I did good at JoAnn's!

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.

One of My Winnings Arrived

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

Finishing up the stripping.

I am coming to the end of my stripping, at least for now. I haven't even touched the lights yet, but decided to just do this about once a week instead of all at once. My sweet husband told me last night that I needed to do something fun today. He knows I tend to do something until I am overwhelmed. So I have just a few pieces left on the ironing board to cut. Then I am going to do something fun. This morning I made a quick trip to town. I needed to go to Sears to get some bobbins and I stopped by JoAnn's. I am wondering something.... Maybe you can help me. It seems like I need to replace my ruler about every 6 months. It gets wallowed out where I cut the most. Anyone else have this problem? I thought maybe I am holding my cutter wrong or something. I know I am tired of buying rulers. The blades are expensive enough without having to get a new ruler every few months. Here is what I picked up this morning. I bought an 18 mm rotary cutter at Walmart last week for trimming little pieces, but took it back today and got this 28 mm cutter. I think the 18 mm one was too small. I used coupons for all this and saved about half. sometimes I can't find anything to use my coupons on, but today I found good use for them.

See that pink 'W' over to the left? That is a notepad that I just had to have. I thought it was so cool to have a notepad shaped like the first letter of my name. Well, it is a pain to use. I bought this several years ago and found it when I was cleaning out my sewing drawer. I decided to get it out and get it used. I am using it for scrap paper. LOL

My package from Connecting Threads came today. I ordered a 'Country fat quarter sampler' and the Bow Tucks tote pattern. I have wanted this pattern for a while, so I am excited to get it. I am hoping to use it to make bags for our daughters for Christmas. I think they will like this design. I guess before I make too many decisions, though, I should make one and see how I like it. (grin)

Here is the country fat quarter sampler. I like their fabric and love their thread. I would recommend Connecting Threads to anyone. They also have good customer support.

I noticed while cutting all of those strips that I have mostly earthy colors or maybe autumn colors. So I picked out the browns/goldens/rusts/oranges/greens charm squares that I had cut. Aren't they pretty?

Hmmm, what to do with these? Then I found this Charm Pack Quilt Along. Perfect! I don't need to buy any charms. I have more than enough. I have some light fabric. I will make this quilt along by using these earth colored charms that I cut last week. What do you think? (Please don't tell me I have a screw loose. LOL I know I am already making 3 quilts for our SIL's , plus tote bags for the girls, plus the Raggedy Annie BOM, but what is one more project?) Anyway, I think I can do it. It won't be quilted any time soon, but I think using these charms will work. By the way, I did have other colors, but picked out the blues, pinks, purples, wild flowers, etc. Also, this is just the 5" squares. Lots and lots of other sizes cut and in bins.

It was another rainy weekend. In fact we have more rain coming in. I am glad I went over the garden before these rains started, but I am sure it needs it again. Just waiting on it to get dry enough. We have some large tomatoes setting on, but they are still green. My mouth waters just thinking about them. (grin) Well, I want to go play. Thanks for visiting. Have a great day.

Happy 4th of July!

I hope you are all enjoying the 4th (at least those of us who live in the USA). It has been a very quiet, but peaceful day for us. Kevin told me this morning when I got up, to spend the day doing whatever I wanted. Hmmm, I was at JoAnn's when they opened. LOL Everything that I wanted was 50% off, plus I had that extra 10% off the total coupon. So I bought a few things. I got myself a new cutting mat. Mine is getting kind of nasty. I don't have room for a huge mat, so an 18X24 inch mat fits me perfectly. I debated on buying a 28 mm rotary cutter. Do they really help when cutting small patches? I have two 45 mm cutters, and they are working fine, so I decided to hold off on that purchase.  I did buy some more red floss for my redwork. They had very little fabric in the clearance area that I was interested in, but I did find a couple. I also found 4 little bundles of 5 coordinating fat quarters each, for half off. It is actually pretty good fabric.  I think I am going to quilt the Patriotic Shoo Fly with red cotton thread. Bren, did that shock you. I just wanted to use something other than white or natural this time. Hope I'm not making a mistake. Here is what I got this morning.

I just love the colors in those little bundles. Here is a better shot of those.

Yesterday morning I mowed while Kevin weed eated. I also went over the garden again. We have big green tomatoes, and blooms on the peppers, eggplant and green beans. Also the zucchini are getting big. I am thinking we will have some veggies from the garden soon. After the mowing, we hauled water. The place we haul water from is on the side of the firehouse in our home town. The crazy water would not shut off after we had our barrel full. Kevin was holding onto the hose, saying hit the kill switch. I was, but it wasn't responding. So I took over holding the hose and he tried to get it to stop. Nope. So we hurried uptown to try to find help. Twenty minutes later, they were still looking for someone with the key to the firehouse to shut the water off. Small towns, gotta love them. LOL I am sure several thousand gallons of water was wasted, but nothing we could do about it. After all of that excitement, we called it a day. LOL

Kevin spent the afternoon playing on the computer and watching tv. I spent it piecing a back for Bob's quilt. I am quite proud of it. I will try to get a picture of it before I put the sandwich together. I had a perfect piece of fabric for the backing. It was long enough, but not wide enough. So I improvised. (grin) Kevin said it was cool looking. After getting the backing pieced, I decided it was time to clean and oil my machine. I had another ohoh moment. I took the old needle out and laid it by the machine. Then  took the new needle and laid it out by the machine. Which one is old and which the new? Oh for pity's sake. I ended up just putting both of them back in the package and got a new needle. I'll figure it out another day. Sometimes I almost scare myself with the dumb things I do. LOL  Anyway, my machine is all ready to go for the next top. I have decided on the designs (with help from my daughters) and pulled the fabrics needed for both Jeremy's and Ivan's quilts. I'll show pictures of those tomorrow.

Kevin had the grill going when I got home from JoAnn's so we hurried up and grilled our burgers and hot dogs. Good thing we got that done, because it has been raining ever since. I am afraid the rain is going to put a damper on lots of celebrations.  We have one more day of this weekend, but it will be busy. I need to get the laundry all done and Kevin wants to repair a tire on my car. It has a slow leak. We have to air it up about once every 2 weeks, which isn't a big deal, but he wants to figure out what is wrong. I am so not looking forward to weighing in tomorrow. This weekend I have eaten, pizza, chips, ice cream and now burgers and hot dogs. I will have to work my tail off next week just to break even. LOL My trainer will really need to put me through the paces. Callie is my trainer. She sits on my tummy while I do crunches and watches from afar as I Sweat to the Oldies. Have you ever seen such a cute trainer? LOL

Well, I'd better get off here. Everyone have a fabulous and safe 4th. Thank you for visiting.

I Wish I Had More Time in My Days!

I have so many things buzzing around in my head that I am almost feeling overwhelmed. I have so many quilts that I want to make. I am a hand quilter, so no way can I keep up with what I am piecing. I love redwork. I have several projects there that I want to work on. I enjoy applique, both machine and needle turn. Again, several projects that I want to do. I also enjoy counted cross stitch. I made counted cross stitch birth announcements for Ashton and Noah. Hmmm, Hazel asked me a while ago where Izabella's is. Let's see, I am just a little behind. I need to make one for Ava, Izabella, and Madison. If only I didn't need to sleep. LOL  Oh mustn't forget, I also enjoy crocheting, knitting, and reading. Just not  enough time in my day, I tell you. Even feeling as overwhelmed as I have been, I was so excited to get this in the mail today.

Kevin gave me the money  for Mother's Day to pre-order it. I have had EQ6 for at least a couple of years. I have used it some, but not a lot, so I hesitated to order the upgrade. Kevin wanted me to, so I did. He put it on my laptop this afternoon and I have played with it for several hours. I had planned to start on the Carpenter's Star quilt. Oh well, maybe tomorrow.  I do believe Kevin is expecting some nice quilts out of this. LOL

As I told you before, we went to Jamesport on Saturday. I love it there. Their Fabric Barn is not huge, but it fits me perfectly. A lot of their fabric is a few season's ago, but I don't care. If I like it, it doesn't matter to me if it is current or not. Everything I bought was quilt store quality and was $4-$7 a yard. I do like getting fabric from Wal Mart for $2 a yard if it is good quality, but they are going to quit selling it in a few months. I love JoAnn's but only buy their fabric that is on sale. (Of course, I missed their big Memorial Day Sale, visiting the grands.) So I need to realize that I am going to have to pay more for fabric unfortunately.  Since the trip to Jamesport was kind of a spur of the moment, I didn't have a list prepared, so I had to wing it. LOL I ended up buying this pattern and picking out Thimbleberries fabric to make it.

Of course, when I bought it, I did not realize that it is almost all HST's (half square triangles). LOL Might not have bought it if I'd known that, but I should get good at them after a while. I have made lots in the past couple of quilts. While the young lady was cutting the fabric for this quilt, I picked out some more to add to my stash.

I was about done when Kevin poked his head in the door (He waited in the car for me. He encourages my passion, but fabric stores are not his thing. LOL) to remind me to pick up any needles etc that I might need. I really didn't need any (Crispy sent me several a while ago.), but I bought a few packages anyway. Since it is about 85 miles away, we probably won't be going there again for a while. I also found some fat quarters and this cute little tape measure that I plan to carry in my purse.

Then I noticed the stencils hanging on the wall, so had to get a few of those.

So I brought home quite a stash.

Then we went to the bulk food store run by the Amish. I love that too. I bought all this for just $12. I didn't think that was bad. I tried to concentrate on things I can't find locally.

Then we stopped at a couple of furniture stores. They do such beautiful work, but it is really expensive. We found a table and chairs for over $5000. To us that is a lot of money. I think all of the table and chair sets were at least $1000. I would love to have some of their furniture if I could afford it. I am sure it would last for generations. If I ever get rich, I think I will buy a houseful of Amish made furniture. (grin) (I'm not holding my breath.)

Sunday, I had to run to Wal Mart for something for Kevin. I figured as long as I was out, I might as well stop by JoAnn's and use those coupons that were burning a hole in my pocket. LOL  I like a pair of small scissors to clip threads at my sewing machine. Somehow, I have misplaced my pink handled scissors that I always use. (I am blaming it on the cats. hehe) So I took the blue handled ones I use for quilting and embroidery and moved them to the machine. Then I bought these cute little Italian made scissors for half off.

Yes, I know I could have continued to move the blue ones back and forth as needed, but these are so cute, LOL  and they work great.  This is everything that I bought at JoAnns. Didn't need much, just a few odds and ends.

Well, I have been rather long winded today again. LOL  I hope to be back tomorrow and share some crafty things. My blog hasn't had many crafty projects on it this month, but I have had more posts. Thank you all for the kind comments on our grandbabies. I love them so much. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Oh, by the way, Callie must have really freaked herself out. She hasn't even looked at the door. In fact, this is usually where I can find her.

Yep, laying on my ironing board.  As you can see, I try to spread some bags on it to cut down on the hair, but I still have to clean it every time I use it. (grin)  It is worth it, though. See you later.

I Went Shopping!

Good afternoon,

I had such a fun morning. I went to the JoAnn's Columbus Day sale. I really went because I was getting so low on fusible interfacing and wonder under. Then I got in there and saw all of the beautiful fabrics that they had marked down. Most of these were nice quality fabric. Well, you know already that I just couldn't resist.
Here is my haul for the day. I came home about broke, but flying high. LOL

Look at these gorgeous fabrics. Do you see why I couldn't resist? LOL

 

I have been looking for a variegated red DMC floss #115. Of course Wal Mart no longer carries floss. I checked at JoAnn's and Michael's. Neither one of them had this particular number. So today I checked at Hobby Lobby. Success! Isn't this pretty? It will make some lovely redwork projects. I bought 12 skeins. So I should be good to go for a while. LOL

As you can tell from the first picture, I got all my fusibles. I bought a few yards of Wonder Under, 4 yards of Heat and Bond (I have never used this brand, so I hope it works good.), some fusible interfacing, insul-bright, 2 packages of sewing machine needles and 2 marking pencils (They were on sale, buy one, get one free.), and several yards of tea stained muslin. I have started using muslin for the backing on my small quilts. I love how it turns out. I think Bren suggested this. Thanks Bren.

I made a couple of purses this week. I thought I'd share the first one with you today. I found some coordinating blues in my stash and went to work. First I machine quilted the front and back. I used Warm and Natural batting. After that, I used a variety of different fusibles on the pockets, sides, and the lining. It turned out pretty good, but took me all day to make. So I changed the second one and it went much faster. I will share it next time.

 

That little pocket on the front is perfect for putting your keys in. I am notorious for laying my keys down and forgetting where I put them. I can't tell the number of times I have had to retrace my steps in a store, looking for my keys.

Here is the back of it.

Finally, the inside. It has two pockets sewn onto the lining. Then I had to put that zipper in. Of course, the very first thing I did was break a needle, which flew up and hit me in the cheek. Let's just say, I was glad to get this purse done. LOL

Well, that is enough for today. Things seem to be going faster and easier since I switched to Firefox.. Doing a blog post is no longer so time consuming. Maybe, just maybe, I will post more often. LOL Everyone have a great weekend. Thank you for visiting.

My Wild Quilt Top!

Good afternoon everyone,

I have had a hard time getting here to post. I had to go to town Friday morning to go to the bank and get groceries for us and MIL. I got back about one. The net was down all afternoon. Our power started going off and on during the evening. Once it straightened its act up, I tried the computer again and the net was back, but I was just so out of the mood to post.

We had very sad news Saturday. My sister-in-law, Gina's, younger sister passed away after a nine-month long battle with bone cancer. Dana was 28 years old and leaves behind a daughter, 9, and 2 sons, 6 and 4. This is just so heartbreaking. Dana's funeral was today in Topeka. I am asking anyone who feels the need, to pray for Dana's family. They are having a rough go of it. Gina is doing her best, but she lives in Missouri and they are in Kansas, over 2 hours away. I feel so bad for these poor children. They are sweet, adorable kids.

We did not get much accomplished over the weekend. It rained again Friday night, so was too wet to work outside Saturday. I just didn't feel like doing much on Sunday, so I went to JoAnn's. (grin) That is always good therapy when I am down. Sunday was the first day of their Firefly Frenzy sale. I bought lots of fabric that was clearance priced, then half off that. Alot of these are what was left on the bolt. If there wasn't at least 3 yards on the bolt, I just took it all.

Everything I bought was 50% off with the exception of the Fons and Porter quarter inch seam markers (40% off) and the insul-bright and 6 X 12 omnigrip no slip ruler (used 2 - 50% off coupons) and the bright blue fabric under the ruler. I bought that to make a shirt for dh. It cost me less than $5 for enough for a shirt for him. (big grin) The insul-bright is normally $6.99 per yard, so I was glad to have a coupon for it. I plan to make some potholders and this is used in the middle, not supposed to melt. I bought the Quilter's 80/20 baby batting because I always seem to have a baby quilt that needs quilted. I probably should have bought more batting, but I figured I had spent enough on this shopping excursion! LOL

I finished the top on Dana's quilt along. I was pleasantly surprised at how it turned out. It is 72"X84" as is, so I don't think I will put any borders on it. Now to get it quilted. I am actually considering trying to quilt it on my machine, just straight lines with my walking foot. Bren, am I crazy to try this? It has so many seams and I have so many quilt projects that need to be hand quilted, I thought I would try this. Of course, I may end up regretting it. (sigh) Here it is with my dh holding it up for me.
I am having quite a time getting this blog post done. We had a nasty storm last night. Our power was out from about midnight till 7 or 8 this morning. The lightning was wicked. We heard it hit something, but haven't found it yet, so I am hoping it was just a tree in the timber. We had 4 1/4 inches of rain, so now all the creeks and rivers are flooding. We are supposed to have more storms come back this afternoon with another inch or two rain possible. (sigh) I really don't think I will ever catch up with the weeding in the garden now. Anyway, right in the middle of writing this blog, the power went off again. (Thank you blogger for automatically saving the posts!) It was off for about 5 minutes, so I guess they were working on it. Now I am trying to hurry and get it done in case the power goes off again. LOL

I have been busy working on some other projects. I have 2 redwork pieces almost done. I finished the quilting on a table runner and just need to bind it. I took the leftover strips cut from the wild quilt and made the cutest little baby quilt. I was pleasantly surprised with it, but more about that tomorrow. I want to get this posted. Everyone have a good day and if you are so inclined, please say a prayer for Dana's little sweeties. Thank you for visiting. Please come again.