Thanksgiving Break 2015

It was very cold in Dallas when we took Jakob back to school after break. Somehow the weather was just awful during break and we didn't manage to get any photos inside or out while he was home.  So we snapped these real quick but they didn't turn out so well

I was thankful to have him home. We had talked nearly every day for an hour or so during this semester of school. The first year of college I was able to go out for my birthday and one other time in addition to seeing him for Thanksgiving this year, i worked the first half of the semester at the High School then had so many quilt orders that it was impossible to get away. I am thankful the Spring time has a week break and Easter, we will get to see him a little more. I love his month off for Winter Break. It will be fun

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Having a Horse

With taking in Izzy we also took in her horse Lucky. Its kind of neat having a horse. It isn't something we had ever had. Paul enjoys the idea of composting all the horse stuff around the yard. He has two bins set up in the back and he seems to enjoy the companionship. Lucky and Hatchet are really good friends. Lucky even licks him, its funny. They play ball together as well.

Thankfully we had the small fenced in yard area but soon we will have to open up the back to him as well, we just need to get a fence and gate in.

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Creating Space

Taking in Izzy created an issue for Jakob, he needed some space for himself when he comes home from breaks and the summer. Since we are unsure how long she will stay with us we are creating space for both boys in the loft.

The first obstacle was clothing. Zekaryah really loves to dress nice so an easy option was putting in a closet of sorts.

Paul did a great job and I helped Zekaryah get everything hung and organized.

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Christmas Quilt Orders 2015

Christmas Orders seemed to come in pretty consistently this year

They were combined with birthdays and graduations

They varied in size and style from music shirts

to school whether it was high school or college shirts

I had a variety of colors this year, most were plain fabrics tone on tone.

This order for 7 quilts back in October made me decide I could no longer handle the full time subbing job I was working and also quilt. So I chose just to quilt and boy was I glad I did.

Even though these are smaller lap quilts they take a while to put together

the block size is smaller than a tshirt quilt so they are more labor intensive

I love the variety in quilts like these though. They all had the same fabric but each was unique through the placement of shirts

She in fact would like them so much that she would request four additional quilts in December

I learned with these quilts that doing them in a process was the easiest

Cutting all the shirts, then stabilizing them, then diving them into piles of 7

I also learned putting those piles in bags was a great way to save time as well.

I would create all the quilt tops, then pin them all, quilt them one by one and then add the binding and label to each.

These particular quilts all had a label in the center, reminding them of their loved one.

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Finding Sleep

Sleep- its funny when times like this happen. I had gotten some kind of really vicious stomach bug. I had to take antibiotics and it hit me three different times. It was tough struggling to help Mekenzei with homework and her late nights and then also quilting. I had to take time off work from subbing back in October when the first round of it hit. Mekenzei thought it was funny when she looked over and saw this- she decided to get up in the morning and finish homework, she said I needed to sleep.

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Shed Floor

Sometimes we have days where the weather is nice and there is time and we can really get something accomplished

This shed was put on the property by the previous owners, we love it but it needed a new floor

It needs some other work too but we wanted to start by putting a good floor in to be able to store wood for projects and Izzys horse supplies

Zekaryah, Paul, Izzy and I all worked to help remove it and then carry over new boards to put down

;

I really like Paul's idea, it needs a little bit more added by the door and then a new door created on the side and it is much better.

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Sewing Surprise

My husband is super sweet. He saw the trouble I was having with my scissors for a rag quilt and he purchased me a new pair. They are even better than the pair I had before. He also got some thread for a couple upcoming orders. I love simple gestures. I would spend nearly all my day to drive across town two cities over to grab them and then come back. Its nice when he can stop on the way home.

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Teachers Rag Quilt

Rag Quilts are so much fun. They take quite a bit of time though. I changed the idea on this one after all the colorful fabrics were purchased

I decided to use colored flannel in between the blocks in order to give even more color to the ragged portion. The teacher loves it.

The backing was more of a sky blue flannel but it really matches with all the blues in the front. I called it my Rag Quilt of Many Colors.

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College Quilt

This college quilt had some cute logos on the shirts so I turned them into this fancy square

She chose gray fabric for her quilt and a gray comfy flannel

She loved that I was able to preserve a little more of the shirts then she had envisioned.

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