Progress to share that is THIMBLY fun !

Hey ya’ll!  I am so happy to share with you today!  I am glad you stopped in for a visit as well! 

Each morning this week I have been diligently making 12 pairs of 1 7/8″ squares turn into a stack of 24 hst’s! lol  You see each must also be sliver trimmed to remove dog ears and excess slivers to bring them to 1 1/2″ finished size…

So I made the above pic collage to show just how much fun I was having and be able to share it today! lol  I HOPE YOU KNOW I am … Just Kidding about the FUN!!!  

Now I have 6 piles to share and decided this morning I would take the day off! 

I also added to the “fun” by moving around the pin cushion and scissors I use at my 301a Gloria for daily sewing machine use…

This is the pin cushion I chose and my bestie purchased for me on Etsy for my birthday… and these scissors have larger finger/thumb holes for my arthritic knuckles to get in and out of easier … so I moved these from the quilting frame use to Gloria’s cabinet instead… much easier for me when snipping the HST’s apart! lol

All these HST’s will be the points in the stars in this pattern…

EVENTUALLY I will have 14 stacks and have them all done 🙂

After tidying my sewing room I decided to ponder my fabric stash and see if there was anything I could “de-stash”… I found these 5 fabrics of the many I have that I probably couldn’t do justice with at this point… so I have these listed on eBay now HERE is one! 🙂

But my fave progress to share this week is on my hand quilting frame !!!!  This is where I plan to spend my Sunday too!

Here is my view I woke to and where I started stitching this morning…

 Here is what I finished this past week…

 And yes… to show off the blocks with any detail… it took 2 shots…

So as you can tell above .. I FINALLY got in my order stencils on Thursday and am pleased with my assortment to choose from now 😀  Maybe I will play with the panoramic setting on my phone camera… do you use yours ever?? I never have! lol

Several have asked so I thought I would share…

Here are the needles I use for Perle 12 cotton thread… 
They have quite a selection I saw this week now at Joann’s in store… and in the sewing notions department you can find these quilting betweens by Dritz in an assortment of sizes from 5 to 10.  These have a round eye and are easier to thread perle 12 and in the largest size ~ perle 8 even with these needles… or you can use a different style needle instead… but I like how a between handles with my thimbles…                                                                          So I had gone to Joann’s this week to check where these needles were still located and they are NOT with the quilting supplies but with the sewing notions as I mentioned above… and I got a ball of DMC brand perle 12 cotton ecru that I am using in the charm squares for each shape… my ball is almost gone now… and with coupons I got the needles for FREE basically!!!

Me and my bestie use this handmade version of a thimble… I made a tutorial to share with you how to make one for yourself if you are interested ….

I use the white colored electrical tape found at home improvement stores… because the black leaves a black residue.. whereas the white leaves NO RESIDUE when worn all day even!  This style of handmade thimble will last a good while ( 2 days or more?!) for me even with taking it off and on throughout the day! … but still it takes time to make and then use… so I ordered one I had seen being used in my facebook groups…

And I do really like it!  I got this in a Large size for my big thumb.. the medium wouldn’t go wide and flat but this large shapes to my thumb nicely… there is still a getting used to it phase that we have to adjust to.  But if you were thinking of one of these and on the fence about it… Joann’s sells them in the store I THINK and the box is made so you can try it one in the box!  Very cool design. 

The metal thimble on my middle finger is made by Clover but Dritz makes one similar as well..  It is adjustable but is not available in this large size anywhere I can find yet… maybe once more are using them they will.

So there are 2 ways to outfit your thumb for hand quilting/ hand work 😀  Enjoy it!

While quilting in the early mornings … I like to watch some Netflix on my honey’s iPad… currently that is “Good Witch” with the lovely Catherine Bell playing a lead… it is a Hallmark series and I like those!

 While drinking fresh brewed coffee!

We just got a new basic coffee pot … and a holder for our fave sugar substitute “Stevia”… we are making several lifestyle changes presently and Stevia has been a happy one of those!  So we bought the ceramic container to hold it with ocean shell motifs on it at goodwill for all of .99 cents! lol

Well that is all for now I think.  I look forward to seeing what you are each up to … I am linking this to Kathy’s Quilts today HERE… Hope you stop there for a visit as well!  She has LOTS of FUN going on there too and some interesting links if you wanna see some qayg techniques!!!!

So until my next post with hopefully more progress to show… make time to

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So much to share!

Hello my bloggy friends!!!  You will see as you read that I have been following my own advice to…

I am so excited to share my progress in so many areas of my quilty life!!!  As I am linking this post to my fave Sunday blog to read and enjoy (Kathy’s Quilts HERE) I will start with hand quilting progress on my Batik Hollyhock Garden quilt but there is more hand quilting below too!!!

 I was on the 2nd row a couple weeks ago when I linked up… now I am almost done with the 4th row!  The blue arrow on the left of the above shot shows where I am and you can also see the legend in the bottom right of that shot! 🙂

And here is a shot looking back on this row a bit too…

I love my Hinterberg quilting frame my honey built for me to use… and use it almost exclusively now even though I have a hoop and a project in that hoop that is to small for the frame.. I haven’t worked on it in a month or more!!!  Here is a shot you can see the frame better in if you haven’t seen my frame…

It has metal poles we got at Lowe’s… the kit we ordered from Hinterberg.com right here in the USA … I found a long length of cotton striped fabric on eBay and we used duck tape to apply the assigned length and width to each pole… this fabric is known as “leaders”.  The kit came with fairly good instructions on how to put this all together and how to cut and apply the leader fabric to each pole.. once in place it stays forever and I haven’t had any issues with using the tape to apply the fabric to the metal!

Unfortunately I broke a fingernail on my quilting hand into the quick of my nail bed… so I am taking a short break from handquilting as that fingernail grows back and it isn’t so sensitive… me and regular applications of Bag Balm are healing it fairly quick though… soon I will be back to quicker progress on this quilt! 🙂

While that is going on there… I have been piecing a quilt for my son and his wife that live in Tennessee… James and Heather… it is called Amethyst Star quilt.  I am using Gloria and loving her💖  I love my vintage machines to piece with!!

Glorious Gloria is her name!!!

Here is how I am laying out my rows for machine piecing in a controlled scrappy way…

And here are the first couple rows…

 I have all my pieces cut and in piles…

It took me a while from getting all pieces cut until I started piecing the center of this top… but now I am having a blast with it since I am not able to hand quilt too! lol  Make the best of a situation I say!!!

I am marking all the little squares with a silver glitter pen on the back across the middle diagonally…

… Then I am sewing just to the right of that drawn line to make my star points on the scrappy sashing strips…

I am piecing the squares and sashings into 4 patch units like this…

Above you can see how I make the join of the “4 Patch” rotate so each square can join like I have below in a row…

 I then have ironed the joined squares open as that seemed to make the most sense… and sure enough when I now have 4 rows all joined in this center section it looks MARVELOUS if I do say so myself….

 There will be 15 rows before this center is completed… and now my pile of parts has decreased some… I am hoping to keep the scrappy look going til the end though!  I started this with some of my stash and a layer cake cut all into 5″ squares… sashing strips… star centers… and a LOT of star point squares for the flippy corners I am marking! lol

 Yesterday.. April 29… was my honey and I’s 6th year anniversary!!!

 

I feel so blessed to have him in my life!!!  

 He got me a couple things to celebrate our years together… first we found this water bubbler for our foyer… summer is here already and we aren’t outside to enjoy those much anymore!

And a quilt pattern I just ordered last night on eBay….

This will be a Christmas wall quilt for our foyer if the size is right in the ad 🙂  I have always loved the feathered star pattern and this one is perfect for that space!

Here is the one currently opposite the bubbler …

 And a larger view… it was a rotary cut with templates, machine pieced and hand quilted finish quilt!

 Here is a pic of the way I label my quilts… I get these off Etsy from a seller there 🙂

And I finally made the banner for a local charity with some fabric I found online and a new t-shirt the charity owner brought to me…

I used the front tshirt logo on the back cross… and the back tshirt image for the front of the banner.

I really enjoyed making this up… I took a break after 2 rows of the quilt center on Amethyst Stars to get this made and delivered.  The lady that runs the charity is in LOVE with it as a banner for her charity!  She will be using it in parades and to mark her charity’s spot when in public places!  This was all machine done… my finger was hurt already at this point! haha  

I will continue to machine make things for this charity including quilted pillows for those that are injured and need a comfort pillow to help them feel safe again.  There is such a strong need for us all to be kind for sure in this world we are living in!

Another couple days of taking is slow should have me able to wear a thimble again though!  So no worries 🙂  

In this time of so much negativity going on everywhere in the world  … make sure you take time to…