Hand Quilting Progress and a Mountain Top Walkabout too !!

While we keep waiting for promised rain my honey has gotten lots of yard work done… we took a walkabout around our wonderful 1 1/2 acres of land and I wanted to share some highlights with you…

 Above is coming down the winding gravel drive to our home…  Look at the tulips in our neighbors yard and purple wildflowers that are all over right now too 😀

Below is following the gravel drive in front of our home and over the Valley River that runs through the side of our yard 🙂

 Here is a far off look at our home… there is a big pond behind it that I have shared in the past …

 Here is the gravel drive continuing and an old corkscrew willow and some other nice trees and bushes…

 And here is that same corkscrew willow from our front porch 😀

 And the view by my front porch includes some hosta and these cute little bell shaped lavender flowers…

 Upon closer inspection and asking google I found out they are a variety of BLUE BELLS!!!!

 And here are some tulips where last year there was only 1 here… this year there are 2!

 And between some other shrubs are a couple others… hope they keep on multiplying in future years too!!!

 Here is a sunrise one morning over my quilting frame … which now brings us to my favorite part to share!!!  PROGRESS!!!!

Quilting and creating with fabric in all ways is an obsession with me… is it with you???  Check out this Bonnie-ism I read this week…

This past week I listened to audio books… another obsession and a new one as it lets me focus on creating with needle and thread instead of watching a screen all the time like movies entice you to.  Before I knew it I had the first 3 blocks of this quilt figured out and quilted!!

 Soon the 4th block joined followed soon thereafter by the 5th!!!

 Here they all are… pic is a tad blurred and the 5th block is still wet a bit but I was excited to roll the quilt!!! lol

 So then I was able to focus on this 2nd row…

 I decided to just stick to the cross hatching I had used on the nature blocks backgrounds for those…

 And here is my progress this morning…

 And my view is going to the squirrel block today… you can see my layout below!

Linking this fun hand stitching to Kathy’s Slow Stitching Sunday HERE … she is asking what challenges we face as we put our stitches in my hand…  Well I am designed my quilting plan as I went last week… now I am just carrying that out as I march up the quilt… but I did have to take out some hand stitches around the nature blocks on the first row as I put in grey thin thread initially on the inner round… now I know I want 2 rows of the navy thicker thread to have them look like windows… Thanks to my bestie for helping me figure out this trick of the eye…

You can see above… the 2 rows of navy around the block help it look like you are looking in a window… and the diagonal stitching around the block also helps conceal it… I am giddy to see this quilt completed soon too ❤  There are 6 rows including Elliana's name as a row… not sure how I will quilt that row yet!!! lol

For the Peacock Party at Wendy’s this week … right HERE…I want to share not just one but 2 ironing surfaces I fixed up!!!  Wendy has a wonderful quilt for sale if you in New Zealand… she doesn’t want to ship abroad on this item… but it is lovely and she shares lovely photos of her work on it 😀

The fabric that is to become ironing surfaces I found on eBay!!!  I found 5 yards of this fab vintage fabric a while back and stashed it … well when my bestie saw it when I shared my vision of it with her on a custom sized ironing surface as well!!!

Here is mine so you know what I am talking about….

Here it is in action too…

Not a typical ironing board you see like the hexi fabric covered board… but a rectangular surface for ironing quilt blocks and binding strips and such… Linking this finish to Julie’s UFO & WIP List for April HERE.

The Anatomy of this ironing surface is some 3/4″ plywood… and an old but still fluffy towel.

 I added snaps to this one and love that instead of making it longer to hang off the side to stay on the board over time…

 I added snaps using a hammer my honey donated to me and this tool I found HERE.  They ship all over the world… I don’t get anything just trying to help you be proficient in making an ironing surface 🙂

 And Ta Dah!!!!  It is done… I added a handle to each of ours to make it easy to move about… she will be storing hers or hanging it up by the handle so I reinforced them by added fabric on the underside of where the handle joins the ironing board cover… I made the handle several layers thick… and made the reinforcement squares several layers thick too… I used french feld seams as well so the only raw seams are inside the towel which I used my pinking shears on to decrease strings when washed.

 These ironing surfaces (one more to make still as I need a second one for my second frequently used machine…) work well whether you use starch, starch alternative, steam, water spritzers … all that is fine on the plywood, towel, and fabric covers… I washed the towel of the first one I shared above for the first time since I made it almost a year ago… no stains on the wood and I use lots of steam and lots of Best Press and water spritzing too… I flip it over when it gets dirty and use the other side… it was nice to wash it but it was best to recover it as I wanted a fresh look and I got it 😀

Feel free to ask questions about my ironing surfaces if you have them.  I am happy to answer them for you… we do sand the edges of the plywood and esp the corners so they aren’t prickly very well before I add the towel and cover if that helps you… I sit mine on a stool or small table and my bestie is putting hers on a tv tray she has 🙂  Linking these Ironing Surfaces I have made to the End of the Month Challenge by Julie HERE >>>

For now I bid  you all adieu and hope to hear from each of you that made it this far via a message below!  Until my next post…

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