Angels herding the cows

The water did come on last night so the plan was for me to haul some hay down & get a few chores done while the cows were in the pasture. While on the first load I noticed that the cows & their babies were spread out all over the pasture. I had gotten one load done & had started on my second when the heavens opened up & it started to pour. When I got to the top of the pasture there were all of the cows & their babies waiting for me to let them in. I quickly made a u-turn, shut all of the gates & let the cows back in. I seriously think that was the easiest I have ever had it. I wish that I could have seen the Angels bringing the cows up. What a sight! 

I did make a quick check of the pasture just to make sure there was no one left behind & there wasn't. Thank you Lord for my many blessings yesterday & today. 

More later on,

Vicky 

Just call me Grace + life with no water

This picture is a summary of my evening

The farm & my in-laws house is on city water, my families house is on well water. Around 3 today there was a major water line break & there is no city water. Well wouldn't you know husband wasn't home. By the time he got home (from helping an elderly farmer) it was dark. The plan to get water to the cows was to get them back into the pasture (there are 3 ponds back there). I did a quick check of the fence line & we were good to go. Just try to picture 3 humans herding a bunch of cows & calves in the dark. Oh my goodness what an experience. All went well, it took us a few tries but I believe we got all momma & their babies reunited in the pasture. The incident with my pant leg occurred while herding some calves back towards the gate & well with it being dark I did not see the huge mud pit. It'll be fine though I'll wash & so will the jeans. Dear husband & kiddo are headed into town to get water in these huge totes to water another set of calves that can't go back to the pasture. I'm hoping that the water will come back on soon & this incredible warm weather holds on until the water comes on. I really don't want to chop ice on the ponds. I'd better close this off & see what I can get done in the house. I hope y'all are having a great evening. More later on,

Vicky

It's Monday! What am I working on, a finish!!!!

Life has been busy but isn't that what I always say? We had a great Thanksgiving with our family & friends. I learned that you can't crowd an oven, the food will not cook quickly. My silly turkey took 6 hours to cook. The lessons I learned & the stories we can now tell😊.

I finished my latest quilt! Yeah! It's a big one. It measures 101.5" square, I hope. My tiny living room is to small to lay it out flat & it is too wet for an outside picture. This pic will have to do until I get it back & then maybe I can take apic outside

My original plan was for it to have a 4" border but with it being over 100" I decided that it was good border less. I'll put a solid dark binding on it & call it good. While putting it together I used some BOM blocks as my Leaders & Enders. I was able to get 3 blocks completed! 

Next on my plate is to bind 2 quilts, not my favorite thing to do. My guild is participating in the Kansas City quilt festival next June. We get to hang a certain number so in order to choose which quilts we will hang we need to bring our quilts this Thursday to guild meeting & we'll have viewers choice. My entry will be 

Sorry for the blurry picture me & technology are not getting along currently. This is my version of a red work quilt. The original pattern was for twilling embroidery but I did stem stitch with pearl cotton #5. It gives great texture & dimension plus it goes so much faster than twilling. 

I'd better cut this off, I need to finish supper. I hope hall are having a great day. It's been an unseasonably warm day here. It looks like we'll be in the upper 50's to almost 60's all week.  It's very hard for me to get in the Christmas spirit with it being that warm. I think getting my tree up might help. More later on,  

Vicky

It's Monday what am I working on? Cleaning & organizing the sewing room

I believe that I need to go through my sewing room & clean it/ organize it every so often. Well I had been putting that off & putting that off & well my sewing room had gotten out of control.  We are having company come in for Thanksgiving & my kiddo sleeps in the sewing room when company comes. I started working on it last night & was able to work on it for an hour.  This is what it started at 

This is what it looks like after an hour of work

Much better but there is more to be done. I've decided that I'm going to gift all of my minky fabric to my Mom. She makes cute & warm baby quilts minky & I know that she'll use it. So far I have one regular sized trash bag full & I believe that there is more. If for some reason I need minky I'll go & buy just what I need. I don't need my own stash of minky. Plus I'd rather have that room for cotton fabric that I can piece with. 

I did get the table runner that I mentioned in the last post done. It'll be going to my quilter tomorrow,

I do need to pull a backing for it & then it'll be ready to go. 

I had purchased new fabrics from the quilt shop to help promote them & well I did not calculate very well. I am a scrap quilter I don't figure yardage until after I'm done piecing. I just want to know how much fabric scraps I've used up. So the leftovers from this project will find their proper place into the stash. Here's a pic of my quilt hanging in the shop

I'm going to continue working on the sewing room & working on my version of 4 patch X. I'm getting closer but my goal is to have it done by Friday. I'm still trying to decide if I want to participate in Bonnie Hunters mystery. I hope y'all are staying warm. It's kind of a gray day here. Have a great day. More later on,

Vicky

I'm breaking all the rules these days

I never thought of myself as a rule breaker but here lately I sure am. Well only in my quilting world. My husbands rule of " Don't start one project until the current project is done" has not been followed here lately. I was feeling very blah on the string spiderweb quilt & I wanted to sew on my treadle so I started working on some batik 4 patches. That was going well until my stitches were not very sturdy 😢. I'm not sure what needs to be tweaked but now was not the time to figure it out. I took all of my 4 patches & moved back to the modern Pfaff machine. I had a momentary pause of should I stay on one machine with each project then I realized that was rubbish. As long as your 1/4" seams are consistent switch between as many machines as you want! So in the craziness of yesterday I managed to finish 4 blocks, woohoo!!!!!!

Now I just need to finish 140 more! My goal is to have the top finished by next Friday. (That's when Bonnie Hunter at quiltville.com is starting her yearly mystery. I'm still playing with the idea of participating.) I've given up on the thought of making smaller quilts for my family. We just love the bigger quilts & I believe that they use up more fabric. 

On Friday nights I get together & sew with some friends. Well last Friday Kathy gifted me 3 bags of fabric

More scraps! When it rains fabric here it pours! This will go in to the stack of fabric that I need to sort.

The thing is that I currently want to sew & not sort fabric so it's kinda backed up on me. We've got family coming in for Thanksgiving so there will be lots of sorting & organizing going on this weekend.

I was supposed to teach a string piecing class at one of the local quilt stores here this week. Well my student never showed up. That was ok though because it gave me a chance to talk with the owner about my patterns. She bought some of each of them & they will be hanging 3 of my quilts in the shop!

With the String Diamonds quilt there will be a table runner made up using the same technique as the quilt just using a different color way. 

They will also be hanging Christmas Stars

I am making a table runner, quickly, in a different color way so that they can show it along with this quilt. The third quilt. Is The Cross

They have the patterns for these quilts & my other patterns in store & maybe online as well. Check out 

MeadowsQuiltingandSewing.com   The quilts will be hanging until mid January.

 I hope y'all are having a good day. It's beautiful here & warmer than it has been in a while. I might open the windows later on. More later on,

Vicky

It's Monday morning. What am I working on? Ironing

This week I had finished up matching all of my 2 patches into 4 patches. They were layed by the treadle just begging to go under the needle. 

Finally Saturday I was able to sit & treadle & was able to get through quite a few of them. Yesterday I finished sewing them all up! Now they are just a pile under my treadle waiting to be cut apart & ironed. 

I have never gotten into the habit of ironing them while they are still attached to one another. I tried it once but never really cared for it. I think I need to put on a good movie & have a ironing party. I'm hoping that by the time the movie is over the ironing will be too. 

Today is going to be the last warm weather day for a while. Starting tonight & into tomorrow it will be my kind of weather. I tell my husband all the time that I think the dear Lord made me for the Artic Circle & him for the Equator. Thankfully we're in Kansas & that's in the middle of the two places so we're both happy. 

Just wanted to share a fun pic of some of the calves playing King of The Hay Bale this am. They are fun to watch. 

I hope y'all have a great day. Checkout patchworktimes.com to see what other quilters are up to today. More later on,  

Vicky

It's Monday & I'm working on My Civil War Spider Web quilt

I'm so glad it's Monday! I know that might sound weird but I look forward to Mondays like most people look forward to the weekends. The weekends here are generally jam packed. My husband wants to cram as much as he possibly can into his 1 1/2 days off. On Monday mornings after my husband goes to work & my son goes to school I feel like I can slow down a bit. 

I'm working on the Civil War Spider Web quilt. This is not a fast quilt to make but that's ok. It's using up fabric & I really like it. I'm using Civil War Repro fabrics (AKA dirt fabrics). I haven't been a huge fan of CW fabrics in the past but I'm learning to appreciate their beauty. This quilt is more to my husbands liking. 

I've got 2 rows done & kinda like it always does you can't really tell I've used any of my strings. You can find out more on this quilt by reading my previous post.

I've also had lots of opportunities to work on my embroidery project this week. 

This will definitely fits the bill of "it will take me a long time to complete it". My husband is challenging me to make more projects that take a long time to complete. He says I make too many quilts too fast. 

This embroidery project has at least 8 of these blocks with a possibility of making more. We'll see when we get there. This is just block 1 of 8. It looks like it will use over 2 skiens of floss per block. 

So in between laundry & cleaning the house I'm going to be sewing! I hope y'all have a great day. It's another beautiful but windy day here. If you'd like to see what other quilters are working on check out 

patchworktimes.com

Vicky

p.s. Sick calf update. The vet came & gave her a thorough exam & ended up giving her a couple of different meds. We are trying to be optimistic. She has shown more energy yesterday & today but only time will tell.