On the longarm...

 I got some quilting done yesterday after church.  I loaded this customer quilt on the frame. 

 This wonderful lady brought me 6 king size tops to quilt for her.  I've quilted for her before and she does a wonderful job piecing so it makes my job much easier.  

 I am quilting it with the "loopy hearts" panto.  It's a fun design to quilt. 

 I also got the binding sewn on the jean quilt this weekend.  I did that while we watched a movie.  I'm glad it is finished. 

 I will be taking the customer quilt off the longarm this morning so I will get a better pic of it.  Not sure how much sewing that I will get done today as I have a lot of stuff to get done.  

If you have read my blog for any length of time you know that I love and collect Jim Shore.  My mom bought this Jim Shore Angel for me from one of our local thrift store auctions.  I love it!!!  

 Look at the back of it!!!!  Oh my!  I would love to make a quilt like that.  Maybe I will put it on my list to make someday...

 Hunter finally went back to school today.  :(  I know he needs to go back but I love having my boys home with me.  He's been off school because of all of the snow.  If I counted correctly he has been to school 2 days since before Christmas.  It's either been too cold or we've had snow.  It's been crazy!!!

I guess that's all for this morning...I have a lot to do today!

Cutting out a new one!

 I started cutting out one of the old kits that I had.  Not finished with it yet but hopefully I will have it all cut out today.  This will make a nice sized lap quilt. 

 While on vacation we were at a gift shop and I was paying for some postcards and when I finished I saw Andrew go to the counter to pay for something, it was this beautiful Jim Shore Santa.  You all know that I love Jim Shore and do collect it.  I tried to tell him no because I hate for the boys to spend their money on me but his response was, "mom, you looked at it 2 or 3 times and obviously you were not going to buy it."  My sweet boy...love him so much.  This was in their Christmas in July section.  I love it!

 This is one of my favorite vacation pics!  Look at mom, she is laughing so hard.  I love this as she looks so happy.  My brother, John would rather aggravate me than anything in the world.  LOL!  We were trying to take a pic with mom and he kept pulling my hair.   There are only 4 years between me and John but Chantal is 13 years younger than I am. 

 I have got to get my butt in gear today!  I didn't accomplish anything yesterday.  I just bounced from one thing to the other and by days end...nothing.  LOL!  It's always hard for me to fall back into my routine.  

I have a couple of quilts that need to be quilted real soon and then I will be trying to work my garden goodies in between everything else.  I see lots of canning in my future.  LOL!  Next up will probably be beats and some green beans.  I will have a lot of tomatoes too. 

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

Stash Building

 Oh joy!  What makes a quilter happy???  FABRIC!  If you have read my blog for a while you will know that I have been sewing from my stash for a few years now.  I'm just thankful that I had a stash to quilt from, but after a few years it is really lacking.  It seems like when I find a quilt that I want to make, I don't have the fabric for it or maybe not the right colors.  This gets me depressed and then I just don't want to quilt.  Sooooo....the other day I received a gift certificate for Whittle's fabric.  Oh, I just love Whittle's!  Anyway, I am so thankful for the gift certificate, you just don't know how excited that I was.  Of course, I didn't waste any time ordering fabric!  LOL!  

It arrived today!  

I mostly just did some stash building.  Here are 50 fat quarters!  10 green, 10 blue, 10 brown, and 20 background colors.  

These are half yard cuts.  I love the brown in the middle and the green on the end.  I wouldn't mind to have some yardage of those.  

 Also you can see in one of the above photos that there is some yardage.  I've been wanting to finish my Dresden Plate quilt for a long time but just didn't have the fabric to do it.  I had a picture in my mind of exactly how I wanted it to look before I even started it. I wanted my plates to be scrappy but darker, warmer tones.  I also wanted the background to be a warm beige with dark brown sashing strips and borders.  That is exactly what I got for it!  :)

Here is a better photo of the brown for the sashing and borders.  I can't wait to get started on it!!!  

I want to cut into that fabric tonight but it will have to wait a few days.  I mentioned months ago that I needed to finish painting my sewing room.  I've had the paint since we moved in last January and part of my sewing room is painted.  The other 2 walls just have primer on them.  I had taken my temporary design wall down, since it was just a big piece of warm & natural batting, I used it on a quilt.  LOL!  So my plan is to get the last two walls painted tomorrow, but Richard will have to help me because at one point the wall is 12ft tall.  We had some left over foam insulation board from building the house that I had been saving to make my permanent design wall with.  Richard brought those in the house for me today.  So it will take me a few days to get everything done and put back together and then I can sew!  :)  

On to other things....Today was Andrew's first day back for the Spring semester.  I was so proud of him this morning.  His first class this morning was his Physics class.  He called me as soon as he got out and said that he thought he was going to love that class.  He was soooooo excited!  I just hope that excitement holds up through the semester.  Then he went on to his Bio Chemistry class, he said he thinks he will like it too.  I don't remember his other classes right off but he has classes 5 days a week, so he will have to cut back on his hours a work a little bit.  

Here is a photo of Hunter this evening.  He loves to join me up in my sewing room to do his homework.  He sat at my cutting table as I folded and petted my new fabrics.  LOL!  Do you see how red his ear is?  He always does that when he is starting to get sick.  I hope that I am wrong and he isn't getting sick but when he came home from school he had a really bad headache.  I gave him so meds but he says that it is still hurting some.  Oh, I just love both of my boys and I thank God everyday for letting me be their mother.  

 Before I go, I wanted to show you my latest Jim Shore!  This was a gift from a dear friend that knows how much that I like Jim Shore and the religious themed ones.  I love it!  I will always cherish it and I can't wait to display it next year for the holidays....

 I'm off, I have a few things to do tonight so that I can paint tomorrow.  I'm almost ashamed that I've had the paint this long and those 2 walls still are not painted.  Oh well....
Kristie

Someone...

Someone made me cry!  LOL!  So here is the story....

Yesterday I was doing dishes and Leo started barking and I heard a knock at the door.  It was Kay, a good friend of mine.  She was telling me that her son was staying with them now.  He works away but when he isn't working he is there.  She needed to clean out a closet and stuff for him.  She brought me 2 bags of fabric.  She is a crafter not a quilter.  She said she had been saving fabric thinking that someday she would make a quilt but she said that would probably never happen.  It just made my day!!!  Look at the goodies!  There was even a purse in there that she had made but didn't like.  It just needs the handles finished.  I felt like it was Christmas.  

 She had no sooner left and there was another knock on the door so I figured it was her again.  It was the UPS guy with a package.  I was a little surprised because I wasn't expecting anything.  The return address just said, "Lowe's Home Improvement Store"  So I opened it and began to cry....

This is what was in the box....

The Jim Shore that I had mention in my post back on the 20th.  I never meant anything by it other than I loved it but it wasn't in the budget right now since we are watching every penny.  There wasn't anything in the box other than the Nativity.  I don't know who you are but I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I love it and it will always be cherished with memories of you.  I hope and pray that my kids always remember the kindness.  

I love Jim Shore stuff.  I only have 6 of them...now.  LOL!  I love collecting them and really enjoy looking at them.  So many different quilt designs on them.  
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

Back to sewing...

Over a week without a post...now I will backtrack and get you all caught up on what I have been doing. Actually not a lot because of my blood pressure running high for the past week. If you have read my blog for a while you will know that it does this every once in a while even with medication. So most of the time I have been on the couch sleeping. But the past two days I have actually been sewing.

First off, here is the 4 Patch Flip that I cut from my scrap basket. I'm not real crazy about the yellow border but I pulled it from my stash and didn't want to buy anything for it. I also have the binding ready for it after it is quilted. So for now it is in my pile of tops that need to be quilted. This one is folded up but you can still get the idea of what it looks like. This is fabric that I had in my stash for a while. I just cut the center piece with cowboy hats and boots on it and added borders to it. This will be a Christmas gift for one of my little nephews. Actually my other nephew will get one just like it. Since they are brothers and close in age I will probably use different backings so that they can tell them apart...you know how kids are. :)I forgot to take photos of them but I also worked on several more pot holders and fabric bowls. I think now I have a total of 20 bowls made and will be used to hold homemade goat milk soap for Christmas gifts. I will try to remember to post photos of them in the next post. I have a ton of stuff to do and the holidays are sneaking up on me.

I also pieced a little more on my Red and White quilt, not much....just a little. I'm thinking that if I have any extra time before the holidays I will work on this Red and White quilt instead of starting Bonnie Hunter's new mystery! I'm hoping that I can hold off and not start it! LOL! We will see how that goes.

I also have some client Christmas stuff that I will be working on. Some of it I can show on my blog and some of it, I can't. Maybe I can just show pieces of them. I'll just have to wait and see if I can sneak some partial photos of them in. LOL!

Now on to some family things....

Hunter got a new bike!! He loves it! He was shocked when he got home from school because he didn't know that we were getting it. Actually we didn't plan on getting a new one but caught it on a very good sale! :)Here is Hunter on Halloween! He was a boxer! Thank goodness the weather wasn't too bad, so we had a nice time.

My nephew Gabe had a birthday party. He turned 3!!! He is such a cutie! He has such a deep voice for a little guy, just cracks me up to hear him talk. This is my brother, John in the photo with him. John is the only brother that I have and I just love him so much. He has always been the best BIG brother. As you noticed I said BIG! Hehehehe! He is 4 yrs older than I am and he tells everyone that I am older! :( Anyway...he works so much and doesn't have a lot of extra time so I don't get to see him as often as I would like too. And last but not least....mom came out for a visit the other day and brought me a gift! I just love Jim Shore things! She got me several of them last year so I'm excited about getting to add this little guy to my collection. As you can see he has a RED and WHITE quilt on his bottom half. Well mom said that when she saw this one she thought of the RED and WHITE quilt that I am working on! I just love it!

Now that I am back to feeling better, hopefully I can get some stuff done. I usually read blogs through Google Reader and when I checked earlier I had 600+ blogs that were backed up that I had not read, same thing with my emails.
Kristie

Keeping Busy

Got up around 5am this morning, did a few little household chores before I sat down to sew. Richard has spent the day helping some friends of ours so it was just me and Hunter today. I have been trying to stay busy to keep my mind off of Andrew so much. Hunter doesn't go back to school until the 3rd so I let him sleep in. Actually he got up at 10:30am!

So I put in "Gone With the Wind" and started sewing! I haven't really had time to work on Bonnie's mystery because of all the sewing that I did before Christmas. Today I got Part One finished and pressed!
Part Two, as you can see here, is cut and ready to be sub cut and sewn! May work on that tonight.
Part Three, the paper-pieced string blocks are already finished! So I'm feeling good about this so far.

Last night I finished up the binding on the Pot Holders that I was working on for Christmas, most of those didn't get finished in time. But that is fine, I will save them or use them myself! I may make a few more of them as I get time and save them for the new house, whenever we get moved in. It will still be a few months on that!Oh and the other day, I stopped by Walmart and found this on Clearance!! They are Thomas Kinkade Potholders and Oven Mitt panels! I bought all they had which was 3 panels for $2.22 each! Each panel has 2 oven mitts and 2 potholders. I thought they might make great gifts for new year or to use for myself! (Actually I took this photo off of Ebay, because I was too lazy to take a photo)And look at this little pretty!!!! Another Jim Shore!! This was a gift from my brother and SIL! I love it!!! (Again, this photo is from Ebay, being lazy again! ) Anyway, I do love it and it meant alot that they thought to get it for me. So thanks so very much John and Kellie!!!I will now leave you with some cute little photos! Of course another one of Donkey laying in his favorite spot! I think he likes laying up there so that he can keep an eye on everyone!And my precious little Jazzy! Isn't he just sooooooo cute! He was pouting because he just had a bath and Richard used the blowdryer to dry him! :) So glad he is back home!Now since I have been sewing most of the day....I need to finish supper, which is just spaghetti and garlic bread. And also need to straighten up the living room and clean the bathroom! :( Giggle, I've tried to con Hunter into cleaning the bathroom today, even tried to pay him and he said "No" and that I was too cheap! Hmmm......may have to make him help me just for meanness! :)
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