Monday Meanderings 3 - 4 - 2024

What a busy week.  Did any of you get to either Quilt Con or Mid-Atlantic Quilt show over the past two weeks?  Pat and I made it to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt show Thursday morning.  We had about 2 hours to see some quilts, hit a few vendors, and then get on to Nags Head, NC.  

First, here is my friend Michele's quilt. She designed the quilt for Colchester Mills Fabric and Quilting a few years ago as a mystery quilt. Michele designs one yearly for Colchester.  This one was spectacular.  A new mystery started at the beginning of February. Check it out at Marvelous Mystery. My friend Sharon is her tester and she made air in Christmas fabrics.  I am pretty sure this one fits on a king size bed. 

I also got to see several friends from several different places I've lived.  Pat snapped a photo of Mary Beth and I.  We both lived in Maryland for years and were (heck, are still) members of Faithful Circle Quilters.  She moved to Florida so we don't see each other very often... it's been almost 2 years now. We were on such a tight time frame we really only had a few minutes to chat and get a hug. (That's me on the right.)

Despite our travels I was able to get all my goals done this week.  Or maybe it was because of our travels.  I almost always take my featherweight down to the beach house with me and work on some projects. This mess was me making string blocks on telephone book pages.  I was amazed how many I got done since every string I sewed had to be ironed and cut.  I also put together the green, blacks, and white to top stage that I'll show when the border is done. 

Here's what the goals list looks like from last week. Not bad! 

2/26/24

✅Bind Picket Fence Quilt - Done!

✅Bind secret project - Done! Come back Wednesday, 3/6/24 to see it. 

✅Make some more FCQ Equilter blocks - Some done, more needed. 

✅Attend the Mid Atlantic Quilt Show  -  Attended a short time. 

✅Sew the green, blacks, & white 3 yard quilt - Center together, borders next.

Here's a corner of the Picket Star top being quilted. Since it is done I need to take it on a photo shoot soon. I chose Random Clams quilting design.  The block was designed by Preeti who blogs at Sew Preeti Quilts.  Here are the directions for the block. 

Let's take a look at this week's list. 

3/3/4/2024

Knit on socks 

Find fabric for appliqué blocks

Mail package to FCQ Equilter from last round 

Border green, blacks, and white top

Quilt customer top 

Quilt one of my tops 

Hum, should be doable. All of a sudden I have 4 customer quilts waiting to be quilted.  I hope to get one done this week. I should get one of mine on and done this week too. The others aren't as time sensitive. 

We were working on our beach house in Nags Head.  The master bathroom is being updated but more importantly Pat needed to replace some windows. I was his trusty assistant. My job was to hold the window while Pat pulled a cord and attached it to the top of the window. (I have no clue what it was called but it wasn't a one person job!) After he got the cords installed on each window I was free to go back to quilting.  It meant I was running up and down stairs a bit too often but I did get a lot of piecing done.  Here's a window on the way out...  We had to take them to the transfer station rather than leave them in our regular trash. Nine were replaced and more need to be done soon.

It is a good thing we went down, as it turns out something is wrong with the heater. It was taking a long time to warm the house up 5 degrees when we arrived.  And then the thermostat went off twice.  Sunday morning we woke up early to a cold house. So we left around 7am to have breakfast at Stack Em High and to drive back to Virginia.  Pat will have to go down to replace more windows in a month or so. Hopefully he can get our son to go with him.  It was hard work for the "old folks." 

I knew it wouldn't last.  I was unable to sew the day we went to the quilt show and drove to the beach house.  So I missed the 29th.  But I was right back at it  including spending an hour or so on putting things away and finding some more strips for my strip quilting project this afternoon after getting home. I'm happy with the 98%.  

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Feb = 28/29 days
• 15 minute days/March 3/3 days 
• 15 minute days/2024 = 62/63 days
• Success rate = 98%

Here are the Linky parties I participate with.  Please take a look at some of the blogs listed. 

Oh Scrap

Life in Pieces: Stitching Stuff

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musing 

This and That 

Hopefully this week I'll remember to link up to all the parties I list here.  I was pretty focused on quilting and being down at the beach house.  I hardly looked at the internet over the last week. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie    

 

Monday Meandering 11 - 15 - 2021

It has been a great week or two.  A week and a half ago Pat and I went down to our beach house in Nags Head.  He had some windows to replace and I was going to count silverware.(It's amazing how much silverware vanishes when tenants are at the house.)  And, we were going shopping.  I came down a day later than he did as I had things to do at home and I was going to visit Sharon after Nags Head.  

By Friday all the windows were done.  I'd pulled out my sewing machine and had stitched a bit. But our main activity was to get new furniture for the great room.  So off we went to a local furniture store that actually had furniture in stock. (Thank goodness!)  It didn't take us all that long to pick out a sofa, love seat, barrel chair, two end tables, and two new lamp shades.  It helps that there weren't a thousand choices and everything pretty much gave off the beachy feel. Everything was delivered the next day. (Our saleslady said that ordered furniture was scheduled out 14 months!) 

Our house allows dogs.  I started the dog quilt long before we owned the house. We decided it looked good with the previous furniture so it was finished and hung.  Not so much now.  I actually have a pattern and fabric picked out that might work with the new look.  Someday I might even make it. Heck I might even pull it out and see if it would work -- it has under the ocean theme! We've had a couple of mishaps with dogs and both times dogs pulled up berber style carpet through their crates. Our plan now is to change to a non-looped carpet and see if that protects it better. If we continue to have damage we might have to stop accepting dogs. We no longer have out own dogs. Time will tell. 

Lots of progress was made on the goals, but, not everything was done.  Here's the scoop.

11/8/2021

✅Enjoy sewing with Sharon

✅Finish sashing 16 patch stars

✅Border glorified 9 patch and oops friendship stars didn’t get bordered

✅Finish all the turquoise blocks and nope, not sewn together

✅Sew some string blocks

Sew more ombré log cabin blocks — nothing done on this either

Here's this week's list: 

11/15/2021

Quilt Jenny's quilt

Border friendship stars

Sew ombré blocks together

Clear off the right side of design wall 

Figure out turquoise blocks

Keep making string blocks

I was happy I worked on almost everything listed on the goals list.  As usual, Sharon and I had fun. I came home Thursday ready to sit around and not do all that much.  But by Saturday I was back working in the studio.  Sharon inspired me to clean up some of the mess on my cutting table.  (Of course, what I did was get an empty plastic bin and put lots of scraps in it.)  The fat quarters strewn about were put in my storage system mostly based on colors. 

Then I went back to work on my to do list. All the turquoise blocks were made but I ran into problems trying to figure out a layout.  Here's my first layout.  I had planned to alternate dark strips on the outside of the blocks with light strip blocks. 

Um, this didn't do anything for me.  I love the fabrics but they just don't work this way. I decided to see what it would look like in greyscale.  Hum...

Do you know about using grey scale? On my iPhone or Mac I can choose to make it black and white.  It really looks horrible without the color but does show what reads dark and what reads light. Of note is the one 2nd row, 1st block.  It's really light compared to the rest of them. I took a close look at the pattern (a Villa Rosa Designs postcard pattern called Voyager. Click on the link to see their version.) They didn't alternate light and dark blocks.  In fact most of the blocks are more medium to dark and are scattered around rather than placed purposely. So everything got moved again.

Oops, that really light one (and maybe the wrong color) sticks out still. This is better but the second row needs to be dispersed so the whole row doesn't look light.  My plan now is to make some decisions about placement and possibly changing some of the blocks that stick out.  Definitely the one that looks light pink. (It's really light purple and blue....) 

Here's the plan for the lightest block.  I've put an alternate fabric on the bottom left to get an idea.  I've already used one strip of this in the quilt so it will work and make this one blend in better.  I may end up doing a double swap because I'm not thrilled with how yellow green it looks in a sea of turquoise.  Nothing will happen really soon on this one.  But I've made forward progress.  

I'll keep you posted on this quilt although I might let it rest a bit before I get back to it.  There are always other quilts I can work on. 

This has been a long post so I'll finish off now and let you get back to your own sewing. I'm linking up to these parties. 

Oh Scrap! 

Monday Making

Design Wall Monday 

To Do Tuesday

That's it for me.  I'm so late getting this post written.  Hopefully I'll get back on my normal schedule soon.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

 

   

Green Table Scraps Is Done

Yes, I finished my table runner for the month.  I chose to do a St Patrick's day runner as I have nothing for that day. You can look at my sneak peak from Monday here. 

I used a pattern in the book Table Please, Part I by Nancy Halvorsen.  Of course, I didn't do it exactly like she designed it.  I changed the background to 3.5"cut squares.  I used a wider array of green fabrics.  Nor did I do the word Lucky that was on it. (Honestly folks, I wanted to make my life a little easier and use fabric I had in the stash.) 

Here's the finished project.  I used a lot of bits and pieces from fat quarters and scraps.  Some of the lighter greens were hand dyes I did years ago. 

On another front, we've been working on our beach house for the last several days so I decided to do some glamour pictures in the back yard. (They should enlarge if you click on any picture.) 

Isn't this a great tree?  Most of the backyard is sand with some sort of bushy clumps of grass growing.  And, let me tell you, you can not take a decent picture of a table runner on clumps of grass.  Every one looked like the runner was lumpy!  But a neat tree like this?  Perfect. (Hum, if the yard is dry tomorrow I think I'll get an overall picture of the tree.  It's a Live Oak. 

As I mentioned earlier all the fabric (and thread) was from my stash.  It was great to use of this ivy fabric -- I've had it for a while.  I still have a little left so it'll go in my fat quarter collection. 

We have been working like crazy on the beach house since Wednesday.  We haven't been here for over a year.  It was rented a lot over 2020 and we have a lot of reservations for 2021.  I doubt if we'll be able to get back in until October or later.  We bought a new bed, washer and dryer. Pat replaced window sashing. I washed all the bedspreads. I also cleaned and repaired a leather couch.  Unlike our usual style we cooked several nights and brought food in a couple of nites. This was definitely a working trip. 

Today, we spent a little time shopping at the local outlet mall. Mostly for me but we did get some glasses for the house.  Oh yes, I set up my little featherweight and worked on the one project I brought down -- the doggy tumbler project.  Sorry, no pictures of it. 

Now on to my goals list.  Because we left Wednesday I really didn't get all that much done.

3/22/2021

Finish green table runner ☑️

Prep doggy tumbler quilt ☑️ Sewed 6 of 7 rows.

Make and apply binding for my quilt — Didn’t start

Cut out a couple more r, w, & b Ohio stars — Nope! 

And this week I'm repeating two and adding a couple of new ones 

3/28/2021

Quilt and bind another quilt

Make and apply binding for my quilt 

Cut out a couple more r, w, & b Ohio stars 

Figure out more dog fabric for tumbler quilt. 

We did take an hour the other evening to see the ocean and beach. I call this Moonlight on the Atlantic Ocean.  My friend Sharon immediately asked me if I was going to make a quilt of it.  Um, no. But it would be a beautiful one if I could figure out how to do it. 

This post is a lot later than I usually like but I'm glad I could fit it in. I'll be linking it up with my usual linky parties: Can I Have a Whoop, Whoop?, Finished or Not Friday, Beauties Pageant, and Scrap Happy Saturday.  OMG -- How could I forget the monthly Table Scraps Runner/Topper Challenge link up?  Please go visit this linky party and shame on me for forgetting! Let's get on that internet and see what people are working on!  Tomorrow Today is driving day.  Hopefully we'll be home in 4.5 hours or less.  Then I can relax and check these linky parties out. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Veterans Day 11 - 11 - 2019

Let us always remember the sacrifices our military members and their families - active, reserve and retired - made (and make)  to keep our country free.  I add the families because my dad was in the Navy for 30 years and my mom, brother, and I moved a lot thus making new friends and seeing new parts of the United States.  But, I think of my brother who went to 4 high schools.  While at that time I was just in elementary school and two different middle schools.  I moved my senior year of high school and to this day don't really think of the school as "my" high school.  Dad went to the University of Southern California in the Navy ROTC just before World War II broke out.  He didn't finish college but went active duty instead.  He retired as a Captain having commanded a fleet of destroyers, an oiler, several different destroyers and serving on admirals' staffs.  He saw duty in World War II, Korean war, and Viet Nam war.  "We" also saw a lot of duty at the Pentagon.  He led an interesting life, to say the least. Both of my grandfathers served in World War I and my brother served during the Viet Nam war but was stationed stateside.  That's quite a legacy of service to my way of thinking.    

On to quilting. I wish I could say I've made all those churn dash blocks into a quilt top but, no didn't work on those at all.  In fact, I put them away knowing I wasn't going to get to them at all for a while.  So instead, I'll show you what I did get done. 

I cut this out to take to retreat in October.  Diamond Chain is one of Missouri Star's patterns.  You can see Jenny demonstrate how to make the block here.  I had all the dies needed to cut this out with my Accuquilt Go. Bonus!  I've been taking this project when I go to my community's quilt group.  

We were at the beach house this weekend attending some property owner meetings so I grabbed these, my Featherweight, and set up a sewing nook overlooking the back yard.  I finished all of the units (at least I think I did) and got these blocks made.  I'll be at community sewing again on Thursday so hopefully I'll finish all the blocks then.  I thought they were going to look duller when I made my sample block but I guess I threw in a lot of fun colors so that livens it up a lot.  

With Christmas sneaking up on me I'll probably have to spend more time finishing (heck, starting and finishing) presents.  I've got a list to remind me what to do.  I've actually made some progress on two projects.  There is hope! 

I've noticed a lot of the Monday linky parties I've been linking with have stop posting. So today I'll be linking up with Oh Scrap, Monday Making, and What I Made Monday. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 3 - 18 - 2019

I had a fun week last week -- we went down to the beach house to put it back together.  Over the winter we had our kitchen updated, replaced the flooring in the dining room, the kitchen and laundry room, and put in new carpet in the master bedroom.  We weren't sure what would greet us when we got down there -- would the kitchen be back together or would we need to put all the dishes, glasses and utensils away.  Yep, that's what we had to do.  It didn't take all that long once we decided where to put things. Here's the kitchen with new cabinets, new sink, new oven, new dishwasher, new counters and new ceiling cams.  It looks really beachy now.  (If you are planning to come to Nags Head, NC and are looking for a small rental house here's the link to our house. Although we don't advertise it, there is a sewing table, cutting mat, iron and board available if you want to bring a machine and sew away!) 

And the dining room with new floors, light fixture and whitewashed paneling...

So you might realized that is why I had a light plan for my to do list.  We never indicate when we are out of town. But even taking my Featherweight with me I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time to use it. The cool part of being in Nags Head last week was the Outer Bank Community Quilt Show was being held on Roanoke Island. It runs until March 23rd so if you are in the area you should go see it. 

It was in a beautiful community center and had a variety of quilts to look at.  Here are a few of the ones I really liked. This was a very small beach scene made by Chris Cooper.  She said it was inspired by Karen Eckmeier.  Hum, I took a class by Eckmeier but we sure didn't do cool beach scenes.  

The guild was raffling this log cabin quilt.  It really struck me -- I'm sure I have a bed I could display this beauty on. 

I laughed at Pat for taking a picture of me taking a picture of a wall hanging.  I think I have this same pattern and was thinking I should probably pull it out and make it! Barbara Isler made it.  I related to her comment "Made from 2009 to 2018".  

I took a picture of these quilts because I realized they all used the same fabrics. I didn't get a close up of the quilts because I wanted to feature how the maker had used the same fabrics for 4 different quilts which belong to her 4 granddaughters.  

As we were walking to the venders' space we wandered into a museum that had a traveling exhibit on Blackbeard.  We didn't take as long as we should have to see and read the exhibits but I enjoyed the time we spent there too. 

I'm sure the big question on your minds is did I get any quilting done last week?  Well, yes; yes I did.  Here's the goal list from last week and notice I checked off all the boxes. 

March 11, 2019

Sew binding on Heron quilt√

Hand quilt on Old Christmas quilt√

Stitch on Carousel√

work on T shirt quilt√

And this coming week I've got a few things planned plus Sharon and some other friends are visiting at the end of the week so I have a full week planned. (Must clean house better than normal!) 

March 18, 2019

Start sashing T shirt quilt

Quilt 2 charity quilts

Hand quilt on Old Christmas quilt

Pick Granny blocks for lap quilt

Enjoy visit with quilting friends 

I'm linking up with my favorite linky parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, and Moving It Forward. 

I'm done!  I am way behind my preferred timing  for posting my Monday blog report.  I keep trying to blog at least one more day each week but I'm not consistent at all.  Sigh.  I'll keep trying.  But now I need to get ready to go to my stitching group.  It is the one place I actually quilt on my old Christmas quilt. (Old is a subjective term -- I've probably had the top done for 20 years and have been quilting on it off and on for that long.  I'd like to get it finished this year -- I only have borders to do but I picked a rather complicated interwoven design. What was I thinking??) 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 6 - 5 - 2017

Here's two more of the pinwheel tops that I was able to put together while at the beach house.  (That's 3 out of 4 tops together.) Almost all of these blocks were done for me as part of bee blocks.  I had to add a couple of blocks here and there to get enough of the right colors.  So, when I finish these completely I won't be showing a huge amount of fabric use.  Sigh! 

I may decide to add borders to any of these quilts -- it depends on what I have available at home that might look good with the top.  Then it is on to finding backings and bindings for them. 

I did really well on my goals this week.  (Hey, I definitely plan goals based on what else is going on.) 

May 29, 2017

Package and mail off Scrappy Stars√

Make enough extra pinwheel blocks to make 3 quilts√

Sew three sets of blocks together into smaller quilts√

Enjoy the beach√

June 5, 2017

Add the borders to table topper

Enjoy spending time with grands

Clean up front of cutting table

Find backing for one pinwheel quilt

Make blocks for one more pinwheel top

Not as many sewing oriented goals this week as we are spending several days up in Maryland.  I may drag out one of the two quilts I am hand quilting and see if I can get some more time on one of them. (I say I'm hand quilting but I don't spend all that much time doing it!) 

I'm linking up with the regular linky parties: Monday Making, Main Crush Monday and Moving it Forward Monday. (I'll link up as the other two blogs are posted.) 

I want to close today's blog with a picture of the sunset over the sound in Nag's Head, NC.  Beautiful! 

Our time at the beach house is almost over. Spent time at the beach and at the pool, ate many a great sea food dinner, sewed like a fiend for 3 or so hours in the morning, did some shopping and read several books.  Definitely a great 5 days here this time.  We probably won't be able to get back until September but more likely October.  Sigh. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 
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Stitching and Traveling

We've come down to our beach house in Nags Head, NC to see how it held up after Hurricane Matthew.  Thankfully it is fine.  We haven't been down here since the end of May because the house has been rented almost the entire summer all the way through October.  It's beautiful weather here this week. 

We went out to dinner at the Black Pelican last night.  Pat took this photo of the beach road -- well what was the beach road and the sand dune before Matthew came to visit two weeks ago. We were here about the same time last year and took nearly the same picture then.  And, yes, dinner was great as always.

                                  

Pat is definitely a morning person and I am definitely a night owl.  He went out to the beach to get these pictures of sunrise this morning.  He captured some spectacular pictures this year. 

And a few minutes later...

I often set up a little sewing area and try to get some piecing done.  Here's what I'm working on this time. I started this in a Stack N Whack class in early September.  I did this block before I left home to make sure the sizes I was cutting were correct.  Today, I finished cutting and then started making the blocks.  I was working around the house also so didn't get as much done as I should have but tomorrow morning I'll try to get a few more blocks done before we do a little shopping.  (Yep, there is a outlet mall not even a mile away...) 

I've also finished one sock.  This yarn is hand dyed burgundy but it sure doesn't look it in the picture. The picture shows some of the variation in the yarn but, honestly, this is a deep burgundy without much variation actually showing.   The yarn is wonderful to work with.  Since this picture was taken I've already gotten about 2" done on the new cuff. 

That's it for me today.  I'm linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday and Can I Get a Whoop Whoop Friday. I'll link up with Whoop Whoop on Friday.  Take some time to check out some inspiration across the internet. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

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A Winter's Day . . .

At the Beach.  We've been down at the beach house for a few days.  We left an ice event with a bit of snow thrown in back at home.  It's cold and sometimes windy but the sun is out and we're enjoying ourselves.

We actually went to walk the beach yesterday morning.  It was empty so we let the dogs run loose.  Kona stays close by but Raggs is into adventure and goes off sniffing the dunes and piles of sea weed and whatever else strikes his fancy. Unfortunately he doesn't hear very well so we have to stay alert so he doesn't wander too far.  I was bundled up against the wind. 

We were surprised to find the stairs down to the beach looking like this! 

I've been sewing up a storm in my little sewing area by the windows. 

It's in the great room behind the chairs.  The space works really well for me.  I had to close the blinds to get the picture because of the light.  But, I look out over the back yard that is mostly sand and trees and a view of the golf course behind us.  

Late afternoon the sun is coming in from the left side and I get the best light for sewing.  I'm blocking the shadows while I sew so I don't even notice them. 

Once the sun starts going down I have to quit sewing.  I brought an Ikea clamp on light but it needs a special plug to allow it to work which didn't make the trip.  Next time I'll make sure I have more lighting.  The table was purchased at JoAnn Fabric stores when it was 50% off and I had a 15 or 20% off everything coupon.  I was leery of it being stable enough but it works great.  I'm using my old Elna Carina that weighs under 20 pounds. It just came back from servicing and is sewing like a champ. 

I'm specifically working on three UFO's.  One is for the TAPS collection I mentioned in this post. I've got lots of pinwheel blocks from FCQ Equilters so I thought putting them into quilts was a great idea.  Unfortunately, I didn't check the block sizes before I packed them up.  One is a good 1/2" smaller than the others so it won't work.  Drat!  I've got 4 of the 5 rows done and will swap out the small block for another once I get home. 

I'm also working on Wild Dogs -- hopefully I'll get it to top stage.  I finished the appliquéing at fall retreat and they've languished since then.  I cut all the strips and gathered everything I need to finish the top before we head home.  It has pieced sashing and pieced cornerstones so it is taking a time to get it all ready to sew together.

Last, and maybe I won't get to it, is the Mystery of Powhatan quilt. I just looked back to see if I showed any photos of this quilt. It sure doesn't come up as pictures.  I did list it several times in the goals list.  I'll post some pictures of it soon.  It needs either two or three borders to finish it off.  I've cut the strips but they need to be sewn together and put on the quilt.  It may be difficult to do that here as there is limited space to work in.  But I sure would like to get it done.  I'm going fabric shopping on Super Bowl Sunday and I hope to buy a backing for it.  I'll have a big finish the month I get this quilt done -- it's a big queen size quilt.  

Ok, time for me to quit perusing the Internet and begin sewing again.  We're going out to lunch and hitting a yarn store.  I find it hard to believe but there is a wonderful yarn store here in the Outer Banks. I've gotten several great patterns and some sock yarn.  It won't be used until several other pairs are done but one of these days I'll get to it. 

Happy Quilting All!