Happy Mother’s Day Ya’ll!

Hope you each have a blessed Mother’s Day 🙂

Unfortunately it has been another stressful week around here…
But all is well now… so let me fill you in 🙂

Monday my honey has had allergies that we thought had gone to pneumonia so we started getting aggressive with home treatments we had available… unfortunately Tuesday he was feeling even worse and running a fever so he finally (after 4 years without one) decided he was ready to see a doctor here!  Yippee I thought…

Well he is a veteran of the Army… so going to the VA for the first time in 4 years is a bit tough to do we found out… you must register your move to the new state first (we moved from Tennessee 2 1/2 years ago).  They did check his basic vitals and took a quick history and started the transfer process but sent us to the nearby emergency room for the antibiotics after a chest xray confirmed pneumonia was the cause of his nasty cough and fever….

Well.. at the hospital they found his lungs clear… and because he has had open heart surgery about 5 years ago they wanted to keep him overnight for a long overdue cardiac workup…

 So me and Daisy held down the fort overnight! lol 

She refused to sit in his chair which she sits in all the time when he isn’t normally… but she knew something was wrong… so we prayed and tossed and turned… finally morning came and I could get Brandi off to school and return to the hospital to see what this day had in store for us all…

The cardiac PA came in and informed us he would be going to a medicine stress test… which turned out to be a harrowing event of a test.. if you ever have to have one.. but once over gave us valuable info like his heart and arteries are all in GREAT shape!  So why the cough and fevers???

Unsure.. they called it an upper respiratory infection and started antibiotics and sent us home!  Yippee 🙂

A little worse for wear… as he didn’t sleep well either without his usual bed partners! lol

So by Wednesday evening we had mapped out a tentative NEW DEAL!

We started Thursday out.. after a fairly good nights sleep had by all right here…

Isn’t this just gorgeous!???

We moved near the beach to go there often… but found life “too busy ” to “have time” for the beach.. now we are making time we decided…

So every morning we are gonna take a nice walk on the beach… start getting in better shape and enjoy the nature and beauty that is a mere 10 minute drive from our home!!!!  We are truly blessed to be this close!

We are also changing other things in our lifestyle… cutting back on bad habit items and improving what we eat… and we are doing it together!!!!  I love that!!!

In the meantime… when we got home from the hospital Wednesday we had a package waiting from my bestie Connie…

She sent me a couple new quilty themed t shirts for an early birthday surprise and something for me to hand quilt that she pieced for me…

 

I love this wall hanging sooo much!  It measures 32 x 32″ currently… trying to decide if I chould add a bit of border to it before I start the quilting once my supplies all arrive…

Here is a quilt she has finished on a tan background fabric instead of my grey above… and you can see all those layered edges of the circle parts will curl up once washed…

 I will call this the Bulls Eye Wall Hanging I think.. at least for now… “Bulls Eye” is the name of the pattern she said & she has the book the pattern came in…and I sent her the beginning of the grey background fabrics.. she did all the rest!!!! Isn’t that a wonderful gift!!!!

Here is the thread I will use on the circle “bulls eyes”…

It is Perle 8 cotton by Valdani .. I am trying it for the first time on this project that won’t get much wear as it will be enjoyed… 

I also ordered buttons to go in the center of the bulls eyes… so that will add more dimension.

Finally I will quilt with a layer of cotton batting AND a layer of wool batting on top of that before adding the flimsy to make the sandwich.. it will be VERY dimensional when done I do believe!

Here is a pic of my honey showing it off against our kitchen wall light grey walls…

I just can’t convey how excited I am to receive something made by Connie especially for me… I have never been gifted a flimsy special made before and didn’t expect to feel so honored!  But I really do!!!

Finally it was the end of the week… Friday when Brandi got home from school she announced she needed to be taken across our little beachside town to the art studio to pick up a piece that was on display she had made in art class at school!!!!  “Sure” I said…

Little did I know that her piece was in the center most highest position in the place being shown off for all to see!

So here is a collage I made from that Friday afternoon visit to the Art Haus!  She calls this piece “The Vanished” as the pic to the left shows a moon with a wolf howling and on the opposite side of her vase is an empty moon.. 

You see this vase had a special purpose for being made… her father had been cremated when he died 7 years ago and we had just celebrated his birthday May 3 with those blueberry muffins and the birthday song too!  Now she had possession of all semesters hard work and inside this URN will go most of the remaining ashes.. she is mongo excited to have this.  It does sit in the living room and looks just like a decorator piece… Wolves were his fave animal and one she enjoys looking at too… so the top also has a wolf formed on it… the whole thing is made of clay and the etched with designs all commemorating memories she has of her dad!  Isn’t this awesome now that I have shared the back story??

Then CJ came over to play… hadn’t seen him since Monday because of our mega crazy week!

And I actually .. late in the week accomplished quite a bit of quilting progress… FINALLY! lol

So all I have left in this hoop to quilt now is the back hatching… and I only have about 2 hoop moves to make before I have finished this section completely on the quilt!  Yippee 🙂

By the time I finish this hoop or these hoops.. as the case may be.. I will take a break and start the Bulls Eye Wall Hanging… it will be nice to take a break and really start quilting a bit.. although the perle 8 cotton won’t be much fun and 2 layers of batting sounds less fun.. but I am just so excited none of that is a deterrent at this point… 

I also have some crazy background quilting ideas for Bulls Eye… so stay tuned when I start that as I will mark the background before sandwiching so I can see the pattern I have planned!!!!

So excited ya’ll … to end this week up!  But I must calm now and work on back hatching lines and using my thimble as I foudn on the curves of the flowers and leaves getting great stitches was near impossible so the thimble my friend Kathy gave me has been waiting patiently for me to learn more about have accurate stitches WITH the thimble! lol

Have a blessed Mother’s Day if you are a mom/mum 😉

Until the next time I can make time to chat…

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Happy February :)

Well February is coming in a bit cool and quite windy here on Florida’s east coast….

I have a wonderful drawing my daughter did over the weekend I wanted to share with you…

The actual art is made with little dots of ink with an uber fine tipped pen… then a touch of color can be added in the same way… I just love this.. it measures about 5 x 7 maybe a bit larger and is a project she did for her French class 🙂

Also I have completely left sewing out here…

For sewing in my new Sewing Room!

I do all my hand quilting outside still though.. that won’t change I doubt as I love being outside in Florida most all year long!

I was very happy with my valance finish last month… so I decided to start early this month and have a finish myself!!!

This silly wall hanging started early in October 2014 with a pile of vintage fabrics I had collected through an eBay adventure (I bought a estate sale bundle of 1980’s cottons… great stash builder )….. and some vintage white cotton and bought that great vintage machine fabric to encircle it all …

My honey made the templates the pattern called for out of this wood and they rotary cut excellently!

Well this was started to let me rest my hands during a long process so the need to hand quilt again was strong and after a few “stars” were made I set it aside to quilt more on the project with a deadline…

Finally I have a finish though… and although it is February 2 and Punxsutawny Phil saw his shadow… so the forecast (if you buy into that) is more cool weather! 

Here are a few more shots of the wall hanging in place…

And the stencils I used to get all the cool designs on this wall hanging…

It has been a fun journey but one I was definitely ready to finish up!!

 I added my label and dated it with a Pigma pen… I used 100% wool Hobbs Tuscany batting and love the texture it leaves behind with all the quilting I did on this piece…

So here it is now at a bit of a distance…

Hope whatever you have plan for February comes true!

Monday, Monday!

Happy Monday after Mother’s Day!  Are you still flying high or did you fall back into the reality of being a full time maid 🙂 lol

This bloom opened just this morning about 9 am and I was delighted to see some clouded sunlight coming in the sunroof of the living room and shining so nicely on these lilys 🙂  There are several of them in the arrangement… and not all of them are open yet! … I arranged and played with them after this pic to get them organized for peeks throughout the day 🙂

I have been dutifully working on THE MAN quilt… and happy to report I have finished over half of this block…

And as you can see I am almost 2/3 done with the block and feather combo… my friend asked me if I could see the end of this quilt yet.. my response was that I can see the light to binding… as that will be next up after I finish the 3 other blocks in this center section of the quilt.

More quilting to do after the binding though… but that should go faster for me 🙂  Mostly straight line stuff.. not intricate swirls and swirly feathers ! lol

My honey just finished rehabbing this machine… he fashioned the cabinet himself.. it is all wood and for sale here on eBay if you are interested in sewing vintage and want a cherry of a machine!

I call it Firecracker.. because it is tan and blue with a reddish case!  And I am a 4th of July baby so this one is near and dear to me… 🙂  My daughter named it String Bean! lol  I don’t know why at all 🙂

Here is a self portrait my daughter made me along with a darling note in her beautiful cursive handwriting for Mother’s Day 🙂

She has a knit cap on in the picture 🙂

I love this pencil drawing so much!

And here is a brownie with coconut creme icing on it..

Yummy… made by my son Mike for me!

Hope you enjoyed this post!  Now on to goal setting..

My goal is to finish this block by the end of the day and send you all a report tomorrow! 🙂
Do you have a goal for the week.. or the day… or the month even?? 

Would you play in a linky that you post goals and show progress in a special post once a month??  Just wondering!

Have a blessed day!

How to make an envelope!

Today I want to talk you through how to make an envelope.  But first I have a few things to share:)

My daughter’s artwork she made for a friend (she is only 14 and very talented) ….

She made it for a friend that loves pink and horses!

Next… I got some happy mail to create with!

I just wanted to show you how nice it came wrapped… and shipped to me 2 days after I ordered it!!!  I had planned to create with these stamps next week for my mom’s box to fill… but now I can get started early!

I ordered these from Verve Stamps during a sale they are having right now and paid less than $40.00 for the whole lot of these stamps… they have lots of inspirational and christian stamps.  Perfect for making cards for her to enjoy giving!

The next happy mail I picked up this morning from Gina my CTMH chik!  She is very smart and inventive with scrapbooking and inspires me on a regular.  I got some new stamps, a Christmas card set and some embellishments…

And the cool thing on the new Artiste stamp sets for their new cart for the Cricut that just came out is now there is a page number next to the size to cut the image… how NEATO is that!!!!

Don’t think you can make it out buy under each size number is a page number… corresponding to the book to find the image you need!  AWESOME!!!  Now to get the cart!!!

Now onto why you are here… to find out how to make an envelope… well I messed mine up and fixed it but I will share my blooper then continue with how you properly make an envelope for an odd shaped card.

My card is 5″ x 5″.  It is the circular birthday card I blogged about early in the week.  I need an envelope and have some great princess paper that I haven’t used yet and it is burning a hole in my pink paper holder!!! lol

So double the size of your card and add 2″ and cut your paper there.  For me I didn’t have to cut because it was 12″.  This is your “long” side.  Next for the short side..

Take the width of the card and add 3″.  For my card that meant cutting at 8″.  With paper cut now it is time to score and trim excess.

As you can see in my pic I got crazy with the scoring and scored in the wrong places so here is the RIGHT way to do it.

Score the long sides at 1 1/4″ in.  This takes up the 3″ you alloted total with 1/2″ for your card to comfortable fit in… then on the short sides score on each side so your card fits in the middle with 1/4″ on each side…

Once you have it scored cut away the negative corners in like I have above except I went back and had to cut them more on the long edges… the flaps that stick out should only be as big as the card plus a half inch….

See the back side of my envelope and it will all make sense…

Notice I trimmed the top edges of the flaps down so that the envelope closed nicely… I did this before I taped it closed.  Also when I added my tape I added it to the big flap and not the side flaps as I could have put too much or not enough… putting it on the big flap and folding it up allowed the flap to have a good fold and look how nicely my custom made card fit in it!  SCORE!!!

The front has a crease down the middle where I went score crazy so it will have to be embellished to look cute … I will post that here later so check back to see how the finished envelope looks 🙂

Let me know if I should do a better tutorial or if this one made sense if you make your own envelopes too!  If there is an easier way please share it but once I understood how it went together it was easy to finish and primp with!  🙂

Happy Crafting!  Kathi