Monday Meanderings 8 - 12 - 2024

Debby, the hurricane, has passed by us.  Although our general region had huge amounts of rain, we saw less than 3".  Unfortunately we could have used more.  Humidity was awful for several days but this past weekend has been cooler and less humid.  I actually didn't go outside from Saturday early morning. I'll be out early for my walk tomorrow around 7:30 -- am! Have I mentioned I'm not a morning person?   

Luckily, I did get most of my goals completed this week.  I was wondering if I would miss my last goal by Saturday afternoon.  But I loaded up a quilt then and quilted it on Sunday. Here's what I was working on this past week. 

8/5/24

✅Bind Melodic Mystery — done. 

✅Prep magenta backing — done

✅Quilt and 👎🏼bind one of my quilts — quilting is done but not the binding. 

✅Sew snowball blocks then evaluate whether more blocks are needed — some done, more needed

✅Keep working on seaside top — more finished, but lots more to do 

First up is Flower Song, the top I quilted this weekend.  Here's a picture of it as I started it. I didn't remember that I used this same pattern on the last top I quilted.  

The quilting design is called Sunshine by Melony Caldwell available at Urban Elements.  I used lavender So Fine.  The fabric that I listed on my goals list to be made into a backing is the one I used for this quilt.  I had a different top planned but I really like the new one for this quilt. It is the same fabric as the top border but is magenta with colorful spots.  I'll be using it for the binding also. 

Here's a snap of my design wall -- it's full of blocks and too many odd things hanging from it! I should take a look at the stuff on the right and see if I can put some of it away. 

From left to right: snowballs, half log cabins, bowties, and junk of all sorts! But let's take a better look at the three projects up there. 

I decided that most of these blocks were animals or living beings so the rest of the blocks are going to be animals, bugs, and more living beings. I'm aiming for 36 blocks which would give me a 36" x 36" top -- perfect for a NICU quilt. I've got another 9 or 10 blocks cut and ready to sew.  Hopefully this will be a top by next week.  

I've cleared all of other Rainbow Scrap Challenge bowties off the wall.  These are the orange, blues and turquoise blocks.  It looks to me that most of these blocks look like turquoise more than blue.  I may add some more blues eventually.  But that will wait until all the colors have been called. 

Here are 8 blocks of half log cabin blocks.  I don't know how I'm going to set them but this is an idea. I have at least 18 more blocks ready to sew, with another smaller number already finished.  I have no idea what size I'll make the top in the end.  But I'm having fun making the blocks.  I've precut the strips to the necessary size and then I pick the pieces for each block and clip them together.  That makes it really easy to use these as leader enders. I know, that just sounds weird but it's working for me. 

This week I plan to try to get these goals done. 

8/12/24

Bind Flower Song quilt 

Sew snowballs, maybe sew top together

Keep working on seaside top

Finish knitting hat

Put more fabric away

Make a placemat or two 

Take some time to visit the following Linky parties.  It's fun to see what everyone is working on. (And, yes I get way too many ideas from checking these out!)  Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musings.  

Here's my info on 15 minutes to stitch.  

W/ending 8/11 — 224 days in to 2024. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Aug = 11/12 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 215/224 days
• Success rate = 96% (rounded up from 95.98%) 

I found myself engrossed in my most recent book. In fact, I was reading it while Ruthie was quilting away.  I started it Saturday morning and I'm over 75% done as I write this Sunday night. I'm hoping I can finish it tonight without staying up half the night.  Oh, what's the name you ask?  It's The Book of Lost Names by Kristen Harmel. It is based on a true story of a young French woman who learns to be an expert forger in order to save lives of the many Jewish children left alone after their parents are arrested by the Nazis*. It's gripping reading and not surprising, has 4 1/2 stars on Amazon.  I've read quite a few historical fiction books this summer and found them very interesting. *From reading the author's notes about this book I realize the main characters are actually from her imagination.  However there were many people who through forging documents allowed children to escape to Switzerland.  I thought this was a new book however it was published in 2020.  It's still well worth the read. 

It's time to get back to my reading! 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings -- 8 - 5 - 2024

What a week I had. I'm calling it the week of fabric acquisition.  Yea, I really needed more fabric.  Don't you?  I've been trying to not go wild buying fabric so I tend to just buy backing fabric. But there was a quilter's estate sale on Friday and I decided to go with a friend, chauffeured by Pat.  More about it later... 

Here's what I got done on my goals. 

7/29/24

✅Quilt one of my quilts — done!

✅Remove borders and replace with smaller borders of Forest Animals Easy Attic Windows quilt — done. 

✅Start another knit hat — started. 

✅Make RSC blocks for July and ✅ FCQ Equilter blocks — Most RSC blocks are done, all the FCQ Equilter blocks are ready to mail, and the last RSC block for July is ready to sew. 

Make more Kid’s snowball blocks, make into top as part of UFO Challenge — 9 blocks are ready to sew but nothing else was completed. 

Here are the snowball blocks that I am starting with: 

I realized that most of them are animals and I decided to pull as many animal prints I could find to go with them. Below are 9 more blocks ready to sew. I'll be sewing them this week. I may decide to sash them.  What do you think? Do you sash snowball blocks? I will probably need more than the ones I've planned to get it to a decent size for a kid.  Wait a minute... there are way more cat fabrics than dog fabric. I may have to find some more doggy fabric to use! 

These pieces are ready to sew into my RSC bowties.  Orange for August. And, two of these oranges are from the fabric acquisition trip! 

I thought I would show all of the sea glass blocks I finished this week with the group from last week.  I'm hoping these work with the ones others send. I think most of the aqua/turquoise ones will work but some of the gold ones may be too dark.  

Next week I'm trying to finish all of these. 

8/5/24

Bind Melodic Mystery

Prep magenta backing

Quilt and bind one of my quilts

Sew snowball blocks then evaluate whether more blocks are needed

Keep working on seaside top

So, about that fabric acquisition trip... 

This was the fabric available the second day.  (I borrowed this pic from a guild email, so thanks either Boni or Nancy T, and Bea who sent it out to the guild.) My gang made it fairly early on the first day. I had planned what I was looking for: backings, yellow, and orange.  I was able to get 2 pieces big enough for backing, and a few yellows and orange.  But I went a bit crazy grabbing dog fabrics, Laurel Burch pieces, an Eric Carle piece, and a patriotic snowmen panel.  Here are some pics: 

Mostly dog fabrics.

Yellows, oranges and Laurel Burch fabrics.

Blue for a backing and Patriotic Santa panel.

My fabric weighed in at 5 pounds -- $3.00 a pound = $15 for all the fabric shown. I measured it all and it came to approximately 19 yards. I think they rounded down when figuring the price. I might have found more if I realized I wasn't spending all that much!  On the other hand, I'm not sure where I'm going to store all of this new stuff. 

And just because I didn't find a lot of backing fabric pieces I hit up another good sale at JoAnns.  I think both of these fabrics came out about $4.50 a yard not including tax. The magenta will be a backing and the green stripe will be the binding on my Melodic Mystery quilt. They were both Fabric Traditions products. I've already cut the green for the binding and hope to get it on this week. 

As I was prepping my 15 Minutes of Stitching, I realized I had to make a decision about my day shopping Friday. Was that part of my stitching concept?  Or was I going to stick with either stitching of working with my fabric?  I decided to go with the 2nd idea -- I need to be working in my studio or actually stitching on something.  So I missed one of the stitching days this week. But I'm really pleased with how much I'm working in my studio and/or stitching. (I really need to "do the dishes" as Bonnie Hunter says. That means dealing with the bits and pieces left over from cutting quilts or blocks out.)

W/ending 8/4 — 217 days in to 2024. 

• 15 minute days/week = 6/7 days
• 15 minute days/July = 31/31days
• 15 minute days/Aug = 3/4 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 208/217 days
• Success rate = 95.8% 

I'm linking up with my regular parties: Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musings.

That's it for me.  I'm looking forward to a cooler week and lots of stitching time. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 5 - 20 - 2024

Did you read that date on the headline?  May 20th?  Is it just me or is the calendar flipping by a lot faster than I think it should? On the other hand I always have my goals to keep me motivated on my sewing so maybe that is what makes the days go so fast. Here's what was on last week's list. 

5/13/24

✅Quilt Jenny’s quilt — Done, ready to return to her. 

✅Put border on pinwheel top — finished, now to think of backing.

✔️Make another basket block or two — finished a bunch of HSTs but need to cut out basket pieces. 

✅Cut, ✅layout, and ✅start stitching the stars quilt top for Va Star Quilt Guild — almost finished with center portion.

✅Sew misc blocks — RSC, FCQ Equilters— finished a lot of blocks but probably need a few more Equilter blocks.

Here's the quilt Jenny asked me to quilt for her.  She loves designs by Elizabeth Hartman.  In fact the last three quilts I quilted for her were Elizabeth's designs.  Anyway, this one is a baby quilt for a neighbor.  Here's the last row or so of cats. Did I mention she likes bright colors? The pattern is called Quick and Easy Swirls available at My Creative Stitches. May I repeat that it really is a fast and easy design to stitch out?  

By the way the blue on the orange kitty's nose is blue painter tape I use to mark my rows for the computer. 

One of the things I worked a lot on wasn't even on my list.  Here's the finished Bow Tie quilt. I believe it was the April UFO challenge. I'm happy to have it to top stage. Although I might put a border on it.  What do you think? Border or no border? 

After I got it all together I decided I should have moved a block or two to get it away from a similar color.  Oh well.  It's 42.5 x 60.5".  I'll have to buy backing for it. Although I won't do it until I look through my collection of fabrics just in case. 

Here's the layout for the stars quilt top from the blocks donated to Va Star Guild.  For the most part they are beautifully done.  Although I realized as I was sewing them with the "sashing" they aren't all 12.5".  I faked it so they should come out ok.  Here's the picture I took to make sure I sewed the pieces in the right places. (Um, I didn't. I had to take one piece off of two of the blocks and resew them in the right places.) If you want to see more about this project you can look at my Feb. 15th post. The pattern I'm using ends up being square.  I'm trying to decide if I'd (or the guild) would rather it be rectangular.  It might be used as a raffle quilt for us or it might be donated to a charity so they can use it as a fund raiser.  Do you like square quilts or rectangular quilts? 

Now here's what I want to work on this week.

5/20/24 

Quilt and bind one of my quilts

Finish the inside of the star quilt for VSQ

Plan something for May UFO challenge blocks another set of large flying geese blocks 

Cut out a quilt using the scattered forest animal print 

Pull out a block set and plan a top 

Stitching Time! I've been stitching every day this week.  Most days it was in my studio quilting but one or two might have been knitting days. I've got a couple more hats done to donate. 

W/ending 5/19 140 days in to 2024. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/April =  19/19 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 133/140 days
• Success rate = 95.5%

I've share almost all of the Costa Rica trip.  I was going to combined the last two days but I think that is way too much in one blog. So I'll write a bit about our last day in Monteverde this week and next week I'll finish off our trip.  

Our last full day in Monteverde was windy — 35 mph winds whipping around when we woke up.  The whole family went to breakfast together before splitting up for different activities.  We went with our son and his family to Monteverde Butterfly Garden.  A tour guide started us indoors where they had a multitude of different live insects.  Aimee was willing to hold just about anything. She knows her bugs and likes them.  Here she is with a large cockroach.  Despite what people think about cockroaches they are very clean. 

Side note if you have kids or grands 3rd through 6th or 7th grade here's a book recommendation.  Shoebag by M. E. Kerr (also known as Mary James.) Shoebag is a cockroach who like all cockroaches are named after the place they are born.  He lives with his parents, Drainboard and Under the Toaster in a Boston apartment. Shoebag is transformed into a, gasp, person and somehow is adopted by a family.  I haven't read it in years but I remember enjoying it as did the kids who checked it out. That's where I learned that cockroaches are really pretty clean insects. 

She wanted to hold the tarantula but was told they are too fragile. Next up was the first butterfly garden.  We saw a multitude of beautiful butterflies. Bright blue Morpho butterflies were all over the enclosure.  Ellie was hoping to pick one up but no, didn’t happen.  This picture shows one with her hand giving a sense of size.  These were pretty big compared to some butterflies. 

We toured 3 different butterfly habitats.  Here’s Teddy in one of them. (I was trying to get a good picture of Ted I could use as a background on my iPhone.) 

I took a couple of picture of flowers while we were in Costa Rica.  Up first is Red Ginger (pink version..)👇

Flower 2 👇 Brazil’s White Angel Trumpet. These are pink version.  All parts of the plant are considered poisonous. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brugmansia suaveolens

Flower 3 Noble Dendrobiumis is one of the most widespread ornamental members of the orchid family. These were growing on a tree in the compound in Monteverde. 

And the last flower is a Lollipop plant. I'm pretty sure this was in one of the butterfly gardens.  

I'll have the exciting trip home next week. In the meantime I'm linking up with my normal Linky Parties: Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap,  Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musings. I hope you can take some time to go check out these Linky Parties.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie  

Monday Meanderings 5 -- 6 -- 2024

It's a late start on my blog this week.  It was a really full tiring weekend so I went to bed early instead of writing it Sunday night like I usually do.  Surprisingly I did get all my goals accomplished this week. So here's last week's goals. 

4/29/24

✅Bind quilt — done!

✅Sew sashing on pinwheels, sew quilt top — done trying to decide about borders 

✅Make more bow tie blocks — Many finished with more cut, ready to sew

✅Knit more hats — another 2 or 3 done 

✅✅Sing at Spotsylvanians rehearsal and 2 spring concerts — LOTS of singing done this week

I've changed the layout of the bowties this week.

Will you look at that? I'm missing a block in the second to last row. Never noticed until I looked at the picture on the blog. My goal is a 7 x 10 setting. So quite a few more to make. 

Here's what I'm planning to do this week.

5/6/24

Finish Ombré log cabin top

Keep making bow tie blocks

Continue processing scraps/fabrics on cutting table … fold and replace or cut into usable sizes 

Attend ‘Annie’ in Maryland where 2 grands are performing

I hope to figure out and do whatever is needed to finish the Ombre top. I decided I didn't like how big it was and I took it apart to remove one diagonal row. It's been sitting in a back room waiting for me to start on it again.  This is the week.  It should be a fairly easy fix and then I'll sew the two sections together.  (Or at least I hope it is easy.) 

Week ending 5/5:

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/April =  2/2 days 
• 15 minute days/May =   5/5
• 15 minute days/2024 = 119/126 days
• Success rate = 94.44%

Not a bad week considering how busy I was.  Most of the stitching is knitting on hats.  Although I did finish several bow tie blocks too. 

I realized I haven't been keeping up with my fabric usage versus fabric coming in.  I finally finished March statistics.  Yea! More fabric used than brought in.  Don't think I'll have such good results for April, but I might be surprised. 

2024	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out  Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
Mar	2.5	8.75	13.125	39.50	30.75

I'm posting this late so will only share one picture from the Costa Rica trip.  This is the house we stayed in while in Monteverde.  The other two houses looked pretty much the same.  It was a nice set up in a lovely setting. 

I'm going to link up with Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musings. 

And here's one last photo -- me, and the rest of the sopranos singing our  hearts out at our concert.

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie