Sleeping in the sewing room....

Tuesday night I was home alone.  Richard and Andrew were both at work and Hunter spent the night with my sister.  So I spent lots of time in my sewing room.  It got rather late so I thought I would rest a few minutes and then get back to sewing.  That didn't happen...I slept all night on the sofa in my sewing room.  :)

 I worked a little more on my Sweet Annie quilt.  I also spent lots of time just piddling around.  Loved every minute of it although I did miss my family. 

 I'm back up here today starting to sew more on my Sweet Annie quilt.  I have over half of it pieced. 

 I had last night's quilt cam on while I was sewing.  I got a lot done this morning.  I'm very pleased.  Now I need to go downstairs and clean so that Richard doesn't think that I just sewed all day.  :)  He is helping a friend do some work today. 

 Let me tell you a good one on Andrew!!!  I don't think I have ever laughed so hard.  The other evening he had a headache and asked where the ibuprofen was.  I told him and he got out 4 pills and swallowed them.  Then he said, "OH NO!"  See these two bottles.....which one do you think he took?  LOL!  Not the right one!  :)  Hehehehe!  Let's just say he was awake early the next morning!  :)

 Thanks for those interested in the fabric that I have for sale.  I still have about 7 yards left, if anyone is interested.  $6.50 per yard!!!!  It is from the line, Strawberries, Blueberries, and Chocolate by Judie Rothermel for Marcus Brothers. 

 I'm off....I need to do some house cleaning and then spend some "special time" with Hunter as he starts school on MONDAY!!!  :(
Kristie

My Sweet Annie Quilt...

 I have been working on a UFO that is navy and cream but today I set it aside and pulled some special fabrics.  These lovely fabrics were sent to me from a dear friend. 

 I didn't want to cut into them until I decided exactly what I wanted to make with them.  I decided on this simple design that really shows off the fabrics well.  This quilt will be for ME!  I have really enjoyed cutting and sewing on it today.  I have decided to call it, "Sweet Annie"  my dear friend will never know what a comfort and joy she has been to me over the past few years.  This quilt will always remind me of her and our friendship.

The photo on my design wall is blurry so the photo is not a great one but at least you can get an idea of how it will look.  I also plan on adding a border to it.  This was the view of it from my sofa that I have in my sewing room.  I'm thinking that I will remove that round table that I have the little ironing board on.  I have plenty of room but I like the open space that I have in the middle of the room without it.  I have my big ironing board downstairs so I will bring it back up when I remove the table.  I usually have my big ironing board set up by the window. 

 This is another view of the room from the sofa...

 Yesterday evening Richard was in the garden picking tomatoes and saw a copperhead about 10" from his hand.  He killed it with a hoe.  So thankful that the Lord was watching over him.  Shew...I hate snakes!  Leo hates them too.  He will bark and bark at them...dead or alive.  BTW...it is dead in these photos.  :)

 It measured about 30" long.

 Hunter has had several rough days with his feet.  He has spent most of the time on the couch as he can't stand to walk.  It will be about a month before he gets his new inserts and I just pray that these work for him.  He has some in right now but they are his old ones.  He is a very active child or at least he wants to be.  His whole body is out of alignment because of his feet.  The xray of his spine looks like he has scoliosis, it is so crooked but it isn't.  This has messed with his feet, ankles, knees, hips and back.  He has had to take Motrin pretty much around the clock the past few days and that can't continue.  So praying that something gives for him.  I can't stand to see him not feeling like walking around.  If you remember last year he was in a boot and on crutches for a few months.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep a 12 yr old occupied and keep him off his feet???  UGH!  He is also having therapy and that is not going well for him as he is crying pretty much through all of it.  As a mother, this just breaks my heart.  

I guess that is all for now...I'm heading back up to the sewing room!!!
Kristie

Four more blocks...

Well in just a few short hours this year will be over!  Richard is working tonight and this will be our first New Year's Eve that we haven't been together.  :(  Andrew is out playing music so praying he has a safe drive.  So I guess it is just me and Hunter for the evening.....well....he is in his room playing the Playstation.  :(  So maybe it is just me!  LOL!  

Earlier today I worked on a few more Nearly Insane blocks.  I did 4 today so that makes a total of 7 blocks.  

Block #73 

 Block #10

 Block #6

 Block #78

 Now I don't have plans to work on this constantly but I figure I will do a few blocks a week and eventually it will get finished.  I have several other things that need to be finished too.  
Kristie

Back to my Nearly Insane...

 I hope that I stay in this mood because I can't seem to sew enough!  LOL!  First off, I put my back out...again!  Nothing exciting but sadly just using the vacuum.  LOL!  Oh well, I've been doing a lot of sewing and using the heating pad.  

I've been working on my Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt.  I've just been moving around on several projects.  I printed out more triangle papers for the mystery quilt and hope to get those all finished tomorrow.  

I also made 40 more bow tie blocks too.  That takes me up to a little over 260 ( I think)  I loved the quilt in the magazine and I think it calls for 830, 3" blocks.  I still have a lot more to make. 

 Several years ago I started a Nearly Insane quilt in blue/white and I think I had something like 17 blocks done.  I just wasn't happy with my choice of colors so I stopped working on it.  Richard loved the quilt and has given me a hard time since then for not finishing it so I started over this evening!!!  :)  This time I am doing it in red/white.  I figure I will just work on a few blocks here and there until I get it finished.  

I did 2 blocks tonight...

Block #13 has 9 pieces in it.  It was an easy one. 

 Block #2 has 21 pieces in it, another easy one. 

 I am paper piecing these on my 1933 Singer Featherweight!  I just love this little machine. 

 Another little thing that I worked on yesterday was a few yo-yo's.  We had some company Sunday afternoon and I am one that always has to keep my hands busy.  I keep yo-yo's in a basket in the living room and work on them occasionally when someone stops by to visit.  My dear friend Mitsie even brought me a candle that she had made.  I love her candles as she adds extra scent.  This one was grape!  Anyway, the yo-yo's are for my 3rd yo-yo quilt that will be for Hunter.  I have 800+ of them done but I need around 2000. 

 I guess I will head back up to the sewing room as I am home alone!!!  Richard is working tonight and the boys are gone.  Andrew worked 12 hours today and as soon as he came home he asked if he could take Hunter to the movies.  I have the best boys.  They love spending time together.  Andrew doesn't work tomorrow and Hunter still has a few more days off school too.  
Kristie

Wrapped In Red...Progress

 Today I was able to work on my red/white quilt.  It is actually called, "Wrapped In Red", but I can never remember the name so I just call it my red/white quilt.  As I mentioned yesterday, I had broke a needle and my machine was skipping.  Richard just didn't feel like adjusting it yesterday so he is up there doing that now as we speak.  So tomorrow I will be back to the grind.  I really need to get this quilt off the frame and off to the owner.  


So today I got to sew for myself since my quilting machine was down.  In my last post, I showed the units put together like this.  This is the center of the blocks.  I worked on these today and now have 14 of the 25 needed.  

Now I need a million of these units.  Well, not actually a million, but 256 of them....close enough right?

I did go ahead and lay out this block with all of the pieces.  The blocks will be set on point and I need a total of 25 full blocks and then all of the pieced setting triangles.  

So the next sewing day that I get for myself, I will be cutting out the 256 white rectangles and 596-- 2.5" squares in red.  I'm sure that I will take me a while to do.  But at the end of the day I am pleased with my progress on it.  


I also pressed 60+ of my blue HST's!!!  At least that is a start on the  1100+ of them.  I have the little tub sitting on my ironing board so I just press a few at a time.  It will be slow doing it that way but at least maybe I will not get overwhelmed with them.  

Late last night I finished up another basket blocks.  Makes me a total of 23, I think.  I have 6 more prepped, so I will work on them a  little during the evenings.  

 Oh and here is Donkey!  He has been just going in and out all summer and staying outside most of the time, but this morning he came upstairs and napped as I sewed.  Doesn't he look comfy?

 That is all for today, just waiting for Richard to adjust my machine and if it cools off up there I may do some machine quilting before bed.


Have a wonderful and Blessed day!
Kristie

Look what I found...

 I'm still plugging away on my red/white quilt....slowly.  Doing this a little in between machine quilting.  The machine quilting is going slow too.  With this heat and no air upstairs, it gets hot up there quick!  Next summer will not be as bad since we plan on having the central air connected up there.  :(  Anyway, I'm loving the red and white quilt so far.  I can't wait until I can start putting the blocks together.  Right now I am just working on the smaller units.  

Last night I couldn't sleep and really didn't want to sew so I headed upstairs to clean and sort some of my quilting stuff.  There was no way that I could machine quilt because Richard was sleeping in the bedroom directly under my sewing room.  So....I still have a few BIG totes of quilting stuff that needs to be put away.  Some of the stuff is just "stuff" and some of it is UFO's.  As I'm sure you can guess, I have several UFO's!  LOL!  Another one that I found is "Market Baskets"

I quickly threw these up on my design wall to look at them.  I had forgotten about this quilt until last night.  This is from the Kim Brackett book, Scrap Basket Surprises or you can also just order the pattern from here.  The pattern has it in a straight setting but I like it better on point.  What do you think?  Straight or on point?  If I do it on point, like I want too, then I have to have several more blocks.  More blocks is NOT a problem as far as that goes because I still have 33 more that are cut out, they just need to be pieced.  I have 17 blocks already pieced.  Last night I actually thought that I would just sew together the blocks that I had and call it finished but I really hate to do that on this quilt.  I would like to have it bed-size. 


The only thing that I had to do differently from the pattern is, I turned the borders of the blocks around on every other block so that they would be off-set.   Of course this is not the final layout, I just threw the blocks up on the wall so when I do actually get it sewn together I will change them around to spread out some of the fabrics.  

So while I was messing around with it, I started to dig for some border fabric and something to use for the setting triangles.  I pulled this and may use it.  The lighting wasn't the best up there last night so you can't really tell the true colors but the border fabric will be the brown/cedar looking stuff and the setting triangles with the print.  

I've had them for a while and usually when I buy border fabric for my stash, I usually by at least 3 yards of it.  The brown/cedar stuff is from Connecting Threads.  I got it on sale for something like 40% off and I don't remember the name of the print but I got it for $2.50 yard on clearance at the quilt shop.  

Here is the rest of the blocks that are cut out.  I think I will probably have to cut out more of the cream assorted backgrounds.  There doesn't seem to be enough of those there.  The whole tub needs to be pressed.  

 I also found 13 more string pot holders that I had pieced for gifts last Christmas that did not get finished in time.  I just need to dig out scrap pieces of binding and finish them up.  I will probably just keep them to use for myself.  

Oh and I still have a few books left for sale so if you are interested they are posted here.  I have some other stuff to get rid of too, as soon as I gather it all up.  I found a thread tree, still in the box that holds 32 CONES, I guess if I haven't used it by now I probably will not use it at all.  That is one of the things that I will be posting next.  


Now on to some family stuff....


Sunday after Church, the Sunday School had a trip for the kids.  We took them to Camden Park for the day.  It is a small little amusement park about 45-60 minutes from here.  They all had a blast!  Honestly, Richard and I did too!  :)  It was nice to relax for the evening with the kids.  When I got out of bed Monday morning, I could barely walk!  UGH!  My hips and back were killing me.  


Hunter starts school back August 1st!  He is not looking forward to that at all.  I have a little more school shopping to do and he will be ready to go.  The boy drives me up the wall over school.  He hates it but makes straight A's.  When I ask him "why?"  he just says that "school interferes with his playtime"  BOYS!!!


Andrew is one happy boy right now!  He loves to play guitar and is really good at it.  He can play anything from Bluegrass, Gospel, Country, Blues, and Classic Rock.  Thank goodness he doesn't care much for this new rock/pop stuff that is out now.  :)  Anyway, he has a Fender Acoustic, a Fender Stratocaster, and now this new baby!!!  He has been working and putting a little money back out of each check, saving up for this.  I was so proud of him, he has had enough money for a while to get it but wanted to save up more so that he wouldn't be broke!  LOL!  BTW...I made him shave after this photo!  He is only 19 but could grow a full-faced beard.  

This is a Gibson Les Paul.  The link is for the actual website that he ordered it from, the woodgrain on it is beautiful.  He was shaking when the UPS truck pulled in and he couldn't get that box open fast enough.  Good thing that he didn't have to work that night because I think he would have cried if he had to had left it.  He played until his fingers were sore.  :)  He is a good boy and I'm sure there are worst things he could have spent his money on.  

Now last but now least....today is Richard's birthday!!!!  He turned 42 today!  He left the house about 6am this morning and I haven't seen him.  He is doing some logging and should be back in the house sometime this afternoon.  No big plans but I wanted to fix him something special for dinner.  I asked what he wanted and he said "BEANS, TATERS, AND CORNBREAD!!"  That's my country boy!  So first thing this morning I put on pot of pinto beans, the cornbread is done, haven't started the fried potatoes yet but I will.  Oh and baked him a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  He doesn't know it yet but his mom and grandmother are coming out to have dinner with us.  I think he will be happy to see them.  


Anyway, I thank God everyday for my little family!  I was thinking about this last night and I know that things happen in life that brings us down a little.  Just in the past few months I can think of several things right off the top of my head but in the end, I wouldn't trade my life for anything!  We are a very close family and try to live by God's word in everything that we do.  We are far from perfect but we do try to do the best that we can.  I thank God everyday for Blessing me with my little family.  


Okay.....back to cooking and cleaning
Kristie

Off the frame...

I finally got my "Strip Twist" off of the frame. This is one of my own quilts and I've had it on the frame for a long time, but just haven't worked on it. So over the weekend I got it completed. Now I am hand sewing the binding on it, that is my favorite part. This quilt has a wide variety of fabrics used in it and those are my favorite quilts. I just love scrap quilts.

I got some goodies in the mail today. Bernie sent me these wonderful reds to add to my red and white quilt that I have been trying to collect some reds for. I don't have a lot of reds in my stash. I was sorting through some stuff today and found a pack of neutral fat quarters that I had picked up from the quilt shop. They had these on special for 10/$10, not too bad for $1 each! These are now put away in my stash. Oh and I wanted to show you this little baby hat that I made from leftover fleece from the camo crib set. I stuck it in the bag with the rest of the camo stuff, just a little extra something for the baby when he gets here. You can find the pattern here and this little hat only took me about 3 minutes! Can you believe that? Very simple to make.
Now my plans are to load another quilt on the frame and finish the binding on my Strip Twist quilt. I may not get started quilting on it today but I at least want to get it loaded on the frame. I'll post photos of the quilt as I load it on. It is a beautiful client quilt and it measures 90x90.

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

Weekend progress...

Our weekend started Friday evening by going to the high school football game. It was the last home game of the season. Hunter and several other kids were being "recognized" during halftime for scoring so high on their CATS and MAP testing at school. Hunter and I were ready to go when Richard got home, he had just enough time to eat and change clothes. Little did Hunter know that Andrew was going to be there too! I thought Hunter was going to cry when he saw his brother at the game, he misses him so much. I don't think Andrew would have missed it for anything, he is proud of his little brother too. I woke up Saturday morning and felt like poop! :( I think I may be getting a cold or something. I've not really done anything this weekend other than lay around the house. I had so many quilty things that I wanted to accomplish this weekend but that did not happen. Why is it that when you have something that really needs to be done and finished you find every excuse in the world not to do it? I had planned on binding that Camo crib blanket, making the two matching pillows and making the bumper pad for the crib. Anyway, none of that happened! :( I figure that I really need to sit down and concentrate on cutting and piecing that bumper pad. I don't think it will be hard but I don't want to mess it up. I just didn't feel like I could concentrate on it this weekend. So what did I do??? Something really dumb!!!

I started on my Red/White quilt!!! I know it was very silly of me but I did it anyway. I wasn't even ready to start it, I don't even have all of the fabrics yet! How silly is that? I have a ton of other things that need to be finished but crazy me started this thing. I didn't actually get very much of it done. I need 128 of these blocks and I think I only got 32 of them done. I promise that this will NOT turn into a UFO! I really like this quilt and I planned on making it AFTER I got my holiday sewing done.

Here is a photo of the quilt that I plan on making.

I did end up making 9 of these bowls! I took the photo before I finished the others. I plan on filling them with some of my homemade Goat Milk Soap and giving as Christmas gifts this year. I guess I will make up about 20 of them. So that is about all of my weekend so far. I think we are having some good friends coming over in a little while for a visit, so I had better spruce up the house.

Kristie