Destressing with a new project...

Look who was there to greet me this morning as I went to get some hay for the horses. Festus!! And also my girls were peering through the wire trying to see if I was getting hay for them too. :)Today I am just trying to DESTRESS! Wow! Friday afternoon we get a call that Richard's brother had been in an accident at work and was being flown out to a better hospital that are more able to deal with traumas. So at this point we are in a panic! He is okay nothing really life threatening but very sore and tons of stitches in his face and head. His wife said that yesterday he couldn't understand how bad that he looked at the hospital before they did surgery on him. I was trying to email them the photos that Richard took but couldn't get them to go through so I had to put them on facebook. So if anyone was wondering WHY I would post something that looked that bad, it was so that he could see for himself how he looked. Anyway...we got home around 3am.

I'm still having trouble sleeping and it is starting to wear my body down. I am dragging! I think I mentioned before that I do NOT deal well with change of any kind. I think it is probably because EVERYONE has started back to school here and everything is on a total different schedule. Hunter is in the 4th grade now and I so enjoyed having him home during the summer. Richard has started back for the Fall Semester and his schedule is 5 days a week, all day long. Then when he gets home, he eats, changes clothes and works on homework until somewhere around midnight.

And....Today is the first day of class for Andrew! I know that I am not the only mother in the world that her son has gone off to college but man I miss him already!! And I know that it will get easier as time goes on, but today I am sad.

Andrew has asked me for the past couple of years for a RED & WHITE Snail's Trail quilt. So whatelse could I do but to start his quilt TODAY! Here is the pattern that he picked out a while back. It is a Judy Martin pattern, it was published in a quilt magazine several years ago and that is what I have but it is also in one of here books too. I just don't remember which one. It is called Shakesphere In The Park. I have 2 Snail's Trail blocks finished...And 2 of the star blocks...I have all of the red pieces cut out and very few of the white pieces. I need to pick up a few more yards of white. But I'm not in a hurry, he has several years of college and this will be my "missing Andrew quilt" I'm not going to set a deadline on it to have it done, as long as I get it done before he graduates! LOL!

Now I am too tired to work on it anymore today. Think I will watch some tv or something, this lack of sleep makes it hard to concentrate on anything for very long. I have a ton of emails to respond to, so if you have emailed me in the past few days I will try to get them all answered today or tomorrow.

Oh, before I go....I have been sewing a little more on my Courthouse Steps. What I like most about them is that since I am paper piecing them, I don't really have to put much thought in them, so they are the perfect thing to work on when I can't sleep. I am up to 160 blocks now!!!!
Kristie

Lots of sewing going on...

I'm feeling really good about the past couple of days of sewing! I got all of my string blocks pieced and the top sewn together! I'm satisfied with the size of it now, it will fit my bed. I promise that the borders are not that wavy. LOL! Monday afternoon Hunter started asking a million questions about when we could move in the new house. Well we still have a little way to go before we can do that but we made him happy by "camping" in the house. We packed up blankets, pillows, drinks, snacks and a portable DVD player for Hunter and stayed in the house. It was fun! The only room that doesn't have a bunch of tools and saws in it is my sewing room! So we spent the night in my sewing room! Hunter slept on the love seat and Richard and I shared a rollaway bed. Here is Hunter snoozing away...Actually we stayed up there last night too! Maybe that is why I am getting a lot of sewing done! LOL! Here is Festus while I was working on my string quilt, he was wanting some attention.If you look close you can see a place on his nose, I guess he has been fighting again. Last night while we were staying out there I got out my Civil War Wreaths UFO. This was started with a free pattern by Mary. I had to change my color placement a little from the original because of the yardage that I had. I was sorting through the box and I could have sworn that I had more of it cut out and pieced. I put it away because I didn't want to recut what I knew I already had...somewhere.

Next I got out another UFO. My spiderweb blocks. I had several of these done but needed to pieced more of them to get the 30 blocks that I wanted. I want to do a 5x6 setting, that will make a nice bedsize quilt. When I started this quilt I picked the ugliest scraps that I had so that I could get rid of them and use them up. Here I have a few of the blocks out so you can get an idea of how it will look. I still need to purchase fabric for the pieces between the blocks, which are just triangles sewn on 4 corners and a border. Not sure what I want yet but I'm thinking maybe a red. I'll know when I see it. So this one will be set aside until I get the fabric to set it up with and I still have to peel the paper from the backs of them. I'll do that a little bit at a time as I'm watching tv during the evening. That gives me something to do with my hands.

This morning after breakfast we all set in and got the animals fed. Here is Cocoa munching on some leaves. She is so funny! She is my favorite goat! She is so playful, she runs and jumps constantly. Hunter gets her out and plays with her almost everyday. I'm thinking....she may have a baby somewhere along September. We'll have to wait and see...

After breakfast and feeding the animals, I was on a mission to find those missing pieces to my Civil War Wreaths.....I found them!!! As you can see there are a ton of 1/2 square triangles that need to be pressed and the papers peeled from the backs. I do love sewing my triangles on paper they come out wonderfully. So this is what I will be working on. This quilt will be a huge one I think the blocks that I have planned will make it just shy of 100 inches square.
I'm loving that I can actually see what I have to work on instead of having to dig through every tub and tote that I own and destroy the closets in the process. Now I have some major house cleaning to do before I can get back to quilting. :( My sister is picking up a different type of cotton batting for me this evening after work so that I can try it with that antique quilt that I mentioned the other day. I'm hoping this will help, wish me luck! I'm hoping to get it quilted this weekend!!

Kristie

Need more strings...

I have been working on my string blocks and thought I had them all finished. I stopped when I got 120 of them. For one thing I was tired of making them and also I figured this would make a good lap quilt. Well....last night I peeled the paper off the backs and started sewing them together. Got up this morning and started sewing again. I got them all sewn together and even pulled fabric for the border, but when I spread it out on the floor, I just wasn't happy with it. So after I saw it like this, I really wasn't satisfied with it, I want it BIGGER! :) Now I'm thinking that it needs to fit my bed. I just really like bed size quilts. So back to the string bin to dig out some more.

While I was upstairs in my sewing room, I had a visitor...Festus! He had not been around for a few days but he dropped by for a visit. Then he decided he wanted to play with my pins. He and Donkey both want to pull them out of the pin cushion and play with them.I am slowly trying to get my "sweat shop" pulled together. Not sure if I posted a photo of my bookshelf lately or not but I snapped a photo anyway. I have all of my quilting books and magazines on it now and I have been slowly digging out my Longaberger Baskets. I have a ton of them but they are all boxed up. So far I have found 8 of them. All of these will not stay on this shelf. When we move in, I will spread them throughout the house. The funny thing is, I have them on this shelf and they are all empty except the one with the patterns in it. I figure the big one in the floor would be great to store a hand project in. Anyway, I guess I will get back to sewing strings...
Kristie

Meet the Girls!

Our little farm got a couple new additions today! We've had Cocoa, our milk goat for a while and love being able to have fresh milk. She and Hunter are big buddies too, he takes her out in the yard and she plays with him like she is a dog or something. It is soooooo cute! Anyway, here are the new additions that made their way on our farm this evening... They are Lamancha goats just like Cocoa. They have great tasting milk. Haven't named them yet, but Hunter is thinking of names for them. I love how excited he gets over getting new farm animals.Here is Cocoa, making sure that they know she is "the boss". The lighter goat that we got is her full sister and the darker one is some kin to her too. I'll get better photos of them all tomorrow when it is daylight.

Here is Festus way up in a tree. Not sure why but he was up there when we got back home.
Richard and I have been working our butts off in the house the past few days. This is what we finished today. This is Andrew's room. We got all the sheetrock up on the ceiling and walls and it is ready for the mud and sanding. Hopefully I will start taping the seams next week and Richard will go behind me mudding and sanding. This room is fairly big, it measures 16x20. The ceiling is angled with the roof. On the short end the ceiling is 7ft and the tall wall behind the headboard is a 12ft wall. I really got excited about getting this much of it done today so we had Andrew's bed stored out there (as you can see from all the dust on it) that I just had to set the bed frame up to see how it would look in this room.

We also got a few other things done out there too, but they were just small things. He did finally get my frame put back together for me. I think I will quilt a baby quilt of mine on it first just to make sure that nothing is out of whack on it from moving it. I have 2 customer quilt that I need to get done. If everything works out as I plan, I will start on those by the middle of the week.

I did get some hand sewing done today on a customer binding. I should have that ready to be delivered by Monday. I love working on binding, I find it really relaxing.

And now I will leave you with a photo of Donkey! He is sleeping with his big butt stuck in a lamp shade. This is Andrew's lamp, I'm sure he will be pleased to know that Donkey got his "butt crud" on it! LOL!!!

Have a great weekend!!!

Kristie

Pulling Fabrics...

I really didn't get anything accomplished today. I wanted to get my quilting frame put back together but that didn't happen. :( Richard wanted me to go with him to pick up a truck part so I did. I do enjoy spending all the extra time with him but picking up truck parts is just not my thing. LOL! Anyway, while we were out we stopped by the grocery store. After we got back home he wanted me to sit out there and talk to him while he worked on the truck....he is such a big baby. :)


I did manage to pull some fabric from my scrap basket for a throw for the couch. I know I have a million quilts that I could use but I'm just in the mood to make something simple and to use up some scraps too. I'm thinking either a "Puss In the Corner" or a "Churn Dash" not really sure yet. My scrap basket has pieces that are smaller than a fat quarter but are still too big to cut up for strings or small squares. Hopefully I can decide on which pattern that I want to do and start cutting tomorrow.
This evening Richard wanted us to go on another walk....see why I love this man. :) Anyway, we had a nice little walk but by the time we got back my hip was burning pretty good but it's all better now. Here is the sun setting over top of our house.
A photo of Hunter while on our walk. See his little machine gun that he made by nailing together some scrap pieces of wood....such an imagination. He is fascinated by anything that has to do with the military and the whole time we were walking he was pretending he was a Marine...just like Richard.
And on the way back down the driveway I snapped this photo of Festus taking it easy.

I'm loving this warm weather but tomorrow it is supposed to turn cool and start raining the rest of the week. :( Probably no more walks this week.

Kristie

Working late

It's 3:30am and I can't sleep! :( We went to bed about 10:30pm and I woke up at 1am, got up and did a little sewing! Remember the pot holders that I pieced yesterday? Well, I quilted 7 of them tonight and ran out of the heat batting stuff (too tired to remember the name of it) so I guess I will pick up enough to finish the others if we can get out on Saturday. We have a lot of snow up here on this hill! Anyway, I thought I made 10 but somehow I ended up with 12, but that is okay, I can keep a set for myself. Now, I just need to finish the other 5, bind them all and those gifts will be finished. I still need to make the rice bags and maybe some coasters and the small things will be done. Yesterday I finished the binding on that lap quilt that I quilted and it is ready for it's owner to pick up. Now I have one more lap quilt, mom's HUGE quilt, and a quilt that my sister is buying as a gift for who we hope will be her future in-laws! :) Anyway those 3 still need to be quilted and the bindings done! :( But I can do it.....or at least, I think I can!

We got several inches of snow and ice yesterday. Richard and Hunter were out trying to build a snowman, it was hard to do because the snow was frozen so hard.

I let Jazz out to use the potty and he wasn't even heavy enough to break through the snow! He was sliding all over the place out there on that frozen snow.Then he came back in and passed out on the couch with Festus! Most of the time Festus would rather stay outside than inside but it has been so cold the past couple of weeks that he has spent a lot of time inside.

When I woke up at 1am Hunter was awake, in his room playing with legos!!! He said he couldn't sleep either. Here it is 3:43 and he is still awake! So I guess I had better try to get him to bed and get in bed myself!

Kristie

Need To Get My Butt In Gear!

Lot's of photos in this post! Well, over the past few days I've been doing everything except what I should be doing! Still have some Christmas sewing to do and I was sewing on Bonnie's Mystery Quilt!! Oh well, now I've got to get my butt in gear and get this sewing done. Got a lap quilt on the frame right now, may end up staying up late tonight and working on it. Can't really show any photos of anything until after Christmas, but I still have 4 more to quilt! But I did get all 60 of the strip blocks that I need for Bonnie's Mystery Quilt! :)

I also need to make several Rice Heating Bags, Pot Holders, and Coasters for gifts too! Today Richard took me into town (I don't drive in the snow) and while at Walmart, I picked up a 20lb bag of rice for the rice bags. You should have seen that cashier when I put that 20lbs of rice on the counter! Anyway....those shouldn't take that long to do.

I feel really good about my last post on the CAREFREE YEAR OF QUILTING 2010 No one puts the pressure on me to get my UFO's and things done, I put the pressure on myself and this coming year I don't want to do that. I just want to sew and have fun!!! I've come to the conclusion that MOST of my UFO's will NEVER get done and I'm sure I will keep adding to them. But there are some that I want to finish and several that I don't' ever want to look at again! I also have several new projects that I would like to do. So we will see how the year goes!

Here is a photo of my Jim Shore's...mom picked me up another one. The latest one is on the right, I really do like these. I would like to add to these every year.

Here is a couple of photos of Hunter playing in the snow!!!And one of Richard....
Now on to some of my silly animals!

Hunter and Festus!
My sweet little Smokey! I had to take this photo when I walked in and saw him on the couch like this! He loves to cuddle! And yes, I know he is in bad need of a haircut! But look how precious!And here is is after he woke up and is rubbing his eyes with his little paws.

I guess that is all for tonight, I've got to get my butt to sewing!!!!!

Kristie