Monday Meanderings 8 - 16 - 2022

Quilting seems to have taken a backseat to reading recently. At the end of this post I've listed a few books I've really liked recently.  But now, let's see how I did on my goals. 

8/8/22

✅Finish new charity quilt to top stage -- done, need backing 

✅Sew August UFO challenge together, add borders, figure out backing -- all done backing is ready to load

Make August BOM from A Quilting Life & ✅RSC blocks -- RSC done but need to do A Quilting Life block

Quilt one of my quilts -- nope, nada, didn't do it

✅Work on grand’s Christmas ornaments -- one is almost all done, second one is in progress

Not too bad.  We also had an overnight visit from our daughter's family on their way to the beach house.  It was a win, win.  They got closer to NC and out of the horrendous DC traffic the day before they had planned to drive and Saturday's drive was much shorter. We enjoyed seeing and catching up with everyone. 

Here's the final top.  The borders were leftover from a wide back. 

And here is the quilt top with the backing I found that will go with it. Thank you Nann, who blogs at With Strings Attached, for the fabric. A surprise box of fabric arrived a year or so ago.  I've pulled fabric from it off and on. I saw this one and knew it would work well with this challenge quilt. 

And next up my goals this week. 

8/15/22

Quilt charity top for guild

Make August BOM from A Quilting Life

Quilt one of my quilts

Make a list of all finished tops and figure out backing sizes for them

Continue to clean off front of cutting table

Begin challenge piece inspired by a card

I'll also continue to work on the Christmas ornaments for the grands but I'm not listing them every week. 

Notice that clean off front end of cutting table.  I spent several hours working on cutting up bits and pieces of fabric as well as putting fabric back on the shelves. I can see the difference but I'm not sure anyone else would notice it!  But I'll try to get through more of the mess on that end of the table. I can almost see the cutting mat under the fabric. 

One of the projects I am working on was making a sample cover for a composition book. Sharon and I usually go in together to make a little gift for fellow retreaters.  We'll be going the first week of October so it's time to figure something out.  She suggested the cover and sent me a link for the directions. Here's my first attempt. 

It looks nice but it took quite a long time and that didn't include the flying geese.  The directions called for binding the edges which just added a lot of time. (You can find the free directions here.) I made this one without having a composition book around.  After I bought one (not on any school special) I realized the inside fold over that went on the covers didn't work because the covers were heavy cardboard.  We'll be changing the width of that piece so it is easier to get it on the book.  And we'll probably be buying composition books on back-to-school specials and they won't have stiff covers. We hope to use up leftover blocks to make these covers.  I think it will be a terrific way to move out some fabric. And, I'll be checking the box from Nann for some fabric too.  I have another one started but haven't been motivated to finish it yet.  We've made some changes to make it go much faster. We'll split the 25 we need between the two of us so it won't be that much work. 

Back to books.  I generally have two to three books going at a time -- generally one audio book and 2 books on Kindle or, gasp, an actual book.  Because I read so many books, I tend to keep a list of books read by year.  It helps me when I try to figure out whether I've read a book or not.  Case in point is Nine Women, One Dress by Jane Rosen. I wanted to read it before offering it up as a book club choice for Sept. I started it and then realized I'd probably read it and sure enough, in 2019 I had. (But I'm reading it again because I don't remember all of it!)   I'm also offering up Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman.  They are miles apart in style and story but both are good.  I'm guessing we'll choose Nine Dresses. It's entertaining, a fast read, and our public library has multiple copies of it. Another great book I recently finished is Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus.  It was set in the 1950s and '60s and shines a light on how women were treated as "mere" housewives rather than serious scientists. Both libraries I use had long waiting lists for the Kindle books and audio books. (one was over 70 people for 5 Kindle books.) If it sounds interesting to you prepare to wait but it was really worth it.  What are you reading these days? 

Hopefully you are reading some blogs along with interesting books. Here's the Linky parties to check out. 

Oh Scrap

Monday Making

Design Wall Monday 

To Do Tuesday 

That's it for me.  I have a book I want to read now. (Ok, only after I do some blog surfing!) 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie