One finished & another ALMOST finished too!

Hello my bloggy friends… Hope that October is treating you well!

Now that you have seen THIS SEASONAL side of me… How about this side too 😀

Can’t help but be a bit silly!!!  I am finishing up now my SECOND finish since my last post y’all!!!

It didn’t take long last Sunday until I finished all that hand stitching of the binding and got to this point!!!!

 I wash my freshly finished quilts on cool or cold with some regular soap liquid.  I bought the washer I have now just because it has this HUGE tub to soak my quilts in too… so I add a 30 minute soak now to new quilts in that cool water!!!  I will follow that with a drying session but find NEW big quilts need a second wash on warm if they will tolerate it based on colors used and a nice hard dry the second time to get the crinkly effect we love !!!  I use 80% cotton and 20% wool batting by Hobb’s Tuscany from Connecting Threads in all my bed quilts… We love it ❤

While it was washing I picked up the pillow top I am hand quilting to add to the bed. 

 My honey likes a snuggly little 16″ cotton fluffy pillow to sleep with but has very oily skin.  So he goes through pillows about one every couple years… this is the same pattern we have on the bed presently on his snuggle pillow but the other one is batik greys which clash with this civil war / reproduction style quilt colors we are going to now.

Once my honey was up and Molly, our shih poo puppy who will soon celebrate 4 months old, was being watched by him… I decided it was time to go back in the sewing room for a bit… while the washing and drying was going on for the second round and work on Roberta’s commissioned quilt project!!!

 Above I am outlining the completely machine quilted center… have I said how much I do not like machine quilting myself ??  I won’t accept any more big machine quilting projects…I don’t mind doing things for my Etsy shop… they are FUN!!!  But this.. was PURE struggle to quilt via machine… I am made for hand quilting personally. lol!  At least I now KNOW this about myself ❤

Soon enough I had to take a break… or several as I fluffed the quilt in the dryer because it is soooo big… 105″ square it finished up here…

 Here is a photo of the center….

 And here is my show photo!!!!

 And finally y’all!  I can share these photos of it on our bed 😀

 The pillow shams look great in their own design with the quilt too we think!!!  And the backing is AWESOME and COZY too 😍

I am linking this FUN FINISH to Kathy’s Slow Stitching Sunday Linky Party HERE my friends… come see what others are sharing too in the slow stitching arena!!!  Kathy is located in Canada… while the USA commemorates Columbus Day tomorrow… they will be celebrating Thanksgiving there ❤  Share what you are thankful for no matter where you live!

What I am thankful for is the project I am sharing now… I am in the home stretch and may finish it today… or tomorrow!!!  It should be presented to the owner later this coming week I am hoping too!

This commissioned project I took on as a good deed for a sweet couple.  He is a Vietnam Veteran and she was in dire need for someone to quilt this flimsy into a quilt to snuggle or hang on the wall in her home… she can’t decide which it will be! lol 

So here it is with the edges basted and trimmed as I took this photo to decide how to quilt those outside borders …

 Soon I had an idea and got to work making straight lines coming out from the inner border using beige thread on top to match this outer border… I had used a very light grey on the center to match that… it was really almost a silvery white in the Aurifil 50 wt realm 🙂

During a quilting break I did this…

Then when I got home I finished the machine quilting of that border and while my muscles enjoyed the break out of the house… it was time to sew on the binding!!!  YIPPEE!!!

 Y’all… I have never been THIS CLOSE on a binding….

 That is only 1/4″… I had more of the fabric available to use … but when I made the binding up I thought I had left PLENTY of binding to have 6″ or more!  Was I WRONG!!!

So as I write this…

And here is the official label I will add backing fabric to and sew onto the back bottom of the quilt itself…

 Here it is rinsed and ready to press and sew then wash and dry whenever the quilt is finished and washed….

So today I will finish the long left side of this quilt binding… then focus on getting the label on and measure for and make the hanging sleeve for it using THIS YouTube tutorial from Bonnie Browning of AQS.  Then I can wash it ONCE  on warm with a towel in with it to make sure it gets good and clean (smaller quilts I always add a towel to the washing and drying to keep it from knotting up).  And dry it well.  Come back next week to see if I got this delivered… I will try to convince Roberta to let me take her photo with it ❤

Also I got my first ever “award” on one of my most often visited Facebook groups this morning…

 I got this from showing the photos under recent… but mainly my overabundance of love SHOWN TO ME on my photos of Hanover Stars completion during the week.

I did see this in this same facebook group as the focus on this weeks show and share was hand quilted quilts you had flying geese in… I would LOVE to make a bear paw with fun borders on it like this one is done!!!

 This is a cute pumpkin and that bird I have liked in florals … looks awesome in solid reading fabrics too ❤

 Here is my quilting label idea for Hanover Stars…

Maybe I will get that done this week using the same fabric I printed Roberta’s quilt label with now that my printer ink arrived yesterday (I was out of black!!).

We have several items up for sale right now in the vintage sewing world of goodies… do you sew vintage??? Feel free to PM me on Facebook or email me HERE if you need any advice or items for your particular vintage machine (1930’s to 1960’s) 🙂

We have bobbins of all kinds too in our stash of stuff…

Whilst I have been doing all this stitching by hand.. I have gotten back to Bluprint by Craftsy… Hoping to make this in the not too distant future and thoroughly enjoyed this class 😀

 Here is a nice example too made by a class member!

Here is a cute Christmas ornament idea if you are trying to get into the holiday season already too…

Overall I think this is what we really need… not more time watching tv or listening to music or even pondering things like politics… but time being positive & kind!

Did my opening photo make you chuckle a bit???  I hope so !!!

What are you thankful for as Canada prepares for all things Thanksgiving tomorrow and here in North Carolina USA we are watching the leaves start to change and some are already falling…

Share what you are grateful for… what kind deed happened to you or that what positive domino effect you were part of!!!  For me I will say finishing this quilt is a blessing and the kindest deed I have ever sacrificed over!!! hahaha.. sounds funny but it has been a struggle for sure y’all ❤  Now it is your turn to leave me a comment. 

Spread the kindness contagion and…

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Opening an Etsy shop and slow stitching progress too!

That is right y’all!  designoriginalsbykc is now not just a blog and my personal signature but an Etsy shop too…check it out HERE if you are interested in the first few things I have listed!

My goal includes keeping it fun and affordable for my customers… and selling things through the holiday seasons I enjoy making with Gloria…

Our business card I designed to start us out 🙂

 Our stock initially includes these things…

Rounded corner drink coasters with acorns on them 🙂

Hexagon shaped coasters

Pumpkin square coasters too!

I even added a few “action” photos! lol

And a Snap Bag too… using Tula Pink fabric I have had in my stash!

 My honey helped me with some of these photos… even caught him red handed at the end….

But he took these photos before he thought of the above action shot for me! lol

See the snap bag opening by using the triangles 🙂

I also have a hand quilted wall hanging in our shop!  Come on over and take a look following the link I gave ya at the top of this post 😍Before I got the bright idea to actually OPEN an Etsy shop I finished these fun things ….

A fun snap bag to match the wallet I made for my darling daughter!

A proper bed to go in the basket we bought as a spot for Molly in the living room 🙂

 Molly loves her bed too ❤

 She just loves fabric though too… here she is as I create….

 Sleeping in the basket of fabric scraps waiting to be processed into my scrap users system! lol

FINALLY to some relaxing slow stitching now!  This I worked on while my honey had a doctor’s appointment… it will be a new pillow for him once I get finished stitching the design into this wholecloth pillow top….

 It coordinates with our quilt I am stitching too…

I finished this row of swirlies… then it was time for a much dreaded task… adding to the backing that for some reason … even though measured so carefully before loading it initially on the frame… is about 3″ too short!!!!

So I came to Fiona… my Morse 600 straight stitch machine and a bit more portable than my 301…

My honey got her out of her beautiful case to put her on a low sitting table beside my frame to add on a bit of fabric to the backing and I just had to take a photo of her to adore her a bit.

 And her hard at work without breaking a sweat…

 And now… just about 1 1/2 hours from the time I started tearing this quilt off the top of the frame….

 all back together 🙂

This quilt is now 86% complete!!!  Y’all with this backing issue now fixed I am on the home stretch!!  Linking this part of this post to my fave Sunday Stop with other hand stitchers… Kathy’s Quilts and her linky Slow Sunday Stitching HERE <<<  Come see what others are making with their creative fingers 💟✋

I am planning to work on the wavy lines in this blue row you see above… 😀

My LQS posted this photo Friday… I thought it was cute… so wanted to share it with you all too…

 Hope this LQS photo from Bless My Stitches in Murphy NC gives you a smile!

And now I am gonna get back to slow stitching… praying for a sale in my Etsy shop and working on a few things with eBay too… Have a blessed one you guys and…

25% COMPLETE Hand Quilting & MORE fun stuff to share!!!

Happy Sunday Y’all!  Thanks for stopping in as well!!!  From the North Carolina mountains to you I wish you all well!

The views here are amazing and birds are always out chirping and singing happy songs!  We just love it here 😀  And this Bonnie-ism really seems appropriate today to share with you all…

Have you designed a life you love???  It can be quite tricky to accomplish I agree!

It has been a busy week here at the Lazy Daisy 🙂
 Last Sunday I spent time hand quilting and designing this wholecloth pillow from stash and leftovers of the quilt I am quilting currently…

 Why does my honey need a new snuggle pillow??  Will #1 his current snuggle pillow is getting worn… and #2 I made these cool pillow shams and the current snuggle pillow he sleeps with just doesn’t coordinate… it is cool batik colors and as you see… this calls for more warm muted colors…

 I used some tips from a Craftsy Unlimited class to make the Friendship Braid pattern on these pillow shams… the rest was all my design though 🙂  I love creating things in this environment!

I also am FINALLY a North Carolina citizen with voting priviledges and all!!  I am waiting for the official driver’s license to come in the mail… for now I have this paper ID to show my pride in my forever home state!

 I have been looking for this pattern and after successfully getting my driver’s license we made a run to Walmart down the road and in waiting for my honey I found this pattern…

 Yahoo!  It is for making memory bears… I can’t wait for the opportunity to make one with this pattern too!!!  Have you seen/made this pattern yet???

Also this week my honey got a close up on one of our resident FROGS!!!!

 He was by our water wheel… his favorite place to hang out… but rarely will he let us get close enough to get photos of him….. Yay!

I got 2 different orders of fabric… first came some backing and batting I ordered for the charity quilt I will be machine quilting later this week… I shared the quilt top last week….

 And I got this cool fabric to make a wall hanging for my sewing room!

My deal with myself is though… I must finish the pillow for my honey to snuggle before I bite into this next project… and I haven’t started to hand quilt his pillow top yet! lol  So it sits on my ironing table waiting for me to finish 1 to get to the next!!!!

After chatting with a good friend who machine quilts a lot… I decided to invest in some pool noodles at the dollar store for pin basting on the big island in our kitchen … I will be pin basting all 3 layers following a youtube video by Melanie Hamm.  She explains the process in 5 minutes and includes info on spray basting if you choose that.. I don’t but pin basting is my fave way to layer up a quilt for any type of quilting… I will be using Zena my 401a to machine quilt as that has the walking foot on it 🙂

The above photo is 2 pool noodles per “pole” and each pole has a long piece of quarter round to make it stiff and long … my honey came up with that idea!  I was gonna use mop handles we had picked up at the dollar store… so now we will return those and use what we had… being ingenious is my honey’s favorite talent btw! lol

Finally we are getting to my favorite part and where I have spent a good bit of my week…

 Hand quilting IS sooooo powerful…  I have made lots of progress too!!!

 From marking with my pounce pad (check out a YouTube video by Leah Day if you are interested in trying this method)… to stepping back and realizing I am 1/4 done with ALL the quilting on this quilt!!!

 Here is a close up of my current progress point….

 And here is a long view…

So all this hand quilting goodness I am linking up with other hand work lovers over at Kathy’s Slow Stitching Sunday linky party… Come on over HERE and see ALL this different kinds of hand work going on today all over the world!!!

Update for those of you following my honey’s sciatic pain… he did a steroid dose pack and muscle relaxers and heat this week and took it easy… the hardest part… and is not much better once the steroids finished up so we will be calling his primary doctor on Monday!

Also his newly acquired oxygen concentrator has a yellow flashing light… we thought we had solved the issue with a bit of water in the line… but this morning it is flashing again!!!  So we will be investigating both issues this week….

Keep him in your thoughts this week please!!!!

I will be making a comment first as soon as I post this so hopefully all your comments will come to my inbox today (that was a solution offered by another blogger last week)… otherwise if you don’t hear from me and you are nice enough to leave a comment on this post… come on back later and see if I saw it yet… I comment on EACH post every time! I love comments 😀

Have a blessed day and remember to…

September 11! Hurricane Irma has left the area y’all!

We won’t forget….

 But we must move forward in America!  So this is my rememberance… to have a post today… but I was gonna write a post anyway if not for this reason to let you all know…

Today is also my niece Hayley’s birthday!!!! ❤

We made it through Hurricane Irma in one piece… a bit of fence damage but that is about it!!!  Here was an early update I shared on facebook!  That is where I posted updates for the many who were concerned about us and others in the area 🙂

Yippeee!!!!  This was the largest hurricane to ever make landfall in the US EVER!!!!  Crazy large and it is still quite windy and rainy but at least the hurricane I can report has been downgraded to a tropical storm now!!!

 So as we prepared for the hurricane… and whenever I had a nervous anxiety ridden moment that wasn’t filled with preparations….  I quilted by hand!!!

Here is a great shot when I was mostly done with the quilting on the pillow top… the texture is sooo cool!  Here is the pattern on the left… I found this on google search for wholecloth pillow patterns….

 Once I had the pattern I printed it on a regular piece of printer paper … cut that into a bit larger than a 1/4 of the pattern chunk of paper and enlarged it to make the pattern come out to 8″ square per 1/4 pattern piece to give me a 16″ square pillow pattern once taped all together…

I taped this all together as I just suggested and then taped this to a glasstop table… underneath the table I put a unshaded bare bright light and turned off all the ambient lighting in the room… I could then see the pattern through the table and onto the fabric.

I did tape the pattern to the table… then taped the whole piece of fabric cut to size for the pillow top on top of that.  Then I simply traced it with a mechanical #2 pencil 🙂

 Once I finished tracing it I untaped it all… put the shade back on the lamp! lol … and layered up the pillow top and stitched it with some YLI dusty blue 40/3 thread I found that looks simply tone on tone with this fabric my honey chose.  He likes little stitches and not big bold stitching… so that is what he got with his snuggly pillow!  And here is the finish !!!!

 The back of the pillow is a pocket opening for the pillow form to easily slip inside.  I did use Palmolive dish soap on the quilted portion of this pillow before washing it in the washing machine.  I scrubbed it in well over the pencil marks… soaked it all in a bowl for 1 or 2 hours with warm water… then scrubbed it again with the remaining Palmolive still in the fabric and rinsed it well.  Then washed it and dried it in the laundry with other laundry thrown in with it for balance… and tah dah!!!
Overall I am very happy with this project 🙂

Next I focused on making use of some orphan blocks from the hexi quilt I made and gifted to a good friend… now I have this pillow I machine quilted uniquely ….

 I love the backing fabric too!!!

I was inspired from the free Craftsy class I watched on Labor day when they had free classes to watch…

I watched 3 classes all together that day… but this was BY FAR my fave of the one’s I viewed 🙂  I like Jaquie Gering’s style… so if you are looking for some walking foot quilting inspiration and have the desire for an online class I recommend this one!!!

I shared my lighting find in my last post…

and I have gotten back to my frame for some quilting and trying out the lights during the hurricane!  Once I finished the 2 pillows I shared above.

Someone had commented when I shared the lamps shot that maybe I should put them behind the frame… well I am still unsure that this will work unless I do as I am doing below using 2 lights! hmmm….

 Here I am working on row #4 now!!!

 And here is a quilted friend we rescued this week….

So I found this rescued quilted doxie a home with our most precious vintage items… it is a Jim Shore pup… very cute and not like anything I have seen before… my honey found it! lol

 The photo above is now my cover on facebook too!!! ❤

Up next I am waiting for a template to come in the mail that has been delayed by the hurricane to start on a quilt in this pattern called Roundabout….

 You see my honey wants a LARGER quilt for our bed since we changed bed frames! lol  He is right though… so I will get to work on it!!!

As I quilt away on the quilt on my frame I find that in a quilt soon will come this quote!  It is soooo true!!!!

So for now from Florida’s east coast… I wish you all well and don’t forget to make time to show you…