Checking in

 Hi guys!  I thought I would check in and let you all know that I am still around.  :)  I've been dealing with some tendonitis in my left wrist.  So I took some time off from sewing to let it heal.  I am doing much better now.  It's not perfect but better.  I did a tiny bit of sewing during this but I really couldn't sew for very long at a time.  I have a little more done than this photos shows so I need to take a new pic. 

 Got our tree up!  It's 9ft tall and since I am only 5ft tall, I had a hard time decorating it.  LOL! 

 My little tree in the main bathroom.  I used my old wooden thread spools on it along with a tape measure, scissors, bobbins and such. 

 Every year, Hunter sets up the Christmas Village for me.  He enjoys doing it and he does a good job.  This sets on my buffet in the kitchen.

 Last Friday we took Hunter to the park to see the Christmas lights.  Andrew met us there.  Silly Hunter just being a boy and acting like a dog peeing on a tree.  LOL!

 I took this photo at the Church across the street from the park. 

 A funny pic of my girl, Addison!  Hard to believe that she is 8 months old now. 

 Speaking of Addison, Chantal asked me to make some bows to match her outfits that she was having her Christmas pics taken in.  So here are pics of those...

 another...

 another...

 and yet another...

 I also got my hair chopped off again!  I had about 7 inches cut off of it this time.  No makeup in this pic but that's me most of the time anymore.  LOL!  Anyway, my hair is so thick and heavy that it felt great to have it cut short again. 

 I will check back in with you several more times before Christmas.  I have lots of cleaning to do before Christmas.  Dinner is at my house on Christmas day with Richard's side of the family.  I am expecting 22 guests!!!! 

Catching up on the past week...

 It's been a little over a week since I have posted so I will catch you up on things.  Not a lot of sewing but I have been busy.  

First up...look at the back bumper on my Envoy.  LOL!  I know it's dusty but I live in the country and on a dirt road.  :)  Anyway, I ran over a stick in my driveway as I was going to my sister's house and by some freak accident the tire threw it up and into the back bumper.   I was not please but, it's life.

 I showed Richard when he got home and I knew that he would just roll his eyes and that's exactly what he did.  He laughed and said that he was leaving it in there!  LOL! 

 Hunter had a ballgame on Friday and another one this evening.  He is the tall one in the orange.  Not a good pic but oh well. 

 Richard was off work this past weekend so we took Hunter to a local festival over in the next county.  He loves cars and they were having a car show.  Andrew had to work so he didn't get to go.  Hunter's friend, Mason went along too.  Look how tall that Hunter is getting.  Richard is 6'2" and Hunter is close to his height.  My baby is growing up and looks down to me...I'm only 5' tall.  LOL!

 A little fun at the festival.  Hunter in the middle, Mason on the right and my niece, Madison on the left. 

 Hunter riding the mechanical bull. If you look real close it looks like he has a little person hanging from his right hand.  LOL!  That is someone on the zip-line behind him.  :) 

 I prepped all of my kits for my next hexie class which is October 2nd. 

 I canned 5 pints of homemade hot dog sauce from my mom's recipe. 

 I also made Addison more hair bows. 

Two of the pink ones....one for Addison and one to sell. 

 

I guess that pretty much gets you caught up on my week.  LOL!  

Busy, busy, busy...

 Yesterday was a much better day than Wednesday!  Thank God!  :)  I had a rather busy day actually.  I worked on my dishes and laundry that piled up from the day of not having water.  

I also made some hairbows!  Some of these are for Addison and some are going to be for sale.  I have several more to make. 

 A couple of days ago I dehydrated some tomatoes and I forgot to post about them.  I honestly just needed a break from canning but I didn't want the tomatoes to go to waste so I dehydrated them. 

 Then I ground them up to tomato powder!  So many uses for this...soup base, tomato paste, tomato sauce, stews, chili, etc. 

 I also dehydrated some parsley too.  I have more that needs to be dehydrated and ground up. 

 Right now I have potato slices in the dehydrator.  I'll post photos when those are done.  

Now my wonderful news!!!!  The Community of Sharing Program scheduled my hexie class for September 8th and it is already FULL!  :)  YAY!!!!  I feel so Blessed!  Then......I got a message from the saying that I was approved for another class to be taught near the senior apartments so that they could attend.  No date yet but should have the date in a few days.  Also with the possibility of another class in Fallsburg, which is another little town in our county.  I'm so very excited about this.  I don't think I have ever had so much fun.  So I need to assemble more kits!  I have to make a trip to Ashland next week so I will stop by Hobby Lobby and pick of more of the blue and red fabrics that I am using in the kits.  

I'll be sure to post photos from the class on Tuesday.   The private class was cancelled but that's okay, no problems. 

Cutting for quilts...

 I started cutting for multiple quilts.  These are quilts that I have had on my list to make for a while.  Summer will be here shortly and I don't have a/c in my sewing room so it gets rather hot up there so I sew downstairs during the summer months.  I have several quilt that I want to work on along with a few UFO's.  If I get them cut and ready now then that will cut down on the mess of bring everything downstairs and cutting this summer.  This way I can just grab something and sew.  Here are a few things that I am cutting for...

Jacob's Ladder and a Churn Dash.  I've made both but want to do them again.  The Jacob's Ladder is going to be in navy/dark blues and cream.  Not sure how big it will be but I am just going to cut until I run out of those shades that I want to use.  The Churn Dash block in the photo is one that I made a month or so ago.  It is a 6" block.  Those easily cut out from 2.5" strips.  Actually I cut a few of them out today but I am thinking that I will use a jelly roll that I have.  I've been putting off cutting the jelly roll but I think I will use it anyway. 

 This is my progress on my Orange Peel blocks and I also cut out several more to prep.  I am doing most of this cutting out of my scrap basket except for the navy for the Jacob's ladder. 

 Here is my second Churn Dash block...

 I'm also cutting more Windmill blocks.  These are cut from 2.5" strips too.  I am cutting a lot of my scraps into 1.5", 2", and 2.5" strips as that seems to be a lot of what I use. 

 I am also cutting out more hexies when I find a piece of fabric that I can't cut in strips but I can get hexies out of it. 

 Lots of cutting and prepping for the summer months.

I made a few more bows.  These are actually tiny as Addison's head is very tiny!  LOL!  She can't even wear the newborn headbands that you buy in the stores.  Chantal has a couple of preemie bands that fit her but the bows swallow her head so I made a couple smaller ones.  :) 

 Oh, I can't leave without a pic of my baby girl.  :)  Addison Brooklyn Cline.  They came home on Friday as I had to go for a visit.  :)  Mom picked me up yesterday and we went for another visit.  LOL!  Good thing that Addison only lives a mile away.  :)

 That's all for now....Richard is working so I will spend the day with my precious boys and maybe sneak a visit in with Addison too.  :)

I finished the gifts just in time....

 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!  :)  

Almost finished....

 Brrr.....it has been sooooo cold here in KY!!!  We got a ton of snow here last week and it is still hanging on.  It doesn't look like I will be getting off this hill until Spring!  :)  I mentioned in my last post that Richard was only able to get to the bottom of the hill and had to ride the 4 wheeler on up the hill to the house.  It is just crazy!  The forecast for Tuesday morning is -17 degrees with -35 windchill!!!  Can you believe that for KY?  Had some busted water pipes too.  :(

Anyway....working on trying to finish up things for the baby shower that is scheduled for this weekend.  Hoping that they will actually plow our road.  As long as I have lived up here, they have never plowed it when it snows but they are supposed to do it when they can get to it because my sister is 32 weeks pregnant and you just never know when and if she needs to get out and go to the hospital.  

I finally got the puff/biscuit/bubble quilt assembled.  I still need to add a backing to it and I'm thinking that I will add a RUFFLE around the edges.  Not a real big ruffle but a soft ruffle that is not real full.  Maybe....maybe not....I'll just wait and see when I get started on it.  :) 

 The puffs are stuffed really full as that is how Chantal wanted them.  :) 

 I'll post another photo of it once I add the backing and ruffle. 

 I also made 5 more hair bows!  I think this makes around 20 of them that I have made for the baby.  I will have to count to make sure but I think it is around 20. 

 I have also been working on some hexies.  :)  Just plugging along with these when I need a break from this other stuff. 

 It is 4:45am right now and Richard is up getting ready for work this morning.  The news says that the roads are solid ice so please say a little prayer that he gets to work safely.  

Hunter and Richard got out on the 4 wheeler yesterday playing around in the snow.  I think they both had a blast.  Richard was pulling him on the inner tube in the snow.  :)
-Kristie

Thankful...

 First off, I want to thank you all for the prayers for Richard.  His appointment went well the other day.  Right now they think that the spot on his retina is okay.  He has to have it rechecked in 9 months and it will always have to be monitored.  They also said that the spot was in the best place possible.  It is on the front and if it was on the side then lots of times if it changes it is too late by the time that they find it.  Also with the location of his spot he should be able to notice any change in it before their tests would pick it up.  They said if there is any change then he would be able to see a yellow tinge.  Very thankful for this news!!!  Thank you Lord!!!  There is also a good possibility that it will NEVER change so that is what we are praying for!

I made a few more hair bows for the new baby.  BTW....the new baby has a name!!!!!  Chantal and Ronnie have decided to name her.....Addison!  I think they are going to use it as a middle name and call her by that name.  They haven't decided on a first name yet.  Mom and I also painted 2 of the walls in the nursery.  Hopefully we can finish it up in a few days. 

A pic of the snow a few days ago.  Sadly today we are supposed to get 8-14 inches!!!!  :(  I will not be able to get off this hill until summer!!!!  :(  This much snow will shut our whole area down.  Temps are supposed to be well below ZERO and the windchill -10 to -20 below.  This worries me too death as Andrew is out working in this.  They brought his boat in locally to dry dock for some work and took him off while it is on dry dock and put him on the harbor boats for 2 weeks.  While he is doing that he will be working 12 hour shifts and is supposed to travel home and back each day.  Sadly he can't get here.  :(  I guess tonight he will have to either stay on the harbor boat or get a hotel close by.  It's just too cold to be working out in this weather.  Please say a prayer for my boy and all of the people that have to be out in this. 

With this much snow coming later today we expect to lose power.  I dread that but thankful that we heat with our wood stove.  I'm gathering up some hexies and stuff to work on if the weather gets as bad as they think it will.
-Kristie

Ugly Duckling

 I'm going to call this little quilt my Ugly Duckling.  I'm not crazy about it that is why I only made 65 blocks.  Late last night after Richard went to bed I went upstairs and sewed it all together.

 Now I just need to find an ugly border fabric to go on it.  This will be used on my little antique table that I have on my porch.  The current little quilt that I have on it is extremely faded from use over the years.  I'm glad to have it to this point.  After I sew a border on it, I will put it in the pile to be quilted.  BTW...you can see the hair bows that I have made for the baby hanging there too. 

 I also sewed another strip on all 30 blocks of my Colorful Scraps quilt.  I plan on working on this more today as Richard will be working all day.  

 "Clear the Freezer" for today....chicken.  This will be fried chicken along with veggies and bread. 

 I'll post a photo of my Ugly Duckling once I get the border on it.  
Kristie