What's on my design wall?

 What's on my design wall?  So if you are wondering why I have been having videos on my blog...well...it started out as a school project for one of the boys and then they really enjoyed editing and such so the videos have continued.  

Please watch this little video...

 This is a pic of my design wall before I put up the 3D Bow Ties.  The blocks below are called Grandmother's Choice.  I have all 216 of these blocks so now I just need to assemble the top. 

 This is a photo of the Yo-Yo class that I taught a week or so ago.  I mentioned that the place double booked so I had to teach the class in the entry/hallway.  It was so crowded but they didn't seem to mind.  I have another class this evening but it may end up being cancelled because we are under a winter weather advisory. 

 Anyway...back to the 3D Bow Ties...they are fun and fast little blocks. 

 I actually have a few more blocks on the wall since this photo.  Have you ever just played around with a block and then one turns into several and before you know it you are working on a quilt?  LOL!  That's how this happened.  I have several more blocks cut out and ready to piece. 

 So it's 6:15am...Richard left for work about 30 minutes ago and now I need to get the boys up...one for school and the other for work.

Yo-Yo Quilt Class & Award

Shew....what an evening!  LOL!  I've attached a little video about my evening at the Yo-Yo Quilt Class.  It started out very stressful but ended on a good note.  

One thing that stressed me out so much was the fact that the place that we were having the class double booked events!  So I ended up having to teach my class in the entry/hallway area!  :(  I was not happy but it all worked out in the end, I guess...

I was also presented with an award!  I was NOT expecting it at all and as you can see in the photo, I was getting a little emotional as they were talking about me. 

  For some reason it would not let me link to the article so I just copied and pasted it.  It reads...

Thinking of a member in the community that has made a huge difference, sharing their skills and talents, enabling others to be included in the joys of her passion. This wonderful community asset wasn’t hard to decide on. Kristie Layne has shared her passion with many community members. She is a wonderful teacher and mentor when it comes to showing the art of quilting. Kristie’s passion for quilting has been made very visible in her success of making hundreds of quilts. She has worked alongside us teaching others for quite some time. Kristie has always been a text or call away when it comes to being there for her community to learn this skill. Kristie’s passions do not end there. She is also a wonderful wife and mother, daughter and sister. Kristie is very caring of her family and her community. She enjoys doing meal preparations and other various tasks. Kristie’s enthusiasm in what she does has sparked the interest of many others within the community. There have been many success stories stating “I never imagined I could do this, but with Kristie’s help I’ve accomplished so much”, “Kristie has enabled me to take my free time and turn it into a feeling of accomplishment”. The wonderful passion she loves has turned into a community of inclusions and sharing.  

Another class and a new upcoming class

 I had another hexie class or Grandmother's Flower Garden class a few weeks ago.  This class was held in the meeting room at one of the local fire departments.  It was small but we made it work anyway.  We had a full house!

Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves...

I met a few new people, some ladies that I went to high school with, some that I just knew in the community and some that knew my mom.  :)  I love living in a small town, everyone seems to know everyone.  

My display quilt.  This quilt is completely hand pieced and hand quilted.  I found it at a yard sale for $10.  I was sooo happy when I found it but sad for the unknown maker.  

 More of my samples....

 More samples...

 I have another quilt class coming up January 30th.  It will be a Yo-Yo class.  This will be the first Yo-Yo class that I have taught.  I am so excited about this.  My Yo-Yo quilt is very special to me and I will tell you the story behind it in a later post.  

I am also hoping to be able to video bits and pieces of some future classes.  

Back to my Nearly Insane...

 I hope that I stay in this mood because I can't seem to sew enough!  LOL!  First off, I put my back out...again!  Nothing exciting but sadly just using the vacuum.  LOL!  Oh well, I've been doing a lot of sewing and using the heating pad.  

I've been working on my Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt.  I've just been moving around on several projects.  I printed out more triangle papers for the mystery quilt and hope to get those all finished tomorrow.  

I also made 40 more bow tie blocks too.  That takes me up to a little over 260 ( I think)  I loved the quilt in the magazine and I think it calls for 830, 3" blocks.  I still have a lot more to make. 

 Several years ago I started a Nearly Insane quilt in blue/white and I think I had something like 17 blocks done.  I just wasn't happy with my choice of colors so I stopped working on it.  Richard loved the quilt and has given me a hard time since then for not finishing it so I started over this evening!!!  :)  This time I am doing it in red/white.  I figure I will just work on a few blocks here and there until I get it finished.  

I did 2 blocks tonight...

Block #13 has 9 pieces in it.  It was an easy one. 

 Block #2 has 21 pieces in it, another easy one. 

 I am paper piecing these on my 1933 Singer Featherweight!  I just love this little machine. 

 Another little thing that I worked on yesterday was a few yo-yo's.  We had some company Sunday afternoon and I am one that always has to keep my hands busy.  I keep yo-yo's in a basket in the living room and work on them occasionally when someone stops by to visit.  My dear friend Mitsie even brought me a candle that she had made.  I love her candles as she adds extra scent.  This one was grape!  Anyway, the yo-yo's are for my 3rd yo-yo quilt that will be for Hunter.  I have 800+ of them done but I need around 2000. 

 I guess I will head back up to the sewing room as I am home alone!!!  Richard is working tonight and the boys are gone.  Andrew worked 12 hours today and as soon as he came home he asked if he could take Hunter to the movies.  I have the best boys.  They love spending time together.  Andrew doesn't work tomorrow and Hunter still has a few more days off school too.  
Kristie

Post Surgery Update

No pics in this post.  :(  I have gotten several emails so I thought I would update you on my blog.  I had my surgery on Monday.  I had my right ovary and a golf ball size cyst removed, nothing major just routine surgery.  The doctor wanted to salvage my ovary if possible but couldn't, which is not a big deal to me really. 

All went well as far as the actual surgery, but I woke up in severe pain so I had to stay at the hospital a little while longer until they got it under control.  I have a big problem with pain medication not working.  It never has worked well for me and Hunter has the same problem and he is only 9.  Neither of us can take Morphine or anything like that, we might as well drink water or something.  So after they finally got it under control I came home. 

I had alot of pain Monday evening and night but Tuesday (yesterday) wasn't too bad once I got out of bed and moved around.  Richard has been great with taking care of me and making me get up and walk even when I don't want too.  Mom got called out to work Saturday but Chantal has been here with me during the evenings which is nice to spend time with her.  She is keeping my dishes washed and stopped by the grocery store of my yesterday after work.  LOL!  Richard is keeping everything else done. 

Today has probably been the worst day of it all.  I cried when I got out of bed this morning and it took a while for my pain medication to kick in.  I am doing fine now, just taking it easy, watching tv and on Facebook.   I've eat a ton of food and probably will gain 10 lbs!  LOL!  Actually my stomach is swollen right now and I feel like I am 9 months pregnant!  :(  I can't wait for that to go back to normal. 

Richard is trying to nap right now so Hunter is babysitting me or so he says.  LOL!  Richard has to work tonight at the hospital doing his practicum.  He has to be there at 7pm and works a 12 hour shift.  I sure will miss him being gone all night.  I'm so used to him being home during the nights.  When he drove a coal truck he was gone alot through the night but that has been a couple of years ago.  I'm sure I will live, it will just take a little getting used to again.  He has 120 hours of this to do before he can take his state board exam and stuff like that.  Anyway, my sister will be here with me tonight if I happen to need anything and she will be leaving for work in the morning about the time that Richard will be getting home.  Mom will also be back home tomorrow evening. 

Mom will be helping me get things ready for Richard's graduation party Saturday evening after his graduation.  I figure by Saturday I should be feeling alot better than I am now.  His graduation is at 10am and we will be coming back home and having a cookout with family and friends!  Saturday is also our 11th wedding anniversary too!!  He will be speaking at the graduation too so he has been working on his speech the past few days.  He is a little nervous over that but he will do just fine. 

That is all for now!  I think I will get up and walk through the house a few times and then settle down and work on some yo-yo's!  I have a basket of yo-yo's that is one of my long term projects.  My sewing room is upstairs so I can't get up there right now.  I had my basket of yo-yo's brought down to work on.  I have made 2 huge yo-yo quilts over the past years.  The first one has 2500 yo-yo's in it and I gave it to my mom.  Andrew loved it and wanted one so I made him one with 2000 yo-yo's and it is put up in his room.  The one that I am working on now is for Hunter!  I think I have about 500 yo-yo's finished.  I want his to be about the same size as Andrews. 

I'll check in later...
Kristie

The weekend so far...

Well I broke my quilting foot!! I almost had my tension adjusted perfect and broke a needle and somehow broke my closed toe foot! The one that I had on there had a clear plastic circle and I liked it because I could see through it and it was closed and would not catch on threads. I ordered another one and it should be here in 3-4 days!!! Meanwhile, I got some tops, batting, and backings ready to quilt. I have a couple of customer quilts to do first then I have 3 of my own ready to be quilted as of right now. I have several more backings but I think they are packed up. But that should keep me busy for a while.


Last night Hunter spent the night with my mom and sister. Hunter will be 9 yrs old the end of June and this was the very first time that he spent the night away. We missed him terribly. It just wasn't the same with him not here. I can walk through the woods and be at mom's house in a few minutes, if I drive it is less than 1/2 mile! LOL! So he was not that far away! I honestly didn't think he would stay the whole night and we all told him that he could come home at anytime but he stayed! :( I went out there this morning to get him and he didn't want to come home! :(


Today after I broke my machine, (LOL) I took a nap while Richard worked on his hay cutter. It was 90+ degrees so I stayed inside with the A/C. After it cooled down and Richard finished we went fishing! Andrew went to the river to fish with some of his friends and we headed to the Lake! We live near Yatesville Lake, which is a 2,300 acre lake with an 18 hole golf course. When on horseback we can ride through the woods and be at the lake in less than 10 minutes! And if we drive we can be at Eagle Ridge Golf Course in 10 minutes! LOL! But we don't play golf! Anyway...Hunter bought a remote control boat with his money that he had saved up. He played and played with it today. Richard with his HUGE fish! LOL! Nothing big was caught but that was not the point of the fishing trip. We just wanted to have some family time together.

So as I sat there watching my bobber, I removed all of the paper from my string blocks! As you can see I used some of Hunter's old homework papers to sew them on! :) And of course, I had my Diet Pepsi with me.
I also took some yo-yo's to work on.
Then as the evening went on it got too dark to sew so I just enjoyed the fresh air and sounds of nature. I was trying to take a photo of the lake at the edge of dark and about the time I started to snap the photo, Hunter caught a tiny fish.

We stay to well after dark and had to use the flashlight to see to get back to the truck. We were a little late with our evening farm chores. As soon as we got home we had to feed all the animals and milk the goats! If all goes well tomorrow after Church, I plan on making another batch of soap.

Kristie

Sorting through the piles...

Well, I'm snowed in today! :) Actually I guess we could get out if we really needed to, but I'm perfectly happy staying in today, too cold for me. When we first got up our water was frozen off, so Richard had to thaw that out. It didn't take too long for him to do that, the best thing was "no busted pipes"

So while he was doing that I was doing this...trying to tidy up one of my cabinets that I have quilt stuff stored in. I am planning to tidy everything up over the next several months so that I will not have to sort through everything when we do have to pack up and move in the new house. Hopefully when we do get moved in I will be alot more organized. Alot of the problem now is that I don't have any extra space.

Several of these things I had forgotten about. Here are some paper-pieced flying geese that I was making out of scraps. This may end up being a small wallhanging or a table runner.

Here is a basket of purple scraps that I planned on using for a string pieced wallhanging or tablerunner.A little container of recycled papers that I had precut for small string pieced blocks. These are extra homework papers that belonged to Hunter that the school had sent home with them over SUMMER break to work on if they wanted to. Let's just say "Hunter didn't want to" and I didn't make him, I really didn't want him to have to do school work during his break. So I cut them up for quilt blocks! LOL!
I finally found the red binding that I had cut for Hunter's sailboat quilt! The quilt is quilted, now it just needs this binding on it.
Several hundred yo-yo's! Some are done and some still need to be sewn. I usually work on these on the go, doctor appointments and stuff like that. This one will be for Hunter, it will probably end up the same size as Andrew's yo-yo quilt which had 2000 yo-yo's in it.
Here is the shelf in this cabinet that all of this came out of. You can see it is still a mess and you can see there are more yo-yo's in there. Several patterns, some pantos, books, junk, and a little bit of everything.
And here is another tub of fabric that needs sorted. I showed another one of these the other day. I have 4 or 5 of these that need to be sorted. This ranges from yardage to strings.

I also pressed some of my Mystery pieces. I'm still plugging along on this project. I really do like how everyone else's is turning out. So I'm anxious to get mine done too.

Here is another photo of my potholder blocks that need to be trimmed up before I can layer them for quilting. As you can see by the "Halloween" fabric with the eyes, I used everything!
So after I sorted through that stuff, I settled down with Hunter to play a game of Monopoly! Oh he beat me soooooo bad! But it was lots of fun spending the "special time" with him.
Now it is almost 3:30 pm, I'm off to take a short nap and then to finish up supper! Hopefully I can do a little bit of sewing late tonight.

Kristie