Back in the quilting mood!

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!

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!

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

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!

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!

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.

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.