Alex – Kelly's Kwilts

Long Time No See….

Wow, I didn’t realize it had been so long! Let’s see if I can do a life update to explain before I get into the quilting.

Fall of 2022 (back to my last post) changed everything for us. My mom had some medical issues that she couldn’t come back from and ended up going to a nursing home for long term care as we couldn’t take care of her at home any more. All my free time was spent running out to see her multiple times a week along with helping dad out with things at the house. May of 2023, the week after Mother’s Day, she had multiple strokes which the doctors said there was nothing they could do to help her. May 22, 2023 she passed away and we had a lot of things to take care of. Lawyer, bank, cars, etc. It’s been hard to deal with mom not being here the last year, but she’s not hurting anymore and is at peace.

To add on top of the things going on with my mom, my lovely husband broke his leg in January. 2 surgeries and about 4 months later he was back on his feet with a cane and walking. Then over the summer we realized that when he fell and broke his leg he also damaged his shoulder. Surgery for that in October to repair 2 massive tears in his rotator cuff. 2023 was not a good year for our family!

I didn’t have a lot of mojo to quilt the rest of the year, I used to quilt with mom and my heart just wasn’t in it. Oh I still worked on EPP projects, but didn’t get anything close to a finish. I also picked up cross stitch again and spent evenings working on that when I didn’t want to work on EPP. At Christmas, hubby and I decided we weren’t getting each other gifts but did a weekend trip to Kalahari Indoor Water Park as a family gift from Santa instead. To my surprise he handed me a letter basically saying that due to him being home most of the year and not working as much (plus everything with mom) he realized that tomorrow is never guaranteed. We needed to enjoy life more. So he made me a promise that come 2024 we’d figure out how to get me the long arm I’ve been wanting for a REALLY long time. So, April of 2024 I purchased a Handiquilter Moxie XL, the 10′ frame and the overhead light bar. In order to have a place to put it I had to do some MAJOR cleaning in the basement – I had between 15-20 garbage bags, a few things that went on Facebook Marketplace and were sold and a lot of sorting! There’s still a little bit left to clean up and/or sell but the basement is now pretty usable. I also had to call an electrician and get a lot more (and better) lights and outlets in the basement. That turned out WAY better than I expected!

So since the beginning of May I’ve been quite busy working on finishing various quilts. 2 small ones that were donated to the guild community service group, 1 the kids stole almost immediately (waiting since 2013 for quilting), the Pokemon quilt (waiting since March 2020 for quilting) and Cassie’s bed quilt (currently finishing the binding and has only been waiting 2 years for quilting).

In addition to getting all these quilts finished in the last few months, I also got a few cross stitch projects finished. A new line of signs from Fat Quarter Shop that I loved but finished totally differently than they did – of course I quilted them and made them wall hangings for the doors! I finished 3 of them, I have to start working on the fall, Halloween and Christmas ones. I finally finished my quilt-o-logy and stitch-o-logy pieces, instead of buying the wooden spool, my dad made them for me out of wood from our backyard that he’s been making things for us for years. Of course I just realized I haven’t hung them up yet and I don’t remember where I put them after I showed them off at guild! I’ll have too look so I can hang them in my office/sewing room.

Today is the first day of summer break for the kids, they’ve accomplished so much in the last year and a half! Alex is doing great in middle school, Honors ELA and science (8th grade science in 7th grade!), and almost all A’s (a B+ in Honors science). Next year he takes 9th grade science in 8th grade and gets high school credit for it! Cassie is moving to 5th grade next year and is so smart it kills me! She’s been identified as gifted in math and ELA so that should continue into middle school like Alex with honors classes. I’m very proud of both my kids, even though Alex has surpassed my height at 13!

I’ll be around more, I have lots of things to finish and I think my mojo is finally back!

Goodbye 2020!

Ugh, I was so hoping to get more quilting done this year! We had all this time at home and I could have done so much. However, I did have an absolutely wonderful year for my business and had lots of time spent with the hubby and kids.

I have started hand quilting my first hexagon quilt, it’s slow going because I have so many hand projects that I rotate through. I’ve only been working in the white areas, because I haven’t decided what thread I want to use in the hexie flowers yet. I figure there’s a lot of white and I can decide the other color(s) later. You should be able to see the detail if you click on the pictures. My stitches aren’t 100% uniform, but I’m getting the hang of it and as it’s not going in a show/contest I don’t care. It’s mine and it’s been 100% stitched by hand. I don’t think I’m going to put a regular binding on it either, I’m thinking of doing a knife edge to it – I think I’ll need to do the edges before I quilt that last border though.

In October I started working on the pentagon project. It’s changed a few times since I decided what I wanted to do with it, so now I have 4 pentagons with a square in the middle appliqued to a background. I’ve gotten enough done that I put together the first row, used a ton of 1.5″ squares from the bin, and there’s a lot more that will be used by the time I’m done with this top. I’m working on putting the sashing together while I put together bow-tie blocks and the 9-patches I need for the border on that quilt. It’s all pretty mindless sewing when I need it.

As if I didn’t have enough hand projects, I pulled out some cross stitch and started working on that again. This is a piece for Alex and I have one I want to make for Cassie as well as one I want to make for 2 special teachers the kids have had. I have a bunch of Star Wars ones to make for Alex and at some point they’ll get done. In the past I’ve done all my cross stitch with paper patterns, but lately I’ve wanted to do it with an ipad. The app that I really want to use isn’t available for ios yet, and the android tablets we have are WAY to old for it to work. So I found a pdf app that will allow me to annotate the file and we’ll see how that works. I just got it updated last night but didn’t have time to try and see how well it works, might try that tonight.

Kids are off until next Monday (1/4), and I’m hoping to get some time to work on quilting. I got everything ready yesterday, because I intended on starting the quilting until I realized I may have inadvertently tossed my quilting gloves! I ordered a new pair yesterday, but who knows how long it will take for them to get to me. I’ll have to start quilting without them I guess and hope I have enough black thread to last until the new spool gets here with the gloves. I know I won’t be able to finish it before the end of the year, but I’d still like to start working on it and maybe start the new year with a finish.

Here’s hoping that 2021 is a better year for everyone and that I finish some projects in the new year!

Updates in September

Wow, 5 months without a post! It’s been a whirlwind last 5 months and I just haven’t done a lot of stitching. We finished the school year at home with mommy as the teacher, Cassie did great and Alex just didn’t want to work on anything. Home just isn’t the right place for my kids and school. They just started back this week and we’ve had an eventful first week! Yesterday the phone rang and my heart always drops when it says it’s the school. Yep, Alex threw up at recess and had to come home from school. So I had to run up to school and get him. Let’s hope it’s the only time this year!

It was a busy spring and summer with orders, including one to Germany that took forever to get there! Everyone was shopping online for the end of the school year gifts and it definitely helped me! It’s been a slow start to fall, but that’s ok it will pick up in the next month or so for Xmas. Because I was so busy with orders the sewing machine sat idle for a long time. Plus we were doing a lot of camping and visiting with family in other states. We stayed in the whole time but had so much fun!

Now that I am starting to have some time to myself I’ve been working on Harry Potter SAL blocks. Just finished another one today, I only have 9 more blocks and I can get the top put together. Since our quilt show for 2020 was cancelled due to COVID-19 I have time to get this and maybe a couple more quilts completed before our show in September 2021.

I have a lot of projects to work on when I’m sitting in my chair at night, cross stitch, all the various EPP projects, a new knitting project and I picked up a QAYG Hexagon template at a guild meeting a few months ago and have been hand stitching those and will be machine stitching them together when they are all ready. Hope to be back soon with a new update, hopefully it won’t be 5 months from now!

I’m back!

Sigh….I just need to get back into sewing so I can post more! I started working on this post over a month ago, I don’ t even remember why I didn’t finish it!

School has started and both kids are loving their teachers and going to school – no matter what Alex says! Cassie is flying through sight words, her kindergarten teacher is amazed at what she knows already. My little girl is going to do so well in school! Alex is in third grade and he’s doing well too, loving his teachers this year which is a good thing! Just got reports cards for the 1st quarter and he’s got 3 B’s and an A – this is the first year that they get real grades. I’m more than happy with that!

In one of my IGSecretPal boxes I received some yarn, a Sweet Roll from Premier Yarns in a color way called Bubble Pop. I looked through Ravelry and found the Absolute Beginner Knit Cowl. It was so very easy and fairly quick, well quick for me, as I got it finished in 3 months. Once I got it finished I gave it to my little sister since pink is her color. The pattern was so easy that I might just make some more with some of the many, many yarns I have.

In September, I took a workshop on how to make jelly roll rugs. I used a jelly roll the husband bought me back in 2003 called Icicle Kisses from Kansas Troubles Quilters. Usually when I have time to take workshops I end up not having time to finish the project. Well not this time! I had my rug completed and took it back to the meeting in October for show and tell. It looks great in my kitchen right in front of the sink. I got some of that non-skid stuff to put under it so that no one slips and falls.

I’m trying to figure out what quilt I can pull out, baste and start working on quilting. I have too many quilts that are in the quilting queue and I have not been able to complete even 1 item off my UFO list this year. At least half of my list just needs to be quilted! I hope to be back soon with something to show!

Wow!

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted last. Since March I haven’t done much sewing at all. I’ve been spending a lot of time working on embroidery, things for family and orders, and I spent a lot of time at school towards the end of the school year. Both kids did wonderful the last few months of the year, Cassie graduated preschool and Alex has finished 2nd grade and is moving on to 3rd. He ended the year reading at an almost 6th grade level! Cassie hasn’t even started kindergarten yet and she can already read full books to herself! I’ve been doing lots of reading, while camping, at home and on our annual Virginia trip.

With just a little bit of time at home before our next trip, I decided I wanted to get something sewn this week. Over the last few days I’ve been cutting out the pieces needed to make another of the Harry Potter blocks, today I got the wand put together. This was a pretty easy one to do and I figured I had better start with something easy to get back into it. I was able to get a couple more bow tie blocks put together as leader and enders while working on this, I’m now up to 119 bow ties and I think for the design I want to do I need 128 bow ties. Just a few more to go!

Since we are going on vacation again I decided that I’m going to concentrate on hexie insanity exclusively for this trip. I have a big bag of prepped diamonds and flowers, they just need basted and put together. Between the long flight to California and back and time while visiting I think I might be able to work on these at least a little. I’ve been working on a cross stitch project at night, need to get that finished for a wedding gift – the wedding already happened and there’s going to be a party at a later date to celebrate but I still need to get the gift done! Hopefully by the time I get back from vacation I’ll have some more to show and maybe I can get another HP block put together before we leave, but I doubt that!

February OMG Update

Well it wasn’t the easiest tasks I set for myself this month, but I did finish both of them! The first item was Alex’s winter jacket that the dog decided to snack on the zipper. I finally got the darn thing off and it took 2 afternoons to get the new zipper sewed on. It’s NOT even remotely perfect, however I am not a seamstress, I cannot stand mending, but it perfectly wearable and no one would notice that it’s not aligned properly unless I point it out. Alex is happy and it’s one more thing off my sewing table!

The other item I wanted to get done this month was a secret project, my husband’s t-shirt quilt that I don’t even remember WHEN I started! I’ve had the top done for SO very long and I know that I’ve gifted it to him at least twice already over the years – once for his birthday and then again for Christmas (I think the same year!). I knew he was going to be out of town from Sunday to Thursday and I knew if I worked hard I could get the whole thing quilted and bound before he got back and then I could gift it to him for Valentine’s Day! I’m not 100% happy with the quilting, I just meandered all over it – gray thread in the blocks and black thread in the borders. I had a lot of problems with the t-shirts and puckering, it’s been so long they aren’t sticking to the fusible anymore and moved around a lot while I was quilting. The issues in the border are because the end was in sight and I wanted to get it finished, there’s a lot of eyelashing on the back because I was going way too fast. At some point I might take it out and fix it, but for now he’s able to use it and it’s off my list. One of the reasons I was procrastinating on this quilt was because I don’t like piecing backs. It takes so long to get a piece big enough and I’d rather get to the quilting. I was walking through Pat Catan’s (local craft store) and saw the beer can fabric and knew what I could use it for! This is the brand hubby drinks, so I knew I needed it for his quilt. I even went back and got an extra yard so I could use it for the binding. The patches in the corners were chest images from t-shirts or patches from actual shirts he’s worn. He was so surprised to see it done, and that I had even included those pieces in the corners. I have a gazillion more t-shirts I’ve stashed away over the years and I’ll do more quilts at some point, but right now I’ve got too many things to get completed first!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts, Crazy Mom Quilts and My Quilt Infatuation.

February Goals

I have 1 secret project I want to finish, hopefully by Valentine’s Day that I can’t take a picture of or the secret will be out!!

Our ding-a-ling dog decided to take a bite out of Alex’s coat and it’s been sitting here waiting for the zipper to be replaced. Now I don’t really like mending, and replacing a zipper is really not on my favorites list. This jacket is a Lands End jacket he really likes and right now he’s wearing a size too small winter jacket until I get this fixed. I started taking the stitches out last night, still have a ways to go before the old zipper is totally out there. There’s a lot of stitches in there!

If I can get these 2 items done I might see if I can baste a few quilts that need quilted to prep ahead for March goals.

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts.

Drank the Kool Aid

EPPParty Block 2 052017 Yeah I know, I drank the Kool Aid again. I mentioned last post that I joined #EPPParty, block 2 is finished and I just got all of block 1 hexies basted so I can figure out layout for those. The next block is released when we are on vacation, so I’ll have to try and catch up when we get back.

Temp hexie quilt 052417 I know I mentioned in the last post that I didn’t have time for another hexie project. Yet I caved and started the temperature hexie quilt! I have week 1’s rosette ready to applique down and I’m working on finishing up week 2’s rosette. As I have time I’ll pull the fabrics and work on these, maybe with summer break starting on Friday (!) I’ll have a little more time for sewing, Alex and Cassie can play together and won’t need me (yeah right!). I will be ONLY pulling from the 2.5″ scrap bin for these rosettes, so the colors might change from block to block. I’m using a little bit of a different color scheme from Sarah, we don’t normally get to 100° plus I really don’t like brown all that much 🙂

90 Red
80-89 Yellow
70-79 Orange
60-69 Green
50-59 Dark Green
40-49 Blue
30-39 Dark Blue
20-29 Dark Purple
10-19 Light Purple
0-9 Light Pink
< 0 WOW (White on White)

Alex graduation 052217 In other news, we now have a Kindergarten graduate! His official last day of school is tomorrow, but there was a little ceremony at school Monday and we are just SO proud of him and all he has accomplished in the last year! Cassie wouldn’t stay out of the picture, I actually wanted one with just Alex and I, but that’s the life of a mom! 🙂

sigh

eppparty block 1 050817.jpg Did I really need to cut 2.5″ squares today for a new project? Heck no! *sigh* Alex said I should start another new project – and why did I listen to my 6 year old son? Because it’s hexies (at least this block) and it’s EPP. I couldn’t decide what fabric to use, I was thinking about just using my 2.5″ scrap bin, then I saw a jelly roll set I bought awhile ago at a guild meeting from a vendor. I haven’t used many batiks in the past, so hopefully this will be easy to use with EPP.

I’m trying to get hexies basted for a Halloween Hexie swap I’m in, and I really need to be working on the secret projects for Mother’s Day – fabric is pulled for those and I hope to get all the work done tomorrow since some of them NEED to be shipped by Wednesday.

Time for bed, I can’t stay awake any longer!

Happy New Year!

Wow! What a year we’ve had! I so did not get much sewing accomplished this year! Tons of camping, fun with the kids, the oldest is now in Kindergarten, we got a puppy the beginning of December…I could go on and on!

I only made one Christmas present this year, with the help of my sister and kids (just a little) we made our mother a memory quilt. Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of the finished quilt, I’ll have to try to remember next time I’m at their house. I was working on the binding on Christmas Eve, washed it and wrapped it as soon as it was out of the dryer. So taking a picture totally slipped my mind!

My etsy business is doing ok, I’ve had lots of views of the shop and items, just not many purchases. Only a total of 7 for 2016. I’ve recently created a Facebook page for the business, not sure if that’s helping yet or not. I have 4 commission quilts that need to be done in 2017, the first 2 tops are already done and ready for basting which I hope to be doing tomorrow or Monday.

Our quilt guild is doing a UFO Challenge for 2017 – I’m running it! I have 27 items on my list. I know I don’t have a chance of finishing them all, but I’ll do anything to get that push to finish them. Most of them just need quilted and bound, I just don’t know what I’m waiting for!

I don’t have any other pictures to show in this post, so I’ll just add 2, my little munchkins with Santa and a picture of our new baby, Raven Skye.

Have a wonderful New Year and be safe!!