Monday Meanderings 4 - 6 - 2026

It was a quilty week with lots of projects moving forward. And, I had my nose in several books and my ears working too. Translation: 3 books read and 1 audio book finished this week. I'm ready to jump straight into my goals because I had a productive week. 

3/30/26

✅Sew March UFO blocks together - done!

✅Quilt Charm Challenge top — done!

✅Bind two of my quilts — both finished!!

✅Continue working on 1st snowman block — a lot of progress made. I was going to take a picture but forgot. Maybe next week. 

✅Look at April UFO challenge project — pulled out the blocks but no decisions made. 

All those green check marks make me smile. Here are some pictures of those projects. 

First up is the March UFO blocks. These are really old (maybe the early 1990s.) The blocks were paper pieced by people around the US, Canada and a few European nations. We all entered them in a drawing which I won. I don't remember if there were several winners or not.  I wasn't sure how they went together which definitely had me putting them aside for many years. Once I decided I'd finished it this year I chose to make a small star and the large white section.  

The green (and a white) will be a paper pieced border that I'll be doing sometime this year.  I saved three months for this project.  The first one was tearing out the papers and sewing the blocks together. Then making the border with the final time sewing the borders on. You'll be seeing this again as the other months are drawn. I can also guarantee that this will go to the guild's community outreach as a donation. Definitely not my style/colors. 

I quilted the little Charm Challenge quilt I did at the guild sew day in March.  It was fun and pretty easy. I used a "charm" pack that the community outreach team made. I wish I'd taken a picture of the top before it was cut apart and put back together. But no, I didn't think to do it.  All the edges are bias so you really need to treat it carefully.

I used a new quilting design called New Zealand Koru from My Creative Stitches.  The design is simple, but interesting. Here's a close up. 

 I used orange thread which stands out nicely on some of the colors and blends in with other fabrics.  The backing is muslin so the orange shows up nicely on the back. 

The April UFO challenge project is a set of giant flying geese blocks.  They are 16.5" x 8.5" made with batik fabrics.  This was an opportunity block for one of the retreats I go to.  I know I won a bunch of them as did a few others.  If I leave it this way it will measure 32" x 48".  I might have a batik I could use as a border or make a pieced border of batiks.  

Or, I could cut these into half square triangles to make pinwheels.  I had some other  of these large HSTs that I made into pinwheels.  You can see the finished quilt here. What do you think? If I use the big flying geese as is, does anyone have suggestions for an easy pieced border? 

Here's my plan for this week. 

4/6/26

Quilt one of my quilts

Make more Dash blocks 

Sew 16 patches together

Finish 1st snowman block 

Prep 2nd snowman block

Attend all day chorus rehearsal

Plus, my friend Sharon is coming for a fast visit on her way home from visiting her daughter.  So, it's a full week. 

I had another week of stitching every day. Many days were way more than 15 minutes! 

Week ending 4/5/26:  95 days of 2026.

  95 stitching days out of 95 days. 100%

For your laugh today I give you Sunny.  She was trying to get to something on the other side of the fence. She wasn't digging at all. Surprising because she is a terrier. I've seen her trying to get her nose under the fence when a lizard was involved. 

👈🏼 👈🏼

Yea, she doesn't look so bad here.  But check out 

the next picture.  

                              👇🏼👇🏼

She came in clean except her muzzle.  Strange little dog.  But she is a laugh a minute some days. 

Please take some time to check out the following linky parties.  You can see what quilters around the world are working on. (Or should I say playing with!?) 

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

I need to figure out my fabric usage for the first quarter.  I thought I had done one of the months but I can't find the info... maybe it is in my journal I keep of fabric in and out. I don't think I've used more fabric than I've brought in. Anyway, it's not going to be tonight!  Maybe next week or so.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 3 - 30 - 2026

I'm looking forward to more downtime and less working to finish things! Sounds weird, but I've been focused on getting tops quilted this week.  But, I also had a fun time watching the oldest Grand play softball for Einstein HS's varsity team.  The biggest issue with that is the traffic is so horrendous in the DC area that we spent half the day getting there and back.  But what a great game. The girls played really well. Sophie played short stop and made some incredible plays.  They won 18 to nothing.   

Here's what I got done on my goals this week. 

3/23/26

Sew March UFO blocks together — didn’t happen but most blocks had paper removed. 

✅Bind Springtime Irish Chain top — finished. 

✅Continue working on 1st snowman block — a couple of hours of stitching done. 

Quilt Charm Challenge top — not done.

✅✅Quilt and bind one of my quilts — 2 tops quilted but binding will happening soon. 

Here are pictures of the two quilts I quilted this week.  I still need to bind them though.  First is a pinwheel top: 

The quilting design is Constance by My Creative Stitches. It works really well on this quilt. The top was finished Friday. 

Then, Sunday I decided to quilt one more smaller quilt. Except, it wasn't really too small -- it was about the same as the quilt above. They are both lap quilts. 

I have made many Happy Quilts like this one.  I enjoy finding the centers and matching them with the frames. Very easy but enjoyable and easy to make. You can get directions for making Happy Blocks at Mary Johnson's web site, Mary Quilts. She has three different versions of Happy Blocks. Check them out.  

I used another design by My Creative Stitches called Very Groovy.  Both of these designs were quick to do.  I generally prefer quick designs as I'm usually quilting under time constraints. Granted, I'm putting the constraints on myself but it does help get finished quilts.  Both of these will be given away via the local quilt guild. (Unless I decided to keep them for a while!)

And, here's what I'll be working on this week. Many of these are continuations of last week's goals. 

3/39/26

Sew March UFO blocks together

Quilt Charm Challenge top

Bind two of my quilts

Continue working on 1st snowman block

Look at April UFO challenge project

Continue making my Equilters blocks

I'm up for March and April with the FCQ Equilters.  Currently there are 6 of us who used to be members of Faithful Circle Quilters in Maryland. Actually, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if most of us have maintained our memberships. Here are some of the blocks two of the Equilters and I have made.  

Yep, they really look weird, don't they?  But take a minute and go look at a finished quilt on Grace and Peace Quilting.  I need to add some different whites like the link. It'll be fun to see how this develops especially when I get additional blocks made or sent. 

This week should be a bit quieter than last week.  I'm hoping to get a book or two read and all the goals listed.  Plus, it's suppose to be rainy off and on all week but the temps may be in the summer range. Weird weather continues. 

I succeeded in stitching at least 15 minutes every day this week.  The day of the baseball game I made a point of bringing a small needlepoint project and spent about 20 minutes stitching away in the car. 

15 Minutes of Stitching 

Week ending 3/22/26;  88 days of 2026.

88 stitching days out of 88 days. 100%

Time to look at some Linky parties at which I list my blog.

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

We missed our local No Kings day but we did a lot of horn honking as we passed under overpasses where folks were cheering for No Kings as well as one of the streets near the high school.  It's good to see people protesting for our country. Even better was most of them were peaceful.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Design Wall Monday 3 - 23 - 2026

Well, the awful weather we were suppose to have last Monday wasn't awful. It was a dull, rainy day with no tornados in our area. Some areas had a lot of trees down but not in our general area.   However, we weren't sure about how bad it was going to be so we canceled the lunch.  We'll reschedule at some point.  I did get most of my goals list done.  Here's what I was going to do. 

3/16/26

✅Sew Magnificent Mystery rows together — all done!

✔️March UFO blocks/take out papers — all blocks have been trimmed.

✅Quilt Springtime Irish Chain — quilting done! 

✅Make more Dash blocks — 3 more added to collection.

Finish 1st Snowman block — nope, nothing done. 

First up the finished Magnificent Mystery top. I'm very pleased with it.  I'm not happy that the backing I bought on line use is way too wild. You can scroll down last week's post and see the orange fabric. It's beautiful fabric but just too colorful for this quilt. 

Close to the end of the week I was able to load my top Springtime Irish Chain. It is a 3 yard quilt in the book Quick Christmas 3 Yard Quilts called Irish Christmas. 

The backing is from Marshall's Dry Goods.  The floral fabric was from my stash and was probably quite old.  I have 3 choices for binding: the solid pink, the floral print, or the backing fabric pink. (You can see a little of the backing at the top of this photo.  It is a floral with multiple shades of pink.)

Three more Dash blocks were completed today.  Earlier in the week I grabbed a bunch of reds, blues, and lights to make more Dash blocks.  I finally was able to cut 3 blocks and sewed them in the afternoon while I was Face Timing with my friend Sharon. Unfortunately I only took a picture of the top block-- two more are behind it. 

I've got 4 more fabric sets planned but not cut yet, I "think" I need to make 15 more blocks.  So I need to make quite a few more.  I may have planned this bigger than I need so I'll look at the setting and number of blocks needed.  It's going to show up on the goals list for many more weeks. 

I did get all the March challenge blocks trimmed.  I need to clear a spot on the design wall to lay out these blocks. They are paper pieced which means there is a lot of papers to take out! I think I'll take the inside papers out leaving the edge papers on before sewing them into rows.  Let's hope I can get these moving forward. 

I "might" have worked on the snowman this week but I don't remember doing it.  (It's so much fun aging!) I usually would work on it at my Monday stitching group but we didn't meet because the clubhouse was being painted. So maybe some got done but who knows! Perhaps I should take a picture of it at the beginning of each week so I can check what's been added. 

Here's what I'm working on this week. 

3/23/26

Sew March UFO blocks together

Bind Springtime Irish Chain top

Continue working on 1st snowman block

Quilt Charm Challenge top

Quilt and bind one of my quilts  

The end of the month is coming and I'd like to have 2 quilts finished.  The second one may be smaller than the Irish Chain one but at least I'd have another finish. 

One of the things I forgot to put on the goals list last week was the Charm Challenge our guild sponsored at our open sew.  The guild provided charm square packs made from donated fabrics.  I chose a wild one with lots of colors.  I enjoyed the sewing and was happy with the result. The community outreach chair brought me a backing so I can get it quilted before the next meeting.  These were sewn into a straight rectangle then cut along two diagonal lines and sewn back to make this square.  Unfortunately, I didn't know how the charms' placements changed the finish.  I'm looking forward to making another one soon.  Cutting the charms will take the most time! 

I also was able to finish the February UFO challenge top.  I'm very pleased with the results.  It's going into the closet for a while.  I need to use some of my new backing fabrics before I buy more backings. (Although, honestly, I need to check out my stash to see if there is anything that would work for this wall hanging.) Originally I didn't want to use the dark fabric for the border. But, it really looked better than all the other fabrics I auditioned.  

I'm keeping up with my 15 minutes of stitching.  Generally I stitch way over 15 minutes.  

Week ending 3/22/26;  81 days of 2026.

  81 days of 81. 100%

Here are the Linky Parties I participate in.  

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

We had a beautiful warm day today: low humidity and 80º. I was able to enjoy the sunshine looking out of the French doors in the basement up to the back yard. And, it was still beautiful when we took Sunny for a walk this evening. The temps are going to be up and down all week. That's better than really cold as in Jan/Feb and ridiculously hot and humid which is our normal summer. 

Let's keep quilting to keep our spirits up! 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie