Monday Meanderings 10 - 6 - 2025

Talk about productive weeks!  I was so tuned into my quilting that I got a lot done -- both on and off my goals list.  Now if I could just remember what all I did off list!  We sang at the Spotsylvanian's Cabaret on Saturday evening.  Of course, there was a rehearsal the night before.  It was a much smaller area and drew a nice crowd. The chorus sang 6 songs with various individuals, duets and small groups also singing. It was a lot of fun.  Last year we missed it because of a wedding.  Now, on to the quilting goals.

9/29/25

✅Finish clue 1 of Magnificent Mystery — well, not finished but a good start was made.

✅Finish sewing down ombré Log Cabin binding — Done! pictures to come later.

✅Quilt and bind another top — Done. 

✅Make some more Economy blocks — 2 or 3 more finished! 

✅Make section 2 of Tall Tree — Done! 

I had pretty specific goals last week. Because I've changed my fabric usage statistics to quarterly and Sept. 30 was the end of the third quarter I was determined to finish one more quilt and the large, Ombré Log Cabin. And I am so happy to report I finished both! I'm not sure when I'll be able to get some pictures but I will maybe this week or after I'm back from retreat. 

It turns out I've misnamed the Magnificent Mystery clues. September was actually Clue 3 but the first clue to sew.  So this week I started Clue 4 which I'll have all of October to finish. Here's the picture of some of the finished units. These were called Irish Chain blocks. The dark fabric is actually deep purple. I finished less than 20 of the 60 blocks needed. But most of the strip piecing was sewn and I just need to cut them into the various rows and sew them up. Magnificent Mystery details can be found on Meadow Mist Designs web site. It's not too late to start this project!  (Note: as of 10/5 Cheryl has not added the current clue info to the linked page. But she will do it. All the other links are live so you could start catching up!You can also click on the October link on the sidebar.) 

And, check out my Tall Tree! (Sorry for the dark picture. The sun goes down earlier and earlier.  I should have taken the pic by 2 pm or so when more outdoor light comes into the studio.) These sections have been very easy to do. In fact, I thought I might do an extra section this week but rehearsal and the concert took up more time than I thought it would. Maybe I'll get 2 done this week. (I'm not planning on taking this project to retreat.) 

Now what needs to be done this week? More retreat prep for the most part and a few more projects I want to move forward! 

10/6/25

Make sections 3 & 4 of Tall Trees

Figure out fabric usage stats

Work on clue 4 of Marvelous Mystery

Organize and pack for retreat 10/13

This week has a lighter load as I'm not sure how many more projects I might want to cut and take to retreat next week.  I always precut my projects so I don't need to be cutting while I chatting! Let's just say my concentration is pretty scattered. But we have a lot of fun. 

I've been able to sew every day this week. Here are the stats!  

W/ending 10/5/25. 278 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/September 30/30
• 15 minute days/October 5/5
• 15 minute days/2024 = 278/278 days
• Success rate = 100%

I've decided to make some more blocks to go with 5 leftover blocks from one of my turns with the FCQ Equilters.  No need to have these blocks sit around longer. Let's get more blocks done and then a quilt top.  I think I'll cut out several more blocks and take them on retreat to finish. These will be trimmed to 9.5".  So, how many more do I want to make?  Hum, if I plan a top 4 x 4 I'd need 11 more blocks. The quilt would be 36" square.  I may need to make more as I don't see these as baby quilt blocks.  What do you think? This block design was from the book California Cruisin' from Terry Atkinson.  From what I can tell you can only find it used. 

I did finish two more RSC potato chip blocks for September.  The October colors are brown and black. I haven't decided if I'm going to add either or both of those colors. I tend to only use the brighter colors.  I've made two 12" block each month except September when I made 4 blocks. I need to give some thought to how big I want to make this quilt and whether I need to make a few more blocks.  I probably won't make any decisions for a while. 

I hope you can spend a little time checking out blogs this week.  I tend to spend time on Mondays checking out blogs but often that is the only time I do.  Here's some Linky parties for you to check out. 

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

October 2025 Mysteries and Sew Alongs

Fat Cat Patterns has a block of the month program going on now. There is an enrollment fee. For Mother Cluckers it’s $12 while buying the complete pattern immediately is $24.00. It started in August and runs through April 2026. For more info https://fatcatpatterns.com/boms. Don’t forget to check out some of their other offerings. $

Spooky Season Sampler: 9 designers offering a free Halloween -themed block every day. Runs from October 1 - October 10. For more information https://cottonandjoy.com/pages/spooky-season-sampler?utm_campaign=sampler-welcomeemail1&utm_content=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=flodesk Blocks are large and rated beginner to intermediate.  If you sign up you are also signing up to receive emails from all 9 designers. You can unsubscribe at any time though. (Hum, maybe wait until after you’ve gotten all the blocks.)

Check out the Pennsylvania Dutch Heritage Sew Along at https://suzyssitcom.com/2025/09/pennsylvania-dutch-heritage-sew-along-block-1.html. Suzy’s SitCom offers a new block each month on the 15th available free for one month only.  The fabric requirements and the first block is currently available. (Block 1 is only free until mid October.) Check out her other boms currently going on by clicking on Craft Tutorials and then choosing Free Patterns. There are currently 4 blocks of the  months, some ending in October and some continuing for several more months. If you want any of the complete patterns go to Quilt Pattern Store. Free for current month, $ if you don’t get the block while it is free. 

Frequently the Fat Quarter Shop has been featured in this column.  This month they have nothing new starting. But I thought I would add the link to their free quilt patterns. Check them out here: https://blog.fatquartershop.com/category/free-pattern/  If a mystery or sew along doesn’t spark your interest maybe one of these patterns will.  

As always if the link doesn’t work, you can copy the address and paste it into your browser.

Monday Meanderings 9 - 29 - 2025

September is about over.  I'm not sure why it went by so fast.  Does it seem like the days are going faster the closer we get to the end of the year? I imagine Christmas will be here any minute! Despite time flying by I did pretty well on my goals list. 

9/22/25

✅Prepare and ✅sew binding on Ombre Log Cabin — about half way done hand stitching the binding.

✅Continue cutting out Magnificent Mystery Quilt — actually I started cutting out and sewing first clue. 

✅Make two more potato chip blocks  for RSC — finished a light green and a light blue. 

✅Try making one section of paper pieced tall tree — finished section 1.

Attend a grand’s soccer game — didn’t attend. We were rained out but the game was played in the rain! Something we didn’t want to sit through!  

I'm doing the Magnificent Mystery designed by Cheryl Brickey. The first sewing clue was to make quarter square triangles. I've got more than half done but it's taking me a long time. Hopefully I'll get all of them done by the end of this week. 

The colors for September's Rainbow Scrap Challenge are light blue and light green.  So far I've made the first two blocks using mostly the colors. I still need to make the reverse blocks where there is just one round of color and the rest lights. 

I was happy how easy the first section of the Tall Tree paper pieced pattern was. I'm hoping to make one or two sections a week so that I can have it finished before Christmas. We'll see if I can do that. Sorry, these colors are a bit off.  There were only 5 pieces to sew together this time.  One of the later sections has a bunch of little triangles to sew. No doubt that will take me much longer to do. 

We bailed on the soccer game on Saturday. The DC area had a huge storm forecasted on Saturday.  So we decided an hour and a half sitting in the rain would not be good for us, or comfortable. Then we'd have another 90 minutes (or longer) to get home through the pouring rain.  I don't think it rained as hard as was forecasted but our area got quite a bit. I spent most of the day sewing so I was quite happy. Although we missed some great plays Sophie made as the goalie. We were sent a video of one play. 

Here's my plan for this week. 

9/29/25

Finish clue 1 of marvelous Mystery

Finish sewing down ombré Log Cabin binding

Quilt and bind another top

Make section 2 of Tall Tree 

Sing at Movies and Music a Cabaret with the Spotsylvanians

I've done really well on my 15 minutes of sewing this week.  I find it pretty easy to keep up.  If I haven't sewn any during the day I can easily grab my hat knitting project and set a timer for 15 while I knit away.  Generally I do spend way more time sewing or cutting every day. 

W/ending 9/28/25. 271 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/September 28/28
• 15 minute days/2024 = 271/271 days
• Success rate = 100%

Later this week (10/1) I should be able to post the October Mysteries and Sew Alongs. Check back if you are looking for a new sewing project. 

Here are the Linky Parties for this week. 

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

We walk Sunny every evening after dinner.  The sun is setting earlier every day now. Recently we've had some gorgeous sunsets and rainbows.  The sunset below is looking westerly on our street.  

We've had Sunny for more than a year now so we've walked her in snow, rain, wind, sun and dark of night.  I'm not looking forward to walking when it's dark nor to upcoming really cold weather but she doesn't seem to mind it. 

Happy Quilting All, Bonnie 

September Mysteries and Quilt Alongs September 2025

Sorry I am so late getting this posted.  I just forgot about it and kept postponing.  Maybe one of these events will interest you. I'll have October's out around Oct. 2nd. 

Let’s start with Autumn Nights presented by the Fat Quarter Shop. It’s a small mystery quilt that is 31” by 32”.  Get all the details here: https://www.fatquartershop.com/sew-alongs/autumn-nights-mystery-quilt-and-stitch-along?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=sqal-autumn-nights-2025  All the clues/patterns are now available.  Check for videos for each clue on Fat Quarter Shop's You Tube Channel. There is a counted cross stitch version also available. 

I’m always amazed that new web sites with mysteries or sew alongs pop up when I do a search. The web site is called Mystery Quilts Anonymous. The current mystery is called Bear Hugs — the link takes you to info on quite a few mysteries. https://mysteryquiltsanonymous.com/current-mysteries/ .   I haven’t found specifics in terms of number of clues, start or finish dates. And, I realize that there are several other mysteries available if you are interested. I clicked on one of the Bear Hug clues and found a list of tags. From there I clicked on mysteries. That open a series of pages showing quite a few other pages of mysteries.  (If you get to the home page instead of the mysteries page look across the top and click on Free Mysteries.) Surprise -- There is a new mystery called Focal Point. Click on the title of the mystery you want to see. Once on the new page you have to scroll through all the info in the small box. Just click "Download" to transfer the page to your computer.

Here’s another smaller mystery quilt.  Love Sew is presenting this 24.5” x 24.5” top.  Here’s the link to the clues.  https://love-sew.com/pages/mystery-sew-along-week-3? No idea how many clues will be coming out. I bet most of us have enough fabric stash to make this one without buying anything new!

Monday Meanderings 9 - 22 - 2025

What a week. I seemed to be blah about quilting although I got a charity quilt done for the local guild.  One day I mostly read a book. (More about it at the end.) We've had some rain so most grass in the neighborhood is looking much better.  And I volunteered to make name tags for the Spotsylvanians...I'm still working on that and it needs to be done by tomorrow! But first let's see how I did on my goals this week. 

9/15/25 

✅Cut, prepare, and sew  binding on Ombre Log Cabin — well, the binding is made but not folded or sewn on. 

✅Sew binding on baby quilt — done! 

Continue cutting out Magnificent Mystery Quilt — oops, nothing done. 

Keep making 9 patch blocks and/or RSC blocks — actually I did get a two 9 patches done but nothing else. 

✅Quilt two quilts (not mine… sigh.) — one was done and returned.  

Not so many goals completed this week.  But here are a few pictures of what I did accomplished this week.

I decided to use the black to light grey ombre for the binding.  I was able to cut and sew the strips together.  Here it is over the backing fabric, a wide back pink ombre. I'll be folding, ironing and sewing it on this week.  I'll be sewing this on one side and then hand stitch it down. ARGH -- I hate hand sewing binding down.  But I'm planning to on this one so I can make sure all the points on the edges are showing, not cut off. Plus Sharon talked me into it. 

I did get one top quilted for Virginia Star Quilt Guild.  I thought it was a small one. Um, no. It was a big one.  Here it is after it was quilted. I believe the piecing of the scraps was done on adding machine tape. 

You should be able to click on the picture and enlarge it. The quilting design is Quick and Easy Swirls by My Creative Stitches. In all those little fabric pieces I found at least two that I had or have. 

Here's what I hope to finish this week.  

9/22/25

Prepare and sew  binding on Ombre Log Cabin

Continue cutting out Magnificent Mystery Quilt

Make two more potato chip blocks for RSC

Try making one section of paper pieced tall tree

Attend a grand’s soccer game

I thought I'd share the tall tree pattern picture so you know what I'm tackling this week.  I haven't decided if I can actually make this while on retreat. So, I'll cut out the pieces based on the sizes given and then see whether it is fairly easy to piece.  I'm not holding my breath that this will be super easy.  The pattern is called Tall Trim the Tree and is designed by Cindi Edgerton. Unfortunately she has retired. You might still be able to find her patterns but the supply is limited.  The various "ornaments" are from a different pattern which I don't have so I may not be making them.  Although, I'm sure I can make a few 3" or 4" blocks to add to the tree if I decide I want them.  I'm happy to note the top section has a very limited number of pieces... I should be able to put 5 pieces together, right? 

So here are a couple of things I did this week that were off list. 

Sharon and I FaceTimed and got block 9 done of the Cali & Co mystery quilt by Coriander Quilts. Sorry that the lighting isn't even on this picture. For some reason the left light isn't as good as the right light. (yep, 2 lamps shine on this block -- actually most of my indoor pictures have 2 lamps shining on them.)

Only three more blocks to make until the final reveal. Hum, I don't think there will be anything but putting the blocks together.  But I could be wrong. We'll see in December. 

And here are the 9 blocks all together.  I need to pay better attention to the colors I use on corner triangles over the next three months.  Seems like I have a lot of the same colors which might make it hard to place the blocks in the final layout. 

I think I've cut out all of the Economy blocks I'll need.  So over this week I made 3 of them to add to the 2 already done. Hopefully I've cut enough medium color blocks so the quilt won't look too dark overall. 

Somehow I was able to continue my stitching streak for 15 Minutes to Stitch.  Here are the details. 

W/ending 9/21/25. 264 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/September 21/21
• 15 minute days/2024 = 264/264 days
• Success rate = 100%

Have fun reading blogs this week.  Don't forget to visit these Linky Parties. 

Life in Pieces

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

The book I spent all day reading and finishing was Elinore Lipman's newest. Every Tom, Dick and Harry was a hoot. Once I started reading I didn't want to put it down. It was a light, fun read. Here's my library's description: 

"Taking over her parents’ estate-sale business is not the life’s work that Emma Lewis bargained for. Yes, she grew up helping them empty people’s nests, but nothing prepared her for her biggest and stickiest “get”--the grand, beautiful house of ill repute masquerading as a decidedly beddable B and B. Should Emma turn down potential clients in need of decluttering just because they are shady, escort-y, and proud of it?

No. A girl must make a living.

Around some hairpin turns Lipman ingeniously reveals a straight shot to happiness."

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 9 - 15 - 2025

Here we are in the middle of September. What? September? It's still in the 80s where I live. It's getting dark earlier and the humidity isn't as bad as it is in the middle of summer. I enjoy taking Sunny for walks in the evening but for the most part I hang out in my basement studio. This week I read or listened to 3 books.  Nothing spectacular but entertaining. Now, on the quilting side of things... not a lot of check marks. But that is fine with me because the main checkmark is a finish (of sorts) that has been waiting for a year to be worked on. See below. 

9/8/25

✅Load and ✅start quilting Ombré quilt - Whoopie!  Quilting is done! 

Make RSC blocks in light blue and light green and more 9 patch blocks — cut out a couple of 9 patches but nothing else. 

✅Cut out more Sept UFO challenge- Economy blocks — just need 5 more.

Continue cutting out the Magnificent Mystery quilt— nothing done. 

Bind baby quilt — trimmed quilt, cut out binding but nothing else done. 

I finished my super queen size Ombre top last year.  I love/d how it looks. I bought the backing for it in MI last July.  It sat in the laundry room waiting for me to wash it. Surprise, a few weeks ago I washed it. It sat in the studio waiting to be ironed for several weeks. I finally decided I really need to get it finished in September cause I need to be able to show more fabric usage. (I went wild buying fabric this quarter!) Happily enough, I did the ironing, I loaded the backing and the batting and the quilt top (which also needed ironing). Saturday I started quilting it. My thought was I'd get it done later this week. But, I was ready to get'er done. I got several rows done Saturday and the rest done on Sunday.  It is quilted! 

Darn, you can't see the quilting.  Here's the E2E I used so you can see it clearly.  I love how it turned out. It's called Briar Rose in Winter and is a computerized Edge-to-Edge pattern. The pattern is available at My Creative Stitches. And yes, I've used it a few times. Below you can read some of the statistics and why I really wasn't looking forward to doing this big quilt. 

So it took approximately 23 minutes for each of 9 rows. So total actual stitching time was 3 hours and 43 minutes. (Which doesn't count the bobbin winding time, the time to load this big quilt, time moving the quilt forward after each row, and the time I had to rip out one/tenth of the row.) There were 166,140 stitches in the quilt (including the small section I had to rip out.) That is equal to 459 yards of thread.  One of my jumbo bobbins could only do 2 rows before running too low to start another row.  

So, I now have 5 bobbins with just small amounts of thread on them. (And, no empty bobbins!) Hopefully the next quilt I do will be much smaller and use white thread! There is more than enough thread if I do, say, a 36" wide quilt.  These small amounts would probably last for the whole row.  I do have one bobbin with not very much thread on it so I could unwind it if my next quilt isn't with white thread! 

I realized last week I left off the picture of the Economy blocks that are ready to sew.  This is last week's photo. If I had taken a pic this week about 4 of the fabrics would be sets now. I'm definitely going for fall colors.

As you can see I got a little bit of one other project done. I prepped some blocks to sew and I got the binding cut and pinned together for the baby quilt. Now that I think on it a bit -- I also worked on another knit hat and spent one evening working on my cross stitch bag. (You can see it here although I've done more since this picture.)  I really have to concentrate to get this one done correctly.  (And honestly, I haven't been as accurate as I should be but I think in the end it will look fine.) 

Here's what I'll be working on this week. 

9/15/25 

Cut, prepare, and sew  binding on Ombre Log Cabin 

Sew binding on baby quilt 

Continue cutting out Magnificent Mystery Quilt 

Keep making 9 patch blocks and/or RSC blocks

Quilt two quilts (not mine… sigh.) 

Quilt  a little doll quilt on my domestic machine to give to the guild

That should keep me busy this week. And, all my choral groups have gone back so that is taking up some time too.  Maybe I'll get even more done this week but I'm not holding my breath. 

Here's my 15 Minutes of Stitching report.

W/ending 9/14/25. 257 days of 2025

• 15 minute days Sept = 7/7
• 15 minute days/2025 = 257/257 days
• Success rate = 100%

Not much more to report from here.  Sunny is thriving and stubborn.  She likes to play with her balls but also tends to put them under the couch which means she can't actually get to them without some help.  Sigh. 

Please spend some time checking out these Linky parties.  Hopefully it won't take me until the end of the week to link up to the bottom two parties.  

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings 

Hope everyone is finding peace in their quilting this week.  I always appreciate it when the outside world has gotten intolerable.  It's cheaper than therapy...maybe! 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie