Monday Meanderings 4 -- 27 -- 2026

Our lovely, warm spring has turned back to cold weather.  The rain we had last night didn't do much as the whole greater DC area is in a serious drought.  Hopefully we'll get some heavier rain this week. Cold weather makes me want to stay in and stitch. So I've been been doing that quite successfully.  First last week's goals.

4/20/26

✅Make 4 more Dash blocks — 3 finished, 2 more cut out. 

✅Decide whether to trim flying geese blocks or just make one more and do it — new block made, blocks made into top, borders added!

✅Start new project with 10” squares — one block made.

✅Make some more “flutter” blocks — several more made and more cut out. 

✅Quilt one of my tops — Baby quilt quilted. 

I've been busy sewing.  I figured out I needed 5 more Dash blocks.  I cut out all but one, although the fabrics have been picked.  It took me more time to pick fabrics then to make the blocks.  Here are two of the new blocks.  Hopefully I'll get this to top stage in May. 

I've finished the flying geese top this week.  It was the April UFO challenge.  I finally decided to replace one block that was a half inch smaller than all the others.  I figured it would be faster to make a new block rather than trim all of the other blocks.  All the blocks got sewn together and then I checked for an another piece of batik that I could get a border out of it.  I have a nice collection of batiks but I don't tend to buy big pieces. Luckily I had one that enhanced the top.  I put smaller borders on top and bottom. And larger borders on the sides to make it slightly wider.    

The super flying geese finish at 8 x 16".  The colors are much prettier than this photo.  It will be going to the to-be-quilted closet soon. I need to find a backing for this one. On the other hand I'm happy to have found a use for these very old blocks.  

I chose a baby top to quilt this week.  I have quite a few more tops to quilt for the guild and one for my daughter. I figured a fast easy one gave me an easy finish -- sans binding. The quilting design is Criss Cross Applesauce by My Creative Stitches. It gives really good definition. I used a red So Fine on it. 

I haven't really started a new top in quite a while.  So I decided I would use Preeti Harris's pattern, Veronica. It uses a layer cake and I had one I thought might work. Except, it wouldn't -- it had fairly large animals on it.  They would have been cut apart and they wouldn't look good.  So I took a look at my small collection of precuts and found the perfect layer cake.  I've tried one block but I'm not going to show it yet.  But take a look at these beautiful batiks from Riley Blake Designs I am using.  These are going to look wonderful. I don't think I will be using all of them as I don't want a huge quilt. I'll have some squares to play with later. You can check out Pretti's pattern on her blog. I can say it is a really cool pattern. I'm excited to work on it.  

This is concert week which means I've got a major time commitments to singing, not sewing. Nevertheless here is what I hope to work on this week. 

4/27/26

Finish 3 more dash blocks, start trimming to correct size

Quilt a top 

Make some more batik blocks 

Make binding and bind Bear quilt 

Enjoy singing two concerts and one tech rehearsal 

I've been able to stitch every day this week. 

Week ending 4/26/26:  116 days of 2026.

  116 stitching days out of 116 days. 100%

I'm keeping this post short.  Don't forget to check out some of these Linky parties to see what other quilters are working on. 

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings -- 4 - 20 - 2026

Busy week!  My local quilt guild meeting was Wednesday.  There was an interesting presentation about miniature doll houses.  It's amazing how small some of them are.  Scattered through the week were 3 rehearsals -- one being 5 hours or so long. Hubby has been working the early voting site once or twice a week for 6 weeks or so.  Tuesday is his last day during this particular election cycle.  We're both happy that things will be calming down soon!  Who knows, we just might want to go out to dinner this week! 

Here's what I planned to do this past week. 

4/13/26

✅Make more Dash blocks — 3 more done. 

✅Sew 16 patches together — all sewn together.

✅Start stitching Snowman 2 — backing made, several pieces ironed on ready for stitching. 

✔️Work on large flying geese blocks — measured. Must figure out what to do about one smaller block. 

✅Attend all partial day chorus rehearsal — great rehearsal. Less than 2 weeks to concert. 

Not a lot of photographs for you this week. As shown above I did get quite a bit of my goals done -- just not many photographs to share. Sigh! 

These blocks were each made with two fat quarters. If you notice on the picture above there are two of each blocks made (at the same time!) They are 14".  Here is a link to the directions: St. Louis 16 Patch. Someday I'm going to figure out how to make smaller blocks using the same methodology.  (Don't hold your breath that I'll do it soon!.) This top has been moved to the to-be-quilted closet. 

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

4/29/26

Make 4 more Dash blocks 

Decide whether to trim flying geese blocks or just make one more and do it

Start new project with 10” squares

Make some more “flutter” blocks

Quilt one of my tops

I've continued my 15 Minutes to Stitch this week although some days I didn't spend too many minutes more than the minimum. 

Week ending 4/20/26:  109 days of 2026.

  109 stitching days out of 109 days. 100%

Hopefully next week I'll have more progress to share and photographs too. In the mean time enjoy these blogs. 

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Do you live near Fredericksburg, Va? If so, you are officially invited to "I Hear America Singing" the spring concert presented by Spotsylvanian Chorus.  Here's all the details.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 4 - 13 - 2026

It's been a busy week with one great breakthrough/finish. I was really tickled with one of my projects this week. Here's what's been happening. 

4/6/26

✅Quilt one of my quilts— I quilted one for my quilt guild rather than for me. 

Make more Dash blocks — several more are cut out but not sewn together. 

Sew 16 patches together — nothing sewn together but the layout is finalized. 

✅Finish 1st snowman block — done!  

✔️Prep 2nd snowman block — snowman and background ready to sew together, appliqués are traced on adhesive waiting to be ironed on to the wool, and still need to choose floss. 

Attend all day chorus rehearsal** oops next week!

This past week wasn't like my normal weeks where I've marked off a bunch of goals. But that's ok as I did get a few books read and I scrubbed several sinks and a dirty stove top! 

Here's what I did get done this week. 

This is not a quilt I made. It is a charity quilt for the Virginia Star Quilters. I am one of  the volunteer quilters.  Since I really didn't want to figure out a backing for one of my quilts I decided to quilt this one.  I chose Quick and Easy Swirls with a light blue thread. I'm happy to have this done so I can return it at our meeting next week. (Happily, I don't have to do the binding!) 

I am thrilled to be able to show you finished snowman block 1.  The block is 10.5" wide by 15.5" tall, unfinished.  I have 4 more snowmen blocks and a "title" block to do.  Luckily, the next block doesn't have as much embroidery on it. I am waiting to finish all the blocks to add the various snowflakes.   

Here's a close up of his face. 

Here's what I plan to work on this week.

4/13/26

Make more Dash blocks

Sew 16 patches together

Start stitching Snowman 2

Work on large flying geese blocks 

Attend partial day chorus rehearsal

Despite not making great progress on my goals this week I did keep up with my 15 minutes of stitching. 

Week ending 4/12/26:  102 days of 2026.

  102 stitching days out of 102 days. 100%

Sharon's here now and we're quilting. Ok, she's watching the long arm and keeping it happy until she calls on me to assist. I'm goofing off more than actually doing anything constructive, except cutting out the background for the next snowman. She (we?) have finished quilting the first of two quilts. 

The quilting design is called Sally by the Sea by My Creative Stitches.  It echoes some of the same designs in the lighter blue fabric. Luckily, I had a blue thread that looks terrific with it. 

Here are my regular Linky parties.  Please take a look at them to see what quilters are doing across the world. 

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

That's it for me tonight. Yes, I write these blog posts quilting  on Sunday evenings and post them when done.  Here's hoping we all have a very, quilty week!

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie

Monday Meanderings 4 - 6 - 2026

It was a quilty week with lots of projects moving forward. And, I had my nose in several books and my ears working too. Translation: 3 books read and 1 audio book finished this week. I'm ready to jump straight into my goals because I had a productive week. 

3/30/26

✅Sew March UFO blocks together - done!

✅Quilt Charm Challenge top — done!

✅Bind two of my quilts — both finished!!

✅Continue working on 1st snowman block — a lot of progress made. I was going to take a picture but forgot. Maybe next week. 

✅Look at April UFO challenge project — pulled out the blocks but no decisions made. 

All those green check marks make me smile. Here are some pictures of those projects. 

First up is the March UFO blocks. These are really old (maybe the early 1990s.) The blocks were paper pieced by people around the US, Canada and a few European nations. We all entered them in a drawing which I won. I don't remember if there were several winners or not.  I wasn't sure how they went together which definitely had me putting them aside for many years. Once I decided I'd finished it this year I chose to make a small star and the large white section.  

The green (and a white) will be a paper pieced border that I'll be doing sometime this year.  I saved three months for this project.  The first one was tearing out the papers and sewing the blocks together. Then making the border with the final time sewing the borders on. You'll be seeing this again as the other months are drawn. I can also guarantee that this will go to the guild's community outreach as a donation. Definitely not my style/colors. 

I quilted the little Charm Challenge quilt I did at the guild sew day in March.  It was fun and pretty easy. I used a "charm" pack that the community outreach team made. I wish I'd taken a picture of the top before it was cut apart and put back together. But no, I didn't think to do it.  All the edges are bias so you really need to treat it carefully.

I used a new quilting design called New Zealand Koru from My Creative Stitches.  The design is simple, but interesting. Here's a close up. 

 I used orange thread which stands out nicely on some of the colors and blends in with other fabrics.  The backing is muslin so the orange shows up nicely on the back. 

The April UFO challenge project is a set of giant flying geese blocks.  They are 16.5" x 8.5" made with batik fabrics.  This was an opportunity block for one of the retreats I go to.  I know I won a bunch of them as did a few others.  If I leave it this way it will measure 32" x 48".  I might have a batik I could use as a border or make a pieced border of batiks.  

Or, I could cut these into half square triangles to make pinwheels.  I had some other  of these large HSTs that I made into pinwheels.  You can see the finished quilt here. What do you think? If I use the big flying geese as is, does anyone have suggestions for an easy pieced border? 

Here's my plan for this week. 

4/6/26

Quilt one of my quilts

Make more Dash blocks 

Sew 16 patches together

Finish 1st snowman block 

Prep 2nd snowman block

Attend all day chorus rehearsal

Plus, my friend Sharon is coming for a fast visit on her way home from visiting her daughter.  So, it's a full week. 

I had another week of stitching every day. Many days were way more than 15 minutes! 

Week ending 4/5/26:  95 days of 2026.

  95 stitching days out of 95 days. 100%

For your laugh today I give you Sunny.  She was trying to get to something on the other side of the fence. She wasn't digging at all. Surprising because she is a terrier. I've seen her trying to get her nose under the fence when a lizard was involved. 

👈🏼 👈🏼

Yea, she doesn't look so bad here.  But check out 

the next picture.  

                              👇🏼👇🏼

She came in clean except her muzzle.  Strange little dog.  But she is a laugh a minute some days. 

Please take some time to check out the following linky parties.  You can see what quilters around the world are working on. (Or should I say playing with!?) 

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

I need to figure out my fabric usage for the first quarter.  I thought I had done one of the months but I can't find the info... maybe it is in my journal I keep of fabric in and out. I don't think I've used more fabric than I've brought in. Anyway, it's not going to be tonight!  Maybe next week or so.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie