Monday Meanderings 2 - 10 - 2025

All of our snow from the first week of January has finally melted. Guess what! We have another big storm coming in Tuesday through Wednesday! Right now 4 to 6" of snow is predicted but it may change between now and then.  And, there will be rain the rest of the week.  It's a great reason to stay in the studio and play!  That's what I did most of this past week.  I got quite a bit done this week. Here's a look at my goals last week. 

2/3/25

✅Sew ‘22 McConnell mystery blocks together with sashing — well started.

✔️Make more Potato Chip blocks — just 1 finished 

✅Quilt flannel baby quilt — top is now quilted.

✅Cut out and sew together a new quilt using only stash fabrics — Bears and Pinwheels now a top! 

Find a backing or two for some tops I have ready to quilt — nothing done.

Again this year Sharon and I are working on UFOs.  My February project was making a top from the 2022 Mystery blocks designed by Sherri McConnell.  I made all the blocks but never put it together. So I decided to start the month getting these blocks into a quilt top.  Here's what's been done so far. Whoops -- This is my entire design wall... blocks all over the place. The bottom left red, white and blue blocks are from Sherri's mystery. (Notice the 4th row pinned to the right....I ran out of design wall!)  

I was originally thinking I'd use a white for the sashing. But rifling through my stash I found a blue that has cream stars on it.  I realized it would look much better than the white.  Except I'd already made the cornerstones based on the white sashing.  So I made two more red and white 4 patches. The row below where the red and white are there are two cornerstones made with red and a blue from the blocks.  The red and white definitely looks better than those. So I'll be making 4 more of them this week and sewing the rows together and hopefully the two borders also.

A quick trip around my design board --  top left are my potato chip blocks using the rectangle die from my 9" Accuquilt Cube. The right hand top are the Rainbow Scrap Challenge potato chip blocks cut 2.5" x 4.5".  This month's color is blue. So, I went ahead and got my 2 blocks done right away. 

Underneath is the block the FCQ Equilters are making. (That's the one I made to check the instructions.) The bowtie block is a random leftover block. The light, bright star is the first block in Cali - Co block of the month. Hum, I do keep a lot of miscellaneous stuff on the board.  I need to look at all the stuff on the right to see if I can clear it off so I have more room for blocks. 

I figured this streak of lightening quilt out quite a few years ago but didn't cut it out and put it together until last month. Today, I put it on Ruthie and used a basic stippling on it. I was happy that it didn't take all that long. On the other hand, it is under 40" square. 

And the last item checked off on my goals list last week was to cut out and make a new top.  I did a bit of snooping in my fabric stash and found an old but cute bear print on white with red hearts.  Looked like a perfect baby quilt fabric. I paired it with red and blue -- both left overs from backing fabric. It's hard to see but there is a narrow inner border that is beige/brown check. I didn't realize how directional the bear fabric was until I was cutting the borders.  Luckily there was enough fabric so I could seam the last border. Now I need to find a backing for it. 

Hopefully this week I get as much done. Here are my goals for this coming week. (Hey, remember the snow storm...I bet I can get a lot of these goals accomplished during it all the rain were suppose to get.)

2/10/25

Bind baby Quilt 

Quilt another top 

Finish '22 McConnell mystery top 

Make 2 napkins and a placemat

Make more Potato Chip blocks

Find a backing or two for some tops I have ready to quilt

I have kept up with my 15 Minutes to Stitch record. Here are the details.

W/ending 2/9/25. 40 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/Feb = 9/9
• 15 minute days/2024 = 40/40 days
• Success rate = 100%

I'm linking up with these Linky Parties.

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musing

Thanks for all the answers regarding binding on flannel quilts. It seemed that both ways were popular.  At this point I'll probably use whatever I can find that will go with the quilt's colors. 

I've had the Super Bowl on in the background while I was writing this post. I wasn't impressed with the ads this year although I did miss some of them.  Was there one you particularly liked?  One I did like was the Jeep ad with Harrison Ford. I laughed out loud when he mentioned he liked his Jeep even though his name was Ford. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie   

Monday Meanderings 2 - 3 - 2025

Welcome to February. It's still pretty cold but rumor has it  it will be nearly 65 on Thursday.  But the local weather report showed the worse case weather for later in the week and it included snow. OH GOOD GRIEF.  My weather report on my iPhone is all about rain but no snow. (Do I admit that it is frequently wrong?) 

I had a great week of getting things done.  Here's the list.

1/27/25

✔️✔️✔️✔️Make more potato chip blocks — Yep 4 more done although 1 is  for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

✅Bind black, green, and white quilt — finished. 

✅Make a placemat from orphan block — done. Looking for more orphan blocks. 

✅Make backing for flannel quilt — done. 

✅Spend 15 minutes/day cleaning up studio — actually did about 2 hours of cleaning and cutting up scraps rather than 15 mins every day. 

✅Start a knit headband — finished it. I like the idea but need to refine the knitting. 

I failed to take many pictures this week.  Here's the placemat I made. I had made the center block a few years ago when I was practicing with Studio 180's Lemoyne Star ruler. I couldn't find any of the green or magenta fabric but was able to use the royal blue. The backing and binding was left over from the T Shirt quilt I made my son a while ago. 

I have already found my next block to use. (Evidently I had piled some on the corner of my long arm which I unearthed while I was straightening up the pile!) I'll probably continue to use orphan blocks over the next several weeks. 

Here's the ear warmer headband. It called for bulky weight yarn or 2 strands of worsted weight. I used the worsted weight with one purple and one turquoise yarn. (I'm trying to use up odd ball yarn.) 

I've been wearing it walking the dog and I like the fit of it better than any of the hats I have.  I will see if I have any bulky weight yarn to see if it works better. I need to figure out whether my tension is off on the cast on or perhaps the cast off.  I'm happy it keeps my ears nice and toasty warm. We only have random patches of snow left thank goodness. Just know that 6 months from now I will be bitterly complaining about the heat! 

Here's what I hope to get done this week. 

2/3/25

Sew ‘22 Sherri McConnell mystery blocks together with sashing

Make more Potato Chip blocks

Quilt flannel baby quilt

Cut out and sew together a new quilt using only stash fabrics

Find a backing or two for some tops I have ready to quilt

15 Minutes to Stitch -- another good week.

W/ending 2/2/25. 33 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/Jan = 5/5 days
• 15 minute days/Feb = 2/2
• 15 minute days/2024 = 33/33 days
• Success rate = 100%

I'm linking up with the following parties:

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

One last question -- what fabric do you use when binding a flannel quilt?  Flannel or regular quilting cotton.  I hope to get the little, flannel baby top quilted and then bound -- but was wondering what most people prefer. Thanks! 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 1 - 27 - 2025

Did you know we are 6.85% through with 2025? That doesn't sound like a lot of time but we are almost done with January. February is creeping up on us.  I'm hoping to get a quilt bound before the month is over. 

I had a terrific week finishing my goals this week.  Look at all those check marks!

1/20/25

✅Bind grape quilt — Done!

✅Finish 3.5 rail blocks to top — Main section done, need to buy more border fabric. 

✅Make a couple of potato chip blocks — Done!

✅Quilt another top — Done! 

✅Keep cutting up scraps and putting fabric away — Some done but more to do. 

✅Start new mystery quilt with Sharon, choose and prep fabric for it — Fabric picked and first block finished. 

Here's the top I got quilted this past week.  I was happy to move it from top to quilt. I only need to bind by Friday to have a second finish this month. 

I used So Fine white (401) on this quilt.  And, yes, sadly the greens don't really match.  They are both bright and happy colors though. The design is Quick and Easy Edge to Edge Swirls by My Creative Stitches. The backing fabric will be used for the binding too. 

You know sometimes you win the bobbin challenge and sometimes you lose. I really loss when finishing this quilt. This is the computer read out. Yep, I ran out of bobbin with only 2% left to finish.  The good news is I had another bobbin with a small amount on it that I could quickly load up and finish the top. And, no, I didn't finish the bobbin. But I did finish my first spool of thread (actually a big cone) for 2025.

Sharon and I try to do a mystery quilt or quilt along together every year. We FaceTime and talk while we follow the directions for the month. We decided to do Cali-Co by Coriander Quilts. (It's not too late to start this year-long block of the month.) Read through all the info to find Block 1, Fabric Requirements, Calendar, and the You Tube information.  

I decided I was going to use my stash. I had a nice hunk of turquoise fabric with dabs of pink, yellow, and green. I also had a very bright green, pink, yellow and blue fabric.  I started pulling small bits of fabrics that went with the bright green, pink, yellow and blue.  Then it became apparent to me that the bright fabric was way too bright and there wasn't enough to use as the border. So it served the purpose of finding fabric to use but got sent back to the shelf.  Here's my original fabric pull:

When I started cutting up fabric for block 1 I decided I probably had enough precut half square triangles to make the blocks I needed. Ditto for the 2.5" blocks I needed. And ditto again for most of the white. I did grab a 1.75 yard piece of white on white that I'll continue to use for the borders and some of the HSTs.  Here's my block 1 all finished. 

I am tickled with the finished block.  I chose colors that wouldn't be so dark as to look black. (Um, except that one bottom left square.) My only issue is my seams must have been slightly bigger than 1/4". The block turned out to be 12.25 rather that 12.5".  Hopefully it won't make a difference and the rest of the blocks will come out the right size. 

Since, I didn't take photos of my other projects let's move on to this week's goals. 

1/27/25

Make more potato chip blocks

Bind black, green, and white quilt

Make a placemat from orphan block

Make backing for flannel quilt 

Spend 15 minutes/day cleaning up studio

Start a knit headband 

I wrote another list of things I wanted to do on Friday because I pretty much finished with my list. Several of the items went on my goal list for this week. One of the off list items I did was alter the bottom of a fairly old sweatshirt. I chose my Zermat sweatshirt to remove the bottom ribbing and put on a woven cotton binding. 

This looks weird because it is a dark grey shirt with a lighter grey binding. (And the photo was taken early evening in only artificial light.) See below for a close up of the binding. I did make bias binding so it does have a little stretch. 

Many years ago I made a sweatshirt with a machine appliquéd pig flying and words that said When Pigs Fly or something like that. (You can see it here.) I wear it a lot and the bound bottom edge is so much easier to take on and off and more comfortable to wear. Thus my new attack on my old sweatshirt. I'll let you know how it works.  If I like it I have another one I want to do. It's been so cold this winter that I like having either a sweater or sweatshirt on -- but I hate dragging things over my head for some reason. 

I've maintained my 100% of stitching this week. Here are the details. 

W/ending 1/26/25. 26 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/Jan = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 26/26 days
• Success rate = 100%

I'm linking up with my regular parties. Come take a look. I'll try to link up the other two when they are available. 

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday 

Monday Musings

That's it for me now.  I'm hoping to get some reading done before I head to sleep. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 1 - 20 - 2024

I'm looking forward to the first "spring" rehearsal of the Spotsylvanians on Monday. Once again I am going to be the lead for the soprano section. No, that doesn't mean I'm the best singer or know all that much about singing... it's an administrative and a social job. Or that is how I see it.  We'll be going to rehearsals early for the next couple of weeks to meet and greet the new singers as well as those who are continuing.  If you live in the greater Fredericksburg community please consider joining us singing or coming to our spring concert. I'll share details once I learn them. 

I have been fairly negligent at getting my goals completed recently.  It looks like I'm being successful but I really haven't had all that many completely finished goals recently. So, let's see how I did this week. 

1/13/25

✔️Finish 3.5 rail blocks to top stage — close to finished. 

✅Load and quilt a top — finished.

✅Cut out and begin sewing new top — top is finished which is all I planned to do.

✅Find something else that strikes my fancy—organized rectangles for more potato chip blocks. One was made. 

So, actually I finished 3 projects of my goals. One is partially finished.  Wow. I guess I'm doing better than I thought. 

Here's the top I quilted this week (actually Sunday, just under the wire, so to speak.) 

This is another 3 yard quilt from Fabric Cafe. It's called Stepping Stones. It was really easy to make. I bought the green fabric specifically to go with the grapes which I already owned.  And, luckily the purple fabric was left over backing fabric. I have enough of the green fabric for the binding. The quilting design is called Ariana.

I've put binding this quilt on my goals list for this week. 

Here's what I'll be finishing and/or starting this week. 

1/20/25

Bind grape quilt

Finish 3.5 rail blocks to top

Make a couple of potato chip blocks

Quilt another top 

Keep cutting up scraps and putting fabric away

Start new mystery quilt with Sharon, choose & prep fabric for it

Here's a quilt I finished last year.  I've been playing with string quilts a bit as they are a great way to use up a lot of leftovers.  I used a navy blue fabric in the center of the blocks to create the linear look. If you look carefully at an actual block you'll see half of the block I used dark/medium strings and half I used very light strings. 

I used a basic stipple pattern for the quilting. I use stipple a lot as it is pretty fast and creates nice curves on the quilt. Apparently I used either a white/beige thread or possibly a light grey.  

I gave this to my local quilt guild last week.  I'm not sure where it will end up but it will go to someone in my community who will be happy to have it. 

For several years Sharon and I have made a mystery quilt while we visited over FaceTime. Last year I wasn't interested in any of the mysteries so we just sewed what we felt like when we got together.  This year we are going to do Cali & Co. Mystery BOM presented by Coriander Quilts. We both are planning to use scraps along with whatever background fabrics is required. I will be using a white on white I already have. I won't worry about border fabric until later in the year. 

I have done a great job on my 15 Minutes to Stitch this week. 

W/ending 1/19/25. 19 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/Jan = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 19/19 days
• Success rate = 100%

I'm hoping to keep this up for several months.  

These are the Linky Parties I'll be joining. I hope you take a few minutes to visit some of the bloggers who are partying too. 

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musing 

Hopefully I'll remember to link up the other two parties tomorrow! 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie