Busy week behind and ahead…

I found the below quote on Facebook this week and have enjoyed ruminating over it as I have accomplished different things 🙂

We have butterflies and hummingbirds all over our front yard right now enjoying our different flowering bushes and such!

HQAL is this weekend… this is a time to share what I have been up to specifically hand quilting… I am working on the last part of the middle row of swoon here… I also have a bit in the border to do so next time I share this quilt… I will be on the top portion somewhere of these big swoon blocks (they are 24″ square!!!

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Margaret, Emma, Tracy, Deb, Susan,  Nanette,  Edith, Sharon, Karrin, Gretchen and Kathi

For Slow Stitching Sunday HERE I am sharing my binding on Jasper’s toddler quilt…

 I just rounded the 3rd corner of the binding 😀

I think he will love this one too!!!  Check out Kathy’s post today as she shows the sweetest pillow she finished so uniquely… it will open in a new tab too I think 🙂

And for Wendy’s Peacock Party HERE I am crowing about a scrub shirt I made for my honey this week!  She has some awesome eye candy too so go visit!!

It was a 90″ length of woven plaid fabric we found on ebay for cheap… I washed and fashioned this shirt below!!!

My honey loves it… if you want info on making  a shirt like this check out THIS blog post of mine.  It is not as good as some of my quilting tutorials but it gives you an idea on how to make one yourself 🙂

When I was a nurse I made most all my scrub shirts … so I am now remembering what I had forgotten from so many years ago (10 years!!!).

Linking this Glorious Finish for a completed WIP with Julie Cefalu’s Crafty Quilter Blog Link Up HERE <<<

I have been planning a future quilt for our guest bedroom…  This will be the center of the quilt

 Here is the pattern… all those 4 blocks… those will each be an orange peel…

 Kind of like this… I found a layer cake of all newsprint backgrounds… I will use 2 of them to make the orange peel foundations like the photo below…

Except our orange peels will coordinate with the room and the center of the quilt too 🙂

My new friend Jannessa came over this week … we pin basted a quilt for her and she picked up her PVC quilt frame my honey made her…

 She also picked up her cell phone cradle my honey designed for us to use…

 Here is how her pvc frame looks… we are trying to source boxes to ship them affordable… right now they are pick up only though….

 My sweet grand daughter Ellie… with her mom Heather… SWEET!!!!

 Molly looking cute for her favorite visitor’s birthday wish to send via text….

 Our neighbor who harvested our strawberries this year found 2 more packs of them… so I have been enjoying a belated sweet strawberry shortcake again 😀 YUMMMY~!!!!

 Here is a cool pattern I watched a Donna Jordan video on this week HERE… It looks like a fun quilt to make and is called Beads!

 I coffee stained some navy and white plaid woven fabric Jannessa gave me… and cut out another shirt for Rick…

 You can see the right side is white while the left side took the coffee staining better… most of it looks like the left.. this was one of the only areas I found a white area remaining…

So then I decided to get fancy on the pocket with my Singer 319w Cleopatra and used a cam with this design on it…

 This is gonna be a fun shirt to make this week 🙂

Well … I am a bit under the weather this weekend… feeling achy and just “not right” … so I am saying chat more next weekend when I will again be blogging… feel free to leave comments or ask questions if I wasn’t clear in any of my explanations…. and remember to live your life carefully… it is the only chance you have to leave a positive mark on the world 😀

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Lots of progress to share!

I hope you have each had a wonderful week.  I really appreciated your feedback on last weeks post !!!  You all spoke and we listened!!!!

 Above is a more narrow valance to use over her window … it will be quilted and layered with batting to protect it from sunlight 🙂

But this progress is a surprising show of events…

 Amelie’s banner is done !!!  The fabric showed up Monday and my gears started moving and soon me and Cleopatra were sewing it into a banner of sorts 🙂

The recipient, daughter of my post office dude, loves it as does mom and dad (who celebrate Halloween all year round!!!)… pic of the room will be coming 🙂
Linking this finish to Wendy’s Peacock Party HERE
and
Linking to the Crafty Quilter’s UFO Link Up HERE as this has been on the list for 6 months to get done!!!!

I have spent a good bit of the week hand quilting on Connie’s Swoon Quilt…

 Above I finished the center swoon… in the center 🙂

Below I have the right side center to finish and the outer right border to complete… that will get some of my undivided attention today 🙂

Jasper’s quilt got finished with the machine quilting and the binding got applied to the front!!!

 Now Cleopatra finally gets a rest!!!!

 Molly is inspecting the finished quilt as I work on the binding…

 Sewing it down… here is the hand fashioned label that needs a date added to it 🙂

Linking this and swoon quilting to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitchers where we share what hand stitching we plan to be doing this day… HERE!!!  She has a lovely post today to to share!!!

Here is a center design for a medallion style quilt…

 Using my already made kaleidoscope blocks…

 Here’s some left to make!

 And here is the beginning of my rough draft plan…

 I will use this new book to my collection…

 Here is Connie’s EPP progress… she is currently working on those variegated neutral backing hexi’s!!!

 And here is a sweet little tea cup pin cushion my new friend Jannessa gifted me 😀

 Here is a perspective photo for a 12 oz coke 🙂

 Here is sweet Ellie … my grand daughter with a milk mouth picture sent during the week!!!! 😀

 Here are some cell phone cradles my honey made for me and Jannesssa this week too…

 And here is one more square completed this week.

Overall a VERY accomplished week I would say… thanks for stopping in for a visit… and if you have made it this far.. tell me which project of the many I shared you enjoyed the best!!!

Heavy Frost or a Light Snow !!?

Hope you are having a blessed Veteran’s Day… 11/11 is Veteran’s Day but 11/12/18 is the day it is observed and government offices are closed to do this.  Here is a flag that hangs in our home… I want to thank any of you reading that have served our country in the military a huge thanks!!!

We woke up to white roofs and a dusting of what I thought was snow… But my honey thought was a heavy frost as the temperatures were in the low 20’s… 

Either way it was quite exciting to see the shift…

Last weekends post I shared all the color changes we got to enjoy as we trekked around southwestern North Carolina… now this weekend most of our trees are without leaves and Rick spent much of yesterday after the sun was fully up after noon mulching leaves all over!!

Here is a photo before the frost with leaves everywhere!

And here is a photo outside Rick’s mancave building where a temporary style greenhouse was left by the previous owners…

 Rick took the post you see above down after checking with me… it will be repurposed for something else in the future…

But I took this photo and thought you would love to see it as well… showing what leaves are left in full fall colors… 

Now all the leaves you saw in those last 3 photos are mulched… awaiting the coming rain to become fertilizer for our grass for next year 🙂  My honey is sooo knowledgeable about what needs to happen.

Meanwhile I have been sewing…

By hand I have been focusing a bit each day on Stars Among Us…

Until I finished this row I am sharing and moved the quilt in the frame to the next row… worked on the border to the left and actually started on the center quilting too!!!

The smaller photo is a pic of the beginning of the center…

And off to the right is a nicer photo showing the border progress and some stitching on the lines I am marking in pink to see on all the colors of fabric in this quilt….

The pink is a chalk only marker so it will all soak out is my belief and hope 🙂

Here was my progress Friday… about halfway through my marked area…

 Then I diverted with a youtube video and made this paper phone holder… they recommended an old debit card or hotel key card but I had neither so I used 2 business cards from our stash of outdated cards and some card stock for the base triangle…

 I thought it was fairly clever and even made this cute collage showing how it works… then my honey got up and made these!!!

Here is a close up of his ingenuity without a youtube video to assist! lol

 These are much more sturdy and durable to last… so I use them now to cradle my phone long ways to watch youtube and Bluprint… aka Craftsy vids.

With this done I was able to make even faster progress on Stars Among Us this weekend too…

And here is where I am right now… when I finish the marked area I will be about halfway through this row… this is just coming into the 2nd row of stars out of 6 star rows.  By making a goal to do at least 2 threads a day on the center star portion I am making MUCH BETTER progress too !!!  I love to goal set 😀

Do you goal set in your quilty world???

Leave your comment below if you would… I struggle with goal setting since retiring!  Also I am linking this section of my post to my fave Sunday stop of bloggers joining in unison to post HERE!  Come see what everyone posted yesterday… I will be posting there now momentarily 🙂

Earlier in the week we went to some new to us thrift shops…. we enjoy thrifting a LOT … but at these shops we found more household things than sewing related things…

 One thing we got was a couple of these “locker organizers”…. they are skinny heavy duty plastic milk crates actually… so I used one to organize all my computer papers that want to be floppy… works GREAT!  And reorganized that whole section while I was at it….

The second photo is an overview of my computer corner desk all together… bringing in that 1 piece of organization helped me to see my overdue for a cleaning bill paying area on the left… so I cleaned all that up too and cleansed A LOT of no longer needed papers from this area… feels good when you finally get to some overdue cleaning doesn’t it??!!

As a reward for all my work on my desk space organization my honey surprised me with the last of the fresh flowers from our yard…

These are chrysanthemums and some knockout roses… a hard freeze the next day finished them and they were all cut down and mulched.

Since I will be missing these flowers in the yard for several months I have decided after this post my future posts will have this signature at the bottoms …

Once January or February 2019 rolls around I am sure there will be a new photo that inspires me along with a new focus… but this one is still my fave for now … so it stays for a bit longer 😀

Saturday our Molly turned 5 months old and got to celebrate with a grooming that included clipping around her eyes … see here … we can see her good now and she can see us too!!!  Grooming is always followed by a good bath and blow dry too! lol

She is completely an outdoor loving dog including drinking water right from the river that runs down our property …. she loves her puppy treats but she LOVES cheese bits too… we don’t give her that much or often but she gets a bit here and there… and she loves to play fetch as well still… so we are blessed !!!

She went to the vet earlier this week and got a puppy shot and deworming medication that it was time for… she got a great check up and weighed in at 7 pounds and 6 ounces on their official scale.  We got a thumbs up for all we are doing with her too and made appointments to go back in December for a professional grooming and her rabies shot and last puppy shot stuff.

We are definitely happy we met this vet and chose this office for all of Molly’s needs… they are awesome and not overpriced like some are… so that is all GREAT!  The vet had Molly enchanted so much she let them do everything she wouldn’t let us do 😀

Sunday morning I got up early… okay so I get up unreasonably early EVERY day but woke with a purpose…

 To take the picture above on the left of the tan wallet and make my honey a Veteran’s appreciation gift out of some black Cork Fabric I had just received in the mail from an Etsy shop!

I also have been gathering supplies to make me a cell phone wallet with wristlet and had some magnetic closures I could add and some heavy interfacing so they don’t wear out the cork fabric by using them over time 😀

 And here is the collage I made of that finish while I not so patiently waited for him to wake and see my creation!!! lol

 I did use polyester thread which I had to buy because I only have Aurifil cotton thread for quilting and general sewing but bags and wallets specifically I am learning are a bit more sturdy and long lasting with a different thread… esp when working with a product as durable as cork 🙂

Another Etsy purchase I got this week were these zippers from Zipit on Etsy!  GREAT customer service and fast shipping make me want to buy more from them… but first I must use what I have! lol

They included 2 buttons and a zipper tab I did not order as extras too!!!  I was so impressed I not only left positive feedback but took this photo and called the owner to thank her 😀

So have you ever stepped out and thanked someone for doing a great job of their job like that???

Leave me a comment with answers to my questions if you will… I am a curious girl!  In the meantime thank a veteran if you run across one wherever you are in this world we live in… they all deserve our thanks for their sacrifice.  And…