Yesterday was one of those days....Richard headed out to work at around 5:45am he called me at 6:30am and he said, "everything is okay now but call work and tell them that I will not be there today because the Jeep caught fire" WOW! Of course I freaked out!
He was just driving along and POOF, flames just shot out of the dashboard. He quickly pulled off the road and it was still dark but he could hear water running in a nearby creek so he grabbed an empty gatorade bottle and ran. The creek was about 30yds away so after about 3 trips he realized that he couldn't get the fire out like that. He then grabbed a pair of gloves that my mom had gave him from her work and they just happen to by fire retardant. He just started gabbing anything that was on fire and throwing it out. At this point it was just a bunch of burnt plastic and such. He said that at one point the flames were tickling the top of the Jeep and if that cloth top had caught fire we would have lost the whole Jeep. Thanking the Lord for watching over him and so grateful that it wasn't worse. As you can see the dash and wiring are a loss.
When he got back home he was coughing really bad from breathing so much of that in. He really smelled of burnt plastic too. This was his first day of work that he had missed at the hospital so I think that bothered him but it's not like he just didn't want to go to work.
He was making lots of calls yesterday about replacement parts and everyone kept saying the heater wiring is a big problem with the Jeeps. You can't beat a Jeep when it comes to going in bad weather and it gets good gas mileage but I guess every vehicle has a few issues. Since everyone kept saying that the heater wiring was a problem I decided to look and see if there had been any recalls issued but there wasn't.
So that about summed my day up yesterday! LOL! Shew...just thanking God that even though it was bad and costly that it wasn't any worse....we still have a Jeep that can be fixed and I still have my precious Richard.
The past few days I have been working on a few hexies! Things have been a little busy around here so that is all that I could get done.
Recap of the wonderful weekend....my brother, SIL, their 3 kids, Chantal and Ronnie all came over for supper. I enjoyed it so much. Families just don't seem to spend enough time together. It is hard when everyone works all different shifts but it was so nice. We had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, broccoli and cheese, peas and cornbread and of course chocolate cake. Not a big fancy meal but it was nice and everyone was well fed. My brother made me cry as they were leaving, he said, "sis, you just don't know what this had meant to me" So we all have made plans that this will happen a lot more often. We missed mom as she was working but after she gets home we have plans to do it again with her. I was happy to spend the time together but also very sad that it was over.
My sister was here but I gave her strict instructions to keep her feet up. LOL! She had a doctor's appointment yesterday and she is dilated to 3 maybe a 4. The doctor said 3 but he said his assistant would say a 4 but he also told her that she would NOT go 40 weeks. She was 36 weeks yesterday so if labor starts he will not stop it. Last night she was having some light bleeding and back pain but it didn't progress in to anything. Shew....I'm excited and nervous and I have my little bag of hexies packed and ready to go to the hospital at any given moment. Her husband Ronnie works away like mom does a month at a time. He is due to leave out on Tuesday morning so he is really stressing. The doctor said that there was a good chance that Addison may make her appearance before he leaves!!! The thing with babies is that you never know when they will decide to come!!!
I had a question from a "no reply" blogger that I want to answer. Carline, you asked if I added anything between the layers of flannel in my burp cloths. The answer is no, just two pieces of flannel. They are lightweight and the flannel makes them absorbent. I'm sure you could add a layer of thin batting but it really isn't needed. After turning them right side out, I do stitch around the edges and that is it.
My sister has already washed the first set that I made for her and they do seem to wash up well and hold their shape.
They are very quick and easy and I do believe that I will make a few more sets to give as later gifts. Just found out that Richard's niece is expecting in October and also a dear friend at Church is expecting....not sure if they are having girls or boys yet.
It's been a week or so since I last posted but life has just been really busy. My sister is on complete bed rest through the remainder of her pregnancy so I have been spending lots of time with her and helping her out a little by cleaning, laundry, mopping and such. She is now 35 weeks so hoping she can hang in there a little while longer.
Chantal had a routine appointment with the cardiologist so while waiting I worked on some hexies. I ended up getting 10 of them finished.
A dear friend from Church was at Chantal's baby shower and saw the burp cloths that I had made for her. She asked if I could make a set of 12 so that she could give them as a gift to a family member. So I whipped those up for her. They go together really quick and easy. I have more flannel leftover so I will probably use the rest to make more for Chantal. You can't have too many burp cloths!!!!
A pic of the back....
I was really excited the other day, I was given a clock that has been in my family for over 100 years. It measures a little over 38 inches long. The clock dates to 1905 and hung in a general store that belonged to my great aunt. She then gave it to my grandparents and it hung in their house for as long as I can remember. It hung on the wall right behind my grandfathers chair. I love it and I just want to cry every time that I walk by it. Such wonderful memories...
I guess that is all for now. I have another busy day ahead
Yesterday was my birthday. I'm not much on advertising that and probably would not have even mentioned it now but I wanted to show you some of the new goodies that I got! :) First, I just want to say that I am grateful that the Lord has given me another day of life. Life is short and you just never know when your time is up.
Hubby worked, Andrew worked, mom worked, Hunter was at school....etc. I spent the day doing NOTHING and it felt pretty good! :) First, I must say that my family is the greatest! At 6:15am my mom called to wish me happy birthday and she was just talking about the morning that she gave birth to me and such. I love her so much. She works away but had bought me gifts before she left and my sister was bringing them later. So mom calls at 6:15am.....my brother calls me around 6:25am and he is at work. As soon as I answered the phone he started singing happy birthday to me and made a few "age" jokes. :) Then around....6:45am Richard called and he was just pulling in at work and he sang the Conway Twitty version of Happy Birthday to me. LOL! The morning went on and I started to take a nap and then my dad called. That is a whole other post but at least he did call, right? So that was my day....
Then evening came and Richard and the boys were home with me and my sister made a quick stop on her way home from the doctor...more on that in a bit. Sooooo.....here are my goodies!!!!
A new ironing board and Rowenta iron...
A new pair of SHARP scissors that I had wanted but would not break over and pay the $17 for. LOL! A beautiful picture frame from Hobby Lobby. Not shown....cards, cash, clothing gift cards and such. Oh...the boys didn't think that I should have to fix supper for everyone since it was my birthday so they bought pizza!!!
After everyone went about their way...I took my stuff upstairs to play. :) Love my new ironing board as it is much wider and has a place for the iron and a rack underneath. I cut out a few Windmill pieces to work on. I still need to cut out more "color" fabrics.
Love my new sharp scissors. I really needed them.
I also love my new iron! It has a paisley design on it and I LOVE anything paisley.
Here are a few of my Windmills on my design wall. The smaller set are sewn together into a 9-patch and the others are not sewn together yet. That is way they look so different in size. If all goes as planned I plan on doing a lot of sewing tomorrow.
Now news about my sister, Chantal. To start with they didn't know if they could even have kids but she is now 34 weeks yesterday!!! She has a slight heart condition and takes medication for it and also 3 BP pills a day. Up to now she has done pretty well other than a few minor issues. She had a checkup yesterday and she is having some major swelling in the feet and legs her BP was extremely high. The doctor said that he could NOT increase her meds because of the baby. He put her off work and on complete bed rest while doing a 24-hour urine collection to check for protein and to test for Preeclampsia which is also known as toxemia. Unless something goes wrong between now and then she goes back Wednesday and they will decide from there what needs to be done. I'm hoping that bed rest will help lower her BP and take down some swelling but if not they will have to induce her labor. The baby's heart rate was good so that was great! So we are praying that she can hang in there a few more weeks if possible. I'm anxious to see this new baby girl but not too soon.
Yep! I finished the quilt top!!! It has 6,480 pieces in it!
Details...3" blocks, 1080 blocks, 6,480 pieces, and it measures 90/108.
I looked back and I guess I started it September 2013. I didn't work on it constantly because sometimes I just got sick of it. I'm really happy with how it turned and even though it feels good to have it finished, I am a little sad that it is done. I loved the little blocks...most of the time.
I didn't have a place in the house to spread it out for a photo so I took it outside and tried to find the driest part of the yard that I could find. :) It got up to 60 degrees here yesterday so most of the snow in my yard melted. There are areas where I still have snow
It's funny as a few days ago we had below zero temps and 12" of snow, yesterday it was sunny and 60! Hunter actually has school today but on a 2-hour delay. It is still early morning and I'm thinking that they may end up canceling it anyway. The bus can't get up our road because it is still snow and ice covered. We are up on this big hill but most areas in the rest of the county are having major flooding and mudslides. So many kids will not even be able to get to school. Here is one of the roads about 8 miles from the house.
This was another road a few days ago. Do you see the stop sign?
I am soooo ready for SPRING!
Oh it just feels great! I have all 120 blocks finished! Each block has 9 bow ties in it. Each bow tie measures 3" so they are pretty tiny. That is a total of 1080 bow ties!!!
I am currently in the process of assembling them into a top! :)
If all goes well and I don't get sidetracked then I should have this top completed this evening! At least I am hoping to have it completed by this evening.
I am in love with this quilt! I do plan on keeping it for myself once it is finished. I started it a few years ago as a leader/ender project. I saw the quilt in a magazine several years ago and just fell in love with it and I wanted to make it ever since. It is a great use of scraps since the blocks are so small.
Speaking of leader/ender projects....do you remember my Windmills? I currently have 70 of them finished and they measure 4" I need to sit and cut out a bunch more of them as I don't have any of them ready to sew. I plan on doing that so that I can get back to working on them. My Windmills will probably be like my bow ties and take me a few years to complete but that's okay.
While in the sewing room, I also played around with this block. I'm not sure if it will be a future project or not but the Churn Dash is one of my favorite blocks. I have made several quilts using this block and in many different sizes. This block is 6"
Right now I will put it aside while I work on a few other things.
I should have plenty of time to sew today. Richard was on call today and got called in. We only have the one vehicle so I will be missing Church today. That makes me sad but very thankful that he has a job. Richard never complains about anything at all but I did notice this morning that he had his old knee brace on. :( I didn't mention it to him but I'm guessing that his old injury from a car accident is giving him some problems by being on his feet so much on the hard floor at the hospital. I guess I will just wait and see if he ever mentions it to me. LOL!
Yesterday morning I worked on my hexies but after a little while I had to stop. I've been having some issues with my right shoulder and I figure it is just from sewing. :( I have been working a lot on my hexies lately and did several bindings on the baby quilts over the past few weeks.
So I took a break and decided to tame some strings! They are taking over! I don't have a lot of yardage in my stash but I do have a ton of strings. This is probably less than half of them, but it is where I started.
I dug out some of the smaller ones first to work with first. I still have more but I want to finish sorting through these first.
I sat down and pieced about 25 of these small blocks. I have used this same exact block design on a couple of other scrap quilts that I had planned on keeping for myself but I ended up selling both of this so I am keeping this one when it is finished.
I wanted to sew a few more of them but I ran out of bobbin and sadly my shoulder was hurting so bad that I could not grip the wheel on my machine to release it to wind more bobbins. That is how bad it was hurting. I did try but I just didn't have the strength in it to do it. So I had to wait for Richard to get home to do it for me but by that time I didn't want to sew anymore. :) Hunter was at my sister's house.
I am soooo sick of the snow and cold! We had a ton of rain which caused so much flooding, covered roads and washed out bridges. Then the rain changed to sleet/ice then over to snow again. We ended up with another 12" :( The temps were below "0" last night. It is just miserable.
I have my sewing box ready for when my sister goes into labor! LOL! Chantal is now 33 weeks and I plan on going to the hospital as soon as I get the call. I am the type that always has to have something to keep my hands busy so I have some hexies packed and ready to go. These will be great to work on while she is in labor.....if I can actually concentrate on them. :)
Since the baby shower was this past weekend, we helped her sort and organize everything. Next up was finishing up the nursery for her. Mom and I painted the walls pink a few weeks ago but Chantal also wanted one wall painted with chevrons. Richard said that I was really over thinking it so he helped me out. He measured and taped the wall for me and mom and I painted it while Chantal was at work. My BIL works away so Chantal really wanted to have the room finished before he got home.
So here it is...
Yesterday mom and I hung the stuff on the walls for her. Mom also made so pretty pink chevron valances for the 2 windows but for some reason I didn't end up getting photos of them. They turned out really well.
This is the ceiling fan that my BIL installed before he left out for work last month. It really matches well.
This hangs between the entry door to the room and the closet door.
The dresser/changing area... I think in the owl photo frame she is planning on putting photos of daddy, mommy and baby girl. :)
I also forgot to take a photo of the crib bedding but I'm sure you can guess it has owls on it. Now almost everything is finished and ready for the precious baby girl!!!!
Shew....more bad weather is on the way. I just recently got off this hill this past weekend and now we are going to get hit hard again. The forecast says 8"-14" plus some sleet. I am NOT liking this at all. They are also saying that this is going to be a heavy wet snow and to expect some power outages. I sure hope not but I am prepared if we do lose power. Mom even had to head out to work a day early because of the snow that is coming. They called her yesterday and told her to be prepared to leave out this morning instead of tomorrow. Hunter's school has already missed 25 snow days of school so far. I am soooooo ready for spring!
Chantal's baby shower was Saturday and it when very well! She was tired but very happy and excited with all of the friends and gifts. Here is the cake that was made by Chantal's grade school teacher for her shower.
I finished up my sewing at around midnight Friday night! LOL! Nothing like waiting until the last minute to finish things. Here are the gifts that I made for baby Addison.
First up...the puff/bubble quilt...
I made 25 hair bows! I bought this hair bow holder at Hobby Lobby 50% off and it cost me $8. It worked out well to clip the hair bows on.
Modern 4-patch flip backed with minkee.
Colorful Scraps quilt made with pindot fabrics.
Pink polka dot Chevron quilt....
10 Flannel burp cloths...
55 suckers!!!! These were party favors. :)
It was a great day! We had lots of fun with friends and family. She got a ton of wonderful gifts! She has 7 more weeks to go!!!! In the end, Chantal, mom and I were all exhausted! LOL! Now that I have all of this baby stuff finished up I can get back to working on something that is NOT PINK! LOL! I would like to finish assembling my bow tie top but, today I will try to finish painting the nursery! :)
He was making lots of calls yesterday about replacement parts and everyone kept saying the heater wiring is a big problem with the Jeeps. You can't beat a Jeep when it comes to going in bad weather and it gets good gas mileage but I guess every vehicle has a few issues. Since everyone kept saying that the heater wiring was a problem I decided to look and see if there had been any recalls issued but there wasn't. 
Recap of the wonderful weekend....my brother, SIL, their 3 kids, Chantal and Ronnie all came over for supper. I enjoyed it so much. Families just don't seem to spend enough time together. It is hard when everyone works all different shifts but it was so nice. We had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, broccoli and cheese, peas and cornbread and of course chocolate cake. Not a big fancy meal but it was nice and everyone was well fed. My brother made me cry as they were leaving, he said, "sis, you just don't know what this had meant to me" So we all have made plans that this will happen a lot more often. We missed mom as she was working but after she gets home we have plans to do it again with her. I was happy to spend the time together but also very sad that it was over. 
