Cat Lover and Quilt Maker

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T00:17:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas to all of my blog friends. You all mean the world to me. I hope you all have a blessed day with your families. Thank you for visiting and commenting on my blog. I appreciate each and every one of you.

More Gifts I Made....

2011-12-20T11:25:00.000-06:00

Today I will share some of the gifts I made for our family. Everyone got something, even though some were pretty small gifts. (grin) But before I do, I want to tell you that I got the lovely redwork design on the previous post from a free download on Allie's blog. She is always putting free things up for us to use. Sorry Allie, that I neglected to give you credit.

Some of the gifts I will share here were free projects found on the net. I will give credit where I can. Some were printed off a while ago., and if their web address does not show up in the printed copy, I can't share where to find them. Sorry. I made Carolyn a set of dish towels. I just bought a pair of white flour sack like towels, added fabric to two ends, and appliqued a hen and a rooster on them. I also added a crocheted dishcloth. She really liked them. I found these on Joanna Figueroa for Fig Tree and Company's site.

I bought fabric to make Cathryn a Bow Tucks bag last Christmas, but never did have time to make her one out of the special fabric I bought. When I told her about it last Christmas she said she could use some place mats. I remembered this, so I made her these quilt as you go place mats. I found these on Gudrun's blog. Cathryn loved them and said they would work perfectly in her house.

Here is a closeup of one of them.

I gave Hazel the Daisy Star quilt. It is a Judy Laquidara free pattern.

All of the guys got neck pillows. I believe I found the directions and pattern for these on the Connecting Threads site under their free projects.

I made Kim, Jon's girlfriend a Sassy Bag from Lazy Girl Designs. Jon said she loves green and small bags, so I figured this pattern would be perfect for her. I think it was. I found these two fabrics in Walmart a few weeks ago and fell in love with them. I think I have enough to make my Kindle case from the leftovers. (grin)

The inside of Kim's bag....

The back of it....

I will share the gowns/pants I made for the grandkids and mom's gift next time. Now on to some more Christmas pictures......
Noah walked in looking so handsome.

Madison wouldn't put down this cookie, even to open gifts. LOL

Hazel holding Izabella. Hazel's hair is normally really curly, but she straightened it for the day. It was pretty, but I love her curls. (grin) I'm a mama, what can I say? LOL

Kim fits in good with our family. You can always tell a good person when the kids love them. Ava laying across Kim....

Ashton......

That is enough for now. I am not sure how I managed it, but I am now following my own blog. LOL I worked quite a bit on Kevin's quilt yesterday. I plan to do some more hand quilting on it today. I am really enjoying this. The pressure is off and I can relax in front of the tv with the quilt in my lap without feeling like I should be doing something else to prepare for Christmas. (grin) I think I will post this now and get back in my rocker and do what I love doing. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a wonderful day. Oh, I also want to throw out this. If you still need a guy's gift, these neck pillows are quick and easy to do and all the guys loved them. Talk to you all later.

Gifts I Made This Year!

2011-12-18T20:19:00.000-06:00

I can finally share what I have been doing for the past couple of months. We held our family Christmas celebration yesterday. Our daughter, Carolyn cooked a delicious meal for us and we all came away very stuffed. (grin) It is always so much fun to have our whole family together. I will be sharing some pictures that I took yesterday this week, but first I want to show why I have been missing in blogland for the past month. LOL We decided that we would not buy gifts for the adults, but homemade things were ok. Oh yeah, right up my alley. LOL I made some things for a few friends. Some I took pictures of and some I forgot till they were packaged and ready to mail. Oh well. I think I shared this little tree before, but here it is after I decorated it.

I enjoyed making this tree. I also loved doing this one. Any time redwork is involved I have fun. LOL

This pot holder went to the receiver of the above mini quilt.

I sent the Spring Flowers table topper to a summer loving friend along with these pot holders and dish cloth.

That is all of the gifts that I took pictures of before mailing. I really must try to do better. Now on to some family things. Oh my goodness, it was so great to see our grandbabies and babies also. LOL I thought it was so awesome that anyone who wanted to give gifts this year either made them or gave pictures. Oh my I got some amazing pictures of grandbabies. Then drove off and left them laying on Carolyn's table. I was so bummed, but Cathryn took them home with her and is going to ship them to me. On the gift giving, this did not include the kids. We all bought stuff for them. (grin) I actually had a lot of fun shopping for the grandkids. Ashton and Ava are into lots of science stuff, so I went to Hobby Lobby for their gifts. I think I did ok. Cath told me today that they have been working nonstop on their kits. LOL Ashton thinks he is rich because he is digging out fools gold. Ava is excited because she is digging out T-rex dinosaur bones. She loves dinosaurs, especially T-rex. Noah got a farm set with animals, fences, hay bales, and a tractor and wagon. He is a city boy, but I thought he should learn a bit about his country roots. (grin) I talked to Izabella on the phone and she told me she wanted Dora stuff. LOL So my little darling got a Dora doll. Madison got a toy that was age appropriate for her. I also made each of the grandkids some things. I'll share about those another time. I decided to post a few pictures of our gathering at a time.
Look at this. I love this picture. I just wish Ashton had been in it too, but it has all the younger kids.

I loved this picture so much that I snapped another one. On the first one, I almost cut off Madison's head. On the second one I almost cut off Ava's head. I still don't take very good pictures. LOL

Here is Ashton.

I'll share one more with you, then post a few more next time. I usually do not like to have my picture taken, but Hazel grabbed my camera and snapped this picture of me holding Izabella. I actually think it turned out quite good. Of course how could it not be good with the little cutey in red in it. LOL

It will seem weird to me to not have anything Christmasy to work on this week. Our Christmas will be very quiet. We will visit our moms, then just chill. We have a nice ham to fix and movies to watch. Kevin has already given me my Christmas gift this year. I received a Kindle Touch. I really never thought I would like a Kindle, but I love, love this silly thing. I have been watching on Facebook and get a free book or two every day. I have already put over 40 books on it and have read close to 10. (Of course some of them are pretty short.) I have had it for about 3 weeks now. I love it more every day. I always thought the books would be too expensive for it, but I find bargains all the time. So if you are on the fence about getting a Kindle, as I was, just go for it. If you are anything like me, you will end up loving it. Of course, this thrills Kevin. (grin) He already knows that I am making him a quilt. He is quite thrilled about that as well. I have even shown it to him. Didn't seem right for me to have my gift and him to not even know what he was getting. He says to take my time. So I don't have to rush to have it done by next Sunday. (grin)

On the agenda for this week is to make a case for my Kindle and to make a cushion for our Buddy boy. I already have everything for it. Just need to get it together. Well, I guess that is enough for now. This post ended up being quite long winded, but I have not posted for a month. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a fabulous week!

Daisy Star is done!

2011-11-17T12:33:00.000-06:00

It got cold last night. We had 20* this morning at 7 a.m. I told Kevin I think that is enough of winter. Now we can go back to 70*. LOL I wish. It is about 34* now, so I doubt that it will get above 40* today. The wind is brisk too, so I plan to stay in the house today. Country Mart has a good sale this week, so Kevin told me to go stock up on some stuff. Good thing I went today, because they were already getting low on some things and were completely out of the $1.98 butter. Bummer. I did end up with some butter at Green Hills for $2.29. That isn't too bad. I now have everything we need for our Thanksgiving dinner.

I went to the doctor yesterday for my 3 month check-up. Now I am waiting to hear the results of the blood work.She had to stick me twice to get the blood. She noted on my chart that I am hard to get blood out of. (grin) I also decided to get a flu shot. I had never had one before, but had a bad case of flu last winter. I don't want a repeat of that. So today my arm is sore and I am stuffy and congested. Not blaming the flu shot, but I was perfectly fine before I got it.

I have been working hard on Christmas gifts. Of course, I am not where I hoped to be by this time of the month, but I am chugging along. Last night I put together the cutest little tree block quilt from this issue of McCall's Quick Quilts. I really love it. I may machine quilt it today, since time is escaping me. Here is the tree quilt.

Isn't this cute? I may even go by Hobby Lobby this weekend and see if I can find some mini-ornaments to decorate it. I tried not to have any alike pieces beside each other, but after ripping out a couple of times decided this was good enough.
I also finished sewing the binding on the Daisy Star. I am glad to have it done. I think I will give it to Hazel for Christmas. She doesn't read my blog, so I can safely share it on here. I laid it out on our deck since Kevin wasn't home to hold it up for me.

I'll share a couple more shots of it. The little spot in the lower right corner above is a leaf. (grin)

Here is the back of it. I used fabrics leftover from the front to give it a scrappy binding.

Well, I'd better get back to work on gifts. Kevin has all of next week off, so I'm not sure how much I will get done. I need to have hand projects ready because he likes me to sit and watch tv with him. (grin) Thank you for visiting and please come again. Have a wonderful day.

Several different things to share.

2011-11-07T11:06:00.000-06:00

I am glad Monday is here. Sunday was a long day for me. To start out, the time change is once again kicking my behind. Oh, don't want to forget about the beagle waking us up at such an early hour. LOL I think my talk with her yesterday helped. Either that, or I was so tired that I slept through her barking last night. LOL Then Kevin decided to watch a Lord of the Rings marathon. Oh my goodness! I was so bored. (No offense if you like these video's, just not my thing.) He has one of these marathons about once a year. I spent as much time on the computer as I could stand. Then I worked on redwork with my head phones on. I listened to a local country music station. At least I got one redwork project done and started another. (grin) I forgot to talk about this yesterday, but if you love hand quilting, click on the button over on the right side of my blog that says 'Celebrate Hand Quilting'. Caron has a list of hand quilters' blogs. I believe there are at least 45 that have listed a post highlighting some of their quilting on the list now. I enjoyed checking all of them out.

Last week I got block # 11 of Birdie Stitches done. I finished it in the first week after it was posted. Yea!

I am doing a really cute Christmas SAL. It is supposed to be turned into a banner, but I will probably turn mine into a little wall quilt. All seven of the blocks have been posted. The blocks were removed each week, so if you want them you will have to buy them. These were created by Lesley. I am on block 6. Only one more to stitch. I don't know the order of the blocks. It doesn't really matter. I traced off the first 4 at the same time and just picked one to start on.

Aren't these cute? I think Lesley did a great job.

I finished putting a lap quilt top together for Kevin last week. I have never made a lap quilt for him. He likes to cover up when he takes a nap or just stretches out to rest. I bought a charm pack at Walmart. Probably won't do that again. I was in a hurry to get them together, so didn't measure. They are't all cut exact, so some of the seams don't match up. It is what it is, though. It is together and is staying that way. I think he will like this. I was playing around with these charms one day and he suggested I lay it out like this. So I did. I am sure he has forgotten about it by now, since I just work on it while he is at work. What do you think?

I think Kevin will be very surprised and I hope he loves it. I am thinking I will try machine quilting a cross hatch in this one, since my time is getting short. I would love to have 3/4 of the gifts I am making done by the first of December. Not sure that will happen, but I am trying. That way I can relax and enjoy the holiday season. Last year was so stressful with me trying to get the quilts done, that I didn't take time to enjoy the whole holiday experience. (grin)

Well, better get off the computer and get started on some sewing. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a great Monday.

I did good at JoAnn's!

2011-11-06T14:42:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I had some errands to run. I had been gone from home for about 2 hours when Kevin called to see if I was on my way home. LOL I hadn't even started my errands yet. I stopped by JoAnn's with a plan and I was still there. LOL He just laughed and said to have fun. I did! I always like to make something for each of the grandkids for Christmas. Well, I decided I might as well stick with pjs. They all loved them last year. So I called the girls and got their sizes and headed off to JoAnns with my list in hand.
Ashton is 8, so he got flannel fabric with footballs and soccer balls in it. Ava only wants to wear pink or purple. She is 5 and all girl. LOL Here is their fabric. I got enough fabric yesterday to make each grandchild either 2 pairs of flannel pants or 2 flannel gowns.

Noah likes cars and trucks and the color blue. He is 5, almost 6. So I found a blue fabric with cars/trucks and a fabric with robots in it for him. Izabella is 3 and loves butterflies. She got this gorgeous yellow flannel with butterflies and lady bugs on it and the purple fabric with bunnies, fawns, owls, and flowers. I think she will love it! Here is Noah and Izzie's fabric.

I haven't seen Madison since Easter except on Facebook. So I don't know much about what she would like. So I picked out what I thought a 2 year old would like. Plus the blue fabric will look so nice with her blue eyes. Here is her fabric.

I also got a couple of McCalls patterns that were on sale for $1.29 each, thread to match the fabrics, elastic for the pants and rib knit for the tops of the gowns.

This is enough supplies to make 4 pairs of flannel pants and 6 flannel gowns. I paid a little over $66 for all this. The flannel was normally $6.99 per yd/on sale for $2.99 per yd. The rib knit was normally $9.99 per yd/on sale for $3 off. I used a 40% off coupon for the elastic. The thread wasn't on sale, but I had a 25% off total purchase (including sale items) that I used. Are you ready for this? I saved over $128!!!! I saved almost twice what it cost me. I floated out of the store. (grin) I went by the laundry mat and washed all the fabric. Now I am ready to start sewing for the grand babies. Just waiting on their mamas to give me their measurements. I will guess on Madison. I figure I can get pretty close to fitting her with a gown. Don't you love it when you get stuff that you need and save so much on it?

We are having a nice day here. Kevin is outside piddling. I am on the computer and the animals are all enjoying the nice weather. I'm not enjoying the time change so much, but then, I never do enjoy it. (grin) It usually takes me about 2 weeks to get used to the change. Personally, I wish they would leave it one way or the other. The beagle woke us up at 5:30 this morning barking. That was still 4:30 for me. She barked till it got daylight, then found a spot to go sleep. I should go wake her every few minutes. LOL This is the second night in a row she has done this. I tried to have a talk with her this morning when I fed her, but I don't think she is going to listen to me. LOL

I have some more things to share, but I will save those for next time. Everyone have a good day. Thanks for visiting. Please come again.

Birdie Stitches - Blocks 7-10

2011-10-28T21:08:00.000-05:00

It has been quite a week around here. After hearing about Wayne's passing, I tried to spend as much time with MIL as I could. I sat with her quite a bit on Monday. On Tuesday I had to get our clothes ready for the funeral. Needed to make a trip to town for hose. I seldom wear them, so didn't have any decent ones on hand. Wednesday was the funeral. It was sad, but also very touching. He was a very loved man. Three of his grandkids wrote letters about their time spent with him. His oldest grandchild is a mortician. She works at a funeral home out in Kansas, but the funeral home here, let her help push her grandpa's casket out of the church and drive the hearse to the cemetery. I was quite touched. It was good to see so many of Kevin's aunts, uncles, and cousins. I want to thank all of you for your kind words to us. It means a lot to know that so many of you out there in blogland care for us. I spent Thursday cleaning the house. It was really needed. (grin) Today was town day. We are now stocked with groceries for the next two weeks. I even came in under budget. That is always a good feeling.

My evenings have been spent quilting and doing redwork. I finished hand quilting the Daisy Star this week. I will probably wait till I get the binding on before taking a picture to share. I also got caught up with Birdie Stitches. I haven't shared any of these blocks since the June block, so here goes. This is the July block.

Here is the August block.

September's block was a lot of fun. I tried to get a variety of leaf colors.

Of course, I enjoyed the October block. I love pumpkins. I even enjoyed stitching those little spiders. LOL

There are only 2 blocks left to this cute BOM. I am so glad that I have kept up with it. Now while I wait for the next block to be posted, I am working on a Christmas Stitchery. I forgot to write down the blog I am getting these from. She posts a new stitchery block each Friday. I think she only has one or two more to post. These are supposed to be made into a banner, but I plan to make mine a little Christmas quilt. I'll share these next time. For now, I am tired, and just want to sit in front of the tv and work on some handwork. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a wonderful weekend.

We lost a good man today!

2011-10-23T19:30:00.000-05:00

Kevin's Uncle Wayne passed away quietly in his sleep this morning. He was a good man who will be missed by all. Wayne was my MIL's younger brother, one of four. He is the first sibling of seven in that family to pass on. Fern (MIL) and Wayne were very close. He used to take her out on the Missouri River in his boat to fish. She remembers those days when they were both so happy. Nothing either one of them loved more than fishing on the river. Wayne also loved to garden. In fact, he was working in his garden yesterday. We spent time with Fern today, then I went on to spend some time with Wayne's widow, Joan. Cathryn took a picture of him, Fern and their brother Dean at Fern's birthday party at the beginning of this month.
He is the one on the left, MIL in the middle and brother Dean on the right. My Kevin has his back to the camera.

We sure will miss Uncle Wayne. Please say a prayer for his family. This was very unexpected, so they need prayer and support. Thanks.

Thirty-Six Patch and A Trip around the World

2011-10-16T23:04:00.000-05:00

We had another good Sunday. We visited MIL in the nursing home for a couple of hours. She is happier. They moved her into the room with her best friend of about 60 or so years. This friend, Pat, had a stroke a few years ago. It left her right side paralized and her speech garbled. I really do believe Pat understands us, just can't communicate with us. Sometimes we hear complete words, but most of the time it is garbled. The weird thing is that Fern seems to understand Pat. I think this will be a good thing for both of them. Oh, I forgot to mention in my last post which quilt MIL chose. I decided to take both of them and let her choose. Good thing, because she chose the Savannah Star. Kevin and I were both wrong in which one we thought she would like. She loved the bright colors of the Savannah Star. (grin)

After our visit we went to St. Joe to Walmart. I do believe I embarrassed my husband. LOL I have still been wearing my shorts. We saw absolutely no one else in short pants, except me. He was asking why on earth I was still wearing shorts when it was in the 50's. Well, I have lost weight and my long pants are too big. So I got a new pair of jeans and a pair of sweats today. LOL I don't want a lot of clothes, because I hope to continue to lose weight. After buying the clothes, we went to Ryan's. Hmmm....hope the pants still fit. LOL Of course, even buying petite pants, they will have to be hemmed. It is a bummer to have short legs. Everything I buy has to be hemmed. Oh well, sure was nice to buy a smaller size. (grin)

I finally got my 36 patch all put together and I love it. It has been way too windy to have Kevin hold it up for me on the deck, so I took some pictures of it spread out on the bed. Even Kevin loves it. I still haven't decided for sure how I will quilt it. It will either be 1/4" inside the seams, hand quilted or diagonal stitching on the machine. I would like to get it sandwiched together this week. Sure want it on the bed before winter is over. Here are some pictures of it on the bed. You can't see the whole thing, but you get an idea. I tried to alternate light and dark blocks and not have the same colors touching. That is the only things I paid attention to. Most of these blocks are from scraps with a few from fat quarters.

It measures 72 inches by 84 inches. I may still add a black border around it. Not sure about that. It is just that I almost always add a border. It doesn't feel complete to me without it.

Here is one taken cattycornered.

I also have started on a new quilt. I have never made a Trip around the World quilt, so when Bren said she was going to make one from Rose Marie's tutorial, I decided to join in. I am moving slow, but no plans for this one, so no hurry. Here are the five fabrics I picked for the center.

I have to sew these strips together to make 9 strip sets. I have 3 done. I figured I'd do 3 sets at a time.

I hope I have enough contrast in my fabrics to make the design show up good. I haven't chosen border fabrics yet. Since I have about a 1/3 yard of each of these left over I may just make some bricks to go around. I also have a blue fabric that I plan to use for an inner border. I usually don't pick border fabrics till the center is done.

I have been trying to catch up on my BOM's. I almost have Sept.'s Birdie Stitches done, then on to Oct.'s. I have lots of stitcheries that I am behind on, but no hurry. I'll get them done in time.

I guess that is all for now. After our little stop at Ryan's, we both took a 2 hour nap when we got home. LOL So I imagine it will be a late bedtime tonight. Thank you for visiting and please come again. I do read and appreciate all the comments. I try to answer any questions. I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead.

A Grandma Sort of Day!

2011-10-15T21:10:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday was my MIL's 82nd birthday. We gathered together at the nursing home to surprise her. She was thrilled to see our kids and grandkids. We only had one kid and one grandkid that couldn't make it, so we had the lounge full. The home had MIL all dolled up. She had such a wonderful time. Of course, I forgot to take my camera, so I swiped some of the girls' pictures. This is Fern (MIL) with our 3 girls, Carolyn, Cathryn, and Hazel.

Here she is with four of our grandkids: Ashton, Ava, Noah, and Izabella.

Jon was late getting there. We all forgot to call him. He was not very happy with the female half of our family. LOL Oh well, better late than never. He made it in time for cake.

Here is a picture of all our family that were there. (This was taken before Jon arrived.)

By the way, in the above picture it is Carolyn, Kevin, me, Cathryn, Ava, Hazel, Izabella, Noah, and Ashton. I think Bob and Jeremy were taking pictures, so they weren't included. (grin)
We had such a nice day. We knew that Fern would tire easily, so we only stayed about an hour. Then Kevin stayed and kept his mom company while we went to see my mom.

You don't even want to know how long I have spent tonight trying to figure out how to swipe these pictures from the girls' FB pages and get them posted here on my blog. LOL It has been a long evening. Now just so I have a quilty picture posted too....Carolyn entered Bob's Patriotic Shoofly quilt that I made him for Christmas last year in their county fair. I won a blue ribbon for it. I was really surprised, as I have never won any ribbons, but then again, I have never entered any of my projects. (grin) Here I am holding the quilt with the blue ribbon.

As you can see, I hate having my picture taken. I always look so dorky. That is why you seldom see pictures of me here on the blog. LOL The kids were all trying to get me to laugh. That is why I look like I just swallowed a prune. LOL

I even took picture of the blue ribbon. May be the only one I ever have. LOL

Here is a picture of Bob holding it up last Christmas.

After visiting with all the grandmas, we all met back here at our house to BBQ and just visited. Thank you to the kids for providing all the goodies. All I provided was some chili leftover from the day before. LOL The kids had such fun playing with Buddy. Ava, especially, loved him. They threw his ball and he would fetch it back to them. She thought that was so great. I had the kids line up for a picture before they left. As you can see, they had already eaten. Look at the clothes and around the mouths. LOL

Well, I guess that is enough pictures for this post. I just wanted to share with you all about our amazing time last Sunday. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a blessed Sunday.

I made a mini ironing board.

2011-10-08T22:00:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, I decided to make a mini ironing board. My sewing area is small and sometimes, I just don't need the big ironing board, especially if I am piecing blocks at the machine. I saw one like this on a blog once, but have no idea whose blog. I kind of did this one by what seemed logical to me. LOL I figured some of you might like to see how I made it. It wasn't hard.
First I bought a little wooden tv tray at Walmart for $8.88.

Then I gathered my supplies. I used from my stash. I found this pretty floral fabric, some heavy weight muslin, some warm and natural batting, and some insulbrite. (Not sure that is spelled right. It is the stuff used in potholders.) I also needed scissors, a staple gun and a hammer.

I pressed everything, then laid it out on the bed: fabric (right side facing down), muslin (to act as a lining and give the fabric a little more strength), warm and natural batting (that I pieced together from leftovers), and the insulbrite (the heat reflecting stuff facing away from the table).

Then I placed the table upside down on top of this. I trimmed a little extra off the edges. Then folded the raw edge and folded again. I kept everything snug, and stapled it to the bottom of the table.

I hammered the staples in as I went around the table, so they would stay snug. I did the two long sides first, then the two short ends, and did the best I could on the corners.

I have used it lots of times already and love it. It is way too short to use while standing, but perfect for spinning around while sewing to press a block. So for less than $10 and some stuff from my stash, I have a very handy little mini ironing board. When I'm not using it, it folds up just like any other tv tray.

I am excited. The grandkids are coming tomorrow. We are going to surprise my MIL for her birthday, then on to see my mom, then back home to have a BBQ. I can hardly wait. Kevin and I have been sprucing the place up today. Hopefully I will have some pictures to share next time.

I have been thinking about some long term quilting goals. I have several bedsize quilts that I would like to make in the next few years for gifts. Yes, you read that right. I said years. LOL I am a hand quilter after all. (grin) Anyway, in order to get these gifts done in time without having to rush, I decided that I should make a goal list. Nothing on this list will get started till after Christmas, but at least I have a list to go by. Whether I follow it or not, who knows. I am not going overboard this year for Christmas, like last year. If you remember, I made 3 twin size quilts for the SIL's. Not doing that this year, but I do have a small project planned for each of the kids. I won't share them just yet, in case one of them actually checks in on my blog. LOL

So for the rest of this year, I want to finish the Daisy Star, quilt both Raggedy Ann and Henrietta Whiskers, and work on Christmas gifts. Now that may seem like a big goal, but the quilts are just for fun and don't have to be done by the first of the year. I almost forgot. I also want to quilt the 36 Patch (which I still do not have the blocks together) for our bed. It should be quick, though.

Now, here are my goals to have done for the next 8 or so years: (No laughing now!)

1. May 2012- Quilt the Star Quilt Along Quilt for Cathryn and Jeremy's 10 wedding anniversary. Quilt is already pieced.(queen size)

2. May 2013- Make mom a Carpenter Star quilt in blues for her 75th birthday. Fabric already bought. (full size)

3. Aug. 2013 - Make the Quilter's Garden quilt for Carolyn and Bob's 10th anniversary. Blocks already done. (queen size)

May 2014 - make a homespun plus black rail fence for my nephew Jared's graduation. Already have the fabrics. (twin size)

May 2015 - make a quilt for niece, Hannah's graduation. No idea yet. (twin size)

May 2018 -make a quilt for niece, Madison's graduation. No idea yet. (twin size)

May 2019 -make a quilt for nephew, Hunter's graduation. No idea yet. (twin size)

Instead of calling this my goal list, maybe I should call it my dream list, cause things change, and I might not get any of these done, but it is in my mind now, so I shall see. Plus you know projects are always added when you find a cute pattern, or cute BOM. LOL Can you tell I had way too much time on my hands today? LOL Well, this is getting long, so I will end here. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a fabulous Sunday. I know I will!!!!

Well, not sure what happened, but I can't get rid of the red in the goal list. I think even blogger is laughing at me. LOL

A Gift for MIL

2011-10-05T11:06:00.000-05:00

I can't believe I am here two days in a row. Fall is good for me. LOL

I am about fed up with updating things on my computer. Every time I do it, I regret it. First I updated my yahoo email. Well, I hate the new version. It has been over a month and I still hate it. I even emailed yahoo and told them how much I hated it, but of course, got no response from them. (eye roll here) Yesterday I updated Firefox. They just kept sending me little popups telling me I needed to update. Well, now my toolbar (I think that is what it is called) across the top is gone. It is from Yahoo. Evidently Yahoo's toolbar is not compatible with Firefox's newest version. What do I do now. I am lost without my toolbar, yet have no idea how to get it back. Just when I start getting comfortable with the computer they mess it all up for me. Once it is working, please just leave it alone. I think I need to just stop updating. Oh, another thing. I just sort of figured out Facebook. Well, guess what. They are changing everything around. (big sigh) Well, enough ranting and raving.

Kevin's mom recently entered the nursing home. She is crippled and very feeble. She finally accepted the fact that she could not take care of herself any more. When visiting her on Sunday, I noticed the nursing home had provided her with a lap quilt. Goodness, it has seen better days. She can no longer walk, so is in either her lift chair or her electric wheel chair all day. She needs something to cover her knees. Her 82nd birthday is this Sunday. I actually have a gift for her that I think she will love. I pulled two lap quilt size quilts from my finished tote bin. Kevin prefers this one, so I will probably give it to her. It is about 40" by 49". I think she will love it. The coins (colorful strips) are from leftovers from a strip pieced quilt. The sashing is from fabric I had in my stash for many years. The little sashing stones are leftover from a jumper I had made myself. I just love the border fabric.

Here it is hanging behind our door.

A quick peak at the back.

I also pulled this quilt out, but Kevin didn't like it as well. If I remember correctly, this one is called Savannah Stars. It was made from fabric I bought at Walmart when the South Belt store clearanced fabric. The pattern was found in an old quilting magazine. It is about 45" square.

Hanging on the back of our door...

I pieced the back from leftover fabric from the front.

I will probably go with the first, since Kevin prefers it. I need to make a label. Everything in the nursing home has to be labeled. I just thought I'd share pictures of these with you, although I am sure I have shared them on here before. I need to get with it, so I will get this posted. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Everyone have a wonderful day!

Borders Added

2011-10-04T17:36:00.000-05:00

It is hot here today. We had 91* a little while ago. I know it will cool down quickly, though, as soon as the sun goes down. Poor Buddy is ready for me to shave him again, but I know it will be cooling down soon, so he will just have to live with it. (grin)

I finally got the borders put on my Raggedy and Friends quilt. I just went with a 3" red border. I tried to get a decent picture of it, but it wasn't easy. LOL

I had Kevin hold it up on the deck, but the wind was blowing, so it flapped around. lol

Then I decided to hang it on back of our metal door with magnetic clips.

This is the best I can do.

Then I got the borders put on Henrietta Whiskers. I still have to machine applique around the birds and stars in the border, and I also have just a bit of embroidery left to do on it. Then it is a flimsy too. ( By the way, I forget sometimes, that not everyone who reads this is a quilter. Sorry. A flimsy is just the finished top before it is sandwiched and quilted.)

Kevin tried to hold this one up too. Same results.

Now these two can join the pile to be quilted. I am almost done quilting the blocks on the Daisy Star quilt. Then I can start on the borders. I usually work on quilting while watching Biggest Loser, but I think it will be too warm tonight. So I will probably do some embroidery. I am 2 blocks behind on Birdie Stitches. Time to get those babies done. Here is a hoop of the Daisy Star.

Well, I guess that is it for me today. I want to get some things done so I can enjoy BL tonight. I also love the new show called Unforgettable. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a wonderful evening.

Center Blocks of Henrietta Whiskers.

2011-09-28T11:39:00.000-05:00

I have been trying to catch up on some of my BOM's. I am thinking I might want to limit how many I do next year. LOL Anyway, I finished the last of the blocks for Henrietta whiskers yesterday and sewed the blocks together last night just before Biggest Loser came on. I really like the way it is turning out. Today I hope to get the borders on and the applique in the borders done. Then it will be ready to join the ever growing pile of flimsies. I definitely have plenty to quilt on this winter. (grin)

I have already shared blocks 1-7 with you, but here is block #8.

Block #9....It felt good to get this one done yesterday.

Kevin held it up for me out on the deck this morning. What do you think?

Now I need to choose border fabrics. I really want to get this one to flimsy stage.

I hope to show you the past 2 or 3 blocks of Birdie Stitches in a day or two. Still haven't gotten the 36 patch put together, but I do have all of the blocks done. Not much else going on around here. I think that is why I love fall so much. It cools down. We have gorgeous colors on the trees. Life slows down, so that I can work on my quilting without any guilt. LOL Friday is town day, so I need to work on a grocery list. We have kind of let healthy eating slide. Time to get back on the wagon. I need to get Kevin's lunch around, so I will post this. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a good one.

I Decided It Was Time to Return!

2011-09-22T15:57:00.000-05:00

I have had a nice long blog break. I have gotten things done, but not really much to post about. I have done a complete house cleaning. We are ready for winter on the inside, not so much the outside, yet though. LOL The garden is done. We had a bad storm in August with lots of wind and hail. It pretty much destroyed what was left of the garden. We did dig potatoes during Labor Day week. Out of the 12 lbs or so of seed potatoes that I planted we got back about 3/4 of a wheel barrel. I took 2 of my chore buckets full of potatoes for mom to have and share with other residents in her apartment complex. Everyone was so happy to get them. I was a bad blogger and did not get any pictures.

I have been working on my 36 patch quilt for our bed. I laid them out and decided I needed 12 more blocks. I have them almost done. After counting, I realized that I had 13 blocks instead of 12, so I will have an extra. This will be fairly large for me to quilt. I may need my head examined, but I am thinking about doing straight machine quilting on it with my walking foot. I really would like to have it ready for our bed in a few weeks. I may chicken out, though. (grin) It probably wouldn't take too long to hand quilt X's in the blocks. Anyway here are the first bunch of blocks laid out. I will rearrange these when I add in the next twelve blocks.

At the bottom, you can see portions of the quilt that is on our bed. Sorry about that.
I went and helped Hazel move. I grabbed this great picture of Noah and Izzie. Aren't they cute?

I won a few giveaways, but I'll share about them in another post. I got the Chicken Hearted wall quilt top done. I'm not sure needle turn applique is for me. I usually like hand work, but this seemed to take me forever.

The kit came with the backing and batting too. I now have it pin basted and ready to hand quilt.

Now I need to get off the computer and get some bread made. It feels good to be back. I will try to post at least once or twice a week. Everyone have a great day. Thank you for visiting and please come again.

Winona

Mini-quilts and a blog break.

2011-08-18T15:29:00.000-05:00

I have done a pitiful job of keeping up with my blog this summer. Maybe I will do better when fall gets here. (grin) I decided to take some of my embroidery work and make some very simple little mini-quilts. I had planned to come up with a different design for each of them, but I like simple, so just went with that. I am going to get them marked and sandwiched to quilt in a bit, but thought I'd do a blog post first. I may add another border to this one because it is really little. I'll decide as I mark it.

As you can see, I still love fall colors. I always turn in those directions.

I love this one.....

This isn't bad either....

This one is a little different, but I do like it...

Now all I need to do is get them marked and sandwiched together. I have gathered all of my basting pins, and I'm ready to go. LOL

I also wanted to tell you all that I will be taking a two week break from my blog, well, from the computer really. So if you email me and don't hear back, that is the reason. We have some family issues going on that I need to take care of. Hopefully I will be back on here by the first of September. I had better get with the sandwiching. Thank you for visiting. Please come again and have a wonderful couple of weeks.

Winona

Some Deck Pictures

2011-08-02T11:29:00.000-05:00

This heat is getting me down. It was 105* yesterday with a heat index of 119*. It just doesn't get that hot here, but it is this year. Today is supposed to be even worse. I had all my outdoor things done by 8 this morning and it was already 85*. I am so ready for fall.

Last week, Kevin was home on vacation. We built a deck. Well, Kevin did most of the work, but I helped by being a go-for, clean-up specialist, adviser, and cold drink provider. LOL We set all the posts in concrete the previous week, so they could cure a little bit before we started building. I am so proud of our new deck. It is not finished yet. We still have to put rails around it and build steps, but have to save more money before that can happen. Wow! Things are expensive. A five pound box of deck screws cost $25. Of course one box wasn't enough. LOL We hope to continue around the east side next spring. I would love to have a deck on the east side for summer evenings.

Kevin had planned to make it 6'X8'. So that is what I thought we were doing. He didn't tell me that he decided to go ahead and make it 8'X12'. It was quite a happy surprise for me. I love our new deck. I went out on it this morning and watched the sun come up. It has a couple of coats of stain on it now, but I haven't taken any pictures since Kevin put that on. Can you see Buddy's muddy paw prints on the storm door? LOL Speaking of Buddy. He was our little helper during the building of the deck.

As you can see, he got a crew cut when the heat hit. He is much more comfortable now. His hair is so soft. I can finally use the Adirondack chair that Carolyn's BIL, Terry built for me. I love it.

I built the temporary steps while Kevin was screwing down the deck floor. Concrete blocks aren't too pretty, but they get the job done. (grin)

I'll leave you today with a picture of the view from the deck. As you can see from the approaching shade in the first picture, it is shady from about noon on. Now if it will ever cool down in the evenings, we will get a lot more use from the new deck.

Thank you for visiting and please come again. Have a wonderful day and try to stay cool.

Winona

Thimbleberries Sew Day!

2011-07-27T21:47:00.000-05:00

I just joined this group. If you have read my blog for long, you know I love Thimbleberries. I have made many of Lynette Jensen's patterns. I did not think I would have time to do anything this month, but the deck went better than we thought. I will do a separate post showing it. We finished today.

Anyway, I drug out my Thimbleberries books and decided to make something from Pint-Size Traditions. I also have Pint-Size Traditions II and love both of these books. While it is so hot, I like to stick to small projects. This book never fails me. (grin)

I chose to make Sunflower Glory. What better time to make a sunflower wall hanging than the dog days of summer! This little quilt should only measure about 15" square when done. Perfect to work on in this heat.

Then I headed to my stash to come up with the fabrics for this cute little quilt. Here is what I have chosen, but I can always change my mind. Happens all the time. LOL

Now I need to get it cut out and ready to sew on the next Thimbleberries Sew Day! I'll try to figure out how to add the button over in my sidebar later. Sometimes I can figure it out, other times I can't.

Thank you all for the happy anniversary wishes. We had a good day. I think we will be going out to eat in the next day or so. Just didn't have time on Monday. I bought myself a few goodies for my gift. Kevin got wood clamps. His cost as much as mine did. Those things are not cheap. Anyway... I received a 50% off coupon in my email box from Joann's. I decided to treat myself to a new quilting book. I found Fat Quarter Quilting by Lori Smith. I really ohhed and ahhed over these little quilts. So I decided to get it.

I was ready to go, then, what is this? Pat Sloan's Redwork with a Twist. Oh my goodness! I had to have it! Ok, I also had a 40% off coupon. Kevin wouldn't mind. I got both of them. (grin)

I have spent the past 2 days drooling over these two books. They are magnificent! Now I need to decide what to make first. That may be hard. LOL

After buying two books instead of one, I decided to just go all out. I stopped by Hobby Lobby and found some cute fabrics that needed to come home with me.

Rhonda is sharing a cute as can be BOM called 'When Nature Calls'. I think I can use some of these fabrics in it. Rhonda just posted the first block this morning, so hurry on over and check it out. Again, if I can figure it out, I will put the badge over on my sidebar. After Hobby Lobby I went for a haircut. My dh says I was scalped, but I like it short in the summertime!

Well, that is it for me this evening. I was going to post about our deck, but I think I will save that for tomorrow. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a good night.

Winona

It's Our Anniversary!

2011-07-25T09:42:00.000-05:00

Thirty Four years ago Kevin and I were married in the Methodist Church. It seems like a life time ago, yet I still remember it like it was yesterday. LOL I still love him and he still loves me. What more can you ask for out of life? (grin) We don't have much planned for today. We are building a deck on the front of our house. We have the posts all set. We have to stick around because Menard's should deliver the deck lumber today. Then tomorrow or Wednesday we can start putting the deck up. I am quite excited about this. It won't have a roof right now. Just can't afford it. Things are just so expensive right now. Eventually we hope to add a roof so we can sit out any time we want to.

Since I don't like to do a post without any pictures, I will share the first four Farmer's Wife blocks that I have done. I did a couple of these by paper piecing. I hope I get better at that. Let's just say I became reaquainted with my ripper. LOL
Here is block #1, Attic Windows....

Block #2, Autumn Tints....

I skipped #3, Basket, because I didn't want to deal with the handle, but I will eventually do it. Here is block #4, Basket Weave....

Block #5, Bat Wing.....

Here they are together.....

So far I have enjoyed the ones I can just rotary cut and sew together, the paper pieced ones, not so much, but I want to practice my paper piecing. I can just use templates on these instead of doing the paper pieced version, but I'm not really crazy about templates either. So this quilt will probably have the blocks put together in a variety of ways. I guess that is how you grow and learn, right? (grin) Kevin is on vacation this week, so there probably won't be much sewing for me. I just hope we get the deck finished. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a wonderful day!

Winona

The Garden Is Producing.

2011-07-17T12:53:00.000-05:00

It is hot, hot, hot here! But I think it is about like that everywhere in the USA right now. We are in a major heat wave. I am ready for fall, but I am enjoying our garden. We have been getting some produce. I went down early this morning and picked 2 chore buckets of green beans and our first tomato! That first tomato is kind of puny, but it is always a big deal around here when we pick the first one. (grin) I have the beans all snapped and in the fridge. I will probably cook them this evening after it cools down a bit. Kevin suggested I wait, since it is so hot. No point in making the a/c work any harder than the poor thing already is. I snapped a picture of the produce from the garden.

The peppers aren't huge yet, but peppers are still $1 a piece at the store, so I decided we might as well be eating our own. I planted 9 and they are loaded. The hail we had a few weeks ago, made some bad spots on some of them, so they need to be eaten anyway. Our onions did not do well this year, but I will pull them this week. We'll use what we have. The deer have enjoyed my sweet potatoes. I planted 16, and now have 6. I hope they decide to leave those for us. (grin) The muskmelon and watermelon, that I had given up on, are finally up. Not sure if they will have time to finish, but we will see. Our pumpkin is starting to bloom and my lonely little cucumber vine is blooming as well. The corn is a tasseling and the potatoes are dying back. So things are going pretty good in the garden area.

I know of a couple of babies that are due towards the end of the year. I have a thought running around inside my head. I have been playing on EQ7 to come up with a design. I picked up a couple of fat quarter packs at Walmart. I think these will make great baby quilts. The first one is kind of neutral, so I am thinking it could be used for a girl or a boy, but preferably a boy.

Now this one is more girly. I love these colors together.

I am spreading my wings. I used to only choose Thimbleberrie like colors to work with, but I am trying to stretch out of my comfort zone. I have become quite fond of some of the brighter colors. Can't imagine a quilt on my bed made from these colors, but for babies and children, I love 'em. Now to decide on a pattern in my EQ7. I worked on it a bit yesterday, but have not come up with a definite plan. I'll add borders and sashing from my stash.

Last week I decided to make a bag for a young woman who lives in my mom's apartment complex. She is very good to mom and always doing favors for her. I decided to make a bag for her to thank her. I chose the Phoebe Bag. This is a pattern by Rebeka Lambert and was really easy to make. I used some of the fabric that my friend, Cyndi sent to me. The young woman who this is intended for loves cats. (grin)

Isn't this cute? I did not have a magnetic fastener, so resorted to the old standby...velcro. It works. LOL Here is the inside. I still need to hand stitch the lining together at the bottom, but otherwise, it is done.

Here is a picture that shows the gorgeous outer fabric a little better, but the first picture is truer to the real color.

Don't you think she will like it?

Well, Kevin just stuck his head in to say he might need my help in a bit. He is getting ready to build a small deck onto the front of the house. So I am going to help whenever I can. (grin) Everyone have a wonderful day. Thank you for visiting and please come again. Stay cool and hydrated. Fall is coming. LOL

Winona

Henrietta Whiskers 6 and 7

2011-07-10T23:18:00.000-05:00

This has been a busy weekend. Remember, I told you about our tick infestation? Well we declared war on them this weekend. LOL I bought a good pair of clippers and gave Buddy a close hair cut. Poor guy doesn't look as cute, but he is cooler and I can find ticks much easier on him. Then on Saturday, I mowed and Kevin weedeated. Everything around us is now cropped close to the ground. Then we kept the furbabies in so Kevin could spray the yard. So far, so good. No ticks on either of us today. Kevin also used the chainsaw to trim up some volunteer elm trees. Did I say how hot and humid it was this weekend? Oh my goodness, I about got too hot Saturday, so had to sit and cool down.(Honey's orders) Today I got the laundry done while Kevin was piddling on some stuff. Then I cooked him the first zucchini of the year. I forgot to take a picture of it, but you all know what zucchini looks like.

I am caught up on Henrietta Whiskers. I am loving this BOM. Here is block #7. Isn't it cute?

It isn't really this yellow color. I took it last night with my light on. I don't think I ever shared block #6, so here it is.

The purple you see across the pumpkin is just a stray thread that I neglected to get off before taking the picture. Sorry.

I decided to add the red borders to my Raggedy and Friends quilt. I have them ready. Just need to sew them on. Hope to get that done tomorrow. I picked our first green beans a few days a go. Oh my goodness, they were so good. It only took us a couple of days to eat a whole gallon. Of course I cooked them with a hambone, some onion, and sea salt. Eating just doesn't get any better. Look how green and pretty they were before I cooked them.

While I was down at the garden picking beans, I took this picture of our tomatoes and corn. I wish they would hurry up and get ready. I love tomatoes and corn. LOL

Well, that is it for me tonight. Kevin has already gone to bed, so I guess I might as well go too. I have to get up early for a walk, or it will be too hot. We are under a heat advisory for the next few days. I believe it. LOL Thank you for visiting and please come again. Have a wonderful week.

Winona

Raggedy Annie and Friends

2011-07-07T23:55:00.000-05:00

I spent today working on some things that I want to get done. I really want to start my Farmer's Wife blocks, but feel I have to get a few things finished first. I guess I am kind of making a deal with myself. LOL Anyway, I got the Birdie Stitches #7 ready to stitch and block #7 of Henrietta Whiskers done. Then I decided to finish putting my Raggedy Annie and Friends together. I just needed to make the sashing and cornerstones and sew it all together. What do you think?

Sorry about the quality of the picture. Kevin isn't here to hold it up for me, so it is stretched out on the bed. I will share a few closeups of some of the blocks.

I am debating with myself on whether to call this done or to add borders. I have enough of the red fabric used for cornerstones (not sure if that is what they are called when it is in sashing). I actually have it cut. I only had enough to cut them 3 inches wide. It is 57" X74" right now. With the added borders it would be about 62"X79". What do you think? Should I call it done, or add the borders? Here is a picture with the border fabric kind of laid out around it.

I love how this quilt turned out. Thank you Kaaren for generously sharing the pattern with us. It will go in my pile of quilts to work on this winter.

Do you all have problems with ticks? I hate those critters. We are having such a hard time with them this summer. I took my walk this evening. Since I have come back into the house, I have picked 6 ticks off of myself. (Shiver here) I hate them! We have sprayed and they still are thick. Maybe we need to get some more guineas. They are known as tick controls.

We had about 2 1/2 inches of rain this morning. Not good with the horrible flooding we already have. I think most of the rain is out of the forecast now, though. I'm just praying the levees can hold out.

Well, I need to get my grocery list ready. Tomorrow is town day. Everyone have a good one. Thank you for visiting. Please come again.

Winona

Happy 4th of July!

2011-07-04T22:15:00.000-05:00

I know, it is about over. Most of you are probably enjoying fireworks about now. I can hear the neighbors shooting off stuff as I type. I am not a fireworks fan. They are pretty, but I hate the noise. So I am content to sit in the a/c and just piddle while everyone else is out watching the fireworks and getting bitten by mosquitoes. (grin) We have had a very nice three day weekend. Saturday, Kevin got the garden tilled while I did laundry. Sunday, we went to town and got a few things. Then Jon and Kim came to visit that afternoon. We so enjoyed spending time with them. Today I got up with the urge to use my JoAnn coupons. Now the last thing I need is more fabric, but I had that urge, don't you know. So I am sure you can guess what I did this morning. LOL
I visited JoAnn's. I saved more than I spent. Woohoo! Here is what I got today. I laid it out on the red fabric, because it didn't show up very good on my quilt. I also bought a couple of packages of sewing machine needles.

Now I know this looks like a lot of fat quarters, but I have a plan for them. My dear friend, Teresa sent me this for my birthday. I plan to use these fat quarters to make the 111 blocks. (May have to add some. I'll see.)

I started working on this using scraps, but became frustrated when my blocks were not turning out the right size. I did a silly thing. I printed each of the 106 templates out without checking to see if my printer was set on 'no scaling'. It makes a difference. LOL So now all of these templates are too small. Chris helped me out with it, so now I am going to try again. I am debating on whether to wash the fat quarters or not before I begin. I don't usually wash, but this will be a long project. My gut is telling me to wash. What do you think?

While I was in Walmart the other day, I noticed they had a clearance on some of their precuts. They are getting another style in, so want to get rid of these. Of course, I had to help them out. I only paid $.75 each for the fat quarters and $7.00 each for the bundles of 7.

I also picked up a pretty cutter, some circle rulers, and a couple of magazines. I think Kevin wants to keep me away from Walmart and JoAnn's. LOL

I also received these in the mail last week. I love prim, but haven't done much of it. I found this site and just had to order some of her patterns. This is Meme's Quilts. I love her patterns. I am sure this will have to be a winter project. I am getting in over my head again with projects. LOL

Well, that is about all for me right now. Kevin has already turned in, so I suppose I should consider doing the same. We are such party animals. NOT! LOL Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a great week.

Winona

Caught up on Birdie Stitches.

2011-06-30T13:23:00.001-05:00

Good afternoon,

It is really hot here today. Supposed to be in the upper 90's with a heat index of 107*. Can you say yuck! LOL I went out to take a walk about 9. Waited too long. About 20 minutes into the walk, I was getting hot and had a cramp in my leg. So I decided to wait till the sun goes down for the rest of my walk. I may have to settle for doing a video if it doesn't cool down enough. My blood pressure is doing really good. Blood glucose is good when I eat as I should. (grin) I have lost 21 lbs. Need to kick it up a notch since I go back to the doc in about 3 weeks. Would like to lose at least 25 lbs.

Since it is too hot outside to do anything, I have been getting a little bit of sewing and handwork done. I am on the 3rd border of the pink baby quilt. I can stand to hand quilt as long as I have the ac on. (grin) I also just finished the June block for Birdie Stitches. I struggled with this one. The pattern posted didn't click with my other blocks. So I put off doing it till I saw Terry's post. She changed it. A light bulb went off in my head. Well why not? It is my quilt. I can do whatever I want. Right? Now since I cannot draw, at all, I used parts from the June block and pieces from previous blocks to create this. I like it and it fits in with the other blocks. After all, June has been spent watching my garden grow. LOL Thanks Terry, for the idea.
Block #6

Now without going back through my blog, I cannot remember which of these blocks I have posted, so I am going to just post all of them. I know some will be repeats. Oh well.
Block #1

Block #2

Block #3

Block #4

Block #5

I also got block #6 of Henrietta Whiskers done. I will take a picture and post as soon as I get the little bit of embroidery done on it. I came up with a way to put my Retro Nine Patch blocks together, but not sure I like how it looks. Just doesn't click with me, so it is put on the back burner while I think about it. I took a picture, but it didn't turn out good. What is new, huh? LOL I decided to make actual 9-patch blocks using the colors that I had used in the embroidery. I think I should have separated things with sashing. Not sure what it needs, so thinking about it. Here is the rather lousy picture of it. I may try to have Kevin hold it up so I can get a better picture. Lots of times, seeing a picture helps me decide what needs to be done.

A couple of weeks ago, our son, Jon, and his friend, Kim came to visit. They brought stuff for a BBQ. We had such a fun afternoon. I just took a few pictures. Of course, Jon is like his dad and doesn't like to have his picture taken. (big sigh)

Jon was playing ball with Buddy. Buddy loves this ball.

Here is a picture of Kim. She is a lovely young woman. Kevin and I really like her.

Well, that is it for me today. Please keep the Missouri River areas in your prayers. It is not good. Our county is having some severe floods. Several towns have been evacuated. This will go on till at least the middle of August. So a long time to be on the watch for flooding. Kevin is still able to work, but that all depends on if the river goes over the levee or breaches. Bad situation for all concerned.

Thank you for visiting. Please come again and have a wonderful day!

Winona

Portrait of Callie!

2011-06-16T12:51:00.000-05:00

We had rains coming right towards us. Then all we got was a little shower. We could really use about a 1/2 inch of rain on the garden. I say this, then feel guilty for wishing for rain. Our county is preparing for the worse floods we have ever seen. Yesterday the Corps started releasing 150,000 cubic feet of water per second from the Gavin's Point Dam, S.D. They said it will take 3 - 3.5 days to reach our area, but we are already seeing flooding. I-29 is closed north of us due to water on the road. They are releasing this amount of water until sometime in August. Goodness, that is a long time to have water standing. We are fortunate to be on high ground, but most of our county are not. So once again, I ask that you pray that our levees will hold.

On a little lighter note, I finished the machine applique on Callie's Portrait. I have had fun with this, so not sure why it has taken me so long to get it done. I fused it down over a year ago now. LOL Anyway, here are a few pictures of it. I still need to embroider some whiskers on it, then I can sandwich and quilt.

Here is a closeup...

A little different angle...

It turned out looking quite a bit like my Callie. I will admit, though, that I really didn't start out trying to make it look like my girl. It just kind of happened. LOL I believe I showed this to you last year when I got the fusing done on it, but it wasn't a good picture.(Not that these are great pictures either.LOL) This pattern is from FatCat patterns. Sindy does an awesome job of creating patterns and most are free. Sorry I don't have her link, but just Goggle FatCat patterns and you will find them. Here is a picture of my Callie so you can compare.

As you can see, it is not exact, but pretty close. I love my baby.

Our son, Jon and his friend, Kim came to visit last Saturday. I'll share a couple of pictures of them in the next post. Thank you for visiting. Please come again and have a wonderful day.

Winona

Just relaxing

2011-06-10T21:19:00.000-05:00

Today was grocery day. I am always tired when I get home from fighting the traffic. The stores were crowded today. The roads were crowded today. Road construction caught me in a traffic jam. I was just glad to get home, unload, and get everything put away. LOL
There were so many big grain trucks on the road today. I finally figured out what was going on. We are expecting large floods here next week. I think these trucks were hauling from Cargill. Cargill is located in the flood plain. I also talked to Jonny. He said he has been advised that he might have to get out at a moments notice. He has all of his valuables gathered together. His apartment had 2 feet of water in it in 1993. They say it could happen again. I told him he could come here. I guess we will see what happens.

I did a little hand work tonight, but nothing much to show, so I thought I'd show you where I like to spend time in the shade when it is hot.

Carolyn's BIL made this for me. It is so comfortable to sit in. I sit out here and watch the hummingbirds. I tried to get a picture of one, but not sure how much he shows up.

Here are the flowers I received for Mother's Day. I seldom have any luck with flowers, but these are doing great on our porch steps. Can't forget to water them when you have to walk right past them every day. LOL

Aren't these pretty?

It is nice to sit in my chair, smell and see the flowers, and watch the hummingbirds. I don't do enough of it, but it does help to de-stress at the end of the day.

I don't think I shared a picture of our little cultivating tiller. We decided to get something to help us with the cultivating. We used to have a Mantis and knew that it was a good tiller. We had enough money saved to buy a cheap cultivator, but really wanted another Mantis. I came up with the idea of each of us adding some money to the pot and calling it my Mother's Day gift and Kevin's birthday gift. So here is our little tiller. I love it. We have already used it several times. This is a 4 cycle, so we don't have to mix oil with the gas. Much easier.

Not much else going on right now. I only got half my workout done tonight, so I think I will go work out some more. Both Jon and Hazel called. Talking to them is more important than a workout. (grin) Please keep all the people along the Missouri River in your prayers. When the Corps releases a record amount of water from the Gavin's Point Dam the flooding is supposed to be horrible. The flooding will be bad enough, but they are predicting the water to be high for a couple of months.

Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a wonderful weekend.

Winona

A Change of Plans

2011-06-09T12:19:00.000-05:00

I am doing the Henrietta Whiskers BOM (along with several others). I am enjoying this BOM and have learned lots from it. You can click on the little squirrel over in my right side bar to go to the site. I used Heat and Bond for the first time ever to fuse the pieces on to my background blocks. I had thought I would be able to do a hand blanket stitch around the edges. No way! That stuff is so hard to get a needle through. I knew that I would never finish these blocks if I did the hand stitch. So I machine appliqued around each piece. I usually use Wonder Under. I will go back to WU. It is much easier for me to work with. I have done a hand blanket stitch around pieces where I have used WU. I had no problems. One major thing that I learned is to cut out the center of the fusible on a large piece. Some of these blocks were so tough to do the embroidery, that I thought I was going to have to get my pliers out to pull the needle through. LOL So, a lesson learned. I will continue to use the Heat and Bond to finish this project. Don't want to switch in the middle, but then go back to my old faithful Wonder Under!
Here is block #1 of Henrietta Whiskers...

Block #2....

Block 3 is still being worked on. I have just a little bit of embroidery left on it.

Block #4

Block #5. This one is really stiff. I should have cut the centers out of the fusible.

I have block #6 printed off and hope to work on it this afternoon. I really love this BOM. I still need to add some button and a few embellishments to them.

I have also been working on my Chicken Heart wall quilt. I have the half square triangles done for the outer border, but decided to put them on last. At the moment I am attempting to do needle turn applique. Not sure how much I like this way. It is much faster to do machine applique. I am struggling along. I know the checked fabric doesn't look square, but this was a kit and I did the best I could to square it up.

I am also quilting on a pink baby quilt that I put together last fall from orphan blocks and scraps. I'm about a third done with this one.

I also have the current Birdie Stitches printed off. Just need to get it traced. LOL As you can see, I have definitely gotten my mojo back. I have so many projects floating around inside my head, that it makes me dizzy. LOL I hate to sleep because I could get so much more done if I didn't have to rest. (grin)

It has been terribly hot here, but we have a break in the heat today. We have already had a small storm with some rain. More predicted. The heat has made it unbearable to be outside in the afternoon. Kevin and I have been going out early to work in the garden. We now have everything planted and weeded. Of course, I know we will have to weed several more times, but we are caught up at this time. The yard...not so much. I got gas to mow and weed eat, but now it is rainy. I guess we will have some tall grass to mow next week.

I guess that is enough for today. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a wonderful day!

Winona

Retro Nine Patch

2011-06-03T11:08:00.000-05:00

I finished all the embroidery on the Retro Nine Patch blocks earlier in the week. The basket blocks were just posted to finish it, but I am thinking I may get on my EQ7 and come up with my own finishing blocks. I'll see what I can come up with. I took some pictures of the finished stitcheries, but some of them came out kind of blurry. Sorry. What can I say? Photography is not my thing. LOL

The next two blocks...

And the center block...

Now I need to figure out how I want to finish this one. I started on Chicken Hearted yesterday. I have the base put together, the half square triangles made, and all the applique pieces prepped. I hope to work on it in a bit.

I think I will work out first. Tomorrow is weigh-in day. Uggg! Not looking forward to that. I ate quite a bit of high calorie food last weekend. I guess I'll see if it decided to stay with me or not. LOL While picking up some of the 'not so good for me' food last weekend, I also found a little bit of fabric. I got these at Walmart. Our Walmart just went through a remodel. Oh my! How I hated going in there for a while, but I will have to say, it does look great now. I am starting to figure out where things are, so I don't hate going in there any more. (grin) Anyway, the two fabrics on the left were bought for skirts for me. Once I lose another 20 lbs, I plan to make them as a treat. (grin)

The brown is intended for a backing of a small quilt and the purple is just because I liked it. LOL
Then I saw these fat quarters and just had to have a few. I am thinking these would work good in an applique flower quilt.

I spread the fat quarters out so you could see the colors a little better.

Well, I guess that is it for me for today. It is still to wet to work in the garden, plus the heat and humidity has arrived. So I think I will go work out before it gets any hotter. Then I can play this afternoon. (grin) Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a great day.

Winona

A Walk Around the Garden!

2011-06-02T11:22:00.000-05:00

We ended up getting quite a bit of rain during the night, so the plan to work in the garden today is put on hold. That is ok, though, we still have plenty of time to get the sweet potatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, and muskmelon planted. Of course, with all this rain we have had, the yard needs mowed again. All in good time. (grin) Anyway, I walked down to the garden this morning and got some pictures. This is probably boring to some of you, but I kind of want to keep a record of it, so I'm posting pictures of our garden.
This is the whole garden from the top of the hill. Our garden is located in a field, so it is surrounded by tall grass and weeds. We have a push mower, self-propelled mower, and weed eater. No rider, so we have to pick the areas to keep mowed. No way can we keep up with the whole 5 acres. It is times like this that I miss my goats. They did a great job of keeping weeds under control.

That is where the old rider gave up the ghost. I guess Kevin leaves it there as a landmark. LOL We planted 18 tomato plants this year. I hope to be able to make some salsa, sauce, etc.

I planted little short rows of sweet corn so it would pollinate better. The rows run north and south. We usually have a south wind during the summer.

This is the first year I have planted okra. I don't even know how to fix it. I guess I need to do some research.

I planted 3 rows of green beans back in the last week of April. It was so cold that they never came up, or so I thought. I almost tilled them out, but look at them now.

These are the sweet peppers, eggplants, and the onions and potatoes behind them.

These are the best looking potatoes we have had in years. I planted 4 rows of Pontiac and one row of Yukon Gold.

Isn't this potato bloom pretty? As you can see, I already have them hilled.

This year we decided to plant some pole beans. Now Kevin needs to get a fence up beside them so they can grow up it.

I planted cabbage as an afterthought. Kevin thought it was too late for them, but they are looking good.

The last two pictures are of our spaghetti squash....

...and zucchini. I just planted 2 hills each of these. That should give us gobs.

Kevin broke some new ground for us this year, so we could increase the garden. With groceries going up each week, I look forward to when we can eat out of the garden. I hope you all enjoyed a tour of our garden. I will be posting some updates of it as it grows. Thanks for visiting and please come again. Everyone have a wonderful day.

Winona

A Couple of Wins!

2011-06-01T22:13:00.000-05:00

My blog reading, commenting, and posting has been pretty sporadic this year, to say the least. I have had the good luck to win a couple of great giveaways, though. First I won this Connecting Threads kit from Billie. It is called Audrey's Sewing Accessories Kit. I think this will really come in handy if I ever get the chance to make it. Thank you so much, Billie. It is great.

Here is the fabric for the kit.

Next I won this adorable little wall quilt kit from Paula. It is called Chicken Hearted. Isn't this just the cutest thing? I hope to start on it this week. I plan to do needle turn applique on it. I need the practice and this looks ideal for practice. Paula, I really love this little kit and can hardly wait to get started on it.

I have been doing some embroidery this week. I have all 5 of the Retro Nine Patch stitchery blocks done. I am now ready to begin block #6 of Birdie Stitches. In between working on BOM's I did these two little stitcheries. The first one is called Apples and Blossoms.

This is called Bless Our Home. I love this design so much that this is at least the 3rd one I have done. I plan to turn these into little mini quilts. I love taking stitcheries and adding scraps around them to create a little mini. (grin)

I have been waiting for storms to get here all evening. I believe they must have gone south of us. All we have had are a few sprinkles and a couple of thunder boomers. We had a nice rain yesterday morning, so we are ok on moisture. Our garden is looking great. I'll share some pictures of it soon. Well, it is getting late, so I need to get this posted. Thank you for visiting. Please have a great night.

Finally, the Grandbabies!

2011-05-27T10:49:00.000-05:00

I decided that I had better get these pictures posted before all the kids have changed again. (grin) These were taken on Easter. They are all growing up. Look at Madison, striding across the yard. Her hair is finally growing. Looks like she has some curls.

Ashton was digging in to the candy he found at the egg hunt. He is getting so tall and grown up.

Ava looking through her goodies. Notice Ava used her mom's Bow Tuck's bag that I made her for Christmas. Glad it is seeing some use. (grin)

Izabella and Noah decided to share Carolyn's chair. How cute are they?

Izzie's hair is growing out after the hair cut Noah gave her last spring. Her 3rd birthday was last week. Hard to believe that it was 3 years ago when we were so worried that we might lose her. She is perfectly healthy and growing fine now.

Speaking of health.... I had blood work done last week. All of my results turned out great. My cholesterol is borderline, but no where near me needing meds for it. My doctor was very pleased with my healthier life style. I have lost 17 pounds now. I eat healthy (with a few splurges now and again) and exercise 5 days a week. I take the weekends off, but try to get a good walk in at least once. I am starting to feel better. I told my doc that I have 3 great trainers....Richard Simmons, Leslie Sansone, and Jillian Michaels. LOL She thought they were doing a great job. (grin) I am still taking my meds, but hope to one day be able to get off them. If not, I am ok with that too. I just want to be healthy again, so I am working on it.

I have won a couple of giveaways in the past month. I will share about them next time. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Everyone have a wonderful Memorial weekend.

Happy Birthday Mom!

2011-05-26T19:24:00.000-05:00

I made a couple of gifts for mom, so I thought I'd post about them. Mom is as crazy about cats as I am, so I found the perfect fabric to make her an apron. This is Debbie Mumm fabric.

I think she will like it. Last week when I was visiting her, she asked if I could make her another toaster cover. My grandma made this one for her over 40 years ago. So I brought it home for a pattern. As you can see, it is about worn out.

If I ever make another toaster cover, I will come up with my own pattern. Ick! I did not like working with the bias tape and the curve at the top. I am so glad to get this done.

Here is a closeup of the front.

So happy birthday Mom! I hope you had a good one. Since I just talked to you, I know you did. LOL

I had planned to visit mom today, but she had other plans. I will go see her either tomorrow or Saturday. I also have to get my grocery list ready. I will need to shop Saturday. I haven't forgotten about posting pictures of the grandkids, but wanted to get mom's post in first.

My heart is breaking for all those affected by the tornadoes in our state. Please pray for these people and if you can help, I know they would really appreciate it.

Thanks for visiting. Please come again. Have a wonderful evening.

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T00:35:00.000-05:00

One of the best joys in my life has been becoming a mom. I love all five of our kids so much. Of course none of them are alike. Carolyn is our oldest, the leader, the boss. LOL She and Bob held our Easter celebration. They had an awesome BBQ and a fun egg hunt. Here she is hiding some eggs. We had so many that we had to start grouping them. LOL

Cathryn is our second child. She wanted to be a mom from the time she was a girl. She does a wonderful job with Ashton and Ava. She has one more year of college till she can teach elementary children. That has been a dream of hers for a long time. Here she is hiding eggs also. We had some small children present, so lots of eggs were hidden in plain sight on the lawn.

Isaiah is our middle child and first boy. He has quite a temper, but a good heart. He is such a good daddy to Madison. She clings to him at every get together.

Hazel loves her babes so much. She and I have developed a very close relationship since she has become a woman. She is quiet, hardworking, and always there for her family. Here she is looking for eggs with Izzie and Noah.

Jon is our baby, but has become such a good man. He has beautiful curly hair, but you can see what he does to it. Mama doesn't control the clippers any more. LOL

I took over a hundred pictures at Easter, but half of them are the backs of heads. If you ever need a picture of the back of your head, call me. I am the one to take it for you. LOL I didn't even find any pictures of Ivan. I guess he was hiding out. LOL I did catch Jeremy, just as he looked up.

Here are Bob and Jonny.

Here are some random pictures of the egg hunt.

In this final one, Ashton about flattened Carolyn's iris in hunt for some eggs. LOL

Next time I will share some pictures of the grandkids. I wanted to dedicate today's post to my own babies. LOL

I had a lovely day on Saturday. I drove down to Carolyn's town and we went garage saling. It was an awesome day, but the worst garage sales I have ever been to. I did not find one thing to buy. LOL That's ok. I got to spend time with our oldest. That was the fun. She even took me out for lunch. We both had chef salads, so I didn't even stray from my diet. (grin) Well, I need to get this posted. All of you mom's out there, have a wonderful Mother's Day. Thanks for visiting and please come again.

I Made It Back Again!

2011-05-04T17:48:00.000-05:00

Can you believe that I am here two days in a row? I have been on the computer more today. It is sunny and warm outside but the wind is really blowing. I am glad I got a lot of outside work done yesterday. I had planned to do some mowing today, but mowing is miserable when the wind is blowing this strong.

I have been working on my BOM's. I am caught up with the Retro Nine Patch and ready to start this month's Birdie Stitches. I am just waiting to drag out my light box till tomorrow when the next Henrietta Whiskers should be available. I kept putting off working on the HW because I couldn't decide how I wanted to do the applique. I finally decided to fuse it on instead of doing needle turn. (I'm just not very good at needle turn.) Then I put off stitching around the pieces because I couldn't decide whether to do machine or hand blanket stitch. I decided today to do hand blanket stitch. So with the wind blowing so hard, it gave me an excuse to stay in and work on a project. I have the first 4 blocks put together and the appliques fused on. I am working on the first block today. Here it is.

I have the stems done. I'm just starting on the blanket stitch. I hope to get this block done today. I can hardly wait for the next block to be given. I love this BOM. It has a squirrel, birds, pumpkins, leaves.... all things I love. (grin)

Last fall I started on a little wall quilt for one of my nieces. I never did get it finished. So a couple of weeks ago I drug it back out and got 'er done. Now I will be ready for my niece's birthday this fall. (grin) This is all machine done except the binding. It was really quick to do, so I don't know what the hesitation was. LOL

Another view...

I know this is short, but I have decided that short is better than none. I am off now to do my exercises. My coaches are Leslie Sansone, Richard Simmons, and Jillian Michaels. LOL I have some good ones, huh? LOL Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a great day.

Spring Flowers and Time for Tea Finished!

2011-05-03T15:08:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone. I took an extended break from my blog. I have been dealing with some health issues and just needed to concentrate on that. I haven't even done a lot of quilting. I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago and things are looking better. I did not want to go on any medications, but just could not get my blood pressure down. I am now taking a BP pill once a day and 2 diabetes pills daily. I am doing better, but still have a ways to go. I go back to the doctor in a couple of weeks for a complete blood workup. I am hoping my healthy eating and exercising for the past couple of months will help with the results. I have also lost about 13 lbs. I'm just taking things one day at a time. Well, enough of that.

I did manage to get a couple of projects completed. First I finished the Spring Flowers table topper. I think it turned out pretty good and was made completely from scraps. (Most sent to me from Cyndi.)

Here is a closeup of one of the flowers.

The back is pieced from some scraps too.

I also finished the little Time for Tea mini quilt. I had lots of fun with this one.

A closeup of the center....

The back....

I have been working on my BOM's too, but I will share them with you later. (grin) Now that I am feeling better, I hope to get back to blogging regularly.

I have also been working in the yard and the garden. We have 5 rows of potatoes and a row of onions all looking very good. They like the cold wet spring we have been having. This past weekend I planted 8 cabbage plants. They looked good this morning when I checked on them. I got the whole garden hoed earlier. I also have 3 rows of green beans planted, but not up yet. I have my tomato, eggplant, and pepper plants, but decided to wait to plant them. We had frost warnings out for the past couple of nights. I am hoping to get them planted this weekend.

I put this Thimbleberries mini quilt together very quickly. I will quilt it when I can get it sandwiched.

One final view of it....

I always seem to come back to fall colors and patterns. (grin) That is all for me today. I will try to start posting a few times a week again. (That is if I can come up with something to post about.LOL) I have lots of updated pictures of the grandkids to share too. We all got together at Carolyn's and Bob's on Easter for a BBQ. It was really good. I even followed my diet. (grin) Thanks for visiting. Have a wonderful day.

Kevin has kept me busy!

2011-03-11T23:05:00.000-06:00

He bought himself a Kindle last weekend. He has been trying to get me to get one, but I love books. Not sure I would really enjoy another electronic gadget. So he got one and had me try it out. I think he finally understands that I really don't want one, at least not now. (grin) He has been using it and really loves it. I have never seen him so interested in reading. LOL I love it when he finds something he really enjoys. Anyway, he got a Kindle then asked me to make him a case for it. They want $40 for a case. I used some canvas like fabric for the outside and flannel for the inside lining. I wanted it to be tough, yet soft on the inside so as not to scratch the screen. I used an 1/8 inch thick foam in place of batting. Oh goodness, this was rough sewing. I thought it was the foam causing all the problems, but Kevin pointed out that it more than likely was the canvas like fabric (It might have been called duck cloth. I just can't remember). I think it turned out pretty good and Kevin loves it. This is the front.

I put a pocket on the back to hold the cord.

Here is a not so good picture of the inside.

I was glad to get this done. As soon as this one was finished he asked me to make a case for his GPS. I'll share pictures of it next time. It is getting late and I want to turn in pretty soon. I have an appointment to get the oil changed in my car in the morning.

I also wanted to ask everyone to please pray for the people of Japan. They are going through a horrible time right now. Also I having been thinking about a commenter on my blog named Julie Fukuda. If anyone has heard from Julie since this earthquake and tsunami please comment here. Julie lives in Japan.

About a year ago, I used to read a blog from a quilter in Japan named Tanya. She posted lots of interesting things about Japan. She was married, had a son and daughter (I think they were in the States), had several cats and a dog. I lost her blog address when I switched to my laptop about a year ago. If anyone knows the lady I am talking about and her blog address, I would sure appreciate if you commented on it or emailed it to me. I sure enjoyed reading her blog.

That is all for tonight. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Everyone have a wonderful weekend.

March is here!

2011-03-09T18:35:00.000-06:00

I love March. It means spring is about here, and also is my birth month. I had a birthday on March 2nd. I read where another lady said she was going to go backward from year 40 on. Hmmm....that would make me about 27. LOL I guess it doesn't work when you have at least 2 kids that are older than that. LOL Anyway, I had planned to do a blog post on that day, but I had so many phone calls, that I never could get to it. I have been busy ever since. I have several blog posts lined up for the next week or so talking about what I have been doing. Nothing spectacular, but busy none the less. As I said, I talked on the phone most of my birthday. I heard from mom, MIL, my brothers and our 5 kids. It kept me busy answering the phone. (grin) I made a little trip to town that morning and bought myself this little 5 inch cake and some ice cream. I am still a child at heart. LOL I have to have a cake and ice cream for my birthday! No point in making a whole cake for just the two of us, though, so this little one was just the right size to share.

My sweet hubby brought me a Pepsi and a Hershey bar. He gets home about 1 a.m., so I put them up till the next day. He had to work, but we celebrated before he left. He also gave me some money to spend on something when I find something I want. (grin)

I have such awesome friends. I will talk about my gifts in the order I received them. First I received these beautiful fat quarters from Joann. She said they were to help brighten my days till spring gets here. At the time I received them, we still had snow on the ground. Thank you, Joann. I love them. I've been looking through my books to come up with a pattern to make them up in.

Then I received these awesome homemade bars of soap from Bren. I have been using the oatmeal spice soap and my face feels so soft and silky. I love it. Click on the Spiced Cakes button to the right to go check out all of Bren's homemade soap and some other things too. I also got this pretty dish cloth too. I am pretty sure this was made by Charlotte, Bren's daughter. She does a beautiful job of crocheting. Thank you so much, Bren. I'll think of you every time I wash my face. (grin) Please thank Charlotte for me too.

Next to arrive was this marvelous package from my friend, Teresa. She doesn't have a blog, but reads mine and many others. I have wanted the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt book ever since I saw the author on Sewing with Nancy. I love history. This book has letters from farmwives during the 1920's. It also has the the patterns for 111 six inch blocks. This will take some time, but I plan to make each of these blocks. I am sure they will make more than one quilt, because I don't really want to work with a huge quilt.

The book even has a CD with all the templates in it.

Teresa also included 1/2 yard of red fabric for me to use with some of my redwork, some patterns, and those little tins have Guttermann threads in them. Thank you Teresa. You know what I love. Looking forward to getting started on the Farmer's Wife blocks.

Here is a closeup of the Farmer's Wife.

Then I received this absolutely gorgeous tote bag and matching wallet from Cyndi. Oh goodess, her sewing is so good. She picked this fabric out especially for me. Just my kind of colors. I know these were made with love in them. Cyndi has been down with a bad knee, but she managed to make this for me anyway. How sweet is that! I already have all my things moved over into them. I can hardly wait to go somewhere so I can show them off.

I have pockets inside and lots of extra room for all my stuff. (Notice I refrained from calling my stuff junk. LOL)

Look at this wallet.

The inside has a place for bills, a place where I am keeping all the grandbabies' pictures, card slots, and a zippered section. I love it.

Isn't this just a wonderful gift? Thank you, so much, Cyndi. You did a wonderful job of picking fabric and your sewing skills are outstanding. Also thanks for the gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop. I had fun picking out some goodies. Here is one more picture of my bag. I am not a terrific photographer, but you can see how pretty it is. It also has deep outside pockets on both sides. So I can carry lots of stuff! LOL

Now I tell you, aren't these some wonderful gifts? Life is good when you have God, your family, and awesome friends. You all are very dear to me. Thank you again from the bottom of my heart!

I have been busy this week working on a few things for Kevin. I will share about them in another post because I already have 12 pictures in this one. Don't know if there is a limit, but I am sure I am about there if there is. (grin) We have had some dreary days this week. We have had rain, snow, sleet, rain, snow, and now a drizzle with lots of wind. Also had some thunder and lightning thrown in there. LOL Just normal spring weather for Missouri. As soon as the mud dries this time, we can plant some of our hardy plants. I already purchased the seed potatoes and onion sets. We didn't plant any onions or potatoes last year and I really missed them. So I have a little over 10 lbs of Pontiac potatoes and about 3 lbs of Yukon Gold potatoes. These are my favorite 2 kinds. We usually just plant yellow onions because the others just don't keep well for us.

Well, I guess I should get this posted. I have been rather long winded. LOL Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a great day!

Not Much Going on Here

2011-02-26T13:33:00.000-06:00

I just haven't had much to blog about this month. I think if spring ever gets here, that will change. (grin) I plan to have a nice sized garden this year. With the prices of groceries, we need to. We had another snow storm on Thursday. Quite a bummer. All of our snow had melted and the ground was even dry. We were enjoying being outside, but winter decided it wasn't through just yet. We got about 7 inches of snow with strong north winds. It was a very wet snow, so I didn't think it would drift, but I was wrong. Kevin could not even get home Thursday night. He tried, but had to turn around once he hit our blacktop. He was able to make it home last night, but was so tired. He ate supper and went to bed. I don't think he moved a muscle all night. LOL In fact, he is taking a nap right now. He is still tired. Driving on these slick and drifted roads is stressful.

I decided a few weeks ago to make Friday nights homemade pizza night. I have come up with my own recipe for whole wheat pizza dough. I make up 2 pizzas and usually have enough for dinner on Saturday. Kevin likes hot peppers on his and I don't. So Kevin's is always to the right. LOL This is his pizza.

This is mine.

We do enjoy our pizza. While I was typing this, our mailman knocked on the door. He had a package for me. My birthday is next Wed. I ordered myself an early birthday present. I ordered this laptop quilting frame from Barnett's Laptop Hoops. I have not used it yet of course, but hope to tonight. I will post about how I like it later. I will say that Harry Barnett is a nice man to do business with. I emailed him to ask about this hoop and he got right back to me, answered all my questions, and said if I was interested he would get it in the mail the next day. So how could I refuse. (grin) This is a 12 inch frame. I have always used 14 inch frames, but my arms are really short and I have to struggle to reach the far side. So I measured from the inside of my elbow to the second joint in my middle finger. Exactly 12 inches. So that is what I ordered. I snapped a couple of pictures of it as soon as I got it out of the box.

I had to fold up the box, because Buddy was having a heyday with the foam peanuts. LOL

I am anxious to try out my new toy. (grin) Like I said I will do a post about it after I have used it a bit. If you are interested in anything like this, just google Barnett Laptop Hoops. I will try to get the site to post later too. Harry has lots of different type hoops to choose from. He makes them himself. I guess that is it for me. Thank you for visiting. Please come again and have a wonderful day.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T17:37:00.000-06:00

I had decided that I would not post today, but after reading everyone's Valentine's Day posts, it got me in the mood. (grin) Kevin and I are not big on this day, but I did sneak a Snickers bar wrapped with a love note in his lunch this morning. LOL He has to work late tonight, so I will spend the evening with Buddy, Callie, and Aeris in front of the tv with some quilting in my lap. (grin) Not a bad evening, but it would be better with my honey here.

Last night I finished block #2 of Birdie Stitches. I am really enjoying this BOM.

I added the buttons of all the BOM's that I am working on right now. They are Raggedy and Friends, Birdie Stitches, Retro Nine Patch, Things We Love, and Henrietta Whiskers. I am also working on Home Sweet Home BOM, but Paula doesn't have her button ready yet. I really have to quit finding these BOM's . LOL I am really enjoying them, though. Now to just keep all caught up with them. (grin)

We had a nice weekend. Our temps were in the 50's and lots of snow melted. Of course, now we are ankle deep in mud, but the wind will dry it. I got our bedding all washed, even the comforter and quilt. I left the quilt off the bed since it is getting warmer. We ate Subway subs. Kevin put some gravel down to make us paths where we need to go every day. Makes it much easier to get around. I cut Kevin's hair and made a loaf of whole wheat bread. Kevin made beef jerky. He says it is good. He used our dehydrator. It is an Open Country dehydrator that we bought at Cabela's last year. Sure works good.

Our house smelled so good yesterday. Made my mouth water.

I think he had five trays. Here he had already scooted them over to the side to dump them out to cool. Then he used our sealer to package them.

He plans to take them in his lunch. He can eat a few during breaks.

He has a jerky making gadget, but I forgot to get a picture of it.

I guess that is it for me today. I am off to do some quilting. Thanks for visiting. Please come again.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!!

Time for Tea!

2011-02-13T13:07:00.000-06:00

It is absolutely beautiful here today. We are going to have a high in the 50's with a stiff southern wind. I am not even complaining about the wind because we need it to get rid of this snow. (grin) I have been just sitting outside soaking up the sunshine. Buddy has been out most of the morning. Callie and Aeris even stepped out on the steps to check things out. LOL I could live with this kind of weather for the rest of Feb., but I know I am dreaming. It will get cold again. Probably even snow some more before spring is here. But it is getting closer!

I made this little mini quilt last week. I did the embroidery one day and made the little quilt the next. I just love it. The embroidery is another Sandi design, I think, but I changed it up some. The bricks around the center came from some pink charms that Nola sent me. The outer border and backing are from scraps sent to me by Cyndi. This is another little design that I prepped over a year ago. When I took it out of the bin, it just screamed 'PINK' to me. LOL So I did it in pink.

Cyndi.

Here is a closeup of the center.

Since we were talking about using fleece on the backs last week, I'll include a picture of the back.

I told you all that I start with a knot at the end of my floss, but didn't explain how I end. Paula asked me about that. I don't know if my way is correct or not, but this is what I do. I turn the piece over with the wrong side facing up. Then I whip stitch about 3 times around an existing line of stitches.. This is where the fleece helps to hold everything steady and kind of hides the ending. The floss ends up buried in the fleece. I also whip stitch around the back threads when I need to skip over to another area, if it isn't more than an inch of so. More than an inch, I end and begin again in the new area. I hope this explanation helps. It is hard to put in words what I am physically doing. Paula, if you need any more help, I will try to take some pictures to explain things better. OK? (grin)

This will be the backing. Isn't this fabric just perfect for a pink tea time? I love roses and pink.

I am working on block 2 of Birdie Stitches. I am about half done with it. I also found another BOM to do. This one is called Home Sweet Home by Paula Stoddard. I think this is the year of the BOM for me. LOL I counted and I have 6 BOM printed off. Five of them include stitcheries. I have really developed a love for embroidery. I will try to find all the addresses to these BOM's and post them next time. By the way, just in case someone doesn't know what BOM stands for, it is block of the month.

Only one more thing to do before closing.... Happy Birthday Cyndi! I hope you are having a good one.

Thanks for visiting. Please come again.

A Little Embroidery Change

2011-02-09T17:44:00.000-06:00

We ended up getting about an inch of snow from the storm that was supposed to miss us, but at least it is up to 16* today. (grin) Still calling for a nice weekend. I am looking forward to that.

Last night, I dug through my tote bin that has prepped embroidery blocks ready to do. I found this snowman and snowlady block and decided it would be nice to do this week since Valentine's Day is so close. I wanted to do it a little differently, though. So I did it in black instead of red. I also used Perle cotton #8. What do you think?

I think I got this pattern from Sandi. I printed it off and prepped it over a year ago, so can't really be sure. That hat on the lady took quite a while. LOL

Yesterday, Pat asked how I use fleece in my embroidery. I don't use the fusible, just plain fleece. I cut a piece of fleece the same size as my embroidery piece. Then I pin it to the back of the project and embroider through it. It keeps the thread from showing through to the front. Here is another project with the fleece fastened to the back of it.

Here is the fleece on the back.

This is the back of the snowman and snowlady.

You can see where I carried the floss over in places. The fleece helps to hide that, plus it makes it easier to end when you need to rethread. I use a knot at the end of my floss when I start a new thread. It may not be the correct way to do it, but that is the way I do it. Sometimes I use scrap batting on the back of my embroidery instead of fleece. I kind of use whatever I have. I always use something on the back of embroidery, though. It is just easier for me. Here are my basic embroidery tools.

My little dog, Buddy found my Thread Heaven and kind of did a number on the lid. LOL I had just opened a new one, so was glad I heard him chewing on something and went to investigate. (grin) I always use Thread Heaven to run my floss through, and also my thread when I am hand quilting, I love this stuff. I have five different reds that I like for doing redwork. I need to decide which one I like best and just stick with it. LOL I use DMC #304, #398, #321, #815, and #115. I will show you tomorrow what a downer it is to use so many different kinds. LOL Let's just say a booboo can occur when you pick up a project that you have not worked on in a while and can't remember which color you were using. LOL

I hope I explained all this to where you can understand it. I have only been doing redwork for the past couple of years. I did counted cross stitch for many years, but never any other kind of embroidery. This seems to be my year of embroidery. I am loving it. It is so relaxing for me. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a great evening.

It's Frigid Here!

2011-02-08T17:30:00.000-06:00

It is 3* right now after a high of 5*. The wind just cuts through you. I am so ready for spring to get here. We only got between 6 and 7 inches of snow last Tuesday. We couldn't tell how much because the wind was blowing it around so much. Our road was really drifted shut from Tuesday morning till Thursday evening. I am glad Kevin took some vacation days. We sat here watching movies and piddling on our laptops. Kevin bought us a kerosene heater in case we lost power. Fortunately we did not lose power. They are getting snow south of us right now. The weather people say it is going to miss us. Hope they are right.

I have been doing a little bit of hand quilting on my spring table topper. I have all the center blocks done and am working on the second flower. I decided to just echo quilt it.

I also have the 1st block of the Little Birdie BOM done. I want to get started on the second block, but my feet get cold when it is this frigid when I sew. So I am waiting till the weekend when it is supposed to be in the upper 40's or even the 50's. (grin) I had lots of fun sewing this. I used 3 strands of DMC floss for it and like the way it turned out.

I am caught up with the redwork parts of the Raggedy BOM. Just need to get the blocks together. Again, waiting on the floor to get a little warmer. I printed off the next block of Henrietta Whiskers. I still need to do the first block. I wanted to do it with needle turn applique, but may just do the fusible and machine applique. At least then, it would probably get done. LOL I have also been reading quite a bit. I have read 4 books by Barbara Delinsky in the past 10 days. I just love her books. I am putting my library card to good use. LOL Can you believe that I went to JoAnn's last weekend and couldn't find anything to buy? I really don't need any more fabric. They were out of the batting I like. So I ended up buying some lightweight fleece to use behind my embroidery. I bought 2 yards and used a 50% off coupon. It ended up costing just over $5. I didn't figure that was too bad.

Well, I want to get back to quilting, or embroidering, or reading. (grin) You know, the standard winter hobbies for cold days. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Everyone have a great day.

Back in the quilting mood!

2011-01-31T12:08:00.000-06:00

I have not posted in a while, cause I didn't really have much to post about. (grin) I have been in a slump. Not doing any quilting. We have had lots of snow, but I figured you all didn't want to see pictures of snow every day. LOL I have done lots of redwork this month. I am almost caught up with the redwork blocks of my Raggedy BOM. Then I can get the blocks together. I have the first Little Birdie block prepped and ready to embroider. I have the fabric picked out for Henrietta Whiskers. Now to just get with it. (grin)

I took a box of scraps that Cyndi sent me and made a table topper from a pattern in a magazine that Teresa sent me. I made almost the whole thing from this box. I think maybe a couple of the fabrics were from stash I already had. I am trying to break out of my comfort zone. I mostly do Thimbleberries patterns with dark, country fabrics. Sometimes, though, you just want to have something bright and colorful around you. With the amount of snow we have had this winter, I think I need bright and colorful! (grin) Anyway, this is what I came up with last week.

As you can see, I threw lots of different colors together. Some I wouldn't normally even consider, but it was a case of anything goes. I think it works ok. I like it. Here is another view.

I fused the flowers on, then machine appliqued them. I had lots of fun. Before I got the flowers fused on, I spread it out on the bed to look at. I forgot about it. Then I went to the door and let Buddy in. The snow was melting so we had lots of mud. Yep, my little darling jumped right in the middle of my topper with muddy paws. I can laugh about it now, but I was so upset at the time. I think I finally got the muddy prints out. If not, then they will just have to stay. LOL I yelled at Buddy, but then hugged him and told him I was sorry. He had no idea something was on the bed that he wasn't supposed to jump on. LOL Here is a closeup of one of the flowers.

As I said, I even made the backing from scraps in this box. I now have it sandwiched and ready to hand quilt.

Thanks again Cyndi and Teresa!

We are getting hammered with yet another winter storm. This morning was really nasty. We had freezing drizzle. It took Kevin over 2 hours to get to work. I-29 was closed about 5 miles from our house, so he had to cut across country to get to work. He said 2 cars slid off the road in front of him and his car turned around in the road. He did make it, but it was a scary ride. It is still freezing drizzle here, so I hope he can make it home safely tonight. This isn't even our winter storm. It is supposed to start tonight and continue through to Wednesday. We are supposed to have 8-10 inches of snow with strong winds. That means we will be drifted in here for a while. Kevin is taking a few days of vacation. He hates to waste his vacation, but experience tells us, he will not be able to get to work for at least a couple of days after today. The news said this morning, that this storm has the potential of being the worst our area has seen in 50 years. I am just so sick of snow. Now I am hoping we do not lose power.

Anyway, maybe I will get back to posting if I can just keep up with my projects. (grin) Everyone have a good day. Thanks for visiting. Please come again.

Happy Birthday Hazel!

2011-01-19T16:32:00.000-06:00

Our snow storm has started. It is coming down pretty heavy. We are north of Kansas City, so not getting it as bad as they are. I just hope Kevin can make it home safely. The worst part of the storm is supposed to be during rush hour. Pretty bad timing. Most schools will probably be closed tomorrow. I just hope the wind does not get up. I have all my outside work done. I have spent the day watching tv and doing some embroidery. I am working on Bunny Hill's A Tisket a Tasket from 2 years ago. LOL I am doing it in redwork. Better late than never. I am on block #11. Only one more left to do. I thought I only had one more Raggedy block to do to be caught up. Hmmm.... I have 2 more blocks to do, then another one is do out tomorrow. Oh well. I will eventually get caught up.

Today is Hazel's 24th birthday! Happy birthday darling. I hope you have a good one. Wish I was down there. I'd make you a cake. Your dad and I love you, honey.

I figured I'd throw in a couple of pictures of Callie and Aeris, since I haven't posted many pictures of them lately. Aeris has decided she likes it behind my sewing machine. She is more of a pain than Callie. She likes to swat at things, so I have to make her get down when I want to sew. LOL

Now Callie wants to curl up next to my laptop on top of some scraps, of course. LOL

A good friend sent me this Thimbleberries calendar for Christmas. It has a gorgeous different block for each month. I love it. She knew I loved Thimbleberries. (grin)

Well, I guess that is all for me tonight. I must go look out the window and see how hard it is snowing. I just watched the weather in Kansas City. It is not a pretty sight down there. Everyone have a safe and warm evening. Thank you for visiting. Please come again.

Happy Birthday Ava!

2011-01-17T09:44:00.000-06:00

It is already up to 35*. It is feeling like a heat wave. LOL Of course with the warmer temps comes a strong wind. Should melt a lot of this snow. We had a nice quiet weekend. We watched some movies. I baked bread, did laundry, cooked some hamburger to use in dishes this week and made a pot of ham and beans. Kevin sliced the bread for me and then sliced a ham I had picked up. He decided my knives were dull, so he sharpened them. That was our whole weekend. LOL I think Kevin caught up on his rest. (grin)

Today is our sweet Ava Beth's birthday. Our little darling is 5 years old. Doesn't seem possible she could be 5 already.

Here she is picking on her grandpa.

We love our little curly headed doll.

Happy Birthday sweet Ava! Grandpa and I hope you have a wonderful day! We love you so much.

I am slowly getting back into the quilting groove. (grin) I cut out a bunch of 2 1/2 inch squares for the Birdie BOM on Friday. I also finished up all the redwork on the Raggedy BOM that I had traced on fabric. In a bit I plan to get my light box out and trace some more blocks to embroider. I am having a good time with embroidery this month. I go in spurts. Next month, I might be back to piecing. LOL

I guess that is it for me today. Just wanted to wish our girl a happy birthday. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Everyone have a wonderful day.

Some small projects

2011-01-13T10:32:00.000-06:00

I know I am sounding like a broken record, but it was really cold here this morning. We had -6* when we got up, but it is up to 10* now. Of course the wind is getting up so it feels like -2* outside. Supposed to be in the 20's today. I guess we will see. I am about to run out of pictures to share, so I guess I need to get back to quilting. LOL I thought I would share the wall quilts I gave as gifts this year. A couple of them have probably been shared before. Sorry. The first two are Thimbleberries, but I don't remember their names and I'm feeling too lazy to look them up right now. (grin) I love the star above the pine trees in this one.

This one can be hung all winter, not just for Christmas.

I decided to take some of my redwork pieces and create little wall quilts with them.

When I create little wall quilts around my redwork, I like to make them very simple. That way it kind of makes the redwork show up better.

I did not do a good job of taking pictures of my projects this season. I neglected to get any pictures of the backs and completely forgot to take a picture of mom's table topper or the grandkids' completed gowns/pj's. Oh well, maybe I will do better next year. I made night gowns for Izabella and Ava from these fabrics. The pink was Ava's and the bluish Izzie's. I did not have Madison's measurements, so I bought her a pair.

I used this pattern for both the girls and boys, just different sizes. It was quick and easy.

This is what I used for Noah and Ashton's pj's. Noah had the salamanders and Ashton the dinosaurs.

I believe that is all for today. I need to get my housework done up. Thank you for visiting. Please come again.

Grandma Brag Post!

2011-01-12T16:01:00.000-06:00

Boy! It's cold out today! It was 0* with a windchill of -15* when we got up this morning. It is up to 12* now, but since that was to be our high, I imagine it will start cooling down now. I am thankful that the grader went through our gravel road this morning. Poor Kevin had to walk in the last mile on our gravel road last night, then back out this morning. He will be relieved to drive all the way home tonight.

I am still not into the quilting mood, but I'm getting there. I have been trying to catch up on the embroidery of my Raggedy BOM. I just have 1 1/2 blocks to go and I'll be caught up. Yea! I have also found 2 more BOM that interest me. One is Henrietta Whiskers from Bunny Hill and the other is something about a little bird, but I can't remember right off hand who is providing it. I have it saved, though. So on to more of my Christmas pictures. Today I'll share some pictures of our grandkids.

Here is Madison. I had not seen her in several months. She is getting hair now and is walking. I love her big blue eyes. She is daddy's girl.

Izabella looked like a doll in this cute little dress and her hair all fixed up.

She was sitting on Uncle Isaiah's lap. Look at the look she is giving him. LOL

Ava loved playing with Buddy.

Noah all cleaned up and ready for Christmas morning.

Santa brought him a remote control car. He could hardly wait to go out and try it. Here he is with his sister and uncles, Isaiah and Jon.

Ashton took time out from playing with one of his gifts to grin for Grandma.

Here are a couple of pictures of everyone opening gifts.

Well, I do believe that is enough pictures of the grandbabies. I guess you can kind of see that I am crazy about these kids. (grin) I will leave you here. The next time, I will post a few pictures of some of the small wall quilts I gave for Christmas gifts. Everyone stay warm and safe. Thank you for visiting. Please come again.

It's Snowing Outside!

2011-01-10T18:49:00.000-06:00

We are getting our first major snow storm of the year. By this time last year, we had already had 3 blizzards. So I am thankful that the weather has been kinder to us this year. It has been snowing here since some time during the night. Still snowing and supposed to for a few more hours. Kind of unusual to have a 24 or so hour snow. We are lucky in that most of it was fine. Those big flakes did fall, but didn't last long. I went out to measure the snow about 1 p.m. I used one of my quilting rulers. As you can see, we had just under 6 inches then. We've probably had another inch or two since.

Buddy is loving the snow. Here he was out in the road (where he is not supposed to be, by the way), standing in a track left from a truck. He played outside for quite a while this afternoon. It was about 29* and no wind, so it wasn't too bad. When he came in, he was caked with snow. It took a couple of hours for him to thaw out. Then he wanted to go back outside. Hmmm, I don't think so, Buddy. I put one of his potty pads down for him. Now he acts all insulted. LOL

The snow is bad enough, but that isn't the real problem. The temps are supposed to drop and the wind get up. We live on an east/west gravel road. When the wind blows from the north after a snowstorm, we get drifted in. I am not looking forward to that at all. It means a lot of walking for Kevin. I hope the wind holds off till later in the day tomorrow. I know I should not complain. I feel for the people of the south. At least we have the equitment to take care of snow removal. Not much I can do about it. After all, it is winter in Missouri. (grin)

I'll add a few pictures of our Christmas. This is Isaiah, our oldest son, middle child, holding his daughter, Madison. This was at mom's party.

Here he is showing Noah how to play the guitar he gave him for Christmas.

Jon is just like his dad and just a pain to get a picture of. Here is what I usually get from him.

This is the best I could get.

I believe he had to shave that hair off his chin for his job. Isn't that a shame! NOT! LOL Jon has beautiful curly hair, very similar to Ava's, but he refuses to let it grow long enough to curl. I miss the days when he was a little boy and had to do what his mama said. LOL

I thought I would also throw in a picture of mom holding her newest great-granddaughter. This is Savannah Marie, my brother, Larry's granddaughter. She was 5 days old in this picture and cute as a button.

Ok, I caught Kevin without him knowing. Don't tell him, ok. This is Kevin and Ivan watching tv.

Well, that is it for today. I hope to be back tomorrow with some pictures of the grandkids. Everyone have a good evening. If you are in a winter storm, please stay safe and warm. Thank you for visiting. Please come again.

What I made the daughters.

2011-01-06T17:00:00.000-06:00

I decided that I'd better get a post in today, because no way I will have time tomorrow. I have to go to the bank, get groceries, run errands, and make a visit to mom's. I am sure it will be a long day, so today I am taking it easy and piddling on the computer. (grin) Thank you for all the welcome backs. I appreciate it. I decided that since I showed the SIL's yesterday, I'd show the daughters today.

I decided to make each of them a Bow Tucks bag. I also gave them each a table runner/topper and a crocheted dish rag. I will start out with Carolyn's stuff. She loves things from the southwest, so when I found this fabric in Hobby Lobby, I just had to get it for her.

I am showing you the fabric too, because my picture of the bow tucks bag didn't turn out real good. I think this is just beautiful fabric. Thankfully, so did Carolyn. She said everyone who sees it wants one. LOL Here is her bag. I forgot to take pictures of the girls with their gifts, but I do have pictures of them. (grin)

I made this table topper a couple of years ago. She saw it once and commented on how she liked it. It is also a southwest charm pack, but I have no idea which one it was, now.

Here is our darling oldest daughter, Carolyn.

Now on to daughter #2, Cathryn. She, like her husband, Jeremy, was the one I was most concerned about pleasing. I knew she loved green, so I made a green bow tucks bag. I was talking to her about a week before Christmas. We were talking about colors we like. She said, 'Mom I really like green and beige. Pink is a color that I don't care for. I am not a pink type person.' Hmmm.... Here is what I had made for her.

LOL You think that would be too much pink for her? LOL I took this bag for myself. It just so happens that I had already made a beige and black bag. So that is what she got.

The main colors in her house are dark greens, browns, and burgundies with beige and black thrown in. So this is the table runner I made for her.

I think she really loved both gifts. She said the beige and black bag was perfect and really loved the table runner. Here is our darling 2nd daughter, Cathryn.

Next up we have Hazel. She is our 3rd daughter, but 4th child. I think she has a little of each of her two older sisters in her. LOL She and her husband, Ivan, hosted the family get together. Hazel likes blue and tigers. I could not find any blue fabric with tigers on it, but I did find some with cougars on it. Here is the fabric I found for her bag.

I even fussy cut the front pocket on Haze's.

The table runner I gave to Haze held a special memory for me. Last winter when I stayed with Izabella and Noah for 2 months, this was the first project I worked on while there. Izzie was a little leary of me at first, but she couldn't resist coming up and running her little fingers over the hand quilting. Then she would look up at me with this shy and sweet little grin. It just melted my heart. She has her mama's smile. Anyway, this one just had to go to Hazel.

Finally, here is darling daughter #3, Hazel.

I think all three girls were pleased with their gifts. It makes my heart warm when I give them something that they appreciate. I hated it that I didn't have time to make anything for our sons this year. Maybe next. I did bake them each a goody box. I will share some more pictures later, probably on Saturday. Thanks for visiting. Please come again. Everyone have a great day.

I'm Back!

2011-01-05T18:33:00.000-06:00

It seems like it has been forever since I posted on my blog. Well, it has been a while, about 6 weeks, I think. December was just crazy. Then Kevin and I both came down with a virus the day after Christmas. We are just now getting back on our feet. So this will probably be a long post. Just warning you. (grin) I have lots and lots of pictures to share, but I will stretch them out over the next few weeks. I kind of use my blog to keep track of things too, so I will be posting lots of pictures of my family. The grandkids are all getting so big! Now where to start? I know....

I DID IT! I finished all three of the SIL's quilts! I was so relieved to get them finished. I really became kind of overwhelmed in the last few weeks before Christmas. I finished hand quilting Ivan's quilt at 7 p.m. on Dec. 22nd. I sewed the binding on all of them by machine. Jeremy's I turned over and hand finished. It took me so long, that Kevin insisted I finish the other two with my machine. I am glad I did. It cut off hours of work for me. I have a favor to ask you all. If I ever come up with another harebrained idea, like completely making and hand quilting 3 twin size quilts again in a 5 month period, please come thump me up side the head! LOL It wouldn't have been so bad, but I couldn't seem to start on one and stick with it. I like to have several projects at a time going. Keeps me from getting bored. I finished Bob's quilt at the end of October. I really love the way this one turned out. I think it is my favorite.

I am sorry, I guess I didn't get any closeups of the quilting and none of the backs. I told you I was overwhelmed. LOL I am going to jump around with my pictures a little bit. Sure won't be posted in the order taken, but that is ok. Here is Bob holding it up on Christmas morning. He really loved it.

Next we have Jeremy's quilt. I started hand quilting it on Nov. 1st and finished it on the 30th. I did mostly simple, straight line quilting on it. I think it is Callie's favorite, since it is the only one she got on while I was trying to take pictures of them. (grin)

I was so bummed. I was sitting watching tv with Kevin while I quilted on the last border. I snipped my thread and cut a little hole in the red fabric. I gasped and almost cried. Kevin calmed me down as usual and said , "You'll think of something." I did. I matched the red up to some embroidery floss perfectly. I did a satin stitch over the hole and batting. It is very hard to see. I showed it to Jeremy and we had a hard time finding it. I finally did by feel. He just laughed and said that made it more special. (grin) Here he is holding it up on Christmas morning. I was the most concerned about his quilt, but he loved it too.

I started hand quilting Ivan's quilt on Dec. 1st and finished it on Dec. 22nd. Wow, I really worked hard on that one. It does not have as much quilting in it as the other two, but I knew I would never get it finished in time if I did lots of quilting. I basically just quilted X's in each of the block sections, then used simple stencils in the outer borders. I was so tickled on the night I finished it, that I was practically jumping up and down. Here it is, before it was washed.

Ivan sure looked happy on Christmas morning while he held it up for me to take a picture.

While quilting on these I also: made 2 nightgowns and 2 pairs of pj's, made several Bow Tucks bags, made a few table runners, made several small wall quilts, finished up several things as gifts, crocheted a few dish rags, took mom shopping, helped her with her celebration, did our Christmas shopping, did lots of baking, and had my husband home on vacation the last 2 weeks before Christmas. Oh goodness, I never want to wait till the last minute to finish things up again. I love Kevin, but it was really hard to get things done with him home. I told him next year to take the two weeks after Christmas if he wants a vacation at this time of the year. LOL

So there you have the condensed version of the past 6 weeks. Tomorrow I will start sharing pictures and updating a little more. As I said, I have been pretty sick. I have coughed so much, that my stomach is sore, and my nose hates the sight of the Kleenex box. LOL I stayed in bed last Saturday with a fever of 102.2. I still get low grade fevers every night, but I'm getting better. Thank you so much to those who have checked on me. I really hope to get back to normal and start commenting on your blogs again. I also forgot, my Callie was also sick for a week during that time. We got her some meds and she is doing fine now. Well, I need to get off here for now. Everyone have a great evening. Thank you for visiting.

Just popping in!

2010-11-24T08:12:00.000-06:00

Good morning,

I have actually made it to my blog two days in a row. LOL I had thought I would be able to piddle today, but Kevin found out he gets paid this afternoon. He wants me to come down and get his check and take it to the bank. He figures the traffic will be less today than Friday. I hope he is right. Since I am only cooking for the two of us, I don't have many preps. Everything will be cooked tomorrow, including the pie. I will cook the turkey in my roaster which will free up the oven.

Since I may just mail this to Carolyn, I thought I'd better get a picture of it. This is a little wall kit that she picked up and asked me to make for her. It is cute, but those tiny little pieces were a pain to work with. (grin)

I hope she will like it. I also wanted to share about a Christmas fabric giveaway that I won from Nola. I love these. She packed it so cute. Thank you, Nola.

Aren't these pretty Christmas fabrics?

This is for Pat. I decided to take a couple of pictures of our sweet potatoes. I weighed this big one and it was just a hair over 2 lbs.

We only planted 6 plants this year and this is the resulting crop.

Pat, hope you enjoy seeing our sweet potatoes. (grin)

I guess that is it for me. I need to get a grocery list ready. I don't really need much. I guess that is a good thing. Right? LOL Everyone remain safe out on the roads this weekend. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Thanks for visiting and please come again.

Update

2010-11-23T18:14:00.000-06:00

I know it has been a while. I have been really busy. I may talk about that at another time, but for now I want to update a little. I think I promised to share some more bow tucks bags with you all about a month ago. This isn't a very good picture, but here is the beige/black bag.

Here is the inside.

Then I made a green/pink bag.

We have been busy getting ready for winter. Good thing. It is supposed to be frigid here during Thanksgiving. We dug our sweet potatoes. I sent Kevin to the garden with a feed bucket that holds about 1 1/2 gallons. Since I only planted 6 plants, I figured that would be plenty big enough. Wrong! He heard me come out to take the trash out and yelled that he needed the wheel barrel. I thought he was joking, but he was serious. We got way over a half bushel of sweet potatoes from those 6 plants. Several of them weighed over 2 lbs each and were almost as big around as a soccer ball. I told Kevin that I wasn't sure what I would do with them. One of them is way more than we need for a meal. LOL I guess we will have lots of leftovers. I forgot to take a picture of them. Bad blogger!

November 14th was Noah's 5th birthday. I even forgot to wish him a happy birthday on the blog. We did go to Kansas City on Friday the 12th to celebrate his birthday with him. We told the kids that we must really love them to come to Kansas City on a Friday night, during rush hour, in the pouring down rain, looking for an unfamiliar address. LOL We found them and had a wonderful meal and visit with the kids. Noah is doing so well in school. He is really coming out of his shyness. Izabella is starting to talk up a storm.

You didn't think I would forget to post pictures of our grandbabies did you? LOL

Izzie is getting so big. Hazel says Izzie reminds her of me all the time. Ahhh, now that made this grandma have a proud moment. (grin)

We sure enjoyed playing with our grandbabies.

Tonight was the ending of deer season here in Missouri. I cannot say I am sorry. We have had hunters all around us. I could hear shooting most any time of the day. I was afraid to let Buddy outside without me. He isn't real good about staying out of the road just yet. I am working on it, but he has a way to go. I didn't want him to get hit. We have had lots more traffic than normal during the hunting season.

I am ready to sew the binding down on Bob's quilt. I am half done on the borders of Jeremy's quilt. In the mean time, I have made a little Santa wall hanging for one of our girls. She requested it last year. Now I need to get it to her so she can enjoy it this season. I'll take a picture before I give it to her.

Our Thanksgiving will be very quiet and simple. It will just be Kevin and me. I wish I could have found a smaller turkey, but I guess this will give me lots to put in the freezer. I have been trying to cook less. I still find it hard to just cook for two people after so many years of cooking for 7. LOL I will make a pumpkin pie (instead of 4), fix mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, noodles, green beans, rolls, and dressing. This will be a very high carb meal, so I am sure I will sleep all afternoon. LOL

Well, I'd better end here. In case I don't get back to the blog, Happy Thanksgiving! If you plan on doing the black Friday sales (not me) please be careful. Thanks for visiting and please come again. Have a great day!

Winona

Final Win Arrived.

2010-10-28T18:33:00.000-05:00

It turned off cold last night. We had 30* early this morning, but the wind was still howling. Our old house is so cold when the wind is blowing. I was dressed for warmth today, yet still felt chilly. I had on my sweats, a sweater, my wool lined slippers, a shawl and an afghan around my legs. I looked like I was bundled for a blizzard. LOL I am so NOT looking forward to winter. Thankfully it got up into the upper 40's and the wind is starting to lay. I even took my sweater off. (grin)

Look what came in the mail yesterday. It is my Fall into Fall giveaway win #3. It is called Season Sampler by Cabbage Rose and was sent to me by Cheryll of The Memory Keeper.

I have been wanting to start another applique quilt this winter and this has some great projects. Look at this one called Feline Fancy. Isn't it cute?

Here is a couple more projects in the book. It may be hard for me to decide what to do first. (grin)

This book has 8 gorgeous projects in it. How many hours of fun will that be? LOL Thank you so much, Cheryll. I love it. I found out that Cheryll and I live in the same state and she actually went through my home town a few weeks ago on her way to visit family. How neat is that?

I want to again thank Jeanette, Patty, and Cheryll for all the goodies I won during the Fall into Fall giveaway. Also, thank you Debi for organizing everything. I know it was a lot of work, but I am sure everyone had just as much fun as I did.

Well, I know this is a short post, but I want to get settled down in front of the tv with Bob's quilt. Tomorrow is grocery day, so I may not get a chance to post, but I will show you the latest bag soon. Everyone have a wonderful weekend. Thanks for visiting and please come again.

Number 2 Win Came

2010-10-27T15:50:00.000-05:00

This week I received my second winning from the Fall into Fall Giveaway. I received this gorgeous Fabulous Fall panel from Patty at Granma's Charms. I am thinking this will make a nice fall wall hanging.

Patty also sent these 3 fabrics to match. There are over a 1/3 of a yard of each of them. I love these colors.

Didn't Patty do a good job of matching the panel?

I have been busy this week. I now have Bow Tucks bag #6 done and #7 ready to put together. I have about half of the last border hand quilted on Bob's Patriotic Shoo Fly and all but 3 blocks done on Jeremy's Nine Patch. I have also been quilting the sashings and sashing stones as I go, so soon will just have the border to do on this quilt. I had hoped to have it done by the end of the month, but I am happy with my progress.

The wind has been fierce here this week. It isn't even easy to walk outside. They are predicting it to lay tomorrow. I sure hope they are right. According to Yahoo, the temps here are 64*, but it sure doesn't feel like it. I am sitting here with a sweater on and still do not feel comfortable. So I think I will go huddle under one of the quilts and work on it. LOL I hope to be back tomorrow to share a picture of the next bag. Thank you for visiting. Please come again.

One of My Winnings Arrived

2010-10-24T14:02:00.000-05:00

I receive the panel that I won from Inchworm Fabrics this past week. It is so cute. It is called Cut Blossum Lane Panel. I don't usually work with these colors, but I really like this. Not really sure what I will make with it. That will probably be a winter project. Thank you, so much Jeanette. I love it.

Sorry I didn't iron it before taking the picture, but I wanted to fold it back up till I am ready for it. Isn't this a cute and cheerful panel? I was in JoAnn's on Friday to pick up another spool of red Gutermann hand quilting thread and just happened to see a fat quarter bundle of bright fabric. I used my 50% off coupon so it only cost me $5 for this cute bundle of fabric. It is pretty good fabric too, not the best, but definitely not the worst.

Don't you think these go good with the panel? I need to get my thinking cap on to create something with the panel and these fat quarters. These bright colors are starting to grow on me. (grin)

Of course, while I was in JoAnn's I had to check out their red tagged fabrics. They were 50% off the red tag. I found this brown polka dot fabric and just love it. It only cost me $2.50 per yard and is from the Stonehill Collection. It is a nice quality fabric. I bought 2 yards. They had buy one get one free on the thread, so I got my red and then picked up a color I use a lot.

It has been a gloomy weekend. It rained hard all night Friday night. Saturday was muddy and very windy. It got up to 75*, though. It is still windy today, but the clouds have moved back in and it is chillier out. So this has been a mostly inside weekend. We did get some work done yesterday, but Kevin just wanted to rest today. I have been working on another Bow tucks bag and piddling on the computer.

Noah has gotten into the habit of wanting to talk to me every time his mama calls. I so enjoy those little talks. I put his grandpa on yesterday. Oh my, Kevin was so happy to talk to our little man. Then Izzie has to get on the phone. She doesn't say a word, but bye-bye at the end. So cute. So I talk to her and she listens, then tells me bye-bye. (grin) Haze had parent/teacher conference last week. Noah's teacher says he is doing great. Really good news for us. He is so shy, I was worried about him. He still needs to work on the shyness thing, but does great on all the work.

I made chili on Friday and bought lunch meat, hot dogs, and chips. I haven't had to cook all weekend. (big grin) Not the healthiest meals, but sure easy.

I think I will go work on the BT bag some more. I am ready to put it together. I am getting faster at them. Thank you so much for visiting. I am trying to get back to responding to my comments. I got so behind during the Fall into Fall giveaway time period that I decided to just start over. Thank you for all that left birthday wishes for our Jonny. He says thanks too. Everyone have a great day and please come again.

Winona

Bow Tucks Bag #5

2010-10-21T15:08:00.000-05:00

I finished everything but the handwork on bow tucks bag #5 today. This is the red one. I am trying different battings, etc in them. I used fusible fleece on the back of the front and back and the pockets, but I used a craft fuse for the lining. The craft fuse is pretty stiff, which gives this bag lots of shape. I will probably continue to use the craft fuse for the linings. The good thing is that it is less expensive than the fusible fleece. (grin) Anyway, here is the red bow tucks bag.

I made a booboo on it. Look closely at the pocket. I sewed it on before I quilted it. I started to take it off and quilt it, but I really sewed it on good. LOL Kevin says it will be fine like this, so I left it.

Here it shows the ties.

Here is the inside.

Now all I have left to do on this one is whip the bottom of the lining closed and sew the button on it. I need to get some more buttons with shanks. Sewing those on is my least favorite part of the whole bag. I am horrible at sewing those shanks on. I have the the next one cut out and ready to go.

I lined them all up for a photo shoot. What do you think? Of course the fall one has a new home now. (grin)

We have been having lovely fall weather. No frost yet, but I'm sure we will have one soon. They are forecasting lots of rain this weekend. That should bring lots of leaves down from the trees. It has been nice during the afternoon this week, yet not warm enough for those nasty bean bugs to be on the move. I could live with this weather year around. (grin)

Everyone have a great day. Thanks for visiting and please come again.

Happy Birthday Jon!

2010-10-19T14:34:00.000-05:00

Today our baby turned 22! Wow! Hard to believe that our baby is 22 years old. Seems like just yesterday he was running around aggravating his older sisters and brother. LOL I have very few pictures of him on this computer. He is like his dad and does not like to have his picture taken.

Happy birthday darling. Your dad and I hope you have a good one. We love you. Wish we could spend the day with you. Throw those nasty cigarettes away!

I have 2 more Bow Tucks bags done except for the handwork. (sewing the button on and whip stitching the bottom of the lining together. I made these two at the same time. Probably won't do that again. I think I like getting one done quicker.

Here is the inside of one of them.

I will try to get the handwork done this evening while watching Biggest Loser. Then again, I may decide to just do some mindless quilting on Jeremy's quilt. I now am at the half way mark on the blocks. This one is going quickly, but it is mostly straight line quilting. That does go fast.

I started another Bow Tucks bag today. This one is mainly reds. I have the front and back quilted. I may work on it some more in a minute. What do you think? I haven't made the front pocket yet, but it is laying on top.

Well, that is it for me today. It got down into the mid-30's last night, but still no frost where we are. It is kind of chilly today at 65*, but it is the time of year when it is supposed to be cooling down. I need to get off here now. Thanks for visiting. Please come again and have a great day.

Jonny, once again, we love you, babe.

Winner of My Giveaway!

2010-10-17T08:14:00.000-05:00

I am sorry that I did not make a specific post to announce the winner of my Fall into Fall Giveaway. I edited the original post instead. Sorry if this caused any inconvenience to anyone. I really want to thank all of you wonderful people for entering for a chance to win my bow tucks bag. I was totally shocked at the number of entries I received. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to visit my blog. Now the winner of my bow tucks bag is Liz of The Encourager! I have already emailed Liz and have her bag on the way to her. I am sorry everyone could not be winners.

I also wanted to say I have been very lucky again. I won 3 giveaways. Yes I did. I won The Season Sampler book by Cabbage Rose from Cheryll at The Memory Keeper.

I won a Fabulous Fall panel and some fabrics from Patty at Granma's Charms.

I also won a Blossom Lane panel from Jeanette at Inch Worm Fabrics.

Woohoo! I need to get these quilts quilted so I can have some fun with my new goodies. (grin)

Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a wonderful day!

Last day of Fall into Fall Giveaway!

2010-10-14T18:57:00.000-05:00

It has been quite a week around here. I had planned to blog a little more, but it just didn't work out. Our daughter's FIL passed away on Sunday. Kevin had to work his hours around so that he could attend the funeral with me today. The funeral was an hour away, so we had two hours in just driving. I am glad we could go to support our SIL, Bob. I know he and his family appreciated us being there. Kevin had to work last night, now tomorrow he goes back to his regular day shift. It is not easy to switch to a night shift for one day, then switch back, but he wanted to do this. Robert's death was not a surprise. He had been sick for a long time, but it was still hard on his family. They had a very nice service for him. He will be missed, but is in a better place.

I was so sure that I could get Bob's quilt done. Then I ran out of thread. Never a good thing when you see your spool like this. LOL

Now that spool is completely empty and in my purse so that I can get the right color the next time I am in JoAnns. I never would have dreamed I would use more than a spool of thread on this quilt. I have one whole border side left to quilt. Oh well, this gave me the excuse to move on to Jeremy's Nine Patch. Oh, I am having so much fun with this one. I only started it Monday and already have almost half the blocks quilted. It is mostly straight line quilting, cause Jeremy likes simple. LOL I am using a 80/20 batting and muslin for the backing. I am loving this muslin on the back. The needle just goes through it like butter. Here is a section of the nine patch.

I love how the quilting is showing up on the back. That muslin really shows every stitch. Shows wrinkles too. (grin) Good thing I like the crinkled look. Hope Jeremy does. LOL

Last week end, I played around a little with some charms. Nola, do you recognize these little pink squares? I cut some of the pink charms I won from your giveaway into 2 1/2" squares and made this cute little quilt. I then machine quilted it. I am trying to come up with an idea of something to applique in the center. If not, I will just bind it and give it to one of the granddaughters for a doll quilt. This was another just pure fun quilt.

Now I am buckling down and concentrating on the SIL's lap quilts. If Ivan's goes as quickly as Jeremy's has, I may be able to be done with them before the end of November. That would be good!

I will be closing the Fall into Fall giveaway at midnight tonight and will draw a winner and announce it tomorrow sometime. Not sure what time since tomorrow is once again grocery and errand day. I want to thank everyone who has commented to be entered in the giveaway and all of the lovely people who have become followers. I never dreamed that I would have over 300 entries for the bow tucks bag and over 100 followers. Wow! Even my husband is amazed. LOL So if you haven't entered my giveaway yet, you still have a few hours, about 5 to be exact. (grin) Good luck!

Thank you all for visiting. Have a good day and see you tomorrow. Won't tomorrow be an exciting day in blogland!

Little Pumpkin Quilt

2010-10-08T22:20:00.000-05:00

I really have to quit getting side tracked or I never will get the SIL's quilts done. LOL Today I decided to make Sandy Gervais' free pattern. I used her pumpkin and star pattern, but changed most everything else. I really like how it turned out. This is another project that is all done on the sewing machine. All of it is scraps except the border and backing, and they were both in my stash. Even the batting was a scrap.

Is Blogger having problems? I tried 3 times to upload this picture. The little line would go about 3/4 of the way, then stop. I finally got it to work on the 4th try. So this post may not have very many pictures. LOL Here, hopefully, is a closeup of the pumpkin. Kind of wish I had used less bright orange for it, but I wanted to use out of my scraps.
Ok, blogger is doing the same thing, so I will try to add some more pictures tomorrow if I have time. I'm too tired to sit here and wait on it. (grin) Might as well admit, I'm also too impatient. LOL

For those that have entered my Fall into Fall giveaway, thank you. I usually try to respond to comments, but this time there are just too many. I hope you all understand. I think I will turn in now. Thanks for visiting. Have a wonderful weekend.

I've been playing!

2010-10-07T12:14:00.000-05:00

Wow! is all I can say. I never dreamed I would have so many entries for my Bow Tucks bag. Thank you to everyone who has entered. Also thank you and welcome to all the new followers. I have almost doubled in followers this week. I am still kind of in shock. LOL This Fall-into-Fall Quilters Giveaway has been a wonderful experience for me. It took me 4 days to get through all the giveaways LOL, but I had fun. Thank you so much Debi for organizing this. It had to be lots of work and time consuming. I appreciate everything you did.

I have been busy quilting on Bob's quilt. I am about half done on the third border side. Kind of feeling the pressure to get this done. I really need to have either Ivan's or Jeremy's done also by the end of this month. I quilted till my fingers were too sore to do anymore. LOL So I took most of yesterday off to play on my sewing machine. I made this cute little table runner. I love it. Gudrun designed it. Isn't it adorable?

Here is another picture of it. I really had fun with this. It is quilt as you go. I used my scraps and some scraps from Cyndi. The only thing I bought was the black border. I saw that in Walmart last week and thought it was so cute. So glad I got it.

Very seldom do I do a project that is all with the machine, but this one was. I still have to do some machine applique around the candy corn, but that shouldn't take long. Here is the back. Not very exciting, but I usually show the backs of my projects.

If you look at the top of the first picture, you will see my helper. Callie just can't let me work on something without her imput. LOL Doesn't she look interested in this picture. (grin) She has been busy today chasing poor Buddy around the house. Thankfully, her hiss is worse than her bite, but he doesn't know that. LOL

I bought my Klutz glove Friday. I was totally shocked to see that it cost $24.99 at JoAnn's. Wow! That is for one glove! I was really grateful that I had a 50% off coupon. I even used the glove yesterday when I did the cutting on the little table topper. My husband asked last night if I used it. I figured he would. (grin) It is kind of a pain to put on and take off, but I promised him I would use it. I guess I will get used to it. Does this look like almost $25 to you?

Sorry I haven't commented on many blogs this week. We have had nice weather, so I have been working outside a lot. Also trying to stay off the computer a little. I will have plenty of time for the computer this winter. (grin) If you haven't visited Gudrun site and the Fall-O-Ween blog hop, you really should. These ladies have shared some cute, cute designs on their blogs. Well, I need to get back to work on something. Thank you so much for visiting. Have a wonderful day.

It's Time for the Fall into Fall Giveaway!

2010-10-01T08:01:00.002-05:00

The winner of the Bow Tucks Bag is 'An Encourager'! Congratulations! I have already emailed the winner and await her mailing address. Thank you to all who entered. I wish you all could be winners. Have fun checking out blogs today and tomorrow!

Woohoo, yes it is. I am very excited about this. I entered lots of giveaways on the last one that Debi had and even won a couple of things, but I did not have a blog back then. This time I do. So what am I giving away? I am giving away a fall colored Bow Tucks bag made by me. I knew there was a reason I just never could start using this bag. LOL Here it is. This is the front. I just did a simple crosshatch machine quilting on it.

These bags are big. They can be used with the ties on the side tied or untied. Whichever you prefer. Here it is with the ties tied.

It has lots of inside pockets and one outside pocket for keys or such.

Here is the back of it.

Ok, there you have it. You can enter to win this bag. I may even try to make some accessories for it. I am a simple girl. All you need to do to be entered for this bag is leave me a comment. Anyone can enter. You don't have to have a blog. All I ask is that if you are a 'no reply commenter' that you also leave your email address so I can contact you. You do not have to become a follower, but I would love it if you do. I really appreciate my followers. I will draw a winner on October 15th. Good luck to everyone. Now that you have entered my giveaway, click on that scarecrow over to the right and go visit over a hundred other blogger giveaways. You have 2 weeks to hit all of them. You can come away with some pretty neat stuff. Quilters are generous people! Thanks for visiting. Have a good day!
Giveaway closed. Winner announced soon. Thanks!

Some Goodies in the Mail!

2010-09-30T11:19:00.000-05:00

I have had a good mail week. I told you on the last post about winning 2 giveaways on the same day. I received my goodies this week. First I got this pattern from Cindy. I love anything with pumpkins, so I can hardly wait to make this table runner. Isn't it cute? Thank you for the pattern, Cindy. I love it!

Yesterday I received a package from Mary. It had these goodies in it.

I would be embarrassed to tell you how long I played with this little bag. It is made with a piece of metal measuring tape in the top for a closer. I can not tell you how many times I opened and closed it. LOL Yep Mary, I sure enjoyed playing with it. LOL

Look at this adorable cell phone holder. It is a kitty! I can hardly wait to make this pattern.

Thank you for everything, Mary. I love it all.

My finger is doing much better. It is actually healing quickly. I told you it wasn't very bad. Thank you for all the good thoughts for healing for me. I appreciate it.

I have been busy this week. I have the two Bow Tuck bags ready to sew together. I also am almost done with the second border side of Bob's quilt. Never got it done by the end of Sept., but the end is in sight! I spent yesterday afternoon with mom. I got her bills and meds ready for October, and we had a good visit. Tomorrow is a busy, busy day for me. I need to get groceries, run several errands, then meet Kevin at Menards after he gets off work to pick up some supplies. Also tomorrow begins the Fall into Fall Quilters Giveaway. So be sure to check back. I will have something posted, probably pretty early. You will want to check out the many, many other quilters who are having giveaways also. It will be a fun couple of weeks.

We have had gorgeous weather this week... Sunshine, lows in the 50's, and highs in the 80's. Does it get any better? (grin) The leaves are just starting to turn. Awww, lovely time of the year. Now I know I have not used proper grammar in this post. I know every sentence needs a subject and a verb, but I have just been writing as it comes to mind. Please forgive me for being a little improper. (grin)

Well, I have things to do, so I'd better get with it. Thank you so much for visiting and please come again. Have a wonderful day!

I Have to Buy a Klutz Glove!

2010-09-27T12:37:00.000-05:00

I had a little mishap this weekend. I was busy working on a couple of Bow Tucks bags. I decided to do two at a time. I doubt that I will do that again. It seems to take forever to get to the next step. Oh well. I now have the pieces ready to put together for 2 Bow Tucks bags.

I was working away and doing some trimming with this.

I somehow managed to get my left pointer finger in the way. I won't show you a picture of it, because it kind of makes me sick to look at it, but here it is with the bandage on it.

It is not bad. I have had worse cuts when dressing chickens. I got it to stop bleeding, then bandaged it up. It hurt a little, but now only hurts if I bump it. I didn't even freak out, but Kevin did! Oh my goodness! You would have thought I had cut the whole end of my finger off. (big sigh) I got to hear a whole lecture on how dangerous the rotary cutter is and how I need to pay attention when using it. (eye roll here) Of course I had to cut myself the first time in four years of using this cutter while Kevin was home. LOL He made me promise that the next time I go to town I will buy one of the klutz gloves. He knows about these from watching Fons and Porter with me. (grin) He wanted to know why I did not have one. Ok, I will buy a klutz glove. (I may not use it much, but don't tell him. OK?) So then things settled down and I decided to get back to sewing. Hmmm, then I was told that I have to pay attention, because the sewing machine needle is dangerous as well. OK, enough already. I gave him the look, so he went about his business. LOL I really do appreciate the fact that Kevin is concerned for me, but come on. He does way more dangerous things that this. OK, so maybe I do a little bit of the lecturing about being careful too. (grin) Anyway, no more accidents happened and I am now ready to put the bags together.

I also worked on the borders of Bob's quilt. I am more than half done with the first border. It doesn't look like I will be done by the end of the month, but it is what it is. LOL I will continue working. I am loving the blog hops this week. Sorry, I didn't think to get the links, but they are pretty easy to find. The free table runner pattern that Gudrun posted on her blog is cute as can be. I am seriously thinking about working on it this afternoon, instead of the things I should be doing. (grin)

Everyone have a great day. Thanks for visiting and please come again. Hopefully, I will have something better to show soon. LOL

Down to the Borders on Bob's Quilt!

2010-09-23T20:18:00.000-05:00

I have been busy this week. I was determined to get all the blocks quilted on Bob's Patriotic Shoo Fly. It has 35 blocks. I finished the last one up today. I did very simple quilting, but it still took a while. I laid it out on the bed and took a picture, but I don't think the quilting shows up very good.

Here is another picture, but it isn't much better. I'm not a very good photographer.

The backing I used is very busy, so the quilting doesn't even show up there. At least I can feel it when I run my hands over it. LOL I am now working on the first side of the border. I used my chalk pencil to draw the design, so I am only drawing on one side at a time. The chalk does have a tendency to rub off. I tried to take some pictures of it in my hoop, but of course it didn't turn out very good.

Kevin's hours have changed again. He was working 2nd shift. He went back to work Monday after having two weeks off. His boss had left a message saying he wanted to talk to Kevin. Now Kevin is working first shift. He works 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. and a little bit of overtime thrown in each week. He was working 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., so these new hours are much better. We can eat supper together again! (grin) Tonight we had fried chicken breasts, mashed potatoes, gravy, noodles, green beans, and peas. Some of that was leftover from last night, but it was still a very filling meal. The good thing is we have enough leftover for tomorrow night, so no cooking, just warming up.(grin)

It is pouring down rain here. Has been since mid afternoon, but at least we are not getting the severe weather they were predicting for our area. This has been a very rainy year for us. All of this rain will delay the harvest.

I bought some fabric for another Bow Tucks bag while in Walmart last week. I have several I want to make for gifts. I have been machine quilting on the coffee cup bags, but not accomplished much. I am concentrating on Bob's quilt this week. I really would like to have it finished by the end of the month and that is next week. Anyway, here is the fabric I bought.

Not sure if the colors are coming through true, or not. The dark fabric is a pretty purple. The front fabric is pink. It is another scrap sent to me by Cyndi. I am thinking about using it for a front pocket.

I watched the premier of Hawaii Five-0 on Monday. I loved it. I hope it makes it. Yesterday, Kevin and I watched The Defenders. It was another good show. It comes on right after Criminal Minds, so it has a good time slot. Tonight Kevin is watching Bones and Fringe. Not my type of shows, but he has worked hard all week, so I won't say anything. (grin) Besides, I got to pick the tv viewing on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. His turn!

I have been lucky again. I won 2 giveaways today. More on that later. I never buy lottery tickets, but I am wondering if maybe I should. LOL I really appreciate everything I win. It sure would be nice for my luck to hold long enough to win a GO cutter. Hope that doesn't make me sound too greedy. (grin)

Well, I guess I will get back to the hand quilting. Thanks for visiting. Everyone have a restful night and wonderful day tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Cathryn!

2010-09-18T12:16:00.001-05:00

Today is daughter number two's birthday. I called and left a message and of course sent her a card. Not heard back yet from her, so I am assuming she and her family are doing something special. I just wanted to tell her that her dad and I are thinking about her and wish her a wonderful birthday. We love you Cath. Lots of hugs from us. Hug the grandbabies too and give Jeremy a squeeze. Here she is with her darlings, Ashton and Ava. She is such a good mama. I'm very proud of her.

One more picture. Here she is working on her school work. She is back in school trying to get her teaching degree. She has a degree in business, but found out that just wasn't for her.

I had some good news this week. I have posted before about our lack of fabric shops in our area. All we have are Walmart, JoAnns, and Hobby Lobby. Walmart had plans to take the fabric department out, which really upset me. I found out this week, that our Walmart is going to leave the fabric department in our store. Yahoo! I guess the letters, calls, emails, and complaining to the manager worked. I was back looking at fabric, like I do every time I go into Walmart, (grin) when Rita, the lady who cuts fabric asked me if I had heard the news. She said some of the big guys from corp. came in and talked to the ladies that run the fabric department. Asked them their opinion on closing it. Needless to say, they were told that the fabric department is staying. Sure made my day! To celebrate I had to buy a few more pieces of fabric, but haven't taken any pictures of it yet.

I also just realized that I never did post pictures of block#2 of my Raggedy Annie and Friends BOM. I have had this done since the first week it was posted. Now Kaaren is almost ready to post block #3. LOL So here is my block #2.

I did this one different that the first block. I made the embroidery blocks bigger, did the embroidery, then trimmed them to fit. Then I put my block together. Worked much better for me. I had some of it ravel quite a bit on the first block, especially the Kona black. So I will be doing future blocks this way. Here is a closeup of the top stitchery.

This is the bottom stitchery. I really had fun doing these.

Kevin just has today and tomorrow left on his vacation. Thank goodness, he is actually going to have to shave. LOL Sorry, but I hate the whiskers on him. Two weeks growth will soon be gone. I think I have talked him into just relaxing this weekend. I think I am going to try to sandwich Ivan and Jeremy's quilts. I want to have them ready as soon as I get Bob's done. I only have about 6 blocks, then the borders left to do on Bob's, so hopefully it will be done in a week or two.

I had never heard when the next season of Biggest Loser started, so I finally went online to check it out. It starts this Tuesday! Glad I looked it up. We haven't had the tv on much in the past couple of weeks, so I haven't seen any ads for it. Looking forward to another great season.

Almost forgot to add that I will be joining Debi's Fall into Fall giveaway. Just click on the scarecrow in my sidebar to find a list of other bloggers who will be giving things away. I am still thinking it over, but will post my giveaway by Oct. 1st. The drawing will be Oct. 15th, I believe. Check it out. This is very exciting and Debi hopes to get 200 quilt bloggers to join in. You can win some great stuff. (grin)

Well, those quilts aren't going to sandwich themselves (although I wish they would LOL). So I'd better get with it. Thanks for visiting. Have a wonderful weekend.

Still Lucky!

2010-09-15T10:04:00.000-05:00

I decided to pop in here and do a little post. We are down to less that a week of vacation left. We have got lots of things accomplished in the past 2 weeks. I think we will soon be ready for winter. (Not really! I am never ready for cold, snow, wind, and ice! Makes me cold just typing it.) We had hoped to go visit each of the grandbabies while Kevin was off, but that hasn't worked out so far. Makes a difference when their parents work and the grandkids are in school. Noah's birthday is coming up. Maybe we can all get together for that.

I am still lucky. A couple of weeks ago I won a giveaway over on Pat's blog. It was a good one. I received it last Saturday. Haven't had time to do anything with any of it yet, but plan to do some playing soon. Here is everything.

Here are a few closeups of my goodies. This is the layer cake. It is called Winter Song by Deb Strain for Moda. I love it. I already know what I am going to do with it. Debi sent me a PDF file of how she makes log cabin quilts from a layer cake. I am anxious to try it.

Also these three rulers: flying geese, pineapple, and kaleido. I love different rulers.

There was a journal, triangles on a roll, a cute little cupcake plate, and a cotton picker. (grin)

I felt like it was Christmas morning, opening this box. (grin) Thanks so much Pat.
I won another giveaway back in August from Jill. I neglected to post about that. Here are the two books I won on Jill's big giveaway. There are some cute quilts in these. Sorry Jill, for taking so long to post about this, but I love them.

I made a trip to JoAnn's during their Labor Day sale and picked up these fabrics. Most are Debbie Mumm.

I have already started a Bow Tucks bag with the cute polka dot, striped, and coffee cup fabrics.

After I got this bag cut out, I realized that I had enough fabric for another bag if I changed things around a bit. So I cut out another one.

These are all ready for machine quilting. I'll do my usual diagonal crosshatch. (grin) Cyndi, recognize the front pocket fabrics? I cannot tell you how many times I have gone through that box of scraps. Every time I find just the perfect piece. LOL

Thank you all for the kind comments on my Pink Dreams quilt. It was a lot of fun, but now my sewing area is a disaster again. When will I ever learn to put things away after each project? Or for that matter, when will I learn to finish a project before starting another? LOL

Before I leave, I want to tell you about a giveaway that Lana is having. I don't usually post about giveaways, but she is so sweet, I decided to post about it. She is giving away a honey bun of...well, you will just have to go to her blog and check it out because my brain just went blank. Happens a lot any more. LOL So go check out Lana's blog and enter her giveaway. Thanks for visiting and please come again. My vacation is almost over, so I hope to be back regularly again. Have a great day.

Pink Dreams

2010-09-02T19:50:00.000-05:00

I finished the top of the pink baby quilt today. I am calling it 'Pink Dreams'. That name just seemed to fit for some reason. (grin) This one was just pure fun. I have a story for the fabric used in this little quilt. It may not be of interest to anyone but me. Since I also use the blog to help me remember things, I am going to tell my story. LOL

Ok, now for the story of the fabric...I was digging through some of my scraps and found a plastic container that said 'pink scraps'. When I opened it, I found 5 of these blocks. They are leftover from a quilt I made for the first granddaughter of a very good friend. I had forgotten that I had them.

The blocks were just the pink and white. I went to my stash and found the yellow. I had less than 1/2 a yard of this left. I had used this yellow in two other baby quilts. I found one little strip of the pink daisy fabric used for the corner stones. I had about a yard of the pink in the block left. Then I found this blue paisley like fabric. I had about a yard of it. It was leftover from Ava's Heart quilt. I showed it to Kevin. He liked it with the other fabrics. So I went with it. I have learned that my husband has a good eye for color. I trust his judgment.

Photography is not my thing. Sorry things are kind of blurred and too light in places. Anyway, I now had the basic center done, but wanted something to add a little pazazz to it. I had never done a flying geese border. What better time than now? I also wanted to use 2 rulers that I have not used much. They are the Easy Angle and the Companion Angle. Using these two rulers together made the flying geese go very quickly. I love how they look, although I am not sure I would want to do them on the borders of a large quilt. (grin) I made 14 flying geese for each side of the border.

I decided to put pinwheels in the corners. Theses were kind of fun. Then I cut a thin border of the pink to go around the flying geese border. I laid out several different fabrics for this thin border, but Kevin said it had to be the pink, so pink it is. (grin)

Then I measured the paisley to see how wide I could make the outer border. I decided to cut it 3 inches wide. I used a little bit of the yellow and daisy fabrics to make four patches for the corner stones. That way the paisley did not have to be pieced. I think the top turned out to be about 46 inches square. Bummer! Now the back will have to be pieced. Oh well. I hope to come up with enough scraps to put a stripe down the back of the backing. I had just enough of the pink left to make the binding.

Here are a couple of different angles of Pink Dreams.

Not bad for a quilt that is completely out of leftovers. (grin) I have one 2" wide strip of the yellow left, about 6" long by 2" wide of the daisy fabric, a strip about 4" wide of the paisley, and little bits and pieces of the pink left for my scrap bin. I am quite pleased with this one. Now I have to wait to quilt it. Too many projects ahead of it. It is going to be hard to wait, because my fingers are itching to be stitching. LOL

Tomorrow is grocery day, so I have been working on a list. Saturday some of the kids are coming to help us with some projects around here that need to be done before winter. I am fixing a big crock pot full of taco soup. I will get some tortilla chips to go with it. Carolyn is bringing a cooler of pop and water. I am also picking up some frozen pizzas. We will have the taco soup for lunch and anyone who hangs around gets frozen pizza for supper. (grin) Kevin starts a two week vacation Saturday also, so I will probably not be around much till towards the end of the month. I may try to post tomorrow. Depends on how grocery shopping goes. Everyone have a good day. Thanks for visiting.

I'm a Lucky Lady!

2010-08-30T18:49:00.000-05:00

I used to think I was unlucky, but this summer I have won several blog giveaways. The generosity of quilt bloggers never ceases to amaze me. This is a great community to be a member of. (By the way, I know I am not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition, but this is how I talk. What can I say? LOL) A couple of weeks ago I won Debi's giveaway. I received it last week. This was a great giveaway. I won some great Gutermann threads and ribbon.

There were also these three wonderful charm packs. All three are colors I love. Looking forward to using these.

This all came packed inside this cute tote bag with the sweet card. I can use this tote to carry projects with me when I have appointments.

Thank you so much Debi. This was a great giveaway and I love everything.
I also received these in the mail from my friend Cyndi. These were a 'just because' gift. Aren't they cute? Cyndi knows how much I love kitties. We have that in common. Now I need to decide on a project to use them in. Also, check out Cyndi's new button over on the right side of my blog. She makes awesome bags.

I spent some time quilting on Bob's quilt this weekend. I am now half-way done on the blocks. Hmmm, tomorrow is the last day of August. So much for my goal of having it quilted by the end of the month. LOL Oh well, I'll extend the goal a bit. Last night, I just needed to play. I was going through some scraps and found 5 leftover blocks from a quilt I did a couple of years ago. I drug out some stash and started playing . I haven't taken any pictures of it yet, but I am liking it. It will be a baby girl quilt, since it is pink. LOL I have never done a flying geese border, so why not try it? I just looked and found Callie laying on all my flying geese blocks. Now why did she have to pick the only place I had blocks laid out on the ironing board? I guess my hair remover roller will get some more workout. (sigh) I also finished block 2 of the Raggedy Annie and Friends BOM. I'll try to show pictures of it tomorrow.

Thanks for visiting. Please come again and have a wonderful day!

My First Bow Tucks Bag!

2010-08-27T14:00:00.000-05:00

I had fun making my first Bow Tucks bag, but will probably change things on the next one. I did change the way of making the handle. I have made several bags and made the handle the way I like best. I could hardly wait to use the fall fabric I got last weekend. The front and back sections are the same. Here they are before I machine quilted a crosshatch design on them.

Here is the linings. They are both the same too. One thing I will probably change is to use a lighter fusible on the lining. I used Pellon fusible fleece on everything, as was called for in the pattern, but I don't think I would need to use the heavy stuff in the linings and on the pockets. This stuff is expensive, so I am going to try different ways of making them. I also think I will try using a cotton batting in the front/back section, then quilting it, to see how it will work.

Here are all the pockets ready to be added.

Here I have the inside pockets and outside pocket sewed on, and the ties, handles, and button loop prepped and everything ready to go together. I machine quilted a 1 1/2" crosshatch on the front and back sections. I started out by drawing a line from corner to catty-corner, then using my quilting bar thingy to keep the lines uniform. I quilted an 'X' in the outside pocket. I used a 2 inch crosshatch on the linings. The inside pockets didn't need any quilting.

And here we have a Bow Tucks bag. This is the front.

The back.

Here is the inside. Lots of lovely pockets. I love pockets. (grin)

One more view.

That is it on pictures. I am sure you are getting tired of seeing pictures of this. LOL I am so glad that I had my walking foot to make this. I really don't think I could have sewed through all those layers without it. I love my walking foot. (grin) For the inside bottom, I took 2 pieces of cardstock, glued them together, then used my trusty glue gun to glue some leftover lining fabric around it. I will just remove it when I need to wash this bag. If it gets too dirty, I can just make another bottom. This is a pretty big tote, so I may try cutting another one down some to see how I like it. If I fill this full, I will have trouble carrying it. LOL

Everyone have a great day. Thanks for visiting.

Catching Up!

2010-08-26T10:54:00.000-05:00

I just realized that it has been about a week since I did a post, so decided I'd get one done. I have been busy. I have 15 blocks done now out of 35 on Bob's Patriotic Shoo Fly. It is not going as quickly as I thought, but that might be because I keep getting sidetracked with other projects. LOL I have the first redwork piece done on the Raggedy Annie and Friends BOM block #2. I decided to make the backgrounds bigger for the redwork, then cut them down to fit with the other pieces of the block after I get the embroidery done. I think that is going to work better for me. I had some raveling on the first block and wanted to avoid that. I also found my red pens that I bought especially for tracing redwork. If all else fails, look in the drawer where they are supposed to be. LOL

I am working on putting the blocks together for the Charm Pack Quilt Along. I still have several of these to do, but may try to get them finished up this afternoon. I like how they are turning out.

When I was tracing the designs for the Raggedy Annie block, I went ahead and traced a few more designs. I now have lots of redwork to keep me occupied. I may try doing some in these in bluework or greenwork to just kind of mix things up a mite. (grin)

I decided to see how much damage Buddy had done to my new batting. It was not as bad as I feared. I only had to cut about a foot off the end of the batt. It will still be usable for a twin size quilt, and I can use the cut off piece for small projects. See, not too bad. The rest of the batt is fine.

I was in Walmart last weekend and found these fabrics that I just fell in love with. These just scream fall, don't they?

I have already used them. I made a Bow Tucks bag yesterday, but I will share about that next post. I took several pictures while making the Bow Tucks bag.

I love hand quilting, but I also want to learn free motion quilting. All I have ever done with my machine is with my walking foot. Christina over at A Few Scraps is doing a free motion quilt along. I am going to attempt this. You may never see the results, though. LOL I will see how things go. I have the ugly quilt top all ready to begin. She said to just pick 3 fabrics and put this simple quilt together. It is for learning and practice, so it doesn't matter how ugly it is. Well, mine sure wins in the ugly category. LOL

I have all of my supplies ready. Now if I can just be coordinated enough to do free motion quilting. LOL

It has cooled down a lot here. We have had the highs in the 70's and lows in the lower 50's this week. I even have been able to turn the a/c off. What a welcome relief this is. It definitely feels like fall is here.

Things are up and down with Buddy, Callie, and Aeris. One minute Buddy and Callie will be laying next to each other with no problems. The next moment, she is hissing and he is barking. LOL Aeris is still hiding out, but did come up to sniff Buddy and rub her chin on his. That about freaked him out. LOL Buddy has managed to lose 2 of his squeaky toys. I cannot find them anywhere. I am thinking this is his way of getting some new toys. (grin) He does very well at night now. He goes in his crate without any whining or crying and stays quiet until we get up. I realized that we have the ABC's here at our house: Aeris, Buddy, and Callie. LOL I know, I am lame. (griggle) Here is a picture of Buddy that shows his cute tail.

Here he is smiling for the camera.

Here is Callie's 'Whatever!' attitude. Sorry about the mess behind her. What can I say? I am a messy quilter. LOL

Well, that is my update for now. I am laughing as I watch Buddy chase his own tail around and around. Callie is sitting here saying, 'Stupid dog!' LOL I'll be back soon to share my Bow Tucks bag with you. Everyone have a great day. Thanks for visiting.