Monday Meanderings 6 - 15 - 2026

 What a week of fun! My friend Sharon is visiting and we're sewing up a storm. And talking. She's on her 3rd quilt on Ruthie, the long arm. And both Ruthie and Sharon are doing a great job. I'll share a picture later in the blog.  But let's look at my goals for last week first. 

6/7/26

✅Bind 2 quilts — one done. Second one is trimmed but still need to make binding and stitch it on. 

✔️Knit more kid-size beanies — one finished, one more started. 

✅Stitch on Snowman #2 — he’s coming along well. 

Cut one quilt kit — nothing done. 

✅Make more ✔️Veronica blocks, ✔️Hollow 9 patches, & ✔️E Quilter blocks —  made some of each type. 

First quilt bound. I'm calling this one Bubbles and Squares -- the blue is dark and light blue squares. I'm not sure what I plan on doing with it but it will be put to good use. 

Here are my Veronica blocks. I made three more and almost finished a fourth one.  This pattern is very easy to make and I was lucky to have these bright 10" layer cake pieces to make them from.  I'm probably going to make a decent size throw quilt rather than a bed quilt. You can buy Preeti Harris's pattern here. I can see a lot more of quilts in this pattern. 

Here are the 12 blocks I made for Pat, this month's E Quilter. The blocks will be going into kids quilts she will be making and donating to various organizations.  There are all sorts of ways to arrange them. I liked this one best but I would probably fuss around with them so all the 'characters' are facing up.  I'm looking forward to seeing pictures of any quilts she makes. 

Here are my goals for this coming week.  I plan to attend the Caroline County Fair Thursday afternoon to help with the booth Va. Star Quilters will have there. I haven't been to this fair before but it should be fun.  There will be several of us there. I am hoping to get a hat knitted while there. 

Here are this week's goals.  Hopefully I'll get more of them done this week. 

6/15/26

Bind 1 quilt

Cut one quilt kit

Make more Veronica blocks and Hollow 9 patches

Baste Fall Blocks top (June ufo challenge  project)

Check a couple of  project boxes, empty, and put away fabric if project is finished

I've continued my 15 minutes of stitching this week:  

Week ending 6/14/26:  165 days of 2026.

  165 stitching days out of 165 days. 100%

Sharon and I have been having a lot of fun. She's finished quilting 2 quilts. Tomorrow she'll finish her 3rd one.  I will try to get a picture of it and her first one for next week. Below is the quilt, Happy Hues, she finished on Ruthie today.  It is stunning. Here is the link to the quilt along directions.

Check out these linky parties this week. 

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Pat and I are celebrating our 53rd wedding anniversary on Tuesday.  Boy has the time flown by.  I think we deserve a dinner out -- now to decide where to go! 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings -- 5 - 4 -2026

What a great week I've had.  Lots of singing at rehearsals, tech rehearsal, and 2 great concerts.  Our spring concert has been held in a very nice Lutheran church in our county for a couple of years. The pastor is one of our singers and has been so giving with her time, talent and her church. In the past we haven't had huge audiences -- maybe a hundred or so.  We were very pleasantly surprised when we were told to hold off on starting the concert because people were lined up trying to park still! I never heard an official word on the numbers at the afternoon or evening concert but it looked packed. Chairs had been added in the front. Chairs were lined across the back of the room. And the crowds was engaged.  We did a lot of classic American songs as sing alongs. We sang a few standard patriotic songs.  Our three big pieces went really well. Those were America Sings, a medley from Hamilton, and Stomp from an opera by Aaron Copland.  I am tickled to invite you to Facebook to hear our rendition of Hamilton Highlights.  Here's the link to my page with the posting. https://www.facebook.com/bonnie.stapleton.52.

And, now back to my regularly scheduled post. My goals from last week...

4/27/26

✅Finish 3 more dash block, start trimming to correct size — all dash blocks finished, none trimmed. 

✅Quilt a top — just 3 of 9 rows to finish.

✅Make some more batik blocks — 2 more started.

✅Make binding and bind Bear quilt — binding made and quilt bound. 

✅✅✅Enjoy singing two concerts and one tech rehearsal —great rehearsal and two concerts with large audiences. 

Not a lot of pictures taken of items in progress.  But I have pics of the bear quilt. The bear fabric is really old but still works well in a baby quilt. I used red Sew Fine thread and Criss Cross Applesauce. This will be going to a local hospital's NICU. (Or I think that is where it will be going.) 

And here's the back and front.

I was happily surprised I was able to maintain my 15 Minutes of Stitching all week. 

Week ending 5/3/26:  123 days of 2026.

  123 stitching days out of 123 days. 100%

And now my goals for this coming week. 

5/4/26

Finish Quilting Trip Around the World for Nancy

Stitch on Snowman #2

Quilt Cats in Pajamas 

Work on UFO Challenge for May

Trim Dash blocks

Cut one quilt kit

Here's the beginning of Nancy's quilt. I believe the pattern is Scrappy Trips by Bonnie Hunter. I haven't poked around Bonnie's blog for a long time. Wow! She has a lot of great patterns available under Free Patterns, where this one is.  If you want some ideas that's a great resource. I found patterns for quite a few quilts I've made from Bonnie's free patterns over the years. 

The story behind this quilt is I was able to do a fast quilting job for my customer/friend in December. We are in the same quilting guild and she had it ready in December and I said I'd quilt it for her and the guild.  Fast forward to April when I "found" the quilt in a bag that had been covered up with other quilts. And, I'd forgotten all about it. No clue who had made it, when I'd gotten it, why I didn't write up paperwork for it.  I asked around with no one claiming it. So I took it to the April meeting and she came over to talk to me and saw it in a bag and was tickled thinking I'd gotten it done for her. OOOPS. No -- I had no clue who it belonged to! We had a laugh and I will have it done before she brings me another quilt to do this week. It's tough losing your brain. I relate to Scare Crow in the Wizard of Oz! 

Here's my UFO Challenge project for May. This is a quilt-as-you-go bargello table runner.  A friend of mine got totally fed up with it and offered it to me to finish as she didn't want to see it again! I've let it sit for a good 10 years and decided to put it on my UFO list this year. Its number came up for May.  I added two more columns to it today and will try to get it farther along this week.  Not much is happening so I might be able to get it finished except binding soon.  Time will tell. It will be a little smaller than the pattern. 

And last, here's snowman #2.  I haven't fused on all the elements. But I did start getting the jacket hand buttonhole stitched, except you can't really see the thread. I started left of his "neck" and am going down the jacket then across the bottom. Cool thing about the jacket wool is my dad bought it for me in Hong Kong in the 1960s.  He was career Navy and his ships (he was Commodore of a squadron of destroyers at that time) went to Hong Kong. I also got some beautiful pearls at the same time. Hum. Poor Mr. Snowman looks a little blank. Hopefully I'll get more done on him this week. He can't see a thing yet. 

I'm linking up with the following parties.

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

 

As some of you know I am a big reader. Sometimes I get inundated with reserved library books that are available for my Kindle.  That happened this past week. I turned in one or two books that weren't finished so I could read Norah O'Donnell's new book, We the Women. It has been very interesting reading about women who helped shape the United States from revolutionary times to now. The book is divided into sections based on the years. I'm starting The Gilded Age 1876 - 1926. Within each time frame several lives are covered. So far it has been fascinating. It is really an eye opener how women were nearly invisible except as homemakers.  Did you know a married woman couldn't own her own property as it transferred to her husband at marriage.  I'm looking forward to reading about more of these heroic women. 

Our country has been on a real roller coaster recently.  I keep up with the news.  I'm not happy with where we are now. But I also spend time stitching to help me keep myself centered and happy.  I hope you are also.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 4 -- 27 -- 2026

Our lovely, warm spring has turned back to cold weather.  The rain we had last night didn't do much as the whole greater DC area is in a serious drought.  Hopefully we'll get some heavier rain this week. Cold weather makes me want to stay in and stitch. So I've been been doing that quite successfully.  First last week's goals.

4/20/26

✅Make 4 more Dash blocks — 3 finished, 2 more cut out. 

✅Decide whether to trim flying geese blocks or just make one more and do it — new block made, blocks made into top, borders added!

✅Start new project with 10” squares — one block made.

✅Make some more “flutter” blocks — several more made and more cut out. 

✅Quilt one of my tops — Baby quilt quilted. 

I've been busy sewing.  I figured out I needed 5 more Dash blocks.  I cut out all but one, although the fabrics have been picked.  It took me more time to pick fabrics then to make the blocks.  Here are two of the new blocks.  Hopefully I'll get this to top stage in May. 

I've finished the flying geese top this week.  It was the April UFO challenge.  I finally decided to replace one block that was a half inch smaller than all the others.  I figured it would be faster to make a new block rather than trim all of the other blocks.  All the blocks got sewn together and then I checked for an another piece of batik that I could get a border out of it.  I have a nice collection of batiks but I don't tend to buy big pieces. Luckily I had one that enhanced the top.  I put smaller borders on top and bottom. And larger borders on the sides to make it slightly wider.    

The super flying geese finish at 8 x 16".  The colors are much prettier than this photo.  It will be going to the to-be-quilted closet soon. I need to find a backing for this one. On the other hand I'm happy to have found a use for these very old blocks.  

I chose a baby top to quilt this week.  I have quite a few more tops to quilt for the guild and one for my daughter. I figured a fast easy one gave me an easy finish -- sans binding. The quilting design is Criss Cross Applesauce by My Creative Stitches. It gives really good definition. I used a red So Fine on it. 

I haven't really started a new top in quite a while.  So I decided I would use Preeti Harris's pattern, Veronica. It uses a layer cake and I had one I thought might work. Except, it wouldn't -- it had fairly large animals on it.  They would have been cut apart and they wouldn't look good.  So I took a look at my small collection of precuts and found the perfect layer cake.  I've tried one block but I'm not going to show it yet.  But take a look at these beautiful batiks from Riley Blake Designs I am using.  These are going to look wonderful. I don't think I will be using all of them as I don't want a huge quilt. I'll have some squares to play with later. You can check out Pretti's pattern on her blog. I can say it is a really cool pattern. I'm excited to work on it.  

This is concert week which means I've got a major time commitments to singing, not sewing. Nevertheless here is what I hope to work on this week. 

4/27/26

Finish 3 more dash blocks, start trimming to correct size

Quilt a top 

Make some more batik blocks 

Make binding and bind Bear quilt 

Enjoy singing two concerts and one tech rehearsal 

I've been able to stitch every day this week. 

Week ending 4/26/26:  116 days of 2026.

  116 stitching days out of 116 days. 100%

I'm keeping this post short.  Don't forget to check out some of these Linky parties to see what other quilters are working on. 

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 10 - 20 - 2025

 It was a terrific retreat!  So much fun chatting with all the quilters -- friends for years and new friends too. The weather was wonderful -- cool but not cold at night, sunny and warm during the day.  And, no rain.  What more can you ask for? Um, and we didn't short out the sewing room. (I say that only because at one quilting class, many years ago, the quilters caused an entire community center and the local police station to lose electricity!) 

Here's what was on my goal list.

10/13/25

✅Have a great time at retreat - wonderful retreat, good food, fun and quilting.

Finish at least 4 of 6 projects — nope, 1 finished at home, 1 is ready for a border, 2 were moved forward. 

✅Start loading a quilt on long arm when back home — loaded and quilted a small quilt.

First up is a 3 yard quilt from the book Quick Christmas 3 Yard Quilts called Irish Christmas.  My quilt is definitely not a Christmas quilt.  I used fabrics from my stash and one purchased fabric. Here's what it looked like after retreat. I had the border strips cut but it's easier to cut the length and apply at home. 

Here's what it looks like with the borders I put on over the weekend. 

It's gone to the "To-be-quilted" closet.  I do need to see how much fabric I have left. I know there's a hunk of the floral print and some of the pink. Maybe I have enough to do the backing or at least a start. 

Here's a small baby quilt I was able to finish the inside. I brought a couple of possible border fabrics but they were vetoed.  One was a bright orange that just didn't work. I have more of the polka dots but I hope to find something in my stash for a border.  I'll report when I find it. 

Here are two of the blocks for Benny's Quilt. I made it with 2" squares rather than 2.5" squares it called for. I did find a link to the pattern too. It was on Michelle's Romantic Tangle.  I'm pretty sure it isn't a current blog but the patterns are still available. Benny's Quilt is the first one -- just click on it if you are interested in making your own. There are several more you can look at to see if you might want to make a different one. 

I was able to sew all the 2" squares needed for the "foursies" at retreat. I then started sewing the blocks together. I was mostly using them as my leader enders and then starting to make the squares.

I made some inroads on another project using it as a leader ender but I haven't taken any pictures yet. I hope to move all of these projects forward over the next few weeks. 

Here's what I hope to work on this coming week. 

10/20/25 

Work on the Benny Quilt 

Find border for baby quilt

Sew sections 3 and 4 of the tall tree

Pick a top to quilt 

It finally happened! I forgot to sew the day I drove home from retreat. Honestly, I can't believe I forgot to even knit for 15 minutes! I did get most of my stuff put away. One more container has a few things in the bottom that need to be put away before I can stash it in the basement. 

W/ending 10/19/25. 292 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/October 18/19
• 15 minute days/2024 = 291/292 days
• Success rate = 99.6% (it would be 100% if I rounded up!) 

Here are two of Sharon's quilts she finished at retreat. The first one is a Fabric Cafe 3 Yard Quilt. (Sorry, don't remember which book it is from although I know I made one of these too.) 

This second one used charm squares and Cheryl Brinkley's book Just One Charm Pack Quilts.

I wasn't very good at taking pictures this time.  But I did take several pictures of this sunset last Monday evening.  Isn't it beautiful? It was the only day we had such a spectacular sunset.

I did notice this license plate frame. I'm all about the fabric! In fact, I went shopping at Fork MTM Quilting (in Rocky Mount, Va)  and came home with a couple of yards of mostly red, white, and blue fabrics. I'll share them later. 

I'll be linking up with these parties. Please take some time to visit the blogs listed on them. 

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie