Catching up...

 First off, I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  We sure did, I have nothing to complain about, we have been very Blessed.  First I want to share a photo of my gift from my brother and SIL.  A Jim Shore sewing machine!!!  Is this a perfect gift for me or what?  :)  I love it! 

 I also received a few more precious ornaments that I will post photos of when I take the tree down which will probably happen tomorrow after Church.

I have even turned my sewing machine on the past few days but that is all about to change!  I need to get caught up on the Bonnie Hunter mystery and I also picked up some fabric today.  I can't tell you when the last time that I bought fabric as I can't remember but today I stopped by Hobby Lobby while we were out buying Richard some shoes for work.  I have a new precious niece that will be here in April so I need to get some baby quilts done!  These fabrics are way out of my comfort zone but I guess sometimes that is a good thing. 

 Before I leave I wanted to share a photo that Andrew sent me on Christmas day.   :(  I was so sad that he wasn't home for Christmas but with his new job it was just impossible.  He is somewhere on the Mississippi River right now.  I thought he looked so sad in the photo but he said he was just tired.  Love him so much and I am so very proud of him. 

 I guess that is all for now.  I'll be back tomorrow to show some progress on my mystery quilt and my new baby quilt. 
Kristie

Sewing right along...

Well...it's 5:30am and I still haven't been asleep.  I did sleep a couple of hours night before last but I was up all day yesterday and all night last night.  I'm still wide awake!  :(  Richard will be heading out the door in a few minutes and Hunter will be getting up in a few minutes.  Andrew will run me to town to the grocery store later today too.  

I'm still working on my Illusion quilt.  I should have the top completed this evening and ready to quilt.   I will probably do the binding by machine since I am pressed for time. 

I also need to bind this quilt.  It is a 4 patch flip that I quilted last January but never got the binding on it.  I need to get the binding done on it as it will also be a gift. 

I connected a few more hexie sets.  My stack is slowly growing. 

 Here is my little tub that I keep by my seat to work on my hexies.  Nothing fancy but it has a lid and I can grab it and go if needed.  I try to keep what I need in it to work on them.  You can see some hexies, pins, straw needles, threads, scissors, thimbles, my glasses, and for some odd reason there is a pen and my fitbit in there!  LOL!  I guess the Fitbit should be on my wrist not in the tub with my hexies.  :(

 I am also working on my Step 2 for Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt.  I started out doing these sections a different way and then just found that it was taking me longer so I changed over and started doing them this way.  Right now I am almost finished sewing the brown (which would be her "black") on the neutral rectangles. 

 I also whipped up some pumpkin cake donuts with cream cheese icing.  I made these yesterday and they are completely gone now.  Believe it or not but I didn't have the first one of them. 

 I had a doctor's appointment the other day and long story short....I need to exercise and lose some weight.  :(  I have some old hip and leg injuries that have been giving me some problems along with my back.  I have arthritis in the all but most of the pain is from the extra weight being put on them.  I also need to build up the muscles in my hip/leg area.  :(  Not what a person wants to hear but it could always be worse.  
Kristie

Sewing on hexies most of the night

It's 4:30am and so far I have been up all night.  I have to get Richard up in 15 minutes for work so I thought I would do a quick post.  Too tired to do much else, I've set here on the couch, watching Netflix and working on my hexies.  

 I know it is hard to tell much about them on top of this quilt but I was too tired to move them elsewhere.  :)  I now have 120 of these sewn together but still need a few hundred more to get the size of quilt that I want. 

 I needed a change of pace so I decided to start sewing what I have into sets of 2.  I didn't get a photo of that but I will. 

 Hopefully today I can cut out Step 2 of the mystery quilt while everyone is working.  I have all of Step 1 finished and I would love to try to keep up with the steps as they are released.

 I'm going through another one of my sleepless spells.  :(  Everyone around here is on a different schedule right now and that messes me up.  I know that Andrew can get himself up for work but as a mom, I want to make sure he gets up and has something to eat before he goes to work.  Soon he will be off of these 12 hour shifts everyday.  Sunday will be 28 days straight that he has worked 12 hour shifts...except he was off for Thanksgiving.  Richard gets up at 4:45am for work so I usually just stay up after Andrew leaves as I would only have a few minutes to lay down.  Then Hunter gets up at 6am for school.  After he leaves I do sometimes take a nap for an hour or two so I am usually running on 2-3 hours of sleep a day. 

Hunter and I did get our tree up but I snapped this photo of it a little bit ago and it is so blurry that you can't tell much about it.  I will try to get a better pic of it later today. 

 That's all for now.....I have to go press Richard's scrubs for work today.  I should have already had that done but I forgot.  :(
Kristie

Getting some sewing done....

 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

Piecing away...

 I've been plugging away at Bonnie's mystery quilt.  I like her pattern but I'm not overly excited about my color choices.  I love the colors as far as that goes but my selections do not show up as well as I wish they did.  I still like it anyway, and it will make another great scrap quilt.  

I had to use the big piece of batting that I had on the wall and I didn't want to open my other roll right now so I just threw up this old table cloth.  I will change it later, it is only temporary. 

I also pulled out this "Work in Progress"  It is from a pattern called, "Everlasting Wreaths"  Today I made 4 blocks.  I have several more ready to sew.  Not sure how long I will work on this before I put it away again.  I do believe that I will like this quilt once it is done.  

 Please say a quick prayer for my mom.  She was supposed to go back to work on December 27th but was having some back pain.  She went to the doctor and she has a cracked vertebrae.  Not sure when she will be going back to work.  Right now she just has to let it heal and have some physical therapy.  I truly believe that the Lord will take good care of her.  :)
Kristie

Catching Up!

 Happy New Year to everyone!  

Thanks so much for all of the thoughtful comments about losing our Donkey.  We miss him so much.  They are very easy to get attached to.  

I had been working on Bonnie's Mystery before I got sick, so I am really behind.  So my plan was to jump in and get it all caught up before she posted the final reveal.  Well....she did that today.  LOL!  Oh well!  :)

Yesterday and today I finished up Step 3.  

As you can see, I made a big mess trying to hurry, but then again, I always make a big mess.  

I want to hurry and get it finished at this point, I'm not sure if I have fabric that I can use for the border.  I'll have to check on that.  Is anyone else behind on it, like I am?  

I have 5 quilts right now that need to be machine quilted.  None of them have deadlines so that makes it nice for me.  One of them, the lady started to hand quilt it because she hand pieced it.  She quilted one block and then decided that she didn't want to do that.  LOL!  So my job is to pick out the quilting, pick out the basting, load it on the frame and quilt it.  She also wants me to do the binding too.  Speaking of binding, I have to do the binding on 4 out of 5 of those quilts.  I enjoy doing binding but not if I am rushed.  

I guess that is all for today.  Next time I hope to have more quilty photos to show.  :)  Hunter goes back to school tomorrow so I will sure miss him.  Andrew's classes start back on the 14th or 15th....
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