Having such a great week y’all!

I am so excited to share a host of fun shots with you this weekend 🙂  I have been slow stitching away!!!

In my last post I left you all hanging with this shot! lol

Now let me show you what I have been up to >>> but FIRST!

A close up 🙂

of a needle keeper I made from a refrigerator magnet by adding a strong magnet to this.. and have a free one to keep it in place on the quilt… then any of the surface will hold my busy needles!  So much fun too to reread this cool magnet with each change of a needle! 🙂

If you use a frame do you have a needle keeper you use?? I would love to hear about yours!  Or how you organize your needles when working with more than one 🙂  I have 3 going on this quilt… (one blue, one white, and one for the edge stitching 😉

Above is my quilting plan and where I was this morning when I took this shot is highlighted 🙂

Blue Diamond Quilt is not a final name but a better working name than I had going… so far we haven’t heard a name for this quilt that fits it and the importance of this quilt to us… having a redo 🙂

I want to share a close up and an artsy shot of my stitching too!

Can you tell which is which?? lol!

It is so hard to show you all texture when using a frame I am finding.. I have taken shots all times of the day and eve… Not having outside light is hard too though… I do miss stitching outside but by only leaving the door unlatched… I can hear the bubblers and squirrels and birds outside not far away 🙂

Here are a couple shots of my frame…

This first shot was taken after my first rolling of the quilt…

 And below I am soon to turn the quilt down more in the frame…

I like that this quilt has a pattern I can highlight to watch my progress… I will have to come up with a visual way to keep track of my progress for sure!  Any tips for this are welcomed!!!! 😀

Lest I forget… next to my recliner is Rustic Flowers Wall Hanging project for the kitchen! I am currently half done echo quilting the center applique… I must be honest that it isn’t getting much of my attention here lately though! lol

I doubt I will write again before Thanksgiving this year…

 

I have many things pulling for my attention presently.. more projects to come out of the sewing room as well as every 3 days to be ready to roll this quilt frame again… will definitely keep me busy… then will be time to dress our home for Christmas!!!  I am excited for that !!!

Sunday I do plan to link this post for slow stitching with Kathy’s Quilts 😉  Come HERE and check out what everyone else is slow stitching on Sunday 🙂

Until my next post have a blessed weekend my friends and …

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I have been FEARLESS this week!!!

Happy Sunday Y’all!!!  and I have been fearless since cleaning and organizing my sewing room!!!

In the meantime cleaning out some clutter taking up room in my brain too! (lol)…. I went into high speed piecing on the blue quilt… I was drawn to this project large a huge magnet was attached pulling me awake early every morning and working on and off on it though out the day… THIS IS NOT LIKE ME! lol  Then I went to Kathy’s Quilts to see what she was talking about and this is her topic today…

Please MAKE THE TIME to read her post… and P. S. >>> It is NOT political in any way… a nice rest from that for a minute at least!  Go HERE to read her post… then come back and read what I had planned to write before this took precedence 🙂 hahaha

So now I can fearlessly I have had an amazingly busy and productive week… I shared some things in my last post that are already being appreciated…

This was a hit on facebook!  One girl even suggested Daisy as the quilter 🙂 lol

The hand quilting is happening when I take a break from piecing the blue quilt… I am about half around the shadowing of the flowers 🙂

I did finish all 64 blocks early Friday morning and snagged this shot on our kitchen table…

Well facebook enjoyed my doily almost as much as my block production… lol!  

Now here they are laid out waiting for my honey to rouse for the day! hehe

A few adjustments were made in an effort to even out reds yet not have any duplicates in the diamonds or beyond 🙂

And I must say my Gloria (301a) only required maintenance 1 time during construction of this quilt and it was soon after I started webbing the top together… I changed the needle with the bobbin and the new one must have been bent or misshappen somehow… as then Gloria refused to stitch with each revolution fast or slow!  My honey came to the rescue when I was thought out of what could it be that she didn’t like… he replaced the needle with a NEW one… from the same pack as that was all I had on hand… and she didn’t quit stitching properly til the sections were all sewn together..

A great example of the coolness of this quilt is the blue and black paisly square the yellow/orange arrow is pointing to was sent to me by a dear friend… and the blue and white plaid block the pink/fuscia arrow is pointing to is one from my grandmother’s stash 🙂  I love that!!!  This quilt is filled with memories in the form of fabric.. I can’t wait to sleep under all the love that is going into this one!!!

While I am stitching away in the sewing room using my design wall to hold block parts and sewing away on Gloria… my honey and Daisy got in LOTS of snuggle time! lol

I love the shirt he is wearing above.. it is all patchwork 🙂  He made me crop his face out though! lol

I also received a goodie in the mail… a secret present I had ordered for a friend abroad… and this cool walking foot!

It has metal feed dogs instead of plastic like the newer ones.. I have always used a zig zagging machine to attach my binding but the next few quilts will do okay on my 301 with this cool walking foot I think… I emailed a pic of it to Bonnie Hunter last week with a note and she agreed the $12 including shipping I paid for it was a Bargain Bin price for this beauty!  Bonnie recommended this in a recent quilt cam… so I looked and was gonna buy another I found for $20 with ship… but lost track of the end of the auction.. this one was buy it now .. so I did! lol

Finally yesterday I finished the “center” of this top to this point…. 

 And I had a hand quilting plan that included a white outer border….

 But on the bed it was already a generous quilt…

I believe once markings and a good wash are done after a quilt is bound and ready for that step a nice dry in the dryer is in order…

I am using 80/20 cotton/wool batting in this quilt… I want some wrinkly puffiness only this batting will give me.

So the quilt that was languishing on the frame got removed after I woke this morning and in under 3 hours I had this one loaded…

 Then I gathered all I could think I would need for this… so far I have used all Aurifil thread… I will be able to say that also when I am done here as I have only Aurifil 28/2 wt thread and some white DMC Perle Cotton for the occasional design I will be adding!

 So you see… FEARLESS describes my week…

And my sewing room is back to a baseline clean space and my fabric chest is nice and tidy… I still have some projects to complete on the design wall but that is a good thing… gives me more to ponder than political things.. lol!

MOSTLY THIS QUILT NEEDS A NAME… any suggestions would be most welcomed!!!  A fun prize you help me choose from my fun fabric chest if you post your response and I use it too!

Have a blessed week y’all!  And made sure to make time to …

Lots of sewing and some QUILTING too :)

I finished cleaning and straightening the sewing room… even tackled all that big pile of fabric I shared in my last post… check out my finished Fabric Chest!!!

And now it is very organized too!  I now need another shelf added to the top of the shelves.. my honey made those with plain plywood for durability… he has more in his ever evolving garage… aka MAN CAVE… currently he is painting the parts that are drywall… one wall is pegboard… more pics on that when he is done though… per his request! lol

Once I was organized here I decided to finish the bedroom organization and with my honey’s help I reorganized how the layout was some to accomodate my desk better…

You see since we moved the desk in here temporarily I have fallen in love with computer time when my honey sleeps in the mornings… we are close and this keeps us close… he snoozes quietly in the background and I am more inspired to write and spend time here quietly of course! lol

So now the plan is to finish the office but keep it as a guest room mainly with a desk area in there for me to use when skyping… or when my honey watches something I don’t care for on TV and I want to get away from that during my time at the computer…

However, I have found sewing has been my current fave pasttime since cleaning everything up!  Take a look at what I finished earlier this week…

I had 2 pillow tops I found when cleaning the sewing room up… they measure about 8 1/2″ square… once cleaned up they were yelling at me to be completed… and now as you can see in the top photo they are finished (from my stash) and ready to be a neck pillow or just a snuggly pillow while watching tv or napping! 🙂  We love these little pillows… Daisy has already snuggled Rick’s (on the right side) too!! lol

I have been catching up with my Singing the Blues quilt block making…

The pattern I designed calls for 32 of each of these blocks for a total of 64 blocks to make a 100″ square quilt… here is my “pattern” I drew out…

I keep it with the block parts that are all made… so basically it is putting together 9 patch blocks now but good for me to do basic stuff when piecing.. I love and feel accomplished with hand quilting but piecing is another matter… I don’t feel all that about my piecing… 

I did take a break early yesterday morning to do a couple projects… FIRST was a project for my friend Debbie.  She had happily received a memory bear made from one of her late husband’s shirts…

But this memory bear came with 2 (didn’t think of the pic until 1 button had been removed) BLUE eyes… yet her husband had dark brown almost black eyes…

So she searched my button selection and found some that reminded her of Jim’s eyes…

I got them sewed on fairly easy and left this sweet memory bear to keep watch over her bed while she is not here presently…

Isn’t he much cuter without dayglow blue eyes??!! LOL

SECOND was finishing up a cushion for Daisy Mae I had started on the day before and not finished up on…

I bought the cotton tapestry center on eBay… and it arrived that day… soon from my stash I had pulled a coordination border to make it the right size we wanted it to be for Daisy… and found some cute Doggy themed word fabric for the side fabric

and a rough quilting cotton for the bottom… it is something I wouldn’t use in a quilt but is perfect to keep it in place on the tile floor… It’s place is in our Florida room now 🙂

Then I made a few more blocks but this centerpiece Connie (my bestie) had made me over a year ago kept calling to be finished… soon I had pulled out all the fabric that I had in homespun leftovers from this and the other project…

Homespuns are very very stringy once cut… so I worked gently with this fabric… making borders for what will be a small wall hanging for our kitchen!  It will actually hang just around the corner from this piece I finished last year I think…

 She fashioned this center piece from this pic I sent her… for my birthday last year if I remember right! lol  Not sure as we are always sending each other stuff! 🙂

She machine appliqued this one… and I am glad she did the raw edge applique via machine…

Here is how I completed this flimsy wall hanging to be 🙂

Then I layered and pin basted it… I used wool batting in it for depth of stitching look on it when done…

Then I took a break and made a couple more blocks for Singing the Blues…  for all the sewing work I have shown… I looked to my Glorious GLORIA.. Singer 301a

I love that she is an LBOW (light brown/oyster white) coloring… I love the pin cushion Connie made me this year for my 50th birthday too!  And where would I be without a nice dry hot iron like this Dominion!  I love it for all my piecing… I save the steam iron for pre-sewing ironing of wrinkled fabrics and ironing my honey’s shirts! lol  then there is coffee, tea or water at my side at all times too!

Finally I pulled out my 17″ favorite hoop that was gifted to me so long ago and hooped up this project and got started on it… just outlining the flowers on the center with a medium grey thread that blends nicely…

Check out Daisy watching me as she sits on her new cushion too!  This is her favorite chair to sit in when Debbie isn’t here… so after posing it where it should go for pics… I put it up in the chair and she LOVES it!!!  So with her company near me last night I started the stitching on this… should be a fun and quick project allowing me to return to STARLIGHT … STARBRIGHT soon!  And refreshed from the break to finish and bind that big quilt!

So I have been MEGA busy as you can all see from this post… and as I close (the blocks are calling me back to work on a couple more! lol) I hope you each have a great rest of your week!

We have had a roller coaster of an election here in the USA that has left Donald Trump as our President elect… many feel this could be bad… but for once I am glad it isn’t a career politician in our nations highest office… he is also a Republican and has majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate as well… During his tenure he will name a few Supreme Court Justices too… 1 is waiting to be named as soon as he takes office in January.  Please continue to keep us and President Trump in your thoughts!

Mostly remember to…

Good Monday Morning Catch Up ;)

 ~ I have been soooo busy y’all! ~

As I write this to you… I am enjoying a cup of coffee… why not grab a cup of something yummy and enjoy this post! 🙂

Our Kitchen is Finished!!!

Above is our counter top bar all finished!!  With our “new to us” rolling island 🙂

Below is a shot of our finished kitchen…

I love the bar area and I wanted to share some other close ups too! 🙂

The cabinets in our kitchen have a space for the same formica we used on the bar to go on the cabinets… so my honey took the left overs from the bar and made inserts for ALL the cabinets!!!!

 I just love how it coordinates with the cabinets and softens the overall effect of the kitchen!!

Here is a great shot I took showing the new bar and rolling island…

 My current layout of shots on my refrigerator…

Here is a close up of the curtains I made for the window in my kitchen…

 And a closer up of the tie backs I designed for this kitchen too! …

So the kitchen is now set… a few little things left we want to do… but my honey hasn’t been feeling up to working on them yet.. but he will.. he NEVER leaves a job unfinished 🙂

We Cut The Cord!!!!
 Have you thought about it???

The main thing that has worn him out??

When Connie was here she gifted me and Rick an indoor amplified antennae… she knew we were fed up with the ever increasing cost of having Directv on 2 tv’s with DVR’s…

So her giving us this antennae and us using it to see what we could get… about 30 of the 45 channels available to us after searching youtube about “air tv”.  There is great information on this process there if you are interested….  There are also websites if you google air tv to find what channels you should be getting along with what shows are actually on… if you don’t have a receiver /dvr to translate that info…lol!

So we bought a UHF/VHF antennae to add to her indoor amplified antennae in our attic…

 With THIS… we get ALL the channels most of the time now 🙂

And the best part.. after the initial investment of things we needed… we now have in about 3 DirecTv payments… we have NO MORE PAYMENTS due to have local and fun TV too!

This has been a wonderful switch!!!  We still pay for internet and cell phones… but the TV cord has been officially and happily cut!!!

So have you ever pondered this for you home??  Just curious actually!

Piecing Progress!!!

I finally got all the pieces and parts for my next quilt done!!!

Here they are as I am readying to make my first 2 blocks…

And here are 6 blocks!!!!

I am LOVING this quilt to be for me and my honey 🙂

Here is a drawing I did for a pattern for this… to see how it would look…

Are you piecing anything right now???  I like to never run out of things to hand quilt on .. so I try to piece some so there is a ready supply! lol

Slow Stitching Progress!!!

Starlight… Starbright is moving along.. slow but sure!

I am on the 3rd of 4 parts of Block 7… here is a closer up of what is left to quilt on this section…

 Some of the stippled areas with stars and moons is getting redone as I come to those sections that need it.. for that I am using a blue wash away marker by Clover! …

 My Daughter Has Moved out…
and is starting her Senior Year of high school!!!

 <<< Here is a pic of her with her new roomie Kylie….
It has been a difficult transition for me … but the quote above by unknown is very VERY true for me!

I am now an EMPTY NESTER 🙂

Off to get some more accomplished!  Just glad I got to check in and catch you all up though!

Hope whatever you have planned this week.. you Love one Another while doing it!!

Slow Stitching Bliss :)

I am finally finished with my machine quilting project… more on that below 😉

But since I am done with that I have really embraced my love of hand quilting over using a machine for quilting… I am so glad I love to hand quilt and have the support of my friends and family to hand quilt my flimsies… it takes patience on their part ya know! lol

Here is my progress on Starlight… Starbright for my daughter…

 I have moved to the bottom half of the 6th carpenters wheel block now 🙂 !!!!  Yippee !!!!

I LOVE TO HAND QUILT!!!!  

I am linking this post to Kathy’s Quilts for those that are also taking slow stitches this Sunday!

One of my favorite birthday presents has to be these headphones I recently got…

I can listen to all the tunes I have on my phone wirelessly!!!  I love that 🙂  No more ironing over cords! lol

You see I LOVE to listen to music as I stitch and sew… and iron! lol  Makes all the things enjoyable and keeps my creative side awake to do this! 🙂

I also did get a bit of slow stitching added to this machine quilted table cover…

 Here is the machine quilted cover on the table.. just don’t have the backdrop in place for this shot! lol

White on white is hard to photo well… but it will be perfect for my honey’s purpose… a backdrop for the featherweights we sell!!! 😀

Once that cover was finished I could resume my tri recs units.. for the quilt for me and my honey to sleep under… maybe to be called “Singing the Blues” 🙂

Above is 1 unit made… I need 128 of them !!!! Oh my!!!  So here is my sewing station currently….

I am almost halfway done making these units now!

While I have been keeping up with things and sewing here and there and stitching here and there.. my honey has been busy too!!!

He is adding a wall to our bar to be area…

Just waiting for some nice white paint now!!!

And the formica sheet came in yesterday… so soon you will see how the top will really look!  I am very excited about this project my honey has taken on!  It shows off all his skill I think too!  and adds value to a home we plan to sell in the next year or so! 🙂  We want to be closer to the beach.. right now we are a 10 minute drive… we want to walk to the beach though!

Until my next post please remember…

As a P. S. I would like to remind each of you to Love One Another… we are going through a tough time currently in the USA… please keep us in your prayers if you don’t live here… but no one is immune to what is happening here in current days with all the violence and unrest.. so I am changing my blog signature for future posts.. to remind us all to….

So now until my next post … be safe!  And do a good deed today.. just because you can!!! 🙂

Happy Dancin’ Progress!

Hello my bloggy friends… today I have progress to show you on most all my current projects 🙂

I am linking this Happy Dancin’ post to Sarah’s Whoop it’s Friday Post HERE!

I have been slowly making progress on my fast stitching project… piecing “Singing The Blues” quilt…  Here are the 4 patches I shared in my most recent post… 128 all done 🙂

And today I can share that all the half square triangles (hst’s) are done!!!  128 of those 🙂

 that was a lot of sliver trimming too… but took care of the dog ears and uneven areas all at once by sliver trimming… so I managed making good progress by completely prossessing groups of 8 charms or 16 hst’s 🙂  Went by in just a couple days that way!

Above is my current work… making Tri-recs triangle blocks.. I am presently cutting the wing triangles as they are just like an odd shaped flying geese block…  this ruler set is on loan from Connie presently also… so nice to use her rulers in this quilt!!!

For a more clearer understand here is a snippet of my pattern with all my scribbles and figuring on it! lol!!

You can see above in this snippet that I have drawn out each of the 2 blocks that make up this quilt.  I will need to make 32 of each and have collected my blues according to how many are needed.. I need to count my darks but still waiting on friend donations for some of those!! I want this quilt to be full of fabric memories for me and my honey and our inner circle of friends that have fabric stashes too!!! lol

Also notice in my scribbling above that I have broken down each block into it’s basic parts.. these will just go together like a 9 patch would actually 🙂  Once I get all the blocks ready for their places!!!

I am collecting charm squares but the blocks consist of 4 1/2″ blocks.. well the charms work perfect for pieced blocks .. but I will be trimming them all for the plain blocks that have no piecing to a nice 4 1/2 “… I am VERY VERY VERY VERY glad I bought a Omnigrid 4 1/2” square ruler now just prior to starting this quilt… I am using it a LOT!!! lol

As I go from working inside during the heat of the day on this piecing… I pass right by this!!!

Gosh how I wish I had time to start quilting on this beauty!!!  This Spiral Log Cabin is going to be a wall hanging in our living room when finished on a focus wall as you walk into the house… I have the binding cut for it and Brandi’s quilt also…

But it is waiting to be turned into binding… at least it is cut though 🙂 lol!!!!

The black fabric is a solid like that thin inner border and will really set off the quilt I think… AND the zig zag is much more modern and will really add that final bit of pizzazz to Starlight.. Starbright for my daughter who is 18 almost! 🙂 

Which brings me to the main focus in my days lately…

I am in the middle of block 6 here … out of 9 big 28″ blocks total!!!

I am very happy that with all going on here otherwise I am making steady, even if slower than I like, progress on this project.  My daughter will be gone most of the summer so I will be really working to finish it before her return.

So that is why I am walking past my beautiful new quilting frame with the awesome wall hanging on it waiting for stitches to bring it to life… I must current focus on the quilting for my daughter’s! 🙂

Also going on….

We got and rehabbed and sold a Singer Featherweight this past week… it is in transit to it’s new home as I write this.  Here is a shot of my honey shining up the case a bit…

he works miracles with these machines and cases when we get them!

Also last week we got to see the Delta Rocket go up… we are about 50 miles (give or take) north of Cape Canaveral where they launch most of the rockets these days…

We watch it live via satellite feed online and once all is cleared and it launches we go into the back yard and watch it ascend!!!  That is a cool perk of living where we do I think!!!

My wallet was breaking down and I love having my phone and wallet combined with a wristlet strap… so I found this much nicer and all leather wallet to hold my iPhone… 

 But I had to purchase the wristlet strap separately off an Etsy store… lucky it was a very similar color they called indigo but I would have called navy…

I was able to pick the hardware on it so it matches my wallet in antique gold hardware so I am very happy now!!!

Notice there is just a pocket on the right side of this shot… the phone I took this shot with slides into that slot… so it is now WAY easier to access just the phone for photo ops etc… than it was before!  So happy I got this and spent the time finding the leather wrist strap too!

Before I close… thought I would share some highlights from June 6… CJ, my grandson, came over on his birth day and we all hung out… I got a very cool candid shot of him!

 I love this shirt his mom Kayla had for him… and check them out below crafting together!!!

 She painted his age in wood letters … a little tradition she enjoyed when he turned one so she wanted to do again for his two year old birthday.  Here is how they turned out…

 the wood letters are on the top… and the outline from painting them got filled in by CJ Papa.. my son DL!  So it was a family focused project that ended with the letters painted like this!!!

I forgot to put something there for reference on size when I snagged this shot… but they are about 5″ tall and more than 1/4″ thick for sure!  And soooo cute!!!

And check out what my honey found for us to give this sweet young man for his second birthday!!!!

Mega Blocks to aid in dexterity and problem solving all in a wagon he can use for whatever… I love it!  And I bet he will too… can’t wait for his next visit!!!

My honey got a hankering for one of those desserts you see pop up on facebook that look so yummy and easy you wanna try it out… do you know what I mean????

Well my honey found one he wanted to make so off to the store we went for “supplies” to make a Mocha Frappucino Pie.  It only has 3/4 cup cold coffee in the whole pie… so not a big caffeine boost but YUMMMY!!!!  Here is a slice… I couldn’t resist taking a bit before my hand could get to the camera! lol

Well … I am Happy Dancin’ a lot in this post… hope you have a pleasant Friday and a relaxing weekend doing things you enjoy with those you love the most…

Until Sunday when I have a hand quilting tip to share…

Busy June ~ Time for a catch up!

So sorry ya’ll that I have been MIA… but I am back!!! lol

Unfortunately, I must share some sad news.. there was a terrorist shooting here in the US close to our home in Florida… it is less than a block from the hospital my daughter goes to!!!!  Wow!!

Please take time to Pray for Orlando Florida today if you would… this is so devastating for us as it is for the whole US!!!

 Thanks for your compassion here!

On a happier note today … June 13, 2016… is National Sewing Machine day!!!

Feel free to copy this and post it on your fave social media spot 🙂  Or pin it for fun too!

So will you be sewing for the special day ??  Will you be using this mechanical ingenuity?? lol

I hope to!

I have been working on parts to blocks… for a quilt for our bed.

So far you can see I have lot’s of 4 patches complete and over half now of the half square triangles I need too!  Next up will be some specialty ruler blocks… I am waiting on fabric from my friends though… this is a memory quilt of sorts as I am using a LARGE variety of charms to make this quilt…

And more have been added… and will be added to this eclectic mix of blues 🙂  I am loving this and so is my honey so that makes me VERY happy!!!

Recently Connecting Threads had their cotton/wool batting on sale by Hobb’s Tuscany… I bought a king sized one just for this quilt for only $29!!!  I bought a queen and a tad of some  other things to get me free shipping… and now I just wait for it to arrive later this week! 🙂  Yahoo!!!!

Here is my sketch of what this quilt will kind of look like if you are interested!

I love drawing out my quilty creations on graph paper… sometimes I used colored pens/pencils etc… sometimes I just need to get an idea out with perspective that the graph lines give me 🙂  How you design your quilts to be??

I have added quite a bit of information since this photo was taken… this quilt is 32 each of 2 blocks… the 54-40 or fight block and the shoofly block 🙂  I may add a pillow tuck to the top or I may finish it to be a cover only… not sure yet… but I am building this with lots of extra quilty knowledge under my belt since our last bed quilt (it was my first quilt to make! lol)

On May 31 my granddaughter turned 1!!! 

And soon after… on June 6… my grandson turned 2 years old!!!

So this Grammy has had a busy month for sure!!!

I have been making only slow hand quilting progress it seems… but soon will move it and share a shot with you all…

Mainly we are getting ready now for my bestie Connie’s upcoming visit… she is coming down from Tennessee for 5 days and 6 nights!! I am sooo excited to see her … we chat almost daily … but not the same as spending time face to face for sure!!

Well, as we chat I am thinking of tons of things that need to be done.. so I will wish you well for now… and will promise to write more soon!  

Have a blessed week my bloggy friends!!!  No matter the violence in the world around us we must remember even MORE today than before that Life is precious and …

Whooping on a Friday about Starlight… Starbright and sooo much more!!!!

Hello my bloggy friends… sorry I have been consumed in my life and not writing to you all! So let’s recap what has been going on around here to keep me so busy!!!

Quilting on Starlight… Starbright is going WELL!!!!

I am now at the halfway pinnacle of quilting on this lovely quilt… I hope to be done by mid July.. but we will see… she will be home and expecting it completed on August 3!!!  Linking this Whooping Moment to Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict Whoop Whoop Friday Post HERE <<<

I was VERY excited last weekend when DL, Kayla and CJ dropped by and gave me this photo…

 From their elopement day!!!!

Above is Kayla in her beautiful wedding frock and her son CJ cheesing for the camera as they are ready to depart in the Jeep DL rented for 24 hours… he proposed when he arrived with the Jeep for her (her fave type of vehicle is a jacked up Jeep like the one in the photo above)… we live in a tourist’s mecca and a Jeep dealership here rents Jeeps like this for 24 hours at a time…

So my son DL proposed on an eve in March and the next day is the photo above and the cool frame they put together for me below from their wedding day at the courthouse!  They hired a friend to photo them after the ceremony… we had been anxiously waiting these photos… I think the photographer did a RAD job too!!!

If you look in the photo collage above… the top right is a silly photo with CJ playing with DL… then DL and Kayla are holding a sign Kayla designed and wrote on that says “The Byrum’s”  and a great family photo on the bottom of the collage!!!!

It sits front and center in my living room presently and since none of my other kids are planning a wedding anytime soon (that I know of anyway! lol)  it will probably stay there for a bit too!

I am gearing up for a new piecing project… a new bed quilt for our queen sized bed!!!!

The planning for this yet unnamed scrappy quilt is in full swing!!!!

This is an adaptation of Fons and Porter’s pattern called “Emily’s Wedding Quilt” that I found in a free PDF downloaded book… however it is just 2 blocks alternating and instead of making them the pattern called for size of 9″ I am making my blocks 12″ finished and changing up my outer border to just a simple white sashing… “Singing the Blues” is a name that has been coming to me… but I am just not sure.

The story of why we need this quilt and why I am actually bumping other projects I had planned… and holding off a bit on starting the quilting on the wall hanging that is on my new frame… to start a new project is simple… our current quilt… my first quilt to make… is worn out!

I have been inspecting this quilt and trying to convince myself that it would be okay… but the process of making a quilt to a flimsy, then hand quilting and binding it and washing and using it will be about 6 months in reality… so moving it up the ladder now is what I am doing… Increasing it’s importance as we will soon be sleeping under something store bought if I don’t get this show on the road!! lol  Yuck!

So I am collecting 5″ charm squares in light, medium and dark blues for the quilt blocks…

I have assigned a place for each shade of blue… here on the right you can see a row of what I have deemed light… then 2 rows of medium blues (these will end up all being cut to smaller pieces in the block making process) and finally some dark navy blues (these will be centers of each block so no duplicating here)….

And since I took that shot of the quilt I have added lots more info to that sheet of paper… I have counted how many hst’s I need to make and how many tri recs angles I need to cut… how many 4 patches to make…

I am mixing these blues with steel grey by Kona and Optic White 🙂  I think this quilt is gonna be very cool and hold lots of memories of quilts made in the last 5 years too!!!!

Currently I have about 2/3 of the total amount needed to get busy with the piecing… I want to have all the blues together before I start in earnest on this project… I have some close friends sending me some blues for this quilt also… add more meaning to it for sure!!!

I have NO IDEA how I will quilt it… but I do know it will be quilted on my new frame and after the wall hanging is finished…

So I have to get Brandi’s quilt done and yet still devote some time to the wall hanging daily as well as block making or block part making each day… must get more organized I think to meet these goals along with house chores and other things that take up my days and nights…. lol!

Also… I have been having some thread breaking issues with my 401a Zena… it has gotten so bad that I finally decided time to replace her … my honey finally agreed and now there is a Clarinda in the house!!!!

She is a beautiful two toned blue… she has a matte finished bed and body and shiny top hat area… She is 1 year younger than me as I was born in 1966 and her manual is dated 1966 copyright but all the 347K’s were made in Great Britain for only 1 year.

Here is all that she came with… but her blue color doesn’t show below I don’t think like it does more truly in the photo above…

Clarinda had a big wad of lint UNDER the bobbin case area under the hook actually… so my honey has put lots of TLC into getting her running for me… we found her on eBay through a resale shop for sale and made them an offer which eventually we agreed to a price… I am happy with the deal but wish my honey hadn’t had to devote so much time to getting Clarinda ready for me to use!

I hope to have a shot of here not in the portable case or in a state of repair on the table but in the queen anne cabinet Zena currently resides in… I think it will make a beautiful “dress” for Clarinda!

As for Zena… she has a strong motor and is a good machine otherwise so she can be parted out for others to replace parts on their 401’s 😉

Come on back on Sunday… I plan to hand quilt this weekend and JUST GOT IN 2 new thimbles to compare and contrast for you all!

So have your thimble questions ready!!

Hope you have a blessed Friday and a Great Weekend too!!! 

And remember… no matter how rough the road may get from time to time…