A busy and festive time of year !

As December deepens and the end of 2018 looms closer each day I feel an urgency to complete a few things that have been on my “to do list” through the year and just haven’t gotten done for one reason or another… do you do this … feel like that???   So today I am focusing on slowing it down… and even though it is gloomy and cold outside I am going to follow a good friends advice…

That friend also requested to send me a parcel and start a penpal relationship of sorts 🙂  I said yes!

She lives in Tasmania, Australia and travels avidly as well as gardens and sews as well.  She sent me this lovely package of fabrics and a rain hat and a button and a card of interesting things from her area down under.  I am now curating a package for her in return… this is SO FUN!!!  I love enhancing friendships and learning more about others cultures and ways of being as well 😀

At the start of the week I was very focused on bringing Cleo into the fold of my machines.  I shared the waiting for her with you last week…

 And here is my first photo of her… before her paint got touched up and she got a nice once over and polish by my honey….

Cleo is short for Cleopatra… such a dramatic name… and one I want to research more but Cleo she is for certain!   I went onto Singer’s website and found the W beginning serial #’s… and there she was… one of 1.5 million made in 1954.  I also read there were 1500 workers in this Connecticut plant of Singer’s … it was originally a Wheeler & Wilson sewing machine making plant!  Sew interesting!!! 

My honey rewired her as she had had that done wrong… changed the pedal to one I requested … cleaned off excess oil and oiled places he found that had been missed and greased the cam stack she has in place… ooooh … she is soo awesome!!!  We got some automotive paint in gloss black and he touched up a few boo boo spots too!!!  I am soooo blessed y’all!!!!

Here is her first photo with her in her new dress… a trapezoid Singer case…

 And a view of her top half and her excellent decals…  the decals led me to naming her too ❤

 And because she is a 3/4 machine she is a few inches short of fitting.. so my honey took some wood and make a little shelf in there… it is the perfect place to store her bobbins and a pin cushion 🙂

 I rearranged my sewing room as well before she was brought in… my honey helped me as he is really the decorating sense between us… and I am slowly moving some decor on the walls around as well…

And here is a photo I plan to hang in the blank spot over Cleo….  the 2 that got together to surprise me with this smooth stitching machine !!!! 

Here is the back of the finished wall quilt I machine quilted on Zena as her final act of service for me.

She is now stored safely in a closet of our home waiting for her next purpose in life… helping my daughter learn to create when she is ready!!!

The binding is the diagonal striped fabric I shared a swatch of  last week.  It came one day and this little quilt was hanging the next day!  Here is the photo of it hanging behind our little Christmas tree 🙂

 And a few photos of our Christmas tree…

 And a final side photo to show off the trapuntoed quilting I did on the wall hanging.

 Now before I move on… let me tell you… if you ever get a chance to sew on a Singer 319w… DO IT!  This is the most powerful yet gentle and even keeled sewing machine I have ever stitched on!!!  One stitch as a time or fast and furious… she can do it all!  Thick or thin… I love it ❤

Her next job will be to make my honey a new wallet as the wallet I made him a few weeks back is going somewhere else to be re-homed… he requested a few revisions for his personal taste… so I will accommodate those requests on my new Christmas present Cleo!!!

We added some new ornaments to our stash of Christmas displayed ornaments this year… the star at the top is new as well!

We got a Santa glass blown ornament with glitter accents from the year we got together…

And if you look to the bottom right of Santa you will see a small daisy painted ornament.  There are 6 of these in the set and these are in memory of my honey’s sister who died of heart problems too early in her life.. she holds a dear place in his heart and memories!  So these commemorate her 🙂

Finally are my 2 favorite shots… lights on … and lights off on the right… I love Christmas twinkle lights for sure!!! ❤

I got several rounds of fabric in this past week as well… here is some fabric for replenishing my Christmas stash a bit…

 All of that is vintage and it is various designers before designing fabric was trendy.  Here is a photo of things I want to make this month before Christmas….

And here is my first focused work…

 And once they are sewn and turned right side out with different threads and ribbons pulled to go along side this little wall hanging tree creation…

 Buttons pulled from my stash to adorn it…

 Stuffing each triangle is a slow and steady process… I then hand sewed all the openings closed…

 And then hand sewed all the junctions together where the triangles meet….

Now I am to sewing the buttons on over the junctions… and this is my hand sewing focus today… so I am linking this slow stitching progress to Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching HERE!  Kathy is quilting on a many year old ufo with great pleasure today!  She and her grand dog are 😀  Go check out her blog post and other linkers posts too!!!

I have made some other slow stitching progress earlier this week but due to lots of things the end of the week no slow stitching on the quilt Stars Among Us has happened… Monday starts a new week though 😀

Here is a close up of my progress this week… I went from the border to the mid point of this row…

 Meanwhile… our pup Molly went from this….

 To THIS!!!!

 In one day!!!!  Tomorrow she will celebrate 6 months old too !!!

 I have a pair on gingher pinking shears up for sale… they are like new and are $25 to include shipping in the USA.. nothing wrong with them as you see the cutting in the photo 🙂

I acquired these things this week…

 The fabric, Best Press, and small rotary blades were a great sale Craftsy was having and I ordered through my friend Karen’s affiliate link you can find at the bottom of THIS blog post.

Here is a close up of the 40 different fat quarters I picked up for about $33 all together

 They fill gaps in my stash just right too… the top one is fun prints and the bottom one is tone on tones 🙂

And our Christmas cactus we picked up earlier in the week is doing GREAT!!  It gets good sun in the sewing room window 🙂

 I got this new shirt… Mountain Mama… and a long sleeved winter shirt too

 And a hair cut myself as well!!!

So it has definitely been a BUSY week at Daisy Meadows 🙂

How about you… have you been busy this week and if you have is it because it is December and you are tying up loose ends or because you have just been busy  or has it been holiday related???!!!  Inquiring minds want to know!!! lol

For now I wish you a Happy Holiday season and a very Merry Christmas to come.  Thanks for visiting ❤

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