Monday Meanderings 11 - 1 - 2021

I've been down in my studio for most of every day over the week.  And, I've gotten quite a bit of "stuff" done and finished.  I'll share at least one finish on Friday.  

Although a lot of things were completed that weren't on the goal list, almost everything on list was accomplished.  

10/25/2021

✅Bind zebra quilt

✅Continue sewing turquoise blocks together

✅Quilt another top 

Cut out new quilt --

I realized it made much more sense to finish some of the tops I'm working on rather than cutting out a new quilt! 

✅Make the October Table Runner in green 

✅Cut sashing for 16 patch stars 

Here's a pic of the Zebra quilt still on Ruthie. The strips of fabric on the sides were ideas for binding.  Instead I used some of the backing fabric. This will be a cozy kid's quilt with the flannel backing and binding. 

And this coming week -- 

11/1/2021

Make the rest of the turquoise blocks; sew into top

Finish quilting Dinosaur quilt 

Sash the 16 patch stars

Make some string blocks 

Do a bit of shopping (not fabric shopping!) 

Here's why I'm not doing any fabric shopping this week.  I hit one of JoAnn Fabrics sales and bought enough fabric for 3 backings. The second one down has already been seamed and loaded on Ruthie. Hopefully I'll finish the dinosaur quilt this week. I hope to get at least one more of my tops quilted this month plus another Zebra panel and whatever customer quilts come in (I have 3 already. Hopefully, that will be all.)  

Backing fabrics. 

That's it for me today.  I'll be linking up with the following parties.  I hope you can spend some time checking out these blogs.

Oh Scrap

Monday Making 

Design Wall Monday 

To Do Tuesday 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Last Table Scraps Challenge Runner

Do you ever wait to the very last minute to finish a project?  You know, the one you are sewing binding on on Christmas Eve?  Well that was me this week when I decided I was going to make an October runner in bright and light greens.  I knew I wanted to use an Accuquilt die.  I knew I wasn't going to make it huge. I even had a fabric I liked for the back (and actually used on the front too.) 

On the left is what I first came up with. I cut out rectangles and played with them. I finally came up with what is shown below. Thursday I threw it on Ruthie and quilted two rows on it. That night I hand stitched the binding to the back. Today it was time for pictures...but it has been pouring rain nearly the whole day.  I decided I'd take pictures in the "sun" room sans sun.  And, surprise! It worked pretty well. 

And the back. Oops, that color is so wrong!  The back is the same fabric as between the turquoise strips.

I'm not planning on making any more table runners this year.  I think the Rainbow Scrap Challenge leaves the last two months without a color so quilters can sew their blocks into tops and tops into quilts.  I still have one block on my RSC friendship stars to sew.  And then, it's on to sewing a top. 

Last week a couple of friends went with me to Material Girls Quilt Boutique in La Plata, Maryland.  I was picking up my Bernina after her spa treatment.  After shopping and a nice lunch we were ready to take the leisurely country drive back to our neighborhood. (About 70 minutes or so away.)  We were surprised to see the Scarecrow Festival in La Plata.  On various streets there were displays.  I snapped pictures of two of them. 

The silly scarecrow.

And the scary. 

It might have been fun to drive up and down the streets to see more but it was time to head home. 

This past Monday I was lucky enough to catch the peak of fall foliage in our neighborhood.  Doesn't this just say fall is here?

I haven't driven by this scene since Monday, but I suspect it is no longer this pretty.  Other trees are looking mostly dull yellow for the most part. Is fall still showing beautiful colors where you live? 

Here are links to my favorite late week parties: 

Midweek Makers

Needle and Thread Thursdays

Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?

Finished or Not Friday

Beauties Pageant

Table Scraps Challenge October Linky Party

That's enough for now!  I'm ready to sew a label on a quilt and have another finish.  I probably won't show it until next Friday.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 10 -25 - 2021

It's time to see what a great week I had last week.  I made progress on every goal I made last week. 

10/18/2021

✅Embroider 3 more shirts — all done and mailed and forgot to take pictures. 

✅Bind pink pig quilt — finished and given to Va Star quilt guild. 

✅Try to quilt unicorn zebra panel, bind, & give to guild by Wednesday — finished quilting but not by Wednesday.

✅Make FCQ Equilters blocks — 11 done and more to come.

✅Continue sewing turquoise blocks together — 3 more done.

✅Road trip to pick up sewing machine — she’s back and purring along.

First up -- Ruthie was a champ sewing away with no issues.  I'm hoping she'll be doing well so I can get some more tops quilted. 

I've got 5 blocks done of 40 on my turquoise .  Hum, I'm thinking these might need to be sashed.  I'll make up my mind after I get all the blocks done. 

Below are the blocks that Pam asked for from the FCQ Equilters.  So far here are all that I've made. It turns out I don't have many of the style of florals Pam wanted us to use.  I've pulled a bunch more florals so I'll be making more of this very easy 8.5" block. The yellow inset piece may be a bit too strong compared to the cream or white.  I'll probably make some more so she'll have enough to throw a bunch in together. Pam did mention she might put a thin white sashing between the blocks. (By the way, you might notice a friendship star block shining through the white.  I didn't want to take those blocks down to put up these flower blocks.  So, yes that is the star block underneath the solid white I put up!)

Hum, probably could have left a bigger space, but you get the idea. I'm happy to be able to cut into a lot of floral fat quarters. 

Here's this week's goals. 

10/25/2021

Bind zebra quilt

Continue sewing turquoise blocks together

Quilt another top 

Cut out new quilt

Make the October Table Runner in green

Cut sashing for 16 patch stars

Nothing too hard.  I'd like to get a few more smaller tops quilted but it depends on whether I have any backing.  

Here it is the last week in October and I've just now figured my fabric stats for Sept. I pretty much broke even -- I used a half yard more than I brought in. 

2021	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out  Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
Sept	6.375	87.250	6.875	112.500	25.250

 

Believe me October is not going to be a pretty sight! (Unless you like lots of new fabric!) 

I'm linking up to my regular parties: 

Oh Scrap! 

Monday Making

Design Wall Monday 

To Do Tuesday 

Hope you can do some blog hopping this week. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

There's a Finish!

 Yes I have a finish but it is pretty small.  

This quilt measures 33" x 33" 

Made and quilted by Bonnie (that's me!) 

Quilting Design Curley by My Creative Stitches 

Thread So Fine purple 

Because my Bernina with the walking foot was having a spa week I attached the binding to the front of the quilt using my Featherweight and stitched the back by hand. (Generally I stitch the binding to the back and then pull to the front and stitch by machine using a walking foot.) 

It's a smaller version of "Overnight Sensation" from Fabric Cafe's Easy Does It 3 Yard Quilts.  Needless to say it probably took me longer to pick the fabric than it did to sew the quilt together.  

Ruthie was on her best behavior and quilted the 4 rows with no problems. 

This has already been turned into the Virginia Star guild and will be going to the NICU at Mary Washington Hospital. 

You can also see some of the Halloween decorations we've put out this year. The pumpkins and the tea light covers are machine embroidery designs from Embroidery Garden. Pumpkins are here; tea light covers are here.

Here's my last finish this week. I stamped this cute birthday card for Ellie's birthday.  Hum, that green doesn't quite look the way I thought it did. Hopefully the color changed with the photo. 

I am still working on my goals this week so I'm cutting this short and getting on with some stitching. Here are my regular late week linky parties. Let's go surfing! 

Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop? 

Finished or Not Friday

Beauties Pageant

That's it for this week. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 10 - 18 - 2021

For some reason I either don't think to write my Monday blog post on Sunday or I consciously choose not to.  I've been reading a lot lately. I have a few things to share from the week.  Most have to do with my goals or upcoming goals.  

Here's what I did last week. 

10/11/2021

✅Sew 16 patch sawtooth stars together — blocks are together, sashing chosen.

Embroider Halloween shirts for grands — one done, 3 waiting

✅Make RSC blocks for October — So this one was completely changed. More about that below.  

✅Continue making blocks from turquoise jelly roll — two or three finished

✅Border the economy blocks — No pictures yet but completed

I decided before I make more blocks for the RSC I needed to see what I had on hand.  Here's a tentative layout. My thought was to do horizontal rows of each color.  I ran into a problem -- I have 8 colors appx but I didn't want to make a lot more blocks.  Hum, how else could I lay this out?

So I moved everything around and came up with rows of color...

I've already made 3 or 4 new blocks and have 2 more to go. I like this better but I did move several out of the quilt -- most of the pinks a few of the turquoise... I've also chosen to make this a smaller quilt.  Ideally I'd like it 7 x 8 or 42 x 48." And I would have had to make a lot more blocks.  So for right now I'm planning to do a 6 x 6 setting that would make the quilt about 36 x 36." I may change my mind as I finish the last two blocks and then retire them for a bit of time.  My other issue was I used the more "colorful" background fabric in only 1 block.  I've added a couple of more using that fabric to make the one not stick out like a sore thumb.  Any suggestions? Maybe I'll try a random placement of the colors.  But not today. NOTE TO SELF - pick a bigger block than 6" next year! 

Let's see what I think I want to work on this week. 

10/18/2021

Embroider 3 more shirts 

Bind pink pig quilt

Try to quilt unicorn panel, bind, and give to guild by Wednesday

Make FCQ Equilters blocks

Continue sewing turquoise blocks together

Road trip to pick up sewing machine

That's enough to keep me busy for the week.  I've got a lot of projects I could be working on but these are the ones I'll try to focus on. (Yes, sometimes I check my list in the middle of the week so I don't go chasing squirrels!) 

Here are the linky parties I'll be joining: 

Oh Scrap

Monday Making 

Design Wall Monday

To Do Tuesday

Grab a cup of tea and enjoy surfing these sites. I've got a quilt to finish loading!  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Not a Finish Friday!

No, I didn't finish a quilt this week but I have moved two projects forward.  I put the borders on the Economy blocks but I'm saving that picture until Monday. What I'm sharing is getting all of the 16  patch sawtooth star blocks finished.  And the layout was pretty easy decision. 

First, here's what a pile of unfinished Flying Geese blocks looks like. These are ready to be cut in half and then ironed to look like Flying Geese then trimmed with Studio 180 Wing Clipper ruler. Easy peasy to make exactly the right size units. 

See below to see what they looked like while I was deciding about putting in a sashing.  It definitely looks good with the blue sashing using a nice blue from my stash.  I had some red but it just didn't go with the various colors of reds in the blocks.  The blue makes it sparkle.  Now the question is what size sashing.  I'm thinking a 2" finished sashing would work well plus it would make the whole quilt a bit bigger to fit size requirements of Leashes of Valor.  (Click on the link to learn more about this program with the motto "One Leash Saves two Lives.") One other question.  I have 2 blocks that definitely have beige in the Sawtooth units.  My thought is to  not try to "match" the locations as shown below.  I'm thinking of putting the bottom one in the 3 row down second block in.  What do you think? 

I'll be working on the blocks probably next week as I have a bit of Halloween embroidering to do.  Guess what I bought today! 

Hint -- I was at Joann today and took advantage of a buy 3 get two free sale.  Another hint -- it's really dark in the laundry room which we walk through from the garage. Have you figured it out?  Ok, there are 3 spools of glow in the dark thread in the bag.  I got such a kick out of the bag glowing away when we walked into the house I had to take a picture.  Hopefully Monday I can share some Halloween t shirts going to the grands later this week. 

Here's are the blogs I'm linking up with today. 

  Midweek Makers 

Needle and Thread Thursday

Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop

Finished or Not Fridays

Beauties Pageant

Lots of inspiration in those blogs.  See if you can find a project you might want to start soon! 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 10 - 11 - 2021

Monday really snuck up on me this week.  I have been able to stitch nearly every day this week.  Sometimes my motivation was low but I still made steady progress.  Here's the deal. 

10/04/2021

✅Quilt purple and pink baby/charity quilt -- it's waiting to be trimmed and bound.

✅Finish last 3 economy blocks and start sewing together -- all sewn together. 

✅Finish flying geese for 16 patch sawtooth stars -- all geese are done, some blocks sewn.

✅Read and lounge around -- finished 2 audio books and 2 books on Kindle. 

Here's the plan for this week.

10/11/2021

Sew 16 patch sawtooth stars together

Embroider Halloween shirts for grands

Make RSC blocks for October

Continue making blocks from turquoise jelly roll 

Border the economy blocks

Here's the economy blocks with a suggested border.  In person it works really well with most of the blocks.  The noticeable exception is the top right hand pale pink.  But that is the only block of that color. 

Next up is some of the big Sawtooth Stars blocks.   The blocks will finish at 16" which means I don't have to make too many of them.  These blocks are leftover from a quilt I made from the 16 patches that were sent by the FCQ Equilters. I tried to find a pic of the finished quilt but all I found was one in progress.  First the 16 patches.

And here are a few of the 16 patch sawtooth star blocks. 

I'm making steady progress on the projects I had precut and taken to the retreat.  I should have all of them to top stage by the end of the month.  Which means the last week of the month I need to cut a couple of more projects as I'm going to the beach house and down to Sharon's in early November.  More sewing opportunities. 

I'm linking up to these great linky parties! 

Oh Scrap!

Monday Making 

Design Wall Monday 

To Do Tuesday

Hope you have a great week and make progress on your goals. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

It's a Finish!

Truth is, I finished this quilt in mid to late September.  I kept forgetting about taking pictures.  So today I figured out a new place to take smaller quilt pictures -- one wall of the new sun room is perfect (after I move two pictures, three plants and one basket....) 

Here's Tumbling Doggies. 

This quilt measures 38.5" x 40". 

Made and quilted by Bonnie (that's me!) 

Quilting Design Squiggle Wiggle Edge to Edge by My Creative Stitches

Thread So Fine 504 - a light grey

Take a look at the backing and the cool black and white stripe binding.  I found the backing at JoAnns at a Fourth of July sale -- Whoop! 50% off. 

Generally, a small quilt like this would go to one of the NICUs my guild support. But I really like this one.  I think it is going into a bag for the possible future great-grand children. (It's years away as my oldest grandchild is only 11.)  And, I strongly suspect there is another Tumbling Doggies in my future. 

I'm sorry for the quality of the pictures.  All of them look great on my computer.  But when I uploaded them to Blogger they have gotten "mushy." You can enlarge them by clicking on them but I'm not sure they will look much better.  

I'm linking up with these parties: 

MidWeek Makers

Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop!

Finished or Not Friday

Beauties Pageant

Enjoy some surfing time! 

Happy Quilting All.  Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 10 - 4 - 2021

What a great retreat!  It was so wonderful to see so many quilting friends this past weekend.  I suspect we all chatted way more than we normally do since a lot of us hadn't seen each other for years!  

First here are 2 photos of my fabric purchases.

The two bottom fabrics are the Ombre Fabrics I am using for my long cabin -- a lighter green and lighter pink.  I have 51 blocks finished but I want to make it bigger than the pattern shows.  I hope to get more made soon. 

The right hand side fabric will be the Glorified 9 Patch border.  The original border just detracts from the quilt way too much.  The other two fabrics were on sale and spoke to me.  I have used up a lot of my oranges-yellows so that explains the taxi cab yellowish orange. Hum, it goes with the border so  maybe the two fabrics will go into something else together. Black and white?  Doesn't everyone need those colors together? 

Sharon won some of these blocks and made more.  She was able to make her blocks, sew them together and border them.  Voila finished top! 

I was able to put together most of my economy blocks.  I realized I hadn't cut several of the cream fabric on on the straight of grain so the resulting pieces were slightly short.  Sigh.  I'll get those done this week, hopefully.  (It's hard to see but 3 blocks are missing the rest of their pieces.) 

Let's look at last week's goals: 

9/27/2021

✅Quilt 1 charity quilt

✅Take Bernina in for spa treatment

✅Prep one last kit, sew it together at retreat! -- prep was done, sewed 19 strip sets together

Sew 16 patch sawtooth stars -- started but not finished

✅Start on economy blocks -- all but 3 blocks done

✅Have a great time at retreat

And this week's list:

10/04/2021

Quilt purple and pink baby/charity quilt

Finish last 3 economy blocks and start sewing together

Finish flying geese for 16 patch sawtooth stars 

Read and lounge around

I may have put too much on my list.  I'm ready for some down time this week. 

I'm linking with the following linky parties:

Oh Scrap

Monday Making 

Design Wall Monday 

To Do Tuesday 

I'm leaving you with a touch of fall.  The retreat was near Harrisonburg, VA.  The leaves were just barely turning up there.  I enjoyed seeing them, especially the little red leaf that had caught on my bumper. 

Fall is hardly showing at home.  But I bet we'll be seeing falling colorful leave in the next few weeks. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie