Monday Meanderings -- 9 - 28 - 2026

Boy, it's been a week.  I was off doing way more things away from home than I usually do. I made it through the week but I'm still exhausted.  Let's start with my goals. 

9/21/26

✅Bind Popsicle Quilt — Done! 

✅Quilt 1 or 2 small quilts and bind — One quilted. 

✔️Finish bright Honey Bouquet top — One more row to sew on.

Layout RSC blocks from 2025, sew together — nothing done! Oops. 

Attend ✅Sewing Expo and ✅State Fair — both done. 

I feel like I did a great job on the goals considering I was out and about so much.  Let's see what I have to show for my ✅s. 

Oops -- no pictures of the Popsicle quilt.  But I took at least one picture of the baby top I quilted late this afternoon! I'm pretty sure the bricks are 2.5" x 5" and the beige squares are 2.5".  I had hoped to quilt two but .. nope, didn't happen. 

This is only 36" x 39" give or take an inch. I finished the top in March of this year. That's a fast turn around for the quilting part.  But I did buy a navy blue backing when I was in NC this summer so this one fit well with it.  I still have nearly 2 yards of backing left! Another quilt top should get done fairly soon. The quilting design is Feather Late Than Never by My Creative Stitches.  It is a great design to add some motion to a top. I like this quilt pattern so well I'm thinking of picking another color and duplicate it. Maybe red or green. I should have lots of scraps in either color. 

Here's how far I got on the Honey Bouquet quilt.  I went wild cutting big bricks but I'm keeping this one at about 36" wide, as it is here.  I am going to add a row on the top using 4 horizontal bricks to bring it up to a size for a lap quilt.  It will go to one of the community organizations that Va. Star Quilt Guild supports. It may be a while as I need to figure out a backing. (Note to self -- Check to see if enough navy blue from the quilt above is left.....) 

Thursday I went to the Original Sewing and Quilting Expo in Fredericksburg. I spent some time checking out the vendors and the quilts.  But most of the time I was an Ambassador with the assignment to help out a teacher in one of the classrooms.  I was very impressed with both of them I helped.  The first class was about using rulers with your domestic machine. Cris Roach did a wonderful job showing how to use rulers. I particularly liked how she recommended rulers to buy - one straight and one curved. (Or better yet one that had both.) Her class was full. My job was to take tickets and keep a count of the number of people who attended.  I also helped as needed with samples.  

After 2 full hours learning about ruler work the next teacher came into the room. Eric Drexler was giving a talk on threads. I've never actually gone to a threads discussion by a professional.  He is a Sulky Educator and makes beautiful pieces.  It turns out Eric is also the son of the man who started Sulky many years ago.  He spoke about needles and lots of different Sulky threads.  Below is a Zentangle style piece he shared with the class.

I enjoyed listening and viewing the information both teachers presented.  It was a bonus that I got free admission to the Expo and basically was able to attend 2 classes for free! And, by doing so it helped my guild get free booth space. 

By the end of the day I was exhausted!  But, I was up and out to workout early on Friday. A friend had died and we attended his funeral later that morning.  One of the disadvantages of living in a 55 and older community is our friends are old. It was a nice service and a lovely luncheon held afterwards.  Hubby's small barbershop group was asked to sing at the luncheon.  

Friday afternoon and Saturday morning I spent time doing a bit of sewing and more time actually prepping hand stitching projects.  One was my on-going snowman project that I've been ignoring recently.  And the other was organizing the grand's Christmas ornaments.  I prepped 4 ornaments and one snowman for sewing while I manned Va Star Guild's booth at the State Fair on Saturday afternoon. 

HA! I got one branch added to the snowman and nothing else done of my own. Susan was sitting with me working on this fabulous witch's hat she made. You can see all the clips she used to hold the binding in place.  In the 4 or so hours we were there she was almost finished with her binding.  We also were selling raffle tickets and teaching any interested kids how to sew a button on a little fabric star they could take home.  It was a busy and fun event. I was really tired by the time I got to the car for the 40 minute drive home! 

Several of my guild friends had quilts in the fair and had won ribbons. I was particularly pleased to see a friend from my neighborhood had won a red ribbon for her quilt. Actually she entered two and they both won a ribbon! Here's Sue's sunflower quilt. I'm pretty sure she did most of the sunflowers by hand using English paper piecing method.  (I did not enter anything but I really need to think about it next year.) 

Here's what I hope to work on this week. I've got a lot planned.  And, happily not very much else happening! 

9/28/26

Finish Honey Bouquet top 

Bind small blue quilt 

Quilt another small top 

Layout top and sew 2025 RSC blocks together

Finish cutting kit for retreat 

Anything that strikes my fancy 

I somehow got 15 minutes of sewing done every day this week! Yeehaw! 

Week ending 9/27/26: 270 days of 2026.

 262 stitching days out of 270 days 99.7%

I started cutting out a 40" wall hanging to sew at October's retreat.  I finished the whites and still need to cut the floral that goes with it.  I'm hoping I can use it eventually on the quilt hanger in our bedroom.  Time will tell! 

Please spend some time checking out these blogs and the Linky parties shared on them: Stitching Time, Oh Scrap, Quilting Patchwork Applique, Design Wall Monday, Monday Musings. I didn't get to visit many this week -- just too busy! 

Have you encouraged your friends and neighbors to vote?  I make a point of reminding people that early voting is going on now.  From what hubby reports people are getting out early to vote in Virginia.  He will work one day a week for all of early voting.  And then he is a voting chief at a polling location on Election Day. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie