And soon June will be done… WOW!

How has this month come to an end so quickly y’all!

 The awesome Sunrise I viewed Monday morning this week…. from our front porch 🙂

 Followed by freshly prepared strawberries and cream cheese danish (just a small piece ) 😀

 Finished the row I was on with Appalachian Delight….

 Rolled the quilt and started back to the right side of the quilt.  This marks the halfway point of this quilt project!!! 🙌 YAY 🙂

 Linking my hand quilting progress to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching Linky party HERE <<<

Also Linking to my HQAL group that I link with every 3 weeks…

Hand Quilt Along Links

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, Tracy, Deb, Susan,  Nanette,  Edith, Sharon, Karrin, Gretchen, Kathi, Daisy, Connie, Monica and Sherrie

As you can see not much progress on this side of this secret project… just that top row done…

 But look at this hand quilted aspects of the hand applique added to the front of these bags!!!  WOW

 But this week has otherwise been a quiet week….

 And the Amaryllis blooms has been my DAILY dose of sunshine!!!

 As the second stalk continued to grow taller and sprout blooms to be…

 and the first stalk continued to fill out all 6 blooms…

 They fell over together … so we added stakes to hold them up unsure if they would continue to grow now…

 But they have 🙂

 And this hosta shoots up amazing blooms… here it was on Monday….

 And again on Friday…

 I found this little meme online… Why can’t we ALL be like a raccoon….

 And another meme that I posted on my Facebook page…

North Carolina USA has a mandatory public mask wearing policy now… 

Do you wear a mask when in public??

Feel free to right click on any of those meme’s to add them to your own photo stash and share on social media … we are all in this all over the world TOGETHER!!!!

 I am excited to look ahead to JULY!!!!

of JULY!!! <<<<

3rd – My bestie… Connie                                                   20th – My Honey’s … Rick

4th – Me                                                                             26th – My Darling Daughter … Brandi 

5th – My DIL to be… Kristen                                             In Memory… I will remember my                                                                                                                          grandmother’s birthday on the 6th…                                                                                                          She is watching over us from heaven

So here is the first fun birthday cake I found… doesn’t that teal icing look yummy!  with the moist chocolate cake… mmmmm!!!  Much less the precious unicorn full of cake!

So while this post had not much hand work to share… my mind is moving along solving roadblocks to get more handwork to show for next week!

Take care my friends 💖  And if you leave a comment today… please tell me…

What do you enjoy doing to celebrate YOUR birthday ???

I love that I am a Firecracker Baby and born the morning of the 4th of July!!!  My daughter may come for a visit on her birthday end of the month … THAT will be my present this year… along with the 2 new chairs we just bought for me 😀

Come back next week… you won’t be sad to celebrate Birthday Month each Sunday of July!!!!

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Busy week behind and ahead…

I found the below quote on Facebook this week and have enjoyed ruminating over it as I have accomplished different things 🙂

We have butterflies and hummingbirds all over our front yard right now enjoying our different flowering bushes and such!

HQAL is this weekend… this is a time to share what I have been up to specifically hand quilting… I am working on the last part of the middle row of swoon here… I also have a bit in the border to do so next time I share this quilt… I will be on the top portion somewhere of these big swoon blocks (they are 24″ square!!!

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 and Kathi

For Slow Stitching Sunday HERE I am sharing my binding on Jasper’s toddler quilt…

 I just rounded the 3rd corner of the binding 😀

I think he will love this one too!!!  Check out Kathy’s post today as she shows the sweetest pillow she finished so uniquely… it will open in a new tab too I think 🙂

And for Wendy’s Peacock Party HERE I am crowing about a scrub shirt I made for my honey this week!  She has some awesome eye candy too so go visit!!

It was a 90″ length of woven plaid fabric we found on ebay for cheap… I washed and fashioned this shirt below!!!

My honey loves it… if you want info on making  a shirt like this check out THIS blog post of mine.  It is not as good as some of my quilting tutorials but it gives you an idea on how to make one yourself 🙂

When I was a nurse I made most all my scrub shirts … so I am now remembering what I had forgotten from so many years ago (10 years!!!).

Linking this Glorious Finish for a completed WIP with Julie Cefalu’s Crafty Quilter Blog Link Up HERE <<<

I have been planning a future quilt for our guest bedroom…  This will be the center of the quilt

 Here is the pattern… all those 4 blocks… those will each be an orange peel…

 Kind of like this… I found a layer cake of all newsprint backgrounds… I will use 2 of them to make the orange peel foundations like the photo below…

Except our orange peels will coordinate with the room and the center of the quilt too 🙂

My new friend Jannessa came over this week … we pin basted a quilt for her and she picked up her PVC quilt frame my honey made her…

 She also picked up her cell phone cradle my honey designed for us to use…

 Here is how her pvc frame looks… we are trying to source boxes to ship them affordable… right now they are pick up only though….

 My sweet grand daughter Ellie… with her mom Heather… SWEET!!!!

 Molly looking cute for her favorite visitor’s birthday wish to send via text….

 Our neighbor who harvested our strawberries this year found 2 more packs of them… so I have been enjoying a belated sweet strawberry shortcake again 😀 YUMMMY~!!!!

 Here is a cool pattern I watched a Donna Jordan video on this week HERE… It looks like a fun quilt to make and is called Beads!

 I coffee stained some navy and white plaid woven fabric Jannessa gave me… and cut out another shirt for Rick…

 You can see the right side is white while the left side took the coffee staining better… most of it looks like the left.. this was one of the only areas I found a white area remaining…

So then I decided to get fancy on the pocket with my Singer 319w Cleopatra and used a cam with this design on it…

 This is gonna be a fun shirt to make this week 🙂

Well … I am a bit under the weather this weekend… feeling achy and just “not right” … so I am saying chat more next weekend when I will again be blogging… feel free to leave comments or ask questions if I wasn’t clear in any of my explanations…. and remember to live your life carefully… it is the only chance you have to leave a positive mark on the world 😀

Swooning with Progress Here!!!

Happy Sunday my friends !  Here is where I have spending some of my morning…

This little bistro porch set is my fave hangout spot on our newly claimed “Porch Space”… My honey brought out a shepherds hook to hold a fern we bought and we added the daisy our neighbor had gifted us as decor to the table too… Totally delightful!!!

And here is my view from the chairs back to the house…

Do you have a favorite spot around your home?  I would love to hear about it in the comments below or email me directly HERE with a photo of your own!!!

Well… it has been a very busy week around here… not as much quilty progress as I had hoped BUT….

 The above end was done on Connie’s Swoon Quilt… then the below end got finished AND…. drum roll…

 I rolled the quilt!!!  YAY!!! (But not sure why I couldn’t get a clearer shot from my phone camera!!)

Now today I have been barely able to pull myself away from slow stitching to write this post to share with y’all… Swooning for Sure !!!!

 Here is a close up view of the quilty progress since rolling too…

I love this photo!!!! (ambient light only from outside … no interior lights on for this shot) << Thanks Gretchen for the intell on how to take good photos of quilted areas 😀

And lest I forget my thimbles… the green Clover thimble is for my thumb and the brass one is for my middle finger so I can quilt all the ways around on my frame 🙂

I Love It!!!!

Linking this Hand Quilting Progress to :

Kathy’s Quilts … Slow Sunday Stitching HERE <<<
She is sharing her 7 year anniversary blogging with a giveaway to all that link!!!!  She is also sharing a full photo of a quilt she finished that I have the instructions for… just haven’t started yet… oooh I need to start!!!

and

Wendy’s Quilts and More … Peacock Party HERE <<<
She just got back from a trip to Sydney, Australia… details of her fabric acquisition will follow as I have seen it on Instagram already 😀 

I have had MAJOR cravings for fresh strawberries lately & decided to catch a shot of my breakfast the other day… only later did I realize I eat my strawberries and shortcake with Cool Whip in a bowl decorated wish strawberries too … lol!

 And look what we got this week… a sewing machine Made by the Grant Brothers between 1869 and 1875 … and it WORKS!!!!  The craftsmanship of this sewing machine is AMAZING!!!!!

It sews a chain stitch using the thread from the top to wrap around  underneath in the hook area 🙂  The handle that turns the wheel is a 1950ish replacement .. the original would have been wood.  But we are pleased as punch the rest is original including the tension screws on the thread spool that help it work right!!!

 After a busy week we made time Friday to drive to the Verizon phone store and upgrade my phone… this also let us move my old phone over to my honey for him to get a “new ” working phone as his cell didn’t work well at all!  Now he has time to adjust to it but we are an iPhone household here once again now 😀

I got the iPhone 8 Plus… still lots to learn for sure!!! 

The camera has 2 cameras that work together on it … I did a close up of our flowers we planted in the spring… now look at them under our flag!!!!

 And we had terrible storms Friday night … lots of lightening and thunder… aparently a lot in this region suffered as I talked to my bestie and my daughter that are  4 hours or more away and they had issues too!!!

We had a tree down in our driveway… my honey and a neighbor cleared it though… Thank Goodness for handy friends and my handy honey too!  He got the chain saw working when the neighbor couldn’t !!!  YAY!!!

I have only been in the sewing room this week to iron some shirts for my honey … but do have plans to spend some time in there this week… so come on back and see what else is new… next Sunday 😀

Now don’t forget to leave me a comment or send me one… about your fave spot to hang out in your vicinity!  I look forward to hearing from you 😀

Welcoming June 2019 Y’all!

These beautiful flowers were given to us as a parting gift from a visiting neighbor when she left to return to Florida 🙂

We have windows open for the first time since early in May and it is soooo invigorating to feel the fresh air moving through the house AND the birds singing their late spring songs 😀

Another neighbor is brave about snakes that live in this region and braved the garden to harvest our returning strawberries and then was kind enough to share a bit of his bounty… so I have been enjoying early morning strawberries with a bit of whipped cream on them too… no sugar needed they are naturally sweet!

You can see roses from the never ending giving bush of roses outside our bedroom window my honey harvested for me when he trimmed off the dead blooms to get fresh ones a place to sprout out… and I finished and washed and we are actively using the table runner as a table runner and a place mat built for 2!!!  We love it 😀

My favorite Bonnie-ism lately…

Remember this on the tough days friends 😀  Life is short… savor every moment and the best is yet to come >>> STAY EXCITED!!!

I made this collage this Friday 🙂

I have this completed now…

And have just this little bit to go before I am ready to add the label and the binding to this quilt …

YAAAAY!

Linking this most awesome progress to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching HERE <<<  Kathy celebrates 7 years of linky party happiness this month 😀  Congrats to her!

Also linking to Wendy’s Peacock Party HERE <<< She has a chocked full post and a great tutorial shown on the following day's post too… talking about on point layout and design!

I will not show Elliana’s quilt again until it has been gifted for several reasons so just enjoy these photos and be ready for a fun reveal in a couple weeks!

I mentioned labeling her quilt…  HERE are some fun label ideas too! 

I will be using THIS pen…

 And making a label like this…

the pen I am using writes heavier and stays better wash after wash and dry after dry than the pen used in the photo above… I am very pleased with it… you may can find it local but you can also find it via Amazon 🙂

I will border with a bit of ribbon for a bit of whimsy across that diagonal top edge to avoid showing stitches… although with the ladder stitch it doesn’t show but this will be more durable I think too!

Next up I will be making a bag for my daughter…

 And a PAIR of these pillow shams I am designing this week …

once the quilt is in the binding / labeling / completing for gifting process 😀

The pillow shams will coordinate with this quilt I hand quilted for my daughter’s high school graduation a few years ago… but she left high school to experience life.

So I finished Star Light ~ Star Bright quilt before we left Florida.  I washed it and have used it on the guest bed as a “carrot” for her … she would get it when she completed her high school education or got her GED.

Well folks!!!!  SHE GOT HER GED >>>>> FRIDAY!!!!! YAY !!!!

She doesn’t want it mailed… she is coming for a visit soon… so she will get it then… I am giddy for her to receive it and the pillow shams are for all her hard work and perseverance in the “growing up” department… she is really getting the hand of adulting now 😀 lol!

Inspiration for the pillow sham design came for the left antique quilt … and the right similar basket design as well since it has a video to show how to put it together on point… however none are the size I need them to be… so I will use graph paper and Math Skills and make my own design for her and her boyfriend (who loves my handmade things)… we also have pillows for the pillow shams so they will be set!!!

Molly likes to lay on her “house” which is a crate where she stays when we leave and at night when we all sleep… we cover it with that quilt I made many moons ago with learning piecing skills and stitching skills… and as of late she has learned this is a comfy spot to chill and watch me quilt!

 She loves it and doesn’t hurt it so all is good 😀  Isn’t she cute up there watching me quilt !

So for now I will let you go check out the links I left you in this post… but please take a moment to appreciate your life… it is worth your time !