Monday Meanderings 1 - 13 - 2025

Surprisingly we still have snow on the ground. It's been pretty cold over the last week.  The greater DC area often has weather ups and downs during the winter.  In fact we've hardly had snow for the last 3 years. I was surprised that temps stayed so cold for nearly a week.  I suspect most of the snow will be gone by next weekend because each day is going to be warmer than freezing.  There is a chance of more snow next Sunday. Hopefully nothing will come of it! 

I was pretty distracted this week so I didn't pay as much attention to my sewing as I usually do. (I also had several books that came in and I wanted to read...) Here's how I did on my goals.

1/5/25

✅Layout the 3.5” rail blocks — most of the rail rows are sewn together 

Load and quilt a top - didn’t happen 

✅Continue cleaning cutting table — minor progress made 

✅Make 2 E quilter blocks for me — done 

Start a new top — looked but nothing concrete happened

For the last several years I've been making rail blocks using 1.5" by 3.5" strips. Evidently, I passed the number I needed years ago. I had put these blocks on my UFO challenge list this year and the number was pulled for January.  I wasn't really excited about it but I did have a folder with some ideas of how to lay them out.  My first layout just didn't look good to me. I went back to the folder and decided to emulate Nann's version.  Here's Nann's post showing her version.  Hum, looking this over I notice that all the color in each of her blocks was the same color. If red, the outside rails appear the same color while the inside rail is a different red.  I didn't focus on the center rail and often used all sorts of different fabrics.  Here's what mine looks like now. 

So all the rows have 12 blocks except the blue that has 13.  I'll be removing a block from each of the blue rows and sewing the purples together this week. I hope to get the background fabric cut and sewn to finish it to a top. 

Here's a strip of fabric I might be using for a small border.  It's a leftover from a backing fabric. I hope I have enough fabric left to put at least a 2.5" border around the top. 

And, I made two additional blocks that I call the FCQ Equilter blocks (for lack of knowing the real name.) Hum, the center pink is the original block I made.  The top and bottom are the new ones.  The bottom one seems a little too dark.  I'm looking forward to receiving more blocks from the Equilters. 

And now my goals for this week . . . 

1/13/25

Finish 3.5 rail blocks to top stage 

Load and quilt a top

Cut out and begin sewing new top

Find something else to work on that strikes my fancy

I was at a loss as to what to put on my new goals list.  I'm not sure what I'll choose to add to my goals. I'll probably continue cleaning up the cutting table. Part of that cleaning up is cutting scraps into various sizes with my Accuquilt dies.  Eventually I'll need to figure out what I should do with these various sizes! 

15 Minutes of Stitching 

W/ending 1/12/25. 12 days of January

• 15 minute days/Jan = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 12/2 days
• Success rate = 100%

I like that 100% success rate.  We'll see how long that lasts. 

I'm linking up with the following parties: 

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday 

Monday Musing

Hopefully this week I'll remember to link up the other two blogs on Monday rather than later in the week! Have fun doing some surfing this week! 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

A Couple More Finishes!

Today I have two more finishes to share. 

First up is a project with blocks made by the FCQ Equilters -- years ago! Yes, I still have several different block sets that should be made into quilt/s. This project used 16 patches made with 2" (unfinished) squares in red, white and blue.  I added 6" x 3" flying geese to make stars.

I used FanFare quilting design by My Creative Stitches.  It looks like I used red So Fine thread. From what I can tell I finished this quilt in March of '24.  I will probably give this to the local guild to donate to a veteran. 

Are you a fan of Cheryl and Meadow Mist blog? I decided to do her mystery quilt in 2022 for the first time. My friend Sharon and I got together with FaceTime once a month to sew the mystery together. I finally quilted it in July of 24.  I think part of the reason I postponed quilting this one is I was undecided on the quilting design. 

I decided to "store" it on the guest bedroom -- there's another quilt under this one. 

Here's a closeup of the quilting pattern. It is Sunshine, by Melonie Caldwell and sold at Urban Elementz.  Can't tell which thread I used but it was definitely a white or cream. 

It's always fun when I can use fabric from my stash. For this quilt I already had this green with bright colored polka dots and possibly the dark green. I did buy the purply-pink and possibly the background fabric. 

I'm linking up with these Linky Parties: 

Wednesday Wait Loss 

Beauties Pageant 

Put Your Foot Down

Finished or Not Friday

Off the Wall Friday

They have lots of wonderful blogs listed for you (and me) to visit.  I've been reading a lot this week and playing computer games rather than spending a lot of time in my studio.  So, it seems like visiting some of these blog posts will be very entertaining this weekend. I hope you do some blog hopping too. 

Every year I drop my finished spools in a basket to see how many I use during the year.  Here's the photo from this year's spool usage. 

I've been keeping track of my spool usage since 2012.  My highest spool usage was 30 and it happened in 2014 and 2017. (My guess is I was embroidering a lot and used a lot of spools of embroidery thread!) I'm happy with the 20 spools for this year. My lowest number was 7 in 2016. I don't know what happened that year. Maybe I started buying cones for my domestic machine along with the long arm. 

That's it for me tonight. We've got more snow coming in over night but hopefully it won't be more than 2" or so.  The temperatures have been staying near or below  freezing since the snowstorm on Monday.  Hopefully we'll see some temps above freezing so the snow will begin to melt.  I'll be spending the weekend in the studio in hopes of making all my goals this week.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie

Monday Meanderings 1 -6 - 2025

 Welcome 2025 -- Let's Get Quilting! 

I've had a quiet week since the new year came in until tonight. Now snow is on the way.  Lots of snow is coming in the next 24 hours -- 10 to 12".  This is coming to an area that hasn't seen all that much snow over the last few years.  We've charged all of our devices, checked the food supplies, and made sure there is a lot of tp and tissues. We're ready. So now back to my normal blog writing.  

First up my goals for the past week.  I did pretty well but I didn't take many pictures. Sigh. 

12/30/24

✅Finish binding pinwheel quilt — finished.

✅Put borders on fall quilt — done.

✅Enjoy the Rose Bowl Parade - done although I wasn't as happy with the tv coverage. 

✅Work on UFO Challenge project -- plan figured out and ready to try with blocks. 

✅Spend 15 minutes a day cleaning up especially the front of my cutting table -- succeeded 5 out of 7 days, I can see a good portion of the front section. 

The only quilting picture I have to share is the finished fall applique top.  It's ready to be quilted. I plan to do it on my domestic machine as I don't want to use an all over design plus it will be easier to go around  the 3-D sunflower on the domestic.

Here's what I hope to do this week. 

1/6/25

Layout the 3.5” rail blocks

Load and quilt a top

Continue cleaning cutting table

Make 2 E quilter blocks for me

Start a new top

What I did do this week is figure out my fabric use statistics.  I had to figure Oct, Nov, and Dec ins and out.  So here are the results from the last 3 months of the year.  

2025	Yards in Month	Yards In Year	Yards Out Month	Yards Out Year	Total Yards In or Out Year
October	8.25	93.75	3.00	129.50	35.65
November	24.50	118.25	17.25	146.65	28.40
December	0.50	118.75	21.00	167.65	48.90

This was an amazing year!  I have been purchasing a lot of backing fabrics. And using them nearly as fast as I bought them.  I think I have 3 more to use. I have lots of finished quilts piled around my sewing space. I'm looking forward to going to the next guild meeting to unload some of my finishes and getting them into the hands of folks who can use them. 

Here's my end of 2024 15 Minutes to Stitch and the start for 2025. Yes, I'll continue to stitch for 15 minutes each day this year. I have determined stitching to mean I'm in the studio working -- it might be cutting out fabric, sewing it, planning and designing quilts, and any handwork I do including sewing, embroidery, or knitting.  This result looks fabulous! Here's hoping for a lot of 100% weeks in my future.

W/ending 1/5/25 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Dec =2/2 days 
• 15 minute days/Jan = 5/5 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 5/5 days
• Success rate = 100%

Please visit these Linky Parties.  It's fun to see what people are working on across the Internet!  OOPS! I totally forgot to link up with my bottom two parties.

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday 

Monday Musing

I end this post with a new picture of Sunny. She got the orange ball for Christmas -- it's a perfect size for her.  She's getting better but she still has minor itching which means she still has a few spots of bare skin. A lot is growing in. We've added wiping her face and feet with water-downed apple cider vinegar after she has been walking on grass in the neighborhood.  It seems to help. But she still has a regime of pills to take and baths. We're looking forward to the day we can bathe her less than 3 times a week.  

Just added! We had a lot of snow for our area on Monday. Biggest storm in over 3 years.  More coming Friday night to Sat morning. High temps staying below freezing.  It's going to be a while before we are snow free again. Usually we have a big melting between storms but not this year apparently!  The worst part is the snow is Sunny-chest-deep. We put her in fresh snow and she goes up to her chest -- I think it is holding her up.  We've finally figured out where and how to get her to do her business outside. She definitely does not like it. The orange ball also met its demise -- she chewed a hole in it.  Sigh. Back to the bigger balls. And back to sewing. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Finishes From Spring! Oh My

After finishing my last quilt of 2024 this morning I decided it was time to figure out how many quilts I made this year and whether I actually posted any pictures of them. EEK! I haven't posted all that many pictures of finished quilts.  So today I'm posting 3 of them in the attempt to get pictures of all my finishes posted in the next few weeks.  

First up is Sea Creatures. The name comes from the Hoffman fabric -- it has sea creatures on it. (Original aren't I?) Thanks to my friend Gail for gifting me the fabric.  It is hard to see the the animals.  (Notice the azaleas blooming away -- I took the picture a while ago!) 

I really like 3 yard quilts. This pattern is from Fabric Cafe's book Quick As A Wink 3-Yard Quilts. The quilting design is Fast and Easy Swirls from My Creative Stitches. 

Next is Knuffle Bunny.  The main fabric is based on the illustrations of Mo Willems, who wrote and illustrated the book, Knuffle Bunny.  It's a great picture book for toddlers and primary graders. 

I used a Villa Rose Design card called Baby Goose. It's a bit smaller than the directions called for but it used all the fabric I had.  It is a great design to highlight the Knuffle Bunny fabric. I used Sugar and Spice quilting design - another My Creative Stitches design.

Last up is a quilt I call Blue Flowers. Except it dawned on me when I look at the fabric the flowers are yellow on blue fabric.  Oh well. I'm not very creative naming my quilts!

This quilt is Stepping Up Quilt also by Fabric Cafe. You can download this pattern on your computer.  If you visit Fabric Cafe online be sure to check out their free patterns. Right now there are several patterns available. Generally the patterns are pretty fast to make too. I've been using them to make kits. Then I can grab and sew when I take my Featherweight on the road -- sew ins and retreats. 

This quilting pattern is called Rhapsody-leaf. It is also by My Creative Stitches. 

I have more than 15 finished quilts that I've forgotten to post pictures of this year. So I'll be trying to post them over the next week or two.  My next posting should be on Friday.  

I'm linking up with Wednesday Wait Loss and Put Your Foot Down when they become available. Stop by these blogs to see what people are doing this week. ** Alycia suggested linking up at Quilty Girl. So I did! Enjoy the parties. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings - 12 - 30 - 2024

Welcome to the last few days of 2024.  I'm a big user of my library's ebooks. Since I check out books frequently,  I'm already getting used to the year as 2025. And in just a day or two it will be 2025.  Will you be staying up to welcome it in on Tuesday night?  I doubt if I will. I might if I find something interesting to watch on tv that will motivate me to stay up.  

I promised I'd share the ornaments I made for my grands once Christmas was over. Here's one picture of them.  Yes, I really staged them. 

Everyone thought they were very cute.  I was happy to have them done. I'm starting to think (only think) about what I want to do for them next year. Maybe some machine embroidery instead of all the hand work.  

Here's what I did toward finishing my goals this past week. 

12/23/24

✅Bind bow tie quilt — done!

✅Enjoy the family together on Christmas — we had a great time. 

Put borders on fall quilt — not even started.

Pick fabric for New Years Day Mystery — I decided to save directions then decide if I want to make it later. 

✅Quilt and bind pinwheel windmill quilt — Quilted and first side of binding sewn down. 

✅Pick 12 projects for the UFO challenge — 9 piecing projects and 3 quilting projects are on my list. 

Not a bad week considering Christmas was in the middle of it. Luckily I only had to do a little food prep.  And, I made a point of hitting my studio on Wednesday morning before we went to our son's house.  

Here's the windmill quilt while it was being quilted.  

Generally, I'm not a fan of variegated threads but this one worked so well on this quilt that I used it.  It is a YLI 100% cotton thread called Havana Market, 40 weight. It did lint a lot but I really like the colors on this one.  You can see the whole top here.  Below is the backing I used.  I tend to use excess backing for my binding which worked well on this quilt.  I used Fern Gully quilting design to give a lot of texture.  (The first side of the binding is sewn on the back. Sometime this week I'll flip it to the front and machine stitch it down. 

Here's what I'll be doing this week.

12/30/24

Finish bind pinwheel quilt

Put borders on fall quilt 

Enjoy the Rose Bowl Parade 

Work on UFO Challenge project

Spend 15 minutes a day cleaning up especially the front of my cutting table

I've been making a point of using up small dribs and drabs of thread on spools. One of these was used up; the pink is still available. I'd sure like to get it and one other used before the new year. 

Sometime after the new year I'll make a report on my thread spool usage this year. 

I had another 7 days of success making sure I'm stitching for 15 minutes every day. 

W/ending 12/29 — 364 days in to 2024. 

• 15 minute days/week Dec = 7/7
• 15 minute days/2024 = 353/364 days
• Success rate = 96.97%

I'll be doing this again in 2025.  I like the idea of having a bit of stitching going on every day.  If you are interested in joining this program go visit Kate at Life in Pieces. I think the main part of joining is to report your numbers every week. Pretty easy.  I need to ask Pat to make me another spread sheet to mark off my stitching days. 

I'm linking with the following parties: Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musing.  

Here's another closed up pic of the little penguin ornaments. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

January 2025 Mysteries and Sew Alongs

Here’s something a little different from the normal quilt along.  If you are familiar with Round Robins check out the Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR) that will be starting on January 13. Do you  want to know more about it? Go to Quilting Gail’s blog post to find out all the details.  https://quiltinggail.com/2024/12/22/announcing-the-2025-sahrr/. 

The Ft Wayne chapter of the American Sewing Guild is sponsoring a mystery quilt starting in February, 2025.  The quilt is big — 100.5 x 100.5” but a smaller wall hanging that is 40 x 40” is also available.  From what I can tell the directions will be loaded each month onto their web site. Here’s the url that will take you directly to a You Tube video showing the leader’s fabric choices and where to down load the fabric requirements. https://www.asgfortwayne.org/events/mystery-quilt/. Previous year’s mysteries with directions are also available on the same page. 

Sarah’s Softies is hosting a quilt along on her Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/groups/sarahs.softies.quiltalongs.  It will start in January. The quilt is Sarah’s Succulents made the traditional way rather than paper piecing.  Fabric requirements are available now. You can sign up for Sarah’s newsletter to receive emails of the patterns and an additional free pattern. https://subscribepage.io/Sarahs?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2NBBOizxQLz6fzzyeFZxhoFO91WFhgo7QgyG6eX-A408XPyiKaG5I_dvo_aem_J29n0gTVufxVHj3JR9GIEg

2025 Minnesota Quilters Online Mystery begins January 1, 2025 and runs until October 1, 2025. Nonmembers are charged a fee of $47. There is also a Facebook group for paid members. You can choose between a queen at 96” square or a throw at 64” square. It’s not too late to sign up and get going although clues are emailed on the first day of the month at  11:59 am. I’m guessing it’s central time. $

https://web.cvent.com/event/705efe43-0044-416e-89a8-76de0015f88a/summary

Join Canadian Quilters quilt along, True Colors 2025. It begins in mid January. Look for it at https://canadianquilter.com/truecoloursqal/ 

Effervescence Quilt Along started at the beginning of December and will run through July 2025. Fabric requirements were released in early December but cutting doesn’t start until January.  This is based on Yvonne’s Improvisational quilt, Effervescence,  but she says the new pattern is made with conventional piecing.  Here’s the beginning post https://quiltingjetgirl.com/2024/11/15/announcing-the-effervescence-quilt-along-signups-open/. You must purchase the pattern, which will be sent in sections by email as the quilt along proceeds. $