Monday Meanderings 8 -- 25 -- 2025

Hello All!  We've been traveling this past weekend.  I've gotten some knitting done but no quilting. It has been raining most of today but we did do some outlet shopping.  A concerted effort was made to have most of my goals from last week done before we left. Take a look!

8/18/25

✅Keep working on project bag — made some progress.

✅Quilt RWB Sampler — finished, next up binding.

✅Make some more blocks: RSC, — RSC, some 9 patches, and started Cali-Co mom.

✅Sew current Happy Blocks into a top — done!

✅Finish current hat. — done except pompom.

I didn't take a new picture of the project bag but I did decide I would only work at it at home to avoid more mistakes.  Hum, who knew talking would distract me so much! 

No photos of the quilted RWB sampler quilt but it is all quilted. 

Here are both of the RSB teal blocks. Last week I showed the more colorful one. This week it is the two together. I need to spread all of the blocks out to see how they look together. 

Earlier in the week I worked on the current Happy Block quilt. With the help of my friend Beth we came to a decision about placement.  Here's the end result.  I think I made a new block to replace one of the dark ones. (It's second row, third block. Both fabrics were from the 25 yard haul. Unfortunately the cute animal print is only a 6" WOF piece.)  The dark ones (that mostly show when I turn the picture to gray scale) are in a diagonal row from top left to bottom right.  It's hard to believe that red often looks really dark when seen as on the gray scale.  

Now let's see what I hope to do this week. 

8/25/2025

Bind Space quilt and Red, White and Blue quilt

Quilt another small top

Cut a top kit for October retreat

Finish Cali-Co block

Keep working on project bag

That seems like a big list although I don't have a lot of commitments this week. We'll see how I do. 

The other thing I'll admit is I totally screwed up the Cali-Co bom for this month. I failed to put on the second frame before I put on the triangle corners and trimmed the block.  UGH. The block was 2" too small and I sliced into all four corners before I realized my mistake. Jack and I were getting too well acquainted this past week. I won't have to remake the whole block but I need to take out each of the corner blocks in the center. Sigh. Shouldn't take too long if I can keep focused. 

Another successful week of stitching 15 minutes every day.  (If I get this post done soon enough I'll be able to get today's 15 minutes done.) 

W/ending 8/24/25. 236 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/August = 24/24
• 15 minute days/2024 = 236/236 days
• Success rate = 100%

Here's an older quilt that I made for our beach house.  I decided to bring it home and substituted a quilt with ocean fabrics - whales, star fish, and the like.  These Wild dogs just make me smile! Too bad there isn't a West Highland Terrier like Sunny! 

I'm linking with the following parties. 

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday 

Monday Musings

I hope you have a quilty week. Keep your spirits up and your hands doing what you like to do! 

Happy Quilting! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 5 - 12 - 2025

This week was suppose to be an easy week -- a little quilting, a little reading, and taking it easy. I did do a bit of all three things but we also took in a play this week -- more about that at the end of my post. Let's look at my goals for this past week. Yep, it looks great! 

5/5/25

✅Work on 3 yard quilt project — top done!

✅Layout May’s UFO blocks — laid out ready to sew together. 

✅Keep making 9 patches — a few more were done.

✅Keep knitting on yellow hat — started the decreases. 

✅Quilt a top — a happy quilt is ready for binding. 

Here is photo proof of some of those goals! 

These are my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks from 2023.  I put them on my UFO list this year and their number came up in May.  Surprisingly enough I laid these out almost exactly as shown.  My friend Sharon suggested 1 switch which lightened the first row. She was right. Looking at it as I write this, I realize I need to move the dark red in the bottom row up one row and move the orange one down.  It should lighten up the bottom row nicely.  I've been trying to decide on a border but so far I'm not that enthused with what I have in my stash.  I'm going to let that go for the time being and at least get these blocks sewn together. 

Here's the top I got quilted today.  I bought an orange cotton for the backing.  And, I used orange thread. Wild, right? There's a little bit of the backing showing at the bottom right. 

Here's one of my favorite blocks in this quilt. Yep, when pigs fly.

For this week I've given myself an extra goal.  Hopefully I'll get them all done as well as finish at least one book this week. 

5/12/25

Quilt 3 yard project

Sew May’s UFO blocks together

Keep making 9 patches 

Finish knitting yellow hat 

Bind Happy Quilt 

Iron backings 

And, I've maintained my 100% stitching every day.  

W/ending 5/11/25. 131 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/May = 11/31
• 15 minute days/2024 = 131/131 days
• Success rate = 100%

Among the sewing and reading we went to our grand's play "Princess and the Pea." It was a shortened version (1 hour.) But was really fun. Our grand was the minstrel and did a great job singing and acting. Her middle school does a musical every year so I'm looking forward to seeing what our grand might do next year. 

The only drawback of the play was getting to our daughter's house. It generally takes an hour and a half to get from our home to hers. Three and half hours later we were there. UGH Another cool part of attending the play is we were able to see the results of major home improvements they recently had done. They have a new kitchen and dining room.  It looks wonderful. And adds a lot of space to their small house. 

I washed some more fabric this weekend. And boy, was I surprised. Look at these Color Catchers and Color Grabbers. The two navy blue ones and the top right were Color Grabbers. The other three were Color Catchers.  I will admit that the 3 Grabbers had been used before as well as the middle two Catchers. I've used a piece of the same fabric last year.  I don't remember any color sheets turning navy blue.  I originally said I like Catchers better. I think I'll like the Grabbers better from now on! 

The other fun thing that happened this weekend was Sunny had a grooming date. We figured it was time to lighten up her fur coat.  Here she is before her "spa" day...

And her after picture...

Wow! It's hard to believe she's the same dog.  The only thing I'll change for her next appointment is what is done to her tail.  Her tail was broken before we got her so with her tail shaved down shows where it was broken. It looks like _|. Yep it is a definite turn in her tail.  Recently her tail was very fluffy and curly.  You can see her fluffy tail on this pic. You'll need to scroll down to Sunny on the beach. Hopefully we'll have a fluffy tail showing up in the next month or so. We're so happy that she is doing so well. 

I'm linking with the normal parties: 

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 5 - 15 - 2023

Before I tell you about my goals let me just say -- I read 5 books this past week.  So, no, my goals got shunted to the side for the most part.  And, the bigger announcement is Ruthie, the long arm, came home on Saturday!  Whoop! Whoop!  And there went the rest of the goals for the week. Except the one I did get a good start on. Let's take a look. 

👎🏼 Start working on APQ’s UFO challenge - mine is a small wall hanging that needs a border, quilting and binding

✅ Make various blocks to donate -- not finished but some are done, more to come

👎🏼 Continue to make Flower Song Blocks 

👎🏼 Start fusing and trimming  tee shirts for a quilt

Cynthia who blogs at Quilting Is More Fun than Housework has been collecting blocks to make into compassion quilts.  You can read more about the project here and get directions for the blocks. Yes, you get a choice.  I'm glad I posted the link here as I reread the info and realize I don't have to make these three as one block. I think I see some more 4 patches in my future. This drive ends with the end of the month.  I'm slow getting going but I hope to finish several more before I mail them to Cynthia.  

I also made at lease one more block (with one more cut out) to send to the FCQ Equilter this round. She asked for 9 patches for either children or veterans.  I'm making some of both types.  It was fun diving into my fun children's prints again. 

Hopefully both of these will go in the mail this week. 

And here's the plan for this coming week.  Maybe I'll spend more time in the studio playing rather than laying on the couch and reading! 

5/15/23***

Quilt two tops

Make blocks for BOM for guild

Start fusing and trimming  tee shirts for a quilt

Put border on the UFO

*** Oops! I forgot we have a big rehearsal Friday night and the concert and dinner Saturday.  So I may have listed way more projects than I can reasonably do.  I'll let you know next week if I come close to succeeding.

So here's a shot of Ruthie as I was getting a quilt loaded. ( Yep, I realize I don't have any batting there...I'll get it on tomorrow! Just wanted to include a colorful quilt.) I finished a small one today.  Hubby had to do a little maintenance so things didn't knock and ping. He switched how some bolts were placed in the rails which took care of the noise/problem. 

She's been gone for two and a half months. I forgot nearly everything on how to run her! Biggest issue was the password to get into the computer running the electronics for the quilting design. Phew, my first guess was the correct one. Here's a peak at the first top I finished. It's called Sheep in Boots based on the main fabric. I'll show the whole quilt in a week or two -- once I get the binding on. (During that 2.5 month without my long arm I finished 4 tops, two of which I started and finished. Along with blocks for various projects.)

I had a very nice Mother's Day.  My daughter-in-law and the kids made a wonderful candle for me.  But I was laughing my head off when I opened the box.  Here's what was in it. 

Yep, there were two rolls of toilet paper included.  Once I finished laughing I realized it made a lot of sense as the TP rolls prevented the candle from moving around in shipping. Theo and Ellie colored the hedgehogs as book marks for me.  They included a really cute otter card which I assume they picked because of the great day we had looking for the otter statues around Fredericksburg in the fall.  

They also sent this lovely floral arrangement. I love getting flowers and really didn't think I needed any more after the candle and goodies. But I was happy to receive these flowers first thing on Friday morning. I usually take really good care of any flowers that come in by changing the water every couple of days and putting a special powder in that prolongs the blooms. If I'm lucky I'll have these for 2 weeks, hopefully longer. 

I'm calling it done for this post.  I'll link up to my regular Linky parties. Please join me on checking out what folks are working on these days. 

Oh Scrap!

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

To Do Tuesday

I realize I failed to blog about Mystery Quilts and Quilt Alongs at the beginning of the month. (I blame it on traveling. Ok, you don't have to believe that I just kept forgetting.) I'll post it Wednesday.  Take a look if you want to know about new opportunities. 

I hope you had a happy Mother's Day.

Happy Quilting All -- Bonnie  

 

RSC Blocks

Recently my local quilt guild, Virginia Star Quilters, put out a call for patriotic quilts to be donated to Leashes of Valor. Their goal is to bring service dogs to post 911 veterans.  The guild is suppling quilts to the vets and mats to the dogs.  I offered 2 finished patriotic quilts and one top. (see one finished quilt here.) Surprise! I have never shown the other finished quilt.  

Below is the top I donated.  It was originally set 5 by 6 which wasn't quite big enough.  So I added 1 row and 1 column to bring it to 6 x 8 or approximately 60" x 80".  I was happy to add the extra blocks since most of these blocks came from the FCQ Equilters group. These are Happy Blocks for Maine from MaryQuilts. I'm pretty sure mine started with a 6" center block. I didn't square mine up so the blocks ended 10" square.  Mary has other directions for 5" centers and 4 1/2" centers.  I can't tell you how many of these blocks and quilts I've made over the years.  They work particularly well with novelty fabric.  

I haven't shown my Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) blocks since the first month.  So here are 6 colors. I'm glad I pulled these all out as I realize I don't have enough blocks of each color.  I'll be making more of most colors over the next few weeks.  Blues came up twice -- light and dark although I didn't do all that many of either.  I'm looking forward to next month's color. These are 6 1/2" blocks so I definitely need to increase the number! 

I'm hoping to get two small quilts finished next week.  I loaded the quilts one after another on one long piece of backing.  I need to use the leftover backing for a sample so I won't take them off until I get the sample done, hopefully soon.

I'm calling it done for tonight.  Here are the parties I'm linking up with: Mid Week Makers, Needle and Tread Thursday, Finished or Not Friday, Beauties Pageant, and Scrap Happy Saturday. when it is available. Have fun checking out lots of great blogs. 

I'm ready to call it a night.  

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings/ October OMG 10 - 4 - 2020

 It's time to announce my next One Monthly Goal. 

My Goal for October, 2020 is to finish 4 quilts.  

Three tops are already made and one needs to be started. 

All four need to be quilted. 

Since last week I have finished one more of the tops that need to be quilted.  I'm hoping to make good progress on the last one this week. I've already made  the backing for one of them and I have a wide backing for the other three quilts. So hopefully I can get these 4 tops quilted soon. 

Here's the next Happy Blocks Quilt I've finished. 

This top is the I pulled from the to-be-quilted-closet. It should be a wild quilt when done as I picked a bright green backing fabric that has some of the bright green from the stripes in it. 

Although I'm giving myself the whole month to finish all of these quilts I really would like to have them done in the next week or two.  

I'm linking with my regular Monday blogs: Oh Scrap, Monday Making,  Design Wall Monday and Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal October. I'm looking forward to see what quilters are working on these days.  I find the most interesting projects. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 4 - 20 - 2020

Day 39 of solitary confinement.... Oh! 😲 I just went to the calendar and counted.  We pretty much started staying home on Mar 13.  We did not go out to celebrate our birthdays over the weekend.  I didn't go to my hairdresser the following Wednesday. And, the worse, I cancelled the in-house retreat with my quilting buddies.  I've been to the grocery store a few times and one or two drives.  But, except for walks I've been at home. And, I am getting so MUCH done.  I miss my friends and activities but the trade off of getting things accomplished really works for me. 

Here's my newest finish. (Yep, finished, as in I could give it away today if I wanted!) 

Baby Girl Happy Block

I used Ripple from My Creative Stitches. Thread choice is So Fine #524, lavender.  I really like the texture of Ripple.  Next time I use it I might try for more room between the lines.  Here are some of my favorite blocks:

Nann - do you recognize this?

Part of the original charm pack but color is not quite right. 

Who doesn't need a fairy frog-mother? 

The mask making is continuing.  I now have about 20 masks ready to give to the ambulance transport company who need some protection.  I've been using a fairly easy and fast pattern so I'm making them much faster.  

I've done pretty well on all the goals for last week. I've finished Happy Blocks, I've made lots of masks, I've made several more pinwheel blocks.  The one thing I didn't do is work on the churn dashes.  Not a bad week, over all. 

This week, along with mask making, I'm focusing on:
1) Making all pinwheel blocks and sewing the top together.
2) Sewing all the churwndash blocks into a top.
3) Loading on Ruthie president's quilt for my local guild.
4) Updating my spread sheets on UFOs and batting pieces.  This is my maybe goal. All the other ones I really want to keep up with. 

Are you ready to surf the web?  I am.  Here's my regular linky parties so you can join in the fun: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, and Main Crush Monday.

Photo from and copyrighted Pluto Living.com 

And for your enjoyment meet Pluto.  He's helping us with ideas to keep us safe and entertained during our stay-at-home time.  Pluto Living.  I've been watching him on Facebook.  Check out his snore meditations. Enjoy!

Happy Quilting and Stay Safe! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 1 - 20 - 2020

I'm back to sewing again! Friday I drove down to Sharon's house for a mini quilt retreat.  Last year our "in home retreat" with Nancy and MaryBeth was held over MLK holiday weekend. We thought we'd be repeating this weekend at my house but MB had tickets for Hamilton in NYC so the retreat was postponed.  Sharon and I decided to get together to sew anyway.  

I don't have many pictures yet of what I've been working on but I did get the rows sewn on my Happy Blocks quilt.  Once I get home all I'll need to do is find some backing for this quilt and I can throw it on Ruthie to quilt it. I think I have some fabric at home I could use.  

I've had so much fun making these blocks and putting this quilt together.  Many of the blocks were made as "leader/enders" during my Christmas sewing.  I even remember buying some of these fabrics and what I used most of the fabric for.  The orange one in the top row -- soccer balls -- was the backing of Brian's quilt.  Perfect addition to this quilt.  Many of the fabrics were fat quarters that I sometimes buy to add to my novelty prints collection.  

At the beginning of January Pat and I took an 11 day Caribbean cruise from Fort Lauderdale.  I'll be sharing some pictures over the next few weeks.  Here's the first stop -- Half Moon Cay. Great weather, lovely vista and relaxing on our balcony.  Wonderful! 

That's it for now.  I'm linking up with my regular parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, and Design Wall Monday. (I'll link this one up when it becomes available and when I remember!) 

I'm looking forward to a great week of sewing, some reading, and maybe some organizing in the studio. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie