Monday Meanderings 4 - 8 - 2024

Apparently I brought a "friend" home from our trip to Panama and Costa Rica.  By Tuesday I had a ferocious cough and cold. Bummer. I tested twice for Covid and both were negative.  So I "think" I am recovering.  I didn't take any over the counter cough/cold medicine today so I'm hoping I on the mend.  I've got too many things going on over the next week or so to take time out for a cold!  

I will say that for the big chorus rehearsal on Saturday I masked up.  I sure didn't want to give any singers a cold. We've got a concert on April 20 with three other choral groups in the general area. And the first weekend in May is our Spotsylvanians concert.  I may try a sneak trip to Maryland that week to attend the Faithful Circle Quilters show. This is the first time in years I have not entered anything in the show.  But several of the out of town quilt buddies are coming in for the show so I hope to be able to see them.  

Now on to my goals for last week. 

4/1/24 

✅Finish binding on Spider Web quilt — done!

Bind ZigZag quilt — nothing done, sigh

Clean up sewing table — put a little bit away but no big progress

✅Make miscellaneous blocks — many finished

✅Start knitting new hat — almost done

✅Quilt customer top — done! 

I haven't done the label or taken pictures of the Spider Web quilt. I hope to do that this week. So pictures to come. 

Here are some of the miscellaneous blocks I made this week. First up blocks for Sharon as part of the FCQ Equilters group. I keep forgetting to take pictures earlier in the day so I have more natural light. Sigh!  I cut out 3 more blocks today that I'll sew over the week. 

Here's a close up of one. 

I'm just about out of this cute parrot fabric.⬆️  And here are my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks I finished this week. ⬇️  

I ran out of time so I don't have all of the purple ones done.  Missing about half of March meant I hadn't finished all of the yellow ones before we left on our vacation.  But I'm caught up and should be able to get the rest of the purples done this week. 

And finally, I did get my customer's quilt done.  It was a sweet little baby quilt. 

I used a cream So Fine thread and Ginger Heart edge to edge on it. It came out really nicely and she was happy. 

On to what I think I'm going to work on this week. 

4/8/24

Make label for Spider Web quilt

Attend mystery quilt class at Country Piecemakers

Machine embroider some scissor covers and quilt block key chains

Knit a couple of hats for From the Heart

Have fun sewing with Sharon 

Finish some more miscellaneous blocks

Bind ZigZag quilt

That is a really long list for me.  Hopefully I'll be able to check off some of the items this week even though I'm going to be busy all week.  Sharon is coming in sometime on Thursday and will stay to Monday morning.  We haven't seen each other since October so we are both looking forward to it. She is teaching the mystery class at Country Piecemakers so we'll be driving down to Powhatan early Saturday morning. 

Week Ending 4/7/2024

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/April =7/7 days 
• 15 minute days/2024 = 91/98 days
• Success rate = 92.85%

It's going to take a while to bring up my average success rate. Hopefully I'll have several weeks of 7  15 minutes stitching days per week.  I sure like the idea of stitching every day.  

On to my Panama/Costa Rica Travelog, Part 2. Still in Panama City. 

We were staying at the downtown Crowne Plaza in Panama City.  It had a lovely restaurant with indoor and poolside seating. The weather was HOT -mid to upper 90s most days.  After having a couple of meals poolside we realized they also had a buffet. (Duh!) But when we did have a meal from the buffet I noticed the wall behind the buffet.... 

Yep, I'd call those all quilt tiles. If I was highly motivated I could make them but don't hold your breath on that happening! 

But, back to our private tour of Panama City.  Our guide took us out to see the Pacific Ocean -- something I haven't seen for 5 years or so. 

Hum, I realize he has his Univ. of Southern California shirt on.  Side note -- we met in an English class there when we were sophomores.  And the rest is history! The big ship in the distance is waiting to go into the Panama Canal. 

Here we are as tourists -- 

This was at a marina.  Folks were feeding the fish and the sea gulls.  It was entertaining to watch the birds fight for their share. The fish were beautiful although I didn't get any pictures of either birds or fish. Along with the heat was a lot of humidity.  I have somewhat naturally curly hair and boy, howdy! It was curling like crazy. It's finally back under control now that we're home and I can blow dry it into submission! 

On our way back into the city we stopped to look at the Panama Canal.  In 2019 we were on a cruise that entered and went through the first lock from the Atlantic side.  There is more info about the Canal and pictures of going through the lock here.  

Ships generally have to wait for their turn to go through the canal. Here are quite a few waiting on the Pacific Ocean side. 

We did not tour the western end of the canal nor go to the visitor center -- it was packed and we had seen a lot of the information from our previous trip. 

I was able to get a great photo of the canal as we were driving across a bridge. 

If you look on the left you can see how the earth was cut to create the canal area.  It looks like steps. Today's ships keep getting larger and larger and the ships create bottlenecks for the canal.  Sometimes passage is only one way. (At least that is what we understood from our guide.) You can read more about the Panama Canal and watch some web cams at https://pancanal.com/en/history-of-the-panama-canal/  The history is interesting.  I somehow got on the site with prices -- one of the really big ships pays $300,000 toll with additional fees for tug boats and other services. (It looks complicated to me to determine all the fees!) 

That's it on vacation pictures. Up next is the first part of Costa Rica. Come back next Monday for some more vacation fun. You won't believe what I did! 

I'm linking up with: 

Oh Scrap

Stitching Stuff

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie