Kevin's Christmas Lap Quilt

This week has been a stressful week. It has rained almost continuously since Monday afternoon. We did have a few hours break yesterday and today so far. It rained most of the night, though. So of course it is way too wet to do anything outside.
 Last week a deer ran into the side of the car while Kevin was coming home from work. It is dented, but we will live with dents. Hopefully the crazy deer survived. I am thankful my sweetie was not hurt and no significant damage was done to the car.
This week, the driver's side front wheel bearing went out of our car. Our only other vehicle is an old, old pickup that is on its last legs and drinks gas like nobody's business. Kevin was able to take the old truck and get the car parts. When I went to bed Wednesday night, I prayed to God to just give us a couple hours of sunshine and no winds on Thursday morning, so we could get the work done on the car. It costs us at least $20  day when Kevin has to drive the pickup to work. We got up Thursday morning, to lovely sunshine and calm winds. We got the bearing thingy put on in less than 2 hours. As we were putting the tools up, we noticed that the wind was really picking up and the clouds were once again rolling in. Our God is so amazing! He gave me exactly what I asked for. (big grin)
Yesterday and today has been spent trying to figure out some of mom's paperwork. Evidently some of it got lost in the mail. (Either that or she misplaced it. Don't know which.) She was about to lose a bunch of her benefits. I am so thankful to my sister-in-law, Gina, for going and taking care of this for mom when I just couldn't right now. (Big sigh) Maybe life is going to calm down for me now. I sure hope so. I have been too stressed to even sew any. Not good.
Anyway, I figured I'd better share pictures of Kevin's Christmas Quilt that he didn't get till the end of Feb. LOL Here it is.

Please do not look too closely at the intersections. LOL I bought those 5" charms at Walmart. It was in a pack or 100 precuts. Hmm, I had Kevin help me lay them out in what he thought was a pleasing look. I never even thought to measure these squares. I just picked them up and sewed away. LOL Well, they are definitely not cut square. Once I figured that out, I almost just put the whole project away, but Kevin really liked these fabrics, so I continued on. He said he didn't care if the squares didn't all meet just right. I bought some extra fabric for borders and finished it . No way I was going to rip all those squares out, trim them, and sew them back together.  So be aware if you buy one of those $10 packs of 100 precut 5" charms from Walmart, they are not all cut true.

I had thought about trying to machine quilt it, but decided that would be more work than hand quilting it. LOL It would have helped if I had not gotten bored with it. That is why it took me so long to finish. All those similar fabrics and quilting 'X's just got boring after a while. Sorry no pictures of Kevin holding it. He would rather have a tooth pulled than get his picture taken. LOL But Callie sure gave her approval. This was within minutes of finishing it. LOL

Here is the back of it with Callie and Aeris both laying on it. I think Kevin had been laying on the bed, using it. When he got up he just threw it off himself. Didn't take our ladies long to find it. LOL

Well, that is it for today. Thank you for visiting. Please come again.

Several different things to share.

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.