The New Year and Other Ramblings...

I whipped up a few hairbows for the new baby!  They are made with leftover fabrics from the 4 Patch Flip baby quilt that I made a few days ago.  They have little clips on the back so if she doesn't have hair we can clip them on some headbands.  :)

 Andrew sent me another photo last night.  He is way down south on the Mississippi River they are pushing tow right now.  He said it measures 900ft long and 108ft wide.  I sure miss him.  He called me around 5:30am this morning and it was so good to hear his voice.  He told me that he has lost 13lbs!  :(  That makes the mother in my worry because he is away from home but he assures me that he is eating really well but he hasn't been drinking his Coke and Mountain Dew. 

 Hunter spent the night with my mom last night so that left Richard and I home alone.  We just kicked back and watched a movie.  It just didn't seem right not having at least one of the boys home.  

Richard was on call today and we figured he would get called out with it being New Year's Eve.  Sure enough the phone rang at 5am!  I was a little sad at first but then he reminded me that this is 12 hours of overtime!!!!  I got over my sadness really fast!  LOL!  He will be home around 8pm so I can deal with that.  :)

I hope that everyone has a wonderful and Blessed New Year!  We never do anything for New Year's Eve other than stay home and watch tv.  Hunter always wants us to stay up until midnight with him so we do try to do that. 

 I got all of my Christmas decor down and boxed up but it still needs to go to the attic.  I planned on doing that yesterday but it never happened....maybe today?  
Kristie

Pink Baby 4 Patch Flip!

 Last night I finished up my blocks for the pink modern 4 patch flip.  I'm pretty pleased with it. 

 These modern quilts are way out of my box but I am pleased with it.  This is for my new niece coming in April.  My sister decorates her home in warm, traditional tones of beige and browns BUT I've noticed that she has been buying some boutique baby clothes and they are all made out of modern type fabric so I thought this would be nice. 

 I sent a photo to my sister of the quilt last night and she loved it or at least said she did.  LOL! 

 Later today I hope to work on my Grand Illusion quilt.  I am behind on the steps so I hope to get caught up a little on it.  Sometime this morning I need to go to the grocery store.  :(  I hate going but it is needed.  One of the doctor's that Richard works with gave him 8 GALLONS of gourmet popcorn so I need to get something else to snack on other than this!  LOL!  Right now I am munching on the chocolate swirl.
Kristie

Modern 4 Patch Flip

 Do you remember these fabrics that I posted last night? 

 I started cutting and sewing with them.  Of course I will change the blocks around before I sew the row together but I just started sewing and put them up on the design wall. 

 This is where I stopped before bed.  This will be a very colorful little quilt that is way out of my box. 

 Here is an up close shot of one of the pinks.  It was hard to get a photo of it but it has little sparkly dots on it. 

 This is a very fast pattern and I should have the top completed later today!  :)  Hmmm....I love making baby quilts they go really fast. 

It is now 5:30am and Richard is getting ready to head to work.  So that will give me 12 hours to go to Church, clean the nasty house, cook his supper and finish my quilt!  I think I can do that.  :)
Kristie

Catching up...

 First off, I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  We sure did, I have nothing to complain about, we have been very Blessed.  First I want to share a photo of my gift from my brother and SIL.  A Jim Shore sewing machine!!!  Is this a perfect gift for me or what?  :)  I love it! 

 I also received a few more precious ornaments that I will post photos of when I take the tree down which will probably happen tomorrow after Church.

I have even turned my sewing machine on the past few days but that is all about to change!  I need to get caught up on the Bonnie Hunter mystery and I also picked up some fabric today.  I can't tell you when the last time that I bought fabric as I can't remember but today I stopped by Hobby Lobby while we were out buying Richard some shoes for work.  I have a new precious niece that will be here in April so I need to get some baby quilts done!  These fabrics are way out of my comfort zone but I guess sometimes that is a good thing. 

 Before I leave I wanted to share a photo that Andrew sent me on Christmas day.   :(  I was so sad that he wasn't home for Christmas but with his new job it was just impossible.  He is somewhere on the Mississippi River right now.  I thought he looked so sad in the photo but he said he was just tired.  Love him so much and I am so very proud of him. 

 I guess that is all for now.  I'll be back tomorrow to show some progress on my mystery quilt and my new baby quilt. 
Kristie

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  I hope everyone has a wonderful and Blessed day!
Kristie

Hairbows and Chocolate...

 I've been on a small break for many reasons.  I've been busy getting my Christmas sewing done but no photos to show for it as my camera croaked.  We are back in business now with the camera but I missed photos of several things.  Christmas kid quilts, binding on a gift quilt, binding on a sold quilt, and several pot holders.  

Last night I did make this hair bow for my new niece that will be arriving in April!  :)  My sister is big on bows so this baby needs millions of them.  LOL!  This is just a start so expect to see more of them in the future. 

 This evening I made a batch of Buckeyes.  My guys love them.  Sadly these don't last very long around here. 

 News on Andrew....my boy left this morning at 2am.  I held up pretty good until I saw him dragging that suitcase down the stairs.  He is many miles away from his momma.  :(  So he left out at 2am and called when he got to the company parking lot around 3:15am.  From there he hopped in a company truck and drove to Cairo, IL. where he got on the boat on the Mississippi River.  From there he was headed above St. Louis and then back down towards New Orleans.  He will be gone for 28 days and then home for 14 days and then will do it all over again.  I'm proud of the hard worker that he is but I still miss the little boy that used to need his momma.  He assures me that he still needs his momma.  :)  He called me around 6pm this evening and had just finished his 6 hour shift and was heading to be as he had to go straight to work once he got there.  So he works 6 hours on and 6 hours off, around the clock which amounts to 12 hours of work a day for 28 days straight.  

I've been making a list of quilty things that I would like to accomplish this year.  I used to make these lists every year but haven't for the past few years.  Sometimes I stick to them and sometimes I don't.  I think I'm just going to use them as "reminder lists"  LOL!  I'll write more about this later.  For now I'm going to get off of here and head to bed soon.  I didn't sleep much last night.  
Kristie

Sewing right along...

Well...it's 5:30am and I still haven't been asleep.  I did sleep a couple of hours night before last but I was up all day yesterday and all night last night.  I'm still wide awake!  :(  Richard will be heading out the door in a few minutes and Hunter will be getting up in a few minutes.  Andrew will run me to town to the grocery store later today too.  

I'm still working on my Illusion quilt.  I should have the top completed this evening and ready to quilt.   I will probably do the binding by machine since I am pressed for time. 

I also need to bind this quilt.  It is a 4 patch flip that I quilted last January but never got the binding on it.  I need to get the binding done on it as it will also be a gift. 

I connected a few more hexie sets.  My stack is slowly growing. 

 Here is my little tub that I keep by my seat to work on my hexies.  Nothing fancy but it has a lid and I can grab it and go if needed.  I try to keep what I need in it to work on them.  You can see some hexies, pins, straw needles, threads, scissors, thimbles, my glasses, and for some odd reason there is a pen and my fitbit in there!  LOL!  I guess the Fitbit should be on my wrist not in the tub with my hexies.  :(

 I am also working on my Step 2 for Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt.  I started out doing these sections a different way and then just found that it was taking me longer so I changed over and started doing them this way.  Right now I am almost finished sewing the brown (which would be her "black") on the neutral rectangles. 

 I also whipped up some pumpkin cake donuts with cream cheese icing.  I made these yesterday and they are completely gone now.  Believe it or not but I didn't have the first one of them. 

 I had a doctor's appointment the other day and long story short....I need to exercise and lose some weight.  :(  I have some old hip and leg injuries that have been giving me some problems along with my back.  I have arthritis in the all but most of the pain is from the extra weight being put on them.  I also need to build up the muscles in my hip/leg area.  :(  Not what a person wants to hear but it could always be worse.  
Kristie

Illusion Quilt and Hexies

 Working on a little quilt that needs to be finished before Christmas.  It is called Illusion and the tutorial is from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.  Let me tell you....I love making this quilt!  I think this will be my go to pattern from now on every time that I need a quick little quilt for a kid or donation.  It is sooooo out of my box as far as design and taste as I am a very traditional gal.  :) 

 I can see many more of these in my future!  I now have more finished than shown in the photo as once again I have been awake most of the night.  Here are a few of the fabrics that I am using along with some strips of white and grey. 

 I also have a few more of my hexies sewn into sets of 2 and up on the wall.  I'm really enjoying getting to work on these. 

 Here is a little stack of my sets of 2 that I have done.  Now only a zillion more to go!  LOL!  I'm not in a hurry to get these done as this is my hand sewing project. 

I'm running on less than 2 hours of sleep again today...it is going to be a long day.  I just can't seem to be able to fall asleep at all.  

Andrew finally finished up his 28 days straight of 12 hour shifts!!!  Shew....I figure he will sleep most of the day!  He will have a week or two home and then will head out when they call.  It is hard to tell where he will be sent.  I'm hoping he will be sent down south as it will be a little warmer than north this time of year.  

That's all for now as I need to get my day started.  I will post again tomorrow to show my quilt progress.  :)
Kristie

Sewing on hexies most of the night

It's 4:30am and so far I have been up all night.  I have to get Richard up in 15 minutes for work so I thought I would do a quick post.  Too tired to do much else, I've set here on the couch, watching Netflix and working on my hexies.  

 I know it is hard to tell much about them on top of this quilt but I was too tired to move them elsewhere.  :)  I now have 120 of these sewn together but still need a few hundred more to get the size of quilt that I want. 

 I needed a change of pace so I decided to start sewing what I have into sets of 2.  I didn't get a photo of that but I will. 

 Hopefully today I can cut out Step 2 of the mystery quilt while everyone is working.  I have all of Step 1 finished and I would love to try to keep up with the steps as they are released.

 I'm going through another one of my sleepless spells.  :(  Everyone around here is on a different schedule right now and that messes me up.  I know that Andrew can get himself up for work but as a mom, I want to make sure he gets up and has something to eat before he goes to work.  Soon he will be off of these 12 hour shifts everyday.  Sunday will be 28 days straight that he has worked 12 hour shifts...except he was off for Thanksgiving.  Richard gets up at 4:45am for work so I usually just stay up after Andrew leaves as I would only have a few minutes to lay down.  Then Hunter gets up at 6am for school.  After he leaves I do sometimes take a nap for an hour or two so I am usually running on 2-3 hours of sleep a day. 

Hunter and I did get our tree up but I snapped this photo of it a little bit ago and it is so blurry that you can't tell much about it.  I will try to get a better pic of it later today. 

 That's all for now.....I have to go press Richard's scrubs for work today.  I should have already had that done but I forgot.  :(
Kristie

Getting some sewing done....

 I finished up Step 1 of the Grand Illusion quilt today.  :)  I'm happy to be starting it out on a good note and hopefully I can stay on track with it. 

 I had plans for sewing today.  I had an early morning.  I got Andrew up for work at 3:30am, Richard up for work at 4:30am and Hunter up for school at 6am.  :(  I had this pot of chili finished for supper tonight by 5:30am!  :)  After Hunter left for school I took a nap for a few hours on the couch.  I put on a load of laundry and headed upstairs to sew.

 Maybe from lack of attention or just being sleepy, I sewed a bunch of my sets together wrong.  :(  I got a call from my good friend and neighbor Kay so I put her on speaker phone and picked out the stitches as we talked.  I just love her too death!  I am 42 and she is in her 60's and she has kids my age but we have so much in common. it is always a joy to talk with her, she always makes me laugh.  She is a knitter but is in the process of making a log cabin table runner and is having a few issues with it so I will try to help her.  You can see in this photo that I sewed them the wrong way.  :(

 I did end up getting them all finished!  Now I will put them away and wait for the next step.  Meanwhile, I have some other sewing to do before Christmas. 

 I have several bins set up on my sewing table behind my machine that holds pieces for my Omigosh quilt.  This quilt has so many tiny pieces and will take me a long time but I figure I can work on them a little at a time.  I did sew some of the 1" strips as leader/enders while working on my Step 1 of the mystery. 

 I also ended up with 2 more of my windmill blocks.  This takes me up to 69 of them....slowly but surely! 

 My MIL ended up coming and staying with us Thanksgiving night so I did a little handwork on my hexies while talking to her and also while waiting for her to get up the next day.  I ended up getting several of them finished and even more of them prepped.  I now have 109 of these sets finished. 

 I still need a few more hundred of these sets, but they do look pretty all stacked up.  :)

 Last but not least....meet Zeralyn DeShea Hope.  :)  My sister's best friend, Crystal had her baby girl yesterday.  Crystal and my sister have been best friends for around 20 years.  Crystal actually lived with my mom and sister for over 10 years so she is like a sister to me....so Zeralyn is like a niece to me.  :)  Isn't she a cutie?  She is just a few hours old in this photo. 

This is Crystal's first child and her mother passed away in October so she is named after her.  Crystal's mom's name was Zera.  One of her middle names is DeShea and that is after my sister as that is her middle name.  :)  One nice thing is, my sister is also pregnant and she is also having a girl.  She is due in April so these baby girls will probably be best friends too.  :)
Kristie