Hello Summer and Father’s Day 2020

As of yesterday evening… it is officially summer here in the USA!!

Today is Father’s Day… a day that brings me angst.  My dad & I don’t speak … there are a host of reasons for this… He and my mom are very different from me.  So on Father’s Days for the last decade or so… I focus on the positive role models in my life that are dads….

My grandfather here… I called Papa

 The husband of my children…. Here he is with our oldest child James…

 And the last photo we have of him smiling over 12 years ago now…

 So I felt this meme… really reflected how I felt about these powerful men in my life … as both my husband from the past and my grandfather are in Heaven today…. looking down and celebrating…

 This picture came up on my facebook feed recently…

Remember me working on hand quilting this quilt for Connie by bestie???!!!

Well here it is bound and washed and on her bed!!!!

Look at the binding she chose to put on this quilt… all the colors of the fabric are in it!!!!

 We are BOTH in love with the big stitch quilting you can see in these photos too!!!

                                      

Linking this awesome finish to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching HERE <<<<  Follow the link (it will open in a new tab so you don't lose your place here) !!
 Alex Andersen of “The Quilt Show” … I spied this cool art piece on her wall in a video I watched…

 Don’t we all need a Crazy Quilter art piece to explain us 🙂

Speaking of Crazy.. a couple weeks ago I showed you my crazy sewing room… well it is getting cleaner!!!!

 So I got to start cutting out my youngest son’s wedding commemorative wall hanging I am hand quilting after I machine piece the flimsy…

 Here is some laid out… this may be the last you see of this project though… as I don’t want them to see!!!!

 And look at that gorgeous engagement ring my son got his bride to be Kristen. 

Mike now also goes by Michael in his peer groups so I am trying to change a 25 year habit to not call him the shortened version any longer.

Hand quilting has been a daily thing this week… I am sew glad too ❤

 Above is the base picture for my new header for my blog.   Below is when I finished block #3 on this row I am on…

 And here is block 4… heading to the border!!!

 This morning I worked on the swag designs in the border a bit … I will go back to that when I get done with this blog as my honey sleeps in on Sundays!!!

 So with all the Corona Covid-19 stuff going on… do you worry more??? I know I sure do!!!!

 So this Bonnie-ism is in the forefront for me 🙂  Maybe we could all remember… like a rocking chair or a rocking horse… you can go and go but you stay right where you are… so throw your worries aside and stay safe and ….

 While I was digging through my scrapbooks looking for the pics I wanted to share with you all today… I came across this… Me as a preschooler….and me today!  I have my Papa’s silvery gray hair now too that replaced my reddish blonde locks!  I love that 😀

So as I hang on…

 I have found lots of ideas online this week that inspire me… Like this double wedding ring with a star block where the joins go….

 A flower quilt that comes together row by row by Lisa Capen Quilts on Youtube…

 And this quilt… after I finish the quilts in some sort of progress I would love to get this pattern … It is an older Fons and Porter pattern called “Pinwheel Star” but I have been unable to find it online yet as a pattern to buy so I may have to draft it… hmmmm!

 Amaryllis Watch!!!!

 These photos were taken Tuesday or Wednesday

 Then Thursday the bloom opened but only half heartedly in the late afternoon….

 But Friday it was wide open… with 5 more to come from this stalk…

 And look at the second stalk… it will have more blooms as it grows and matures taller…

 Now the second bloom is opening on that first stalk… and the other 4 are looking bigger!!!!

 Molly got her groom on yesterday and she is feeling so refreshed from her groom and wash!

Speaking of Molly… she is snoozing in with her dad right now!  Happy Father’s Day to my Honey too ❤  Here is a photo I took the other day of the 2 of them ❤  They have my heart for sure!!!!

Thanks for stopping in… please leave a comment if you have a minute… I love to reply to all the comments left for me💖  Thanks 😀

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Happy End of May 2020 !

Welcome and come on in!  I have this cozy chair for you to enjoy as you read 🙂

It has been a busy week around here this week… and I have never been so glad to see a month pass… how about you all!!!  Tomorrow is June 2020!!!!  Wonder what it will be like??

Ellie got her frog…Penelope

 Earlier that expected via the USPS….

They said she rolled around the floor with Penelope and loved on her 💖  Makes this Grammy happy for sure!!!!

I had hoped to clean up my sewing room this week… but it remains looking like this…

Hopefully June will give me some energy for straightening and cleaning too ❤  As it went… I mainly spent time with 2 projects in my crafty time…

Appalachian Delight is moving right along…

 Once I finish this section on the right outer border…

 I will be ready to roll and finish the top of the bear in the cabin blocks on this row …

And I will have reached the center of the quilt too then ❤

I have also been focusing some crafty time on embroidering this red work project…

 Here I am with the coffee pot stitched over but trying to decide on the outer ring… should it be buttonhole stitched????

 Or chain stitched ???

 Chain stitching won out … and I added a heart of steam coming out of this coffee pot too !!!

 Next up is the rooster here…

 I found a red work instruction sheet online and printed it off… I like the book I showed last week best still for deciding on all the embroidery stitches…

 Here is a close up of my stem stitching on the roosters wing….

While I have been doing handwork… Connie my bestie has been too ❤

 Here are some of her squares with a different pattern of lace she is crocheting around them 💕

Linking all this hand done fun to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching gang HERE <<<< come see what everyone is doing with their very creative hands 🙂

Our neighbor checked the strawberry patch we had planted 3 years ago and found some fresh and yummy berries for us to eat…

 I put mine on warm cheese danish… and the berries were chilled then… yummmm y’all!

My honey’s new mower… getting washed…

In closing I hope you will choose to be as kind as possible…

 Our world needs it!

…. And then it was April 2020 – Fun while Staying Home

Hello and Welcome to my Blog this fine April weekend!  I hope this post finds you at peace as you Stay at Home !!!

I have thought of each of you that visit my blog this week.  I know many read that don’t leave comments too… sew I try to think of about all of you that may need a break from the clamor of the tv and reading a blog post can transport you away from this world wide pandemic..

Come on let’s see what photos I took for you this week!

Last Sunday was all hand work… cutting and marking the wrong side of fabric hand work though! lol

But at the end of that day the Shelbyville/Lancaster Quilt was complete….

I have ALL those pieces cut and am ready to sew together some flying geese even!  YAY 😀

I have a circle formed around my 301 ~ Julius ~ so I sat down here Monday morning and started some piecing of flying geese!

And by circle… LOOK!

The above photo was actually made when I was cutting but it is still similar to this set up… chair in the center and a table Jannessa left over here on the right side of the top of the photo… some placemats are there on the design wall waiting to be quilted… some day! lol  and I have 10″ squares of fabric everywhere else but I have 2 ironing surfaces.. 1 of which I have a smaller pink cutting mat on.  This is an environment I thrive in…

How about you??

Do you create in a clean or messy area ??

I like to start a project with a clean room and as I finish projects I try to put them all up but y’all don’t wanna see the far end of my cutting table right now!  I need a straightening day I think! LOL  REALLY!  This may make a bullet journal spot even for the coming week!!!!

Oh that last photo … if you look under Jannessa’s table you will see the parts and pattern for the briefcase Jannessa and I can make via Facetime… but we haven’t slated when it will start yet… 

Speaking of which… this is what took over the end of my week…

 Above I am making bias binding with a bias tool I ordered moons ago from MSQC… Jenny has a wonderful video making bias binding sew easy!

Once I got the bias binding made and folding in half and ironed I sat down at my non-messy 319w ~ Cleopatra ~ and strapped on a walking foot for a nice finish and sewed the binding on a rounded corner quilt for a grand baby on the way for Jannessa.  She is binding one for her other grandchild coming… I am binding this one… we are splitting the chores 😀

 Here I am being silly with hair way too long to show! lol

 Once I got it all one time to clip it down.  I rotate 8 wonder clips myself… Jannessa likes to pin her whole quilt at one time… how do you bind a quilt ???

 Here I am at the second corner ….

And that will be my slow stitching today.  I will be working on ladder stitching this binding down to make a nice finish for this little 53″ square – ish quilt for a baby boy yet to be named… in fact neither of her grandsons have a name for sure yet… so labels will wait until parents can quit being fickle…. lol!  It is the last one for each family too… so give them space to decide I say! hahaha

I am linking this hand stitching finish to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching HERE <<<

For my HQAL sisters I am linking a finish of HALF of the blocks below for the Crochet Fusion Quilt….

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Margaret, Emma, Tracy, Deb, Susan,  Nanette,  Edith, Sharon, Karrin, Gretchen, Kathi,  Bella, Daisy and Connie

This is an exciting time for me with this project…  You can see above in the photo some have crochet surrounding them … well after I do a bit of quilting in the center of each block I will be crocheting the rest to match.  Then when they are all ready to lay out and stitch together will I start this same process on 40 more blocks already cut and waiting to get this far!   I am very serious about making this fusion quilt a reality to enjoy for years to come!

Here is the template I made for marking the stitching lines… the stitching on these will be the same color as the crochet thread… the quilting will be done by machine so not working on this today but later in the week….

 Here is a Coraline doll my bff Jannessa made from scratch for her granddaughter who is 10 now I think…

 She is posed with a sweet little pin cushion Jannessa fashioned for ME!!!  Next time we see each other I should get it 😀

Now here is a completed block below left and my template… made to trace outside the square and inside the diamond for 2 stitching lines in 28 wt aurifil thread on top and bobbin….

What do you think?  Others say those 2 lines of stitching will be enough to hold it together for washings, etc…

If you like this kind of hand embroidery… check out THIS website… right now for a limited time this pattern is free and many are unique… support small businesses when you can ya know!!!

Here is Molly posing for me as she watches for her daddy out the window in his shop.

 And here she is asking to go out and “check” on him ! lol

 He put up the hummingbird feeder as we learn what time of year to start feeding for them here…

And please know… if you feel lonely right now… reach out to someone in your inner circle of friends/ family.  I am blessed to have my honey and our pup during this time.

Please feel free to reach out to me on facebook or here via message below if you would like to converse via text or call or video chat.

Just please… wherever you live… keep on keeping on to whatever your government and area is mentioning to do!  For me it is staying home as much as possible…. so we are!  I would LOVE to make new close friends during this time though so please feel free to reach out to me if you need someone new to chat with 😀

Take care… thanks for visiting… and may God bless YOU!

Feeling Good as we Settle into 2020!

 I hope you are enjoying 2020 so far… if not for strange weather all over the world… then for the little things…

 Molly got a new toy for Christmas belatedly and has adopted it as her favorite.. it was a gift from Jannessa poodle Max who is also Molly boyfriend! >>> whoo <<<

 Molly loves snuggling a quilt too… this is one I hand quilted last year and it is a throw I thought I would use to cover my feet but I haven’t adopted it as much as Molly has! lol

I am doing well keeping up with my 2 week calendar of craftiness.  This is week 3 here since I started this… I am enjoying it and going to morph this into a bullet journal around Valentines.

 If you weren’t here last week… I started a new quilt in the frame that I had pieced this past spring/summer time…

Appalachian Delight is a spin on a bear paw block… since we live near where bear roam! lol

Early in the week I made it from the middle of this quilt to the end area…

 Here is a closer up of this end …

 On the right lower corner I chain stitched my initials and the year on the quilt… I enjoy doing this.. I will also add a label but this secures the maker of this one! 🙂

 So I went from right bottom to left bottom… so now I am pondering how the left bottom corner looks…

 Here is it finished and with navy thread 1/4″ away from the inner border of half square triangles.

the blue markings are water soluble and spritz away easily with a water bottle… I get my blue pens from Amazon and they come in a pack of 10 and look like this 

made by Leonis….

 Here is a look at my frame from further back… I hope to finish this pass this week 🙂

Linking this hand quilting update to my HQAL below…
Do go visit the rest of our group! There are some extremely talented people in this group, and the variety is wonderful! There’s hand quilting, embellishment, hand piecing and applique!

Kathy, Margaret, Emma, Tracy, Deb, Susan,  Nanette,  Edith, Sharon,
Karrin, Gretchen, Kathi,  Bella, Daisy and Connie

And to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching where lots of folks come and show off a whole host of hand done projects.. come see right HERE and think about linking something up yourself ❤

I saw this unique hand quilting done in perle cotton threads in a facebook group I am in .. does this inspire you to want to think outside the box more in your quilting journey??? It sure does me!!!

 We have this unique case and Singer Sewhandy from the late 1940’s for sale at the moment…

I got the last piece of furniture that my sewing room will need…

 Here is a wide view of the room….

I love this room… it sparks my creativity A LOT!!!  Does your creative space in your home spark your creativity??

Speaking of creativity….

 My honey’s fish vendor cart found a home in the living room…. We love it’s new home 🙂  Thanks for all the feedback last week on that too ❤

I finally got around to making the top valance with swags for our bedroom…

 but it needs some shortening….

 I pulled out my border book and pondered this bead chain pattern for a interested table runner for the early part of the year for our kitchen bar….  I (of course) have to make it difficult for myself by choosing a different size than Donna showed in THIS video on  youtube about this technique… in case you wanna check out the vid.

So now I will bid you farewell and hope your days are enjoyed mostly…

 Have a blessed week ahead 🙂

Showing off my Sewing Room Decor and Rolling the Frame!

Well this has been a BUSY week around our home… getting ready for some freezing weather was quite an undertaking for sure!  And I have been sewing on a secret project commissioned to me by a very good friend… using my Cleopatra for the job of appliqueing letters and fashioning the intended banner… more to show when it has been sent off and received by my friend 😉

I started the week, however, slow stitching quite a bit on the Swoon quilt and machine stitching this rooster to the background fabric…

I don’t know if you can tell but I carefully mitered each corner… I will machine quilt the rooster as there are sooo many seams and fabric bits on the back side of this lovingly english paper pieced rooster… it is a pattern by Violet Craft… but I and my bestie who pieced it by hand do NOT recommend her EPP patterns as they are quite a challenge!  But now it is done so I thought I better get on with finishing it… it will find a home in our home to be displayed year round as yet another dual effort of Connie and me 🙂

The rooster now measures 28 1/2″ square & I still need to trim out the black fabric from the strips I appliqued it on to the rooster with… so no shadowing of the black through those neutrals happens!  That will be tediously slow and may be part of my hand work today!

Then before I could do anything else… my honey decided it was time to decorate my room with me!  Yahoo I said and stopped all my other efforts to focus on what would go where ….

My honey has had the honor to work with some of Nashville, Tennessee’s finest decorators so his knowledge in this area is VAST!!!  

Here is how it turned out… 

the left wall as you walk in the room …. over the buffet

to the right of that… or what you see from the doorway directly

to the right of that… as you look out by the pond & around my 301 Julius

finally the last wall in the room is my design wall and up high I can’t reach well so he added my banner there!

I don’t know if my captions made sense but here is a panoramic view of my room before decorating to help you see where all things are now…

I got my hair trimmed on Friday… and was I GLAD!!!!  I’ll share a selfie I took… 

 And on Saturday I rolled the frame… see how foggy it was over the pond through the windows that morning???

 Here is a close up of the quilting I worked on this morning…

 I am linking all this hand stitching and other hand work I shared this week being glad God gifted me with 2 hands that are ambidextrously useful… to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching Crew HERE .  Click on the link to open a new tab on your device to see what everyone else is linking up too!!!!

>>> Finally I need some input from y’all! <<<

My best girlfriend Jannessa gifted me this honeybun & yardage – fabric kit by Moda called “Winterlude”.

 It comes with the above pattern… or I could create my own!  Do you like one of these other options???  Or do you like the original???
I like both but this would make a table runner 18″ x 60″ for our kitchen & 2 smaller sized placemats as a gift for Jannessa.
The one on the right seems fun for this but I can’t figure out how to make those flatter than 45 degree zig zags… hmmmm

 The pattern is in this PDF only version of a book published in 2009 and now out of print….

Here is a photo of the book called “On the Run”  by Heather Moulder Peterson.  Anyone own this book and wanna sell it???  Or have you heard of this talented designer before and know how easy to follow her patterns are???

I would love to own the book over a PDF that is harder for me to use in the sewing room without LOTS of printing!!!

And that wraps up my week.  Hope you are having a great weekend and having tolerable weather no matter where in this world you live… I am enjoying our cold weather for sure!!!  It is 35 degrees F at this writing and supposed to top out at 55 later this afternoon.

Until next Sunday… I may have a bag completed (we worked on it yesterday and got about 1/3 done) as a Christmas present for my daughter. 

I certainly hope you leave feedback on your thoughts on this post if you read to this point 🙂  Have a good week ahead and hope you turned your clocks back an hour too (if you live where Daylight Savings Time is a thing! lol)

Progress Happening EVERYWHERE!!!

Happy Middle of July to you all… some of you are experiencing winter and some extreme summer! 

Whatever your weather… hoping you are finding some time to stitch… 

 I started the quilting on this 2 months ago… I am on the downhill slide now and enjoying daily progress on Hanover Stars 🙂

Here you can see my Hinterberg 3 pole frame my honey made me and a bit of my set up.  I love the view of our pond and the daily wildlife that roams our back yard too ❤

Since this frame is where you will be finding me today… loving the view of the quilting and the back yard… I am linking my slow stitching to my favorite Linky Party over at Kathy’s Slow Stitching Sunday blog HERE!

I was sooo thrilled that while taking a break I found this inspiring quilt on Pinterest…

But details on how to make it or what it was called at this point were sketchy at best!

After a bit of digging I found it was called a “Disappearing 9 Patch Star” block.  But fine points on making this quilt were still kind of sketchy… so I started building some blocks on Gloria my 301…

 Mine turned out scrappy too… I love scrappiness in blocks like this though 🙂

 And here it is with 2/3 of the blocks pieced… my current progress on this project….

And yesterday I wrote a nice proper tutorial on the project and how best to make these blocks HERE on my blog.  Go take a gander if this fun block interests you!  And here is a pic I just took of my sewing set up.. look closely on my sewing machine table and you will see 2 stacks of 5 blocks waiting for me to feel like machining them done 🙂

Also happening around here this week….
My honey gave both my much used vintage machines a spa treatment…

They both purr now after being massaged by the master fixer!  I can fix them both but they LOVE when he does it best!!! lol

And so sad to say…. my computer decided to quit on me!  So a new laptop was bought at an affordable amount at least for a replacement….

She isn’t as fast as my other computer and we have hopes of fixing her with a new hard drive in the future… but for now… Red is what I am seeing and this HP is filling my need the Dell didn’t.

The most unfortunate part is that I lost all my hard drive saved photos… I thought they were also saved in the cloud somewhere but I have yet to find them… luckily my photos from 2013 to present ARE in the cloud… but anything I had saved to the hard drive is gone now… any computer geeks out there that could save my photos if I sent them the hard drive??? Finding reliable and affordable computer geeks is another story… this seems to be a racket completely… we know how to take the computer apart to get to the hard drive …. and internal hard drives are affordable for sure… but WOW the fixers with companies are hijackers of your wallet all together it seems!

So I will end with my favorite wine (white zinfandel) and some dark chocolate sayings to amuse you instead of my thoughts on Dell out of country companies I weeded through trying to fix my fave computer before buying a holdover…

 Take these happy sayings to heart and have a blessed week… I hope to have the  center together on Daisy’s quilt to be… and be in the 70’s on % complete on my quilting when I blog next Sunday!  Until then… take time to ….

P. S.  Also pondering starting to make some of my own daily use clothing articles… do any of you sew for yourself???  Would love to hear from you if you do!!!  I am in love with Crafty Gemini Vanessa’s vids and have also been watching vids on Craftsy Unlimited… which is about to expand next week and change their name to Bluprint!  I am excited to have this membership via my friend Karen who blogs HERE!  Join if you like before they expand… LOTS of great content on the Unlimited platform and more fun stuff coming like exercise and yoga… sooo much more!  Here is what the email states “Bluprint lets you dig into anything you’ve ever daydreamed about doing, like dance, fitness, yoga, art, and home decorating (plus all the categories you know and love). You’ll also find community features to help you stay engaged, new exclusive series, and much, much, more.”

The Lazy Daisy and Sewing Adventures too !

While Spring on the calendar started a while ago… it is just now springing up here in the mountains of North Carolina! 

So Happy Spring Y’all!

Here is a view of our pond and the back of our home on a panoramic shot…

The building on the far left is our pump house… then those big trees across the pond are Bradford Pears that have bloomed and now turned green 😀 … the grist mill or water wheel with house is next then my honey has his “mancave”… a 500 sq ft building for all his woodworking and home reno stuff to be stored… plus stuff for the garden and plantings all over this property… finally is a greenhouse and outdoor storage from the mancave.. and the Valley River is viewed on the far right… it is a busy stream that never dries up… we are thinking that is the difference between a creek and river! lol

In our pond (about 1/4 acre large) we have rainbow trout, bass and crappie in there… we realized this week when feeding the fish… there is a nursery where the active grown fish don’t go and it is overseen by a grandma fish who is quite large (over 2 feet long!!!)  The fish we feed are from 1 foot to 20″ long themselves… and they all look quite healthy.. we have yet to find one floating!!!  But it is all a learning experience…

Above is a video of feeding time on the hascienda!  Enjoy 🙂

Onto sewing adventures… first are the curtains I made for the bedroom…

 they are 2 layered and have raw edged covered with binding….

I copied them from the curtains left in the sun room portion of our living room…

But using fabrics from my stash that would coordinate with quilts we have and that I will be making… my goal is to have a quilt to change to for each season 😀  We shall see how long that takes!!! lol

Now that you have seen the sunroom curtains… look at the new leaders I have for my quilt frame…

They are olive green and off white stripes running the length of the poles… I have directions on how much to cut them for proper use… I had a wider fabric than typical quilting cotton so I got to adjust these a bit which I like… makes it easier to load and unload when done!

Someone had asked about my quilt frame on Facebook… it is a Hinterberg wood frame with 3 metal poles.. a 3 pole frame is the easiest and most user friendly to use for hand quilting.  The front pole holds backing  layer of your quilt sandwich… then the top and batting layers get attached to the 3rd pole and pulled taute once the bottom of these 2 layers is attached with heavy straight pins to the backing… This picture may make more sense than my explanation

So if have a 3 pole frame of any brand… try this way of loading … I get great tension with no issues 😀  And there is no pin basting with this hand quilting frame… BUT I have used this frame to load a quilt for machine quilting too to pin baste for that… it is so much nicer than crawling on the floor… small quilts can be taped to a countertop to pin baste… but large quilts twin or bigger… you need a way to baste or a frame like this to not need to pin baste.

Now to my sewing room reno… I have a few craft boxes to unload still but all the sewing room boxes are unloaded and my room is full of fun!!!!  Here is a peek in the door just off the living room now…

 And here is a panoramic view showing 3 sides of my sewing room…

My cutting table is waiting for a large cutting mat… my cutting mats are all gouged up… I had replaced my Olfa cutting mats with Fiskars only to realize the quality was NOT the same… so I have an Olfa 24 x 36 on order now to fit my cutting table and get it in order…

Above the cutting table is my ruler holder my honey made me several years ago from plywood… it works sooo good!  Next to the right is the closet I will show you in depth below in pictures… it holds all my fabric and notions and batting and stores my scraps and books… LOVE THIS CLOSET!!!

next is the window with a great view of the river and my honey’s man cave… with pics of all my friends with friendships to span a lifetime! 🙂  To the right of the window is a chest I want replaced in the near future that holds my hand quilting marking pens/pencils/chalks… and threads specific to hand quilting as well… plus a few patterns and some glue baste I may use in the never future! lol.

Around from that is Zena my Singer 401a and the Quilt frame my honey made… it has a vintage chair for it now where in the old place it had a stool I couldn’t stand so we left it behind for someone else to enjoy… then my one and only Ott light that I simply move to my sewing spot of the moment… right now I am working on Gloria my Singer 301a… making apple core table topper!!!

Now don’t miss my “k” thread and bobbin holder and the organizer shelf below it… to the right will be my design wall… more on that when we make it but Zena has the flannel for it on her cabinet!!! lol

Above is my closet in snipet shots for you to enjoy… the top right is the next big quilt to go in the frame… for our bed!  My sewing room sign that hangs over the door to this room… and sooo much other fun stuff… we spent under $200 on all the wood and screws for this closet reno … and boy was it worth it.. ALL my stuff is in one room now!!!  Except my hand quilting frames of course! 😀

And now to my darling new project… a string of apple cores !!!

These are about 4″ finished size…

 These are waiting to be joined up… I do a few at a time as it is fun but a bit tedious too!

 I am using THIS tutorial for machine piecing my apple cores… she is a bit hard to listen to BUT WORTH THE LISTEN!!!  If you are interested in trying this project grab a charm pack or some 5″ blocks and a template and lay it out first 😀

Have you seen a corkscrew willow?  Or have you seen a conehead evergreen like the one to the right???  I love this home!!! ❤

 And of course my honey is enjoying the first mow on his completely renovated John Deere… had a deck painting, new blades, spindles, oil, spark plugs, air filter, seat, and leveled… it is now mowing so nice and making a sweet fresh cut grass smell in our home 😀

Now that it is raining he is focusing on painting…

the bottom half of the wall was a pastel green that belongs in a baby room or something… that was the color of our walls all over.. now we have a nice linen color covering them.  A little yellow a little peach and a very light color called Malted Milk and totally elegant with the white chair rail… here is a photo of the wall with the white touched up and all the wall painted and cut in 😀

Well I think this is quite long enough for now… if you would like pointers on making a apple core by machine just ask and I will post more on this next week when HOPEFULLY I will have a finish to share with you all as well!

Have a happy Sunday all and remember….

Lots of Productivity… Now to SLOW it down a bit!!!

So since our last chat… I have been VERY busy 🙂

Saturday I got the frame loaded with my latest finish “Batik Hollyhock Quilt”… This is where I will be most all day Sunday… In hand quilting BLISS!!!!   Linking this post to Kathy’s Slow Stitching Sunday post HERE 🙂  Hope you make time to slow stitch with me today and to check out Kathy’s post… this quilt I am working on today was a LOOONG time UFO that I am happy is now being quilted… and it is for ME!!!

This pattern is Hollyhock Garden in this booklet you can find online…

In my last post I shared the making of the “flowers”… so in this post I thought I would show you all the triangles I cut using the SAME template….

And check out how festive my design wall looked as I put this quilt top together!!!

Don’t you love the vintage doilies above my design wall?  That is something my friend Wendy made for me … this April 1 we celebrated 3 wonderful years of friendship too!!!  

Finally I had it all together and it was time for me to piece a backing…

Because I made it bigger than I originally planned on it to be! lol

Oh well.. that is the life of a UFO… this quilt will be my personal living room snuggle quilt.  I stay cold a lot!!!  So this quilt will keep me warm while others are comfy already! hahaha   So here is my pieced backing…

Hard to tell but the colors are all coordinating with the front… once it is quilted I will get some close ups of the backing that remains as this was a bit big… and you will see the design better and colors! 🙂

All this I sewed on my vintage 301a GLORIA the Glorious!!!

Check out the new clock I found on facebook marketplace local to me….

 For a steal of a deal the original owner isn’t a sewer and received it as a gift… she agreed to take $30 for it !!! Yippee… It now happily adorns my sewing room and keeps me aware of the time.

We are selling LED lights we just got in that fit many vintage machines… but specifically my 301, 401 and 221!!!!  Soooo excited… this picture is on eBay if you are interested look for it there or message me HERE 🙂  We were unsure if this was a good deal or not as in… did they really fit so many different machines in 1 design… THEY DO!!!!  No flange between bulb and base is the reason!

There are like 104 little LED lights and it really brightens up my sewing space when I am using my machines now!!! Yippee!!!!

Finally I am ready to share a bit more about my designing focus I shared a bit last post with you but just enough to confuse you probably… let me share more with you today.

James ( my 2nd oldest child and father to Kaydence) recently married Heather… his true soulmate 🙂  I had sent him his father’s wedding band and my wedding band from that marriage which was originally his grandmother’s wedding band (Tony’s moms wedding band) for a wedding gift… but after sending Kaydence a quilt for their home… I wanted to make them a snuggle quilt to celebrate their union … it just seems right… so here are some quilts they sent for inspiration to make them one of their own.. hand quilted of course!!!

They wanted country colors… not much light colored fabrics… and a punch of dark purple to it as James prefers that color Heather said when she was giving me pointers.  Here is some of what I have designed…

It is the Amethyst Star Pattern!  I found out just the other day though that this is a spin on Pat Speth’s “Morning Star” pattern from her “nickel quilt book”.  So it is and the photo top left is a civil war take on that pattern I sent to Heather and she LOVED it!  So I ordered a layer cake and drew out and partially colored a pattern on graph paper I keep for designing on.

I love the name of this layer cake too!!!!  Gratitude by Jo Morton for Moda 🙂

And added a few fabrics from my stash and Connie’s to round out my needs for this quilt…

In the end I came up with a nice assortment of charms!!!

The sashings will be vanilla mottled around the edges and cheddar/light brown everywhere else in the center sections…

Above is a test sashing strip with the wrong fabric for star points but I was testing the pattern size needs to make sure my plan was accurate… well the left side is more accurate than the right side… so I will be marking these all and using Bonnie Hunter’s tutorial for flippy corners you can find HERE!  I enjoy learning from Bonnie … I think she if a great teacher!  And she is all about accuracy too 🙂

 You can see on the left where I am counting and ironing a final hot press… all the little squares… flippy corners to be! lol

And above I am now gonna use a stardust glitter pen from Sakura with a little ruler to mark a center line down all my little squares… then sew just inside that line to get the perfect flipped corner… I will NOT be saving the bonus triangles and these little squares are just too small already!  But I will have fun I hope as I had to make 1,120 of these little squares for this quilt!!!!  Wowee!!!!

I got fun mail this week from my best friend Connie… a sweet card and some goodies too!

And found some quilty inspiration online this week as well…

I took my beach photo from my last posting and used it to do a bit of fun photo editing to make a new blog header for summer time… it already feels like summer here in Florida anyway! lol

And I finally caught Daisy looking at my phone for a good minute so I could catch her cuteness…

She is such a fun companion.. even if we did find out doxie’s (dachshund by full name) are on the higher end of having dander… my honey is now gaining allergies!!!  Daisy is HIS dog! hahaha

Well, I hope you have enjoyed your visit and until my next post my time to show someone that you …

…And after this unplanned 3 month blogging hiatus…

I have a catch up post to share with you all… I have been thinking of all my regular readers 🙂

First I want to dedicate this post to my good friend who is now in heaven… Kathy Porter.. she passed in January from ovarian cancer… her death was not sudden but did hit me hard… she was a very sweet quilting and blogging friend of mine.  If you knew her please pray for her family she left behind like I have been !!!

Over the Christmas season I found this photo on Facebook .. my grandmother (will be 99 years young this September!!!) with my brother and his family 🙂  It is now on my refrigerator! lol

Now let’s get into some quilty business… I worked very hard all of November and December and on January 4 I finally finished so we could sleep under what is now known as “Chain of Diamonds” quilt…

 And here it is on our bed 🙂

I designed this myself but was inspired by this quilt called Emily’s Wedding Quilt found in a Fons and Porter magazine/website 🙂

We have since added a quilt I made with my bestie Connie a few summers ago from a book she had.  It lived as a throw and backdrop for featherweights for those years… and now it will be for Daisy to sleep under!!! lol

Yahoo 🙂   These are BOTH hand quilted btw … I am so happy to see these both going to good use now in our daily life!  A fresh start for sure!!!

Soon after finishing these I decided to start sewing my stash up into quilts for 2 twin beds we have in our 2 guest rooms… this summer we are expecting friends and family to come for visits and I wanted real quilts on the beds … but my poor hands were worn out from Chain of Diamonds quick quilting … so my honey sat me down and had a chat with me and it was decided that these 2 quilts would be machine quilted on my newly fixed up 401a Singer from 1952 😀  WOW honey thanks for getting her back into running condition … mending got done and quilting to do after that… all my piecing was done on Gloria my 301a from 1956… she is an excellent straight stitcher…

You see to the right of this machine is my ironing station… and to the left is my design wall… so it all works soooo nicely… she sits in a Queen Anne style #40 Cabinet… and is quite at home here 🙂

Hopefully this will give you a better idea….

Notice also the “k” thread spool and bobbin holder my honey made and gave to me over Christmas 🙂

So to work I got making half square triangles from a Missouri Star Quilt pattern I watched on youtube called a Herringbone Quilt…

I used some 10″ batik squares and creamy light yardarge I found in my stash…

 and made fresh friends with Zena to machine quilt this using a vintage walking foot I found

that Bonnie Hunter had recommended as a better choice for these vintage machines in a quilt cam session I watched…

And this is how it turned out!!!

Hope you can see the machine quilting on this one… I followed the zig zagging of the quilt overall and love how it finished … it is about 76 x 100″ done 🙂  A nice LARGE twin just as desired!

Just needed 1 more quilt and I had this panel I wanted to incorporate in a design…

then I found THIS blog post with a free pattern on it… I used a jelly roll instead of 3 1/2″ strips from yardage… and made mine scrappy instead of color blocked as they did in this shot of theirs…

This is also a Wedding Quilt! lol  I don’t know if I have attraction unknown to that or what!  But again, I was inspired and used some of their directions but I cut and pasted the pattern to make it my own…

I did take a few more pics of this one along the way… it went from this with 1 jelly roll I bought on sale and yardage I had in my stash…  (the center fabrics came from Connie though! lol)

To this fun flimsy!!!

And here is the Wavy Sea Turtle Quilt getting quilted on Zena my 401a…

To make this finished quilt about 74 x 90″ when done…

 and a close up so you can see the quilting better 😉

So I am finally up to February.. and I am working on an all new project… did a bit more mending of stuff that needed mending while Zena was being so agreeable… you see before my honey fixed her she was breaking thread for no reason no matter what he or I did! lol  I guess she just needed a time out or something.. I actually bought a Singer 347 for my zig zagging needs but it just wasn’t heavy duty enough… so after the holiday was over my honey spent 1 on 1 time with Zena and now she is EXCELLENT!!!!

This project I am working on now is my first time working with 1930’s reproduction fabrics… I followed a Moda Bake Shop recipe for Simply Woven HERE to make the center and added a couple borders and this is what I finished with… on Gloria my 301a of course 🙂

My top ended up at 46″ x 60″… nice size for a 2 year old and her daddy to enjoy snuggles together 🙂  And on Valentine’s day I added a pieced back with 2 little hearts in the piecing…

I love those little hearts a lot!  HERE is a close up with directions on how I made them with leftover 2 1/2″ strips ;)… they don’t show off enough here but once they are properly quilted from the front in the overall pattern I have chosen they will be more fun.

This quilt will be for the 2nd birthday of my granddaughter Kaydence…  So 2 hearts on the back.. there will be 2 on the front also in the border quilting.. The pic to the right is a fun shot I caught… the one below is a pic I took just for this post… and for my facebook followers too 🙂 

I will tell you that it sure it AWESOME!!! (after having to machine quilt 2 quilts) … To be back at the frame HAND QUILTING again y’all!!!  This Hinterberg frame we bought as a kit and my honey built into a frame really is…

My Happy Place!!!

Notice above… I have wireless headphones… quilting helps… and a glass of sweet tea on the table beside my chair (table rolls and my honey made me a few years back… chair I got at Walmart for $70) and my fave lamp to the right moves around the quilt with me and it’s a fun gooseneck ( it came with an attached torchier part too but my honey took that off as it was useless really for my needs.. $15 at Walmart)… I have a second one of these lamps but one is all I need presently 🙂  The shade is painted to make it opaque so it doesn’t blind me as I quilt and points all the light at my work also!

I hope to catch up to each of you between posting this now as well as sharing Sunday…. when we can all see what you are slow stitching over at Kathy’s slow Sunday stitching linky HERE where she is sharing a favorite podcast and how to bury machine quilting threads in a tutorial link 🙂

I haven’t been reading many blogs during my hiatus… since about the time I quit blogging because I got so immersed in quilting… and now I am on a timeline as I am having a necessary knee replacement surgery in March just next month!  Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers for a quick recovery and painless healing!!  

I wrote this post on Friday and read over it this morning adding this photo in to show you how I am doing the center… 

With baptist fans from THIS great tutorial!!!  I made a template from some template plastic I had and punched holes with a tiny hole punch I had saved from my paper crafting days… I am marking with a blue water removable marker 🙂  More on this in my next posting !!!

I look forward to hearing from you all… have a blessed day and until my next post.. hopefully sooner than 3 months from now!!! lol

And in this time of turmoil in the US as a whole… as well as the world overall… remember to…

 Every Day & Do Something Nice to Someone Else Friends 🙂