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. :)
Yesterday didn't go as planned, but that's how it goes. My plan was to get Richard out the door to work and Hunter to school then head upstairs and load a quilt on the longarm. Before I even got upstairs mom called and said that my sister, Chantal was sick and she was taking her to the ER. I watched my little niece, Addison while mom took her. Long story short...Chantal has been having issues for over a year with her gallbladder and kept putting off having surgery but I guess we all tend to do that. They wanted to do surgery this morning but ended up doing emergency surgery yesterday evening and she came home last night. To add to the story, she messaged me at 2am to tell me that Addison was vomiting all night. :( Not good at all! She didn't show any signs of being sick yesterday. I hope Chantal doesn't catch the virus because I'm sure it will not feel good to be vomiting right after having surgery.
So this morning Richard is already out the door and Hunter is getting ready and I am upstairs working on a new quilt block! YAY! I'll post a pic of it tomorrow.
Since I don't have many pics to post this morning I will leave you with a pic of a quilt top that I pieced early this month. This is a huge quilt top measuring 100x100!
The lighting was not good when I took these pics but I will try to get better ones when I quilt it....who know when that will be. LOL!
That's all folks! Gotta get to quilting!!!!
Addison is here! :) So here is the story... Tuesday night my mom and sister called and said that she seemed to be leaking a little but not knowing if it was her water or urine. :) She waited as she wasn't having any pain and then mom told her to go shower just in case. LOL. Then we decided that she should go to the hospital just to be checked as we live over an hour away and didn't want any surprises. So we got ready and headed to the hospital...better to be sent home than to be trying to rush to get to the hospital. So we get there, they check her and she starts gushing water and then a little pain starts. Nothing major just a little pain. She was still dilated to 3 like she had been for weeks.
Ronnie her husband was called as he works away and he headed to the hospital. He left as soon as we found out she was in labor but he was several hours away. The funny thing is the company that he works for got him a taxi and paid for the trip back for him which was $520!!! The hospital told him not to rush as it was going to be a long time and that it would be late morning before the baby arrived. So Chantal was doing just fine, her heart and blood pressure too. We called everyone and told them that she was in labor but no hurry to get to the hospital as they said it would be late morning.
They checked her again and BAM....she was dilated to 10 and there was a head!!! LOL! No one expected that and she wasn't even having hard labor pains! They started hustling trying to get the doctor in there and the room ready. She called Ronnie to tell him that he was not going to make it in time. :( Daddy was still 70+ miles away when she was born. I hated that he missed it.
She had a quick 3.5 hour labor! Here is a photo that I took while she was PUSHING!!! Does she look like someone in labor? LOL! The only time that her heart rate when up was when they told her the baby was coming and hubby wasn't going to get there in time.
Mom and I were in the delivery room with her. Mom got to cut the cord and I took a million photos for daddy to see. Mom even videoed some of it.
Her she is directly after the easy birth. She only got to hold her for a second and she was sent to the NICU.
She was having some trouble breathing and the cord was wrapped around her neck. They assured her that it wasn't anything major but they wanted to put her in the NICU for 4 hours to get her breathing regulated. After 20 minutes she was breathing fine but she had to stay the full 4 hours. I tried to take some photos through the glass at the NICU but I couldn't really get a good photo.
Daddy got there not long after she was born.
As you can see, mommy and daddy are very happy! BTW...that is Hunter in the background. :)
Here is Addison.... She weighs 6lb 2oz and is 19.5" long.
She seems so tiny. Newborn clothes just swallow her but the preemie clothes fit her fine.
These are photos from today. Look how tiny her head is compared to daddy's thumb.
And here she is in her tiny little preemie capris. :)
We are all so in love with her. She is so precious. Shortly after she was born everyone arrived at the hospital. Ronnie's mom and dad made it just in time for the delivery. They were waiting right outside the door. So thankful that God watched over them both as you all know that we were worried about Chantal going in labor because of her slight condition. Also thanking God for taking care of Addison and her breathing.
They will be home Friday and daddy has to leave back out to work on Monday. He is staying at the hospital with mommy and baby and that will also give him a couple of days at home with them. I'm sure he hates to leave for work but he has too. Mom and I are here and her MIL just lives a few miles away. I'm sure that mom will stay with has as long as he needs her.
This photo sums up my sewing this week. Worked on a few more Orange Peel blocks and some hexies. I keep this tray in the living room so that it is easily picked up and worked on while I am sitting.
Did you notice the little brown basket/thread catcher? My dear friend, Shell made it for me. I love it! It works out so well for me to put my little threads and snips in. I can't believe that I didn't have one of these before. LOL!
I have also been cutting strips of various sizes out of my scrap basket. I have a quilt that I plan on making soon that has a million 1.5" strips in it so I am cutting 1.5", 2", and 2.5" strips. Those are sizes that I will eventually use anyway. Actually, the 2.5" strips is what I can cut my Windmills out of. I still have several more to cut out of the basket.
Yesterday was one of those days....Richard headed out to work at around 5:45am he called me at 6:30am and he said, "everything is okay now but call work and tell them that I will not be there today because the Jeep caught fire" WOW! Of course I freaked out!
He was just driving along and POOF, flames just shot out of the dashboard. He quickly pulled off the road and it was still dark but he could hear water running in a nearby creek so he grabbed an empty gatorade bottle and ran. The creek was about 30yds away so after about 3 trips he realized that he couldn't get the fire out like that. He then grabbed a pair of gloves that my mom had gave him from her work and they just happen to by fire retardant. He just started gabbing anything that was on fire and throwing it out. At this point it was just a bunch of burnt plastic and such. He said that at one point the flames were tickling the top of the Jeep and if that cloth top had caught fire we would have lost the whole Jeep. Thanking the Lord for watching over him and so grateful that it wasn't worse. As you can see the dash and wiring are a loss.
When he got back home he was coughing really bad from breathing so much of that in. He really smelled of burnt plastic too. This was his first day of work that he had missed at the hospital so I think that bothered him but it's not like he just didn't want to go to work.
He was making lots of calls yesterday about replacement parts and everyone kept saying the heater wiring is a big problem with the Jeeps. You can't beat a Jeep when it comes to going in bad weather and it gets good gas mileage but I guess every vehicle has a few issues. Since everyone kept saying that the heater wiring was a problem I decided to look and see if there had been any recalls issued but there wasn't.
So that about summed my day up yesterday! LOL! Shew...just thanking God that even though it was bad and costly that it wasn't any worse....we still have a Jeep that can be fixed and I still have my precious Richard.
The past few days I have been working on a few hexies! Things have been a little busy around here so that is all that I could get done.
Recap of the wonderful weekend....my brother, SIL, their 3 kids, Chantal and Ronnie all came over for supper. I enjoyed it so much. Families just don't seem to spend enough time together. It is hard when everyone works all different shifts but it was so nice. We had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, broccoli and cheese, peas and cornbread and of course chocolate cake. Not a big fancy meal but it was nice and everyone was well fed. My brother made me cry as they were leaving, he said, "sis, you just don't know what this had meant to me" So we all have made plans that this will happen a lot more often. We missed mom as she was working but after she gets home we have plans to do it again with her. I was happy to spend the time together but also very sad that it was over.
My sister was here but I gave her strict instructions to keep her feet up. LOL! She had a doctor's appointment yesterday and she is dilated to 3 maybe a 4. The doctor said 3 but he said his assistant would say a 4 but he also told her that she would NOT go 40 weeks. She was 36 weeks yesterday so if labor starts he will not stop it. Last night she was having some light bleeding and back pain but it didn't progress in to anything. Shew....I'm excited and nervous and I have my little bag of hexies packed and ready to go to the hospital at any given moment. Her husband Ronnie works away like mom does a month at a time. He is due to leave out on Tuesday morning so he is really stressing. The doctor said that there was a good chance that Addison may make her appearance before he leaves!!! The thing with babies is that you never know when they will decide to come!!!
It's been a week or so since I last posted but life has just been really busy. My sister is on complete bed rest through the remainder of her pregnancy so I have been spending lots of time with her and helping her out a little by cleaning, laundry, mopping and such. She is now 35 weeks so hoping she can hang in there a little while longer.
Chantal had a routine appointment with the cardiologist so while waiting I worked on some hexies. I ended up getting 10 of them finished.
A dear friend from Church was at Chantal's baby shower and saw the burp cloths that I had made for her. She asked if I could make a set of 12 so that she could give them as a gift to a family member. So I whipped those up for her. They go together really quick and easy. I have more flannel leftover so I will probably use the rest to make more for Chantal. You can't have too many burp cloths!!!!
A pic of the back....
I was really excited the other day, I was given a clock that has been in my family for over 100 years. It measures a little over 38 inches long. The clock dates to 1905 and hung in a general store that belonged to my great aunt. She then gave it to my grandparents and it hung in their house for as long as I can remember. It hung on the wall right behind my grandfathers chair. I love it and I just want to cry every time that I walk by it. Such wonderful memories...
I guess that is all for now. I have another busy day ahead
Yesterday was my birthday. I'm not much on advertising that and probably would not have even mentioned it now but I wanted to show you some of the new goodies that I got! :) First, I just want to say that I am grateful that the Lord has given me another day of life. Life is short and you just never know when your time is up.
Hubby worked, Andrew worked, mom worked, Hunter was at school....etc. I spent the day doing NOTHING and it felt pretty good! :) First, I must say that my family is the greatest! At 6:15am my mom called to wish me happy birthday and she was just talking about the morning that she gave birth to me and such. I love her so much. She works away but had bought me gifts before she left and my sister was bringing them later. So mom calls at 6:15am.....my brother calls me around 6:25am and he is at work. As soon as I answered the phone he started singing happy birthday to me and made a few "age" jokes. :) Then around....6:45am Richard called and he was just pulling in at work and he sang the Conway Twitty version of Happy Birthday to me. LOL! The morning went on and I started to take a nap and then my dad called. That is a whole other post but at least he did call, right? So that was my day....
Then evening came and Richard and the boys were home with me and my sister made a quick stop on her way home from the doctor...more on that in a bit. Sooooo.....here are my goodies!!!!
A new ironing board and Rowenta iron...
A new pair of SHARP scissors that I had wanted but would not break over and pay the $17 for. LOL! A beautiful picture frame from Hobby Lobby. Not shown....cards, cash, clothing gift cards and such. Oh...the boys didn't think that I should have to fix supper for everyone since it was my birthday so they bought pizza!!!
After everyone went about their way...I took my stuff upstairs to play. :) Love my new ironing board as it is much wider and has a place for the iron and a rack underneath. I cut out a few Windmill pieces to work on. I still need to cut out more "color" fabrics.
Love my new sharp scissors. I really needed them.
I also love my new iron! It has a paisley design on it and I LOVE anything paisley.
Here are a few of my Windmills on my design wall. The smaller set are sewn together into a 9-patch and the others are not sewn together yet. That is way they look so different in size. If all goes as planned I plan on doing a lot of sewing tomorrow.
Now news about my sister, Chantal. To start with they didn't know if they could even have kids but she is now 34 weeks yesterday!!! She has a slight heart condition and takes medication for it and also 3 BP pills a day. Up to now she has done pretty well other than a few minor issues. She had a checkup yesterday and she is having some major swelling in the feet and legs her BP was extremely high. The doctor said that he could NOT increase her meds because of the baby. He put her off work and on complete bed rest while doing a 24-hour urine collection to check for protein and to test for Preeclampsia which is also known as toxemia. Unless something goes wrong between now and then she goes back Wednesday and they will decide from there what needs to be done. I'm hoping that bed rest will help lower her BP and take down some swelling but if not they will have to induce her labor. The baby's heart rate was good so that was great! So we are praying that she can hang in there a few more weeks if possible. I'm anxious to see this new baby girl but not too soon.
I have my sewing box ready for when my sister goes into labor! LOL! Chantal is now 33 weeks and I plan on going to the hospital as soon as I get the call. I am the type that always has to have something to keep my hands busy so I have some hexies packed and ready to go. These will be great to work on while she is in labor.....if I can actually concentrate on them. :)
Since the baby shower was this past weekend, we helped her sort and organize everything. Next up was finishing up the nursery for her. Mom and I painted the walls pink a few weeks ago but Chantal also wanted one wall painted with chevrons. Richard said that I was really over thinking it so he helped me out. He measured and taped the wall for me and mom and I painted it while Chantal was at work. My BIL works away so Chantal really wanted to have the room finished before he got home.
So here it is...
Yesterday mom and I hung the stuff on the walls for her. Mom also made so pretty pink chevron valances for the 2 windows but for some reason I didn't end up getting photos of them. They turned out really well.
This is the ceiling fan that my BIL installed before he left out for work last month. It really matches well.
This hangs between the entry door to the room and the closet door.
The dresser/changing area... I think in the owl photo frame she is planning on putting photos of daddy, mommy and baby girl. :)
I also forgot to take a photo of the crib bedding but I'm sure you can guess it has owls on it. Now almost everything is finished and ready for the precious baby girl!!!!
Shew....more bad weather is on the way. I just recently got off this hill this past weekend and now we are going to get hit hard again. The forecast says 8"-14" plus some sleet. I am NOT liking this at all. They are also saying that this is going to be a heavy wet snow and to expect some power outages. I sure hope not but I am prepared if we do lose power. Mom even had to head out to work a day early because of the snow that is coming. They called her yesterday and told her to be prepared to leave out this morning instead of tomorrow. Hunter's school has already missed 25 snow days of school so far. I am soooooo ready for spring!
Chantal's baby shower was Saturday and it when very well! She was tired but very happy and excited with all of the friends and gifts. Here is the cake that was made by Chantal's grade school teacher for her shower.
I finished up my sewing at around midnight Friday night! LOL! Nothing like waiting until the last minute to finish things. Here are the gifts that I made for baby Addison.
First up...the puff/bubble quilt...
I made 25 hair bows! I bought this hair bow holder at Hobby Lobby 50% off and it cost me $8. It worked out well to clip the hair bows on.
Modern 4-patch flip backed with minkee.
Colorful Scraps quilt made with pindot fabrics.
Pink polka dot Chevron quilt....
10 Flannel burp cloths...
55 suckers!!!! These were party favors. :)
It was a great day! We had lots of fun with friends and family. She got a ton of wonderful gifts! She has 7 more weeks to go!!!! In the end, Chantal, mom and I were all exhausted! LOL! Now that I have all of this baby stuff finished up I can get back to working on something that is NOT PINK! LOL! I would like to finish assembling my bow tie top but, today I will try to finish painting the nursery! :)
First of all, I would like to thank you all for the encouraging comments and emails on my last post. It is hard to completely change your eating habits and exercise but as I mentioned due to health reasons I really have to stick with it. Shew...trust me, it is NOT easy but I'm doing it. :)
I actually got some sewing done! :) I quilted this baby quilt that will be a gift for my sister at her baby shower on the 28th of this month.
I think she will really like it. :) I did get the binding finished after taking this photos. I did the binding in the darker pink.
I did a simple stipple/meander on it. Nothing fancy but I just needed it quilted so that I could move on to another one.
I quilted another one Saturday, I will post about it next time. That's 2 down and 2 more to quilt and that is not counting the puff/biscuit quilt that I am still working on. I also need to paint the nursery for her. I think mom is going to help me. Then my sister decides that she wants one wall painted with chevrons! :( I told her that she was killing me! LOL! My sister ordered the bedding for the crib and has all of the wall decor bought too. Mom and I are going to paint the nursery and I am going to paint the chevron wall and mom is going to sew the valances for the two windows. A ton of things to do but it is sooooooo worth it!
My sister is doing well so far with her pregnancy. She is 30 yrs old and this is her first child. We are all very excited. Chantal has a slight heart condition so the doctors are watching her closely. So far everything is great, she is just extremely tired. Of course, it is normal to be exhausted during a pregnancy but the doctor said that her medication and heart condition just drains her energy. She is still working 40 hours a week. She goes today for another echocardiogram. We are praying that the results come back good. Her due date is April 20th.
Kristie
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.
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. :) 
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! 
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