Hibiscus and Roses that Bloomed last Week

I love this bright yellow Hibiscus, I brought it from Lowe's late summer last year. I took in in when we had freezing weather. It bloomed for the first time this year!

This Red Rose is suppose to be a almost Black Rose , at least that is what the name of it was when I planted it ,so not sure if it should be called something else , It too bloomed last week.

The whole bush is very tall , I need to trim it soon.

This yellow Rose bush also came from Lowe's I forget the name of it , but this is the first time I have ever had a full bloom and a bud together like this , So all of these flower's bloomed at the same time . I just hope we do not get another freeze, but I can stand the cooler weather better than the heat over 79 degree's .
I also have a deep peach Rose bush and hope it blooms soon.

Free Motion Quilting for a Friend

 While chatting with a friend on Facebook we got to talking about this quilt that she has had so much trouble with and was asking for my advice ,I told her I wished i could help her but she lives in SC. & I  live in Florida , (she used to live in Winter Haven too) well it came about that she would send it to me to look at and at the same time she asked me to quilt it and I agreed. So she sent it to me with the backing that she wanted to use.
I had taken it with me to Mom's ,we both agreed that it really should be 2 quilts ( back was same fabric as front with one strip of black  braids in the middle. I forgot to mention the pattern is a braid pattern.Anyway we did find where it needed to be corrected on a couple of corners and we said we could use the backing but that it would be smaller than it should be.

Well when I went to lay it out I found out the backing was and inch too small all around , I was going to make the top part smaller by taking up the seams but I would have had to rip out the top and bottom boarder, Donna would not hear of it , she did not want me to go through all that, so she went to her quilt shop to get more fabric for the back and I should say she brought enough for 3 quilts .

The black above is the backing.Noticed that I did hearts and swirls on the boarder part .I strippled the gold. 

Then while working on the gold I noticed the black was puckering and in trying to make sure the back stayed flat I failed to make sure about the top so Only quilted  the points on the braid.If I ever do one like this again I will be sure to baste it first.
She got the quilt today and is very happy with what I fixed for her that she could not do.
next week I will quilt the other one that was suppose to be the backing.
 On that one I will do the straight line quilting to look like criss cross work and then she asked me to do more hearts and swirls.

Look Whats New!!!

My Husband had been looking on-line for a nice van for several months now , Well he found this one at the same place where I brought the old blue Dodge that I have had for 11 years , the old van was a very good old Faithful van that got us to so many places, including to north Florida to Mom's, back and forth to Tampa many times to the Va. for my husband !!
 However the blue one had an awfull lot of miles on it and the little things like the windows not working and etc. ,so after saving money for several months we finally decided to go look at another one, we wanted something that was not too old , .this one is a 2013 Dodge Grand Caravan.
It will take some getting used to as there are so many different gadgets and etc.that I am not used to and etc.It does however drive very good .
So now maybe I can go to north Florida more often to spend some extra time with Mom to sew and quilt ..
 I am also hoping to do a little bit of extra traveling, but need to save money for that too.

Great-Grand daughters 1st Birthday

 Our youngest great grand daughter Elainas 1st bithday Party was great ! I made her the tuttu Skirt ,her Mom painted the t-shirt

 Elaina and her Aunt Chy with the pig tail  hat a friend and I made

After she got used to the hat, her Mom put the Minnie Mouse ears back on

             Cake made by her Grandma DeeDee and Aunt Chy

Using Up 1" Scrapy Patched Blocks & Pot Holders

  7' X 7" with handles out of 1" squares also w/ flower, maybe something else.I can't decide.

                       5 1/2" X 6 with solid print handles

   With a Flower , not keeping this one on here too big for age group

1" Scrapy blocks Mom had sewn up for me to make the small hand bags.

We saw some made up at a Craft fair and knew we could make them for our grand children. 

Some pot Holders or rather hot pads each square is 4" sq. so the whole pad is 8" X 8" .
I made up several for Christmas just need to finish these extra pads to use later. Making more regular size pot holder soon .

January-Chilly-Flowers from Christmas

 This scarf was made by my Friend Robin Franklin from church , I love how it drapes and it feels so good , if was a gift from her.

 This neck scarf was made by another church friend Tina Seymore , she wore it to church last year ,I made a comment about how pretty it was with all those colors and the pattern, She took it off and gave it to me , I tried to tell her no but she would not let me give it back to her ,I wore it this morning to church because it was chilly .we had frost on the grown this moning but it was only 39 degrees.

This red Armyllis was one of  two I brought before Christmas , I gave one to my younger daughter for Christmas and kept the other. the blooms were huge !

This is the purple Orchid my daughter gave to me ,it finally bloomed last week ,I  am keeping both of them in the house to stay warm. Since there was frost on the ground it did not seem to hit any flowers as they were not frosted, the ones under the trees and close to the house seem fine ,whew!!  However 39 is not freezing to them yet.If it was to get to 32 then I cover them.

Sarah and her new Machine ~Learning to Sew!

                                                                                                      

 I Had brought her a play sewing machine for Christmas that  she had shown it to me on a TV commerical,
This is her OH  WOW!! look

 'However the toy machine was not any good ,the seams were chain stitched and pulled apart when you open the seam .took it back and brought her a real machine ....which I did not intend to buy at the time but they only had 4 left ,it is a Vivo Create and Repair by Singer for only 59.00 so I got it and she loves it , she is a very fast learner and did pretty good.

I drew a quarter inch seam with pencil for the baby doll quilt she followed it very good .

That Look telling me I am making her nervous!! LOL

 Baby Doll quilt all put together with my help of course.

A night gown she made she did the seams and hemmed the bottom and the sleeves I finished the neck and the lace , she tried to sew the lace but it kept going off on her even though we pinned it . 

I had told her that if she stays with the sewing ,that maybe she could make her first quilt by herself to enter it in the Quilt Show in Oct.

 She has watched me many times on how to do this .

 I finished the quilt with backing and binding .later I will teach her to do the yarn ties .

This is the toy machine that is no good , it was of course made in China ,we took that and her sisters knitting machine back as it did not work either, both were $20.. a piece!