Monday Meanderings -- 5 - 5 - 2025

It's been a busy week!  It was spring concert week for the Spotsylvanians.  Friday was tech rehearsal. Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon were the concerts.  We had good crowds for both events. And we sounded awesome. (We had a lot of positive comments after each of them.) Here's a couple of pictures -- I think they were from Friday night. 

Spotsylvanians before Saturday night concert. 

Bonnie and Pat in the warm up room Saturday night. 

Our concert was held in a local Lutheran church whose pastor also sings with us. We began the concert with "Now Is the Month of Maying", a madrigal written in 1595 by Thomas Morley.  The church has wonderful acoustics and we took advantage of it by singing in a semi-circle around the audience. It was very cool. (I'm the first singer on the right 👆🏼.) 

Over the weekend I got the pictures ready for this blog so when I got home from the last concert I could go right to writing it. Now on to my quilting part starting with last week's goals. 

4/28/25

✅Finish knitting hat — done, need to add a pompom.

✅Bind orange peel quilt — done! 

✅Begin 3 yard quilt project — good start, just need to add borders.

✅Make more 9 patches — several more finished. 

Ok, I admit I am not sure which hat I finished -- I think it was a navy blue and white one.  I also know I started a new yellow hat.  I snapped a photo to share. It's the second hat from a big skein of yellow. 

I also made more 9 patches.  I've made duplicate of some colors for me. If I have all the fabrics out or I'm plowing through my cut 2.5" squares I might as well make some of these for me. These are the ones for the FCQ Equilter. 

And now for this week...

5/5/25

Work on 3 yard quilt project

Layout May’s UFO blocks 

Keep making 9 patches

Keep knitting on yellow hat

Quilt a top 

One thing I finished this week is some little 9 patches made with 1.5" squares. They will be part of Hens and Her Chicks from Quilts from the Heart by Karin Renaud. 

I've used these little 1.5" squares as my leader enders for a while.  I've got 52 9 patches done which is what is called for. Now I need to cut out a bunch of background pieces and bigger bright colored squares. 

Recently I spent one evening cutting some scraps into usable size squares. Here's what I got done.  Sharon calls this doing the dishes -- I think Bonnie Hunter started calling it that years ago. From the red on upper left: 2.5" square, 2" sq, 1.5" sq and 3" sq. I have a ridiculous amount of scraps that could be cut up for easier use. 

I am happy to say I succeeded getting my 15 minutes of stitching done every day.  In fact, I spent 30 minutes this morning knitting before I went to the concert. 

15 Minutes of Stitching week ending 5/4/25. 124 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/Apr = 3/3
• 15 minute days/May = 4/31
• 15 minute days/2024 = 124/124 days
• Success rate = 100%

I'm linking up with the following parties:

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musing

I leave you with this picture of Sunny enjoying the sun in her newly fenced back yard.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 4 - 10 - 2023

Happy Monday Everyone!  Another beautiful week is beginning in the Mid Atlantic states. Weather is forecasted to hit the 80s mid week with one rainy day next weekend.  But hold on!  Don't get too jealous of our weather -- it could change drastically between now and next Monday. Weather is tricky like that. 

Last week was a disaster goals-wise but I had a great week nonetheless. Saturday night we (the Spotsylvanians) sang the Star Spangled Banner at the Fredericksburg Nationals, a farm team of the Washington Nationals. We also were able to enjoy a suite with dinner. It was ridiculously cold out so I was happy to stay inside the room on a fairly comfy couch and watched the game on the TV.  

Sunday our son and daughter-in-law hosted a great brunch at their house for both sides of their families. (We are only 18 kids and adults.) The adults stuffed plastic eggs while the kids were playing all over the place. Then the men went out in the yard (pretty big yard too) to hide the eggs. Kids were from 2 to 12 so some places were hard to find and some were easy.  I don't know why they wouldn't let me fill my basket too! On the other hand I did help a few people (at both ends of the age range) find eggs.  It was so much fun to hang out, talk and play.  Needless to say I fell asleep on the way home.  And, the most remarkable part of the day -- there was hardly any traffic on I-95 going (kind of expected) and very little coming home. (Totally shocking! We were home within an hour.)  

Hum, I might be babbling about our weekend because I really didn't get much done on my goals list. Although I did have one little squirrel I worked on.  What I was suppose to do:

4/3/23

Make plan for APQ UFO Challenge #4 - a group of big flying geese blocks — didn’t even get them out. 

Clean up cutting table - work on it 15 min a day —ugh only one day. It’s still a mess. 

✅Sew borders on Traffic Jam —finished!

Begin sewing grape quilt together — nothing done.

Make more RSC blocks in green and start purple —started but none finished

Here's Traffic Jam made with 2" squares instead of the 2.5" as written in the free pattern on Pat Sloan's website. You have to scroll down to the bottom to find the link to the free version.  I love how different this pattern looks with different colorations. 

It did make a dent in my 2" squares but I keep cutting more so not that much of a difference. 

Now on to my goals for this week.  Who knows, maybe I'll get a few more done this week. 

4/10/2023

Make more RSC blocks in green and purple

Make plan for big flying geese blocks and start doing it!

Clean up cutting table, put away 2” squares

Begin sewing grape quilt together 

Pick another top to quilt on domestic machine; prepare backing

Here's what I did off list.  Not much but some progress made. Joan is an FCQ Equilter who asked for 6" fin. 9 patches with darker colors in the corner and whites in the alternate blocks. Here's what I've made so far. 

Um, yea, those bottom three don't match the request.  She asked for kid prints or patriotic.  Like most of us in this group we use the blocks to make charity quilts.  I thought I had picked some fun fabrics for kids. Once I reread the directions I realized I have a start of a new quilt with 3 blocks for kids.  Okay then.  I'll keep making blocks for a while and then make a kid size lap quilt from my "mistake".  And I'll keep making blocks for Joan as I like making blocks and sending them off for someone else to finish.

Here are my normal Linky parties.  I hope you can find some spare time to surf the web from these parties. 

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings 

To Do Tuesday

It's time to get doing something in the studio today.  Here's a beautiful redbud I saw at the library last week. (no, it isn't quite as beautiful as the redbud in my header but it is a beautiful flowering spring tree.) 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Small Finish

I’m trying something new tonight — writing and publishing this post from my iPad. Generally I use my laptop but thought I give this a try.   This quilt was quilted and bound in October.  I finally took the pictures this week. It’s even a different location then I’ve tried before. 

This quilt is about 36” x 42”. The squares are 6”.

The quilting design is Ginger Flower by Apricot Moon. I used a white Superior So Fine thread.  

The backing is from Connecting Threads.  I’ve been really pleased with the backings I’ve bought from CT recently.  I’ll probably buy more early next year so I can continue to finish my collection of tops.  

That's it from me tonight.  I’m linking up with these parties.

Needle and Thread Thursday

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop

Finished or Not Friday

Beauties Pageant

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

PS — I don’t like using the iPad for writing my blogs.  Next post will be from the laptop again.

Decisions -- What Looks Best?

I've been working on a UFO for the last few days. (Well, not all that much work as I've read at least 3 books so far the week...) 

A little back story.  As many of you know I'm part of a group of quilters who used to belong to Faithful Circle Quilters in Columbia, Maryland.  As we moved away we became a block making group.  Every other month a member tells us which block she'd like us to use and what colors.  We then make blocks (and sometimes we go crazy!) and send them off to the member.  Several turns ago I asked for Chunky Churn Dashes from Bonnie Hunter's pattern. I've made at least one quilt ages ago and now I'll get two quilts out of the blocks I currently have.  I broke my blocks into two groups -- one with cutesy fabric and the other with more adult fabric. 

Over the last few days I've made a bunch of 9 patches thinking they would be a great way to bring the cutesy blocks up to a decent size.  What do you think? 

Unfortunately, I wasn't really happy with how this looked. I was really happy that I could use fabrics I already had for these 9 patches but I just think it is too busy. (Hum, this is getting to be a theme of mine...) 

So I found 4 different solids to see if anything was better. So here's what I came up with. Upper left is Kona Snow, upper right is Kona White, lower left is Kona Lake (I think) and bottom right is an unnamed yellow.  I wasn't excite by either Snow or White. I thought the blue and yellow were fine. Do you have a favorite?  I have enough of each fabric to cut 6.5" squares to put between the Chunky Churn Dashes. Let me know which you like best. 

Then I decided I would take a quick look at what I could do with 21 green and white 9 patches.  Oh yes, I did find a couple of fabrics I had enough to cut 6.5" squares to go with the 9 patches. Right now I'm leaning toward the bottom floral print but possibly using the hot pink as a border.  I don't have much of the elephant print but they would look cute with the 9 patches too.  I have a little bit of the green and the white left so I might be able to make more of  the 9 patches and cut the elephants to set a smaller quilt. (I might need to hunt up a border to get these up to 36" square or so.) 

By the way, this whole effort has been off my goal list. (OOPS!) Tomorrow and Sunday I need to get some progress made on that! 

I'm linking up with My Quilt Infatuation, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Alycia Quilts, and From Bolt To Beauty.  Join me in some blog surfing.   

Remember Daylight Savings Time starts Saturday, 3/13! 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Small rant -- blogger... please make the print the size I request.  Don't make it bigger or smaller.  I always check the font size  1) when I preview the post and 2) when go back to the post after checking the preview.  I can't believe how often the font size goes up or down from what I marked.  

Two Really OLD UFOs Finished!

Yes,yesterday I put the last stitches in two very OLD UFOs.  I think some the fabric dates to the 1940s but most is probably from the 1950s up to the 1970s.  And, no, these are not my UFOs.  The blocks were made by my friend Patrick's grandmother.  When he and his wife started helping his mom and dad clear out their house they brought the boxes of fabric and partially made quilts and blocks to me to see what I could do with them.  Here's what I have done with the little 9 patch blocks. 

I used the long arm to make little designs in the white snowballs on the red bordered one.  And I used my trusty Bernina to do straight line quilting on the green bordered one.  I prefer the feel of the green one as it seems to be "sturdier"?  I probably used a different batting as I was using leftover batting. 

I've used this layout for 9 patches before and I love it.  It was fun working with these little blocks -- the prints are interesting.  Here they are bagged and ready to give to Patrick and Stacey.  I am so proud of them for actually arranging to have quilts made from these leftover blocks.  I may be stitching on their collection for years but as a quilter with my own collection of UFOs I'm happy to see someone finishing these projects.  I think next up is a wedding ring quilt.  The rings are made.  I hope to appliqué them to a backing fabric and then quilt it. I may not be providing the fastest service but I am steadily working on them. 

Have you thought about what will be happening to your UFOs and fabric stash when you aren't around to sew any more?  I've made a plan that should work.  But I am also trying really hard to finish some of my UFOs.  I haven't gotten to the point of actually getting rid of ones I don't really like but I am working on finishing the oldest ones.  Who knows how I'll do this year! 


I'm linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday and Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?  I'm hoping to spend some time this evening perusing these links to see what strikes my fancy.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 2 - 1 - 2016

Zoom -- there went January. On to February!  I finished 2 small quilts -- Saturday I shared the little wall hanging.  Later this week I'll share the table runner I finished last Friday.  Not the biggest finishes this month.  

Here's what is really on my design wall.  I had to shove around some of the little antique 9 patches to make enough room to get good photos of these two projects. 

First, the Seattle Sea Hawk blocks for Irma, a member of the FCQ EQuilters.  She asked us to make these as she plans to make a quilt for a friend who is a big Sea Hawks fan.  I hope to get 10 made and sent by the end of February.  I cut two more blocks last night. 

This is the block for the next charity challenge quilt from fabrics given to me by the Maryland guild.  Remember this quilt? I had saved more masculine fabrics to do another quilt.  This is the pattern.  I'm mixing in quite a few of my own fabrics to get a more masculine feel.  The blue and the cream will be the same in all the blocks. What I'm just thinking -- could I actually cut the blue as a square? Probably not based on the way it is constructed.  Oh well.   Now to just find time (and room) to cut out the fabrics.  Here's why I say this: 

The disaster of the cutting table.  The box has been emptied and some contents thrown away or recycled.  Maybe if I actually cut out the above quilt I would have less scattered across this table.  You can see some lime green for the Sea Hawks blocks too.  

Perhaps I should include cleaning off the cutting table in the goals for the week! 

January 25, 2016

Quilt Two Customer Quilts √ one done, the other started.

Finish quilting patriotic table runner√

Finish 2^nd little antique 9 patch quilt√ need borders still

Finish patriotic table runner (bind)√

Finish quilting and binding OMG top√

And coming up this week... 

February 1, 2016

Finish quilting 2 customer quilts (one from last week and a new one.)

Put borders on two antique 9 patches

Pick the next OMG

Quilt one of my quilts

Clean off cutting table

Cut out next charity challenge quilt

Just as a side note check out this post of Sarah's from Confessions of a Fabric Addict.  She's showing a different 9 patch quilt every Sunday for 6 weeks as part of her Nifty Nines Quilt Along.  I love this one and need to figure out when I can make it.  I have a lot of 2.5" squares already cut -- all I would have to do is cut a background fabric.  It is a great way to use up all those squares I keep cutting.  

That's it from me.  I'm linking up with Monday Makings at Love Laugh Quilt and Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts.  

Happy Quilting All!