Monday Meanderings -- 4 - 21 - 25

It's been a week. Thanks for all the kind remarks at the passing of our nephew. We decided we would drive to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to be with the family during the memorial service.  We don't have a kennel to leave Sunny at so she went with us. We left upper 70 degree temps to hit snow swirling as we drove north in Michigan and feels like temps of 18 13 degrees one day. (Or it may have been several days but I only screen shot one day.) 

We drove over the Mackinac Bridge.  I was a bit nervous about traveling over the bridge with the wind blowing so hard.  But that's the only way we could get to the UP so across we went.  I was very happy to learn that the bridge wasn't closed because of the high winds. Slab vehicles had a 25 mph limit while cars could go 35mph.  It was a reasonable speed even though the wind was bad. I actually enjoyed seeing some of Lake Michigan. 

Mackinac Island is home to the famous Grand Hotel.  It's the big white building above. Many years ago we enjoyed visiting the island although we haven't been since. 

We arrived in town Tuesday afternoon.  It's a small town in which several nieces and nephews still live. Wednesday was the Celebration of Life. Our nephew lived in the town for 45 years or so. His friends, co-workers, and family filled the location of the event.  It was a lovely celebration of a wonderful life. Except he died way too young. 

Sunny wasn't happy having to be crated the whole day. (Might I say incarcerated?) We came back a couple of times to feed and walk her.  She was ready to play by the time we got back to the hotel at the end of the day and we were exhausted. 

Early Thursday morning we packed up and drove two days to get home. Needless to say Sunny wasn't happy being in the car all day for 2 days. We didn't expect horrendous traffic but we kept running into it. 

This was about 20 minutes from home. There are 6 lanes of traffic here with cars and trucks every where.  

We were happy to get home but were glad we were able to give some support to our family.  It's going to be a hard year for his mother, wife and two grown children. 

Needless to say I had a much smaller goals list this past week.  I succeeded to a small degree. 

4/14/25

✅Knit 2 hats — 1 hat almost done. 

✅✅Read 2 books — 2 Grace Burrows books finished. 

✅Quilt a top on Ruthie — top quilted. 

Make more Equilters 9 patches — 2 are cut and laid out but no sewing done.

Surprisingly I was able to keep up my 15 minutes of stitching every day. I was knitting every day. Including the day I forgot all about it until 10:30 pm and spent 20 minutes knitting in bed! I'll share the bright yellow hat when I get it finished. 

W/ending 4/20/25. 110 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/Apr = 20/20
• 15 minute days/2024 = 110/110 days
• Success rate = 100%

Late Sunday afternoon I was able to baste a small top that I want to quilt on my Bernina.  I had planned to pin baste but decided to use Sulky KK 2000 spray adhesive instead. I'm hoping to start the quilting this week. (Heck, I hope to start and finish the quilting this week.) 

Since KK 2000 is a temporary spray I may add some pins in case I can't get it finished this week.  Did I mention how old this is? I'm guessing it is 10+ years old. I considered hand quilting it but never wanted to start it. This year I added it to my monthly UFO challenge list and it came up this month. Hopefully I'll get it to binding stage this month. 

Here's my goal list for this week.

4/21/25

Make Cali-Co quilt along April Block

Quilt Orange Peel on domestic machine

Finish another hat

Make 2 more Equilters 9 patches

I'm linking up with the following parties: 

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday 

Monday Musing

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

A Fast Quilt for Charity!

I'm happy to be making quilts for Sarah's Hands 2 Help 2023. And, once again, writing a blog to support Sarah's efforts and give you some ideas of what you can make. 

As I was thinking about what I might write about 2 things happened in my life. One was the APQ UFO Challenge for April was #4 which for me was a set of huge flying geese.  Yep, huge - 8.5" by 16.5". I had made them for a block drawing for a retreat years ago and they were wrong. No, size was fine, I just didn't notice it said use batik fabric.  I probably have another group that I won that were batiks but that's for another day.  It was time to do something with them. 

My friend Sharon had cut hers into smaller half square triangles and made some other blocks from them. Hum, could I do that too?  I had two goals -- use the blocks and make a fairly big quilt.  Well, big blocks make big quilts faster. So I trimmed these blocks into 6.5" half square triangles.  I was able to make one 12.5" pinwheel block from each set of two. (I didn't use the white flowers for this project as they didn't go well with the other two.) 

Here's how I cut them up.  I saved the two strips from each triangle for another day. (I see a string quilt in my future.) Then all that was left was to sew the 4 - 6" blocks together. Easy peasy to make a simple block. 

To make a big quilt I needed a lot more blocks. Another benefit of making the blocks 6.5" was I have an AccuQuilt die for that size half square triangle. I started pulling fabrics that were mostly light and darks to go with the existing pinwheel blocks.  And, next thing I know I'm cutting triangles and then I'm sewing them together. Four 6.5" HSTs make a 12" finished block.  At first I thought of this as my "squirrel" project, something that was interrupting my weekly goal lists.  Eventually I figured out it wasn't really a squirrel project because it was listed as "use the big flying geese blocks." A week and a half later I have a finished top. 

My 12.5" blocks made up quickly, made a dent in several different colors of fabric and is a fairly large quilt.  I set the blocks 4 x 5 which makes the quilt approximately 48" x 60".  I have to admit I was tickled that I could get this top made in less than 2 weeks. Quilting is another matter as my long arm is still out for repair.  

Remember I mentioned two things happened? The other was my guild was collecting 12.5" blocks to use for charity quilts. Off to the orphan block box  I went.  And I found several blocks I could pass on. (Check out the picture of 4 blocks from last week's blog.  The two on the left were orphans.) 

And, look what else I found: 

What a great idea -- another fast, easy way to make a 12" block -- made from four 6.5" blocks sewn into the 12.5" block. I'm pretty sure I'll be making some more batik bow tie blocks to be able to put this block into a quilt.  I also found a bunch of other bowtie blocks. So, shouldn't I make some more to go with them? Of course!

Here's what you need to make one 6" finished bowtie. 2 - 3.5" squares of light fabric, 2 - 3.5" squares of medium or dark fabric, and 2 - 2" squares of the same medium or dark. Draw a diagonal line down the center of the 2" squares.

Place a 2" square on a corner of each of the light squares.  Sew on the diagonal line on both squares. Trim the excess fabric leaving a quarter inch seam.  Then flip the triangle over and iron.  I tend to trim up the light triangles after flipping just to make sure they stay at 3.5". 

Lay out the blocks to form the bowtie. 

Sew a purple square to the white with the purple triangle. 

Sew the two halves together. Voila! You have one quarter of a 12" finished bow tie made.  Make three more. These blocks are great for using up smaller pieces of fabrics and are really fast to sew.  

While I was trying to decide on which blocks I would make as 12" blocks I came across this nice web site for blocks. Many times 12" blocks are made from 6" blocks.  You can find various size blocks here with good directions. Here's the link for a 6" finished Pinwheel block. Do you want to print the directions?   Yes, there are a lot of ads but look for the note about how to print (or save) the information without having a lot of ads. It's a separate site but it drops the ads for you and allows you to drop out some of the instructions or pictures if you don't really need them. 

Poke around the web site and you'll find all sorts of interesting info. They even have a section on patriotic quilt patterns. 

Another great web site with LOTS of quilt pattern is Quilter's Cache. As stated on the main page this site has "a gazillion patterns." You can spend days picking and making blocks from their directions. Find the drop down menu on the main page and choose "Quilt Blocks Galore." Then you can look at them either by name or by size. In some ways this is a bit clunky but oh the number of standard blocks and original blocks is amazing.

Here are a few I think would be fairly easy to make: A Dandy, Antique Tile,  Arrowhead Puzzle, Box Kite, Buckeye Beauty, Calico Puzzle and Churn Dash.  Do you get it?  I gave up after "ch" titles because I had way more than I needed to share!  

As you plan your next charity quilt or a quilt for your family, consider using  an easy 12" block. A 3 x 3 setting will yield a 36" square quilt. That 36" square quilt would make a cute baby quilt.  A 3 x 4 block setting would yield a 36 x 48" quilt, a perfect size for a toddler or elementary age child. The 4 x 5 set makes a great lap quilt for teenagers, seniors and most anyone.  And, think how much easier an easy 12" block would make a twin, queen or king quilt! 

If you are trying to make quilt tops quickly pick a 12" block that is easy to make and go to town!  

I'm linking to these parties.  I hope you have some spare time to surf the web! My normal Monday Meanderings will be posted Tuesday, hopefully. 

Oh Scrap 

Monday Musings 

Design Wall Monday

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 1 - 9 - 2023

Have you recovered from Christmas and New Years?  Have the decorations been stored until next December or do you leave some snow decorations out?  At our house Christmas quilts on the walls change over to snowman quilts and a bunch of snowmen I have made or purchased over the years come out. These will stay out until February when I'll switch to my Valentine's Day quilts.  The smaller snowmen may stay out but they'll probably be put away mid February.  

I've spent a bit of time deciding what UFOs I want to work on, figuring out how many tops I need to think about quilting, and mentally figuring out a new things I'd really like to get done this year.  From that thinking I've come up with 12 UFOs I'd like to move forward or, even better, finish.  One of the projects I've added to my UFO list is making a tee shirt quilt for our son.  He gave me 2 bags of shirts and said go for it.  He won't even identify the ones he'd like me to use and, believe me, he gave me a lot of them.  I'm looking forward to making progress on all 12 "UFOs."  In the end I'll have some projects that get completely done and some just get moved forward.  It's all good. 

Now, it's time to look at how I did on my first set of goals in the new year.

1/2/2023

✅Sew Let’s Face It mystery together — Center part done.Waiting to decide about the border(s).

✅Keep working on the border of Talking Turkey — done - sent to the “to-be-quilted closet.

✅Finish APQ UFO Challenge Sheet and start on the UFO for January — Done! 

✅Make List of Tops ready to quilt — Done! 

Start on the 2023 Quilting Life — holding off to come up with fabric.

I feel I did a good job with this past week's list.  I'm still up in the air about the fabrics for Sherri's mystery quilt.  Last year I used patriotic fabrics so I could make another veteran's quilt.  I'm still playing with alternate colors but I may just stick with red, white and blue. 

Here's my January UFO project.  I started this "Moose" quilt a while ago but got frustrated.  I had a yard or two of moose in the snow fabric. I thought it would be easy to cut them into scenes and add some go with fabrics and call it done. Um, no. It wasn't easy at all. I realized there were very few scenes of the moose, just a lot of repeated scenes. So some will be duplicated.  Here are the blocks that made the cut once I started working on the project again. 

Actually, only 2 of the pictures had some blue go-with fabric around them when I pulled them out. But I did start adding more blue surrounds. Part of my problem is I don't have a lot of the blue fabric.  Here's where I left it this evening.  I've made a few decisions. 

And then I ran out of the blue. It dawned on me I could put the center column of pictures up against each other and I would have some easy sashing. That may not work since the blocks are differing widths.   I need to do some thinking on fillers around the smaller pictures. I have hunks of brown and black fabric.  And some blue solids that I can use.  Stay tuned while I try to figure this out. 

Here's this week's goal list.

1/9/2023

Continue with RSC blocks in blue

Work on January UFO Challenge — Moose quilt

Work on Spider Web blocks — sew blocks into “foursys”. Decide how many more blocks are needed and make them

Spend 15 minutes a day cleaning up in the studio

I have been cogitating on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt for this year. I wanted to do something with strings so I checked two of my books on string quilting.  I knew I didn't want labor intensive blocks. I was up for something different.  I finally came up with strings in drunkard's path blocks.  I credit the book A New Spin on Drunkard's Path by John Kubiniec for the idea. I hope to make circles with my fabric strings going in differing directions. Here's two layouts from the red string samples. 

One possible layout.  

I may use this layout if I can figure how I can cut the colored part so the strings go perpendicular to the bottom left.  I am making the blue strings now.  I'll have to read John's book to see how I can get all four blocks going different directions. I am using my Drunkard Path dies from AccuQuilt that will give me a 9" finished group of 4 blocks.  I've got a few cut out in blue and I'll be able to play with them before I sew them together. I may need to turn the string sections before I put them on the die to cut.  I'll keep you informed. 

That's it for me today.  I'm linking up with my regular Linky parties and one new to me, Monday Musing at Song Bird Designs. 

Oh Scrap! 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

To Do Tuesday 

I noticed that last week I didn't get everything linked up correctly. I thought I had changed my blog and linked up at each of the blogs.  Who knows what happened.  I'll pay more attention this week.  

Please take a minute to check out my post about Mysteries and Sew Alongs.  Check the tab above that links to the post from Jan 3rd.  I'll be posting about Mysteries and Sew Alongs at the beginning of every month. If I get additional events I've missed I'll try to post again with add ons.  Please feel free to let me know of any that I have missed although I tend to post only upcoming events.  I hope you enjoy finding a mystery or sew along that really speaks to you. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

 

Monday Meanderings 8 - 16 - 2022

Quilting seems to have taken a backseat to reading recently. At the end of this post I've listed a few books I've really liked recently.  But now, let's see how I did on my goals. 

8/8/22

✅Finish new charity quilt to top stage -- done, need backing 

✅Sew August UFO challenge together, add borders, figure out backing -- all done backing is ready to load

Make August BOM from A Quilting Life & ✅RSC blocks -- RSC done but need to do A Quilting Life block

Quilt one of my quilts -- nope, nada, didn't do it

✅Work on grand’s Christmas ornaments -- one is almost all done, second one is in progress

Not too bad.  We also had an overnight visit from our daughter's family on their way to the beach house.  It was a win, win.  They got closer to NC and out of the horrendous DC traffic the day before they had planned to drive and Saturday's drive was much shorter. We enjoyed seeing and catching up with everyone. 

Here's the final top.  The borders were leftover from a wide back. 

And here is the quilt top with the backing I found that will go with it. Thank you Nann, who blogs at With Strings Attached, for the fabric. A surprise box of fabric arrived a year or so ago.  I've pulled fabric from it off and on. I saw this one and knew it would work well with this challenge quilt. 

And next up my goals this week. 

8/15/22

Quilt charity top for guild

Make August BOM from A Quilting Life

Quilt one of my quilts

Make a list of all finished tops and figure out backing sizes for them

Continue to clean off front of cutting table

Begin challenge piece inspired by a card

I'll also continue to work on the Christmas ornaments for the grands but I'm not listing them every week. 

Notice that clean off front end of cutting table.  I spent several hours working on cutting up bits and pieces of fabric as well as putting fabric back on the shelves. I can see the difference but I'm not sure anyone else would notice it!  But I'll try to get through more of the mess on that end of the table. I can almost see the cutting mat under the fabric. 

One of the projects I am working on was making a sample cover for a composition book. Sharon and I usually go in together to make a little gift for fellow retreaters.  We'll be going the first week of October so it's time to figure something out.  She suggested the cover and sent me a link for the directions. Here's my first attempt. 

It looks nice but it took quite a long time and that didn't include the flying geese.  The directions called for binding the edges which just added a lot of time. (You can find the free directions here.) I made this one without having a composition book around.  After I bought one (not on any school special) I realized the inside fold over that went on the covers didn't work because the covers were heavy cardboard.  We'll be changing the width of that piece so it is easier to get it on the book.  And we'll probably be buying composition books on back-to-school specials and they won't have stiff covers. We hope to use up leftover blocks to make these covers.  I think it will be a terrific way to move out some fabric. And, I'll be checking the box from Nann for some fabric too.  I have another one started but haven't been motivated to finish it yet.  We've made some changes to make it go much faster. We'll split the 25 we need between the two of us so it won't be that much work. 

Back to books.  I generally have two to three books going at a time -- generally one audio book and 2 books on Kindle or, gasp, an actual book.  Because I read so many books, I tend to keep a list of books read by year.  It helps me when I try to figure out whether I've read a book or not.  Case in point is Nine Women, One Dress by Jane Rosen. I wanted to read it before offering it up as a book club choice for Sept. I started it and then realized I'd probably read it and sure enough, in 2019 I had. (But I'm reading it again because I don't remember all of it!)   I'm also offering up Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman.  They are miles apart in style and story but both are good.  I'm guessing we'll choose Nine Dresses. It's entertaining, a fast read, and our public library has multiple copies of it. Another great book I recently finished is Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus.  It was set in the 1950s and '60s and shines a light on how women were treated as "mere" housewives rather than serious scientists. Both libraries I use had long waiting lists for the Kindle books and audio books. (one was over 70 people for 5 Kindle books.) If it sounds interesting to you prepare to wait but it was really worth it.  What are you reading these days? 

Hopefully you are reading some blogs along with interesting books. Here's the Linky parties to check out. 

Oh Scrap

Monday Making

Design Wall Monday 

To Do Tuesday 

That's it for me.  I have a book I want to read now. (Ok, only after I do some blog surfing!) 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

  

Monday Meanderings 8 - 8 - 2022

I got a lot done this week, mostly on Sunday. The rest of the week I did little bits of sewing and a very small bit of cleaning up my cutting table.  But, I spent more time reading and/or listening to books.  Overall it was a good week.  First up, how did I do on my goals last week? 

8/1/22

✅Start center block for Halloween quilt - traced design, need to buy a background. 

✅Make more blocks for August UFO - blocks sewn in rows. Border fabric a possibility.

✅Start Melodic Mystery -  All cut out 

✅Bind Picnic Time - finished and hanging in the living room

✅Work on grand’s Christmas ornaments - second one started while I figure out how to finish first one. 

I was very happy with all that I accomplished last week.  Here's what's up for this week.

8/8/22

Finish new charity quilt to top stage

Sew August UFO together, add borders, figure out backing

Make August BOM from A Quilting Life & RSC blocks

Quilt one of my quilts 

Work on grand’s Christmas ornaments

Here's my version of a small wall hanging called Picnic Time. I added the border on the left and the bottom to make it a little bigger than just pinwheels and watermelon. I haven't added the seeds in the watermelon nor the antennae for the lady bug.  (Truth -- I may never add them.  I used a fusible adhesive and I think it would be difficult to add the hand embroidered seeds. I might try a black Pigma for the antennae.)  It's hanging on a small holder between a window and a French door in the great room.  

I spent a bit of time trying to decide how I wanted to put the August UFO Challenge blocks together.  My ideas were: 

Layout 1 -- I made an additional block after I realized I was one short.

Layout 2 -- basic furrows. 

And finally the layout I decided on.  It's furrows but 5 across and 7 down. 

The blocks are already sewn in rows.  The "borders" are actually the same fabrics but the light was better on the left side. There's pinky purple in some of the blocks too. 

This quilt is planned for donation to my local guild.  I believe they donate quilts to seniors and look for about 35 x 44". This will come close to that size.  And, if I can keep the width under 40 inches or so one width of fabric will work for the back. 

After I got this UFO Challenge quilt to rows stage, I gave myself permission to start a new quilt.  I have had these fabrics pulled for several months but was so busy trying to keep up with my monthly UFO challenge that I didn't try to figure this out.

I came up with a variation of Happy Blocks. (You can find the basic pattern at Mary Quilts.) Ha! I didn't come up with this at all.  It's exactly like Mary's directions.  I just made it smaller. By the end of the day I had made 4 blocks. Yes, it is really that easy. 

I also finished my fabric usage stats - stash busting July month. Not a bad month.  I did go a little bit wild buying fabrics but I also finished a large quilt, a small quilt and gave a bunch of blocks to Virginia Star Quilters. So, I'm still using more fabric than acquiring this year.  We'll see how it goes for August. I want to buy a couple of wide backs.... 

2022	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out  Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
July	12.000	71.25	13.00	82.75	11.50

Time to link up to some great Linky parties. Take some time to check out what quilters are working on these days through these links.  

Oh Scrap!

Monday Making

Design Wall Monday 

To Do Tuesday 

That's it for me tonight.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 8 - 1 - 2022

 The year is rolling by -- Welcome August! The last week of July was great for me.  Here's what I got done.

7/25/22

✅Bind Migrating Geese. -- Done!  Honestly, I'll share pics soon. 

✅Keep working on Picnic Time -- Just need to bind 

✅Make some Halloween Blocks, and spider blocks -- Done. Here's a few spider web blocks I made this month. (I can't believe I made 4 with the same fabric.) 

✅Quilt and bind one of my quilts -- Done! 

And, I've got new plans for this coming week. 

 

8/1/22

Start center block for Halloween quilt

Start working on August UFO

Start Melodic Mystery 

Bind Picnic Time 

Work on grand’s Christmas ornaments 

These are the blocks that are my August UFO.  I have 33 of them. I'm planning on making 3 more and try a 6 x 6 setting.  This is a suggested layout.  Who knows what layout I'll finally decide.  Most of these still need to be trimmed and the paper pulled off the back. Then I can move forward to making a quilt.  Hopefully I'll have some fabric to use as the backing.

Here are my fabric choices for Melodic Mystery.  I was happy to have some of the fabrics in my stash -- the green raindrop and the lighter green.  I had a darker magenta but not enough of it so off to the local quilt store I went. I made my decision in about 5 minutes or less. The darker could be the binding.  I ended up buying new background fabric even though I had some in the stash, just not enough. 

Did you read my blog last week?  I showed the blocks that might go into a Halloween quilt. Cbot was kind enough to suggest that the larger block might have been made incorrectly.  She was right so now it looks like this. 

I actually sewed it although this pic is only the lay out. Now it's a bat. However, as I was flipping through patterns this afternoon I realized it wasn't a bat.  Go check out Butterfly Blossoms. Yep.  It's really a flower. I made a quilt with that pattern a long time ago so my guess is I decided not to put it in with the rest.  But I can see it as a bat too.  If it fits in I'll add it. 

I'm going to make a center block for the Halloween quilt.  I can't wait to get it made so I can show you. It's going to be fabulous! If I'm lucky I'll get this to top stage before it becomes the UFO of the month. 

Now for the regular info -- I'm linking up with the following parties. I'll be back later to link up the ones that haven't posted yet. 

Oh Scrap

Monday Making

Design Wall Monday

To Do Tuesday 

Have a great week. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie