Happy Last Day of March 2019!!

Get a cuppa something yummy and sit for a visit today… I have a fun share today!

Look at this cute bag I saw on Facebook today… that fabric is by Gail Pan for Henry Glass fabrics (she is an Australian designer) and I LOVE it 🙂  How fun is that!

It has been a busy and productive week here at Daisy Meadows and the weather has been totally fabulous!!!  Today we are ending March with a bit of snow though! lol  The snow didn’t stick around but it was quite interesting for sure 😀 

This week I was at this point Monday… I spent all day Sunday slow stitching last week to get to this point 🙂

And on Wednesday I was ecstatic to find myself here…

 Yep… off the frame and hand quilting complete!!  Then time to sew on the binding 😀

 I used Cleo (short for Cleopatra) my trusty Singer 319w for the job.  And added a label to it as well…

And this binding I decided to try the “ladder stitch” I had seen and used on the quilt front for a mending moment where the seam didn’t get sewn well if you recall a couple weeks back me sharing that.  Look how invisible the stitches are though…

 Here is the rhythm of a ladder stitch… it is really a running stitch where you go 1/4″ in the batting layer then pull through then 1/4″ in the fold of the binding and pull through then back down through the backing to the batting… then back up to the batting fold.. until you are done!!

 It made me giddy to make a binding finish I was proud of!!!
 Here is where I was this morning early…. with about 2/3 completed on the binding…
now I am DONE!  Spent most of my Sunday slow stitching it on with that ladder stitch and I LOVE the results of it… Hope you try this method on  your next binding finish…  Linking this to my favorite Sunday stop .. Kathy’s Slow Stitching Sunday linky party HERE. 

But before I share the reveal lets talk about the life this quilt top has had before getting this far along…

It got “finished” in May 2016… yes… 3 years ago almost… then it was layered with it’s same backing it has today and same batting it has today and put on the frame for quilting… this was the 1st quilt to ever be loaded on my frame too!!!

This was when I realized how wavy the outer border was… never knew it could happen as it never had for me… so somehow it then became a UFO as I moved forward with other quilts and other projects… I remained unsure how this happened and how to fix it. 

Fast forward to our move to North Carolina when it got unearthed in the unpacking and I realized why it had become a UFO… and investigated on Bluprint how to fix the problem… take off the border was the obvious fix and put it back on… consulting my bestie who is my quilting mentor too told me the same thing!

Well I took 3/4″ off the top and bottom borders in length last month when this quilt finally got a seat back on the frame and WOW!!!  I am so glad I did that… the sides were a bit ruffly in spots still but not like the top and bottom… now for the reveal.. now that you can appreciate how this quilt came to be 🙂

 And to see it in context in the kitchen… PERFECTION!!!

I am linking this finish for the month to Julie ~ The Crafty Quilter link up for March HERE .  You can link up 2 finishes to her linky … my second link up will be another most proud moment…

Wrangling my fabric storage got completed this month… this was on my things to do list she gave out in January as a blank and I finished it this month!!!

There is just a bit of my colored fabric scrap separations… and all of my bolts of fabrics (fat quarters and larger separated by color and some by type as well.  I am really proud of utilizing my fabrics for projects like the applique and quilt making I have done since finishing this organization… and putting everything back away… I even organized my cutting table to only have currently used fabrics on it !!!

I haven’t touched the Rooster EPP this week but I bet I do next week 😀

Daisy… our doxie we rehomed to my bestie in the Nashville area… is very happy with her new home situation… it is a great fit for her 🙂  Her granddaughter took this photo and I just fell in love with it!!!

Our Molly keeps me company as I stitch and loves to hang with Rick as he work in his building or relaxes in his recliner… she is full of energy but getting easier to tame these days… she is now 9 months old so still very much a puppy… lol!  But settling in to life in NC 🙂

Now that I have the wall hanging done… I had my honey fold up the quilting frame and I brought back in the PVC frame that holds the wholecloth quilt…

 this quilt has history too… it is now 4 years old in the making of it since I took the first stitches… it is a large queen sized quilt and will grace our guest bed whenever I finish it… it is about 1/3 or a bit more done at this moment.

Here is my current position on the quilting and all the threads I am using! lol ….

This will be a momentary quilting period as I love to hand quilt each day most of the time… This quilt I am working on will be next up on my frame but I am waiting to get it into a proper flimsy finish… almost there (just some machine applique and a couple seams to add the appliqued strip to the quilt body and I am done with it!!!)  … and waiting on batting to come that I ordered last week.  So no rush atm… but I want it done by end of the April or so…

No quilting plan decided yet on this one… ideas anyone???

Linking this near flimsy finish that will be my goal for the rest of this Sunday with Wendy and her Peacock Party HERE… I am surely happy to crow about all the work that has happened between this becoming a flimsy and the quilt getting hung in the kitchen too ❤

Look at this cool artwork decor piece my honey made with his awesome crafty skills…

This actually came from some treadle irons we have been carrying around with no center parts available to make it into a usable treadle base.  We never had the centers only rescued the side irons.  We reckon they are from about 1900 or so. 

Rick came up with this idea from an inspiration online he saw and made it come into being… we sold this one and have another sold when he gets it made up… gives all new life to the cast iron too while maintaining the original patina of the center part 🙂

Here is a great thought I found online this week…  you know the internet can be food for thought in a positive light if you choose it to be…

 We sure are.. and I am glad we are!!!

Thanks for stopping in this week… I hope you leave a comment if you made it to this point of my post… I would love to hear from each of you and thank you personally for the visit time!

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Saying Goodbye to 2018… And looking forward too!

2018 had been a year when I finally took charge of my life I feel. 

My kids are all out on their own and the end of this year is seeing them each settling in to their chosen paths well.  Me and my honey sold a house and bought our dream home moving from the ocean to the mountains. 

Leaving a little water feature on a back porch and gaining a pond with a built in grist mill in our back yard!

This home is becoming everything we thought it could be!!!  We even got to meet the people that fashioned it into the house we bought from a little building near the pond that didn’t exist anything like it does today!  We have watched many of our dreams come true and I finally have not only a guest room for friends and family… but a sewing room and a place for my 10 foot hand quilting frame. 

Likewise, my honey has space in our well insulated attached garage for some of his storage needs as well as an out building he can enjoy the rain hitting the metal roof and have room for all his guy tools and things!

We are certainly feeling blessed as we reflect on every place 2018 has brought us.  We have lots of hopes and dreams for 2019 but let’s stay focused on 2018 for this post 🙂

I did finish my stocking with no time to spare!!!

I even cleaned my desk up and caught it on digital media for a sweet memory! lol

 I took a photo for fun that I really like too …

And one of my honey with his new hat!

It was made in Australia and is a top grade brand too… Akubra my honey says is originally an aboriginal word for head covering!  🙂  How cool is that!!!    It is made of a 6 week process beginning with rabbit fur and varnish and ending with a cool hat with a leather braid trim and this cool feather and button 🙂

 

We even decorated for Christmas … a surprise to both of us really… but we found some economical lighted display items at a local big box store and had fun decorating with what we found 🙂  Our flag pole turned into a 20 foot Christmas tree… those light s are blue.  And the snowman is lighted as well and is 9 foot tall !!!

Rick got a steroid shot in his hip to avoid surgery for a bit and is finding enough relief from the shot that he was able to do the decorating… unfortunately… it isn’t lasting as he had hoped.  Also he got the nasty cold that is going around so we are fighting it from all angles with herbs and cold medications too… Please pray that he feels better or send up happy thoughts if prayer isn’t your thing! Thanks 🙂

I found lots of different chocolates in my new stocking Christmas morning… I must have been a good girl this year to get so much yummy stuff… I still haven’t eaten it all! lol  Next year I must ask Santa personally to leave a bit of fun stuff for my honey too… but he doesn’t care for chocolate really… think Santa would leave other stuff instead???

We had to send Daisy this past August to live with my best friend Connie… it was very sad for us but a good thing for Daisy and for Connie and her family too…

 but the dander of a doxie is not good for me with COPD or my honey with allergies in general and newly diagnosed Asthma as well…

Not wanting to be dogless … we adopted our little Molly who is a more hypoallergenic mixed breed of shih tzu and poodle called a shih poo…

I started an Etsy shop and have sold a few things there…

And this winter… I am learning how to safely start a fire with gas logs… maybe this is easy for some but I am very shy about doing this on my own…

I LOVE LOVE LOVE having a fireplace though that I can start without real logs to have to shovel and mess with the after affects from… the gas the fuels the logs also gives us heat via furnace so it is nice have propane handy for both purposes.

So I shared my honey got a cool hat and an amazing deal on some tools for his Christmas… here is what my daydreaming was all about…

I named her Cleopatra… she is from the 1954 era and is a Singer 319w.  My best friend Connie has a multi shade green version of her… they also make a rarely found tan version.  When I saw they made a black with gold Egyptian decals though… it was just pure unadulterated desire to have one myself… after hearing Connie chat endlessly about hers! lol

Cleo has 5 built in cams and a cam holder for more designs to add to the front of her using those old typewriter style levels.  I also got a full set of these fashion disc for Christmas and have some scissors that more match her than the scissors in the photo above. 
She is a 3/4 size machine but is HEAVY DUTY in how she preforms… so I have been using her exclusively in December for all my utility and crafty sewing completions.  I will use Gloria (my Singer 301a) for quilt piecing as she handles that great!  Gloria also has a wonderful working seam guide that Cleo doesn’t care for! lol

 Here is a view of my sewing room from Gloria’s side of the room…

 Here is my current work in progress on her… and my next to be hand quilted for our bed… maybe mid year 2019 this quilt will see the frame though!

 Here is the plan on how this quilt center will look… I have all the pieces cut … just need to web the center and start on the borders I have planned… but crafty sewing and Christmas and nesting in our new home got in the way! lol

Molly celebrated 6 months old with a haircut… we were trimming her but this was after her first professional grooming.  My honey is still shook up about how she changed just with a haircut but I like it 😀  He will get used to it over time I hope!!!

 Slow stitching progress for this year… I finished this one for my daughter… but she has to get her diploma before she receives it… so it is on our guest bed at the moment where I can enjoy it and be excited to send it to her or gift it to her when I see her next 🙂

 I pieced and hand quilted this quilt… the pillow shams coordinate but I machine quilted them for speed and durability over time… my honey is very oily skinned… these get washed weekly to keep them clean too!

 This is a big view of the quilt on my hand quilting frame at this moment… I am on the 4th row up of stars now….

 Here is a photo I took before rolling the frame…

 And here is a photo of the 4th row getting started in earnest…

Here is the next quilt I will hand quilt when I am done with the Stars Among Us quilting…

 That log cabin has been waiting a couple years from when it was pieced to get quilted … but it will go in the kitchen where the snowcouple is now 😀

Then I have the whole cloth quilt I have worked on over 3 years time… and it is still going and not yet halfway done.  I have added quilting to it every now and then but have been so busy with other stuff… it hasn’t gotten much playtime… I hope to make progress on it too in 2019.
This photo on the left was taken in Florida.. it is remounted in that PVC frame my honey fashioned for me before I got the Hinterberg wood frame.  I like them both really!  I had to take it out of the frame for the move to the mountains in January though… it only got mounted back in the frame over the summer and waits for me now!

I will say to you though… I am VERY excited about my next project after the log cabin (or before if Connie gets it finished to a flimsy before ) … I will be hand quilting a swoon patterned 1930’s era fabric quilt she is piecing now to add ambiance to her room… and because hand quilting a large queen (105 square quilt top) without my big frame isn’t near as much fun… so I am going to gift her that for this year 🙂  SEW EXCITED TO QUILT HER EXQUISITE PIECING!!!!

I have quilted a quilt for Connie early in my quilting history… it was fun but it was a hoopless quilting and not the work I do today… I much prefer the artistry of my quilting today to my learning stitches that brought me here.  I am linking this hand quilting info to my friend Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching post… come check out what other bloggers are sharing with things they have completed this year or worked on if not finished HERE!

I am very proud of my machine quilting on these two projects ( the wall hanging snow people and the tree skirt I fashioned from Christmas fabric scraps I had on hand)!

 I love how it looks early in the morning when I wake!

And I love the Santa blown glass ornament we added this year to commemorate the year we met… 2011!

 In closing I have some VERY SPECIAL news to share….
I will officially be called “Grandma” by someone I can’t wait to meet…
I visions of quilts and bibs and spit up rags all ready to make!!!  Just waiting for colors and other decisions to be made… and for her to have her friends hosted baby shower so I can make what else she may need… this baby is growing in my daughter in love Heather and along with my son James they are very excited to have this welcomed addition to their family.  They are making lots of changes to prepare for their new baby and I am very excited !!!

You may remember Amethyst Stars that I completed by hand over new years 2017/2018. 

It left my frame empty over new years too !!! lol

As I commemorated their quilt with this label and my own label… and spend new years day sewing on binding and mailed it off to them to enjoy!

I also have this little wall hanging waiting to get hand stitching finished…

 And these blocks I started making and have worked on with Gloria here and there…

Maybe I can look back on this post and between my finger skills and Gloria’s skills and now Cleo’s skills I can finish some fun things I started already before starting MORE! lol

I do hope to make me a wristlet clutch soon though… hmmm! hahaha

For now I bid you Happy 2019… May it bring you all you hope and wish for my bloggy friends!  And I close with this wish as you enter a new year wherever you live …

And don’t forget to make your life….a life you love!!!

Welcoming Miss Molly and MORE stitching done too!

Welcome to my blog and welcome Miss Molly to our family!!!

Molly  is a Shihpoo that came to us weighing a bit over 3 pounds!!!!  She is 11 weeks old today and will grow to about 8 or 10 pounds eventually!  These photos all show her cute little face well…

We drove to west of Huntsville Alabama to get her… quite a haul for us but worth it… she was dirty when we picked her up at 10 weeks old exactly !!!  

Soon as we got home she used the grass outside had a bite to eat … had a bit of a rest on a quilt I made that was clean and ready for her then into the bath she went for a good scrub down!

 Soon after this she was making herself at home in my scrap basket of fabric and finding some batting/backing for the Star quilt top on my design wall waiting to be layered up… she was running and jumping into the batting and it was soo fun watching her!!!!

Daisy Mae… had to be rehomed to my best friend Connie.  Rick was recently diagnosed with asthma and is allergic (we believe) to Daisy’s dander and shedding hair… none of this was helping so we dehaired the house as best we could… sent her to Connie as you can see below (with all her pillows and cage and stairs and bowls) and got a pup with no shedding /dander issues or at least minimal.. and I will do all her grooming/bathing whereas he did all of Daisy’s.

Daisy leaving with Connie at the “meet up spot”.  It was about halfway to our new pups destination and about halfway between our homes that we met.
Then a pic of Connie with Daisy Dog at her new home as Daisy Dog Combs!!!
She loves that she has people around all the time now and is rarely alone too 🙂

I am over 1/3 done with the machine quilting now….

 I marked my lines in a beige pencil on this photo… they aren’t straight in the center and in real life they are… they are wavy along the sides… maybe you can see better in this photo below!

Most of my quilting time has been working on HAND QUILTING though….

I am now about 80% complete with the quilting on this quilt… on row 11 of 13 rows in all!!!  SEW EXCITING … soon I will be seeing all the top !!!!

Linking this awesome quilty progress to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching HERE where my tribe of hand stitchers link… come see what everyone is up to… and as for Molly….

She found a home in a box Rick made a few years back for me to use…

Now it is being used to snuggle her as I quilt… she has become used to climbing into the box whenever I am over here at my frame which is daily for sure!!!

I am keeping my stencils under the box so she can’t get to them… she likes nibbling them and teething on them… so they underneath the box to avoid nibbles! lol

Here is where my Sunday will be spent … working on the right side of the quilt…. and potty training Molly and enjoying my honey too ❤

When my honey is able… still dealing with sciatic nerve pains down is right leg… he will be in his new recliner… the quilt you see on the floor is Molly’s for now until I get her a girlie cushion made!

 This Bonnie-ism best describes how I am feeling these days!!!

I will be slow stitching intermittently today and try to drag myself to faster stitching on the machine tomorrow… but mainly I will appreciate this home we live in and this life we are creating day by day for ourselves… how about you??!!

Slow stitching by hand and machine and MORE…

It has been a busy couple of weeks around here … since my last post 🙂  Unfortunately the sewing and stitching side of things is going slow… but still going so that is good!

For my slow stitching progress on Hanover Stars…

 Which makes my total progress…

 Above the photo shows the set in triangle stencil design drawn on…once I roll a bit down I can do that part… but first I need to get row #11 going 🙂

Here are some of my favorite notions for this job… and YES I use by Bose speaker!!! lol

 Here was the last blue block of row 10 marked prior to finishing that stitching too…

 Linking all this fun slow stitching to Kathy’s Slow Stitching Linky Party HERE… this is MY tribe!  Follow that link to see why I say that!!!

Also happening in the background when I can drag myself there is some machine quilting…

 I love this space and I love sewing on Zena … my 401a.  But I just don’t like wagging this 23 Psalm quilt around to stitch how I wanna stich… so this is happening very slow and just bits at a time….

I am about 1/3 or a bit more done with the stitching on this one.  This is my charity project for 2018…

Meanwhile my honey has been even more busy!!!

 Above he built me a ramp to get in and out of the garage door… he built it over the existing concrete stops and it works wonderful with a gradual incline only !!!  I need double knee replacements and am trying to hold off as I am only 52 years young… knees last about 15 years and I hope to only do this once in my life… also I am trying to take off some excess pounds prior to surgery … my doctor is awesome in helping support me in this journey 😀

Anyway,  Daisy loves sunning herself and supervised the building of the ramp for me 🙂

 Then my honey found this cool bakers rack on Marketplace for cheap and he decorated it with often used items….

 Then we had the teapot clock that didn’t keep time well… so when we couldn’t find clockworks to fit it we decided to add an inspirational saying for it….

 And this IS our Happy Place of all the places we have lived prior to here!!!!

Opposite of that is our cool secretary and bulletin board… with some cool decor items my honey hand picked to make it all cozy….

 Then we finally found a place for our stainless trash can!

And here is a view of the kitchen as a whole from the living room….

 NOW FOR THE BIGGEST NEWS!!!!

Our Daisy Mae is moving to Nashville to live with Connie… my bestie!

My honey recently was diagnosed with asthma… and I have lung disease as well…. Daisy’s dander is causing us both a bit of respiratory distress that is not getting better as she gets older but getting worse… so after long convos between my honey and I we decided we needed to rehome her and get a breed that doesn’t shed or have dander… so with the quilts I machine quilted a couple years ago here that got rehomed to Connie….

also goes also our Daisy Mae and all her stuff that is full of her dander…and her fave reclining chair she shared with my honey will be rehomed to the garage until we can find a pet friendly home that wants a nice recliner for CHEAP!

So what will we do for companionship besides drive each other bat crazy nuts???!!!

Get a dander free and hopefully shed free pup… Shihpoo is the designer breed (mix of poodle and shih tzu) we are looking at and this one that is just 10 weeks old tomorrow is our choice first….

 No name is picked out for HER yet… she is just weaned from mom so may be some crying to deal with initially as we bond with our new addition… thus the reason for this post… LOTS to share and Sunday we will be on the road to first drop off our Daisy at a halfway spot for Connie and us… then to go on to Alabama where this little one lives outside Huntsville.  Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers that we will survive house breaking and bonding with this sweet bundle of love and that we don’t have shedding / dander issues with her.  She is currently a bit over 3 pounds and may top out at 10 pounds or so.  Naming will also happen once we get to know her and her personality a bit!  Mollie has been discussed but nothing is set in stone there yet.

Until I catch up with y’all again…

7 Years Blogging … and WOW look what I am quilting this week!

I want this to be a spectacular 7th anniversary celebration and giveaway for all of you that read my blog each week 🙂  I have a stack of goodies for a giveaway planned for this week… then life stepped in and my week got uber busy!  

An unplanned trip to Asheville and some unexpected other stuff… well we will do the official celebration next weekend if y’all don’t mind!!!

I have made significant stitching progress this week between all the busyness though!!!  It really helps me manage stress QUITE effectively I find 😀 

So I have been getting up early and stitching in the mornings each day. I am linking this progress with other slow stitchers of all kinds at Kathy’s Quilts Linky Party HERE!  Come check out what all the slow stitching gang are up to and add your link if you blog about slow stitching of ANY kind!  We have cross stitchers, knitters, all kinds of hand stitching goes on and sooo much inspiration to be had from all over the globe too!  As for me… I am a recent transplant to a small town in far southwestern North Carolina USA 😀  I LOVE LOVE LOVE living here!

As does my honey of 7 plus years and our pup Daisy Mae of almost 7 years 😀  Here she is above enjoying the sunshine on our driveway !

Here is where my week started with this quilt last Sunday… laying out stencils… gathering a marking pen I could see on my fabrics that would also work with the stencils and making my plan ….

 After doing the marking and picking out some threads… a mix of big stitch and regular stitches… I was ready to begin!!!

 Don’t forget the proper lighting and a good rolling chair if you use a frame… much more ergonomic and effective to get in those strange positions to make even stitches if you have a rolling chair instead of a stationary one…

 Soon I had the first stitches in and spritzed away the blue marking lines to show off this wonderful texture!!!

 Then I remembered this Needle Keeper I had purchased and hadn’t even unwrapped yet so out it came to join my other one on the frame… it stands up off the quilt top enough to hold my hemostats that double as a needle puller when I get too many stitches on the needle or get in a tight spot and need the extra umph to get that needle through thick seams or something… invaluable tool!

Another basic and invaluable tool I use besides a regular thimble (took me AGES to learn to wear one but my fingers and finger nails love me for it! lol) is making a fashioned thimble from white electrical tape from a hardware store!  

Black gums up and leaves residue… they come in lots of colors too … I have found white leaves NO residue and no gumming up either!  So I make a thimble for my thumb from that and it HELPS SOOOO MUCH!!!

 If you are interested in a tutorial on how I make my thumble … just leave me a comment and I can add that to next weeks post 😉

Here is a look from the halfway point back to the beginning mid week….

 And here is a look when I was working on the end of the row….

Excuse my wet spot on the burgandy cornerstone.. I had just spritzed off my marks and wasn’t patient enough to let it dry before snagging this shot for you all… I was ready to roll!!! lol

I rolled on Friday I think…. marking only about 1/6 of the quilt where I planned to quilt at a time as it is humid out and we keep our windows open a LOT here… the weather is GLORIOUS!!!  But that can make all those marks disappear as humidity is a water like thing.  So be careful if you are in a rainy spot of the world and use the spritz away marking pens.  Mark only what you think you will get to in 2 or 3 days is my recommendation. 

So finally rolled soo I was looking at this this morning!!!

 But when I looked closely at this part here… where the burgandy corner meets the sashing… I knew this wavering edge was NOT what I wanted in this quilt forever…

So I went to my threads I had pulled for this quilt from my thread stash and decided on a big stitch outer line to stabilize AND be a design element on the quilt!

 What do you think??? 

I could have stitched in the ditch with a regular hand quilting weight thread too… but I decided this was just what this quilt needed to me 😀  Hope my honey likes this design decision when he wakes… otherwise I will take out this bit and stitch in the ditch for stabilization in an invisible way once washed…. I have done the ditch stitching on the black thin border using black thread on either side of that black line and it disappears when you look at it.

Next up is a setting triangle motif and swirls and hearts in this cool YLI blue variegated thread! My bestie Connie sent me the stencils from her collection above and below as well as the wavy lines in the outermost border … the rest are from my own stencil stash I have grown over my quilting career!

So if you are new to hand quilting… think about your quilting friends and see if any are willing to “share” their stash with you … likewise think if you would be willing to share  your stash with them!!!  Returning stencils when you are done is very important too!!  Stencils can be readily bought at some LQS’s and online at Quilting Stencils International and also The Stencil Company… I like the layout of The Stencil Company best and prices at both are similar.  I had picked out the same stencils that I borrowed from Connie actually… we both found that quite funny that what I picked out for wanting on this quilt she had in her stash already!!!

I mentioned earlier that we had to go to Asheville unexpectedly this week… Rick needed to visit the VA after he had called them about something so to Asheville we went on short notice… so I grabbed a project I have had lurking in the background but haven’t worked on in ages!!!

 This is a little wall hanging… not sure of it’s measurements but less than 24″ square I would bet… I had layered it with wool batting it looks like and a backing of leftover plaid fabric from my stash… you can see even though it is dark fabri it doesn’t darken the light grey background on the center part though… or dull the yellow of the outer border 😀  Experiment with fabrics you have in your stash for backings… you never know what will work for a project til you experiment!

Here it is just popped out of my 17″ frame as whilst in Asheville waiting I finished outlining the flowers and now need to outline the flower centers and the center star with black variegated thread. then mark and quilt the inner border and outer border after that !  A few more trips to Asheville and I will have this one done… how exciting to make progress on this slow stitching project… thus far I have just stitched with grey thread around the center flowers as I mentioned above so nothing to show a close up of… I have left it out of the hoop to relax from living in the hoop for a year or more already! YIKES … NOT ideal at all!!!

Lucky for me this is wool batting that wants to be puffy and not retain a crease from the hoop I use… my hoop is a heavy plastic hoop that is 17″ across… I LOVE IT… you can purchase one like it affordably at Joann’s online if you are interested… it is large but when I use it I just turn it and work on one side at a time 😀

My bloggy friend Karen wanted me to share photos of a project I am languishing on… my wholecloth!

So here are a couple shots of that project… I am on the second photo working my way from right to left filling in the dark green leaves when inspiration for this project I had worked on a lot until then left me… I got busy piecing and prepping for the quilt I shared at the beginning of this post “Hanover Stars” and quit hand quilting all together for a bit.

While it was nice to give my hands a rest… they are eager and happy to be back to hand quilting… Hand quilting is therapeutic in a way I can’t explain for me… I LOVE IT more than any other hand craft I have done before… I listen to music or watch learning videos on youtube or Craftsy… I splurged and got Craftsy Unlimited 2 months ago right after moving in here and LOVE LOVE LOVE all I can learn whilst stitching away … sometimes I do more watching… sometimes I have to rewind as I have gotten caught up in my stitching progress! lol  It is all good because you can rewatch all you want and LEARN soo many cool things… if you are interested in giving Craftsy Unlimited a try go to my friend Karen’s blog here and click on her Craftsy link and then click on Craftsy Unlimited… I think they may have a free trial but I can’t see any of those things right now… TOTALLY WORTH the monthly or yearly fee though!

In closing… the first photo I shared of the rose comes from this bush…

 Which is right outside my bedroom window….

 My honey brought that bud into me in a little glass with water to keep it thriving next to my frame as I quilt 😀

Then out the kitchen window we watch these flowers as they take root and are starting to bloom again from being planted a couple weekends ago….

 And here is a collage of mother nature’s symphony of beauty all around our little acre and a half….

That center shot shows an ancient weeping willow that stands just north of our garden and fruit trees… it is said a bald eagle comes and watches for fish to swim close to the top in our pond so he can swoop down for a feast of fish… but we haven’t seen him yet ourselves.

We have about 50 strawberry plants about ready to start bringing us mature strawberries, we have grape vines with baby grapes, more rose bushes, peach and apple trees, and blueberry bushes in abundance… so exciting to take ride abouts and walk abouts on our land and see the abundance of goodness we will soon be enjoying by hand!!!

OOOh… another thing I learned from a Craftsy Unlimited class by Debbie Caffrey (Cut to It – Designs for Smarter Cutting) and designed myself from that instruction and encouragement were these pillow sham fronts….

I plan to machine quilt them from a walking foot class by Jacquie Gering I also watched on Craftsy Unlimited this weekend!  We will see when and how that turns out 😀

Have a blessed weekend and see ya next weekend for a very fun giveaway I have planned… I will have a shorter post I hope then too! lol  For now please remember to always …

Settling in at the Lazy Daisy !!

This week has been all about making ourselves comfy in our new home… finally we are close to the end of all the boxes and we are making sense of our favorite things… and finding new ones!

Like this cool deep red tulip that bloomed this week!

and the views coming and going from here just totally rock!

 These photos … unfortunately… don’t do justice to the reality though!!!

We are at an elevation of about 2600 ft… when we lived in Florida we were at an elevation of 3 ft!!!  WOWEE … and every time we go out we see something new … experience a new color … watch as God repaints the sky or brings the clouds down just a bit closer or raises them a bit higher!  TOTALLy AMAZING!!!!

Around here we have been busy… our bedroom got washed and dried and lit back up 😀

 We only had our lights up a month before we decided to sell our home in Florida so they quickly got packed away so they wouldn’t be thought to convey with the house!! lol

The bedroom tv moved to the living room… and the cool vintage cabinet now houses the quilt shop and helps hide cords from the tv and also holds our new sound bar…

 WOW that sound is good when listening to Pandora from the TV too ❤

We got paint for the kitchen …

 It will really make the valances we bought look good… and we got some white paint for the woodwork too !!!

Then we found this cute shopping cart…

 It is just perfect for the dishrags my bestie made for us… and we use regularly at the kitchen sink!

Then lights came from our power company… they have a program to provide you with up to 15 LED 60 watt soft white bulbs… we think these are GREAT!  We installed 8 immediately in the living room ceiling fans!!! 

The remaining ones will be used in Rick’s shop when he replaces the fluorescent buzzing lights for regular bulb holders with these energy efficient LED’s for great light out there!!!

I have been in a making mood as we are settling in here…

Using my stash… I made valances for the sewing room…

 And my honey hung my “k” thread spool and bobbin holder….

 I made the same valance again for the other window in my sewing room…

 I went to the LQS (local quilt shop) … Bless My Stitches in Murphy, NC and got…

 a ruler, some glue stick refills for applique time, and some fabric that soon found a purpose…

 As a ironing board cover in my sewing room.  I just had to have this cute daisy fabric and peachy color seemed right and vintagy at the same time!

I used ALL the fabric they had on the bolt in their clearance section ….

To make the ironing surface cover and… a hat… lol!

 No… not an Easter bonnet y’all but a trash basket of sorts…

 See…

 I used the bag given me at my LQS and made a customized trash basket to hold my scraps and thread tails until I dump them in the “to be burned” trash or for plastic etc… separate to go to the dumpster.

Someone on facebook wanted to know about my ironing board.  It is actually a piece of 1/2″ plywood that sits on a wooden stool….

 There above you can see the stool and below is a close up of the layers… I used a thick cotton fluffy towel that had gotten discolored so wasn’t being used anymore and repurposed it into being sewn shut on 3 sides into a kind of pillowcase that fits tightly around the board… then measured that with my cloth tape measure and made the outer ironing board cover so I can move it about and flip it over if one side gets dirty or something…

I love this style and in fact this is my SECOND ironing board as the first one was just smaller than I wanted so I had my honey make this one a bit larger than a fat quarter laid out flat and it is perfect for ironing fabrics, a small cutting board sits there at times… or works in progress rest at the top of it whilst I am piecing things and ironing those pieced items down on the bottom half!  Perfect !!!

Another thing we LOVE LOVE LOVE IS ….

 the view AND feeding our fish in the pond every day!  They LOVE to eat too 😀  And that water wheel NEVER gets old either… a perpetual water feature that never stops!!!

 Daisy loves to go out by the fish and enjoys all the wildlife our new home attracts!!!

We even have a  log cabin near us that is very vintage… it was a train engineers cabin when the train came by here…

Now there are tracks but no train anymore… to bad… we would like it if they revived the train 😀

I am now making curtains for our bedroom… more on those next week.  As I type this I am getting more shelves in my sewing room closet… so maybe an uber organized photo of all my sewing notions, accessories and fabrics next week!

Remember to be kind y’all!  It takes no effort to be kind!!!

 And also remember to…

3/4 Done with Amethyst Stars and MORE !

Hello All!  Hope you are have a happy holiday season wherever you reside in the world !!!

I have been plugging away at this quilt … Amethyst Stars and am now over 3/4 done 😀

Actually it calculates to 80% complete on the rows I have done but the top edge… that is starting to show when I rolled to Row 12… in this shot…

with the next roll a row of green will then be visible!!!  Stay tuned to see if I finish this quilt up though before the New Year!!!  That is my goal is to have this off the frame before we move!!!

And speaking of moving…

 Our Casa del Loro is officially on the market for sale!!

Here is what I posted on Craigslist before the house went up for sale though in the back yard…

Which left us here….

 Then with some hard work by my honey and our yard folks…. we got it to this 😀

While all this change was happening in the back yard… look who I was hanging out with ….

And I even did a bit of retail therapy for the Season … for myself! lol

I got some hand knit wool socks that are made of a wool that will let me wash them too!!!  I got them off Etsy… just leave a message if you want more info on these!

Now that we are talking again about hand done things… let’s chat about quilt marking…

I am using chalk… both actual chalk pencil and Pounce mainly for marking but some squares are light enough to mark with a blue wash away marker too….

Above you can see the Pounce pad and the chalk pencil as well as my thimble by Clover 🙂

Now you can see the perle cotton big stitched on those lines below!

I am linking all this fun slow stitching progress… and where I will be spending most of my time today as well to Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday Linky… see what others are slowly making at her linky party HERE!

When I quilt I occasionally indulge during the holidays in a bit of Peppermint bark by Dove!! Yummm

I love the holiday sayings on them too!!!  Do you have a fave snack you indulge in during the holidays???

Although I haven’t worked on this this week… I have been making a bit of progress on a future hand quilting project… by getting some blocks machine pieced… here are 9 all done and laid out on the carpet….

this is really gonna be a Krazy Kaleidoscope quilt too I think when all done!!!  all but the greys I used are from my existing stash too ~  LOVING IT!!!!

One thing we will certainly miss in our location in Florida is seeing the rockets launch from our back yard… look closely at this shot and you can see the comm trail rising toward that big cloud… it is the trail left by the Space X rocket earlier this week from Cape Canaveral Florida due south of our home 😀

Finally from our home to yours we wish you a Happy Christmas!!!!

Take time to listen to some Christmas tunes… Pentatonix has a new album out and I have been enjoying it via headphones and even on the Bose speaker… quite remarkable what they do with little to no actual instruments but those given to them by birth !

Have a blessed Christmas… please keep our home sale and subsequent purchase of a new smaller home in your prayers and thoughts!  We are excited to start this new chapter in our lives and look forward to sharing the highlights here as well!

Most important we find it hard to remember for most drivers but show your love for one another and have extra Christmas  cheer when driving this Holiday Season!  This seems to be in short supply when shopping and when driving around here anyway!

Blessed Holidays to you all and don’t forget to….

Slow Stitching Sunday Yippee!!!

I can’t believe it have been a month since my last post… live has been sooo busy I didn’t realize… so sorry my bloggy friends!

Here is a great pic to express my regret for keeping you out of the loop!

From our beach to yours.. happy season change… for us it is Summer… and for Australia I think it is officially winter now!!! This shot shows how empty the beach can be early in the mornings 🙂

My honey has been in and out of the hospital this last month… here is a pic we took after his most recent hospital stay where we got a diagnosis finally…

When my honey goes into the hospital I go too… and stay nearby having been a cardiac nurse for so many years I navigate the medical world and medical words for him… and this time for me!  He has tracheomalacia or a floppy airway most commonly found in newborns… why he got it we can only conjecture… the cure is unknown and probably just to fix the floppy airway for a stable airway (aka a tracheostomy) but for now we are using a CPAP machine most of the time to assist his breathing and keep that airway open!

That is probably lots of Greek to you too… and that is simplified!  Sorry guys… but your THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS are appreciated as we navigate this path.. I want my honey to stick around a while longer and he wants to stay here too… for him a tracheostomy is NOT something he wants ever… so his natural airway needs to get stronger if possible or the breathing machine needs to be helpful in helping him rest well at nighttime!  So that is what has kept me so busy lately… my honey has had his own personal nurse! lol

Meanwhile… our first night at the hospital in a town over an hour away.. I came home to find carpet torn up and my quilt I have been working on torn partially out of the frame…

 So I finally… almost a month of looking at it later… made time and energy to get it back in the frame properly… and now I am making slow stitching progress once again!!!

I am linking my slow stitching progress to Kathy’s Quilts Slow Stitching Sunday… I have missed you all … my fave linky so go check it out HERE!!!

While that quilt was in an “unquiltable” state… I had to keep myself occupied with something and reading wasn’t gonna do it so I worked on my son James and his new brides’ quilt…

Above you can see the new “Strip Stick” I found via a friend’s youtube vid and requested more info… they are available in sizes too… I found this size fits my needs for now!  And it fits my pressing surface well… it aids in ironing seams open which is what I was doing as I watched a quilt cam with Bonnie Hunter 😀

And I finally have the center finished between doctor and hospital runs with my honey…

Next up is the pieced border that is framed on the inside by a “floating border” and on the outside by a anchoring border and the top will be an official flimsy!!! lol  Getting ahead of myself though… the pieced border will take a bit of thought… review of the pattern I made… a video instruction… and some good old fashioned math…

 And don’t forget comedic relief like that my honey provided below! lol  Thanks to our Daisy dog for being the comedy… she is pretending to be a lab in this shot! hahaha 🙂

While the video tutorial I purchased helped me figure out the basic way to construct the pieced border… it did NOT help me figure the math correctly… for that I am glad math was a subject I “got” in high school and college… So I will not mention the name or where I purchased this video when looking to make this certain style of pieced border but I don’t regret the purchase really either…

I plan on leaving feedback once I have a flimsy to share and am complete… here are shots of some of my progress thus far though…

The inner border also called the float border to this pieced border as it will give the custom fit it needs for the quilt… is a bit skinnier on the sides finishing at 1″ on each side while the top and bottom finish at 1 3/4″ each… This float border is vanilla fabric like the first row of sashings are on the outer edges of the center of the quilt… so should all veg together  🙂  I hope so anyway!!!

I have the top and bottom borders complete on the pieced borders now and they fit as they should.. today when I am not slow stitching I will be constructing the side borders.  Once both are together and tested in place I will add the vanilla float border and see how they really fit… maybe have all this done and the flimsy finished by next weekend???  No promises on that… EVERYTHING depends on my honey as his need to be hospitalized again until we have a home plan that is stable for his airway! and his health overall!!!  Here is my pattern again though… how I planned it to be looking! lol

And here are a few pieces I had left over from the center and my triumphant start on the pieced border after watching the video and reviewing my own plan above! lol  This WILL BE HAND QUILTED once it is a flimsy too 🙂  That was requested by my son’s new wife in the early planning stages!!

Here is an updated shot of me I took… it now resides as my facebook profile pic 🙂  This was the end of May though…

Here is my 301a Gloria who has made my work on this quilt top.. Amethyst Stars… so enjoyable and a great destressor for me 🙂

And here is a “new” thrifted ironing board… with a cover I made after watching some youtube tutorials…. along with a new iron I got too (my old one had leaked so much the ironing board was all rusted under the cover that was stained and falling off! lol

I have had this fabric for some time … waiting for the right project for it… now I have this fun cover to look at every day and interact with when ironing needs to be done properly on a board instead of my quilting ironing surface!!!  I love the cradle it has to keep the iron off the ironing board itself… and a new iron does not leak!!! Yippee 😀

Well… that is about all I have time for today… Thanks again for your coveted thoughts and prayers for us and the VA medical team my honey has…

Remember to …

Lots of Productivity… Now to SLOW it down a bit!!!

So since our last chat… I have been VERY busy 🙂

Saturday I got the frame loaded with my latest finish “Batik Hollyhock Quilt”… This is where I will be most all day Sunday… In hand quilting BLISS!!!!   Linking this post to Kathy’s Slow Stitching Sunday post HERE 🙂  Hope you make time to slow stitch with me today and to check out Kathy’s post… this quilt I am working on today was a LOOONG time UFO that I am happy is now being quilted… and it is for ME!!!

This pattern is Hollyhock Garden in this booklet you can find online…

In my last post I shared the making of the “flowers”… so in this post I thought I would show you all the triangles I cut using the SAME template….

And check out how festive my design wall looked as I put this quilt top together!!!

Don’t you love the vintage doilies above my design wall?  That is something my friend Wendy made for me … this April 1 we celebrated 3 wonderful years of friendship too!!!  

Finally I had it all together and it was time for me to piece a backing…

Because I made it bigger than I originally planned on it to be! lol

Oh well.. that is the life of a UFO… this quilt will be my personal living room snuggle quilt.  I stay cold a lot!!!  So this quilt will keep me warm while others are comfy already! hahaha   So here is my pieced backing…

Hard to tell but the colors are all coordinating with the front… once it is quilted I will get some close ups of the backing that remains as this was a bit big… and you will see the design better and colors! 🙂

All this I sewed on my vintage 301a GLORIA the Glorious!!!

Check out the new clock I found on facebook marketplace local to me….

 For a steal of a deal the original owner isn’t a sewer and received it as a gift… she agreed to take $30 for it !!! Yippee… It now happily adorns my sewing room and keeps me aware of the time.

We are selling LED lights we just got in that fit many vintage machines… but specifically my 301, 401 and 221!!!!  Soooo excited… this picture is on eBay if you are interested look for it there or message me HERE 🙂  We were unsure if this was a good deal or not as in… did they really fit so many different machines in 1 design… THEY DO!!!!  No flange between bulb and base is the reason!

There are like 104 little LED lights and it really brightens up my sewing space when I am using my machines now!!! Yippee!!!!

Finally I am ready to share a bit more about my designing focus I shared a bit last post with you but just enough to confuse you probably… let me share more with you today.

James ( my 2nd oldest child and father to Kaydence) recently married Heather… his true soulmate 🙂  I had sent him his father’s wedding band and my wedding band from that marriage which was originally his grandmother’s wedding band (Tony’s moms wedding band) for a wedding gift… but after sending Kaydence a quilt for their home… I wanted to make them a snuggle quilt to celebrate their union … it just seems right… so here are some quilts they sent for inspiration to make them one of their own.. hand quilted of course!!!

They wanted country colors… not much light colored fabrics… and a punch of dark purple to it as James prefers that color Heather said when she was giving me pointers.  Here is some of what I have designed…

It is the Amethyst Star Pattern!  I found out just the other day though that this is a spin on Pat Speth’s “Morning Star” pattern from her “nickel quilt book”.  So it is and the photo top left is a civil war take on that pattern I sent to Heather and she LOVED it!  So I ordered a layer cake and drew out and partially colored a pattern on graph paper I keep for designing on.

I love the name of this layer cake too!!!!  Gratitude by Jo Morton for Moda 🙂

And added a few fabrics from my stash and Connie’s to round out my needs for this quilt…

In the end I came up with a nice assortment of charms!!!

The sashings will be vanilla mottled around the edges and cheddar/light brown everywhere else in the center sections…

Above is a test sashing strip with the wrong fabric for star points but I was testing the pattern size needs to make sure my plan was accurate… well the left side is more accurate than the right side… so I will be marking these all and using Bonnie Hunter’s tutorial for flippy corners you can find HERE!  I enjoy learning from Bonnie … I think she if a great teacher!  And she is all about accuracy too 🙂

 You can see on the left where I am counting and ironing a final hot press… all the little squares… flippy corners to be! lol

And above I am now gonna use a stardust glitter pen from Sakura with a little ruler to mark a center line down all my little squares… then sew just inside that line to get the perfect flipped corner… I will NOT be saving the bonus triangles and these little squares are just too small already!  But I will have fun I hope as I had to make 1,120 of these little squares for this quilt!!!!  Wowee!!!!

I got fun mail this week from my best friend Connie… a sweet card and some goodies too!

And found some quilty inspiration online this week as well…

I took my beach photo from my last posting and used it to do a bit of fun photo editing to make a new blog header for summer time… it already feels like summer here in Florida anyway! lol

And I finally caught Daisy looking at my phone for a good minute so I could catch her cuteness…

She is such a fun companion.. even if we did find out doxie’s (dachshund by full name) are on the higher end of having dander… my honey is now gaining allergies!!!  Daisy is HIS dog! hahaha

Well, I hope you have enjoyed your visit and until my next post my time to show someone that you …

Lots of sewing and some QUILTING too :)

I finished cleaning and straightening the sewing room… even tackled all that big pile of fabric I shared in my last post… check out my finished Fabric Chest!!!

And now it is very organized too!  I now need another shelf added to the top of the shelves.. my honey made those with plain plywood for durability… he has more in his ever evolving garage… aka MAN CAVE… currently he is painting the parts that are drywall… one wall is pegboard… more pics on that when he is done though… per his request! lol

Once I was organized here I decided to finish the bedroom organization and with my honey’s help I reorganized how the layout was some to accomodate my desk better…

You see since we moved the desk in here temporarily I have fallen in love with computer time when my honey sleeps in the mornings… we are close and this keeps us close… he snoozes quietly in the background and I am more inspired to write and spend time here quietly of course! lol

So now the plan is to finish the office but keep it as a guest room mainly with a desk area in there for me to use when skyping… or when my honey watches something I don’t care for on TV and I want to get away from that during my time at the computer…

However, I have found sewing has been my current fave pasttime since cleaning everything up!  Take a look at what I finished earlier this week…

I had 2 pillow tops I found when cleaning the sewing room up… they measure about 8 1/2″ square… once cleaned up they were yelling at me to be completed… and now as you can see in the top photo they are finished (from my stash) and ready to be a neck pillow or just a snuggly pillow while watching tv or napping! 🙂  We love these little pillows… Daisy has already snuggled Rick’s (on the right side) too!! lol

I have been catching up with my Singing the Blues quilt block making…

The pattern I designed calls for 32 of each of these blocks for a total of 64 blocks to make a 100″ square quilt… here is my “pattern” I drew out…

I keep it with the block parts that are all made… so basically it is putting together 9 patch blocks now but good for me to do basic stuff when piecing.. I love and feel accomplished with hand quilting but piecing is another matter… I don’t feel all that about my piecing… 

I did take a break early yesterday morning to do a couple projects… FIRST was a project for my friend Debbie.  She had happily received a memory bear made from one of her late husband’s shirts…

But this memory bear came with 2 (didn’t think of the pic until 1 button had been removed) BLUE eyes… yet her husband had dark brown almost black eyes…

So she searched my button selection and found some that reminded her of Jim’s eyes…

I got them sewed on fairly easy and left this sweet memory bear to keep watch over her bed while she is not here presently…

Isn’t he much cuter without dayglow blue eyes??!! LOL

SECOND was finishing up a cushion for Daisy Mae I had started on the day before and not finished up on…

I bought the cotton tapestry center on eBay… and it arrived that day… soon from my stash I had pulled a coordination border to make it the right size we wanted it to be for Daisy… and found some cute Doggy themed word fabric for the side fabric

and a rough quilting cotton for the bottom… it is something I wouldn’t use in a quilt but is perfect to keep it in place on the tile floor… It’s place is in our Florida room now 🙂

Then I made a few more blocks but this centerpiece Connie (my bestie) had made me over a year ago kept calling to be finished… soon I had pulled out all the fabric that I had in homespun leftovers from this and the other project…

Homespuns are very very stringy once cut… so I worked gently with this fabric… making borders for what will be a small wall hanging for our kitchen!  It will actually hang just around the corner from this piece I finished last year I think…

 She fashioned this center piece from this pic I sent her… for my birthday last year if I remember right! lol  Not sure as we are always sending each other stuff! 🙂

She machine appliqued this one… and I am glad she did the raw edge applique via machine…

Here is how I completed this flimsy wall hanging to be 🙂

Then I layered and pin basted it… I used wool batting in it for depth of stitching look on it when done…

Then I took a break and made a couple more blocks for Singing the Blues…  for all the sewing work I have shown… I looked to my Glorious GLORIA.. Singer 301a

I love that she is an LBOW (light brown/oyster white) coloring… I love the pin cushion Connie made me this year for my 50th birthday too!  And where would I be without a nice dry hot iron like this Dominion!  I love it for all my piecing… I save the steam iron for pre-sewing ironing of wrinkled fabrics and ironing my honey’s shirts! lol  then there is coffee, tea or water at my side at all times too!

Finally I pulled out my 17″ favorite hoop that was gifted to me so long ago and hooped up this project and got started on it… just outlining the flowers on the center with a medium grey thread that blends nicely…

Check out Daisy watching me as she sits on her new cushion too!  This is her favorite chair to sit in when Debbie isn’t here… so after posing it where it should go for pics… I put it up in the chair and she LOVES it!!!  So with her company near me last night I started the stitching on this… should be a fun and quick project allowing me to return to STARLIGHT … STARBRIGHT soon!  And refreshed from the break to finish and bind that big quilt!

So I have been MEGA busy as you can all see from this post… and as I close (the blocks are calling me back to work on a couple more! lol) I hope you each have a great rest of your week!

We have had a roller coaster of an election here in the USA that has left Donald Trump as our President elect… many feel this could be bad… but for once I am glad it isn’t a career politician in our nations highest office… he is also a Republican and has majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate as well… During his tenure he will name a few Supreme Court Justices too… 1 is waiting to be named as soon as he takes office in January.  Please continue to keep us and President Trump in your thoughts!

Mostly remember to…