Monday Meanderings 12 - 16 - 2024

It's been a week! I was going to write my blog on Monday instead of Sunday but I decided I'd write it Sunday night as usual.

First up is concert week info. Our concerts actually started on Tuesday when a group of Spotsylvanians went into DC and visited the White House. I'm sure you're wondering why we visited the White House. We were honored to be selected to sing to visitors as they toured the White House to see the amazing decorations. We were set up in the State Dining Room between two huge Christmas Trees.  

We sang a cappella for about an hour and three quarters.  Visitors to the House were walking behind the table in the bottom of our picture.  I was amazed at how many people were going through seeing all the wonderful decorations.  And, how many people stopped to listen and to video us as we sang. (Hum, I now have a little experience with the paparazzi!) (Note: I'm on the left in the back row just about under the sconce. Pat's center front with the red tie.) 

After singing we were delighted to find out that we could leave by taking the tour of the House. (They could have taken us out the back way and we'd never see all the wonderful decorations and these historic rooms.) 

At this point we've been checked in, given WH visitors passes, and gone through metal detectors. (Um, I was pulled over for a handheld wand over my front and back.  Who knew bra hooks would set off the detector?) 

The sparkling chandelier was augmented with a reflective canopy to give the feeling of a peaceful snowfall.  It was stunning.  Heck, the chandeliers alone were amazing.  There were 3 in the room but only the center one was augmented.

The official White House Christmas Tree was in the Blue Room. The carousel was a surprise.  The pink pennants in the circle at the top of the tree feature the names of every state, territory, and the District of Columbia. The chandelier is removed every year to accommodate the official tree. This year's tree is 18 1/2 feet tall. 

A friend snapped us leaving the White House through the front door better known as the North Portico. It was an amazing day. There was a lot of standing and walking. But we wouldn't have missed it for anything. ⬇️ I took one last picture as we were walking to the gate to leave the WH grounds.

Just in case you thought I found out all the information about the rooms listening to a tour guide or reading a plaque -- nope. Each family is given a full color booklet. This year's theme was A Season of Peace & Light. The booklet gives a lot of information about the rooms that were decorated as well as the decorations in the rooms. No doubt I'll be keeping this one for a long time. 

We left our house at 6:30 am to meet the bus we took to DC and returned about 2:30 pm. We were pooped out. And, did mostly nothing the rest of the day. 

I'm going to squeeze in my goals from last week here. Surprisingly it was a pretty successful week on the quilting front. 

12/9/24

✅Finish quilting sloth quilt and trim it — all done and returned to Jenny.

✅Finish sewing stash busting blocks into top — finished, measured and stored in the quilt closet.

✅Keep at cutting up scraps into usable squares and rectangles — quite a few scraps were “processed” this week. 

Concert week✅✅✅3 rehearsals and ✅✅✅3 performances — all done!

✅Shop for Christmas presents 🎁 — surprisingly we got a little shopping done. 

Here's Jenny's Sloth quilt. I used a light grey So Fine thread. The quilting design is called Just Leaves. I trimmed it for her and gave it back to her after the concert Sunday afternoon.  

Here's what I'll be working on this week in between all the holiday related events.

12/16/24

1 Concert

Make a table runner

Finish grands’ ornaments

Make a bunch of mini cupcakes for the Va Star Guild’s holiday party and attend the party

Wrap presents

I'm really hoping I can get more piecing and/or quilting done this week but it may not happen. 

15 Minutes of Stitching. Oops! I forgot to stitch on the day we went to the White House. Here are the statistics. My percentage dropped a little. Oh well -- it's still a terrific number! Do you realize there are less than 2 weeks left in 2024? 

W/ending 12/15 — 350 days in to 2024. 

• 15 minute days/week Nov = 6/7
• 15 minute days/2024 = 339/350 days
• Success rate = 96.85% 

I'll be linking up with my regular parties. Please take some time to check them out: Stitching Stuff at Life in Pieces, Oh Scrap at Quilting Is More Fun than Housework, Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts, and Monday Musings at Song Bird Designs.  Hopefully I'll be back with more quilty news next week.  With only 1 concert left to sing, life is calming back down. Oh, except Christmas prep. 

I leave you with my starring roll in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer at the concerts this weekend. A friend from the neighborhood chorus gave me the nose and a bunch of us will be wearing them at that concert.  I snuck mine on at the Spotsy rehearsal and started singing Rudolph with the rest of them.  I was hamming it up. I checked with our director afterwards to make sure she was ok with it.  My first review -- it was great and I was very cool. Yes, do it for the shows. So of course I hammed it up a bit more for the two concerts. Another review came in -- "she was really having a good time with that song." Well of course I was! On the other hand none of the grand kids had much to say about it. One might have been in shock but she wasn't saying anything about it.  

PS -- I didn't think to take this picture while still dressed in concert black. So I decided it was fine if I took it in my bathrobe against my closet door! The things I'll do for a laugh! 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 12 - 9 - 2024

It's concert week+ this week. We'll be singing 3 concerts with the Spotsylvanians.  We've got 3 rehearsals this week although one is with our neighborhood group -- The Heritage Singers.  Their concert will be on Monday 12/16th.  This coming weekend is overloaded.  So, if you don't hear anything from me this week don't be surprised! 

I didn't do very well on my goals this week.  Although I did succeed on a few things. 

12/2/24

Finish top made with stash busting block — about half sewn together.

Mail tree blocks to Washington state — ugh, no didn’t even package them up.

✅Bind quilted top — all done! 

✅Quilt a customer top — done! 

✅Sing at the Mall — done!

I was remiss taking photos this week so I don't have any from anything I've done this week. Sigh.

I will say I did make progress on the stash busting blocks. I've sewn all six rows of blocks together and three of the rows are sewn together.  Hopefully I'll find a little time this week to finish sewing the other three rows together.  

Here's my goals for this week. Not much but I'll try to do a little in the studio.

12/9/24

Finish quilting sloth quilt and trim it 

Finish sewing stash busting blocks into top

Keep at cutting up scraps into usable squares and rectangles

Concert week 3 rehearsals and 3 performances 

Shop for Christmas presents 🎁 

Here's the quilt I've got Ruthie working on while I write this blog. (Yea for a computerized long arm!) My daughter Jenny loves patterns by Elizabeth Hartman.  This one is called Sleepy Sloths. These are sloths 3 and 4 hanging off the edge of the long arm frame. 

And here is 1 

and 2. 

As I am typing this Sunday evening Ruthie is on the 2nd to last row.  It's worked really well for me to write my blog and supervise the quilting. (It's done!) 

Just in case you missed our sloth siting in Costa Rica in March here's another picture of him. (I've gotten more informed about drawing circles on my photos. 

I've somehow been able to stitch every day this week. Working on the last ornament counted for a couple of days.  I'm halfway done with the last ornament for the grands which counted for some of my stitching time. Another good week for stitching. 

W/ending 12/8 — 343days in to 2024. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7
• 15 minute days/Dec = 7/7
• 15 minute days/2024 = 333/343 days
• Success rate = 97.% 

I find it interesting that my success rate has been 97% for weeks, probably months. I can't see myself being more successful next year but I'm pretty sure I plan to try. 

Here are the links to the Linky parties this week: Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musings.

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 

Monday Meanderings 12 - 11 - 2023

What a week!  I normally write my blog Sunday evenings although I date it with Monday's date. Today I'm way behind and it's nearly noon 5:00 pm on Monday as I type.  It was concert weekend.  Set up and tech rehearsal was Friday night. We dragged in nearly 6 hours after we left the house. Pat and I generally help with getting equipment from our rehearsal location to our concert space.  That amounts to a lot of the extra time. Rehearsal went well. We tried to rest up on Saturday and Sunday to save energy for the concert.  I can now show you one of the things I've been working on in secret. (I know, you wouldn't have told anyone.) 

The surprise act for the show was "Sister Act" from White Christmas, the 1954 holiday movie starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen.  The set up in the movie was Bing and Danny took the place of sisters Rosemary and Vera-Ellen for one show. (I forget why the girls couldn't go on.) Here's a link to their version. And, here's the link to Bing and Danny's version. 

I was asked to make some aprons that could stand in as dresses.  I hit my back closet and happened to have some slinky turquoise fabric. (Best part is I picked it up at the guild's free table!) I realized the slinky fabric would just fall straight down. So the closet coughed up a decent piece of netting that I could put under the aprons. After a full day of sewing I had two of these done.

Our director was able to borrow some feather fans. One of the wives found some outrageous hats at a thrift shop. Voila! Here's one of our "Sisters." 

And how about seeing both of them? 

And a candid of a group of sopranos.  I'm the one with the silver hair....

I imagine parts of the show will show up on Facebook and YouTube eventually --  Look for Spotsylvanians 2023 Concert.  

Moving right along -- Here's last week's goals. 

12/4/23

✅Bind Christmas present - done!  

✅Sew on ornaments ✅✅✅3 of 4 are done…Wow!

Make more placemats — didn’t do anything on this. 

Quilt small quilt — the backing is loaded, the batting is seamed, next load top & quilt.

✅Wash, dry and fold some fabrics — 1 box done; 1 to go (see pictures below).

✅Concert Weekend: ✅ Fri rehearsal,  ✅ Sat nite and  ✅ Sunday afternoon show 

Yea, except not a lot of sewing got done. I've got a lot going this week too although most of it isn't really time consuming. Here's this week's list... 

12/11/23

Quilt and, maybe, bind small quilt 

Sing with carol group

Quilt customer top

Finish last ornament 

Wash, dry, and fold some fabric

Make more placemats

Make more happy blocks 

Regarding those boxes of fabric here's what I've already done. You can't really see the size of the box, but it's generally called a banker's box.

One box of low volume fabric that's been washed and folded. It was fun to see what fabric was in the box.  Most pieces were less than 1 yard or fat quarters.  Surprisingly most pieces had a square cut out of them.  There were a lot of what looked to me to be 30s fabrics.  Many of the fabrics were small animals with a little geometric figure.  Most were blue and cream.  They'll be great as a background. 

My next box is reds and pinks.  Here's what it currently looks like on the guest room bed. 

In the front are the pieces I've already washed and folded.  The background is a jumble of fabric.  I try to open each piece all the way and trim any longer threads hanging off.  I've been throwing in several Color Catchers and Color Grabbers with each load.  Before throwing the washed fabrics in the drier the loose threads get trimmed again.  I'm trying to prevent a lot of extra wrinkles.  After drying I try to get the warm fabric smoothed out on the counter so I can fold it once it is cooler.  

It'll be fun to see what charity quilts we can make with all of this new-to-us fabric. 

If you're doing presents this Christmas are you ready?  We have been making donations in the name of some family members and asking the same in return. But we still give our kids and grands presents.  I'm slowly finding gifts and getting them purchased.  Hopefully everything will be in hand by the end of the week. Then there is the wrapping!  Sigh... It's time to get back to work on present finding. 

I'm linking up with the following Linky parties this week. Hope you have time to check some of the blogs out.  

Oh Scrap

Stitching Stuff at Life in Pieces

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musing

I'm hoping I get a lot more stitching time this week. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie