Chain Piecing is my friend

Here is the progress on my Mom's quilt. This quilt is a little more involved than my first one. Thank goodness I heard about chain piecing. I can't imagine how long this would take me if I did one piece of a block at a time. I cut the pieces for several blocks and do them assembly style. I have a good little rhythm going with my sewing and ironing. There are 6 different steps for each quilt block. I need 80 blocks for a twin size quilt. I have about 25 blocks completely finished and another 40 over halfway done. I am getting there slowly LOL I am having to be really careful with my piecing, lots of little points that have to meet. The smallest squares are an inch square once sewn together.

Here is a bunch of squares halfway done.

This one has to be redone because my points aren't meeting up. I have been doing pretty good, there have only been about six that I have had to redo. I don't pin either, I find it easier to just maneuver the blocks while sewing. I do this with most of my sewing, I only use pins on rare occasions.
Here is a picture of some of the finished squares in the arrangement used for the finished top. I am really loving how this looks. I found the pattern in a quilt book from the library. I really need a felt wall for the final auditioning. It is gonna be fun putting all of this together.
A closeup of a finished square.
Here is my little helper, Zsa Zsa. Everytime I start sewing she plants her furry self right in back of my sewing machine. She loves to sleep on my ironing mat too. Nothing that comes from my house is pet free, that's for sure.

Drumroll Please......

Baby number 8 is a GIRL!!!!!!!!!


I was almost sure she was a boy LOL The boys are a little disappointed, they really wanted a brother to even everything out. Now the girls have a big lead with 5 girls to 3 boys ; ) No name yet, I was settled on Sophia, but Chad let me know that he did not like that name. Since she belongs to him too, I figure we can pick out another name. I can't wait to start sewing for her! I found a local sewing machine dealership that also sells gorgeous fabric. It is expensive heirloom fabric, but little baby clothes don't take much. I am almost finished knitting a little sweater for her. I started it before knowing boy or girl, so it is a deep grey. Since she is a girl, I will add a picot edge on it to make it more feminine.

Everything looked great on the ultrasound. We could see her moving around and drinking her amniotic fluid YUM LOL As many times as I have done this, God's creation never stops amazing me! To think that only a few months ago she was a single cell, and in a few more months she will be a full grown newborn! She has already grown so much from my 12 week ultrasound, I cannot wait to see what she looks like!

edited to add: sorry the font is so big, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to fix it!

Big Belly Pics

Well, here I am in all my preggo glory LOL These were taken a week ago. The lighting is terrible, it was storming outside, so these were taken in my bathroom mirror. I am 18 weeks here and I think I have grown over the last week. I get *really* big, especially when the baby is over 9 lbs. Wait until you see my belly at the end! I have been feeling the baby kick, which is my favorite part of being pregnant. It is funny, because the movement gets more pronounced each day. Soon, Chad and the kids will be able to feel the kicks. Tomorrow is my big ultrasound when we will hopefully be able to see if this little one is a boy or a girl! I really don't have a feeling either way, so it will be a surprise. Either or is fine with me : ) Several of the children are coming with us, I think they are more excited than I am lol I will do a post tomorrow afternoon to let everyone know!

Closing in the garage

Chad has been working on closing in our 600 square foot garage. We never put the cars in there (the 15 passenger van is too big lol), so it was just a lot of wasted space. Half of it will be a gameroom for the kids and the other half will be a laundry room/ sewing studio for me!!!! He plans on having it done for Mother's Day, how sweet is that : ) I cannot wait. We will have a sewing station each for me and all 3 older girls, plus shelving and a window seat. The laundry part of it will have a utility sink and folding counter. But the best thing of all will be my custom built island cutting table. I think he said it will be 4' by 8'. It will be so awesome not to have to cut my fabric on my bed anymore. He is also going to run electricity to it, so that I can put my sewing maching there when I need to quilt a quilt. The large flat surface will make things so much easier.

He has gotten a lot done on the inside, but it is boring not pretty stuff, like framing walls and running plumbing and electricity, so there isn't really much to see. However, this weekend he finished the outside. It really looks great, much better than those old 1970's garage doors that used to be there lol

Here is a view of the outside in progress, still so ugly.


And here it is finished, except for paint and doorknobs. Samuel had to model for the picture lol We will be painting the door a dark steel blue and the hardey plank siding a pale grey. I havn't decided if the trim will be white or black, probably white.


Here is a picture from the inside, not pretty! I will share pictures once he gets the sheet rock up, so y'all can see how the space will be. We found some pretty grey ceramic tiles for cheap at Home Depot, so I am thinking of painting with blues and greys. Picking paint colors makes me so nervous. My sewing studio will be on the side with the window. Oh, and all the lumber for the framing was free. It came from a window and door place that throws away all of the framing the doors are shipped in. Perfectly good lumber that they just throw away. And both new windows were repurposed from my BIL's house, they are adding on and were just going to freecycle these windows. We did have to buy the door, but got a really good deal on it. Good thing I like simple, those fancy doors are expensive!

Quilt finally done!

I finally took pictures of my first finished quilt! I am really happy with it and thoroughly enjoyed the whole process. I just love this Urban Chiks 1974 fabric line. I decided to just do straight line quilting in the sashing and the border. I found the squares looked better without quilting inside them, I think the quilted sashing sets them off. I pieced the back with large pieces of several of the top fabrics. I love pieced backs. I am not crazy with how the binding turned out, I cut it on the bias and should have cut it on the grain so the polka dots would look right. I am already piecing the top of another quilt for my mom, I think many more quilts will be in my future : )

Back of the quilt.


Close up of quilting.

Catching up!

Well, I am finally feeling better! The nausea has been gone for the last couple of weeks, but we have been so busy, that I havn't had any time to blog. Some things that happened in my absence.

We lost our sweet little beagle, Pixie : ( She was hit by a car. She never went in the road, I don't know why she did that day, but thank God she was killed instantly. We found her right after it happened and she was still warm. We were able to love on her and tell her goodbye. This happened at the beginning of my pregnancy, and I was hysterical, the crazy hormones made everything worse. I am better now, though I miss her everyday.

The girls had two dance competitions on back to back weekends. Thankfully, my morning sickness was almost completely over. It was exhausting, but the girls had a blast and did great! The competition was in Baton Rouge, so we were able to drive home each night.

We took a trip to Houston for my best friend's grandson's 1st birthday. This was the weekend after the two weekends of dance competition. Can you say tired? LOL It was worth the effort though, we had a great time. My best friend Melinda is in her early 40's and her daughter, Kristin is pregnant for her 3rd child. Actually, Kristin and I are due 2 weeks apart! How crazy is that?! When I met Melinda, Kristin was 7 years old and I was 22 and pregnant for my second child, Parker. Now she is 23 and married with 2 kids and one on the way. Where does the time go? I think this means that I am getting old LOL

Most of that happened in the last month. Before that nothing happened, I pretty much just laid in my bed and was miserable. I am SO HAPPY to be past all of that! Except for my allergies, I feel great. I am sporting quite a belly : ) I always get pretty big, and being number 8, my uterus just kind of goes right to it's pregnancy size LOL I am 16 weeks now, so I should start feeling the little one move soon. I can't wait, feeling the baby move is my favorite part of pregnancy. I even love the karate kicks at the end. I will take a belly picture soon.

Oh, and I finally started sewing again! I finished an apron for a swap partner that is two months late : O I know, bad me. I am gonna have to add some extra goodies to make up for her wait. I also finished the binding on my quilt and started my Mom's quilt. I will have pictures soon, I promise! It feels so good to be creating again, I really really missed it.

I am still ALIVE (sorta)

This morning sickness is kicking my butt!!! I had it with all my others, but I don't know if it is being old this time or what, but I feel like I am dying! The reason I havn't posted in so long is because nothing is happening except me laying on the couch whining and watching way too much tv. My house is a WRECK and my poor kids are now behind in their school. I am almost 11 weeks, so it *should* be over soon (please God!) Even worse than the morning sickness is the total lack of motivation to do anything. I guess it is hard to want to do anything when you are nauseous 24/7, but I am starting to get depressed. Nothing interests me, not sewing or going somewhere, nothing. Of course, moving makes me even more nauseous, so I guess this feeling is understandable. I just want to be me again. I have always loved being pregnant, except for the first trimester, the first trimester sucks! So far, this morning I feel kind of ok, but this has happened before only to be hit with full blown nausea out of nowhere, so I don't want to get my hopes up. So sorry this is such a depressing post, but I don't feel good enough to be fake and pretend everything is great, and it feels kinda good to get these feelings out.

Oh, and I have already gained 5 pounds!!! This is because I have to eat something every 2 hours or the nausea is greatly intensified. Actually, the only time I feel decent is when I am eating, so I tend to eat more than I should just to feel good for a little longer. And I have to eat something with protein or carbs, not just fruit and vegetables to feel better, so lots of calories going in. Oh well, I will worry about the weight later. This little one is definitely worth it, but I will be so happy when this part of the pregnancy is over.

I promise to have happy posts soon with belly pics and cute stuff being made LOL Thank you if you actually read this, I don't blame anyone if they ignore it.