Happy March Y’all!

I am just giddy that March is here… I have enjoyed winter … but Spring… OH MY!!!!

You see we are still seeing THIS …..

 SNOW!!!!

 A look back toward where the above pic was taken… Rick is doing this on the golf cart to test out how it handles on snow…

This tree we call the “popsicle tree”… not sure of it’s type but it held this wet snow well!

 Here is a photo Rick took of the flag in front of our home…

We loved this photo of the flag flying…

 Even the cabin we keep an eye on for the owner got a scenic view!!!!

We even made a video of Rick doing donuts in the yard… on our golf cart that actually traveled on the snow quite nicely!!!!  I tried to add the video here but Blogger doesn’t like it! lol

So besides enjoying Mother Nature’s last hurrah of winter…. I have done some journal keeping and quite a bit of sewing too ❤

working on the base stitching layer of the crochet blocks to be…

Sew when I have the chocolate and purple block done… there is just 1 more block and then I can look in the bag and dig in the closet to find the rest!!!  I can’t remember if I have more ready 😀  I play these games though so that I will see FIRST if I can stay consistent with a project…

Today I may focus on these little squares.  I may ALSO spend some time at my frame though too!!!

Look at this cool shot I took as I stitched this week….

And >> I rolled Appalachian Delight yesterday… I took this photo before rolling to share my progress…

and this close up…

 And this view here looks GREAT rolled down some doesn’t it ❤

The snow made it very bright through the windows so I cropped most of that brightness out! lol
Linking this rolling progress to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching gang HERE <<<  Come visit her blog and see all the benefits hand stitching can do for you too ❤

I am also pondering a new quilt … it won’t be ready for quilting for a while!

Here is the layout….

 It has 72 snowballed blocks and 71 pieced blocks… all the white centers will be ivory…

I am going to you 2 layer cakes… I need to get 1 but have the other…

The one I have is this one here…

 The one I think I want to add for it’s medium tones is this in a layer cake….

 The great news is after some quick calculations I did buy enough of the background fabric… 6 yards and I need 5 for this quilt! whew!!!!

So I won’t be starting this yet… but you will see the Shelbyville~Lancaster Quilt starting soon here 🙂

I have straightened my sewing room so that I could use the cutting mat and cut out & made some reusable cloth dish towels made to be used in place of paper towels… I like them but don’t love the way I made them… I will make some this week and share that photo… but me and Jannessa bought some toweling and now I need to make some proper used rags from it that coordinate with our kitchen and look presentable too.  I will say what I made cleans and washes well though!

Molly has adopted this chair with this quilt in it to nap on when we are in the kitchen… she is soo cute!

 Here is a great shot of sweet Ellie….

 Here is some placemats that I desperately need a plan for quilting…

And now I bid you adieu… I hope you have a great first week of March and don’t forget….

Have a blessed week… Lion or Lamb 😀

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Playing Catch up ~ A New Quilt is in the Frame!!

I missed blogging last week because my best girlfriend came for a quick visit…

Connie lives about 4 hours from me and because her life is so busy.. she had not yet been to our home!!  She visited at least once a year when we lived near the beach but not since we moved to the mountains… so she left us with this souvenir shot of her visit on an old oak tree 🙂

While she was here she worked on some hand quilting… while I finished up the stitching on this purse for our friend Debbie!

 Molly is watching out for me as I stitched it all together too! lol

And here is the finish…

 It was Priority mailed this past week and already received and put into use!!

Also Connie brought gifts when she came including this cool quilt hanger that my honey installed in our kitchen…

 She also left us some apple juice bottles that are glass and she uses the leftover glass bottles for flower vases… well we loved that idea!!!  So my honey went into our yard and made me a vase for the computer area…

And once I got my quilt loaded in the frame … He also filled another vase with more flowers when I napped one day!!! 🙂

Here he is suprising me with flowers on a day I didn’t feel so good…

 And here they are posed from the opposite side of the jar on the quilt I am working on intermittently 😀

And last night it was to freeze here… so this was the last of the flowers from our yard … so I wanted to share their delightfulness with you all!!!

Molly is now officially 4 months old !!!

 And after celebrating her birthday with a nice bath!!!  We prepped our guest room for Connie’s soon arrival… I love this quilt but soon I think it will be time to wash it one last time and send it to it’s destiny… to be with my darling daughter (dd) Brandi ….

She chose this quilt top and the quilting plan and colors … I just did the work! lol

Once I finished the bag for Debbie… while Connie was here I started prepping the Rooster EPP project …

 And even got out the organizer I had bought for this project too…

Pulled fabrics from my stash… and that pin cushion on the neutral fabric on the left… a gift from Connie too!

 Glued the templates to the fabric as the directions called for using scrapbooking adhesive I had in my stash 😀

 Soon my pattern had MY colors in place of the makers colors… so it will match the vibe in our home…

 Here is a close up of that sweet hexi pin cushion Connie gifted me too …

 And long after Connie was gone back to her home and her crazy busy life… I finally got it all organized!!!

Now to find the time to work on it some more… time to glue baste down all the edges with my Fons and Porter fabric glue sticks.

I removed the doggy themed border fabric and not jiving cornerstones and made this more civil war looking with remaining fabric left from Roberta’s quilt finish….

 Daisy’s Stars is now “Stars Among Us”  Tutorial to the scrappy star blocks is on my blog HERE.  It is truly more of a memory quilt we will use on the foot of our bed in honor of her… as none of this coordinates with Connie’s decor! lol

I chose these stencils … both I have never used before… for this quilt…

The left for the border and the right for the body of the quilt where the stars are 🙂

With batting and backing already pulled long ago for this quilt loading went quick…  First was the backing to put on the 2nd rail and the bottom rail… winding it twice to make sure all was straight…

Then the top and batting were added first to the top rail and rolled on (twice as well) …

 Until they were going on straight and even…

 Then pinned to the backing at the bottom rail and tighted all up….

 Now I am ready to mark and begin quilting once I baste the bottom edge!!!

 Molly is my steady companion when I quilt… she tries to squeeze her growing body in this little box… so I traded it out for a larger box but she teethes on everything right now.. so don’t know how long that will last !!! lol

 Soon the bottom border was all stitched in place…

 And I am now making great headway on the slow stitching of this crazy triangle pattern from my stencil!!!

 Here is my set up.. early each morning I bring in the day slow stitching…

 And here is how I am marking these designs.. with pounce chalk and with a piece of pink chalk in a marking tool…

I am linking this fun slow stitching … where I will be today and every day… with Kathy’s Slow Stitching Squad of hand work specialists HERE!  Come see what others are doing following the link and if you blog come join the party too ❤

This week Bonnie Hunter posted this Bonnie-ism…

 And I received all this wonderful fabric in fat quarter form…

 Then I organized it with some in my stash like this…

 And checked value like this (Batman is for sale and was just a quiet space to rest your eyes between the colors at the top and those same fabrics in value only in black and white at the bottom! lol

 All in hopes of making 16 big 14″ blocks of log cabin bear paw blocks like this…

 So this weekend I cut out the log cabin blocks in medium and light with red centers to keep the home warm 🙂

 And here is a close up of my piecing plan per bear paw block… with the first 4 log cabins pieced on Gloria the Glorious 301a!

 Here was my inspiration block found on Pinterest and shared there by the Stashing Sisters…

 If you are into log cabins…mine are not quite as intense as theirs… but I think it will work!!! lol

In closing this long post… I want to reward you with a glimpse of the Valley Eagle!!!  A bald eagle that lives in this area but we had never seen him… until the day before we got these photos and this day too…

 Here is my dd… now in Kentucky with some of her tribe.  We have a growing friendship now that she is grown up…she is in the center with Jasper the 6  year old sitting on her back! lol

So until my next post … NEXT SUNDAY!!!!  Have a blessed week and…

Tops are being seen Everywhere here… so much excitement to share!

Can you believe it is just 2 days until AUGUST!!!  Wow… this year is flying by for us… how about you?

This week I worked on some swirly bits here…

 And finished up a spool of DMC perle 12 cotton I was using to big stitch them…

 I finished up that much all the way across … rolled the quilt down just a bit and look at my view at 71% completed now!!!

I am now ready to star ditch stitching the upper part and adding in the wavy lines in the blue blocks… then when they are done just TWO that is 2 more lines of blocks to do on this quilt!!!  We will be sleeping under it before Fall is officially here I do believe!  Sew EXCITING 😀

Better late that not at all.. I am linking this great slow and enjoyable stitching progress to Kathy’s Slow stitching Sunday post HERE as I did work on this on and off all last week and this past weekend too ❤

I also have another top with progress…

Daisy’s Stars is a quilt for our pup Daisy to sleep under that will coordinate a bit with the some of the same fabrics I used in the quilt I am hand quilting for our bed… she sleeps at the foot of our bed and under a quilt I made early in my quilty career.. it is getting threadbare now and ready for trips and other jobs… not the foot of our bed! lol 
I know there are some that don’t understand why you would make a quilt for a dog… but our doxie is our kid and we love having her on top of the covers at the foot of our bed… but she loves to snuggle quilts too… just like us… so this will now waiting to be quilted.  I have some batting I found in my stash and a backing I found in my stash… the border was in my stash as was the center parts too… so it is a scrap lovers dream! 🙂

But let me share what I am most EXCITED about this past week to share with you…

 Above… my honey got the computer back up… long enough for me to pull ALL of my pics and documents off the hard drive… he just kept on messing with it on and off until he got that folder opened!!!  I was soooo excited.  Now we have ordered a new hard drive for this laptop to get it back up and running!  ((Hope we can get it installed and Windows 10 back on it!!!))

And then to make the week even more exciting … he decided I needed a sound bar just for my new computer!!!

So above is my set up now… he hung the sound bar with little bunge cords and some black chain he had in his stash as well as some cup hooks that go into the shelf above it all hangs from so no vibration as the bunge cords are rubber and absorb any vibration… it is an LG and was under $80 so a good buy… now my desktop has great sound for listening to Craftsy aka Bluprint and as seen here more Sara at SewSweetness here where I am learning to make bags… like this one I am about to make for my dd Brandi!

This is the Oriole Bag and the directions are via pdf with a pattern for free and a youtube instruction as well.. I will be adding an inside zipper pocket to the one for Brandi and I have a cute front open lock I ordered from Etsy.  Can’t wait to share this finish with y’all!  Then a great friend of mine wants one in the smaller size… so I will learn with Brandi’s and make one for my friend Debbie when her fabric choices arrive next!  Wowee 🙂 

 I saw this cute shirt on facebook this week…

I loved the layout of it… and it kept me up and sewing for sure!

I also saw this sweet memory bear… remember I bought a bear pattern a while back… well a friend wants some made… I may use some of these ideas… a pic of him on one foot.. his dates on the other foot and a sweet saying on the belly.  These are just ideas though… nothing firm yet… but wanted to share with you all here 😀

 And we had some neighbors come fish in our pond… and look what Johnny caught…

 This is about a 20 pound fighting … brown trout!  How he caught him we aren’t sure since he is so big!!! lol  All that daily or near daily feeding of high protein food and not many fishing our pond … makes for big healthy fish!!!

 My honey took him back to his house with his son and his magnanimous fish and watched Johnny clean and prepare the fish in the river for cooking… he wrapped it once prepared in aluminum foil for dinner that same night!  Uber cool we say!!!

I saw this little meme on Facebook this week and though how apropos it was to me and my honey:

 What are your adult goals!???

And a favorite Bonnie Hunter saying I saw just the other day… really TRUE!!!!

 Well that catches me up with each of you for this week.  Hope you have a blessed week.  If you made it this far please take time to say hello in a message below!  I love hearing from each of you ❤

Sewing Progress and Happiness to Share !

I try to post to this blog every Sunday morning in the US.. but sometimes things get in the way! lol  So Happy Monday to you all ❤

One of the biggest things was my honey’s birthday that happened this past Friday!

 And one of his requests was for me to cook him some fried green tomatoes from our little garden!!! 😀

Here is the most recent photo I have of us… with my bestie just after she bought her home!

My bestie, me and my honey in April 2018

I enjoyed doing that and cooking dinner later too… we had a neighbor come fish in our pond and had a relaxing day overall at home.  SWEET!  But this was how the week ended for us really… the beginning and middle were busy busy busy!

I am now over 69% done with the quilting on Hanover Stars!  Sew excited to be rolling the quilt after I took this photo…

 And look what I found!!!  The beginning of the top is starting to show on my frame 🙂

 To celebrate this fun milestone my honey brought me the lightly sweet smelling rose from one of our bushes… it is right outside our bedroom window but having one right by my quilting frame is wonderful… esp since it is from my honey ❤

 And I hope you enjoy this video I made 🙂

It is a video of butterflies all over this bush in our yard… they love what this bush blooms of!  They are vivid purple conical blooms 🙂

Having all that hand quilty progress made I decided to focus a bit on some machine work I have slowly been making progress on … Daisy’s Star quilt or more formally known as “Disappearing 9 patch Star” that I made a tutorial for these blocks HERE if you are interested… they are fun and easy!

 Above you can see I laid each of the 30 completed blocks … one at a time… on a gridded cutting mat and trimmed them down so they all were 10″ square in the end.  I thought I might could get them a tad bigger but some were tightly trimmed so 10″ it was!

When trimming down blocks you must choose a measurement that works for the smallest block and avoids losing your points too if possible but you have to give room to have a 1/4″ seam too… it is a struggle sometimes but these blocks give lots of room for trimming so it was fine 😀

Once they were trimmed I sewed 6 rows of 5 blocks as scrappy as I could make them lay out for me them.  Then to add borders for easier quilting and finishing and I just felt these blocks needed a border too.  So I chose the burgundy I used in the setting triangles and inner border of Hanover Stars… and a fun coordinating pup print I had in my stash!

 I found some 5″ blue squares of some of the fabrics I used in the quilt in my scrap user’s system of fabrics of quilts past…. and made some qst’s with the burgundy scraps I had left in the same size… once made and trimmed they were the size of the outer pup border… 4″ 😀  I love it when that happens!

 And here it is with the center all together and the burgundy border sewn on… it is looking JUST like this today too… maybe I will get back in there now that I am sharing it and get that pup border sewn on … it is ready as you can see from my design wall shot! lol

 While doing my slow stitching… which I am linking to Kathy’s Quilts this morning HERE I have been avidly watching vids on Bluprint (the remodeled Craftsy Unlimited) that I have a 1 year subscription to… and have been watching a video on making full bust adjustments to tops/shirts.  This video was especially helpful and I took screen shots of several points made in this video

by Jenny Rushmore she explains very eloquently how to adjust any pattern to your specific measurements and how to best obtain those measurements for best fit in the end!!!  I have not regretted this subscription once… and I have so many things I want to learn from the new Bluprint platform and check into.

Finally, happiness like a kid at Christmas came Friday when me and my honey had a chat about the new red laptop computer… it was sooooo slow and painful to use because it would just go black screen for a full minute or TWO when moving from one tab to another that was already open… this just wasn’t the computer for us… so we agreed I could use the old old laptop if I could get it up and rejuvenated (it has not been reliable in the past and the battery has some issue too that didn’t resolve with a new one back in the days of trying to keep it running )… so out of the depths my honey pulled it out and Saturday I booted it up and wiped out the new red laptop for returning it to the place we bought it.  Mission accomplished!

But the old old laptop wasn’t reliable and it was showing it’s age even though it’s speed handling the same I had thrown at the red one was much much improved! lol

So we searched online relentlessly and slept on it Saturday night and finally Sunday we decided a desktop was really what I needed… I rarely moved that laptop and we do have hopes of updating with a new hard drive for the blue laptop that started this saga.

 so here is the new desktop tower and we are using an old 26″ flat screen TV I bought almost 10 years ago for a monitor with a HDMI cable for a great shot you can see just above my logo the pic quality better than the big shot that is overexposed to show the general area and my set up 🙂

I am definitely living my mantra this week of ….

How about you?  How has your week been?
Are you living a life you love???
If not can you change something to make it better???  That is my challenge to you my bloggy friends! 🙂

Progress Happening EVERYWHERE!!!

Happy Middle of July to you all… some of you are experiencing winter and some extreme summer! 

Whatever your weather… hoping you are finding some time to stitch… 

 I started the quilting on this 2 months ago… I am on the downhill slide now and enjoying daily progress on Hanover Stars 🙂

Here you can see my Hinterberg 3 pole frame my honey made me and a bit of my set up.  I love the view of our pond and the daily wildlife that roams our back yard too ❤

Since this frame is where you will be finding me today… loving the view of the quilting and the back yard… I am linking my slow stitching to my favorite Linky Party over at Kathy’s Slow Stitching Sunday blog HERE!

I was sooo thrilled that while taking a break I found this inspiring quilt on Pinterest…

But details on how to make it or what it was called at this point were sketchy at best!

After a bit of digging I found it was called a “Disappearing 9 Patch Star” block.  But fine points on making this quilt were still kind of sketchy… so I started building some blocks on Gloria my 301…

 Mine turned out scrappy too… I love scrappiness in blocks like this though 🙂

 And here it is with 2/3 of the blocks pieced… my current progress on this project….

And yesterday I wrote a nice proper tutorial on the project and how best to make these blocks HERE on my blog.  Go take a gander if this fun block interests you!  And here is a pic I just took of my sewing set up.. look closely on my sewing machine table and you will see 2 stacks of 5 blocks waiting for me to feel like machining them done 🙂

Also happening around here this week….
My honey gave both my much used vintage machines a spa treatment…

They both purr now after being massaged by the master fixer!  I can fix them both but they LOVE when he does it best!!! lol

And so sad to say…. my computer decided to quit on me!  So a new laptop was bought at an affordable amount at least for a replacement….

She isn’t as fast as my other computer and we have hopes of fixing her with a new hard drive in the future… but for now… Red is what I am seeing and this HP is filling my need the Dell didn’t.

The most unfortunate part is that I lost all my hard drive saved photos… I thought they were also saved in the cloud somewhere but I have yet to find them… luckily my photos from 2013 to present ARE in the cloud… but anything I had saved to the hard drive is gone now… any computer geeks out there that could save my photos if I sent them the hard drive??? Finding reliable and affordable computer geeks is another story… this seems to be a racket completely… we know how to take the computer apart to get to the hard drive …. and internal hard drives are affordable for sure… but WOW the fixers with companies are hijackers of your wallet all together it seems!

So I will end with my favorite wine (white zinfandel) and some dark chocolate sayings to amuse you instead of my thoughts on Dell out of country companies I weeded through trying to fix my fave computer before buying a holdover…

 Take these happy sayings to heart and have a blessed week… I hope to have the  center together on Daisy’s quilt to be… and be in the 70’s on % complete on my quilting when I blog next Sunday!  Until then… take time to ….

P. S.  Also pondering starting to make some of my own daily use clothing articles… do any of you sew for yourself???  Would love to hear from you if you do!!!  I am in love with Crafty Gemini Vanessa’s vids and have also been watching vids on Craftsy Unlimited… which is about to expand next week and change their name to Bluprint!  I am excited to have this membership via my friend Karen who blogs HERE!  Join if you like before they expand… LOTS of great content on the Unlimited platform and more fun stuff coming like exercise and yoga… sooo much more!  Here is what the email states “Bluprint lets you dig into anything you’ve ever daydreamed about doing, like dance, fitness, yoga, art, and home decorating (plus all the categories you know and love). You’ll also find community features to help you stay engaged, new exclusive series, and much, much, more.”

Disappearing 9 Patch Star Tutorial

I fell in love with a quilt block this week… the directions were sketchy so I thought I would do a picture tutorial showing ironing and sewing helps 🙂

This is a Disappearing 9 Patch Star … and Yes!  It starts with a 9 patch… I am making mine very scrappy 😍

The instructions I found online after seeing this photo…

on THIS blog post from 2014 tells a better history of this block and shows some great scrappy photos…. but no real instructions on how… now I am a fairly good quilter so I figured I could play around and figure out my own way to do it… then I found THIS  blog post from 2013 showing this much less scrappy star block….

And it shows instructions using 5″ squares for the 9 patch block start…. 

I wanted to use 4″ blocks to better use MY scraps 😀

So here is my tutorial for a Disappearing 9 Patch Star using 4″ squares for your 9 patch start…

First decide how many completed star squares you want… if you use 4″ squares for your 9 patch your blocks will finish just over 10″ after squaring if you use a scant 1/4″ seam for all your sewing of seams.  I am planning mine to be 5 squares across and 6 squares down so a total of 30 squares to make a nice lap sized quilt.  I do plan to add a border or 2 to mine as well.  

IF you like scrappy and that is your goal….

 your first 4 blocks will look similar to this in scrappiness….

I wanted mine MORE scrappy so I did the rest in lots of 5 with no repeats of the red and blues… I used lighter colors on most of my center squares too but ran low on those so added some patriotic ones in there a bit too.  I made 30 piles of squares when I started.. each pile had:

• 2 – blue 4″ squares
• 2 – red 4″ squares
• 1 – center 4″ square (I went light with mainly red cream and blue colors there)
• 4 – white/cream 4″ squares AND
• 8 – white/cream 2 5/8″ squares

So that was quite a bit of cutting!!!!

Once you have cut and sorted you are ready to make a bunch.  I made 6 at once after making the first 4 … now they all looked like this…

See how much MORE variety I got making more blocks at a time???

So here are my helpful hints on piecing this block….

Make your 9 patch block setting your red blocks opposite and your blue blocks opposite…

 (HINT:  Make sure you have NO REPEATS in your bundle of blocks you are making at once to mix and match… this is important to a scrappy finish)

Press with a hot iron BACK first to keep seams going as below… then turn over and press from the front to avoid any tucks or pleats …

 Cut into 4 pieces with 2 cuts….  (HINT:  DO NOT disturb your block until both cuts have been made for the most accurate finish… use a smaller mat and rotate or move yourself around if need be):

 Here is my sets of blocks lined up ready to sew on the 2 5/8″ blocks for the flip and sew corners….

 Here I am now sewing the flip and sew corners.  I ironed mine in half and followed the valley side of the pressed block.  You could instead mark a pencil/pen line across the square… (HINT:  Sew just to the right of your mark or valley by a thread to leave potential space for thread and fabric to fold over).

 Here are all of a block with flippy corners sewn on both sides properly… Make sure you are sewing your flippy corners on right to make a star! lol

 Now cut off the excess leaving a scant 1/4″ or so ….

 Press open careful not to distort these bias edges now 🙂

 Next is up to you … the first blog post I shared the lady sewed halves together for a LONG time before joining… I like that way best too I think for a scrappy finish.  Here are 2 scrappy halves…

 Once sewn together open the center most seam so that all your seams open in a different direction.

 Here is a close up of that center seam opened….

 By doing this … you make it easy to join your blocks without sashing…. and you have nice areas once joined for some fancy stitching when quilting it too!

And you have nice areas once joined for some fancy stitching when quilting it too!  For now imagine what you would want stitched in those open areas from looking at these stars on my design wall!

Please feel free to leave a comment if this tutorial has been helpful to you and if this block interests you like it does me!  I love trying something different and fun and patriotic too 😀

Have a blessed day and don’t forget to…