Easter Blessings ~ Quarantine 2020!

Happy Resurrection Sunday Y’all!

As we continue to Quarantine to avoid this hateful virus sweeping all areas of our country and even has or will be to every point in the world I think!  How horrible but true!

I am learning to adapt to this as I learned to adapt to being retired and finally gave up fighting urges to return and took up quilting back then… now I am taking up mask figuring and my days are just generally restructuring a bit… ok a LOT! … not as much shows on my bullet journaling…

But Y’all … I stay busy all day every day now… just not so much quilting and crafting I guess… and sleep comes easy from 8 pm to 4 am then I am up and my day has begun!

I sure hope our world will heal real soon too ❤  Feel free to use this meme I scarfed on facebook 🙂

We have started shopping early in the mornings and trying to do our errands before lots of others are out and about… well last week we came home early one morning to find a visitor in our pond…

A duck swimming across the pond until we started him… in front of our neighbor’s cabin…  Picturesque view she has up there!!!

Molly has been quite the entertainer lately…

 She “claimed” this stick when we were doing the spring clean up a couple weeks back on the golf cart….

 Well she still has it … and that tulip behind her in the picture below…

Now that tulip sits in a cute little glass jar my bestie gave me from her collection…. So she is near during this lonely time too!

I have great company in my honey and Molly and facetime with Jannessa rocks!  Don’t get me wrong I am BLESSED on this resurrection day ….

I just wish I could hug Jannessa… spend time with Connie on her vacation week coming up… those kind of things… plan a visit to see some of my kids… like all of us… instead I am staying home 99% of the time and finding nuggets of happiness on social media and listening to audio books again!!!

Look at this cute little quilt I found in our toy sewing machine group that a member made… it is appliqued from a drawing she made… It is great detail and she definitely has skills I don’t! lol

But I do have some mask making skills…. I made several masks this week for friends and neighbors… some even got mailed, received, and there are more to be made… I have a quick and easy way to make my masks that are 3 layers of fabric a bit of elastic and a few bread ties!  I made a tutorial HERE this past week showing lots of photos of how I make my masks 🙂

 My honey even put on the mask I made for him and his thick beard…. nice cover up here….  Then he told me to wait a minute.  When her returned this was his response….

Here is hoping me and my honey’s shenanigans have boosted your spirits today!!!!

I include a printed note with my masks… people need to know that they need to HEAT them up to sanitize them properly in their clothes dryer ….  Here is another type of print out you can grab … it came from Bonnie Hunter’s facebook group “Quiltville”….

 Here is my favorite make yet….

My hair needs a trim… please don’t comment on THAT ! lol

Then I uncovered Cleopatra later on in the week and started marking and sewing quilt blocks I have been prepping with the template I made…. 

 I love how it turned out.. I was afraid it didn’t look above like enough quilting… but machine quilting these with 28 wt Aurifil top and bobbin for even finish on both sides….

 And I have 15 of those 39 that I have here quilted now by just sitting down here and there 🙂

 My main focus this week has been hand stitching down the binding on this baby quilt for Jannessa’s grand baby boy to be.  She has 2 coming within a month of each other from both her girls!!!  So I signed up to do the binding on this rounded corner quilt…

 By making that bias binding I shared last week… it really has stitched on great !!!  I am praising God for the blessing of being able to do hand work during such a time as this!

Linking this progress to my favorite Sunday blog stop >>> Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching <<<
I will be finishing the binding on this quilt today… Jannessa and I are working out a between a glass door meeting for later in the week.  YIPPEE!!!!!

For you homeschooling parents that need ideas…  Think about Appalachian roots and build a still! lol

 Or see if you can find a plastic spider or bug and try this out….

One of my favorite songs to sing on this day…

Have a blessed week ahead as we continue to adjust and continue to Stay Home to Slow the Spread here in the USA… what are you doing (or have you done) to Slow the Spread???  Keep all those infected and symptomatic in your thoughts for strength to endure and overcome this illness!  I especially am feeling a urge to pray for Boris Johnson of the UK.  Is there anyone you are especially thinking of during this time in our world???!

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Heavy Frost or a Light Snow !!?

Hope you are having a blessed Veteran’s Day… 11/11 is Veteran’s Day but 11/12/18 is the day it is observed and government offices are closed to do this.  Here is a flag that hangs in our home… I want to thank any of you reading that have served our country in the military a huge thanks!!!

We woke up to white roofs and a dusting of what I thought was snow… But my honey thought was a heavy frost as the temperatures were in the low 20’s… 

Either way it was quite exciting to see the shift…

Last weekends post I shared all the color changes we got to enjoy as we trekked around southwestern North Carolina… now this weekend most of our trees are without leaves and Rick spent much of yesterday after the sun was fully up after noon mulching leaves all over!!

Here is a photo before the frost with leaves everywhere!

And here is a photo outside Rick’s mancave building where a temporary style greenhouse was left by the previous owners…

 Rick took the post you see above down after checking with me… it will be repurposed for something else in the future…

But I took this photo and thought you would love to see it as well… showing what leaves are left in full fall colors… 

Now all the leaves you saw in those last 3 photos are mulched… awaiting the coming rain to become fertilizer for our grass for next year 🙂  My honey is sooo knowledgeable about what needs to happen.

Meanwhile I have been sewing…

By hand I have been focusing a bit each day on Stars Among Us…

Until I finished this row I am sharing and moved the quilt in the frame to the next row… worked on the border to the left and actually started on the center quilting too!!!

The smaller photo is a pic of the beginning of the center…

And off to the right is a nicer photo showing the border progress and some stitching on the lines I am marking in pink to see on all the colors of fabric in this quilt….

The pink is a chalk only marker so it will all soak out is my belief and hope 🙂

Here was my progress Friday… about halfway through my marked area…

 Then I diverted with a youtube video and made this paper phone holder… they recommended an old debit card or hotel key card but I had neither so I used 2 business cards from our stash of outdated cards and some card stock for the base triangle…

 I thought it was fairly clever and even made this cute collage showing how it works… then my honey got up and made these!!!

Here is a close up of his ingenuity without a youtube video to assist! lol

 These are much more sturdy and durable to last… so I use them now to cradle my phone long ways to watch youtube and Bluprint… aka Craftsy vids.

With this done I was able to make even faster progress on Stars Among Us this weekend too…

And here is where I am right now… when I finish the marked area I will be about halfway through this row… this is just coming into the 2nd row of stars out of 6 star rows.  By making a goal to do at least 2 threads a day on the center star portion I am making MUCH BETTER progress too !!!  I love to goal set 😀

Do you goal set in your quilty world???

Leave your comment below if you would… I struggle with goal setting since retiring!  Also I am linking this section of my post to my fave Sunday stop of bloggers joining in unison to post HERE!  Come see what everyone posted yesterday… I will be posting there now momentarily 🙂

Earlier in the week we went to some new to us thrift shops…. we enjoy thrifting a LOT … but at these shops we found more household things than sewing related things…

 One thing we got was a couple of these “locker organizers”…. they are skinny heavy duty plastic milk crates actually… so I used one to organize all my computer papers that want to be floppy… works GREAT!  And reorganized that whole section while I was at it….

The second photo is an overview of my computer corner desk all together… bringing in that 1 piece of organization helped me to see my overdue for a cleaning bill paying area on the left… so I cleaned all that up too and cleansed A LOT of no longer needed papers from this area… feels good when you finally get to some overdue cleaning doesn’t it??!!

As a reward for all my work on my desk space organization my honey surprised me with the last of the fresh flowers from our yard…

These are chrysanthemums and some knockout roses… a hard freeze the next day finished them and they were all cut down and mulched.

Since I will be missing these flowers in the yard for several months I have decided after this post my future posts will have this signature at the bottoms …

Once January or February 2019 rolls around I am sure there will be a new photo that inspires me along with a new focus… but this one is still my fave for now … so it stays for a bit longer 😀

Saturday our Molly turned 5 months old and got to celebrate with a grooming that included clipping around her eyes … see here … we can see her good now and she can see us too!!!  Grooming is always followed by a good bath and blow dry too! lol

She is completely an outdoor loving dog including drinking water right from the river that runs down our property …. she loves her puppy treats but she LOVES cheese bits too… we don’t give her that much or often but she gets a bit here and there… and she loves to play fetch as well still… so we are blessed !!!

She went to the vet earlier this week and got a puppy shot and deworming medication that it was time for… she got a great check up and weighed in at 7 pounds and 6 ounces on their official scale.  We got a thumbs up for all we are doing with her too and made appointments to go back in December for a professional grooming and her rabies shot and last puppy shot stuff.

We are definitely happy we met this vet and chose this office for all of Molly’s needs… they are awesome and not overpriced like some are… so that is all GREAT!  The vet had Molly enchanted so much she let them do everything she wouldn’t let us do 😀

Sunday morning I got up early… okay so I get up unreasonably early EVERY day but woke with a purpose…

 To take the picture above on the left of the tan wallet and make my honey a Veteran’s appreciation gift out of some black Cork Fabric I had just received in the mail from an Etsy shop!

I also have been gathering supplies to make me a cell phone wallet with wristlet and had some magnetic closures I could add and some heavy interfacing so they don’t wear out the cork fabric by using them over time 😀

 And here is the collage I made of that finish while I not so patiently waited for him to wake and see my creation!!! lol

 I did use polyester thread which I had to buy because I only have Aurifil cotton thread for quilting and general sewing but bags and wallets specifically I am learning are a bit more sturdy and long lasting with a different thread… esp when working with a product as durable as cork 🙂

Another Etsy purchase I got this week were these zippers from Zipit on Etsy!  GREAT customer service and fast shipping make me want to buy more from them… but first I must use what I have! lol

They included 2 buttons and a zipper tab I did not order as extras too!!!  I was so impressed I not only left positive feedback but took this photo and called the owner to thank her 😀

So have you ever stepped out and thanked someone for doing a great job of their job like that???

Leave me a comment with answers to my questions if you will… I am a curious girl!  In the meantime thank a veteran if you run across one wherever you are in this world we live in… they all deserve our thanks for their sacrifice.  And… 

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…