March 8 ~ Daylight Savings Time << And sew much to share!!!

Happy Sunday my Quilty Crafty FUN friends !!!  Today do not forget if you are in a region that changes time like I am in North Carolina, USA… 

I am sew glad you stopped in for a visit this week!  I have a lot to share so grab a cuppa something good and let’s chat!

First some eye candy for you…

I am in a facebook group for 9 patch making… haven’t started my project yet.. I will be using a future quilt for this group 😀 THIS LOVELINESS is from a member of that group … she made this all herself!  Now to quilt it 😀

Hope y’all remember me making some lovely wall hangings for my great friend Holli Jo?!!  Well this week we were chatting as she had just returned home from a long winter visit with her dad… she shared these photos of wall hangings I made for her last year…

 I am blowing this one up for you …

Doesn’t her cutting table look sew wonderful topped with that banner… she has some neat gadgets and holders of her gadgets too ❤

My honey got jiggy with his hands and craftsmanship and figured a way to hang this very heavy fixture on a wall with no support boards behind it… mount it to a board then mount to the studs wherever they are!!!!  LOOK 😀

We bought that fixture a couple weeks ago at a thift shop for $25! YAY us 🙂

Most of this week I have found my mind wandering to these little blocks though and doing button hole stitching around them… until I ran out of prepared blocks to button hole stitch!!! OH NO!!!

 I had 20 completed and even 3 or 4 have crochet added to that button hole stitch in those in my “done” pile.  I have 80 blocks total cut in pairs and ready to make into blocks… 20 of those are in process so why not throw 20 more into processing… so me and Julius my 301 decided to take on the task…

 I sewed the 6″ blocks right side together with a bit of batting for the center.  Once I sewed around all but a small opening I trimmed close to the stitching and clipped the corners near the stitching on the 45 degree angle… I flipped and pressed them then hand stitched that little opening closed….

 Once all the little openings were closed I top stitched a hefty 1/4″ in all around each block to hold them all square and prep them for the button hole stitching 🙂

 Soon I had marked 20 dots per side plus the corner diagonal…

That is the correct set up Connie, my bestie who designed the crochet for this block decided…

Soon I was onto another … my little embroidery scissors accurately trimming threads…

 This morning I was happy to take a photo of 4 button hole stitched blocks for y’all!

I am using this crochet thread in size 10 for the button hole stitching and the crochet…

 In the end I will have something like this Crochet Quilt but more colorful because I am using rich colors in my fabrics…

I am linking all this button hole stitching to Kathy’s Quilts Sunday Stitching Link up… I do all the button hole and crochet by hand… she even chats about how therapeutic knitting is today HERE <<<

Of other importance this week … has been focusing a bit on hand quilting Appalachian Delight…

 I still have the inner bear paw on the right here below to stitch on… then it is to the sashing 😀

 I am doodling and keeping up with daily journaling in my bullet journal…

 I was using the manila colored paper below and transitioned into my bullet journal this week for first of March…

 I have changed it a bit for this week… ditching my layout above and trying this layout to give me more room to write about progress…

 I already am looking forward to this 🙂

High on my priority list in the sewing room is designing a dust cover for each of my 2 daily used vintage sewing machines…

 HERE <<< is a link to this online article with free helpful hints and a pattern to make the one above.

I like to get ideas online then do my own thing… so here is Cleopatra’s beginning…

 And below here I am pondering the pillow cover that is worn .. using as a pocket on the front to memorialize it in a seldom used pocket like the sample one has 🙂

 We tried a box of Jiffy blueberry muffin mix … looked lame until the blueberries were fully expanded and bubbling at the end of the cooking time… yummy!!!

 This week I have really followed Bonnie’s advice…

 Do you take time to just follow your heart sometimes???  I love when life slows down enough for me to !!!  Have a wonderful week and thanks for visiting!

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Dreamy December Goings On Here – 2019 Edition

As Christmas nears across the world … we are preparing here too!

 With Stockings hung by the fireplace with care…

 Notice Raggedy Ann has moved to the fireplace… well the shelf in the kitchen corridor has been reorganized while dusting occurred as well 🙂

 All our Christmas faves ended up on this shelf… the Angel is from Connie as it is the Mountain Christmas sign from last year 🙂  The little Hallmark treadle sewing machine is from Jannessa… and the little boat vehicle is an ornament we didn’t want lost in the tree… it is named the Jolly Roger and has much significance in memories to my honey.

Then below… is baby Jesus in the manger scene… I love this simple nativity better than our big one.

 So you can see now that it has a place of honor too…

Here is our tree this year.  It is new to us and it needed LOTS of additions to fill it in … but I think the fabric looped garland… silver sparkly garland and some extra lights and ornaments we love to open each year… was quite fun to decorate this 4 1/2 foot little tree. 

Then there is our 20 foot tree outside!

 And you can see our snowman looking at the tree…

 The view from the post office is quite awesome too!

 And looking from farther away… you can see our up on the hill neighbors lights around their home too!!!

So Monday we had snow here in North Carolina… we got about 1″ all together and I took a short video for ya…

It was quite enchanting to have an early snow though!

Our bathroom was a easter egg green color – quite startling and not relaxing at all!  Now a nice creamy color!

Jannessa and her hubby Alan came over last Sunday afternoon… and it was Monday morning early when I happily finished this table runner … aka placemat for our bar…

 Here it is ready for me and my honey to enjoy too!

 Also Jannessa not only free motion quilted the table runner but this table topper for Connie too!!!

 She did such a nice job!!! Connie received it Friday and LOVES IT ❤

Also received in the mail this week was Holli Jo’s wall hangings I made.  She posted this on facebook to share what I had made her and she is giddy to finish her quilting schedule she is on to hang them…

her sewing room is rearranged atm… hanging both are out of the question for now 😀

I love the collage she made and the friendship sentiment… made all the work that happened on these wall hangings worth it!!!

Yesterday Jannessa came over and we made snow flake ornaments that are of Scandinavian descent from THIS tutorial.

Here is Jannessa’s on her tree…

 And here is mine ❤ …

 Finally… I can share that I am at the end of the row on the Swoon Quilt 🙂

 I am working on outline of the third swoon then on to the border so I can roll once again!!!

 Here is a look from afar too…

Today I plan to work on that third Swoon bottom… and also to work on my daughter’s bag I am making her for Christmas… so no pics here of that!!!  Linking my hand quilting and making stuff by hand progress to Kathy’s Quilts – Slow Sunday Stitching linky… come see what everyone is up to this holiday season … RIGHT HERE!

I also have a wall hanging for the kitchen that will be a mix of hand and machine quilting to finish it post haste but nicely… Jannessa has given me some GREAT ideas on straight line and organic line stitching I can manage I think!

While I have been writing this I have been chatting too with my 2 best friends… and listening to THIS SONG 😀  How about you … are you drinking something yummy or listening to some seasonal tunes??? 

Leave me a comment and…

Showing off my Sewing Room Decor and Rolling the Frame!

Well this has been a BUSY week around our home… getting ready for some freezing weather was quite an undertaking for sure!  And I have been sewing on a secret project commissioned to me by a very good friend… using my Cleopatra for the job of appliqueing letters and fashioning the intended banner… more to show when it has been sent off and received by my friend 😉

I started the week, however, slow stitching quite a bit on the Swoon quilt and machine stitching this rooster to the background fabric…

I don’t know if you can tell but I carefully mitered each corner… I will machine quilt the rooster as there are sooo many seams and fabric bits on the back side of this lovingly english paper pieced rooster… it is a pattern by Violet Craft… but I and my bestie who pieced it by hand do NOT recommend her EPP patterns as they are quite a challenge!  But now it is done so I thought I better get on with finishing it… it will find a home in our home to be displayed year round as yet another dual effort of Connie and me 🙂

The rooster now measures 28 1/2″ square & I still need to trim out the black fabric from the strips I appliqued it on to the rooster with… so no shadowing of the black through those neutrals happens!  That will be tediously slow and may be part of my hand work today!

Then before I could do anything else… my honey decided it was time to decorate my room with me!  Yahoo I said and stopped all my other efforts to focus on what would go where ….

My honey has had the honor to work with some of Nashville, Tennessee’s finest decorators so his knowledge in this area is VAST!!!  

Here is how it turned out… 

the left wall as you walk in the room …. over the buffet

to the right of that… or what you see from the doorway directly

to the right of that… as you look out by the pond & around my 301 Julius

finally the last wall in the room is my design wall and up high I can’t reach well so he added my banner there!

I don’t know if my captions made sense but here is a panoramic view of my room before decorating to help you see where all things are now…

I got my hair trimmed on Friday… and was I GLAD!!!!  I’ll share a selfie I took… 

 And on Saturday I rolled the frame… see how foggy it was over the pond through the windows that morning???

 Here is a close up of the quilting I worked on this morning…

 I am linking all this hand stitching and other hand work I shared this week being glad God gifted me with 2 hands that are ambidextrously useful… to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching Crew HERE .  Click on the link to open a new tab on your device to see what everyone else is linking up too!!!!

>>> Finally I need some input from y’all! <<<

My best girlfriend Jannessa gifted me this honeybun & yardage – fabric kit by Moda called “Winterlude”.

 It comes with the above pattern… or I could create my own!  Do you like one of these other options???  Or do you like the original???
I like both but this would make a table runner 18″ x 60″ for our kitchen & 2 smaller sized placemats as a gift for Jannessa.
The one on the right seems fun for this but I can’t figure out how to make those flatter than 45 degree zig zags… hmmmm

 The pattern is in this PDF only version of a book published in 2009 and now out of print….

Here is a photo of the book called “On the Run”  by Heather Moulder Peterson.  Anyone own this book and wanna sell it???  Or have you heard of this talented designer before and know how easy to follow her patterns are???

I would love to own the book over a PDF that is harder for me to use in the sewing room without LOTS of printing!!!

And that wraps up my week.  Hope you are having a great weekend and having tolerable weather no matter where in this world you live… I am enjoying our cold weather for sure!!!  It is 35 degrees F at this writing and supposed to top out at 55 later this afternoon.

Until next Sunday… I may have a bag completed (we worked on it yesterday and got about 1/3 done) as a Christmas present for my daughter. 

I certainly hope you leave feedback on your thoughts on this post if you read to this point 🙂  Have a good week ahead and hope you turned your clocks back an hour too (if you live where Daylight Savings Time is a thing! lol)