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
First off, thanks so much for all of the wonderful comments on my Sweet Annie quilt. She is very special to me.
Lot's going on in the sweat shop this week. Hunter is grounded from everything so he has been bored and has spent some time with me in the sewing room only out of boredom. :) He also has a ton of extra chores....like splitting endless amounts of firewood and keeping all of the dishes done. He has even scrubbed a few toilets! LOL! Before you think I am being too hard on him by making him chop firewood, we do have a log splitter so that makes it a lot easier. Oh he has also even washed a few walls! :) I think the dishes has been the hardest on him. He has dared anyone to eat out of anything other than paper! LOL!
Anyway....back to sewing....we made our first folded star potholder. It is not perfect and still needs binding but it was fun. We found the tutorial on Youtube.
We also cut and pinned more hexies for handwork.
Another Youtube tutorial that we found was for this little ornament. Someday I plan on having a little Christmas tree in my sewing room. This was a fun and quick ornament to make.
Hunter's job was to dig through the old buttons and find one that would look nice on it.
Here is our finished ornament.
I decided to add this border to the little quilt. In this photo they are not sewn on but you get the idea. I think I will add another border or two and call it finished.
In my next post I will show you the strips and pieces that we got cut out for my OMIGOSH! quilt.
Last night was Andrew's first 12 hour night shift out of the tugboat and barges. Shew....the mother in me was stressed all night and worried. I found it hard to sleep. I kept worrying and wondering if he was cold. He has a whole week of 12 hour night shifts and then a week of 12 hour day shifts. He just called a few minutes ago and was on his way home. It is a little over an hour drive. He will sleep and do it all over again tonight.
Kristie
I'm on a treasure hunt! I'm trying to find my cutting and sewing tables! LOL! I have lots of sewing that needs to be done before Christmas and at this point I can't find anything or even work on anything. During the summer I don't sew upstairs as it is just too hot and I have been sewing up there on and off since the weather is cooler but I am messy!!! I get in a hurry and things just get piled. Sadly this room hasn't been truly cleaned since last year. Trust me some of these photos are GRUESOME! I'm not holding anything back. This is what I am starting with.... Mess and dust everywhere, yep that is a cobweb in the corner! LOL! I even see 2 empty cans of Diet Pepsi.
My cutting table....tons of different projects, more empty Diet Pepsi, I even see a pack of crackers that I was actually snacking on while I was cleaning. They were fresh as I brought them with me as I went up to clean. I am only doing one corner at a time until I get it finished and then I will have to buckle down and sew.
Now to all of the things that I found on the tables and below....Burp cloths for my sister! Here are 9 of tem in various stages at this point. The monkey ones on top look more suitable for a boy and she is having a GIRL...but she is getting them anyway as all she will be doing is spitting up on them, right. The others underneath are pinks and more girl looking fabrics. These got boxed up to finish after the first of the year as she is not due until April.
A pile of strips that will eventually be made into an Omigosh quilt. I love the pattern and the pieces are so very tiny. I figure I will just cut a little at a time until I have enough. These got boxed up also but I will keep cutting strips from my scraps as I can.
I also found some 4 patches in a few different sizes. These finish at 2" most of these are in sets of 2 right now so they need to be mated and sewn on into 4 patches. At this point there are only 23 of them finished. No particular pattern for them, I just figure I will use them somewhere down the road.
More squares for 4 patches. Lots of blues in there so I need to cut different colors to mix in. These are 2" squares.
I have several 4 patches already made with the 2" squares. Here are 140 of them that finish at 3"
All of these 4 patches and squares are neatly stored away now in this little tote.
After putting those away, I found more in sets of 2 that need to be finished. I will put those by the sewing machine to finish up and then they will go in the tote with the others. Yep....that's my crackers in the corner of the photo. :)
I closed up my 1906 Singer treadle and moved it in front of my big window. Not sure if it will stay there or not. This is the first time that I have had anything in front of the window. I originally planned on a big comfy chair by the window when we were building the house, but that hasn't happened yet. I thought it would be nice to do some handwork by the window as it is great lighting. If you look close in the windowsill you will see a pair of binoculars. :) That window is 4x8ft and with the location of the house on the property, I can see forever out that window. I do occasionally watch deer, squirrels, coyotes, and our horses running around on the property.
Hmmm...I sure got off track, didn't I? So this is the after of my sewing and cutting tables. Not perfect but better! This is a huge room and sadly this was the cleanest corner in it so I started there. :) You can see in those photo that I also straightened up my fat quarters and I have several empty cubes. :( I need to work on that and fill it back up. I also have a few scrap tubs on my cutting table.
In this photo I have the top case to my 1911 Singer sitting on top of my treadle but I have moved it now. I also moved my ironing board back over there. I need to staple the new cover on it, right now it is just laying over the top of it. This is an old wooden ironing board that belonged to Richard's grandmother.
Now if I can only keep it clean while I work on the rest of the room. :(
I almost forgot...I found my hexies under some of the mess too.
I have 94 of them in this stage... I need a few hundred more of these sets of 4.
Next area up....the sofa and table... :( It's horrible. I promise there is a sofa there and a table!!! LOL! I see lots of leftover backing pieces, bubble wrap? LOL! some baby stuff, oh and a sewing machine in the floor beside the table. It's in the box...I need to find a place to store it.
So I'm going to try to get this all cleaned and be more organized so that I can get things done. I also plan on posting more regularly as I my comments are way down and I miss reading them.
Okay...break is over.....back to cleaning....maybe...
Kristie
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. 
