Monday Meanderings 12 - 26 - 2022

The last set of goals for 2022.  I'm trying to get ready mentally for 2023 but I'm not there quite yet. Let's do a quick goals check for last week. 

12/19/22

✅Finish last ornaments — See them here

✅Wrap presents — done early Sat evening

✅Make some more flying geese and string blocks for Talking Turkey — Change of plan to just one row of flying geese. See below

✅Make the last block from Sherri’s 2022 BOM — Done! 

✅Make a cake for Christmas dinner — Finished Sat morning

✅Enjoy family Christmas celebration  — It was a blast! 

And for the last goals list this year -- doesn't look like too much until quilt and bind two quilts hits me. The backing is on for the first one. 

12/26/22

Quilt and bind two of my quilts

Pick a new hand project to work on

Decide on 12 UFOs to work on for the 2023 UFO Challenge

Start sewing border on Talking Turkey 

And, because I forgot to do this earlier here's my November stash busting statistics.  Um, yea, I am still busting some stash but it was less than last month. OOPS.  

2022	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out  Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
Nov	14	106	8	122.25	16

Not bad though but I do need to get at least 2 tops quilted and bound as I have added 3 wide backs to my stash this month. The first backing is already loaded.  

Here's the new plan for Talking Turkey.  I might have enough blocks made but if not I only need a few more. (Or so I hope.) You can see the previous plan here.  I'm leaving out the string quilting and the extra border of flying geese.  Once I get the first flying geese border on I will "consider" more but I'm inclined to get this finished and move on to something else. 

When we arrived at our son's house Christmas Day I was tickled to see Rose dressed up in her wedding dress I made a previous Christmas.  And, I was happy to see the dress was in good condition.  I was pretty hard on all the doll clothes my grandma made me.  Good job Ellie. 

I'm linking up with my regular Linky Parties: 

Design Wall Monday

To Do Tuesday  

Oh Scrap on hiatus to next week

I'm looking forward to doing some blog surfing.  I haven't been very good about it for the last couple of weeks. Hopefully this week I'll get to view a lot of blogs. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas

I want to share the ornaments I have been working on (and off) nearly the whole year.  Every year I give my grands an ornament I've made. 

If you'd like to make some like these you can buy the patterns and kits from The Rusty Crow in Nags Head. They are scattered through the Patterns section.

I thought all my readers might enjoy this very cool decoration that my neighbor DeDe made for our book club party earlier in the week. It was fabulous but I know she took it down the day after because it was right in front of her sink.  I wanted to grab a book or two to borrow... 

 Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 12 - 19 - 2022

Christmas is almost upon us! HELP!  I know I haven't organized present acquisition very well this year.  It was hard to get ideas from the kids and the grands.  Someone gave me nothing so I'm thinking of giving him coal! (Nah, just joking. And, I don't think any family members read the blog except hubby so I'm safe.) 

On to the lists.  Last week I checked off everything on my goals list. Whoop!

12/12/22

✅Work on the last 2 ornaments all week - I did but not enough. #3 of 4 has about 15 minutes more to finish it.  And #4 has been moved along. 

✅Load and quilt Sophie’s quilt - Phew.  I finished the last row 30 minutes before we had to leave for the concert Sunday. 

✅Make some more flying geese and string blocks for Talking Turkey -- a few were made and several were trimmed although more need trimming.

✅Sing 2 rehearsals and 2 concerts! - Both went extremely well. 

✅Do some Christmas stuff! -  I did some organizing and hubby did some wrapping. But much still needs doing.

On to this week. It's time to get all the Christmas stuff done before Sunday. (It wouldn't suprise me if I'm wrapping gifts Sunday morning! But hopefully not!) 

12/19/22

Finish last ornaments

Wrap presents

Make some more flying geese and string blocks for Talking Turkey

Make the last block from Sherri’s 2022 BOM

Make a cake for Christmas dinner

Enjoy family Christmas celebration 

Hum, I forgot to include two evening events -- book club and guild meeting.  Must remember to wrap gifts for those events. 

On to a few pictures.  Since I'm not playing in the studio all that much these days I have limited photos to share. The first one is the unicorn quilt our daughter Jenny made for her youngest.  You might recognize Lisa the Unicorn as an Elizabeth Hartman pattern.  Here's the link to her website. 

 

Lisa the Unicorn -- Made by Jenny Stapleton. 

Pattern -- Random Clams 

Thread -- So Fine 504

Next is a sneak peek of the Bjorn Bear quilt Jenny made for her oldest. 

I forgot to take a picture of the full quilt.  I suspect I won't get a picture until Jenny get's it bound.  The quilting pattern is Malachite -- a design I've had for many years but only remember using once or twice in years since I've had my computer driven option.  I realized it looks terrific to provide texture.  I'm glad my granddaughter chose it. 

Here's a block I finished this week or was it last week? Anyway, I made it as a sample to see if I wanted to make it for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this year. 

This block came from Bonnie Hunter's book Adventurers with Leaders & Enders. I like the block but it is pretty time intensive. It uses mostly 2" squares which I thought made a lot of sense since I have so many of them. But the drawback is the block is only 7.5" finished.  It would take a ton of blocks to get a decent (as in lap size) quilt.  On the other hand I will need to do something with this block. I'm leaning to a larger block -- 12" would be great. 

I'm hoping things calm down after Christmas and I can make some progress on cleaning up the studio, quilting two of my quilts, and working on my UFO challenge quilts for Dec and earlier. (I don't expect too much do I?) 

Here are the Linky parties I'm joining.  I hope we all can take a few quiet moments to surf the web.  Don't you need another inspiring quilt to make next year?   

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

To Do Tuesday 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 12 - 12 - 2022

Do you have weeks when you wish you could crawl into bed and forget the outside world?  Yep, me too.  Last week was busy with sad and fun things to do.  The sad was singing at the funeral of a neighbor who was part of our chorus.  

The fun was the Spotsylvanians singing at the Fredericksburg Christmas Market.  Except that one was really cold.  I doubt if it reached 44 degrees. (Ok, those of you where it gets really cold just remember being outside and singing in that temperature was cold to us.) I was very smart and put on a pair of snow boots and a really good pair of wool socks.  My feet never got cold.  I can't say the same for my hands trying to turn music pages.  Sigh.  But we had an appreciative audience.  After our performance Pat and I went directly to the car, grabbed lunch, and went home to warm up! It took most of the afternoon. 

So, how did I do on the goals.  Not too bad. 

12/5/22

✅Keep Working on Ornaments -- forward progress is being made on #3.

✅Quilt Natalie’s quilt -- done.

✅Make border for Dec APQ UFO Challenge piece Talking Turkey — progress being made but it’s going to take some time. 

Make some single blocks -- a couple of blocks done but not the one I had planned on. 

✅Prep wide backs for 3 quilts -- I washed all three wide backs but they need to be ironed before I can quilt them.

Not too bad but not fabulous.  Here's a picture of what the Talking Turkey border is going to look like. I know it isn't the best picture but it is what I had that I could photograph.  I now have quite a few flying geese ready to trim to the correct size. I won't sew them together until I have a whole side ready. 

Here's a sneak peek of Natalie's quilt.  I'll try to take a full on picture once I take it off the long arm.  This was at the beginning of the quilting. My daughter did a great job on it.

Here's what I hope to get done this week.  

12/12/22

Work on the last 2 ornaments all week

Load and quilt Sophie’s quilt

Make some more flying geese and string blocks for Talking Turkey 

Sing 2 rehearsals and 2 concerts with the Spotsylvians! 

Do some Christmas stuff! 

Some sewing is going to get done but not a whole lot.  On the other hand some singing will be going on too.  The Spotsylvanians' concerts are Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.  Our kids generally come to the Sunday afternoon one and then we all have dinner together.  In lieu of the usual pizza we're heading to the local Red Robin. Pizza always took a long time to get home.  Should be a fun time.  

I'm going to get the next step ready for the whale ornament I'm currently working on.  So I'm keeping this kind of short. You know what's next. Please take some time to visit a couple of these Linky parties to see what quilters are doing across the globe.  

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday 

To Do Tuesday 

I'll leave you with a "shocking" photo from last night's dinner prep. 

Have you figured it out?  Let's just say we didn't have as much baked potato as we thought we were going to have with dinner.  Some time while cooking it blew up.  We didn't hear anything.  I had stuck a fork into it several times before but this happened anyway. We've done a little more cleaning up since this but more is going to be needed.  I think we'll soak the racks to get them clean and then turn to the self cleaning mode.  Sigh.  Have you ever exploded a potato or anything else in your oven?  I haven't. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 12 - 5 - 2022

Wait, December?  OMG it's only a few weeks to, gasp! 2023!  That means it's time to drop my gazing at new quilt ideas and focus on what I want to finish this year. And, as typical in this household, we have rehearsals and a concert and additional singing opportunities bombarding us up until Dec. 18th.  With that said, I'm jumping right to last week's Goals list. 

11/28/22

✅Bind Economy quilt  — done.

✅Finish Clue 5 of Melodic Mystery — done and also December’s Clue 6.

✅Keep working on ornaments — I’m down to just 1.5 ornaments to finish.

✅Work on Halloween Quilt if time permits — Whoop! Whoop! The blocks are put together but…. 

✅Pull out Dec. APQ UFO Challenge piece  — It’s on the design wall and ready for me to proceed. 

Let me admit right now I am totally surprised how much I got done this past week. I had a couple of days where I was booked for other activities and did no sewing at all.  So, yeah me! for what I got done. 

Here's a few photos of what was worked on. 

November clue for Melodic Mystery -- 72 flying geese blocks. 

I actually got the Halloween quilt put together.  I'm not sure I'm done with this because I'd like to make it longer.  Still mulling over that idea but plan to let it rest for the rest of this year. Any ideas on what to add to the top and bottom to make it longer?  I'm thinking something in black. Share any ideas you might have. And, I really don't have much of the grey inner border left. I'm thinking of using it for a binding. 

There's a long history with some of these blocks.  In the '80s and early 90s I was active on Prodigy, one of the first commercial ventures offering Internet connections including graphics. I belonged to a quilting chat group where I participated in several swaps.  Most of the small blocks in the outside border were blocks I got in the swap. The eyes, legs, and the single ghost also came from that swap.  Why I liked the idea of small blocks is unknown to me now. The blocks were 4" finished blocks that I added a border to bring to the 6" finished size of the other blocks. I don't know the exact year of this swap but it was probably the first year or two of the 1990s.  They have really aged quite well. I'm quite happy that all of these blocks were able to work together to make this top.  But, should I make it bigger?  I can't see this as a baby quilt.  Can you? 

Last up is to look at the December UFO from the APQ UFO Challenge.  It is a smaller (less blocks) version of a Bonnie Hunter design, Talking Turkey.  (You can find the pattern in her book String Fling.) After reviewing the pattern I've decided I'm going to "try" to make the border as she shows it.  We'll see if it will actually work. (I'm hoping I have some dies I can use for the flying geese --- or just make the 4 at a time version that uses my Deb Tucker Wing Clipper. 

Thank goodness this is a scrappy quilt so I can use whatever scraps I currently have to finish it up. 

Let's get on to the goal list for this week.  Again, several days I'm already committed to other activities.  The only thing I really need to do is continue working on the grand's ornaments.  I can't wait to show you them around Christmas time. 

12/5/22

Keep Working on Ornaments

Quilt Natalie’s quilt

Make border for Dec APQ UFO Challenge piece. 

Make some single blocks

Prep wide backs for 3 quilts 

At Thanksgiving my daughter brought 2 quilts down for me to quilt, one for each of her daughters.  I'm really hoping I can get both done by Dec. 18th when we'll see them again.  I guess I'll be postponing quilting my quilts until after these are done. I sure hope I can use at least 1 of those wide backs this month! Prepping them is just washing and ironing if needed. 

I'm at the end of this post with the exception to the parties I'll be linking with. 

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday 

To Do Tuesday

Usually I try to write and post this blog Sunday night. Didn't happen... so rather than get any later, I'm ending this here.  

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie