Monday Meandering -- 9 - 18 - 23

It's now 2 weeks before I go on retreat with Country Piecemakers. I'm trying to focus on projects I want to either finish or move forward before going. My second focus is on planning and cutting projects to be taken with me to retreat. I'll be continuing those two plans for the next two weeks.  So here's how I did this past week. 

9/11/23

✅Finish customer’s quilt — finished and returned.

✅Begin sewing secret items — good start made but much to do.

✅Cut 1 new project for retreat — 1 done, probably 3 more to do.

✅Continue the clean up of the front of the cutting table — I’ve been cutting scraps into squares, rectangles and half square triangles and putting them away. 

✅Continue working on Ombre log cabin, cut setting triangles — setting triangles haven’t been cut but I've almost finished sewing all the blocks into rows. 

It was a pretty good week.  My secret item is moving along quite nicely.  If I'm lucky, I'll finish it this week. 

I did do a bit of off-list sewing.  

Yep, it's another Happy Block.  This one, and quite a few additional ones I hope to make, will be sent to Cynthia for her compassion quilt drive.  Here is Cynthia's link to the instructions and guidelines for this quarter's blocks. If you already read her blog, Quilting Is More Fun that Housework, you may have already participated in one of her block drives.  In addition to blocks she could use donations of large fabric pieces for backing and finished quilts.  I like to make blocks so I'll be donating blocks. I'm going to check my fabric stash to see if I have any fabric that could be a backing.  

I have four more blocks to make for Flower Song which I hope to get to top stage at retreat.  Today I was able to cut and do preliminary sewing on three of them. (IE, make the 12 half square triangles for each block!) 

One of the gals who usually helps plan and goes to retreat has taken a new job so she can't go.  Instead the committee sent each participant a "Flat Michelle" similar to the children's Flat Stanley.  Having been an elementary school media specialist I was all in favor of having Flat Michelle help me prepping for the retreat. I sent this picture to the gals who were going and to Michelle with a note saying she was helping me pick the fabric colors for the last 4 blocks.  I have to say KUDOS to the retreat committee who have planned several fun things for us to do along with our own sewing. Here are the 12 blocks of Flower Song I've already made. 👇🏼

I think they will look much better once the sashing and corner stones are added.  The last 4 blocks will be used in the corner of the borders.  Once I get the center done I'll audition the print fabric I might use. You can see the pattern to the left of Flat Michelle in the picture above.

Now on to this month's list. I keep revising what I think I'll be doing. 

9/18/23

Continue sewing secret items… 

Cut 2nd new project for retreat

Continue the clean up of the front of the cutting table 

Finish getting Flower Song fabric cut so I can finish the top at retreat

Cut the background fabric and start the first clue of Malted Mystery

Work on Omber Log Cabin as time permits 

I have been quilting a few customer tops and some for charities supported by my local quilt guild.  It turns out I haven't been very good about sharing them on the blog.  Today I'm sharing a top I quilted for a charity that was made by a few members of the guild. Here's a pic as it was being quilted.

I wish I had gotten a better picture after it was done.  If I remember to take a picture it is usually just before someone comes to pick up their quilt.  This one is a beautiful quilt that I really enjoyed working on. 

Here are my normal Linky parties.  I've been trying to visit a lot of the Linky parties and leave comments but time keeps getting away from me.  I'll be back later to link the rest of the parties once they go live. 

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musing

Sew and Tell 

To Do Tuesday 

One more note especially for Mac users.  I found out why I couldn't leave comments on Blogger.  I had changed my settings in Safari to prevent cross-site tracking. It turns out it also blocks me from adding comments to the blogs I read. If you are using Safari and having the same issue open Safari. Click on the word, Safari. It will open a drop down menu -- click on Settings. Then click on the Hand/Privacy. The top line says Website Tracking: Prevent cross-site tracking.   The box needs to be empty. I haven't decided if I will leave it unchecked. I might just uncheck it to read blogs and then change it to preventing cross-site tracking when I do other things. 

Not only did I learn something new about how to set my computer to be able to leave comments, I also figured out how to draw ovals and rectangles in Preview. (I did leave a few weird lines on the privacy circle...Oops!) 

I'm calling it quits for tonight.  It's another busy week. At least I haven't had a bunch of books I've reserved show up all at once! 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie