Monday Meandering 10 - 21 - 2024

 It was a great retreat weekend!  The weather turned a little colder than normal.  The lows were in the 30s! Yikes. Highs ranged from the low 70s to the 50s.  That was ok -- another reason to stay in a quilt.  I didn't take any walks except to the cafeteria, around the sewing room, and walking to our bedroom a couple of times each day. Most days my step counter was over 10,000 stitches.  

I didn't have a huge goal list last week. Here's what it looked like. 

10/14/24 

✅Have a great time at retreat — I had a wonderful time.

✅Make at least 4 tops from kits — finished 5 tops and got 2 others started! WOW

Quilt one of my quilts after retreat — nope.  

I brought 8 projects to work on.  One wasn't even looked at.  Two need to be finished. See below for the specific projects I worked on.

Here's what I hope to do this week. 

10/21/24

Finish Frolicking Frogs top started at retreat

Wash new fabrics 

Put two borders on 3 yd quilt started at retreat

Bake some items for the annual community craft show

Clean up some of the stuff on the cutting table

Quilt one top 

Sharon and I set up our tables and got to work right away.  She had to leave Thursday morning as her son was getting married Saturday night.  This picture shows some of our finishes before she left.

Her items are on the left: 2 3 yard quilts and a baby quilt using 2" squares. (She had sewn most of the squares together before retreat started.) My items on the right included 2 framed 9 patch quilts, a 36" baby quilt, the unfinished 3 yard quilt and a doll quilt top.  (The framed 9 patches came from the FCQ Equilters group so all I did was sew the two tops together.) The doll quilt only needed two borders sewn on. 

One of the reasons I had such successes at retreat is I precut my projects. Last year I made a big cutting booboo at the beginning of my major project and it was downhill from there. Lesson learned. So I made sure I picked easier projects and all were ready to just sew away. 

Here are pictures of some of the projects: 

I have so many of these blocks from the EQuilters.  I sewed this 4 x 4 top and a 3 x 3 top. And, there are a lot more blocks to make into more tops. 

This is a 36 x 36" baby quilt using the leftover fabric from Boxes and Bows quilt. It was a free pattern shared on this blog: https://www.sameliasmum.com/2014/11/one-block-baby-quilt-tutorial.html#google_vignette. 

Here's a closeup of the center buggies. People either see the buggies or, surprisingly, see peacocks.  More than 1 saw peacocks.  Strange, huh? 

This is another 3 yard quilt.  I was expecting it would sew up really quickly.  Um, no.  It wasn't all that fast. 

The yellow was suppose to be the next border but I didn't have enough of it left. Bummer.  So on our shopping trip to Fork Mountain Quilting I was able to find a pinky/red to use as the next border.  It ends with a bigger border of the turquoise fabric.  I need to wash the pinky fabric before I can sew it into the quilt. 

My last finished top to share is a Jelly Bean top. It takes me quite a bit of time to cut out all the pieces for this block.  But it's a snap to sew up this log cabin style quilt. For this one I used a kid's print for the center block. You can find instructions for this very easy block designed by Pat Sloan. If you want to make one check out the directions here.  

I've worked hard this week to make sure I got my 15 minutes of stitching each day.  Friday after driving home (4 hour trip!) I whipped out my knitting and spent 20 minutes working on a little hat.  I was surprised I wanted to spend more time in my studio on Saturday. Sunday afternoon we were going to watch a granddaughter's soccer game.  I spent the morning stitching and then later afternoon we went up to watch the game.  So, yes I stitched on something every day this week. 

W/ending 10/20  — 294 days in to 2024. 

• 15 minute days/Oct = 7/7
• 15 minute days/2024 = 284/294 days
• Success rate = 96.6%

Not bad.  I've only missed 10 days this year.  I make a point to sit down and stitch on days I'm on the go a lot. Normal at home days I spend several hours sewing.  I've got a LOT of quilt tops that need quilting. So I'll be trying to get more tops quilted over the next few weeks. I have several quilts I want to stitch on my domestic machine.  I hope to pin one and get it quilted soon! 

The retreat was held at Smith Mountain Lake in south west Virginia.  I snapped this picture on my way out on Friday.  The little blue on the right of the tree is a bit of the lake. At the 4 H Center the lake view is even better.  I'm already looking forward to next year's retreat. It's a fun group of quilters. 

Please take some time to visit the following Linky parties. Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musings. Have fun seeing what people are working on this month. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie