Alex – Page 3 – Kelly's Kwilts

Alex’s Quilt

So I FINALLY started a quilt for Alex – who is now 4 years old! I have been collecting some fabrics for awhile and at our guild quilt show I let him pick out a fat quarter pack for his quilt. Last week I cut out the 80 pieces out of the prints and now I just need to cut out all the side strips for each print. I cut out a few and sewed them together this afternoon just so I could see some progress! The pattern is one that was a class at our guild that I put into EQ in all the different sizes. I think this will go together quickly, as long as I can get everything cut out and ready to sew when I have time. Alex has now stated that he’s not going to nap in the afternoon anymore, but I’ve told him he has to play quietly in his room if he’s not going to nap. Cassie naps, but not very well, I usually have to nurse her back to sleep. But I think I can do this, I miss it!!

In the last week or so I managed to get a few more diamonds completed for my Hexie Insanity quilt. I’m now 3.2% completed! 🙂 My numbers changed a little bit because I added in more borders after seeing some finished quilts. Once this is finished it will have over 10,000 hexagons in it!

Guild meeting tonight, and a board meeting, that I now need to attend since I am the “media person” – I took over the newsletter last fall and I do the blog and FaceBook. *sigh* One of these days I’ll learn to say no! 🙂 Oh and did I mention that I’m doing a BOM this year for the guild? LOL, I have some ideas but need to spend some time working on it! First 2 blocks need to be ready for next month!

Hopefully I’ll be back soon with more blocks finished on Alex’s quilt – or a finished top! I need to put borders on my Hexagon Diamonds quilt so I can get it basted and quilted too – it needs to be on the bed in the trailer this year!

It’s Been Awhile….

I have been so busy the last few months that I really haven’t done much sewing. Why have I been busy? Because my precious little girl Cassie was born!!!! She will be 2 months old on Wednesday and I can’t believe how fast the time has gone! We cannot believe she’s here, it’s amazing how different she is from Alex in size and attitude. Alex loves his little sister, almost too much, since he always wants to kiss her when she’s sleeping and that wakes her up!

I managed to get a few things done in my office over the weekend, finally made a cover for Alex’s dresser and now it’s protected from scratches. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it’s nothing special just 2 different fabrics (construction equipment and Chuggington trains) with some batting. I didn’t even quilt it, just stitched a 1/4 inch around the edges.

I finally managed to finish the last diamond for the penultimate row of my hexagon diamonds quilt. At the same time I’ve been working on the black pieces I need for fill in at the top and right now I’m working on putting one of those in place. Everything is slow work since Cassie wants to be fed every few hours! 🙂 I really would like to finish this so I can put it in our guild quilt show this year. Plus it’s for our bed in the trailer!

I joined another group on Facebook for those that are making what is called the Insanity Quilt by Rhonda Pearce. I really don’t need another hexagon quilt to make, but I love the design!!! I bought 3/4″ and 1/2″ hexagon papers from paperpieces.com awhile ago so I could decide which size I liked better and I also bought the Studio dies that I needed to cut my fabric into the correct sizes. I got the quilt designed in EQ7 and it’s going to be almost 100″ x 100″!! I’m planning on using the 3/4″ hexis, the 1/2″ are just too small for me. So when hubby asked what I’d like for Mother’s Day, I found some Moda Marbles jelly rolls on Amazon and gave him that option. Since it’s a lot of diamonds and flowers, I can start working on them as soon as I get hexie diamonds finished. It’s really hard to NOT cut into the fabric and start working on it!! I have some Moda Marbles here that I’m using on another quilt that I will also use once I finish the other quilt (yeah I know something else to finish!). I still need to decide on the background color, but I’ll probably use a solid Kona, white or cream. I won’t need it for awhile since I’ll just work on the flowers and diamonds for awhile first.

Well, Cassie is up again, time to get her dressed and fed so we can go out for a walk – I have more baby weight to lose!!!! And since I just realized it’s Monday, I’m linking up to Patchwork Times!

Boxing Day sewing!

Wow what a Christmas! Had a wonderful holiday with family and was very happy that Alex loved his gift from Santa and mommy and daddy. He has spent most of the last 2 days playing with his new train table. I will do another post later with details on presents made and received, but I wanted to mention that hubby got me the learn to knit kit that I asked for. I have spent part of my day today learning how to knit and purl in order to be able to start working on a blanket for the baby. I relearned to crochet and made a blanket before Alex was born, so now it’s time to learn to knit and make one for little girl. 🙂

I had some time this afternoon to participate in some BDSI (Boxing Day Sew In) sewing. I finished putting the center of my pyramid top together and just need to even off the sides and add a border. I’m thinking about using a solid black border so as to not draw anything away from the awesome colors of the center. I ended up with only 2 of the 100 squares not being used from the charm pack. I should be able to finish the top tomorrow, as long as Alex takes a nap!

Going to log off for now, need to practice working on my purl stitch!!

Busy, busy, busy!

It’s been busy around here the last couple of weeks. My son was the ring bearer in a friend’s wedding last week. He looked so handsome!!! We were very proud of him, he did everything he was supposed to do! I made the couple my usual wedding gift, cross stitch picture in a matted frame for 2 of their wedding pictures. I’ve probably made close to 10 of these for family and friends over the years.

Hubby helped me get my Studio situated yesterday. We had a table in the basement that he made years ago for his music keyboard that has just been sitting there. So I had him cut the legs down so that it would fit underneath my sewing table. You can see a couple of boxes under there, once I take care of those (documents that need shredded) it should fit nicely against the wall on the left. Haven’t used it much yet, just did a trial cut the night it got here. I do have a TON of black 2.5″ squares to cut, so it will get a workout soon.

I couldn’t decide what to work on today, hubby is busy with his business partner and Alex is napping, so after working on cleaning some stuff up in my office and starting the homemade chicken noodle soup I decided to pull out the scrappy 9 patch quilt I’ve been working on as leader/enders. All of the 4 patches are completed, just need to iron them all – so I started working on the 9 patch blocks. This is what I’ll need the black squares for. I think this will go fast, since most everything is cut already. Next I’ll need the 6.5″ black squares and I might wait to cut those until I can get the die for the Studio. We’ll see!

When we were cleaning out my grandmother’s house, I got a box FULL of buttons. I finally finished cutting them all off the cards or cutting them off strings and got them in a vase for on top of my cabinets. Then I decided to take another vase and put all the thread that I got from her house too. Since it’s been a lot of years since she’s sewn, I don’t really know how old the thread is. Some of it is on wooden spools! I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to use it, I’d rather use it for decoration. Either way, it will remind me of her.

I think once I get the 9 patches done I’ll go back to the guild challenge quilt. Just need to decide on which color to do the sashing in so I can put it together. Shouldn’t take too long, I have just over a month before it needs to be done for our meeting. Hopefully back soon with another update!

Where have I been – Part 2

Ok, lunch is over and the laptop is plugged in charging. I said I’d explain why Alex and I stayed home from the CA trip right? We’ve been trying for awhile to get pregnant, we really didn’t want Alex to be an only child. Since we had so many issues getting pregnant with him, and after a few months of trying ourselves and doing IUI’s, we started the IVF process again. With a failed cycle in December and another failed attempt in the spring, we were finally lucky enough for it to work in July. The IVF transfer was the day before the hubby left for his trip and we didn’t want me to attempt flying after all of that. So Alex and I stayed home, I had to do all of my shots myself instead of hubby helping me. Let me tell you, progesterone shots in the thigh are not pleasant, but it’s better than not doing it at all and losing the baby. I have a genetic clotting disorder called MTHFR that requires me to take extra folic acid pills in addition to my prenatal vitamin. I also take a low dose baby aspirin and do twice daily heparin shots to prevent my blood from clotting.

So needless to say it’s been a rough couple of months with morning sickness, not in the morning as you’d expect but at night right before bed. And not once in awhile like it was with Alex, but every night! Lots of doctor appointments with the specialists and various OBs (due to my age and clotting disorder I’m considered high risk so I have to see a specialist because of that!). We’ve had lots of ultrasounds which gives me lots of chances to see that everything is ok. I’m a paranoid person when it comes to this since we’ve had LOTS of problems in the past. We have a doppler that allows us to hear the baby’s heartbeat and I ask the hubby if we can hear it every couple of nights or so.

Due to my high risk issues, we had a blood test done called NISP that checks for Downs syndrome and other chromosomal issues. Not that we’d terminate if the results were bad, but if we knew we could do research to find out what special things we’d need to get. The other benefit to the test is that since they are testing fetal DNA in my blood, they can tell the gender. So the doctors office called one Friday afternoon close to 5 o’clock. The nurse tells me that the test was negative so we didn’t have to worry about any disorders. Then she asks if we know the gender and if we want to know. Of course I say yes, but that I’m afraid to know the answer! She says “They found no Y chromosomes”, and I’m sitting there for about 30 seconds trying to remember what that means! She must have realized I couldn’t think so she says “It’s a girl” after which I immediately start crying because that’s what I wanted! As soon as I got off the phone with her I called the hubby and told him. He was just as excited! Hubby posted this picture on his Facebook page with no comments and we don’t think many people got it.

So come March 2014 we’ll have a new face in our house and a daughter in our hearts. I am hoping to start sewing again soon, now that things are calming down and I’m getting my energy back. I have a few scrap projects in mind and can’t wait to work on. Also hoping to work on cross stitch again at night while we watch tv, it’ll keep me from going to sleep too soon! If I can start working on projects, you’ll be seeing posts!

Where have I been???

Wow, it’s been a LONG time since I posted anything! I was trying hard this summer to get my hexie diamonds quilt finished for our quilt show, until they posted that quilts had to be completed by the end of September. AHHHHH! I’d never make it since I had 3 rows to finish, plus the black fill in spots at the top and bottom, PLUS quilting it? Yeah, I decided to just put it aside and work on it slow and just have it ready for the next show. Then I realized I needed to start working on a cross stitch piece for a wedding gift. Now of course it’s still not done and the wedding is next weekend! The bride works with the hubby and asked Alex to be the ring bearer! He’s going to look so cute in a tux, I just don’t know if he’s going to do what he’s asked or not!

In July the hubby went to California to see his dad for his 70th birthday. Alex and I stayed home since I don’t really want to take him on an airplane yet! (There’s another reason why we didn’t go that I’ll explain in another post.) Turns out it was a good thing we didn’t go as Alex got sick that weekend and had a 100 degree fever – only for about 24 hours though! Anyway, I found out there was a new quilt shop (The Quilt Loft) that opened within walking distance of his dad’s house. We’ve always had this deal that if one of us went out of town, the other would bring back a “prize”. So I told him where he could get my prize! So he went and picked out a jelly roll of Icicle Kisses by Kansas Troubles Quilters. I have no idea what I’ll do with it yet, but I will come up with something!

I was playing around with one of my Accuquilt Go dies and made this little table runner. I’ve had it pinned for awhile, just haven’t gotten around to sitting down at the machine to quilt it! This was a charm pack that I ran through on the triangle die (don’t remember which one off hand since we are camping while I write this post!) and just put them together into 2 rows. Haven’t decided if I will square it off once quilted or bind it with the angled corners. Once we get home from camping I will look at which die I used and also get the information for which line this was from.

Spent some time working on blocks for our Guild block exchange using the 2013 Hoffman Challenge fabric. All blocks have been exchanged and now it’s time to put it all together into a quilt. We want to have all the quilt tops completed by the December meeting so we can hopefully get more people to participate next year! I’ll do another post with those once we get home, I haven’t taken pictures of all the blocks yet!

I received an email yesterday from Accuquilt that the Studio cutter is on sale again for $399, the lowest price I’ve seen all year. I’ve been debating it for a long time, mainly because there are a few dies I’d love to have that are only made for the Studio. Plus I’ve been thinking about adding die cuts to my business, since at some point I need to get that going again. I currently only have 2 customers for embroidery work and I need to start making things I can put on etsy. Die cuts might be a good thing, quick and I could even cut customer fabrics! Plus right now is triple reward points and that will be nice, since it will give me a good way to buy more dies at limited cost to me! 🙂

Time to charge the laptop and make some lunch, I’ll be back later with more of where I’ve been!

Hexagon Diamonds Update

Well, I FINALLY got the 6th row added onto the main piece last night. Waited until today to get the picture just because it was so late when I got the last piece added. There’s only 7 more rows to add on to this and I’ve already pulled the baggies for the next row. Of course while I was trying to get a picture this morning, Alex wanted to lay on it so I got a picture of him posing. He was crawling all over it finding all the blue pieces of fabric – that’s 1 of 2 colors he can say. He understands what the colors are, he just only says blue and black (this is new in the last week or so).

Hubby and I have been working to get our macs setup the way we want them (he got a new Macbook Pro last week). We’ve been buying things we need for the machines or our network at home so I decided to buy a few things for myself too! I ordered 2 dies for my Accuquilt Go, a 3″ finished half-square triangle and a 2″ finished half-square triangle. The 3″ die is going to be used with my signature die, and the 2″ die is going to work quite nicely with my 2″ finished squares. I have so many designs in my head I’d love to do and having the 2″ finished triangles and squares will take care of MOST of them! I have 2 dies I’d love to have custom made, but they are each just under $100. I wish I could get them done cheaper somewhere else, I just haven’t bothered looking yet to see if that is possible. It’s on my large to-do list!

I fixed the row that was messed up on Wiggly Whimsy, but then realized I had another row that was messed up. I took the stitching out of that row this morning and was hoping to sew it this afternoon, instead I’ve been working on my computer all day. I hope to get it pinned tonight and I’ll probably sew it tomorrow. Once Alex gets up from his nap, my sewing time is gone and he should be getting up in the next 45 minutes or so.

Can’t decide if I want to work on hexagons tonight or hand quilting. Maybe I’ll do both! We were at Home Depot last week and I wanted to see if they had 1/4″ blue painters tape and forgot to look. I’m going to Target this week, maybe I’ll see if I can get some there. Then I wouldn’t have to mark the hand quilting lines when I’m doing 1/4″ in a block. Looks like Alex is up, and I haven’t pinned the pieces togther for Wiggly Whimsy, guess that’s on the list for tomorrow’s nap time!

Wiggly Whimsy & Scrappy 9 patch

I finally got another hexagon diamond finished, only 2 left and I can attach to the main piece. I really like the colors I picked for this one, but I can’t stand the maroon fabric. I don’t remember when I bought it or what I bought it for, but I really can’t wait until it’s gone. It is really stiff and hard to work with, especially when working by hand.

I decided to finish up the rows for Wiggly Whimsy. I still need to iron them and put all 7 rows together, but at least these have been finished. I really think I’m going to like this when it’s all put together. Still haven’t decided what I’m going to do with it, or how I’m going to quilt it. I might give it to Alex for his bed, he’s started wanting a blanket in bed lately. I think it might fit in his toddler bed without being too huge. We’ll have to see once it’s all put together though!

While I worked on finishing up Wiggly Whimsy I pulled 2.5″ squares so I could start working on the scrappy 9 patch quilt. I needed to cut more black squares with my Go, but that’s so easy and fast it really wasn’t a big deal. I now have 120 twosies that need ironed so I can make the 4 patch blocks that make up the border. I’ll need to cut more black squares for the 9 patches, but that can wait since I have the 4 patches to put together. I’m thinking that I’ll work on this a little in the afternoons while Alex naps, along with putting Wiggly Whimsy together. I can listen to the tv or a podcast while I work and time just flies.

Alex has finally hit the terrible twos and has little tantrums at stores, usually when I tell him no I’m not buying him something. I’m at the point of ignoring him even though people are always looking at me because he’s screaming and crying. All of a sudden he doesn’t want to nap, he plays in his room for hours until I finally let him out. He’s locked his door twice in the last week, the first time I FREAKED out and had to call hubby to find out how to get the doggone door open. I just could not think clearly or rationally. There is now a wire hanger outside his door for easy access :).

I guess I better go start gathering things for the trip to the in-laws for our Easter celebration, tomorrow we’ll be at my parents all day. Hope everyone has a Happy Easter!

Love Fat Quarter Shop!

I got my shipment on Friday, but it’s been a little busy around here and I haven’t had time to post it yet. I love the way things are packaged when you get order from Fat Quarter Shop. Everything is in nice zipped bags and fit in just the right size box with no extra shipping “junk” in it. I got a few things for myself, charm packs of Moda marbles – bright, pastel, citrus and warm – and a mini charm pack of Indigo Crossing. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with any of it, the mini charm pack might end up being a hexagon pillow or something since they are already 2.5″ squares.

The main purchase is the Camp Peanuts bundle to make a quilt for Alex’s bed in the RV. I need to decide on a pattern, I’m not sure the one I was thinking of will work. I’m going to need to muddle on it for a week or two before I start anything. Alex saw it the other night and flipped out, he likes Snoopy!

I’ve been thinking about getting an Accuquilt Studio lately. They have a sale going on that ends today, but it’s not enough of a sale to tempt me yet. The Studio cuts more layers of fabric, the Go can only do a maximum of 6 layers. I’m just starting to think I need more of a power house than the Go. It would have to be just the right sale to get me to do it though, since it’s a lot of money! There are more dies for the Studio than the Go and now that they have a tray that you can use the Go dies. So I’m not wasting the ones I’ve already bought. I’d still keep my Go since it’s portable and can be used anywhere. I’d just have to figure out where to put the Studio in my office, since I’m a little packed in here already. I might be able to put the printer somewhere else and put the Studio in its place. Since I’m not ready yet it doesn’t matter too much though! But that is something to think about before I buy it!

I don’t have anything new to show on Hexagon Diamonds, I wasn’t feeling well part of the week and didn’t do much work. I did however get all 5 diamonds prepped with the black pathways and I’m almost done with the first one. I hope to finish it tonight while we watch the Miami-Cleveland basketball game. Hopefully I’ll have an update on that soon!

New Fabrics!!!

Oh my goodness! I was scrolling through my Facebook feeds today and came across a post from Fat Quarter Shop. They have a Camp Peanuts collection that would be PERFECT for Alex for the RV. Of course I had to order it! I’m thinking I’ll cut the panel apart and use it in blocks, but I’ll have to wait until it gets here to figure out the pattern I want to use. Depending on the size of them I might even know one already, but I’ll have to wait and see. If it ships today I’ll have it on Friday, if not it’ll be here Monday. Can’t wait to see it and get a quilt made for Alex!