had some left over foam insulation board from building the house that I had been saving to make my permanent design wall with.  Richard brought those in the house for me today.  So it will take me a few days to get everything done and put back together and then I can sew!  :)  

On to other things....Today was Andrew's first day back for the Spring semester.  I was so proud of him this morning.  His first class this morning was his Physics class.  He called me as soon as he got out and said that he thought he was going to love that class.  He was soooooo excited!  I just hope that excitement holds up through the semester.  Then he went on to his Bio Chemistry class, he said he thinks he will like it too.  I don't remember his other classes right off but he has classes 5 days a week, so he will have to cut back on his hours a work a little bit.  

Here is a photo of Hunter this evening.  He loves to join me up in my sewing room to do his homework.  He sat at my cutting table as I folded and petted my new fabrics.  LOL!  Do you see how red his ear is?  He always does that when he is starting to get sick.  I hope that I am wrong and he isn't getting sick but when he came home from school he had a really bad headache.  I gave him so meds but he says that it is still hurting some.  Oh, I just love both of my boys and I thank God everyday for letting me be their mother.  

 Before I go, I wanted to show you my latest Jim Shore!  This was a gift from a dear friend that knows how much that I like Jim Shore and the religious themed ones.  I love it!  I will always cherish it and I can't wait to display it next year for the holidays....

 I'm off, I have a few things to do tonight so that I can paint tomorrow.  I'm almost ashamed that I've had the paint this long and those 2 walls still are not painted.  Oh well....
Kristie

Cathedral Windows

 In my last post I mentioned that I wanted to "relax" and "laugh more"  Well......I guess that I have been.  I've been trying not to stress too much over the silly things.  

The past few days have been very busy.  Andrew goes back to college on Monday.  I'm so proud of him, but I also miss seeing him as much.  This semester he will be going 5 days a week, so I told him that he will have to cut back on his hours at work.  There is just no way that he can go to school 5 days a week, work 50 hours a week, and keep his grades up.  

This month has been a little slow for me as far as quilting.  I feel like I've had a slow start.  :(  This is the horrible sight of my cutting table....such a mess.  

I also want you to look what I found on my cutting table...food coloring and a lego?????  Makes me wonder what is in the mind of my 10 yr old, then again I might not want to know.  LOL!  

I've done a little bit of mindless piecing the past couple of days but not really enough to mention.  I have this pail of crumbs sitting by my treadle that I have been piecing on.  I think that I will just leave it by my treadle so that I can work on it from time to time.  

Oh and Leo likes to come upstairs and visit with me while I am sewing or cleaning.  He mostly likes to snooze.  I had an old quilt in the floor up here for him to lay on but I think he got hot and just moved off of it.  He is doing well and gaining weight, thank goodness, I was worried at first because he was so sick.  That is the problem with shelter dogs, you just never know what they have been through.  I'm glad that we got him and he seems to love his new home.  

 Yesterday I was moving some stuff around and ran on to part of my Cathedral Windows quilt that I had started back in 2008.  I was excited to find it.  It isn't something that I plan on working on right now but it was nice to find it again.  The colored squares are 2 inches so I may throw a few of those in the basket from time to time for it.  

 I always thought that the Cathedral Window pattern looked so hard but I found this really great tutorial here She has the link to it on her sidebar.  I think she has a couple different ones but it is the first one.  

I guess that is all for now.  I need to straighten up a few things and then press my clothes for Church in the morning.  :)  
Kristie

Thoughts...

I've noticed that so many bloggers are announcing their word for the year and their New Year's Resolutions.  Well, I'm not usually one for resolutions because I can never stick with them.  LOL.  When I used to make my New Year's resolutions it would be something like losing weight and things like that.  So this year it will be something a little different.  

My word for this year is going to be.....

RELAX

I always seem to be stressed and uptight over something and most of the time it is over things that I have no control over.  I hate being that way.  

My New Year's Resolution is going to be to....

LAUGH MORE!

Again this may seem silly to some but this is something that I don't seem to do a lot of.  Don't get me wrong, I have a wonderful marriage, great children, a wonderful relationship with God, and I wouldn't trade my life for anything, but just the stress of everyday life stays on my mind so much.  

Is this all too serious??  LOL!  

Anyway....I hope to get some sewing done today after I get the house cleaned up.  The past two days have been busy for me and I haven't been able to accomplish a lot here at home. 

Kristie

Piecing away...

 I've been plugging away at Bonnie's mystery quilt.  I like her pattern but I'm not overly excited about my color choices.  I love the colors as far as that goes but my selections do not show up as well as I wish they did.  I still like it anyway, and it will make another great scrap quilt.  

I had to use the big piece of batting that I had on the wall and I didn't want to open my other roll right now so I just threw up this old table cloth.  I will change it later, it is only temporary. 

I also pulled out this "Work in Progress"  It is from a pattern called, "Everlasting Wreaths"  Today I made 4 blocks.  I have several more ready to sew.  Not sure how long I will work on this before I put it away again.  I do believe that I will like this quilt once it is done.  

 Please say a quick prayer for my mom.  She was supposed to go back to work on December 27th but was having some back pain.  She went to the doctor and she has a cracked vertebrae.  Not sure when she will be going back to work.  Right now she just has to let it heal and have some physical therapy.  I truly believe that the Lord will take good care of her.  :)
Kristie

Catching Up!

 Happy New Year to everyone!  

Thanks so much for all of the thoughtful comments about losing our Donkey.  We miss him so much.  They are very easy to get attached to.  

I had been working on Bonnie's Mystery before I got sick, so I am really behind.  So my plan was to jump in and get it all caught up before she posted the final reveal.  Well....she did that today.  LOL!  Oh well!  :)

Yesterday and today I finished up Step 3.  

As you can see, I made a big mess trying to hurry, but then again, I always make a big mess.  

I want to hurry and get it finished at this point, I'm not sure if I have fabric that I can use for the border.  I'll have to check on that.  Is anyone else behind on it, like I am?  

I have 5 quilts right now that need to be machine quilted.  None of them have deadlines so that makes it nice for me.  One of them, the lady started to hand quilt it because she hand pieced it.  She quilted one block and then decided that she didn't want to do that.  LOL!  So my job is to pick out the quilting, pick out the basting, load it on the frame and quilt it.  She also wants me to do the binding too.  Speaking of binding, I have to do the binding on 4 out of 5 of those quilts.  I enjoy doing binding but not if I am rushed.  

I guess that is all for today.  Next time I hope to have more quilty photos to show.  :)  Hunter goes back to school tomorrow so I will sure miss him.  Andrew's classes start back on the 14th or 15th....
Kristie