Monday Meanderings 12 - 9 - 2024

It's concert week+ this week. We'll be singing 3 concerts with the Spotsylvanians.  We've got 3 rehearsals this week although one is with our neighborhood group -- The Heritage Singers.  Their concert will be on Monday 12/16th.  This coming weekend is overloaded.  So, if you don't hear anything from me this week don't be surprised! 

I didn't do very well on my goals this week.  Although I did succeed on a few things. 

12/2/24

Finish top made with stash busting block — about half sewn together.

Mail tree blocks to Washington state — ugh, no didn’t even package them up.

✅Bind quilted top — all done! 

✅Quilt a customer top — done! 

✅Sing at the Mall — done!

I was remiss taking photos this week so I don't have any from anything I've done this week. Sigh.

I will say I did make progress on the stash busting blocks. I've sewn all six rows of blocks together and three of the rows are sewn together.  Hopefully I'll find a little time this week to finish sewing the other three rows together.  

Here's my goals for this week. Not much but I'll try to do a little in the studio.

12/9/24

Finish quilting sloth quilt and trim it 

Finish sewing stash busting blocks into top

Keep at cutting up scraps into usable squares and rectangles

Concert week 3 rehearsals and 3 performances 

Shop for Christmas presents 🎁 

Here's the quilt I've got Ruthie working on while I write this blog. (Yea for a computerized long arm!) My daughter Jenny loves patterns by Elizabeth Hartman.  This one is called Sleepy Sloths. These are sloths 3 and 4 hanging off the edge of the long arm frame. 

And here is 1 

and 2. 

As I am typing this Sunday evening Ruthie is on the 2nd to last row.  It's worked really well for me to write my blog and supervise the quilting. (It's done!) 

Just in case you missed our sloth siting in Costa Rica in March here's another picture of him. (I've gotten more informed about drawing circles on my photos. 

I've somehow been able to stitch every day this week. Working on the last ornament counted for a couple of days.  I'm halfway done with the last ornament for the grands which counted for some of my stitching time. Another good week for stitching. 

W/ending 12/8 — 343days in to 2024. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7
• 15 minute days/Dec = 7/7
• 15 minute days/2024 = 333/343 days
• Success rate = 97.% 

I find it interesting that my success rate has been 97% for weeks, probably months. I can't see myself being more successful next year but I'm pretty sure I plan to try. 

Here are the links to the Linky parties this week: Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musings.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie

Monday Meandering 12 - 19 - 2022

Christmas is almost upon us! HELP!  I know I haven't organized present acquisition very well this year.  It was hard to get ideas from the kids and the grands.  Someone gave me nothing so I'm thinking of giving him coal! (Nah, just joking. And, I don't think any family members read the blog except hubby so I'm safe.) 

On to the lists.  Last week I checked off everything on my goals list. Whoop!

12/12/22

✅Work on the last 2 ornaments all week - I did but not enough. #3 of 4 has about 15 minutes more to finish it.  And #4 has been moved along. 

✅Load and quilt Sophie’s quilt - Phew.  I finished the last row 30 minutes before we had to leave for the concert Sunday. 

✅Make some more flying geese and string blocks for Talking Turkey -- a few were made and several were trimmed although more need trimming.

✅Sing 2 rehearsals and 2 concerts! - Both went extremely well. 

✅Do some Christmas stuff! -  I did some organizing and hubby did some wrapping. But much still needs doing.

On to this week. It's time to get all the Christmas stuff done before Sunday. (It wouldn't suprise me if I'm wrapping gifts Sunday morning! But hopefully not!) 

12/19/22

Finish last ornaments

Wrap presents

Make some more flying geese and string blocks for Talking Turkey

Make the last block from Sherri’s 2022 BOM

Make a cake for Christmas dinner

Enjoy family Christmas celebration 

Hum, I forgot to include two evening events -- book club and guild meeting.  Must remember to wrap gifts for those events. 

On to a few pictures.  Since I'm not playing in the studio all that much these days I have limited photos to share. The first one is the unicorn quilt our daughter Jenny made for her youngest.  You might recognize Lisa the Unicorn as an Elizabeth Hartman pattern.  Here's the link to her website. 

 

Lisa the Unicorn -- Made by Jenny Stapleton. 

Pattern -- Random Clams 

Thread -- So Fine 504

Next is a sneak peek of the Bjorn Bear quilt Jenny made for her oldest. 

I forgot to take a picture of the full quilt.  I suspect I won't get a picture until Jenny get's it bound.  The quilting pattern is Malachite -- a design I've had for many years but only remember using once or twice in years since I've had my computer driven option.  I realized it looks terrific to provide texture.  I'm glad my granddaughter chose it. 

Here's a block I finished this week or was it last week? Anyway, I made it as a sample to see if I wanted to make it for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this year. 

This block came from Bonnie Hunter's book Adventurers with Leaders & Enders. I like the block but it is pretty time intensive. It uses mostly 2" squares which I thought made a lot of sense since I have so many of them. But the drawback is the block is only 7.5" finished.  It would take a ton of blocks to get a decent (as in lap size) quilt.  On the other hand I will need to do something with this block. I'm leaning to a larger block -- 12" would be great. 

I'm hoping things calm down after Christmas and I can make some progress on cleaning up the studio, quilting two of my quilts, and working on my UFO challenge quilts for Dec and earlier. (I don't expect too much do I?) 

Here are the Linky parties I'm joining.  I hope we all can take a few quiet moments to surf the web.  Don't you need another inspiring quilt to make next year?   

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

To Do Tuesday 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 12 - 12 - 2022

Do you have weeks when you wish you could crawl into bed and forget the outside world?  Yep, me too.  Last week was busy with sad and fun things to do.  The sad was singing at the funeral of a neighbor who was part of our chorus.  

The fun was the Spotsylvanians singing at the Fredericksburg Christmas Market.  Except that one was really cold.  I doubt if it reached 44 degrees. (Ok, those of you where it gets really cold just remember being outside and singing in that temperature was cold to us.) I was very smart and put on a pair of snow boots and a really good pair of wool socks.  My feet never got cold.  I can't say the same for my hands trying to turn music pages.  Sigh.  But we had an appreciative audience.  After our performance Pat and I went directly to the car, grabbed lunch, and went home to warm up! It took most of the afternoon. 

So, how did I do on the goals.  Not too bad. 

12/5/22

✅Keep Working on Ornaments -- forward progress is being made on #3.

✅Quilt Natalie’s quilt -- done.

✅Make border for Dec APQ UFO Challenge piece Talking Turkey — progress being made but it’s going to take some time. 

Make some single blocks -- a couple of blocks done but not the one I had planned on. 

✅Prep wide backs for 3 quilts -- I washed all three wide backs but they need to be ironed before I can quilt them.

Not too bad but not fabulous.  Here's a picture of what the Talking Turkey border is going to look like. I know it isn't the best picture but it is what I had that I could photograph.  I now have quite a few flying geese ready to trim to the correct size. I won't sew them together until I have a whole side ready. 

Here's a sneak peek of Natalie's quilt.  I'll try to take a full on picture once I take it off the long arm.  This was at the beginning of the quilting. My daughter did a great job on it.

Here's what I hope to get done this week.  

12/12/22

Work on the last 2 ornaments all week

Load and quilt Sophie’s quilt

Make some more flying geese and string blocks for Talking Turkey 

Sing 2 rehearsals and 2 concerts with the Spotsylvians! 

Do some Christmas stuff! 

Some sewing is going to get done but not a whole lot.  On the other hand some singing will be going on too.  The Spotsylvanians' concerts are Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.  Our kids generally come to the Sunday afternoon one and then we all have dinner together.  In lieu of the usual pizza we're heading to the local Red Robin. Pizza always took a long time to get home.  Should be a fun time.  

I'm going to get the next step ready for the whale ornament I'm currently working on.  So I'm keeping this kind of short. You know what's next. Please take some time to visit a couple of these Linky parties to see what quilters are doing across the globe.  

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday 

To Do Tuesday 

I'll leave you with a "shocking" photo from last night's dinner prep. 

Have you figured it out?  Let's just say we didn't have as much baked potato as we thought we were going to have with dinner.  Some time while cooking it blew up.  We didn't hear anything.  I had stuck a fork into it several times before but this happened anyway. We've done a little more cleaning up since this but more is going to be needed.  I think we'll soak the racks to get them clean and then turn to the self cleaning mode.  Sigh.  Have you ever exploded a potato or anything else in your oven?  I haven't. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Not My Finish However . . .

Friday snuck up on me and I haven't taken any pictures yet.  Except this one of my daughter's quilt. Jenny chose red thread and Curley design.  The backing is black with little white stars.  You really can't see the quilting on the front or the back. Bummer 

She was going to quilt it. She came down, but guess who quilted it?  Her job interfered so she worked and I quilted.  Not a bad day for me as I really like this quilt and Ruthie performed like the champ she is. 

Does it remind you of this: 

She works at Univ. of Maryland and she's giving it to a colleague so she figured the Maryland colors were a good choice.  (Flag photo from https://sos.maryland.gov/pages/services/mdflag.aspx)

I was done quilting it by about 4:30 and she finished up her work a little after that. She decided to stay for dinner and drive home later.  Luckily none of the trucker protests that were suppose to happen in the DC area  were any where to be found.

Jen surprised me by bringing 4 red fat quarters!  And, some pieces from her stash that will also go to my red and white Spider Web quilt.  I'm looking forward to adding some more blocks to it. But no time so far this week! I am hoping to finish at least one more quilt this month. 

On Thursday we went to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival.  It is at Hampton Roads Convention Center thru Sunday Feb. 27.  Pat agreed to drive my friend Beth and I. It's about a 2 hours drive so we left in time to get there when it was opening. The price has gone up $2 per head to $17.00.  The first thing we noticed was there weren't as many people taking money from the attendees. It wasn't a horrible wait but there were lines. I imagine if we hadn't gotten there right as the doors were opening we might have been able to walk right up to pay. 

We had decided to wear our masks but were very happy to see that the show was requiring masks also.  Most of the attendees were wearing their masks but some were not.  I didn't pay close attention but I think most of the vendors were masked also. 

There were wonderful quilts, displays, and vendors as usual. But what wasn't usual is there were fewer quilts and fewer vendors. It looked like between an eighth and a quarter of the floor space was blocked off with curtains.  It appeared to us that some of the quilts were spaced out more than normal. 

The vendors who were there were very appreciative that we were there. There were less attendees but folks seemed happy to see quilts and be able to spend some money. As we started roaming up and down the rows a lot of the vendors were swamped.  It appeared to me that some of the vendors didn't have as many workers as they might have at one time so there were long lines of people trying to check out. 

I bought a roll of Pellon batting that I was thrilled to get.  It was great having Pat with us as he carried it out to the car right away. I found the exhibit of quilts from Country Piecemakers.  I was so impressed with their challenge quilts. I had chosen not to participate this year but maybe I will next year.  I also found two quilts from a friend in Faithful Circle Quilters in Maryland.  Fun to see my friend's work in person. 

I'll share my mammoth selection of fabric next week.  I came with a list of tops I had and I spent my shopping time looking for backing fabric -- either wide back or regular fabric.  Let's just say my bag was full and Pat was carrying some things too. Although I was in a buying frenzy I only bought fabric, batting and one cone of long arm thread. (Evidently Superior Threads is raising prices soon.)   

By 12:30 we were getting hungry and tired.  Although I might have spent more time with the vendors and the quilts we had no problem calling it quits at that time. We chose a rural route to go home and skipped the freeways. We found a great seafood restaurant on the way home and everyone really enjoyed our late lunch and had enough leftovers for dinner too.  

What I can't report on is food at the center.  The folks I usually go with generally have the hot buffet that is served.  It's a bit more expensive but you can sit for an hour and regain your strength to hit the vendors and quilts again.  We never even looked if it was offered or at the other food available. 

Overall, I was pretty pleased with the whole trip. I was happy I didn't have to drive and Pat was happy to get out of the house.  He didn't even mind carrying my batting roll and fabric. We found out later that we would've hit a lot of rain if we were on the freeway.  We had some light mist and rain but nothing that bad going the slower way home.  

I just checked the online info about the classes.  It seemed to me there were quite a few teachers who were presenting classes but most appeared younger and not as well known by me. This might be me not knowing and keeping up with trends or it might be that some of the most experienced teachers are of the age and inclination to not travel during the pandemic. 

Mancuso Show Management has four more shows this year. Three are on the east coast (South Carolina, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania) and one in California.  If there are no more Covid surprises I think more and more people will be attending the shows as the year continues.

OOPs -- sorry, I got a little involved in my discussion.  So, I'll end here by listing the link parties I join.  You should take a look at all the wonderful bloggers sharing their quilting journey. 

Needle and Thread Thursday 

Finished or Not Friday

Beauties Pageant 

I'm looking forward to a little surfing time over the next few days.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 12 - 27 - 2021

How about a post event Merry Christmas?  I failed to get a Friday blog posted.  So I'm hoping you had a wonderful day on Saturday.  Here are the four ornaments I made for my grand kids. 

I took these photos of the ornaments on my tree.  Notice  the little Santa  ornament up on the right. I'm pretty sure that ornament is from my family tree when I was very young.  I'm guessing the green pine cone was from a later time but still from when I was living with my parents.  Sophie loves blue so I always try to make her ornament with blue. The rest of the kids got red work. 

I should have moved the red and white ornament on the right so it showed more.  I bought that when we lived in Georgian in the late 80's and early 90's.  It is a Santa made on a dried okra.  I like to have unusual or handmade ornaments on our Christmas tree. 

We drove up to our daughter and son-in-law's house for Christmas Day.  Wonders of wonders -- the traffic on I 95 was moving at or above the speed limit going and coming.  The trip took the normal hour and 15 minutes.  It made a great start to our day.  And we were very happy it was an easy drive home. Truth told, I fell asleep!

We had a lovely day.  We opened presents. I played a game with the grands. (I will never play a game on the floor again.  Yikes, I just don't move that well any more!) We ate a terrific dinner cooked by Brian with desserts made by Jenny and Sophie.  Overall we had a wonderful time with Jenny and her family.  

We've had Cassie, our son's dog since last Monday.  They went to Tennessee to be with Aimee's family.  We haven't figured out when we'll do the dog swap and the presents swap yet but hopefully this week. Heck, they aren't sure when they are coming home! 

The goal list didn't get everything check off this past week.  On the other hand, I did finish a couple of books which I enjoyed. Here's how I did on that goals list. 

12/20/2021

✅Wrap Christmas presents 

✅Finish grand’s ornaments 

Finish winter wall hanging — haven’t finished yet but I've decided what to do! 

Make new UFO list — in works  

✅Have a wonderful family Christmas 

And this week --- 

12/27/2021

Finish new UFO list 

Pick 12 UFOs to focus on this year 

Finish quilting and bind the Peppermint Bunny top

Quilt and bind another top 

Work on more ombre log cabin blocks 

Work on Winter Wall hanging 

Here's the fat quarters I was gifted from Jen's family.  They were personally curated by Brian.  I was absolutely tickled with them.  I am now trying to figure out how I will use some of them in their own quilt.  Didn't he do a terrific job? 

Here's my Monday linky parties.  I hope you can take some time to go to some of them and surf the many blogs that will be linking up at the parties.

Oh Scrap

Monday Making 

Design Wall Monday 

To Do Tuesday

Have you been making goals or quilting plans for the 2022?  I decided I'm going to participate in a UFO challenge where every month we finish a UFO.  I also want to start and finish 2 quilts that I bought the patterns and/or fabric for a while.  It's time to get them started and finished this year. This may be the year to make some year long goals.  I would like to clear out some of the UFOs I have although some I'm just never going to make.  Do you make year long goals?  Are they written or stored in your brain?  How do you follow through to make sure you finish those goals?   Let me know in your comments.   

Happy Quilting All,  Bonnie 

 

 

EYE CANDY

 We had a visit from Jenny this week.  She was picking up The Kittens quilt I quilted for her.  And she brought some of her quilts in progress to show off.  Enjoy! 

From the pattern Lloyd and Lana by Elizabeth Hartman.

Sleepy Sloth by Elizabeth Hartman 

AND she brought me some fabric she got from someone who was downsizing her fabrics. Bonus.  Most of them are fairly small but very fun. These are just a small selection of them.  I will definitely be making some blocks with these beauties in them! 

Sharon and I are having a great time "retreating" together.  So this is short.  There are quilts to quilt and quilts to bind and tops to make.  Maybe I'll have a top to show on Monday. 

Here's my weekend linky party list: Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?, Finished or Not Friday, and Beauties Pageant.  The weather is fine!  Join me in a little surfing. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 5 - 17 - 2021

 I finished quilting my daughter's quilt.  Isn't it cute? 

Maker: Jenny with input from her daughter Natalie

Pattern:  The Kittens by Elizabeth Hartman

Batting: Warm and White 

Thread: Superior So Fine #504 Silver Screen  

Quilting Design: Star E2E by My Creative Stitches 

You can see the cute cat backing here.

And another view that shows off the quilting better. 

My daughter made this quilt to give to her daughter Natalie's teacher.  Here's Jenny's thought on giving this quilt to her 3rd grade daughter's teacher. "I don't usually make quilts for the kid's teachers, but I feel like they really deserve it this year!" I so agree with that.  And, I am so happy I had retired long before this pandemic closed schools. 

Here's the UFO I finished today.  The blocks came from a 2009 swap at the Faithful Circle Quilt guild.  Part of them were used in this top and the more kid friendly were put in the top shown here. I'm hoping to get this top quilted this week.  I happen to have a perfect backing for it. 

On to my goals for last week.  Not too bad, really. 

5/10/2021

Begin red table runner — fabrics are chosen! 

Pull a UFO to work on✅

Quilt daughter Jenny’s quilt✅

Bind a quilt ✅

5/17

Start a new quilt

Quilt one of my quilts

Make red table runner 

Have fun with Sharon! 

So that is what is on my list for this week.  I've also been doing a lot of picking up and putting away in the studio.  I've been pulling fabric rather indiscriminately so I spent a short time restacking the fabric piles.  I have quite a few more to do so that section of my shelving will look spiffy.  I still need to put more things away (or possibly some will be thrown away or recycled.) Lastly, vacuuming the floor and cleaning a bathroom or two before Sharon arrives. 

I'm linking up with my regular parties: Oh Scrap!, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, and To Do Tuesday.  Join the fun and see what folks are making across the Internet.  Do you get way too many ideas from surfing like I do?  I keep photos of quilts I really like.  Every once and a while I go back over my file of ideas and get rid of duplicates, ideas I've used, ones I'll never use and then keep the rest.  My poor computer is getting old and stuffed.  I still have some room but not as much as I'd like to.  So throwing away unwanted ideas works for me. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

More Quilts to Share

Yep, I'm still on a roll.  I finished a small quilt (31" square.) I really fell in love with this quilt and the fabrics I used.  I very seldom make quilts for girls but this is all girly! 

Pattern: Jacquelynne Steves Silver Lining Sew Along 

Quilting Design: Curley E2E by My Creative Stitches. 

Thread: Top - YLI Variations Thread in Tulip; Bottom - Superior Threads So Fine #418 It's A Girl!

Many thanks to my excellent quilt holder, Pat.  We're showing off the beautiful azaleas in our side yard. The sad part is we have no view of these unless we walk around to the side yard.  Aren't they grand this year? 

I used a grey solid for the backing and a white with grey polka dots for the binding.  The pink alternate fabric also has polka dots.  

And one last look with the dogwood tree in bloom. 

All of these photos should enlarge if you click on them.  The garden is beautiful this spring and the weather has been unusually mild for the last couple of weeks.  It was great to walk around the house checking for the best photo spots! 

The sad situation this week is Sharon and I canceled her trip to visit.  With the gas shortages I couldn't guarantee she could fill up her tank for her return trip.  She'll be up next week.  No pressing engagements and probably a lot more gas available.  Her town ran out of gas the day before we made the decision.  Virginia was showing 50% of stations out of gas.  We both decided it was the right move. 

Here's a peek at the next quilt I am working on.  My daughter Jenny made this with input from her daughter Natalie. It's a real generational quilt!  (SHshshsh! Don't tell anyone.  It's a teacher present!) It's been such fun to quilt this. Natalie picked the fabrics, the block placements, and the quilting design.  I'll show more of it at some point.  

I've only got one more row to do.  Pretty soon I'll be back to piecing a UFO.  Except, I need to decide what size top to make.  I sure hope I can use up all of the blocks so I don't have a bunch left over to become another UFO! 

Today I'm linking up with my favorite linky parties for the end of the week: Mid Week Makers, Needle and Thread Thursday, Finished or not Friday, Whoop!, Whoop! Friday, and Beauties Pageant.  I think I'm going to sit on the deck and do a bit of surfing. How about you? Enjoy all the eye candy. 

Happy Quilting! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 4 - 5 - 2021

 

Last Saturday in Nags Head we saw our daughter Jenny and her family.  She gave me this bag that she said held my fabrics.  Neither of us has any recollection of why I'd given her the fabrics.  But when I opened the bag I was tickled to have them back. 

The pile on the left is mostly 1/2 yard pieces of grey  The pile on the right are mostly fat quarters.  And the piece in the middle is 1.5 yards of a luscious light blue that this photo doesn't do justice to.  Welcome back fabrics!  (I've already used one of the blues working on my RSC block.)

Have you seen Preeti's Picket Star block and quilts at SewPreetiQuilts.blogspot.com?  She has made three quilts with the blocks. Here's a link to her block tutorial and one to two quilts.   If you scroll down to the comments you'll see my comment asking her about how she chose her colors and her answer.  (Just in case you want to make your own version!) 

You might be wondering why I am sharing all this info about this block.  Let me tell you!  It's my turn to ask my fellow FCQ EQuilters to make blocks for me and send them here.  OOOH it's always fun to get mail from them.  I'm asking them to make this block.  I also shared pictures of colors I'd like them in and Preeti's rational about how she chose her colors. I'll share some of my fabric pulls one of these days and when I start getting my blocks in. It's a big ask but I'm betting these gals are up to the challenge. 

Now to share my goal successes! 

3/28/2021

Quilt and bind another quilt☑️ Hopefully I'll share it Friday.

Make and apply binding for my quilt ☑️ You can see it here. 

Cut out a couple more r, w, & b Ohio Stars ☑️ Finished 2 blocks, 1 more left. 

Figure out more dog fabric for tumbler quilt. ☑️ Finished!

I did finish the last row for the dog tumbler quilt. I asked a friend if she had some dog fabric and she came through with 3. One I had. One I used and one I really think had mice on it. I'm ready to start ironing the rows and sewing them together. 

And now for this week I've picked 5 goals.  Hopefully I'll get them all done. 

4/4/2021 

Cut and sew flowers & 9 patches (You might remember the 9 patches from here). 

Make last R,W, & B Ohio Star block.

Put together 1 Happy Block Quilt from FCQ Equilter’s blocks from my last turn.

Quilt Customer’s Table Runner.

Work on doggy tumbler.

That's it for today.  I'm linking up with my favorite parties as they become available: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, and To Do Tuesday.  Take some time to do some surfing -- the weather is going to be great here so I'll be surfing too.

;-). (Just one is up Sunday night, I'll add them tomorrow.) 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie