Happy Slow Stitching Sunday!

 Our little Christmas tree…

It is a table top version & I love the train that runs around it… and my honey has added a few of his vintage train pieces to the decor as well 🙂  I took someone’s tip and while we regrow our ornament stash (we lost all the precious ornaments we had in a house fire) … and am using Christmas cards we have received for decoration too!  Nice to see all those families we pray & keep up with on our tree!

Here is a close up of the puzzle pic behind the tree.. we did this several years ago.. just after that fire and hang it every year now..

it is the only Santa thing in our decor anymore now 🙂  Isn’t it FUN!!

On the quilting front 

I have been moving along on the hand quilting on Wish Upon a Vintage Star wall hanging…

I am still using the hoop successfully as you can see by the large hoop mark in the pic 🙂 … although there are parts coming up I will not use the hoop and I haven’t decided how I will do the borders.. hoop or hoopless 🙂
This is all that I have left of the white space too…

But I have these stencils that came in this week for the borders!!!  Yippee 🙂

so I am ready to do them when I get there!

For the borders I will be using a pounce pad probably in white.

But for these swirly creamy spots on this wall hanging I have used graphite (similar to a soft lead pencil) to mark the specific design in each area … for this I marked BEFORE I layered .. but the pounce is done AFTER layering your quilt top 🙂

I wanted to share a recipe I just got for removing pencil & graphite marks from quilt tops before washing them … 

• 1/4 c water 
• 3/4 c rubbing alcohol 
• 7 – 8 drops Palmolive dish soap. 

Dawn will NOT work. Mix together and apply with a soft toothbrush

I have a spray bottle I plan to put mine in once mixed together then shake before each use.  I will scrub with a soft cloth to remove then wash formally when finished.

There is a product available that works well.. just looking to save money and make my own… would love feedback on this recipe if you mark with pencil or graphite and get heavy handed at times and need to remove before that final washing… 🙂

Linking this Christmas time post with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching here!  She is taking time to slow down today and slow stitch some.. are you busy with last minute holiday plans?  Why not take a few seconds to leave me a holiday comment… then put in a few stitches of your own 🙂

Until my next post…

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Blessed Easter Sunday All ~ Progress Report!

Hope you are slow stitching some on this Blessed Easter Sunday!  I went to the beach this morning at sunrise!

My honey got up early with me this morning and we headed to the beach for a 7 am sunrise 🙂

It was so glorious… it was also cool, and VERY breezy.. check out the blowing sand…  this is looking each way as we walked on the beach!

But the sunrise, although it was overcast… still shined through!

                              The waves were busy but not ferocious today.. and we went while the tide was about midway… I love seeing the birds on the water’s edge… God provides us so much natural beauty to enjoy!  

We are very blessed for sure!

Now that we have enjoyed Daytona Beach USA… I bet you want to know more about my progress on THE MAN quilt… I had set a goal mid week of having a post ready to go with my latest duo complete… and here is block #7 and feather #8 in my countdown to completion of this part of the quilting.

Tah Dah!

Now to get off those pencil marks on the feather… the chalk I used on the swirly block you can see is virtually gone already!

First I lay out the feather to remove the markings from…

 Then spray on the magic stuff that has virtually no odor and leaves no stiffness in the fabric afterward!…

See the bubbles it makes when you spray it on the pencil markings??

 Then I wipe it down scrubbing it really … with a soft dry cloth.  And Whallah!

If you want to get some of this Marking Pencil Removal solution try the great prices at my friend Debbie’s shop on Ebay here!  I am not paid to advertise her shop… I simply think she rocks customer service and has great prices.. lol!

So for my finale…once I complete 6 swirly blocks.. 7 fun feathers.. and 2 yin yang cornerstones… I will machine bind the binding to the front of the quilt THEN do the quilting of the chain that is the outer border of this quilt… that way my lines stay even to the binding and all looks nice… THEN I will add the label my honey hasn’t seen yet… and sew down the binding to the back by hand!  Whew!  That is still a lot of steps.. but there is light at the end cuz I could list all that needed to be done in 1 paragraph! lol

So how do you plan to spend your Easter.. Do you celebrate at all?  Would love to hear your traditions of the season or just how you plan to spend this day of this year!

Linking this post and my awesome goal met to Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy’s Quilts here!  

And with Karen at Sew Many Ways linky party here!

Feathery Friday!

Welcome to my blog… I am hand quilting feathers today on THE MAN quilt for my honey 🙂

This is a queen sized snuggly quilt I am have been working on since Christmas… but now I am on the downhill slide!  Less than 1/4 of the hand quilting remains to be done!!!  Yippee 😉  Read more about this quilt on my post here.

So today I will focus on feathers!  12 left after this one… but I will mix them in with the 10 blocks remaining to quilt to keep it fun!

What I am really excited about is a new-to-me product I just found that removed my heavy handed graphite (Fons & Porter) marks…

Here is the bottle next to the feather I tested it on…

Check out the close up of the first area I “tested” it on…

It made the pencil marks kind of foam up then following the directions on the bottle I rubbed off the pencil marks… I used a dry paper towel… then rinsed the area with a damp rag… which I did… I also asked for feedback from my fave facebook group “Celebrate Hand Quilting” as I was afraid it may have a chemical in it to do this that could hurt the quilt… however from that I found out there are several brands of this pencil remover and a good recipe was shared too!

Wanna make your own?  Try this on a test piece first!!!  Don’t go for your actual quilt to test like I did 🙂
Recipe for pencil removal spray… use a 4 oz spray bottle that is easy to use… esp at an angle for ease of use!
3 oz. water, 1 oz. rubbing alcohol, 2 – 3 drops PALMOLIVE dishwashing liquid. Mix together and apply with a soft tooth brush. Dawn dishwashing liquid will NOT work!  Shared from my facebook group for later reference and because I like to share with my readers!

My professionally bought marking pencil remover looks like this…
made by Quilter’s Rule who provides lots of quilting notions for traditional quilters so I thought it sounded great for under $7 for the 8 ounce bottle!  I shopped on her Ebay shop and in later correspondence found out she runs a little quilt shop in her home and advertises her wares also on Ebay… so I am supporting a LQS with my Ebay purchase 🙂  Yippee!

afquilts is her eBay name… and here is a link to her store on Ebay… 🙂  Debbie is friendly knowledgeable, and ready to try to find what you want.

I currently have her looking for a specific needle type for me… hard to find for sure !!!

The OTHER information I got from my Celebrate Hand Quilting facebook friends was a link to this review on the spray…

It is long and fairly tedious but interesting read for me… basically it can also take out or lighten permanent marker… but is not know to hurt the fabric if using it for pencil marks on any colors which is this formulas intended use.

I hope all these links I have shared have been helpful if you are like me and like to mark with graphite… with my arthritis didn’t make me so heavy handed to draw pretty lines! lol

If you have made it this far in this post I want to reward you with a cool pattern I found on Youtube… it is from last year and is a great tute on these cute ornaments you see below… about 4″ square finished or so… hand sized!  Check that out here!

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I hope you have a Fun Weekend whatever you do… as for me it is back to swirly feathers… hand stitching an overcast day away!

Linking this Whooping post to Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict here!

Also linking to the fun going on at Kim’s SEWjo Saturday here!

And to Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching here!