Monday Meanderings 8 - 30 - 2021

The last Monday in August has rolled around.  It's hard to believe that we are 2/3rds through with 2021. I've been thinking of Chrismas presents and two more birthdays this year.  I've got a decent start on the ornaments I make my 4 grandchildren but I need to actually make new progress after getting one almost done.  Hum, maybe that needs to be in my goal list! 

I excelled at checking off all of my goals this week.  In fact, I did so well I made a sample block of a new project too. Sorry, no pictures of that yet. Here's last week's list. 

8/23/21

✅Finish Blue basket -- It took a long time as it kept being dropped. Here's the empty finished basket and the full basket.  I forgot to put the handle on but it's just a matter of dumping out the scraps and lifting up the loose fold over binding and sewing the handle on. Easy, but I don't want to have to dump and refill the basket... maybe this week.

✅Begin aqua table runner 

✅Work on Ombre blocks 

✅Finish knitting baby blanket  This got completely finished this week. I'll be giving it to a neighbor who gives them to a group who makes donations in our community. I really think the color is a bit brighter turquoise then what shows up here. But I'm happy it is done.  I've got at least 4 boxes of yarn and yarn bits.  I'm hoping to knit some up into projects I can give away. 

✅Mail Verdant Serenity to Ca.

Now here's what I hope to work on this week. 

8/30/21

Finish baby quilt started in June

Quilt Table Scraps Aqua table runner

Work on Ombre and RSC blocks

Quilt doggy tumbler quilt 

Finish the front of one ornament

This weeks to do list doesn't seem very long.  Hopefully I can get all of the items done on it. 

Not much else new on the home front.  I realized in early September I can get my Covid booster shot.  I want to have it by mid September as I am going on a quilt retreat the first weekend of October.  It seems the smart, easy thing to do for me and the friends I want to have fun with.

I'm linking up with my regular parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, and Design Wall Monday.  After barely getting my own blog posted over the last two weeks I really enjoyed reading a bunch of blogs this part week. I hope you have some time to check in with these linky parties. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Baby Quilt Finish

This became a top in late May when my friend Sharon came up for a sewing visit.  It's like this quilt I shared at the beginning of May.  It didn't take long for me to quilt it as I loaded a longer piece of fabric that I used for this Happy Quilt and quilted them one after another.

This one has some yellow and purple added just like the other one does but I was running out of the strips.  Sharon recommended I put in the yellow vertical strips. Thanks Sharon. It worked really well. 

This quilt will be donated to a NICU somewhere in Virginia.  I belong to two guilds in VA so I try to donate quilts through both of them. 

I'm ready to get on to more of sewing for myself rather than the commission quilt I've almost finished.  Nothing new is being started but I hope to move along the Ombre log cabin blocks and the RSC blocks. My August table runner is started but I still need to quilt it.  I'll be showing it next week, I hope! 

Short post today.  I'm linking up with a bunch of parties so I hope you'll visit some and see what others are accomplishing this week. Here's the line up: Midweek Makers, Needle and Thread Thursday, Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?, Finished or Not Friday, and Beauties Pageant. Enjoy checking out all the great blogs. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie

 

Monday Meanderings 8 - 23 - 2021

I've taken two weeks off -- although I did get a post up yesterday about finishing my Positivity quilt.   I didn't have anything to post for the last two Fridays.  Last week my granddaughter was visiting Sunday through Wednesday evening.  We had so much fun together although I was exhausted each night.  I had her doing a little sewing on my Featherweight, we made some bead bracelets, we played dolls together, went swimming and looked at all the boxes marked "dolls" in my closet.  

I have way too many dolls!  The last box we went through had another box in it marked "Grandma Ruth's dolls."  That would be Ellie's great, great grandmother.  When we opened the box -- ugh -- there were heads rolling. There was a wig, probably made with human hair. There were some bald dolls.  I picked up one and the arms fell off.  Neither of us were very excited about that box!  I will have to figure out if it makes sense to repair any of the dolls. My grandmother loved dolls and made me lots of doll clothes for various dolls she gave me.  It was fun to visit them.  

Dolls from left to right: My Friend Jenny (my daughter Jenny's doll), Rose (Ellie's American Girl doll), and Kit (my AG doll that I won in the late 90s or early 2000s.) Ellie has a great imagination and made up stories about what the dolls were doing.  

Needless to say I got little quilting done last week.  But I did get a dress made for Ellie.  She picked the pattern and the fabric. (Hey, I was excited she picked fabric from my stash for her dress!) I have been very good not buying fabric this month although I would have for Ellie.💙 I should have a good amount of fabric used by the end of the month.

Here's how I did on my goals from 2 weeks ago.  (I may have completed some during the last 2 weeks.) 

8/16/21

Finish knit baby blanket - close but not quite done.

✅Make more Ombre Log Cabin blocks

✅Have fun with Ellie 

Finish quilt on long arm — ugh.  Long Arm problems still 1 more row to do.

8/23/21

Finish Blue basket 

Begin aqua table runner 

Work on Ombre blocks 

Finish knitting baby blanket 

Mail Verdant Serenity to Ca. 

Hopefully I'll finish a couple of projects on my list this week.  And, wow, there isn't much time left in August and I haven't even started this month's table runner. (I think I've picked out the block though!) Where has this month gone? 

I'm linking up with most of my regular linky parties: Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, and To Do Tuesday.  Spend some time surfing to see what everyone is working on.  

Do you know of some upcoming Quilt Alongs or Mystery Quilts?  I've been trying to pass along some web sites for QAL and Mysteries to my guild.  If you know of some starting in Sept or Oct please share the info.  Here are a few I know of: 

All the Trimmings  Mystery Quilt and Stitch Along at the the Fat Quarter Shop starts on September 7.  Link to beginning of All the Trimmings.

Starting later in September is the Snowman Sew Along by Jacquelynne Steves. 

Well bummer -- this one doesn't start until October but sign ups are already full.  It is a Murder Mystery Quilt -- sew the quilt to solve the crime.  I believe there is a cost for this one but it does sound fun.  If this sounds like something you might be interested in you can sign up for the 2022 one beginning on Halloween, 2021. 

As I said above -- if you know of others please share!  Thanks. 

Happy Quilting All.  Bonnie  

Positivity Done!

I'm so happy I've finished my Positivity quilt.  Here it is Verdant Serenity in shades of cream, grey, and greens of all colors. 

I hope to have it in the mail to Bernie on Tuesday.  I still need to add a label to it before it goes. 

My long arm was giving me grief while I was quilting this.  But in the end it got done.  The pattern is Fern Gully.  I was really happy with the texture it added.  I used Omni thread from Superior in a  medium grey

The backing and binding was purchased from Connecting Threads.  It is Painter's Watercolor Swirl Sage in a wide back.  (Note, I don't think this was one of CT's wide backs but it the manufacturer isn't listed in the ad.) It's always hard to pick matching colors on line so I was very pleased at how well this went with the rest of the quilt.  In fact, I liked it so well I also made my binding from it! 

I'm linking up with Bernie's Link Up #3. (Hum, did I miss #2?) And with Quilting is more fun than Housework.. There are so many beautiful ways to use your positivity blocks -- explore them at Bernie's site.  I'll be back Monday morning with my normal blog post.  Enjoy surfing the blogs posted on these two linky parties. Come back Monday for my normal Monday post. 

Happy Quilting All.  Bonnie 

(I was playing with adding fonts and decided to give Architect's Daughter a try.  If you highlight the A on the toolbar on the Blogger site you will see a drop down menu.  The first choice is "Add More Fonts".  There are a lot of fun ones like Bonbon, Lobster, or Dancing Script. Hum, not all of them are easily read. Click on the name to have it added to your list of fonts. You'll find the names added at the bottom of the standard fonts.  Just click on the one you want to use. Have fun!) 

Monday Meanderings 8 - 9 - 2021

Do you lose track of what day of the week it is?  I kept having to remind myself that today was Sunday, not Monday.  But this is the post I always list my past week's goals and the coming week's goals.  

8/2/2021

✅Embroider dolphin on swim suit cover up -- See Ellie happy with her new beach cover up. Oops! I forgot to take a close up the porpoise. 

✅Quilt and Bind Positivity quilt  - no binding yet

✅Knit on baby blanket

✅Work on blue basket again  

Load and quilt a charity quilt— no time this week. 

✅ Keep making ombre log cabin blocks

I was happy with all that I got done this week. Now what I'm planning to do this week. (Or at least try to do!) 

8/9/21

Bind Positivity quilt 

Make more red, pink, yellow and green Friendship Star RSC blocks and make 5 of turquoise 

Quilt blue basket fabric

Keep making ombre log cabin blocks

Knit on baby blanket (It'll be done soon, I hope!) 

I've cut out all the friendship stars I need for my RSC. (13)  I'm making extras of the previous colors and turquoise for this month. I also have several other blocks I need to make.  So I'll probably incorporate making those in with the Friendship Stars . 

Here's the one I'm making for Sharon for the FCQ Equilters.  They are 14" blocks so she doesn't want us to make lots of them.  Here's  Chicken Scratch! You can make one too by clicking on its name.  It is a free pattern from Moda. I'm probably making 2 more and then sending them off to her. 

Another short post.  I hope to be able to share my finished Positivity quilt on Friday.  Come back to see it! 

I'm linking with the following blogs: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, and To Do Tuesday.  Hopefully I'll remember to link up the  Monday and Tuesday blogs.

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie  

A Little Finish

It's always gratifying to finish a quilt no matter how big or small.  This one is on the smaller side.  I make a lot of baby/toddler size quilts and at the end of July I finished two of them.  Here's one, a Happy Quilt. (If you want to make Happy Quilts check out the directions at Mary Quilts, specifically here for a 4.5" center block, here for a 6" center block, and here for center blocks using charms (5" squares.)  I use whatever size strikes my fancy when I make these.  And, boy howdy, I've made a lot of Happy Blocks in my day! You can search my blog using "Happy Blocks" to get to some of the posts. You might need to weed through some that mention HB but doesn't include pictures.  The oldest post was in 2015 before I quit looking. 

How about more sunlight on the quilt? 

Or at an angle? 

Details: 

Quilt Pattern         Happy Blocks by Mary Johnson

Quilting Pattern    African Samba by Apricot Moon

Thread                 White So Fine by Superior Threads (I don't know the exact                number -- must remember to record it in the future.)

And, finally a close up that shows the binding and a bit of the backing. If you want to see any of these pictures better click on it to enlarge.

I have been playing with different software to put my blog name on my photos.  I keep forgetting to type in the year.  That might be a good reason not to continue with this software as it doesn't appear I can save the name.  I'm not all that familiar with it, I'm using a free version, and not knowing whether I can save the words.  Anyone have a recommendation for a different software that allows you to put text on your photo? Feel free to share it. 

Hopefully next week I'll be able to show off my finished Positivity quilt.  I'm trying to come up with a more specific name for it.  You can see the finished top here.  Do you have a name you can recommend? 

That's it for today.  I have a quilt on the long arm that I want to finish.  

In the meantime check out all these linky parties.  Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?, and Finished or Not Friday. Wow.  Being a day late limits the numbers of linky parties I can join.  Oh well.  Yesterday I was so not in the mood to blog due to a real lack of sleep.  (Most likely this blog makes way more sense than it would have if written yesterday.)  I'm looking forward to getting some surfing done over the next few days.  I've neglected blog reading and I miss seeing what folks are working on. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 8 - 2 - 2021

We are at the beginning of the 8th month of the year.  Surprisingly, it's been going pretty fast for me.  Pat and I do get out and about some these days but we aren't going wild yet.  We've done a few meals out and we continue to shop. I've been going to our community stitching group and went to one guild meeting. We are going to our gym four times a week but we are careful to stay 6 feet away from others working out. Our granddaughter is coming for a few days in August so anywhere we go over the next few weeks we'll both mask up.  We sure don't want her to get sick after she's been with us. Although I doubt we'll mask up for working out.  It just doesn't work that well! 

I have one set of blocks I can share today.  These will be going to Covered in Love.  You can read more about it at Kat's blog. The drive is going on through the end of August. Here's the info on the drive itself with a link to the information. I like committing to block drives as it is an easy way for me to move fabric from my stash and it goes to a good cause. Maybe I'll make some more blocks before mailing them this month.

Next up is my stashbusting statistics. UGH. No stashbusting happened this month.  Part of it is due to I am using a different way of recording wide backs as I buy new ones.  I started out just recording them as regular width fabric. And when I used them I only counted them as regular width. Nope, not so good a plan. Then I decided I'd count them as twice as many yards. So 1 yard would equal 2 yards when I recorded them. It got "sticky" when I tried to figure out how to record that I'd used the fabric.  Sigh. So today as I added 3 yards of wide back fabric to my stash I decided I'd record them as square inches.  You can see the note I added under my report. Hopefully this will be easier to figure out.  I'll have my Positivity quilt done later this week and I'll see how it goes when I record it. (It should go a long way to helping use up some fabric this month.) As you can see I've bought way too much fabric this month. A lot of it is backing fabric. I also decided to buy a yard of white on white wide back called Cobblestone from Connecting Threads. It is really nice fabric. I won't be using it for backing, it'll be used for piecing.

2021	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out  Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
July	24.75*	80.875	11.250	90.5	9.625

* Wide backs are now added or subtracted by total width x total height divided by 1440.  I figured a “normal” yard of fabric was appx 1440 sq inches and have been using that for years.  (36” long by 40” wide equals 1440 square inches.)

Let's get on to goals. I think I might not be putting enough items on my goal lists these days. I was able to do everything on my list from last week. 

7/26/2021

✅Finish and Quilt July Table Runner (see it here.) 

✅Bind two quilts (pictures coming soon.) 

✅Continue to knit on baby blanket

✅Work on customer quilt

✅Work on blue basket again (I'm not making great progress but I am slowly working on it!)  

8/2/2021

Embroider dolphin on swim suit cover up

Quilt and Bind Positivity quilt

Knit on baby blanket

Work on blue basket again  

Load and quilt a charity quilt

Keep making ombre log cabin blocks

OK then. I may have gone overboard on my goals for this week.  But I do need to work on every thing I've listed.  Perhaps I'll succeed with most of them. (Notice several are open ended: knit of the blanket and work on the blue basket. So, if I do even a little bit I can check it off as done.  Oh the games we play with our own minds!) 

That's it for today... here's my Monday linky parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, and To Do Tuesday. Hope you have some time to visit some of these parties.  

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie