Happy Christmas Eve Eve ~ December 23 !!

Hope you are having a wonderful December and are all ready for Christmas! 

My bloggy friend Kathy who blogs HERE and has my favorite Sunday linky each week is hosting today as well with a giveaway open for all that link up !!!  

She is preparing for Christmas and so am I… making MY stocking finally!!!!  All my snow girl was done with hand stitching…

The buttons that make up the face and the tatted pink lace wreath  came from my friend Connie.  The thick watercolor paper with my name on it I harvested from my friend Debbie’s Christmas card backing! lol  I think that is my bag with 2 straps made of green DMC floss 🙂

I stuffed each section as I “built” this snow girl… even giving her silvery grey hair like me!!!  She has 2 jingle bells on her neck scarf too!  The hair bow, gloves and neck scarf ends are all 3D in make.  I hope to show this better once it is finished and hanging 🙂  I am hoping to fashion this stocking front into a full stocking later today… so it can go with the other two I have hanging already…

Kinda like Santa over there who is quilting away to finish a project…   

Do you have any projects you are still working on this Christmas?!!

Otherwise all our Christmas making and shopping is DONE!  We are loving enjoying this holiday season too!!!  Here is the cool waterpaper cardstock card my friend Debbie made me (that I harvested the backside paper from for my bag on my stocking)!

It came with a big box of fabric scraps (and big chunks too) that Debbie no longer wanted to keep around.  So I am her recipient of choice 😀  I love being that for her as well as GREAT friends!!!!

I have made some progress on Stars Among Usthis week… Here is an overhead view… showing my phone holder on the right side of my frame too…

Here is a view from the side that I liked better…. where my green thumb thimble is … is my spot to start back at when I focus on this later today for Sunday’s stitching time!

And here is my view from a bit further away… when I stitch early in the mornings I put on those head phones to keep things quiet for my honey and our pup.  I get up very early most of the time and don’t want to wake others up during my quiet morning stitching time 😀 

Of course I am thinking of THEM and not my own selfish need for quiet quilting time! lol

We got freshly redesigned (since we moved almost a year ago… haha) business cards finally!

 Using this cool shot!

I gathered 2 machines from our collection and some accessories we use for decor items these days… plus our latest item we are selling and most possibly the coolest machine we have ever had the honor of owning temporarily.  Here is our sale at for eBay…

The link to our ad is HERE…. if you would like to see all the photos we took and read more about this 1900 Victorian era chain stitching sewing machine that WORKS!!!

I made 4 bibs for our post office dude’s baby girl who is 8 months old… They loved them he says 🙂

 I made one more dog socking for my best friend Debbie to celebrate the season with her poodle dog Ma-lady.  I checked how I did the spelling with her and she sent the fabric in the BIG box 🙂  I sent her back the stocking already but likely mail is running slow and she will get it after Christmas.

 Our favorite thrift store ran a sale on their purses and bags… I harvested these 3 for under $7 all together!

 I am excited about the possibilities of each one too!

I also got some fabric as part of a attachments bartered for fabric trade a customer offered me.  This is many yards of quilt shop quality quilt fabric from her expansive stash I picked out and she mailed to me for a cool vintage set of attachments in a cool tin we mailed to her!  We are BOTH happy with this 🙂

Here is a table my honey is making from pieces and parts harvested at Lowe’s and put together to look like a big spool (wire holder)…. 

Here is it with red mahogany stain on it waiting to dry then be varnished several times…. it will match my desk and shelves and coordinate with his recliner which is where it will be… we love the rubber wheels it is on too !!!

And then Rick also got some tools he had been wanting that were on sale while we were there… then when we got home I ordered him this hat from our eBay PayPal funds remaining 😀 

He is mega excited to get this Australian Akubra hat by new years or so eBay says…  He tried one on when we were shopping and we both fell in love with it on him and it is waterproof make of European rabbit fur in a 6 week process (yes he found a YouTube vid on the process of making this hat type!).  It is sooo soft and not furry… this picture is from eBay so next week I hope to have a pic of him wearing it! 😉  We shall see as he is definitely camera shy!

Many of you know he has been dealing with severe severe right hip pain.  He finally got a steroid shot as a step before surgical intervention and he is feeling relief in his overall pain … now he is back to whistling and singing again 🙂

Well, I got a stocking to finish and a few things around the house to do so I am signing off for now… Hope you leave me a comment about your holiday plans and what you have left to do before Christmas.

Don’t forget the real meaning of Christmas… Sing Happy Birthday to Jesus on your 25th!!!  God sent us such a massive gift for this Season 🙂  And remember to …

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Enjoying the Christmas Season ~ 2018 is coming to a close!

I am totally enjoying this Christmas season… 

Are you slowing down and enjoying the season we are in???

We now live in an area with 4 distinct weather seasons in southwestern North Carolina and I LOVE IT!!!  We have had cold weather, heavy frosts, minor snows and now it has warmed a bit and we have had rain… overall though it has be thoroughly delightful here 🙂  To clarify this love… previous to this for 5 years we lived in Florida … warm or hot that was it… no 4 seasons just 1 or 2… but we had a glorious beach we lived not far from… so all was not sad.. and my arthritis loved the warmth… but my personality loves the season changes too ❤ lol!

And no… I am not alluding to just the weather but the season we are anticipating with Christmas coming!  A time to remember my faith and my Lord’s birth… a time to be kind and soak up kindness from others where it is found… I am finding some too … are you???

So since my last post I have been busy but not so busy I didn’t have time for kindness and helpfulness… and I have gotten so much accomplished… come on I will share with you!

Last Sunday I finished this cute little tree for my darling daughter (dd) and her boyfriend to enjoy this year…

 I found some paper in my tiny leftover paper collection and made an envelope for a gift card to Walmart … and hung it in the center of the tree 🙂

 She currently didn’t have a pillow so I sent her a pillow with a case I made from MSQC’s pillowcase tutorial 🙂

She loves to draw and create future tattoos for herself and her friends so I had a composition book I found when I was cleaning my sewing room that had graph paper in it… I took her fave fabric that I got 1 yard of and made her this cool cover … both above and below I did on Cleo and she rocked these projects!!!

 If you recall… here is the magnetic snap closing wallet I made my honey last month from cork….

 Well… he decided he really wanted it flatter than that magnetic snap allowed it to be since I didn’t buy the flat kind but chose the less expensive thicker kind (live and learn there bag people!!)… So I made him another and sent this one to my dd’s boyfriend to have 😀

 I love a happy ending… so far he loves that one… and here is the one I made for my honey ….

 Notice how I was able now to put my label in his new one!!! Yes 😀

Me and Cleo rocked the remake too… I was a bit nervous that I wouldn’t remember exactly the steps but we did it!!!!

We also decided to give his stocking (I made it in 2011 – our first year together ) a new hanging tab as this one is definitely worn…

Here you can see the new tab as it hangs off the mantle of our fireplace 🙂
I watched this stellar video on how to make stockings with a cuff HERE by Lisa Capen Quilts on Youtube… I looked on Pinterest for some pet stocking inspiration then and finally went to the sewing room with my phone on Lisa’s video and made this….

Cleo did a great job with her satin stitching around all these paw print parts 🙂

Then added my own little bit of extra fun BY HAND with jingle bells , ribbon, and some creative hand embroidery on felt in the shape of bones!!!

 While I was hand stitching all this I realized that the wonderful thermometer magnet I had gotten from Sonya in my box of goodies from down under last week would stick to my speaker over my computer screen!  YAY!!!  A bit of her is right here where I am now…

 After sharing Molly’s new stocking with my bestie who had taken our Daisy Mae as her Daisy Lou over the summer… I got her color desires to match her stocking in pink and white with this cute stocking…

 And finished it up a bit differently with a bow in festive glittery ribbon and hand embroidered name and year she adopted Daisy Lou into her family 🙂

 So back to our house finishings for the season… I needed a stocking and can’t even find a picture of my beachy Santa themed felt stocking I had about 1/4 of the way assembled and just could never find the time to finish or focus on that kind of detailed work… so back to Pinterest and Google I went looking for ideas for something not Santa but maybe snowman or reindeer related that would coordinate with the fun of Molly and Rick’s stockings yet be all my own…. and I found this big snowman…

 Soon I was back in my sewing room at the ironing board cutting and drawing and came up with a snow girl idea…

 And this morning I am slowly hand stitching and stuffing each section of this cute snow girl…

And best of all my bestie has in the mail to me some bitty baby buttons in black for her mouth and some possible better buttons for eyes… so we shall see… the head with hair attached to the head is not sewn on… waiting on Connie’s package for that! lol  But the body and arms and cute gloves are all on.  The gloves are 3d and will come off the stocking once it is a stocking properly… come back next week to see that finish!  So this is some of my slow stitching focus today!

You will find me slow stitching and enjoying this Christmas season approaching and taking all my own advice as I like to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching party HERE… come see what she is chatting about and what others are slow stitching if you need some inspiration!!!

Meanwhile… I have been working also a bit each day most days hand quilting Stars Among Us… and just rolled the quilt from this…

 To this with this as my view!!!

 Here is a close up…

 And here is an overhead of just saying goodbye to the halfway mark on this quilt!!!!

I am sew excited to be making progress… so if I am not stitching on my snow girl stocking front today… I will be stitching on this lovely little quilt 🙂  How about you??  Go on back up to that link to Kathy’s and see what all the Sunday stitching fuss is about and link up yourself too ❤

This week we got in a 1890 to 1910 piece of sewing machine history in this little bitty Foley and Williams Automatic Sewing Machine with box, screwdriver, instructions and soon also the clamp to hold it in place!!!

 This is what they used back in those times to make clothes and things with.  It chain stitches too!

The instructions were in sad wrinkled shape…

 But my honey and I found a frame that fit pretty close… and with LOTS of patience and time and help from our neighbor with advice… we turned those directions into a work of art!

My honey used those instructions to know how to thread it and adjust it to get it to sew a nice even chainstitch too… he has oiled it and we even took a vid of it sewing and shared in a tiny vintage machine group on facebook!  They are as wowed there as we are here 😀

Do you have any bits of history you enjoy collecting or just admiring in your home?  We will be putting this up for sale later in the week.  I will be sad to see it leave our home but happy it will hopefully find an appreciative home to go to !!!

The pinking shears I showed you last week finally found an owner by the way… they are on their way to a home where hopefully they will be used and enjoyed… they had so much life left in them.  My hands just couldn’t operate them properly due to arthritis and the handles being metal.  So it is a win/win!

We are completely decorated in the kitchen now too… while waiting for those instructions to relax… we did a bit of thrift shopping (a favorite pastime for us)… and found the shelf with the heart still in the box!  We brought it home and my honey put it together  and added some shelves we had been looking for places to hang all together in a pleasing arrangement…

 Nice to have a place to hang our keys now…

 We didn’t want them right next to a door going outside as that is easy for a burglar to find and take… but here they are decorative and handy for us as we often are grabbing a drink on our way out the door and this is right beside the refrigerator 🙂  Handy!

On the newer shelf is our latest find… this cool aqua blue painted vintage sewing machine and a sock darner and a cool vintage screwdriver we got in with osme other stuff…

On the peg underneath that shelf is a heart made from shirts of my best friend Debbie’s late husband.  I love having her handiwork and his presence in our home.. they are a great couple of friends for sure… she comes to us as a package deal carrying her husband with her everywhere!  I am honored she gifted me this heart and 1 more that is on our Christmas tree too 🙂

Then this tall skinny wood shelf has vintage treasures on it too…

 It is right beside the doorway heading into the laundry room and pantry storage space.  Then of course that big clock is a favorite of ours… we like big clocks for some reason… there is one over the fireplace in the living room as well! lol

So time to get back to slow stitching… but please … take time to smell the roses of the season… whether you celebrate Christmas or nothing at all this time of year… whether you weather is warm or cool… take time to slow down and appreciate what makes your corner of the world unique to you and yours.

Until next week and my next post…

Cleaning and Crafting!

Hope you are all having a Happy November so far 🙂

 I got my honey to photo my poor hands…

And I found this cool quote…

I do miss my daily hand quilting time… I have yet to get back to Brandi’s quilt Starlight… Starbright… but have plans on Monday to return to it!!!

The main reason to show you a shot of my hands… is to share how pretty my mothers ring is now… I got it cleaned at the jewelry store and they did a magnificent job!!!

Above is a close up for you 🙂  I am asking for an ultrasonic jewelry and glasses cleaner for Christmas now too!  My honey thinks Santa may accomodate my request! lol

I have been cleaning… the closet is about done… I have some albums to add to my scrapbooking sale pile yet but that is about it….

See how neat and tidy it turned out… if you missed it… here is the BEFORE shot…

See what a mess of stuff it was!!!!

Now it only has 2 things on the floor… our dirty clothes basket and some wrapping paper in a holder 🙂  Yippee!!!!

Next I moved to the bedroom itself… which just needed a good cleaning more than tidying really… and it is done!!!!

Finally I got to go into the sewing room.. wow it was a mess… it had taken lots of hits from the closet as I emptied it and found fabric.. and needed a good tidying overall and a cleaning too…

Unfortunately I was sooo excited to get to this room I forgot to get you before shots… but I could not walk through it!!!  It was a clustered mess of stuff… I haven’t seen my cutting table neat in over 4 years y’all!!!!  4 years!!!!

Now look!!!

 My cutting table is clean and tidy… with the exception of those 2 stacks of boards awaiting the pile of fabric pointing to below!!!! lol  This is today’s project btw!!!

 Here is another view of the cutting table with my awesome design wall in view too… I love it!!!

 The boards I showed you above will have wrapped 1 yard and less on them of my fabrics then be organized for my fabric chest…

I also have lots of fabric I have purchased in a lot long ago from an estate sale… a bit of it has polyester in it and will melt into plastic under my vintage piecing iron… so I have organized it in one of my scrapbook drawer organizers repurposed for this job…

I nicely took this shot for you all with a repurposed bubbler we brought into the Florida room… you can see the far end of the Florida room and my color organized fabric drawers too!  The fabric is next to the steamy iron and ironing board for pressing to check for poly mix in each piece before using it in a quilty project!!!  Yippee 🙂

Here is my thought now that I see what all I have available to me in my stash now… I wanna make some pumpkins using yellows to orangy reds in them… Bonnie Hunter inspired this project and here is a pic of her making hers on grey backgrounds into a snuggly quilt… but I want something different from mine… we shall see if that happens this year.. or next! lol

So next up is wrapping and organizing my fabrics in my stash… and fitting them into my fabric chest!!!  This will be an all day affair I think… mixed in I will take breaks and organize and clean our bathroom as I haven’t really given that room any attention yet!

I have gone through lots of old pics and stuff… sorted them to give as Christmas gifts to my kids so they can take their own private walk down our family memory lane… and I found this that I scrapbooked several years back… now I want to frame it!

Getting my Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing was a HUGE accomplishment and one I am very proud of!  My whole family was there to watch me receive my diploma from a wonderful school in Florida (I did this online from Tennessee)  Here is the frame and picture and tassel from getting my degree…

And here is a pic I snapped this morning…. with my honor cords draped over the frame hanging on the wall of our bedroom… I graduated with honors!!!  Magna Cum Laude!!! 

 And I can see this every time I leave my bedroom too!!!  I had planned to hang this in the office when it got repainted and I moved back in… but I think I will hang the scrapbooked photo there and leave the formal frame and honor cords in the bedroom where they are now 🙂

While cleaning the bedroom I came across a stocking I started about 5 years ago!!!  I finished one for Rick but never finished mine!!!  So between working in the house cleaning and organizing and running errands for this and that… I am trying to take time to work on this some too…

I doubt this will be done for this Christmas but it sure is fun to have something to stitch on out in the Florida room while I listen to 2 bubblers bubbling water and enjoy the light breeze fall brings to Florida!

My son James…

Will turn 26 in a few days… in celebration he bought a side by side 4 wheeler vehicle…

Here is a posed shot of his family as he snapped the shot of his new “toy”!!!!  Zach is behind the driver’s wheel and is 11… Heather, his fiance and Zach’s mom is holding Kaydence in the passenger seat 🙂

And here is a shot of CJ ready for Halloween!!!!

So that is quite enough info for one post I think… but I wanted to keep you up to date on why I haven’t had any quilty progress to show here or on fb… I have just been too busy with all else since Matthew the hurricane left our area!

Hope whatever you do today you take time to…

Happy Christmas Eve… Eve :)

Last week Kathy at Kathy’s Quilts blog asked us to share our fave Christmas tune… well I love so many I couldn’t choose just 1 … can you??  Then I heard this song…

Hope you have a couple minutes to give it a listen!  Colbie Caillat ROCKS This Song 🙂

On the crafty front I have been busy while pondering her question as well…

I finished Tanisha’s stocking .. then made a paper template to start on Brandi’s stocking…

I showed you the patterns I had pencil drawn followed by sharpie so it was easy to see with my light table…

This was just a quick layout to share with a friend.. but I thought you would enjoy seeing how fun and easy these stockings really were!!!

It didn’t take long before I had the stocking front and was ready to layer it for a small bit of machine quilting… straight lines only! lol

Then I had to figure where to put her name on this busy stocking… on the solid green section looks good 🙂  I fashioned it after her own script and drew it with chalk…

Then embroidered it with a stem stitch in BRIGHT RED thread 🙂

 And before I knew it … it was time to pink another stocking edges… HONEY!!!  Can you help me??? lol

 He did come to my rescue and together we pinked all the edges!!!

So now check out both finishes….

And in time for our family party ToMorroW!!!!

Here is the online invite I sent to my family that is coming… it will be fun with lots of seasonal foods we rarely have any other time of the year 🙂

Kaydence received here new quilt and they LOVE it.. but no pics yet from the recipient’s parents.. I will try to get those and do her proper post showing the finished quilt shots too! 🙂

Hope you enjoyed the song I left for you if you gave it a listen… also loved Kathy’s choice of song which was an acapello version of a christmas song! 🙂

Until my next post may you have a Christmas that builds positive memories as you…

A little of Australia in my home :)

Saturday I received a long awaited for parcel.. from my bestie in Australia … Wendy !!!

Oops … I got so excited I didn’t get a shot of the parcel… only the contents! lol

I wish I had gotten a shot of it thought when it was packed as Wendy did an excellent job of compacting all this great stuff… let me show you around this lovely stuff a bit..

Above are a couple packages for Kaydence… for after the fire .. I will be forwarding those on to Keashia and Kaydence today 🙂

Also above is a Historical Calendar of the town Wendy lives in … in Australia… very cool to see things she gets to see in some form or fashion today in her town !  Love this calendar… plus now I can keep track of those Australian holidays and time changes… maybe! lol

Also above is a can of Milo… a drink mix they use in Australia that tastes similar to a malted hot chocolate if mixed in warm milk.. that is how I love it anyway 🙂  As well as a tube of Vegemite… I plan to try that on some toast with butter today.. Wendy says that is the best way to enjoy it 🙂

Wendy included 2 magazines from down under as well.. one is all about stitchery stuff for my Journey of a Quilter/Friendship Journey quilt I will be starting soon… and the other magazine came with these hexi templates… they are nice acrylic for making hexi’s!  I didn’t have any of these either 🙂  Perfect!!!!

Wendy also included some Weaveline.. a stabilizer we don’t have here in the USA.. I will use that to stabilize any embroidery I do on that same quilt with it 🙂  Yipeee !!!

Wendy also send this cool bookmark…

It is made of a very thin wood and is quite substantial as thin as it is… I love using it with the book she also sent called “The Dressmaker”… this recently came out at the movie theaters… so I will hope to catch it there or later on Netflix when I finish reading the book on it 🙂

Then to give me some fun Aussie whimsy to share with my grands she sent these two books…

I have a few books my bestie Connie sent me leftover from her grands earlier years.. now I can start a little library… I have signed inside of these though so I don’t forget when I got them and how precious these books are as an addition to my new library for little ones 🙂

She included something she had made years ago that had not found a home yet… for my honey to enjoy … he loves old trains… and this focus fabric and how this works is just so cool!

We are planning to eventually change over the calendar to a Train Schedule!  I think that will be cool but the specifics are not planned out yet! lol  Right now we are just enjoying it in our kitchen which also houses my honey’s vintage train collection for decor purposes.

She made me a bunting from vintage doilies….

 And I wanted it where I could enjoy it lots… so I had my honey center it over my design board… it looks so awesome up there… here is a close up of the center doily…

 The craftsmanship on the Australian doilies is amazing.. and they are vintage .. so they really fit our theme!

Next she also included an ornament for our Christmas tree…

 A fabric christmas tree with a big fun blingy vintage looking button for a star on the top!!!

I love this ornament.. and placed it near the top of the tree where no one is sure to miss it 🙂

She also included a really fun gold glitter Christmas Card ….

We don’t get a lot of Christmas cards by snail mail.. so we display those on our Christmas tree as well…  Isn’t it lovely!!!

Wow!!! See what a lot of stuff she sent me ??!!!!  I am sooo blessed!!!!

Later on Saturday we picked up my daughters best friend since preschool.. Tanisha… She will be staying with us over the holiday 🙂

So far I only caught a shot of them in Brandi’s room.. isn’t her Christmas tree she fashioned on the wall with push pins and strings of lights cool!  I will try to catch a dark shot of it too.. with the lights on.. very cool for sure!

So with Tanisha here… I am considering 2 for Christmas… I made a questionnaire for each of them to fill out… and from that I am making them each a stocking with a few of their faves in… here is the plan for Tanisha’s stocking…

 Here is Tanisha’s list… her fave colour is purple so I am copying her handwriting to a larger size and spacing for hand embroidery in this shot….

 And here is Tanisha’s name getting embroidered on the stocking top before the quilting officially begins on this project 🙂

I still have lots of decision to make before this stocking is completed.. and I also am thinking about HOW to construct Brandi’s front of her stocking… here is my plan…

See her “panel” is vertical instead of Horizontal in orientation.. Tanisha’s was the Christmas tree panel I added….

So that is what I am up to just a few days until Christmas Eve Party 2015 is to happen too.. much planning still to do!!!!

Until my next post … I hope you are finding something positive to focus on this Christmas and please….