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 

Boo!

Happy Halloween 

It's been a bit spooky around our house for the last month.  

At the front . . . .

In the house . . . .

Hum, someone must have been relaxing in the sun room with the Halloween tree and pumpkin. 

It  wasn't only at our house. . . . check out Mr. Motorcyle . . . waiting at the library!  

You might be wondering why I've shared so many Halloween items.  (No, these pics weren't all the decoration we have.) But I have a new quilt that will take the place of The Witch Is In next year.  

This quilt has been a long time in the making.  Most of the picture blocks were from a swap of 4" blocks when I was on Prodigy. What's Prodigy you ask?  It was one of the first on line services geared for home use of the Internet. It was active from 1984 to 2001. At one time it was the largest and was user friendly with a graphical user interface. There was an active quilters group on it. All of the pieced blocks with surrounding borders were from the swap.  I'm guessing this swap took place in the early 1990s. (Yep, they are definitely old.) Last year I finished the top by making some additional blocks. I may have gotten some of the extra blocks with the black squares from the E Quilter group I'm in... but I don't remember. I know I don't recognize all of the fabric which makes me think I asked for some of them. I bordered the 4" blocks to match the 6" blocks. I didn't want to quilt all over the blocks so I used my trusty Bernina to stitch in the ditch.  Since this will be a wall quilt I'm sure the in the ditch stitching will be enough. It finished at 39' x 39".  

Here's a close up of a couple. I had to highlight the witch's legs. Whoever made that one pieced the stripes!!! Amazing. Love those crazy eyeballs too. 

Surprisingly I had several Halloween fabrics that could have been used for the backing.  But I really think this one is cute. It's sad it's on the back but I'm always happy to use up older pieces of fabric. It is Mind Your Mummy by Kim Chritopherson of Kimberbell Designs for Maywood Studio. (No I don't normally keep up with who designs the fabric I use. This one had a cute selvedge with all the pertinent information except the date. 

I'm going to share this post on the following Linky Parties. 

Finished or Not Fridays 

Off The Wall Friday 

Beauties Pageant 

Happy Halloween and Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 9 - 22 - 2025

What a week. I seemed to be blah about quilting although I got a charity quilt done for the local guild.  One day I mostly read a book. (More about it at the end.) We've had some rain so most grass in the neighborhood is looking much better.  And I volunteered to make name tags for the Spotsylvanians...I'm still working on that and it needs to be done by tomorrow! But first let's see how I did on my goals this week. 

9/15/25 

✅Cut, prepare, and sew  binding on Ombre Log Cabin — well, the binding is made but not folded or sewn on. 

✅Sew binding on baby quilt — done! 

Continue cutting out Magnificent Mystery Quilt — oops, nothing done. 

Keep making 9 patch blocks and/or RSC blocks — actually I did get a two 9 patches done but nothing else. 

✅Quilt two quilts (not mine… sigh.) — one was done and returned.  

Not so many goals completed this week.  But here are a few pictures of what I did accomplished this week.

I decided to use the black to light grey ombre for the binding.  I was able to cut and sew the strips together.  Here it is over the backing fabric, a wide back pink ombre. I'll be folding, ironing and sewing it on this week.  I'll be sewing this on one side and then hand stitch it down. ARGH -- I hate hand sewing binding down.  But I'm planning to on this one so I can make sure all the points on the edges are showing, not cut off. Plus Sharon talked me into it. 

I did get one top quilted for Virginia Star Quilt Guild.  I thought it was a small one. Um, no. It was a big one.  Here it is after it was quilted. I believe the piecing of the scraps was done on adding machine tape. 

You should be able to click on the picture and enlarge it. The quilting design is Quick and Easy Swirls by My Creative Stitches. In all those little fabric pieces I found at least two that I had or have. 

Here's what I hope to finish this week.  

9/22/25

Prepare and sew  binding on Ombre Log Cabin

Continue cutting out Magnificent Mystery Quilt

Make two more potato chip blocks for RSC

Try making one section of paper pieced tall tree

Attend a grand’s soccer game

I thought I'd share the tall tree pattern picture so you know what I'm tackling this week.  I haven't decided if I can actually make this while on retreat. So, I'll cut out the pieces based on the sizes given and then see whether it is fairly easy to piece.  I'm not holding my breath that this will be super easy.  The pattern is called Tall Trim the Tree and is designed by Cindi Edgerton. Unfortunately she has retired. You might still be able to find her patterns but the supply is limited.  The various "ornaments" are from a different pattern which I don't have so I may not be making them.  Although, I'm sure I can make a few 3" or 4" blocks to add to the tree if I decide I want them.  I'm happy to note the top section has a very limited number of pieces... I should be able to put 5 pieces together, right? 

So here are a couple of things I did this week that were off list. 

Sharon and I FaceTimed and got block 9 done of the Cali & Co mystery quilt by Coriander Quilts. Sorry that the lighting isn't even on this picture. For some reason the left light isn't as good as the right light. (yep, 2 lamps shine on this block -- actually most of my indoor pictures have 2 lamps shining on them.)

Only three more blocks to make until the final reveal. Hum, I don't think there will be anything but putting the blocks together.  But I could be wrong. We'll see in December. 

And here are the 9 blocks all together.  I need to pay better attention to the colors I use on corner triangles over the next three months.  Seems like I have a lot of the same colors which might make it hard to place the blocks in the final layout. 

I think I've cut out all of the Economy blocks I'll need.  So over this week I made 3 of them to add to the 2 already done. Hopefully I've cut enough medium color blocks so the quilt won't look too dark overall. 

Somehow I was able to continue my stitching streak for 15 Minutes to Stitch.  Here are the details. 

W/ending 9/21/25. 264 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/September 21/21
• 15 minute days/2024 = 264/264 days
• Success rate = 100%

Have fun reading blogs this week.  Don't forget to visit these Linky Parties. 

Life in Pieces

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

The book I spent all day reading and finishing was Elinore Lipman's newest. Every Tom, Dick and Harry was a hoot. Once I started reading I didn't want to put it down. It was a light, fun read. Here's my library's description: 

"Taking over her parents’ estate-sale business is not the life’s work that Emma Lewis bargained for. Yes, she grew up helping them empty people’s nests, but nothing prepared her for her biggest and stickiest “get”--the grand, beautiful house of ill repute masquerading as a decidedly beddable B and B. Should Emma turn down potential clients in need of decluttering just because they are shady, escort-y, and proud of it?

No. A girl must make a living.

Around some hairpin turns Lipman ingeniously reveals a straight shot to happiness."

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 9 - 8 - 2025

As of Sunday we are 250 days into 2025. Wow -- this year is flying.  We've enjoyed the cooler weather but we sure could use some rain.  We got some rain but not enough. Hopefully we'll get more over the next month or so.  I did make some good progress this month.  Here are last week's goals. 

9/1/25

✅Put borders on Soho 3yd quilt from July retreat — done! 

✅Quilt another top — quilted a small baby quilt. 

✅Cut a top for October retreat — started cutting more Economy blocks 

√Clear off right side of design wall — some things have been removed but not all.

✅Begin cutting fabric for Magnificent Mystery Quilt from Meadow Mist Designs — the first two fabrics are done. (Minus one 2.5” square. I’ll do it tomorrow or the next day.)

This is Soho, a Fabric Cafe 3 yard quilt.  I changed it a little as I didn't have a yard of beige.  So I used one fabric for the half square triangles. I bought another fabric for the borders which I did with only one fabric rather than an inner and outer border. I'll probably use some of the beige border fabric for the backing.  

For the next quilt kit I chose to use the September UFO Challenge project.  Several years ago I made an economy block quilt and cut some extra pieces for it. This week I cut the background fabrics for all the pieces I had already cut out.  Then I pulled a bunch of additional fabrics so I could make a bigger quilt. First the finished blocks. (Yep, just 2!) 

Here are the cut pieces and a bunch of fabrics that still need to be cut. I'm using dies from my 9" Accuquilt Cube. Any cube will allow you to make an Economy block using dies # 1, 3, and 4. The triangle die for the light fabric uses a too much fabric so I'm considering figuring out the correct size and cutting them myself.  I'll keep you informed if it works.  

I did make some progress on clearing off the side of my design wall.  I forgot to take a before picture so I found one from awhile ago.  Here are the two ... 

   So, argh -- I wish I had more control of my photos!  Anyway, the left is a while ago and the right is showing I've made some progress. I moved several orphan blocks and some excess papers.  Obviously there is some more work to do. With perseverance I should be able to remove and put all of this stuff away. (Or throw it away.) 

I did get a start on cutting out the Magnificent Mystery quilt. Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs starts her mystery quilt in the summer. She gives cutting directions for the entire quilt early on. If you cut it all at the beginning it makes it easier to make each clue as all that is needed is sewing.  I've enjoyed that part so I do all the cutting at the beginning. I will continue working on the cutting this coming week. 

Here's my plan for this week. 

9/8/25

Load and start quilting Ombré quilt

Make RSC blocks in light blue and light green and more 9 patch blocks

Cut out more Sept UFO challenge- Economy blocks

Continue cutting out the Magnificent Mystery quilt

Bind baby quilt 

I had another 100% sewing week. 

W/ending 9/7/25. 250 days of 2025

• 15 minute days Sept = 7/7
• 15 minute days/2025 = 250/250 days
• Success rate = 100%

I hope you can spend some time checking out some of the Linky parties -- don't you want to get some new ideas? (Ok, so I get way too many ideas every week and have enough of my own ideas but I still get excited about what I see each week.) 

Life in Pieces

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

I'll leave you with this wonderful picture I took while walking this week. Yep that's hubby with Sunny. I stopped to get the picture. 

We didn't get the rain but we got this huge rainbow.  For a short while there was a double on the left hand side but that picture wasn't very good.  

Happy quilting all -- Bonnie