Monday Meandering 11 - 2 - 2026

I've had a set back this week.  I was using one 108" wide back and planning on putting two different quilts on it. First quilt was done, no problem.  I left it on and rolled to the backing and batting for the smaller quilt.  It is a small one and didn't take long for me to start the computer quilting.  Except, after the second row I noticed there were big loops of thread on the underside in one particular area of the design -- across the whole quilt.  UGH! I'd checked it when it first started but it was only one direction of sewing that was screwing up.  I stopped it. Checked the thread path and found that the thread had caught on something. 

When I really looked at it I realized there was no way I could finish it.  I have spent about 5 hours so far ripping out the stitches on both rows. (Heck, it was only going to be 4 rows!) By Saturday I realized I wanted to get more done this week than that quilt so I went back to sewing on the domestic.  I will say I wasn't thrilled with the look of the pattern so when I reset it I'll add another row.  But talk about a boring task! Thank goodness for audio books! 

I did pretty well on my goals this week despite the amount of time I spent on unstitching with Jack the Ripper. 

10/26 

✅Quilt large flying geese top — done! 

✅Trim and bind Halloween stitchery — Done and it is hanging in our great room. 

✅Sew 10 Marigold Mystery Oct blocks — Done 

Bind second blue quilt from 9/28 — Not even looked at! 

✔️Finish one brick top — Just 2 seams still needed. 

These big flying geese blocks were from a block swap at a retreat many years ago. I decided it was time to move them out of the UFO pile this year. I added some more blocks, made the top, and finally quilted it.  It is all batiks. I need to trim and bind it but am not sure what I'll use to bind it. 

Here are 5 blocks for the Marigold Mystery October clue.  This month we made 15 4" finished blocks. So far we've made 8" and 6" finished blocks.  Hum, I wonder where this is going?

And, here is the almost finished brick top. I've added several more rows from last week.  I don't think I'll add any more... This size will work for a baby quilt at local hospitals' NICU.  I still have a ridiculous number of bricks left.  I went a little wild with them as leader enders. 

I decided the Halloween stitchery isn't that Halloweenish. (See pic here.) There is one bat, and a bunch of pumpkins but thinking about it made me realize it would work for basic fall hanging but before Thanksgiving.  So it is hanging in our main room now and will be replaced with a cute turkey a week or so before T-day. 

On to this week's goals.  More is happening in our lives -- I hope I can get these items done this week. 

11/2/26

Bind second blue quilt from 9/28

Finish all seams on brick quilt 

Pull out Christmas Tree project and quilt more of it

Baste Sewing Machine quilt and begin quilting it 

Clean up around sewing machine! 

I had another successful week of sewing (and unsewing!)

Week ending 11/1/26: 305 days of 2026.

 303 stitching days out of 305 days 99.3%

Here's is a baby quilt I finished a while ago. I took it to retreat in October to donate to the guild that sponsors the retreat.  Yep, I have maintained my membership in it mainly because I really enjoy the retreat. Hum, I look like I haven't had enough sleep! (And, I never sleep all that well at retreats.) I wanted to use up the bear fabric (an old fabric in my stash) and liked the windmill blocks with it. I used Criss Cross Applesauce by My Creative Stitches for the quilting.  

Here's the other quilt I donated the same day. You can see more of the bricks up close especially the cute ones here. I like the idea of making all the bricks from the same color family.  Hum, do I want to make more of these now?  Probably later!

YIKES -- It's only 60 days until the end of 2026.  I haven't thought much about Christmas except to work on the grand's ornaments.  It's been rather slow going but I am making progress.  And, once I get some embroidery done it will speed up nicely. 🤞Or so I think. 

Election Day is Tuesday.  If you haven't voted -- plan on going on Tuesday. I'm quite proud of my family: Our oldest grand* and our daughter are election workers in Maryland. *They are 16 and will be working from 6 am to 7 pm according to our son-in-law.  Hubby is a poll chief in Va.  He's been working at least once a week since early voting began.  It's been very busy during early voting and he's expecting it to be really busy on Tuesday.  I will be home quilting, reading and keeping out of mischief! 

Remember to take a look at these Linky Parties - Stitching Time, Oh Scrap, Quilting Patchwork Applique, Design Wall Monday, Monday Musings.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

November 2026 Mysteries and Quilt Alongs

The granddaddy of all mysteries — Bonnie Hunter’s annual winter mystery will be announced on Halloween.  It will begin in November and be revealed in January, 2027.  On Halloween day check out https://quiltville.blogspot.com

Serendipity Sampler Block of the Month is sponsored by SuzysSitcom.com.  Every month Susan Myers will present two blocks and colors by spinning a wheel.  Weee! Sounds like a fun sampler to join. https://suzyssitcom.com/2026/10/serendipity-sampler-block-of-the-month.html

Moda is sponsoring Blockheads 7. Go to https://my.modafabrics.com/blockheads7 to catch up and pick up the PDFs. 

Here's an old quilt along that all of the clues are still available.  It is called Quilt Along TRI/HST. It comes from Quilting Patchwork & Applique a dual language French/English blog. The quilt along is actually from 2020 but the quilt picture really grabbed my attention.  Here's the link to the main page which has links to all the steps. https://quiltingpatch.blogspot.com/p/quilt-along-tri-hst.html Take some time to take a look at this very interesting quilt. 

Monday Meanderings 10 - 26 - 2026

It's been a busy week of sewing, ironing and reading... yep, I spent some time reading along with the sewing.  

Here's my goals list from last week. 

10/19/26

✅Sew borders on paper pieced pastels top — border on. 

✅Finish Halloween stitchery — all quilting done; just needs binding. 

Quilt a small quilt of mine — a backing is loaded but nothing else done! 

✅Cut pieces for Marigold Oct Clue — 5 of 15 4” blocks are done, the rest are cut out ready for sewing. 

✅Wash, ✅dry, and ✅ iron new fabrics — all marked, folded and stored with same colors. 

I did a fairly decent job of getting my goals accomplished.  Here are some pics. For the fall stitchery I decided to stitch some diagonal lines.  It dawned on me after I quilted it I did the lines in the same direction of the leaves falling off the tree with a bit of wind. It seemed to take forever as each start and stop had to be tied off after stitching.  But it is all stitched now. On to the binding!

Here are the new fabrics I bought at Fork Mountain Quilting in Rocky Mount, Va. during retreat. 

The purple and orange (which is more peach in real life) are for backings of small tops. The white with grey dots is for a background some day. The darker orange and green are for a new project. I've started it but have put it aside for the time being.  I'll share it eventually. 

And here are a few small pieces I picked up on the free table.  I haven't acquired much kids' fabrics recently so I thought these would do well especially because they were free.  I generally make Happy Blocks (visit https://maryquilts.com/happy-blocks-from-charms/ for directions.  Check out Mary's other simple directions for other designs.)  These will make several blocks each. Sorry for the weird photo. I may have enlarged them too much or some thing else weird happened. Eventually I'll use these in a kid's quilt. 

Here are the goals for this week...

10/26 

Quilt large flying geese top

Trim and bind Halloween stitchery

Sew 10 Marigold mystery Oct blocks

Bind second blue quilt from 9/28

Finish one brick top

I've sewn several columns for the brick quilt.  I haven't decided how big I want it yet.  I've been sewing the bricks with squares as my leader ender for a long while. I think I've gone crazy with how many I have to make into quilts.  Here's what I've laid out so far. 

Any suggestions about color placement? I've just been making color columns but need to figure out what order to place them.  I'm not sure it makes much of a difference but any suggestions would be appreciated.  

I've continued the stitching every day.  Here are the numbers.

Week ending 10/25/26: 298 days of 2026.

 296 stitching days out of 298 days 99.3%

I also figured out my fabric usage statistics for the end of the third quarter. I kept forgetting to list them.  So here's what happened during July, August and September along with the rest of this year. I'm very happy to be using more fabric than what I'm bringing into the stash! 

2026	Fabric In Quarter	Fabric In Year to date	Fabric Out  Quarter	Fabric Out Year to Date	Total In or Out Year
1st Quarter	27.250	27.250	33.500	6.250	6.250
2nd Quarter	16.625	43.875	19.200	52.750	8.875
3rd Quarter	14.750	58.625	25.450	78.20	19.750

Before we know, it will be Election Day.  I've already early voted  and I hope you have too. However, if you are planning to vote on Election Day here are some suggestions from Joyce Vance who writes Civil Discourse on Substack and wrote Giving Up Is Unforgivable.

• "If you’re going to vote on Election Day, make sure you know where your polling place is located. Some locations may have changed. Confirm the hours at your polling place and the ID requirements.

• Be prepared for long lines, delays, and other unexpected developments. Keep your cell phone handy, along with an Election Protection hotline number or website, so you can report anything unusual. 

• Remember to stay in line if the polls close while you’re waiting to vote—as long as you’re in line, you’re entitled to cast your ballot.''

  
  

  I forgot my Linky parties....please visit if you have the time. 

  
  

  Stitching Time, Oh Scrap, Quilting Patchwork Applique, Design Wall Monday, Monday Musings

  
  

  Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings -- 10 -- 19 -- 2026

What a great week retreating.  I was worried it would be chilly and rainy but the weather turned out beautiful.  No rain going down or coming up. The only rain was overnight. Do you hear me singing "The rain will never fall 'til after sundown" in the background? (For those who don't know it's from Camelot and my folks had the record of the original cast...it got played quite a bit!) 

The retreat was sponsored by a guild in Powhatan, Va where I lived before here. I've maintained my membership as has Sharon as we both enjoy this group of women.(Sharon joined after the first time she went on retreat with us because they didn't have enough members sign up.) It was held at Skelton 4 H Conference Center in Wirtz, Va on Smith Mountain Lake.  It is about 3.5 hours from my home, longer with stops for a meal. I got a lot of my projects completed or moved forward.  Here's how well I did on my goals this past week. 

10/12/26

✅Attend Country Piecemakers retreat — I had a great time!

Make boy and ✅girl 64 charm quilts — held off on the boy quilt as it was hard to lay out. 

✅Make Honey Bouquet baby quilt — done!

✅Sew EQuilter’s blocks into top — done!

✅Put everything away and rest on the weekend! — Almost everything has been put away but not a lot of resting took place.

Here are pics of what I accomplished. I shared this top as it was laid out last week. Now it is a top.  One thing I hadn't noticed was that several of the blocks were not made as the others. And frankly, I don't have any idea why I didn't notice them. I won't be changing the layout though! (Call me lazy 'cause I do not want to rip out all those stitches!). 

This is my 64 Charms baby quilt. I found some charm squares left from a pack of baby squares.  I separated them into boy and girl squares.  Then I added squares from my stash that go with the colors.  Here's the girl one. There will be a boy one eventually but laying the girl one out at retreat was difficult.  I haven't decided if I'll make the boy one at home or maybe just lay it out at home and take it to a March retreat.  I particularly like this top pattern (and the one below) as they only take one length of fabric for the backing. 

Here is the baby version of Honey Bouquet from Villa Designs. This was actually finished but I didn't get a picture of it when done.  I made it smaller than the pattern called for as our baby quilt donations go to the two local NICUs and they want them approximately 36 x 36.  I started with the ABC fabric and added what I could find to go with it.  I'll share it when I get it quilted and bound.

I also made some progress on my leader-ender project but I didn't take any pictures.  My progress on putting everything away is not enough. I still have a bag of goodies.  I also have a quite a few of new fabrics waiting for a spin in the washing machine before they get put away.  I'll share them soon.  

Here's my plan for this week. 

10/19/26

Sew borders on paper pieced pastels top

Finish Halloween stitchery

Quilt a small quilt of mine

Cut pieces for Marigold Oct Clue

Wash, dry, and iron new fabrics 

Do you doubt that I got 15 minutes plus of sewing every day this week? It was way more than that during the retreat days! 

  

Week ending 10/18/26: 291 days of 2026.

 289 stitching days out of 291 days 99.3%

Here's another project I sewed together on retreat. I always precut my projects before going on retreats or sew days. It's much easier to cut on my table that is just right for my height.  Although we put risers under tables for cutting and ironing so if I have to cut it isn't too bad height-wise. I used a very old fabric that really says spring.  I've received a lot of compliments on this top from the retreaters. It actually should have a floral border that finishes at 2". I've decided to leave it as is even though I'd already cut the borders.  They will become the binding. I only have about 10" of the fabric left!  

This is Spring Splash, a free pattern from McCall's Quilting.  Here's the link to the pattern: https://www.quiltingdaily.com/friday-free-quilt-patterns-spring-splash-wall-quilt-pattern-mccalls-quilting-blog/

Even though I didn't get all my "stuff" put away I did get a small top quilted. Ruthie, the long arm, did a great job.  No problems.  Hopefully she'll continue to be reliable. Here's the top I quilted for the local guild. This one is 37" square.  I used New Zealand Kofu by My Creative Stitches.  Unfortunately this picture was taken while the first row was stitching. This top will go back to the guild on Wednesday so that another member can bind it. 

As always I'm linking up with the following Linky parties: Stitching Time, Oh Scrap, Quilting Patchwork Applique, Design Wall Monday, Monday Musings. Just a note: I'm sorry to say I forgot to link up to the Monday Linky parties last week.  I forgot to link up Monday before I left for retreat.  And once there the available Internet connection was pretty bad.  So no links added for the Monday parties.  Hopefully this week I do it correctly! 

I also noted that I didn't receive any emails from my commenters. That lack of emails means I never responded to my comments. I'll be going back and responding this week... sorry for the delay.  

Hubby reports a busy day at early voting in our county today.  He works at early voting every Tuesday and a few other days.  If you haven't voted yet -- get out and do it as soon as possible.  My guess is Election Day will be packed with folks voting.  Make it easier on yourself and opt for early voting. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie