Another row in the books and soooo much more!!!

Happy October Y’all!!!

We have been really busy since my last post a couple weeks ago!!!

I want to link up to Kathy’s Slow Stitching Sunday HERE… so first let me share the hand work I am doing first 🙂

I am happy to report I have finished the 5th row….

 And moved on to row #6  … this makes me 1/3 done with all the quilting on this big quilt 🙂

My son and DiL are sooo excited to get this as they currently are fussing over the available blankets and quilts they have available to use at their home… there just aren’t enough!  Glad I can solve that issue for them.

And I am also excited to report… I have started some hand applique via needle turn glue stick basting.. I am following another blogger at “fabric therapy” and she has a tutorial section on her blog that chats all about this method HERE… here name is Teresa and she is quite witty and fun… I have enjoyed how she does her award winning applique so I am finally starting to get the hang of it 😀

I first did some string piecing to build a fall wall hanging that is whimsical with inspiration from Bonnie Hunter’s string pumpkins posts…

 So here is my beginning…

 oranges/ yellows/ browns and some black for my stems plus plenty of teal blue for my background….

and pretty soon I was having a BLAST making improv pumpkin rectangles .. using a smaller stitch length for easy paper removal was a GOOD THING!!!

 Once I had my 15 pumpkins made I took a break on my back porch and drew out what I now knew my design would be…

 and got the corners and stems cut and put on my pumpkins slowly but surely…

 then filled in the rest…

 And now it was FINALLY time to pick out fabric for the appliqued lettering I had planned this whole project around! lol

 I use Teresa’s method (and Karen does it this way too I believe) with letters all drawn out at actual size on Freezer paper and ironed leaving 1/8″ room around each letter for turning under as I glue…

 then I went to the Dollar General store and found the purple that turns clear school glue stick…

 Soon all my letters were turned under… and I removed the freezer paper as I glue basted them whimsically in place…

 Finally the center of my wall hanging is ready for stitching the letters down!!!

 So as I stitch those down using a binding stitch method on the stiff glued under edges I am sooo happy that it was much easier and less painful from the needleturn I have tried in the past!!!

I have arthritis in my hands and legs/feet/knees/hips that limits my ability to be as nimble as I once was… so now I can add to my projects!!!  So far I am almost done stitching “Happy” down on my words!!!  So that is the extent of hand work… except I did complete 1 binding by hand this week…

I fashioned this Mug Rug for my side of the bed… I shared my honey’s mug rug last posting… it is similar… but for this one I made a North Star with floating points… just a bit different … and a bit smaller than his as my bedside table has more “stuff” on it! lol  I just like that it features a fussy sewn patriotic doxie actually though 😀

Otherwise quilty I had a request from my friend I made the pillow for… to make one for her hubby… they like it as a neck and head rest while watching tv… so now all those hexi flowers are GONE!!!  Yippeee…

His fave colors are red, blue and black… so I made a red white and blue hexi positive and negative… and used a red/blue /black batik for the side and black batik for the backing of his pillow!

I changed out the foyer decor to fall theme…

That was just when I got inspired by Bonnie to make some string pumpkins… wonder what those 7 leftover pumpkins will become?? lol!

I also have gotten ALL of this bowl shown below… it is a LARGE bowl for halloween candy… almost empty and all the pieces and parts of my Kaleidoscope Krazy quilt to be… organized for sewing!!!

 I also used these 2 fabrics… the one of the front is from a friend who lives up north here in the US… she we traded fat quarters or something and I got this… I love it!!!   Then the fabric on the back was 1 from a friend who lives in the outback of central Australia.  She is very kind and sent this a while back with a batch of other stuff… I am adding these to this quilt cutting 😀

 Here is the grey pindot fabric I am using for all my corners… along with some of my sets ready to be mixed … then I thought of that big bowl I could mix them up in!!!

And here they are mixed and in process of getting matched into blocks… I pinned each “block” together to make sure I had good variety and made fun scrappy sets … that quilt is ready to be sewn into blocks now.. 132 of them!

And we are decorating our bedroom still… and painting the walls… notice the wall with the window is light grey… it only has 1 coat of paint… the second coat will come soon…

 I just love this big old rocking chair… we picked it up for $25 on craigslist.. the big painting was $25 from goodwill and the lamp with foot controller to turn it on /off easily was only $9 at a local thrift shop!  Such a fun grouping there now and a nice place to relax in the eves for my honey!

Here on the LEFT is a cute shot I sent my daughter to let her miss home a bit… she is doing well overall in Tennessee though… so it was in jest as bagels are her fave breakfast/snack and I have a mini bagel wiht cream cheese for breakfast most mornings…

The K on the RIGHT was a find at Goodwill for under $5… and looks nice next to my ruler holder in my sewing studio 😀

 This spoke volumes to me so I wanted to share this weeks Bonnie-ism with you all…

 Happy October and Happy Fall Y’all!  Enjoy doing a bit of slow stitching today!!

Do something nice … just because you have the ability to today.. something not expected 😀  Make this world a better place to live in!

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