Started a new one...

 Thanks for the wonderful comments on my SIL's quilt.  :)  She gave it to my brother and he loved it.  :)

I worked on my applique block.  I had it ironed to the background but hadn't stitched around it.  I got all of the green done but not the tulips yet.  After I get this first block done I will prep another.

 While I was working on the applique Richard built a grape arbor for me!!!  He is just so awesome!!!  I love it!!!

 He's still on vacation and Thursday had some nice weather so we took the motorcycle out for a little ride.  It was nice but a little windy.  We had a wonderful time.  In the pic we had stopped by the lake.  We rode about 110 miles.  Can't wait for warmer weather so we can do more riding.  :) 

 Friday we had errands to run.  Richard took his bow and had some work done on it.  He loves archery.  Picked up a few things from Sam's.  Stopped by Joann's and picked up these fabrics.  Not for any particular project but just to add to the stash.  :)  I got 1/2 yard of each.

 This came in the mail so I thumbed through it a bit after we got home.  I was tired so I really didn't feel like doing much.  I've been eyeing this book for a while.  I love the quilt!  I know that I really don't have time to start this quilt but I did do a block.  :)

 This is Block #1.  I'm not using the fabric colors suggested in the book, I'm just going to use my scraps for it.  Not in any big hurry for this quilt but I figure I could do a few blocks a week on it and eventually get it done.  As the cover of the books says, the blocks are 4x5 inches. 

 Shew...this momma is nervous.  LOL!  Andrew put in an offer on an apartment building.  It's a 3 unit building.  He has always wanted to have rental property even as a child.  He is now 26 and works 100+ hours a week.  He has been working hard for this.  Praying that the Lord will guide him in the right direction with this.  Right now the building is full with tenants but he may end up living in the smaller unit and continue renting out the other 2 apartments.  Not sure yet.  Anyway he put in an offer and now we wait...

Today I hope to work on a couple Lori Holt blocks and maybe another Anthology block.  Oh and maybe work on the purple tulip applique.  I don't like much finishing up that block.  I also have a customer t-shirt quilt that I need to work on.  I am so grateful for the customer work but I'm feeling a tad burned out right now.  I'm sure that will pass.  All that I can think about is wanting to work on something of my own.  LOL!  

Two New Quilters and Two New Blocks

 Took me all day to get two more blocks finished yesterday.  Feeling some better but still not good.  My day pretty much went like this....sew, bathroom, nap, sew, bathroom, nap.  LOL! 

 This is the first one of the day.  Hard to really tell from the pic but the coral squares have a silver metallic polka dot, so not my normal.  :)

 Next was the house block.  It went together pretty quick.  Total of 4 finished and I think they are up to block 12 or so.  I'm hoping today that I can actually get to the longarm.  I tried yesterday but I just couldn't do it. 

 Saved these little pieces from my cutoffs.  The 1.5" squares will go in my tub and the little triangle snippets will go to a new quilter...my little 3 yr old niece, Addie.

 The 2 new quilters that I mentioned in my title are my sister, Chantal and her little daughter, Addison.  This pleases me so much!  Mom is back to quilting so since she retired and you guys know that I always quilt and my sister hasn't shown any interest until now.  :)  Addie has a little toy sewing machine that goes with her Barbie's.  She pretends to sew and says, "I'm making a kilt"  LOL!  She's 3 so it comes out "kilt" instead of "quilt".  She then takes her little scraps and glues them to construction paper.  :)  So I am saving her all of my little snippets that are too small for me to use.  She glues faster than I can cut and sew so I'm having trouble keeping up with her.  She could go through a shoebox of snippets in a day easily.  Even at 3 she needs to be encouraged to be creative.  My plan is to buy her the little Janome machine when she gets a tad older.  For now I plan on getting her the toy Singer machine in the toy department.  She will love it!

 As far as Chantal, we were all out shopping and mom and I needed to stop by Joann's.  We were looking for a new thimble for mom and looked across the store and Chantal was looking at fabric.  So I nudged mom and the conversation went like this...
ME:                "ummm...mom, look"
MOM:            "what is she doing?"
ME:                "no clue, has she said anything?"
MOM:            "nope, go see why she is looking at fabric"
ME:                "whatcha looking at?"
CHANTAL:   "well, I don't know.  I was thinking that I might want
                        to make a hexagon quilt for Addie so that she will
                        have something that I've made."  

So then it was on!  LOL!  We were in that store forever!  :)  First we were trying to figure out what she had in mind and went with it.  This is her progress so far...

 She seems to be enjoying it.  We've told her that it is not a race and just do what you want, when you want.  It doesn't matter if it takes 6 months or 5 years to just enjoy the process.  :)  

In other quilty news... I had a good mail day yesterday too! 

 Both of these are from the Fat Quarter Shop.  The bundle on the left is for my stash.  I signed up for their monthly subscription of reproduction fabrics.  It's 12 fat quarters of a new line.  The other bundle is for a custom customer quilt that I have coming up in a few months but wanted to go ahead and order the fabric.  Sadly it is 5:45am and I don't remember the name of either and I'm not in the mood to climb the stairs.  LOL!  

Oh and one last thing...I talked to Addie last night on the phone and she asked that when I was feeling better if I would come down to her house and play baby zombies with her.  LOL!  That should be interesting.  Hehehehe!  I live on top of the hill and she lives 1 mile away at the bottom of the hill.  :)

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

Preparing...

Mostly because of space issues before but, I never decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving. This morning I started thinking about my Jim Shore Santas and Snowmen.  Sooooo....I dug them out!  I will probably move them around some but for now here they are.  

I don't have many of them but I do love them.  I saw one at Lowe's a few weeks ago and fell in love with it.  It was a Nativity that stood 18" tall and that is larger than the ones that I have.  It cost $45 which is a good deal because most of my others cost that much or more, they were gifts.  I didn't buy it, but that doesn't keep me from wanting it.  LOL!  I'm sure I will live over it.  

I am very excited about spending our first Christmas in the house.  I have such big Christmas decorating dreams but they will have to wait a year or so.  Things in my house still are not finished but that is fine with me, we are living in it and that makes me happy.  Our tree, which I will not put up until around the 1st of December or so, is only a 7.5ft tree.  It looked fine before but I think it will look a little odd in the living room with a 7.5ft tree and a 22ft ceiling.  I saw a beautiful 9ft tree at Hobby Lobby when mom and I were there before she left for work.  Oh and I can't wait until we actually get our banisters up on our stairs and the balcony, I want to put some pretty garland on it.  Oh well.....I can dream....right?  :)  As I said, I'm just happy that this is our first Christmas in the house.  

Now on to some quilty stuff!  Are you doing Bonnie's Mystery quilt starting Friday?  A good friend of mine and I are planning on doing it and we have been excited for weeks.  I've decided to do mine in blues, greens, reds, brown and cream/beige.  Late last night Richard picked up the mail for me and my friend had sent me some greens and reds because that is what I had the least of.  

So now I have started adding to what she sent and pulling a few blues and browns from my scrap drawer.  

I have more blues and browns to add to the pile in my stash.  

Giggle, I added the greens and reds that were fat quarter size that she sent to my fat quarter stash.  I'll be using them in the mystery quilt but I was just playing with the fabric and wanted to see how they all looked together in my bins.  

I haven't pulled any cream/beige fabrics yet but I think I will wait and pull the rest of it once the mystery starts so that I don't have a big mess of fabric.  I do like storing my fabric this way because I can see it as I work.  

Today will be spent preparing for Thursday.  Lot's of cleaning to do on top of my other daily chores.  No sewing for me until after Thanksgiving but I'm sure by the time Bonnie's 1st mystery step comes out on Friday, I will be ready to sew!
Kristie

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

Anyone want to barter or trade???

I bought this pattern several weeks ago and posted about it on my blog. It is "Hugs & Kisses" by Jaybird Quilts. I just love it! The photo is a little dark but the quilt on the cover is very bright and cheery. Most of the fabrics that I have are Civil War Reproductions but I wanted to make this quilt in calicos!!

After I ordered the pattern, I remembered seeing this set of calicos at the quilt shop. My next trip down there I picked up a fat quarter of each of the BRIGHTER ones. They had several more but they had mostly a white background or they were a very light pastel print and I wanted BRIGHT.On the back of the pattern it has basic yardage requirements for different sizes. I want to make a queen size and it calls for about 9 yards of prints.
I picked up 3 yards in fat quarters at the shop and found a few scrap pieces in my stash. Mom gave me a couple of scrap pieces too. So here is my question......Does anyone want to trade? I would love your calico scraps! As long as they are at least 2.5" wide then I can use them. If so just let me know what you would like in return for them.

Thanks so much and I am looking forward to a little swapping!

Kristie

Catching Up...

I'm hoping that things have slowed down here for a while. This is a photo heavy post!! I'm trying to catch up on blogging and I am so behind on reading blogs too.

First off, thanks for all of the prayers for our friends and neighbors that were affected during the tornadoes. The clean up is beginning but still a long way to go for so many of them, not only here in our little county but several states. One sad thing that breaks my heart is that Hunter doesn't have school tomorrow because they are having a funeral for one little girl that lost her life in the tornado, along with her grandmother. They are expecting a very large crowd so they are holding it at the local high school. She was only 14 yrs old.

Here are two quilts that I delivered this morning to the quilt shop. The first one is an Evening Star that measures something like 110x118! It was her first quilt!!! She was certainly brave to make her first one that big! It is beautiful when it is all spread out but I just didn't have to room to do that for the photo. It is quilted with the Chantilly Lace design.

Here is the second quilt! It is a simple patch quilt but man was I in love with those fabrics!!! Such a wonderful variety of Civil War Reproductions. She wanted this one done with a stipple/meander design. It measured 88x97. Here is a closeup of the fabrics! The whole time that I was quilting it, I kept thinking about how pretty it would look on my bed! :)
Look how close that I came to running out of thread on it!!!! I was getting nervous! I have a thread order placed but it will be a few more days before it arrives. Oh BTW...the little project that the thread spool is laying on it a little table topper that I have been working on when I have to sit down and take a break from the quilting machine. It isn't finished yet, it still looks like it does in this photo. :(I ordered a few things a week or so ago! Just things that I eventually want to work on when I get the time. I'm hoarding!!! LOL! The first one is Hawaiian Delight, it is a paper pieced pineapple quilt. The middle one is a set of 3 tablerunners that I would like to get done sometime before next Winter! I'm sure that will not happen but at least I can hope, right? I ordered these from one of my favorite places, Laundry Basket Quilts. I have several patterns from there that I just keep putting back to do later. The last one on the end is called, Hugs & Kisses, by Jaybird Quilts. I thought it was so cute! A few weeks ago when I was down at the quilt shop, I saw so small calicos and I thought of this pattern. I didn't get the fabrics that day, I wanted to get the pattern first and then make my final decision on the fabrics.
So today while I was at the quilt shop, I picked them up!!!! I couldn't resist them! I picked up a fat quarter of every bright one that they had. Now I just need to start collecting calicos until I have enough to make the quilt. See the pillow form in the background?? I picked that up at Walmart today because I want to make a pillow for my back to use at Church. We go to this little old tiny country Church that I love with all of my heart, but those old Church pews are NOT comfortable! I noticed the other day that several people there had pillows behind their backs so I decided that I would make one for myself. I probably will not get it done before next Sunday but you can bet it will be moved closer to the top of my list. :)After I got home, I started digging through some of my scraps and found this "vintage" piece of calico. The word "vintage" makes me feel old since these were the fabrics from my childhood. Friday I will turn "40" and my kids are giving me a hard time about it. :) Anyway, I need to look through mom's fabric because I think that she still has some that I can use in my quilt. I also ordered this fabric so that I could finish a quilt that I started some time last year....maybe. I glanced back through my blog a little but I couldn't find it, I know it is on here somewhere because I saw a photo of it the other day and that is what reminded me to look for the fabric. See, I had just enough fabric to finish the quilt and was going to be cutting it close and wouldn't you know....I cut the last few blocks of the navy fabric the wrong size!!!! So I ordered this and I plan on finishing it real soon....well....after I get more of these customer quilts finished. I have some more beautiful ones coming up!!And in between quilting this is what we will be doing......painting!!!! Actually Richard will probably be doing more of the painting than I will. He painted the master bedroom a few days ago and I painted my metal bed today. I'll post photos of that as soon as I get it all cleaned back up and things put away in there. He didn't paint down around the floor or the very top of the wall near the ceiling because we will be putting up the wood trim in there in a few weeks. The big buckets in the photo are for some of the other rooms. One 5 gallon bucket is ceiling paint. I'm sure that is not enough but at least that will get us started. The other 15 gallons are all the same color beige and that will go in my hallway, living room, upstairs balcony, and my sewing room. I dread all of that painting and I'm not even sure if that will be enough. And now I will leave you will something that I don't get to see that often anymore....my boys together! Andrew goes to college and works so much that he is just in and out most of the time, but here they are up in Andrew's room. Andrew is helping Hunter with his homework! :)

Giggle...as you can see, Andrew's room isn't painted yet either! I do have the curtains bought for his room but they are not up yet. I'll hang those after it is painted. It is on the second floor and we live out in the middle of nowhere so it's not like anyone can see in there. :)
I guess that is all for tonight!! My plans for tomorrow are to go grocery shopping and then load on another customer quilt!!!!

Kristie