Heavy Frost or a Light Snow !!?

Hope you are having a blessed Veteran’s Day… 11/11 is Veteran’s Day but 11/12/18 is the day it is observed and government offices are closed to do this.  Here is a flag that hangs in our home… I want to thank any of you reading that have served our country in the military a huge thanks!!!

We woke up to white roofs and a dusting of what I thought was snow… But my honey thought was a heavy frost as the temperatures were in the low 20’s… 

Either way it was quite exciting to see the shift…

Last weekends post I shared all the color changes we got to enjoy as we trekked around southwestern North Carolina… now this weekend most of our trees are without leaves and Rick spent much of yesterday after the sun was fully up after noon mulching leaves all over!!

Here is a photo before the frost with leaves everywhere!

And here is a photo outside Rick’s mancave building where a temporary style greenhouse was left by the previous owners…

 Rick took the post you see above down after checking with me… it will be repurposed for something else in the future…

But I took this photo and thought you would love to see it as well… showing what leaves are left in full fall colors… 

Now all the leaves you saw in those last 3 photos are mulched… awaiting the coming rain to become fertilizer for our grass for next year 🙂  My honey is sooo knowledgeable about what needs to happen.

Meanwhile I have been sewing…

By hand I have been focusing a bit each day on Stars Among Us…

Until I finished this row I am sharing and moved the quilt in the frame to the next row… worked on the border to the left and actually started on the center quilting too!!!

The smaller photo is a pic of the beginning of the center…

And off to the right is a nicer photo showing the border progress and some stitching on the lines I am marking in pink to see on all the colors of fabric in this quilt….

The pink is a chalk only marker so it will all soak out is my belief and hope 🙂

Here was my progress Friday… about halfway through my marked area…

 Then I diverted with a youtube video and made this paper phone holder… they recommended an old debit card or hotel key card but I had neither so I used 2 business cards from our stash of outdated cards and some card stock for the base triangle…

 I thought it was fairly clever and even made this cute collage showing how it works… then my honey got up and made these!!!

Here is a close up of his ingenuity without a youtube video to assist! lol

 These are much more sturdy and durable to last… so I use them now to cradle my phone long ways to watch youtube and Bluprint… aka Craftsy vids.

With this done I was able to make even faster progress on Stars Among Us this weekend too…

And here is where I am right now… when I finish the marked area I will be about halfway through this row… this is just coming into the 2nd row of stars out of 6 star rows.  By making a goal to do at least 2 threads a day on the center star portion I am making MUCH BETTER progress too !!!  I love to goal set 😀

Do you goal set in your quilty world???

Leave your comment below if you would… I struggle with goal setting since retiring!  Also I am linking this section of my post to my fave Sunday stop of bloggers joining in unison to post HERE!  Come see what everyone posted yesterday… I will be posting there now momentarily 🙂

Earlier in the week we went to some new to us thrift shops…. we enjoy thrifting a LOT … but at these shops we found more household things than sewing related things…

 One thing we got was a couple of these “locker organizers”…. they are skinny heavy duty plastic milk crates actually… so I used one to organize all my computer papers that want to be floppy… works GREAT!  And reorganized that whole section while I was at it….

The second photo is an overview of my computer corner desk all together… bringing in that 1 piece of organization helped me to see my overdue for a cleaning bill paying area on the left… so I cleaned all that up too and cleansed A LOT of no longer needed papers from this area… feels good when you finally get to some overdue cleaning doesn’t it??!!

As a reward for all my work on my desk space organization my honey surprised me with the last of the fresh flowers from our yard…

These are chrysanthemums and some knockout roses… a hard freeze the next day finished them and they were all cut down and mulched.

Since I will be missing these flowers in the yard for several months I have decided after this post my future posts will have this signature at the bottoms …

Once January or February 2019 rolls around I am sure there will be a new photo that inspires me along with a new focus… but this one is still my fave for now … so it stays for a bit longer 😀

Saturday our Molly turned 5 months old and got to celebrate with a grooming that included clipping around her eyes … see here … we can see her good now and she can see us too!!!  Grooming is always followed by a good bath and blow dry too! lol

She is completely an outdoor loving dog including drinking water right from the river that runs down our property …. she loves her puppy treats but she LOVES cheese bits too… we don’t give her that much or often but she gets a bit here and there… and she loves to play fetch as well still… so we are blessed !!!

She went to the vet earlier this week and got a puppy shot and deworming medication that it was time for… she got a great check up and weighed in at 7 pounds and 6 ounces on their official scale.  We got a thumbs up for all we are doing with her too and made appointments to go back in December for a professional grooming and her rabies shot and last puppy shot stuff.

We are definitely happy we met this vet and chose this office for all of Molly’s needs… they are awesome and not overpriced like some are… so that is all GREAT!  The vet had Molly enchanted so much she let them do everything she wouldn’t let us do 😀

Sunday morning I got up early… okay so I get up unreasonably early EVERY day but woke with a purpose…

 To take the picture above on the left of the tan wallet and make my honey a Veteran’s appreciation gift out of some black Cork Fabric I had just received in the mail from an Etsy shop!

I also have been gathering supplies to make me a cell phone wallet with wristlet and had some magnetic closures I could add and some heavy interfacing so they don’t wear out the cork fabric by using them over time 😀

 And here is the collage I made of that finish while I not so patiently waited for him to wake and see my creation!!! lol

 I did use polyester thread which I had to buy because I only have Aurifil cotton thread for quilting and general sewing but bags and wallets specifically I am learning are a bit more sturdy and long lasting with a different thread… esp when working with a product as durable as cork 🙂

Another Etsy purchase I got this week were these zippers from Zipit on Etsy!  GREAT customer service and fast shipping make me want to buy more from them… but first I must use what I have! lol

They included 2 buttons and a zipper tab I did not order as extras too!!!  I was so impressed I not only left positive feedback but took this photo and called the owner to thank her 😀

So have you ever stepped out and thanked someone for doing a great job of their job like that???

Leave me a comment with answers to my questions if you will… I am a curious girl!  In the meantime thank a veteran if you run across one wherever you are in this world we live in… they all deserve our thanks for their sacrifice.  And… 

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Highs and Lows… and Thank a Veteran too!

Did you recall yesterday was this day??

I thanked my veteran and every veteran I came across… and although this may be an American inspired day each country can participate in thanking a Veteran for this freedoms they now have in the place we call home!

I have been busily quiet… I did get tagged in the latest facebook post to share pics each day in black and white… 7 days with a picture each day… check out my facebook feed to find what I have shared so far  HERE 🙂

I also have fallen into watching this…

 Which ended with this quilt …

WoW!!!  Thumbs up on this series!!!

So today and all weekend I have focused on hand quilting and house cleaning… I am linking my hand quilting progress with Slow Stitching Sunday HERE 🙂

Kathy is asking for tips on lighting … I use very cheap light stands (see the black one in my blog header) with expensive bulbs… they are fluorescent bulbs from Lowe’s in “Daylight” and they work great giving me lots of clear white light to quilt by day or night! 😀  Hope this helps you in your ability to attain good lighting!!!

While I watched the Netflix Chik Flick… I also stitched away and reached the halfway point!!!

 The receivers of this quilt read this blog… so I am including this shot for Heather to enjoy a look at row #8 at the midpoint of the quilt for her and James 🙂  ….

I am really enjoying every turn of the frame on this quilt and happy to share such good progress since my last post here on Sunday’s with Kathy.

We have also been very busy… and decided to take a much needed break to see the leaves change in North Carolina!

Here are some snippets of our journey above…. it was not a relaxing vacation like we planned tho! lol

We did have a great friend keep Daisy for this trip and that was a blessing for sure!!!

Next time we get a wild hair to go north it will not include going through Atlanta though!!!

I took multiple pics of the fog coming up in the mornings off the Appalachian Mountains and not 1 of those shots came out well… so this is my fave pic of what did turn out …

Enjoy the colors of the season wherever you are!!!

Back to quilting and laundry for me… hope you find productivity & bright light in your day!

YLI THREAD giveaway & Craigslist finds :)

Happy Belated Veteran’s Day to any of you reading who is a veteran or active service.  I appreciate and understand WHAT you do to protect out freedoms and I APPRECIATE YOU!

This was my fave graphic on facebook this year.  You see my honey is a veteran.. I thanked him of course 🙂

So instead of slowing down and posting this yesterday I pitched in on a GREAT Craigslist find… do you know what Craigslist is… most major cities or towns have one… every area is a bit different.  I can talk more about Craigslist if you are interested… just leave a comment… for now let me show you what we scored on for my honey to use!

All FREE from one stop!

 That is right… these are PAVERS… concrete pavers in 3 sizes… 537 of them!  It took us 2 trips to haul them all in our van but the giver was generous and didn’t mind!  How nice of him… over $600 of perfect condition pavers can now be used to build paths and edge flower beds front and back!  Yipeee!  Perfect for the sandy dirt here and the running St. Augustine grass that has to be weedeated to stay at bay!

Once put together this gorgeous fountain makes the most lovely sound… the top is supposed to be for a flower the giver said… but he said the dirt falls down into the water if you do… not sure what we will do with that top area… but I bet my honey will figure it out 🙂

We have had a really good experience with Craigslist finds but we have learned over the last couple years how to LOOK better before we jump and call or run out on a curb alert across town to waste gas and find the item gone 😦  But those are the exceptions.  We have found free 2 X 4’s … and recently scored here on a great cabinet that is ALL WOOD for the garage!  And it had some local history to it as well so even cooler!

Through all that I have been working on my 2nd table topper… this is my progress thus far 🙂

Just the center piece is done but it is going so much better now that I have an idea of the pattern AND what I am doing! lol  Read about my adventures and the finished product of the first one here!

I did change the thread I used on this one … and I want YOU to have a spool of my fave thread of the too!

You see… I am having to wax the color thread I have that is the right color… I only use ALL cotton thread when sewing… I figured if I love the YLI 40 wt thread… hand stitching with the Coats & Clark machine sewing thread that is 30 wt would be EASY too!  WRONG… the C & C is flimsy and knots… so time to try something I have never done but only heard of and WAX MY THREAD…

Just slide it through the slot into the wax and s-l-o-w-l-y run the piece through then thread and away you go… or so I had heard… guess what!  That is how it does work!  I haven’t had ANY problems since I started the waxing but the thread just isn’t the same… so in straightening I found an extra roll of:

YLI WHITE 40 wt hand quilting thread for you to win!

To win this thread… I will ship to wherever you are… on this cute wooden spool… from RED ROCK THREADS…. you must:

1. Be a follower via email or google or bloglovin to my blog (if you are already a follower leave 2 comments for 2 entries)
2. Leave a comment on this blog post of what you want to see more of in my blog
3. Explain a project you have that this thread might work for you on :)… but this last one isn’t necessary… I am just interested 🙂

That is it!  So get in your entries and look forward to hearing from you…

This giveaway will happen via random number generator if entries are over 20 and random draw out of a hat if less than 20 on Friday, November 22 at 8 am!  I can catch the mail if I can get ahold of you so make sure you leave me a way to contact you if you are anonymous or a no reply blogger… if I can’t reach you I will do a second drawing from the remaining entries and you will have lost out 😦

Hope you play along.. you will LOVE this thread!

Have a blessed week 🙂

Kathi