I have been FEARLESS this week!!!

Happy Sunday Y’all!!!  and I have been fearless since cleaning and organizing my sewing room!!!

In the meantime cleaning out some clutter taking up room in my brain too! (lol)…. I went into high speed piecing on the blue quilt… I was drawn to this project large a huge magnet was attached pulling me awake early every morning and working on and off on it though out the day… THIS IS NOT LIKE ME! lol  Then I went to Kathy’s Quilts to see what she was talking about and this is her topic today…

Please MAKE THE TIME to read her post… and P. S. >>> It is NOT political in any way… a nice rest from that for a minute at least!  Go HERE to read her post… then come back and read what I had planned to write before this took precedence 🙂 hahaha

So now I can fearlessly I have had an amazingly busy and productive week… I shared some things in my last post that are already being appreciated…

This was a hit on facebook!  One girl even suggested Daisy as the quilter 🙂 lol

The hand quilting is happening when I take a break from piecing the blue quilt… I am about half around the shadowing of the flowers 🙂

I did finish all 64 blocks early Friday morning and snagged this shot on our kitchen table…

Well facebook enjoyed my doily almost as much as my block production… lol!  

Now here they are laid out waiting for my honey to rouse for the day! hehe

A few adjustments were made in an effort to even out reds yet not have any duplicates in the diamonds or beyond 🙂

And I must say my Gloria (301a) only required maintenance 1 time during construction of this quilt and it was soon after I started webbing the top together… I changed the needle with the bobbin and the new one must have been bent or misshappen somehow… as then Gloria refused to stitch with each revolution fast or slow!  My honey came to the rescue when I was thought out of what could it be that she didn’t like… he replaced the needle with a NEW one… from the same pack as that was all I had on hand… and she didn’t quit stitching properly til the sections were all sewn together..

A great example of the coolness of this quilt is the blue and black paisly square the yellow/orange arrow is pointing to was sent to me by a dear friend… and the blue and white plaid block the pink/fuscia arrow is pointing to is one from my grandmother’s stash 🙂  I love that!!!  This quilt is filled with memories in the form of fabric.. I can’t wait to sleep under all the love that is going into this one!!!

While I am stitching away in the sewing room using my design wall to hold block parts and sewing away on Gloria… my honey and Daisy got in LOTS of snuggle time! lol

I love the shirt he is wearing above.. it is all patchwork 🙂  He made me crop his face out though! lol

I also received a goodie in the mail… a secret present I had ordered for a friend abroad… and this cool walking foot!

It has metal feed dogs instead of plastic like the newer ones.. I have always used a zig zagging machine to attach my binding but the next few quilts will do okay on my 301 with this cool walking foot I think… I emailed a pic of it to Bonnie Hunter last week with a note and she agreed the $12 including shipping I paid for it was a Bargain Bin price for this beauty!  Bonnie recommended this in a recent quilt cam… so I looked and was gonna buy another I found for $20 with ship… but lost track of the end of the auction.. this one was buy it now .. so I did! lol

Finally yesterday I finished the “center” of this top to this point…. 

 And I had a hand quilting plan that included a white outer border….

 But on the bed it was already a generous quilt…

I believe once markings and a good wash are done after a quilt is bound and ready for that step a nice dry in the dryer is in order…

I am using 80/20 cotton/wool batting in this quilt… I want some wrinkly puffiness only this batting will give me.

So the quilt that was languishing on the frame got removed after I woke this morning and in under 3 hours I had this one loaded…

 Then I gathered all I could think I would need for this… so far I have used all Aurifil thread… I will be able to say that also when I am done here as I have only Aurifil 28/2 wt thread and some white DMC Perle Cotton for the occasional design I will be adding!

 So you see… FEARLESS describes my week…

And my sewing room is back to a baseline clean space and my fabric chest is nice and tidy… I still have some projects to complete on the design wall but that is a good thing… gives me more to ponder than political things.. lol!

MOSTLY THIS QUILT NEEDS A NAME… any suggestions would be most welcomed!!!  A fun prize you help me choose from my fun fabric chest if you post your response and I use it too!

Have a blessed week y’all!  And made sure to make time to …

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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…

Just quilting away here! Starlight… Starbright update and MORE!

Welcome to my blog y’all!  I am so happy to be linking today’s post to Kathy’s Quilts… she is chatting about forest bathing and is doing the cutest little stitchery… check it out HERE!

Well best I can recall from a couple posts ago… I started block #8 of this quilt on September 5 or before… and I am now nearing the end of this block !!!  Take a look 🙂

I am so excited that I am able to focus and quilt so much on this quilt currently!  Just one more move in the frame to see the end of the wheel 🙂   I am recovering from a bout of bronchitis so stitching and reading are the main focuses in my time!

Here is a closer up of the right lower section I am focused on presently…

Funny Fact:  When I started this quilt I loved the straight line quilting… now that I am comfortable with how to make the stars and moon stippling though… that has become my favorite to stitch!!!!  lol

This quilt was not a project I should have taken on earlier in my quilting career either though… It was bought as a top already machine pieced… they did a better job than I could have done and most points match well… but the fabrics (only 3 fabrics used to make this queen sized quilt) are all different densities of weave… so sometimes I can make my thread knot 3 loops… sometimes I need 4 to catch the batting and fabric well though… so I have learned a lot of in depth things about myself and quilting while doing this quilt!!!

Isn’t quilting fun like that though when you have a project that challenges you??!!!

Also, on a facebook group I am in someone asked for how do you store your stash… so I made a collage to share there and thought you may enjoy seeing my Fabric Chest too!

My fabric chest is a cabinet we bought unmade from a big box hardware store .. thinking Lowe’s but could have been Home Depot too!  Anyway it was a closet for a room that was designed as a dining room so no closet was there… when that son who used it moved out he left it .. so I inherited this gem and my honey made shelves of plywood and boards from luan thin wood that I could wrap my stash and still see it all…

The pic above is not my whole stash really… but it is organized and ready to go there… I pull from it frequently and I have boards in projects I am working on too! hahaha!

How do you store your stash of fabric??

Also this month we are just about done with our guest bath renovation… here is a teaser photo I made…

If you are interested in seeing more shots of this cool bathroom redo… just follow THIS link to easily view that post in a separate window 🙂

Our next home reno focus is redoing a very abused bedroom… it was my sweet daughter’s room and now she has been moved out 2 months … so once we saw the repairs it needed we totally have it cleaned out now… and ready to donate and sell all she left behind saying she wasn’t interested in anything left.  She does have a very cool shelf she and my honey built several years back… it is filled with her snowglobe collection… we agreed to keep that for a while until she gets her own place and is more settled.  Currently she is living with friends and finishing her senior year of high school.

The quilt I am working on now for her will NOT be gifted to her until I see her graduate and she knows this… so for now when I finish this quilting adventure… I will sew on the binding and wait to finish and label it until she has met that goal!

I hope I have peaked your interest with this post… and maybe even left you smiling somewhere along the way so I issue this challenge!!!!

BUT… IF YOU STILL NEED A SMILE!!!!

Check out Queen Latifah in “Last Holiday” from 2006… currently on Netflix!

Do you have any heart touching and funny too movies you have watched recently??

Hope you have a blessed Sunday and a great week ahead.  Remember also to…