Monday Meanderings 5 -- 11 -- 2026

Do you ever have weeks where you have a lot of great plans but kind of peter out in the actual doing of said plans? That was me this week. I was more interested in reading then stitching so much time was spent on that pastime.  I succeeded in reading 3 of the 4 books that came in last week.  The other one I have a bit more time but I doubt if I'll finish it before it is due.  I'll probably put it back on hold, but maybe not. Time will tell. 

I did pretty well on my goals last week.  Take a look. 

5/4/26

✅Quilt Cats in Pajamas — done. 

✅Finish Quilting Trip Around the World for Nancy — done and returned. 

✅Work on UFO Challenge for May — progress is being made.

✅Trim Dash blocks — done.

✔️Cut one quilt kit — started. 

My daughter asked me to quilt an Elizabeth Hartman quilt for her.  We had a pretty long time line so I agreed. It was my priority this week. Unfortunately she lives in Maryland so it is a trip to get to her place or vice versa. I think we're going to pick a quilt store between the two of us, meet there, turn over the quilt, and go for lunch. But that's happening next week. In the meantime enjoy Cats in Pajamas. 

Jen loves Elizabeth's patterns and has made many of them.  She also likes bright fabrics.  The kitten on the bottom left -- her grey face is drawings of cats.  Too cute. You can see the quilting design better on the photo below. It is Rhapsody Edge-to-Edge (Paw Prints.) (Another great design from My Creative Stitches.) And, yep it is a wonderfully colorful backing.  I show another picture of it further down. 

 

I didn't take all that many pictures of what I was working on this week.  So let's go straight to goals for this week. 

5/11/26

Quilt customer’s quilt

Add border to rainbow rail top

Work on UFO Challenge for May

Start sewing dash blocks together

2 concerts and 1 rehearsal

I decided to lighten up on what I hope to do this week as several days I am tied up with other things.  

I succeeded with stitching every day this week. Yea! 

Week ending 5/10/26:  130 days of 2026.

  130 stitching days out of 130 days. 100%

A group I knit kids' hats for sent out a call for a lot of them for back to a school event in July. So I've decided I'll focus on that when I'm doing handwork for a few weeks. I'm hoping to keep stitching a little on Mr. Snowman #2. We'll see if I succeed with that one. 

I did actually go backing shopping this week.  We no longer have a quilt store in our town so I hit up Hobby Lobby for it.  Not my favorite source but it was that or Michaels.  Next time I'll probably see what Michaels offers.  I found fabric for both quilts. It's going to be a week or two before I'll be able to quilt either of the quilts though.  Here's what I got. Nothing special. The top is for a baby quilt and the bottom is for a scrap quilt.  I'll have left over fabric from both of them so they may star in their own quilt one day. 

By the way, I negotiated some of Jen's backing fabric to go with a rainbow colored top I've had done for a year or so.  She's quite generous so I carefully cut enough fabric for the borders on the quilt below.  Doesn't it look great? I hope to get it sewn on this week. (Of course it'll sit in the to-be-quilted closet for a while after the border is on.) 

Have some fun this week reading blogs from around the world.  Check out links at these Linky parties. 

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Here's hoping you have a quilty week.  

Happy Quilting! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings -- 5 - 4 -2026

What a great week I've had.  Lots of singing at rehearsals, tech rehearsal, and 2 great concerts.  Our spring concert has been held in a very nice Lutheran church in our county for a couple of years. The pastor is one of our singers and has been so giving with her time, talent and her church. In the past we haven't had huge audiences -- maybe a hundred or so.  We were very pleasantly surprised when we were told to hold off on starting the concert because people were lined up trying to park still! I never heard an official word on the numbers at the afternoon or evening concert but it looked packed. Chairs had been added in the front. Chairs were lined across the back of the room. And the crowds was engaged.  We did a lot of classic American songs as sing alongs. We sang a few standard patriotic songs.  Our three big pieces went really well. Those were America Sings, a medley from Hamilton, and Stomp from an opera by Aaron Copland.  I am tickled to invite you to Facebook to hear our rendition of Hamilton Highlights.  Here's the link to my page with the posting. https://www.facebook.com/bonnie.stapleton.52.

And, now back to my regularly scheduled post. My goals from last week...

4/27/26

✅Finish 3 more dash block, start trimming to correct size — all dash blocks finished, none trimmed. 

✅Quilt a top — just 3 of 9 rows to finish.

✅Make some more batik blocks — 2 more started.

✅Make binding and bind Bear quilt — binding made and quilt bound. 

✅✅✅Enjoy singing two concerts and one tech rehearsal —great rehearsal and two concerts with large audiences. 

Not a lot of pictures taken of items in progress.  But I have pics of the bear quilt. The bear fabric is really old but still works well in a baby quilt. I used red Sew Fine thread and Criss Cross Applesauce. This will be going to a local hospital's NICU. (Or I think that is where it will be going.) 

And here's the back and front.

I was happily surprised I was able to maintain my 15 Minutes of Stitching all week. 

Week ending 5/3/26:  123 days of 2026.

  123 stitching days out of 123 days. 100%

And now my goals for this coming week. 

5/4/26

Finish Quilting Trip Around the World for Nancy

Stitch on Snowman #2

Quilt Cats in Pajamas 

Work on UFO Challenge for May

Trim Dash blocks

Cut one quilt kit

Here's the beginning of Nancy's quilt. I believe the pattern is Scrappy Trips by Bonnie Hunter. I haven't poked around Bonnie's blog for a long time. Wow! She has a lot of great patterns available under Free Patterns, where this one is.  If you want some ideas that's a great resource. I found patterns for quite a few quilts I've made from Bonnie's free patterns over the years. 

The story behind this quilt is I was able to do a fast quilting job for my customer/friend in December. We are in the same quilting guild and she had it ready in December and I said I'd quilt it for her and the guild.  Fast forward to April when I "found" the quilt in a bag that had been covered up with other quilts. And, I'd forgotten all about it. No clue who had made it, when I'd gotten it, why I didn't write up paperwork for it.  I asked around with no one claiming it. So I took it to the April meeting and she came over to talk to me and saw it in a bag and was tickled thinking I'd gotten it done for her. OOOPS. No -- I had no clue who it belonged to! We had a laugh and I will have it done before she brings me another quilt to do this week. It's tough losing your brain. I relate to Scare Crow in the Wizard of Oz! 

Here's my UFO Challenge project for May. This is a quilt-as-you-go bargello table runner.  A friend of mine got totally fed up with it and offered it to me to finish as she didn't want to see it again! I've let it sit for a good 10 years and decided to put it on my UFO list this year. Its number came up for May.  I added two more columns to it today and will try to get it farther along this week.  Not much is happening so I might be able to get it finished except binding soon.  Time will tell. It will be a little smaller than the pattern. 

And last, here's snowman #2.  I haven't fused on all the elements. But I did start getting the jacket hand buttonhole stitched, except you can't really see the thread. I started left of his "neck" and am going down the jacket then across the bottom. Cool thing about the jacket wool is my dad bought it for me in Hong Kong in the 1960s.  He was career Navy and his ships (he was Commodore of a squadron of destroyers at that time) went to Hong Kong. I also got some beautiful pearls at the same time. Hum. Poor Mr. Snowman looks a little blank. Hopefully I'll get more done on him this week. He can't see a thing yet. 

I'm linking up with the following parties.

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

 

As some of you know I am a big reader. Sometimes I get inundated with reserved library books that are available for my Kindle.  That happened this past week. I turned in one or two books that weren't finished so I could read Norah O'Donnell's new book, We the Women. It has been very interesting reading about women who helped shape the United States from revolutionary times to now. The book is divided into sections based on the years. I'm starting The Gilded Age 1876 - 1926. Within each time frame several lives are covered. So far it has been fascinating. It is really an eye opener how women were nearly invisible except as homemakers.  Did you know a married woman couldn't own her own property as it transferred to her husband at marriage.  I'm looking forward to reading about more of these heroic women. 

Our country has been on a real roller coaster recently.  I keep up with the news.  I'm not happy with where we are now. But I also spend time stitching to help me keep myself centered and happy.  I hope you are also.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 4 -- 27 -- 2026

Our lovely, warm spring has turned back to cold weather.  The rain we had last night didn't do much as the whole greater DC area is in a serious drought.  Hopefully we'll get some heavier rain this week. Cold weather makes me want to stay in and stitch. So I've been been doing that quite successfully.  First last week's goals.

4/20/26

✅Make 4 more Dash blocks — 3 finished, 2 more cut out. 

✅Decide whether to trim flying geese blocks or just make one more and do it — new block made, blocks made into top, borders added!

✅Start new project with 10” squares — one block made.

✅Make some more “flutter” blocks — several more made and more cut out. 

✅Quilt one of my tops — Baby quilt quilted. 

I've been busy sewing.  I figured out I needed 5 more Dash blocks.  I cut out all but one, although the fabrics have been picked.  It took me more time to pick fabrics then to make the blocks.  Here are two of the new blocks.  Hopefully I'll get this to top stage in May. 

I've finished the flying geese top this week.  It was the April UFO challenge.  I finally decided to replace one block that was a half inch smaller than all the others.  I figured it would be faster to make a new block rather than trim all of the other blocks.  All the blocks got sewn together and then I checked for an another piece of batik that I could get a border out of it.  I have a nice collection of batiks but I don't tend to buy big pieces. Luckily I had one that enhanced the top.  I put smaller borders on top and bottom. And larger borders on the sides to make it slightly wider.    

The super flying geese finish at 8 x 16".  The colors are much prettier than this photo.  It will be going to the to-be-quilted closet soon. I need to find a backing for this one. On the other hand I'm happy to have found a use for these very old blocks.  

I chose a baby top to quilt this week.  I have quite a few more tops to quilt for the guild and one for my daughter. I figured a fast easy one gave me an easy finish -- sans binding. The quilting design is Criss Cross Applesauce by My Creative Stitches. It gives really good definition. I used a red So Fine on it. 

I haven't really started a new top in quite a while.  So I decided I would use Preeti Harris's pattern, Veronica. It uses a layer cake and I had one I thought might work. Except, it wouldn't -- it had fairly large animals on it.  They would have been cut apart and they wouldn't look good.  So I took a look at my small collection of precuts and found the perfect layer cake.  I've tried one block but I'm not going to show it yet.  But take a look at these beautiful batiks from Riley Blake Designs I am using.  These are going to look wonderful. I don't think I will be using all of them as I don't want a huge quilt. I'll have some squares to play with later. You can check out Pretti's pattern on her blog. I can say it is a really cool pattern. I'm excited to work on it.  

This is concert week which means I've got a major time commitments to singing, not sewing. Nevertheless here is what I hope to work on this week. 

4/27/26

Finish 3 more dash blocks, start trimming to correct size

Quilt a top 

Make some more batik blocks 

Make binding and bind Bear quilt 

Enjoy singing two concerts and one tech rehearsal 

I've been able to stitch every day this week. 

Week ending 4/26/26:  116 days of 2026.

  116 stitching days out of 116 days. 100%

I'm keeping this post short.  Don't forget to check out some of these Linky parties to see what other quilters are working on. 

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings -- 4 - 20 - 2026

Busy week!  My local quilt guild meeting was Wednesday.  There was an interesting presentation about miniature doll houses.  It's amazing how small some of them are.  Scattered through the week were 3 rehearsals -- one being 5 hours or so long. Hubby has been working the early voting site once or twice a week for 6 weeks or so.  Tuesday is his last day during this particular election cycle.  We're both happy that things will be calming down soon!  Who knows, we just might want to go out to dinner this week! 

Here's what I planned to do this past week. 

4/13/26

✅Make more Dash blocks — 3 more done. 

✅Sew 16 patches together — all sewn together.

✅Start stitching Snowman 2 — backing made, several pieces ironed on ready for stitching. 

✔️Work on large flying geese blocks — measured. Must figure out what to do about one smaller block. 

✅Attend all partial day chorus rehearsal — great rehearsal. Less than 2 weeks to concert. 

Not a lot of photographs for you this week. As shown above I did get quite a bit of my goals done -- just not many photographs to share. Sigh! 

These blocks were each made with two fat quarters. If you notice on the picture above there are two of each blocks made (at the same time!) They are 14".  Here is a link to the directions: St. Louis 16 Patch. Someday I'm going to figure out how to make smaller blocks using the same methodology.  (Don't hold your breath that I'll do it soon!.) This top has been moved to the to-be-quilted closet. 

Here's what I'll be working on this week.  

4/29/26

Make 4 more Dash blocks 

Decide whether to trim flying geese blocks or just make one more and do it

Start new project with 10” squares

Make some more “flutter” blocks

Quilt one of my tops

I've continued my 15 Minutes to Stitch this week although some days I didn't spend too many minutes more than the minimum. 

Week ending 4/20/26:  109 days of 2026.

  109 stitching days out of 109 days. 100%

Hopefully next week I'll have more progress to share and photographs too. In the mean time enjoy these blogs. 

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Do you live near Fredericksburg, Va? If so, you are officially invited to "I Hear America Singing" the spring concert presented by Spotsylvanian Chorus.  Here's all the details.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie