Monday Meanderings 1 - 30 -2023

Good Morning. (well, it may not be morning when you read this but whatever time of day it is I hope it is good!)  Let's get right to the goals from last week.

1/23/23

✅Work on red spider web blocks — need to finish sewing together — about half the rows are left to do.

Make blocks for ✅Sharon, ✅Cindy — all done.

Finish moose top — didn’t happen. I’ve put it aside until the spider web quilt is a top.

✅Finish Traffic jam with 2” blocks — further along but need to make rest of border and sew it on. 

✅Quilt on hearts top — quilting is done just need to finish hand sewing the binding.

Not too bad as I really did focus on the spider web blocks turning into a quilt. Unfortunately I needed to re-iron the center seam of nearly every block.  Sigh 

Here is the block I made for Cindy. I've always liked the hugs and kisses block. The blocks are going to a guild member who has served the guild for many, many years.  How do you pick fabrics when making a block that will be mixed with lots of others and there are no color guidelines?  I first picked a cute print and then decided this one was much calmer and would blend with lots of wilder blocks. At least, that's my thinking! 

Next up are 4 blocks I made for Sharon who is a member of the FCQ E Quilters group.  She chose Criss Cross Star block.  (It might look familiar as we also made it for the October retreat opportunity block.) Here's a link to a Lori Holt video explaining how to make it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5xEMXA3biY. If for some reason it doesn't come up type in Sew Your Stash Series 10 to find it. It ends up a 9" finished block. I still love this block.  Hum, maybe one day I'll make a quilt out of them. 

Now what is going on this week?  Check it out below. 

1/30/23

Finish the hearts top 

Finish sewing Spider web together, find or buy backing 

Dance around the studio because Ruthie’s being fixed on Thursday!

Quilt spider web 

Keep working on Traffic Jam border 

Finish Moose quilt to top stage 

I'm tickled that Ruthie will be back and working this week.  I haven't finished much in the way of quilted tops this month because she was under the weather. (so to speak!) Hopefully I'll get the Spider web quilt done by the end of the week. 

As January comes to a close we (as in hubby) starts thinking about what quilts need to be displayed in February.  Well, you got it.  Valentine's Day quilts.  So before we (as in hubby) remove the winter quilts and snowmen I took a few pictures to share.

(Hum, the top border is actually straight -- it's just hard to get it straight in the holder.) All the snowmen on the left I made. Hubby made the trees. I bought the snowmen on the right.  

I normally get this post done the day before but I was lazy last evening.  I'll be leaving right after lunch for my stitching group so I'll call this done now.  Take some time to do a little blog hopping using these Linky parties to start off. 

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Sew & Tell 

Monday Musings

To Do Tuesday 

I hope you have a wonderful quilty week! 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

1 - 28 - 2023 Stashbusting Efforts 2022

I have my December 2022 and the full year stashbusting stats to share today. (Yep, I tend to forget to figure out the numbers until the next month is nearly gone.) Just as a reminder, I do not count fabric used until a quilt is quilted and bound.  So, I have lots of tops done and too many projects in progress.  Part of the reason I use finished quilts as my benchmark is it forces me to finish the project. 

Here's my December fabric usage statistics. 

2022	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out  Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
Dec	14.875	120.875	17.75	140	19.125

And yes, this shows I used more fabric than I brought in. In fact, over the last two years I have used more than I brought in. I'm doing a little happy dance over here. I've kept statistics since 2010 but I'm more interested in recent years.  

I have only bought one yard of fabric in January so I am hoping I'll be at least even on ins and outs this month. 

Ruthie, the long arm, needs some replacements so I haven't quilted anything on her this month.  I'm hoping the repair work will be done early in February so I can crank her up and get some quilts finished. 

During the last week of December I kept plugging away and I got two quilts done.  Here's Alycia's Stop Tossing that was presented as a mystery on the Mystery Quilts 4 Veterans group.  I decided to work with my purples as I had a lot of them.  I actually really like this pattern and how it was made.  Thank you Alycia for providing this mystery to us. 

I'm always looking for a good location to take quilt pictures.  This was behind a local high school. The quilt was too long to show the long way. Here it is in all its glory sideways.  I doubt this will go to a veteran but it will be given away.  I was a little worried about my colors but in the end, I love it! I think the only fabric I bought for this one was the background white and the backing.  

Quilting Design -- Radiate Edge to Edge from My Creative Stitches. 

Thread -- Sew Fine 499 purple 

Size -- 55 x 75.5"

Last picture is it on a bed showing the backing also. 

The backing is a wide back from Connecting Threads called Connected Stars in purple.  I used some of it for the binding also. 

My last picture today is of January's clue for Melodic Mystery.  I'm looking forward to February as we will be putting the quilt together then.  I like the format of one clue a month.  I've been able to keep up with no problem. Another quilt where I could use stash fabric.  I purchased the background and the pink fabric. (I don't think the background was in my stash but it might have been.) 

I've got to get going today so here's the details of the linky parties I'll be joining.

Needle and Thread Thursday

Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?

Finished or Not Friday

 Beauties Pageant

That's it for me today.  I agreed to help move some music from a falling apart file cabinet to a new one. Hopefully they'll be enough people so it won't take too long,  I have projects to work on in the studio.

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie

Monday Meanderings 1 - 23 - 2023

We lived through the week with the grands! And, boy were we worn out afterwards.  We came home Friday afternoon. The travelers got home late that afternoon and picked the grands up at a friend's home.  We were glad we didn't wait to see them as our daughter-in-law came home with Covid.  Between a 24 hour bug that hit the two kids and DIL before they left, and son feeling horrible the first day or two in Key West it wasn't a very relaxing vacation for them. 

I was able to spend part of two days piecing. We also were able to visit with some old friends in the Northern Virginia area. Barb and I went to high school together; in fact we met the first day our freshmen year. For many years Pat and I lived in the greater Los Angeles area. Eventually we moved to the east and finally settled in Virginia closer to Barb and Jay. We're thinking of planning a trip together at some point. 

The above was a bit of information about why I didn't get all my goals done this past week even though I spent most of Sat and Sunday in my studio. Here's what I wanted to accomplish last week. I'm happy with what I did get done plus I worked off list a bit too. 

1/16/23

✅Finish a few RSC blue blocks - three done.

✅Do the January Melodic Mystery clue —  all done. Ready to put it together with the last clue. 

Make a few blocks for Flower Song — didn’t get to this.

Finish Traffic Jam top with 2” blocks — center part is done, working on border.

✅Enjoy the Grands — it was fun but boy we were tired when we got home! 

Here's how I left Traffic Jam Sunday night. I've got several seams to do to get the rows together and I need to make another sashing row.  Then it's just making 9 patches for the border which I'll do as a leader ender.  The end is in sight. 

I also got 3 of the 4 rows together of the Moose quilt.  I'm not sure why I worked on it so diligently because it wasn't even on the goals list last week.  There is only one more row to figure out and sew on.  I'll evaluate whether it needs a border later. (I was thinking a navy blue border would work but of course I don't have any navy blue fabric.)  The fourth row will echo the top row with the dark brown across the two smaller photos and the dark brown running parallel to the bigger picture in the center. At least that is the plan. We'll see how it actually comes out. (Hopefully it'll be a top by the end of the week with a border to be determined.) 

Now let's see what I hope to do this coming week. 

1/23/23

Work on red spider web blocks

Make blocks for Sharon, Cindy

Finish moose top

Finish Traffic jam with 2” squares

Quilt on hearts top

I need to really focus on the spider web blocks as the guild has a red quilt challenge I'd like to enter it in.  It needs to be done by mid February.  

I think I have enough blocks made it's just a matter of sewing them together, quilting and binding it.  (Just a little bit to do...) Here's a grouping of them from February. 

Hum, I should probably find some backing fabric for this now rather than waiting until it is done and ready to quilt. 

The last picture I want to share is a small quilt I'm pin basting in preparation to hand big stitch quilt it.  I made the appliqué heart blocks in about 1994.  We had moved to the Baltimore area and the first year there I worked at a wonderful quilt store.  I took a class to learn how to appliqué a bunch of different ways.  Fast forward many years and I finally made it into a top.  Now I'm ready to get it finished. It's a little less than 23" square so I'm hoping it goes quickly. Any suggestions on where I should quilt it? I have to see what color pearl cotton I have although my guess is I only have larger sizes in colors and only black in the right size thread. Maybe. I need to look. 

I actually figured out my December fabric usage today  but I think I'll wait to share as this is already pretty long.  So, with no further ado, I'm linking with the following parties.  Please spend some time surfing the web using these parties as a starting point. 

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Sew & Tell 

To Do Tuesday

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 1 - 16 - 2023

Winter has gripped our area again.  We're are staying in the house to keep warm.  Hubby and I are staying with our grands while their parents are in Key West. Hum, why didn't we think to do that?  We're having fun during our visit. I'll share some of the visit at the end. 

First it's time for my goals. Here's last week's list. 

1/9/2023

✅Continue with RSC blocks in blue

✅Work on January UFO Challenge — Moose quilt

👎🏼Work on Spider Web blocks — sew blocks into “foursys”. Decide how many more blocks needed and make them — A few more blocks sewn but didn’t get far. 

✅Spend 15 minutes a day cleaning up the studio — Most days 20 minutes were spent cleaning around the studio. And I can see a difference. More needs to be done though. 

Here's the result of two of my goals. First is the progress on the Moose quilt. I decided on using some 3.5" squares to separate the pictures. I'm using a brown which has some light colors in it to accent the pictures. (Sorry you can't see the light highlights in that dark brown in the picture.)  The short brown piece above the bigger moose picture was just to see how a brown strip would look across the quilt.  When I have a chance I'll be adding a brown strip above and below the second strip of pictures. I hope I can get this finished by the end of the month... at least to top stage. 

I was able to get a sample RSC block done in blues.  Here are the results. Hum, I need to make sure there are light colors in each quarter of the block. I haven't decided how many I'm going to make but maybe 2 of each of the 10 colors. This block is 9" finished. I generally make lap size quilts with RSC blocks.  We'll see what I decide this year.

 

Here's are my plans for this week.  They are a little less challenging than normal but I hope to finish all of them. 

1/16/23

Finish a few RSC blue blocks

Do the January Melodic Mystery clue

Make a few blocks for Flower Song

Finish Traffic Jam top with 2” blocks

Enjoy the Grands

Now on to some photos that should make you laugh when you see them. 

And he here is ... Walter the dog! 

I know, poor dog.  Next up is a list of Linky parties I'll be signing up with.  Hopefully I actually link to all I list. 

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday 

Monday Musings

To Do Tuesday

I'm ready to get some piecing done and hopefully I'll be able to when the grands are at school over the next few days.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 1 - 9 - 2023

Have you recovered from Christmas and New Years?  Have the decorations been stored until next December or do you leave some snow decorations out?  At our house Christmas quilts on the walls change over to snowman quilts and a bunch of snowmen I have made or purchased over the years come out. These will stay out until February when I'll switch to my Valentine's Day quilts.  The smaller snowmen may stay out but they'll probably be put away mid February.  

I've spent a bit of time deciding what UFOs I want to work on, figuring out how many tops I need to think about quilting, and mentally figuring out a new things I'd really like to get done this year.  From that thinking I've come up with 12 UFOs I'd like to move forward or, even better, finish.  One of the projects I've added to my UFO list is making a tee shirt quilt for our son.  He gave me 2 bags of shirts and said go for it.  He won't even identify the ones he'd like me to use and, believe me, he gave me a lot of them.  I'm looking forward to making progress on all 12 "UFOs."  In the end I'll have some projects that get completely done and some just get moved forward.  It's all good. 

Now, it's time to look at how I did on my first set of goals in the new year.

1/2/2023

✅Sew Let’s Face It mystery together — Center part done.Waiting to decide about the border(s).

✅Keep working on the border of Talking Turkey — done - sent to the “to-be-quilted closet.

✅Finish APQ UFO Challenge Sheet and start on the UFO for January — Done! 

✅Make List of Tops ready to quilt — Done! 

Start on the 2023 Quilting Life — holding off to come up with fabric.

I feel I did a good job with this past week's list.  I'm still up in the air about the fabrics for Sherri's mystery quilt.  Last year I used patriotic fabrics so I could make another veteran's quilt.  I'm still playing with alternate colors but I may just stick with red, white and blue. 

Here's my January UFO project.  I started this "Moose" quilt a while ago but got frustrated.  I had a yard or two of moose in the snow fabric. I thought it would be easy to cut them into scenes and add some go with fabrics and call it done. Um, no. It wasn't easy at all. I realized there were very few scenes of the moose, just a lot of repeated scenes. So some will be duplicated.  Here are the blocks that made the cut once I started working on the project again. 

Actually, only 2 of the pictures had some blue go-with fabric around them when I pulled them out. But I did start adding more blue surrounds. Part of my problem is I don't have a lot of the blue fabric.  Here's where I left it this evening.  I've made a few decisions. 

And then I ran out of the blue. It dawned on me I could put the center column of pictures up against each other and I would have some easy sashing. That may not work since the blocks are differing widths.   I need to do some thinking on fillers around the smaller pictures. I have hunks of brown and black fabric.  And some blue solids that I can use.  Stay tuned while I try to figure this out. 

Here's this week's goal list.

1/9/2023

Continue with RSC blocks in blue

Work on January UFO Challenge — Moose quilt

Work on Spider Web blocks — sew blocks into “foursys”. Decide how many more blocks are needed and make them

Spend 15 minutes a day cleaning up in the studio

I have been cogitating on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt for this year. I wanted to do something with strings so I checked two of my books on string quilting.  I knew I didn't want labor intensive blocks. I was up for something different.  I finally came up with strings in drunkard's path blocks.  I credit the book A New Spin on Drunkard's Path by John Kubiniec for the idea. I hope to make circles with my fabric strings going in differing directions. Here's two layouts from the red string samples. 

One possible layout.  

I may use this layout if I can figure how I can cut the colored part so the strings go perpendicular to the bottom left.  I am making the blue strings now.  I'll have to read John's book to see how I can get all four blocks going different directions. I am using my Drunkard Path dies from AccuQuilt that will give me a 9" finished group of 4 blocks.  I've got a few cut out in blue and I'll be able to play with them before I sew them together. I may need to turn the string sections before I put them on the die to cut.  I'll keep you informed. 

That's it for me today.  I'm linking up with my regular Linky parties and one new to me, Monday Musing at Song Bird Designs. 

Oh Scrap! 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

To Do Tuesday 

I noticed that last week I didn't get everything linked up correctly. I thought I had changed my blog and linked up at each of the blogs.  Who knows what happened.  I'll pay more attention this week.  

Please take a minute to check out my post about Mysteries and Sew Alongs.  Check the tab above that links to the post from Jan 3rd.  I'll be posting about Mysteries and Sew Alongs at the beginning of every month. If I get additional events I've missed I'll try to post again with add ons.  Please feel free to let me know of any that I have missed although I tend to post only upcoming events.  I hope you enjoy finding a mystery or sew along that really speaks to you. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

 

A Finish from November 1 - 6 - 2023

I finished several quilts during November and December.  This one was my last November quilt finished. 

I've been calling this one Economy after the block name. My guess is I'll pass this on to a charity over the next few weeks. 

Hum, older picture what with Christmas decorations around the door. 

Quilting Pattern: Ariana 

The blocks are 9" finished and were cut using my 9" Accuquilt Cube.  The fabric is Simple Abundance by Camille of Thimble Blossom and Bonnie of Cotton Way for Moda.  Interesting fact is many years ago I won all of the fabric from a blogger who had made a sample from the collection.  It was a lot of fabric and I've used pieces of it in many different projects.  I still have some left if you can believe it.  

That's it for today.  I'm linking up with these Linky parties:

Needle and Thread Thursday  

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? 

Finished or Not Friday 

From Bolt to Beauty 

Take some time to surf the web this weekend.  There are lots of wonderful blogs with wonderful quilts to get your imaginations going!  

I have two more quilts I finished in December that I hope to get pictures of soon. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 1 - 2 - 23

 It's a New Year 

Welcome 2023

We didn't make it to midnight on New Year's Eve --no doubt we were snoring away when the year changed. I spent New Year's Day making Merry Mayhem's Mystery Quilt Case #147 "Let's Face It."  Monday, Jan 2 we'll be glued to the tv watching the Rose Parade followed by the Cotton Bowl where our alma mater Univ. of Southern California with be playing Tulane. Fight On! 

Now, let's look at my goals for the last week of December. 

12/26/22

✅✅Quilt and bind two of my quilts — Both done before the end of 2022! 

✅Pick a new hand project to work on — Ready to start stitching. 

✅Decide on 12 UFOs to work on for the 2023 UFO Challenge — need one or two more. 

✅Start sewing border on Talking Turkey -- barely but started - 2 of 4 sides sewn together.   

Now on to this week's goals.  

1/2/2023

Sew 'Let’s Face It' mystery together

Keep working on the border of Talking Turkey 

Finish APQ's 2023 UFO Challenge Sheet and start on the UFO for January

Make List of Tops ready to quilt

Start on the 2023 Quilting Life mystery quilts

I neglected to take many pictures this week.  So, here's the one picture I did get.  This is my version of 'Let's Face It.' My goal was to use a lot of my floral fat quarters.  All of the bricks have some purple in them but they aren't all florals. I have made a nice dent in the fat quarter box. (If you want to make one you might be able to download the pattern from Merry Mayhem's website for the next few days.)

That's it for today.  I'm linking up with the following parties. 

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday 

To Do Tuesday (new hostess!) 

I think I now have 3 finished quilts that I haven't shared with everyone.  Maybe I'll post the one finished in November this week sometime. (Notice I didn't say. I'd post it for sure... who knows what will be going on this week!) 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie