Catching up...and some new sewing....

This is a photo heavy post, believe it or not.....I have been sewing!!!  :)  I'll get to all of that in a few minutes but first I'm sorry that I haven't posted for a couple of weeks, but I do thank you for all of the emails of concern.  I have just been feeling a little down, just aggravated with life I suppose.

First my quilting machine was down for what felt like forever, then once I did get that fixed and back I had to rush and stress over getting the quilts quilted before my surgery.  If you remember I even had one lady to pick her quilt up at the hospital that morning.  Then I had my surgery and first she said I would be down for 2-3 days but it was more like a couple of weeks!  I wasn't expecting that at all!  Once I felt better and could get upstairs I planned on getting back to my quilting and then realized that I had forgot to place my thread order!  I had planned on ordering the day after my surgery but I guess I was just too out of it to remember.  So I ordered my thread, got it in and NONE of it was what I ordered!!!  They mixed my order up with someone else.  They were really nice about it and gave me a gift certificate for my troubles and I am now waiting on my correct order to arrive.

Then as I mentioned in my last post, Richard's truck was broken into and we lost about $800 worth of tools and such!  That really got me down.....  So I guess that is enough complaining about life, but I have still been busy!

We decided to clean out one of our outbuildings!  :(  Man, I don't know how everything was in there.  Some of the stuff belonged to Richard's grandmother so all of that had to be sorted.  I had tons of stuff in there too.    I had put things back in storage for a few years to save for when we got moved in the house.  I had lots of new stuff in there and lots of antiques too.  It was almost like Christmas getting to sort through it all.  That took us a couple of days.

I'll go ahead and show some quilting stuff before I get on the the family stuff.  :)

Do you remember me talking a few posts back about a quilt that I designed and was making for my granddaughter, Raelynn?  Well, here is what I have so far, I'll try to get a better photo of it once I get all the blocks sewn together.  I've decided to call it, Shades of Lilac.  As I was working on it all of those different shades of purples reminded me of the Lilac tree in my mom's yard and how pretty it is when it blooms.  This was a great use of all my purple scraps.  I didn't have to buy anything for it, just used what I had.  Anyway, I need to get the blocks sewn together and the borders on so that I can get it quilted.

The past few nights I have been watching the Hatfield and McCoy movie on the History Channel.  From what I have read a bunch of you watched it too.  I can remember in college I had to do a research paper on the Hatfield's and McCoy's which all happened right here where I live.  So while I watched it, I decided that I would work on something simple and mindless.....  So here is the story of how that all came about.

I am so sick of my older stash that it just makes me sick when I have to dig through it.  I did have a fairly large stash before Richard lost his job and I am very thankful for that because I would have gone crazy if I hadn't.  I read on someones blog the other day that she felt the same way and she jumped in a cut it all up and used it!!!  I don't even remember which blog it was, sorry.  I thought that was a great idea because no matter how much I hate it, it's not going anywhere unless I use it, right?

So I grabbed a stack of greens and started cutting...

I ended up with 350+ of these 3.5 x 6.5 rectangles before I stopped.

 Then I sewed them end to end in sets of two...

 Giggle, I'm still working on it so you will have to wait to see what it looks like!  I will tell you this though, I did end up adding one more color in it to give it a little "pop" and it will be pretty big once it is done.  The measurements that I figured up will be 94 x 103.  Even though I hate my old fabric stash, I really like how this quilt is turning out so far!  :)

As I mentioned we cleaned out the outbuilding and I found my old antique table and a couple of chairs that my great grandfather made.  They look a little old and rough but, hey they are antiques!  I placed them on my front porch and put this little quilt over the table top. This is something that I made a few years ago and it is about the size of a baby quilt.  My porch is 40ft long so I have plenty of room out there but I thought it might be nice to sit out there and have my coffee early in the morning or to even do some handwork too.

 Here is the quilting on it.  I used a panto called "on the forest floor"  it is one of my favorites!  I just love it, even though there is a ton of quilting in it.

 Now on to other things in my life the past few days....  My day lilies are starting to bloom!!!  Don't look at the mess in the flower bed.  This is just a temporary one until we get our dozer work done and the yard all fixed the way that we want it.  I am in the process of putting thick newspaper down around the flowers and then I will add some OLD sawdust over it all.  I've done it this way for years and it has always worked good for me.  I put a think layer of newspaper down to keep the weeds out and then put a layer of old sawdust over that.  It has to be old sawdust because the fresh stuff has too much acid in it.  The old sawdust just turns back into soil once it decays anyway.  This works great for me since we own a sawmill, it doesn't cost me anything.

I baked 5 loaves of Banana Nut Bread!  I put four in the freezer and cut this one to eat!

Here is a photo of Andrew and his yearling, REV.  Rev is the Tennessee Walking horse that he bought a while back.  He is doing great and will be sent off to the trainer in November.  Just in case you don't fool with horses much, in this photo he is "parking out"  He is doing great so far and Andrew just loves him so much.  BTW....see the background....I told you that I lived in the woods!  :)

Here is Hunter taking a break from playing.  As you can see he has his little toolbox and his toy gun beside him....that's my boy!

I've been babysitting Zoey, my sister's poodle for the past few days while she it at work.  Zoey likes to watch me sew!  She has seizures and Chantal doesn't want her to be alone during the day just in case she has one while she is at work.  So most days she is at my house unless mom is home.  She is a sweetie and my little dogs love to play with her.

This morning while I was making my bed, I kept hearing something and when I went out to see what it was, I found this.....Cocoa!  She had got out of her lot and was on my porch!  Maybe a little redneck but it's just farm life.  :)  I love it.  As you can see, we haven't stained the side of the house yet.  We'll get to it as soon as we can, just so much to do.  Anyway, the long windows on the front porch are my master bedroom windows and the french door on the side, you can see a little of it, that also goes to my master bedroom.  Eventually we will have a big wrap around porch all the way around the house.  I can't wait to the the porch done on this end, I think it would be nice to get up out of bed and go out and watch the sun rise...

I guess that is all for now, I need to finish up our late supper.  Richard has been working in hay all day and probably will not be home until dark.  I know he will be starved....
Kristie

Things are getting a little busy...

This has been a long week! I'll start with the quilting first. I cut out part of two quilts. These are special order quilts. I don't have the background fabric cut for them but I will do that tonight. I cut the color fabrics at the same time for both, it was just much easier and faster that way. When finished they will be lap quilts. Here is my "Strip Twist" with the binding all finished! I was glad to get it finished and marked off my list. Here is a beautiful customer quilt that I loaded on the frame on Saturday morning. It measures 92x92 inches. You really can't tell much about it here on the frame but it has a big star in the center and other stars towards the corners and such. This belongs to the lady that owns the quilt shop. I must say that it is very well piece and lays really flat! If you are a machine quilter you know how important this is for it to quilt nicely. Anyway, I am at the halfway point on the quilt. I hope to finish it up after Church. She will be doing the binding so all I have to do is the quilting. I spoke with her this afternoon and told her that I would drop this one off at the shop on Monday. She said she had 5 more waiting for me!!!! So with this one that is on the frame that will make a total of 10 that I need to have finished BEFORE CHRISTMAS!! :)
Even though I have been quilting on this quilt most of the day and I cut the others out last night, I haven't been doing much of anything else. This is why....
My blood pressure here is 134/112 and that is with me taking 2 pills a day for it. So first thing Friday morning I was at the doctor's office. I took my monitor with me to show him how high it had been running. (BTW...I had my monitor checked and it is accurate) So the doctor flips out on me and said that I should have gone to the ER. So he changed my medication once again and over the next several weeks I will have lots of testing done on my heart and everything else. :(

Here are some photos of Andrew and his new colt that I took over the weekend. The photos are not that good, it was raining and his horse was muddy. Anyway he is 6 months old and a good size for his age. Andrew is very proud of him and you know how that goes when your kids are happy, you are happy! :)I promised Andrew we would take more photos of him when the weather was nicer and his horse was cleaned up. I guess that is all for now...I'm going to hit the couch and rest for a bit and then cut out the background for those two lap quilts.

Kristie

Around the Farm and Through the Woods...

This is a very photo heavy post!! This morning after I finally got good and awake with a ton of coffee, I decided to go spend some special time with my outside babies. The weather was so nice outside that it turned into quite a morning...

I was first greeted with Bruno, our outside dog...

Then Festus...
Walked on down to see Cocoa, the milk goat...On the way to see some other animals, I stopped to take a photo of Hunter's little play spot...I love seeing things like this.On up to see Autumn. She is still eating her hay and this is not a good photo of her but this is the only one that I could get that she wasn't trying to eat my camera.

In the other fence is Storm and Sapheria, they are munching on hay too.
And Jingle Bells and Bullet, having their morning hay too...
It was so nice outside that I decided to go on around...Richard's log pile. These logs are for the rest of siding for our house...A pile of lumber and the sawmill in the background...

Just a photo of my gravel road and the blue sky...
Yummy green grass coming up in the pasture...
Then I turned and decided to walk down the old logging road and through the woods...
Lovely spring flowers coming up in the woods...

The relaxing sight and sounds of the water...
More water... I had to stop and take another break here...
Lot's of rocks and moss...
Almost back home...
So that was my morning...I really enjoyed getting out like that since I didn't get to do it much last year but I really should not have went as far as I did, because by the time I got back home my hip was burning and my leg throbbing. So I have taken it easy the rest of the day and no I did not work on my other 5 quilt blocks that I wanted to get done.

Hunter will be having a friend staying over tomorrow night, so maybe I can work on something quilty while they are playing.

Hope you enjoyed the walk...

Kristie

Life On The Farm and a little sewing!

I had such plans for today but seems like I just could not get my butt in gear. :( Hunter went back to school today and Richard left early to help some friends do some stuff so I had so many plans for today since it would just be me. First off, I planned on jumping in and cleaning up the house and sort through this pile of fabrics. But that never happened. This pile has a few blocks in it, fabrics pulled for various projects, some fabrics that just haven't been put away yet and lots of scraps! I guess I will just have to save this for another day. The bad part is.....this isn't the only pile of this that I have. Everything is just a mess.

So my day went pretty much like this...Got Hunter and Richard up early, fixed breakfast and got them both out the door. Took a few minutes to feel sorry for myself because I was alone, got a shower, watched some tv, took a nap, washed a few dishes, did 2 loads of laundry, took another nap, started supper, and that was pretty much it!!! Nothing that I had planned really got done. Oh well, I guess life goes on.

I did do a few more triangles while I watched tv this morning. Still working on those 600 needed for Bonnie's Mystery. I'm really liking this quilt!

I snapped this little photo of Smokey after our nap, he really needs a haircut! :)
Oh and I kept forgetting to post a photo of Cocoa the milk goat! I took these while I had the dogs out to pee. I didn't really get any good photos of her. She is such a sweet little thing and has the best goat's milk. Some goat's milk has a real strong taste to it but not hers. Can't really tell a difference between it and store bought whole milk. I haven't bought milk since we have had her. Now that the holidays are over and my hip is not as bad as it was, I plan on making some butter, cheese and maybe some soap! I'm kind of excited about that. Anyway she is a Lamancha goat, we are planning on having her bred soon.
Her utters are not big right now because we are trying to dry her up until we have her bred. But usually they almost drag the ground.
Richard and Hunter are already in the bed so I took some time to sew this block. Barbara Brackman has started a new blog called Civil War Quilts. She is doing a free sampler that will have something like 52 blocks, one a week. I'm really loving this too!

Tomorrow morning, mom has physical therapy so I will be taking her for that. So that will tie my morning up but I can't think of a better way to spend it....spending time with momma!!! I really need to get some small projects gathered up to work on while she is having her therapy and I am waiting on her. May have to dig those up this week.

Well, I guess I'm off to bed....it's 9:20PM :)

Kristie

Keeping Busy

Got up around 5am this morning, did a few little household chores before I sat down to sew. Richard has spent the day helping some friends of ours so it was just me and Hunter today. I have been trying to stay busy to keep my mind off of Andrew so much. Hunter doesn't go back to school until the 3rd so I let him sleep in. Actually he got up at 10:30am!

So I put in "Gone With the Wind" and started sewing! I haven't really had time to work on Bonnie's mystery because of all the sewing that I did before Christmas. Today I got Part One finished and pressed!
Part Two, as you can see here, is cut and ready to be sub cut and sewn! May work on that tonight.
Part Three, the paper-pieced string blocks are already finished! So I'm feeling good about this so far.

Last night I finished up the binding on the Pot Holders that I was working on for Christmas, most of those didn't get finished in time. But that is fine, I will save them or use them myself! I may make a few more of them as I get time and save them for the new house, whenever we get moved in. It will still be a few months on that!Oh and the other day, I stopped by Walmart and found this on Clearance!! They are Thomas Kinkade Potholders and Oven Mitt panels! I bought all they had which was 3 panels for $2.22 each! Each panel has 2 oven mitts and 2 potholders. I thought they might make great gifts for new year or to use for myself! (Actually I took this photo off of Ebay, because I was too lazy to take a photo)And look at this little pretty!!!! Another Jim Shore!! This was a gift from my brother and SIL! I love it!!! (Again, this photo is from Ebay, being lazy again! ) Anyway, I do love it and it meant alot that they thought to get it for me. So thanks so very much John and Kellie!!!I will now leave you with some cute little photos! Of course another one of Donkey laying in his favorite spot! I think he likes laying up there so that he can keep an eye on everyone!And my precious little Jazzy! Isn't he just sooooooo cute! He was pouting because he just had a bath and Richard used the blowdryer to dry him! :) So glad he is back home!Now since I have been sewing most of the day....I need to finish supper, which is just spaghetti and garlic bread. And also need to straighten up the living room and clean the bathroom! :( Giggle, I've tried to con Hunter into cleaning the bathroom today, even tried to pay him and he said "No" and that I was too cheap! Hmmm......may have to make him help me just for meanness! :)
Kristie

Working late

It's 3:30am and I can't sleep! :( We went to bed about 10:30pm and I woke up at 1am, got up and did a little sewing! Remember the pot holders that I pieced yesterday? Well, I quilted 7 of them tonight and ran out of the heat batting stuff (too tired to remember the name of it) so I guess I will pick up enough to finish the others if we can get out on Saturday. We have a lot of snow up here on this hill! Anyway, I thought I made 10 but somehow I ended up with 12, but that is okay, I can keep a set for myself. Now, I just need to finish the other 5, bind them all and those gifts will be finished. I still need to make the rice bags and maybe some coasters and the small things will be done. Yesterday I finished the binding on that lap quilt that I quilted and it is ready for it's owner to pick up. Now I have one more lap quilt, mom's HUGE quilt, and a quilt that my sister is buying as a gift for who we hope will be her future in-laws! :) Anyway those 3 still need to be quilted and the bindings done! :( But I can do it.....or at least, I think I can!

We got several inches of snow and ice yesterday. Richard and Hunter were out trying to build a snowman, it was hard to do because the snow was frozen so hard.

I let Jazz out to use the potty and he wasn't even heavy enough to break through the snow! He was sliding all over the place out there on that frozen snow.Then he came back in and passed out on the couch with Festus! Most of the time Festus would rather stay outside than inside but it has been so cold the past couple of weeks that he has spent a lot of time inside.

When I woke up at 1am Hunter was awake, in his room playing with legos!!! He said he couldn't sleep either. Here it is 3:43 and he is still awake! So I guess I had better try to get him to bed and get in bed myself!

Kristie