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…

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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…