Monday Meandering & July OMG 7 - 1 - 2019

Hello July and good bye half of 2019. I've had several days in my studio where I've mostly worked on finishing quilts and making an assortment of blocks.  

I got a group of 6 blocks from one of the guild members. Her mother, Donna, had a lot of UFOs left when she died so I agreed to take some to finish.  I figure I can add a few blocks and donate a quilt to one of our guild's charities.  I like working on unfinished projects left by quilters.  It feels good to finish blocks or quilts and donate them to someone who will love them.  Here are Donna's blocks along with what I thought I would like with them.  Meh -- not so much.  I've got some Ohio star variations in works that I like better.  Now I need to use these pink squares. (Don't worry, I have a plan...) 

Here's my July One Monthly Goal. 

I will border, quilt and bind the batik strips top.

The strips came from a retreat swap -- oh, maybe 5 years ago.  I had started working on them but wasn't thrilled with the look.  Fast forward a year or two and a Faithful Circle Quilt show.  Someone had made their batik strips from the swap into a quilt that looks a lot like this one.   I redid my blocks based on the other quilt. I got bored with it before I finished it and it sat for another year or two.  When I took it out to take the picture I fell in love with it again. The colors are so wonderful.  And, I have border fabric (black) all cut out.  Just needs to be sewn into strips and cut to fit.  What was I thinking to put this beauty away? It.Will.Get.Done!

Here's Nat's swimsuit cover up I embroidered a week or two ago. (Or longer? Who remembers the details!)  Each grand got to pick out a beach scene for either a coverup or a sweatshirt.  Natalie wanted this shark.  She always surprises me with her picks.  But I found the best shark fabric. (You can't tell but the shark fabric is a blue and aqua batik.) He was fun and easy to do.  I've got one more sweatshirt to show sometime in the future. 

I was very successful on my goals this week.  Every project was either finished or moved forward.  You can't complain about that! 

June 24, 2019

Hand quilt on old Christmas quilt√

Bind butterfly quilt√

Finish binding parrot quilt√

Work on Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks√

Make a few blocks for Taps quilt√

Make two more blocks for QOV√ Ok, I only got 1 done. 

And here are my  goals for this first week of July. 

July 1, 2019

Hand quilt on old Christmas quilt

Make last two Ohio star variation blocks and sew top together 

Continue working on patriotic Four Patch variation (Taps quilt)

Finish rest of blue Rainbow Scrap blocks and start the new color blocks 

Start doll sweater(s) 

Possibly start sewing moose blocks 

Having goals keeps me focused and moving forward.  Otherwise I am a racoon quilter... ooh lets start a new quilt, ah I like this fabric what can I make with it.  Are you a racoon quilter?  Easily distracted by pretty fabrics or cool patterns?  

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Moving it Forward and What I Made Monday.  I'll have to link up the rest of the parties when they are posted.  I'll be spending some quality time reading some blogs tomorrow.  I hope you will too.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

June OMG and Stashbusting

Did you notice I'm not posting on the last day of the month?  That is usually what happens for OMG.  But yesterday I finished the last of two quilts that were part of my One Monthly Goal. My goal part 1 was: 

I will finish, quilt, and bind the butterflies top.

And here it is finished.  Many thanks to Beth for giving me the wonderful swirly blue fabric I used for the border and binding. I ended up using a different backing fabric as I didn't have enough of what I originally planned to use. 

And the back.

I used So Fine (a navy blue thread) and an edge to edge pattern called Hawthorn from My Creative Designs.  No doubt you can see my issue with the design -- both the front and the back of the quilt was too busy so the beautiful quilting did not show up much.  This design had a lot of stitches to it and it took nearly 30 minutes to quilt each row. This quilt is only about 36" wide.  Probably not the best design choice on my part.  

My next goal was 

I'm also going to quilt and bind the parrot quilt.

I purchased 1.5 yards of backing for this quilt.  I'm not sure what I was thinking because it used just about every inch of that 54".  I should have bought 1.75 yards.  I had to sew a strip of fabric on the top just so I'd have enough room to attach the quilt to my leaders. This pattern is Ginger Snap by Apricot Moon.  It is one of my very favorite designs and I've used it over and over again.  I used an orange So Fine thread.  

And the back...

These pictures were taken of the quilts hanging over the railing of our walk out basement.  I always use a towel to clean the railings off and to protect the quilt from the railing.  The purple is one of our towels.    

Before June is history I did want to share my stashbusting statistics for May with you. 

2019	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
May	10.00	31.080	8.00	36.375	5.295

This is the second month in a row where I've brought in 10 yards of fabric.  Not a great way to use more fabric than I buy.  Hopefully June will see more fabric used than acquired.  Heck, I finished 3 or 4 quilts this month.  

I was very pleased with my strategy for retreat sewing. I brought 5 projects to retreat in March.  Most were simple quilts (both of these were worked on there.) 3 projects were either finished quilts or centers that only needed borders at the end of the retreat.  This month I focused on getting those three tops totally finished.  One project I've been working on for a while but only when I sew away from home.  And, one I didn't even look at.  

That is all said to say I've finally gotten a great retreat plan going for me.  Pick fairly easy quilts.  Precut all the blocks.  Sew like a fiend.  And, then finish up at home so the quilts do not go on the UFO list.  It's time to start planning and cutting the quilts for the October retreat.  It's about 90 days away. 

I'm linking up at Elm Street Quilts June OMG Finish linky party,  Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday, and Can I Get a Whoop! Whoop.  You know the drill.  Spend some time checking out what folks are working on across the Internet.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 6 - 24 - 2019

Yea for a successful week!  We were out and about this week with a couple of meals out and going to see Men in Black 3. (I'm not sure that's the official title but basically the movie was the third of the Men in Black.)  And it did not disappoint. I get such a kick out of all the aliens that someone thinks up and the weird things they do.  We both enjoyed it a lot.  I think it is the first movie we've seen since The Post in 2017.  Nope, we don't go to a lot of movies nor do we watch them at home.   

Instead of doing movies I quilt and read.  Here's what I've been working on this week. First up is the parrot quilt on Ruthie. I've already applied one side of the binding.  Later this week I'll get the final side down.  I'll share more when I get a picture of the full quilt. 

I rescued a piece of vintage cotton showing a cowboy in action.  As I made this pillowcase I was wondering whether kids today have much of a clue about cowboys.  Well, there's always Woody in Toy Story!  I can never figure out which way to run a directional fabric on a pillowcase.  I thought I had the cowboy going the opposite way.  Sigh. 

On to a successful goal week.  Yep, I got all my goals checked off this week.  In fact I'm just about done with my One Monthly Goal.  I need to figure out what is going to be my July goal.   Must look at my collection of UFOs and current projects to make a decision. 

June 17, 2019

Hand quilt on old Christmas quilt√

Quilt Butterfly quilt√

Work on Rainbow Scrap Challenge√

Prep backing of Parrot Quilt√ and quilted it! 

Make 1 pillowcase√

And this week I'll be working on: 

June 24, 2019

Hand quilt on old Christmas quilt

Bind butterfly quilt

Finish binding parrot quilt

Work on Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Make a few blocks for Taps quilt

Make two more blocks for QOV

I'm linking up to my regular linky parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Moving It Forward, and Main Crush Monday. (MCM hasn't posted yet so I'll check back later and see if it's been published. )

That's it for me today.  Hope you have a beautiful summer day! And if not, there's always quilting.  Here's a pretty butterfly visiting our butterfly bush.  I read recently that the butterfly bush is an invasive species in Virginia.  I can really believe it because one our bushes has been growing like crazy and branches that hit the ground started rooting.  We may be removing that one. Here's what I found on the other bush.  Isn't this a pretty butterfly.  I like the blue on it.  It took me quite a bit of time to actually catch a picture of the whole butterfly in a position you can actually see her. This is actually a female Tiger Swallowtail butterfly, the state butterfly of Virginia.  The males are yellow with distinct tiger stripes.  It's time to get back to quilting (or probably reading blogs this morning!) 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie

Monday Meanderings 6 - 17 - 2019

As usual I'm not exactly sure where this past week went to -- appointments, picking up a grand dog, and finishing some embroidered clothing for the grand kids.  (Later I'll show Sophie's sweatshirt that turned out so cute.)  When we picked up the grand dog, I gave Theo his sweatshirt (turtle embroidery from last week.)  Ellie got a beach cover-up that had a cute "Beach Princess" statement on it. They were happy to get them and immediately put them on.  

I think I spent more time reading on my new Kindle than I spent quilting.  I had an original Kindle.  But it eventually died a slow death.  Generally, I have been reading on either my cell phone or my iPad.  But I was running through my battery, especially on the cell phone.  So Pat suggested I pick out a new Kindle.  Good idea.  I've been using it mostly for the last week. 

Here's the grand dog, Cassie, and Kona squished into the back of our Prius.  They've been friends for a long time so they seem to enjoy getting together. (Thank goodness since we take Kona a lot when we are invited to visit and Cass comes to spend some weekends with us.) Cass is a yellow lab and Kona is a black dog.... with a lot of variety to her! We were getting soft serve ice cream cones.  They each got a little bit of my cone and ice cream.  

It was a beautiful morning although the humidity has come back.  I took several quilts outside this morning to get some pictures.  This is the quilt I call the old Christmas quilt every week when I list my goals.  I have  a little over half of the border still to do.  It's bad enough to have decided to hand quilt this thing but when the inside was done I decided to quilt the borders with a stencil that has eight (8) rows of quilting on it!  Heaven only knows what I was thinking.  Well, probably that was the only stencil I had that would fill the border.  So, until I'm done it's going on the list every week.  (Or I get sick of it and give up for a while!) (You should be able to click on my photos and they should enlarge a bit.) Someday this top will be done.  Just don't hold your breath. 

Despite not spending all that much time quilting I did move all my goals forward this week. 

June 10, 2019

Hand quilt on old Christmas quilt√

Trim and Bind Ladybug quilt√

Finish borders on Butterfly quilt√

Make more BOM blocks for Country Piecemakers√ 1 more done 

And here's what's on tap this week.  

June 17, 2019

Hand quilt on old Christmas quilt

Quilt Butterfly quilt

Work on Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks 

Prep backing of Parrot Quilt

Make 1 pillowcase

Hum, nothing there about mailing off my last two quilts for Hands 2 Help.  They are going to Jack's Basket.  I'll be doing that sometime this week.  

I'm linking up with my favorite linky parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday and Moving It Forward.  As usual, I'll link up whatever links are not live when I first publish this. (And, if I remember to link up....) You know the drill:  take some time to surf these sites.  There are all sorts of inspiring photos -- don't you need another project??? LOL! 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 6 - 10 - 2019

Is it really Monday again?  And already the 10th of the month?  EEK - June is 1/3rd over and I have hardly done anything, or so it seems. 

Well, that's not exactly true.  Here are a couple of things I've been working on. (And, surprisingly enough they were on my goal list last week!) First up the sweatshirt I embroidered for Theo.  At Easter I asked the grands to pick a design from various beach embroidery designs for me to put on clothes for them.  Theo picked a cute turtle from Designs by JuJu. (It is the bottom left turtle with a heart on his shell on the link.)   I have no idea why he picked it but he did.  So, here's the sweatshirt with his design.  It is an appliqué design so I had to pick fabric to go under the stitching.  I left off one of the fabric pieces -- it wasn't very big and seemed silly to have too much on the turtle. 

It stitched out nicely.  He and Sophie wanted sweatshirts and the other two are getting beach cover ups.  I thought the mottled green would actually look mottled but the piece is not all that big -- maybe 4 x 4" or so.  It was fast and easy to do.  I've finished the stitching on Ellie's cover up but need to do some trimming.  Pictures will follow.  Sophie originally wanted the same turtle but when I mentioned I didn't think she'd be at the beach at the same time Theo would be she picked another design.  I have a bit more time to do Nat's and Sophie's because they are off on vacation soon. (And, no beaches...!) 

I also was able to get the Ladybug and Stars quilt on Ruthie and done.  It didn't take all that long.  Yea.  Next up is trimming and binding.  

The design, by Apricot Moon, is called Saffron Blossom. Thread is So Fine.  Here's what it looks like: 

If truth be known I'm not as excited with the finished quilting -- I can't quite figure out why I'm not thrilled with Saffron Blossom on this quilt but . . . maybe it is too busy. I'll try to remember to post pictures when I finish the binding.  This quilt will be going to a nursing home.  Although it may take a while since I won't be going down to Powhatan for several months. 

I did quite well on my goals since I thought I'd gotten almost nothing done on them.  Surprise!  I did make progress on all of them. 

June 3, 2019 

Hand quilt on old Christmas quilt√

Quilt Ladybug quilt√

Embroider another beach cover up and a sweat shirt √ need to do another section of the cover up

Make several individual blocks√ 

Attend Country Piecemakers meeting√

And here's what I will be working on this week.

June 10, 2019

Hand quilt on old Christmas quilt

Trim and Bind Ladybug quilt

Finish borders on Butterfly quilt 

Make more BOM blocks for Country Piecemakers

It dawned on me recently that I haven't shared anything about the old Christmas quilt. Short story is I attended a mystery quilt weekend in Lancaster County, PA in about 1997or 98.  I got a lot done during the weekend but I didn't finish it then.  Eventually, I got the top finished and decided to hand quilt it.  (WHAT was I thinking -- except I didn't have Ruthie at the time.  So hand quilting it was.) Fast forward through the years with very little quilting getting done and one other quilt being hand quilted. (I was going to link to a picture of the other hand quilted quilt but I never posted a pic of it. Makes me wonder how many other finishes didn't have pictures posted!)  So I'll try to take a picture of this Christmas quilt so you can at least visualize what I'm working on!  

I'm linking up with my favorite Monday linky parties: Oh Scrap!, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, and Moving It Forward.  Take some time to blog surf.  It's fun! 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

May OMG

It's time to set my May goal but I've been having a hard time deciding what I want to work on.  I've finally decided that I need to finish two of the quilts I started at retreat.  

May Goal

I will finish, quilt, and bind the butterflies top. I will be sewing the blue swirl border on.  The lighter blue on the left will be the backing.  This will be going to a senior at a nursing home. 

And, because the butterfly quilt shouldn't take all that long I'm also going to quilt and bind the parrot quilt. I bought the backing for this last week so I'm set to get this done. I haven't decided where I'll be giving this one.  As you might have realized, most of the quilts I make these days get donated to good causes. I just don't need more quilts although I do keep some because I like the quilt so much. 

I'm linking up with Elm Street's Quilts June Link-Up, and Give Me A Whoop, Whoop. Take a few minutes to surf these linky parties.  Maybe you'll see something to inspire you. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 6 - 3 - 2019

What a weekend!  It was concert weekend for the Spotsylvanians.  We had a dress rehearsal on Friday night with a tremendous thunderstorm as we were leaving.  Can you say drenched?  Saturday night was our first concert with Sunday afternoon our last.  We had a great lineup of songs about "Why We Sing" that blended into how songs can be bridges to our world.  We started with "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" followed by the very different but beautiful song "I Am in Need of Music." "Bridge Over Troubled Water" seemed to be an audience favorite.  We finished with Moses Hogan's "Music Down in My Soul," a rousing spiritual.  It was a great but tiring weekend.    

Bonnie and Beth and part of the choir before our first concert.  Hi Lauren -- see that happy face behind us!

Pat missed this weekend because of the regional Barbershop Harmony Society's MAD Southern Division competition.  His quartet came in 12 out of 22.  They were pleased with the result since they'd only been together for 6 weeks or so.  But the BIG news is their chorus, The Virginians out of Richmond, Va, came in, drum roll please!  first place.  They have worked so hard so this really was a validation that all the hard work is worth it.  

Although I didn't get a lot done this week sewing wise I did finish a quilt.  (I've been shopping way too much so I wanted to get at least one more finish for May.)  If you remember the quilt Jenny and I made for my grandson, (check it out here), you'll recognize the fox fabric in this quilt. This is a simple quilt I made to use up a piece of fabric that was cut off the backing of Theo's quilt.

I originally thought I would use different designs on each of the stripes but I really didn't have many designs that would have worked.  So I chose Whisper edge to edge designed by the mother daughter team at My Creative Stitches. (PS, it's still on sale for $5.00.)  It worked really well with this design. It ran very nicely.  Check out this close up. 

You might have guessed that I didn't do as well on my goals last week as I have in the past.  You would be correct.  I haven't laid out a big group of goals for this week.  There's not a lot going on but I'm not sure what I really want to work on next.  I might surprise myself and do more but I'm feeling lazy after the busyness of last week. 

May 27, 2019

Hand quilt on old Christmas quilt√

Finish borders on Parrot Quilt √

Make backing and load it for Parrot Quilt nope 

Embroider two beach cover ups  One is done

 June 3, 2019

 Hand quilt on old Christmas quilt

 Quilt Ladybug quilt

 Embroider another beach cover up and a sweat shirt 

 Make several individual blocks 

 Attend Country Piecemakers meeting 

Here's the blogs I'll be linking up to: Oh Scrap!, Monday Making, and Moving It Forward. I'm looking forward to relaxing surfing time.  Won't you take a few minutes to surf these great sites also?  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie