Monday Meandering -- 2/19/2024

 

Presidents Day Cupcakes! 

Or at least that is what I'm calling them. I'm taking some to my regular Monday stitching group.  We don't plan for treats but almost every week someone (or several someones) bring something.  I'll see if anyone else brings something too. And, whether I will have any leftovers! 

Here's last week's list. I got most of the items done. 

2/12/24

✅Work on Malted Mystery Feb Clue — just need to add three small borders.

👎🏼Trim appliqué blocks; pick fabric for setting the blocks — nope. Stashed them away and can’t find them!  They will turn up one of these days. 

✅Cut out green, black floral, & black and white 3 yard quilt -- Done but not as originally planned. 

✅Make a couple of placemats -- finished two more.

✅Look at star quilt — I have a plan! 

Here are the fabrics I used for my 3 yard quilt. I had planned to use one of Fabric Cafe's pattern but I didn't read it carefully so I changed my plans a bit. I'll be sewing this in a few weeks.  Nann, who blogs at With Strings Attached , sent me a surprise package of fabric including the big floral print.  Hum, that chartreuse Kona is not as yellow as it shows here.  I'll be sharing the finished top in a few weeks. 

I was happy to figure out I can use some decorator fabric for the placemats I'm making. This piece is actually an upholstery fabric that I dipped in hot water to try to soften it up a bit. I've cut walker bags from the fabric and this was a left over piece.  The backing fabric is another one from Nann.  It was a perfect fit for the front. 

Here's what I'll be working on this week. 

2/19/24

Quilt and bind two baby quilts

Make some FCQ Equilter blocks

Work on Happy Blocks

Finish Feb Malted Mystery clue

Update Accuquilt Dies in app and online 

I did get another block made for the Dec/January Equilter.  Pat asked for Disappearing 9 Patches.  I made most of the blocks several weeks ago.  But I wanted one more and kept postponing making it.  So this afternoon I got it done and I'll be shipping them out to her in the next few days. (Not Monday -- it's a federal holiday.) 

My 15 Minutes to Stitch has been going very well.  Most days I get a lot more time than just the 15 minutes.  

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Feb = 11/29 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 49/49 days
• Success rate = 100%

I will confess to getting a lot of reading time too.  I've just started the audio version of Canary Girls by Jennifer Chiaverini. Two hours in and I'm hooked on it.  I would recommend it to readers (or listeners) who enjoy historical fiction. I'm looking forward to spending some more time with it.

Please check out these Linky parties:

Oh Scrap

Life in Pieces Stitching Stuff

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

I had a good time last week reading blogs. It's fun to see what people are working on these days. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

The Good and the Bad

The good:  A new upstairs air conditioner is being installed today.  It will work on keeping the upstairs studio cool!  That's the new one on the left.  The one on its side is the old HOLEY one.

 Here's the lonely pad where the ac unit goes.  And, below, the air handler -- I think that is what it is called.

The Bad:    No air conditioning working in the downstairs while they are working.  Except, now that they are done 6 hours later it turns out the two units weren't on the same panel/switch whatever you turn off so you don't electrocute yourself while you are working on major appliances.  So,  I could have had ac all day.  Sigh.  It was closing in on 80 downstairs where I had moved some of my piecing needs to sew at the dining room table. But it was the wrong height.  It was a mere 92 upstairs!

Here's yesterday's work on Ruthie.  I decided the centers of these bowties would make a good place to put a motif rather than just stipple.  My way of handling it was to draw the flower on a piece of newsprint and attach it to the quilt and quilt through the paper.  Drawing looks great...

 Quilting just doesn't quite look as good.  But, honestly, it will be fine.  This one is going to hang in our new bathroom.  I've already bought red throw rugs and blue towels.  Can't wait until I get this hung in there.

 My plan was to work on a  Disappearing 9 patch UFO.  Just before I left PA one of my guilds had a d9p challenge.  Every one was given enough of 2 different fabrics to use as one block in  in a 9 patch.  We were to make 12 blocks using one constant in the center square and the other square where every we wanted it in the block. Then we swapped the 9 patches.   Today, I cut up the 9 patch blocks.  And, remade a couple -- only one was way off from the size and one someone cut a square wrong and brought the rest as is -- I think she ran out of time.

So using a design bed, I came up with this layout.  Except -- I have one more block to cut up.  And, then I'd need some triangles to fill the side spaces.  Hum, the colors in this picture don't look as rich as it looks  in real life.  You can just barely see two triangles in a green fossil forest.  I will probably try a couple of other settings over the next few days.  I like it on point but I'm not sure I will like all the setting triangles the same fabric -- none of which is in the rest of the top.

I guess this won't be a super easy finish after all.  Sigh.

So here's what the rest of the week looks like temperature-wise. Really, 102??  Hum, I see the nights are at least going into the 70's.  One forecast called for low 80's for a couple of nights.

I'm feeling a nap coming on... the heat must be making me sluggish.  Or, staying up reading a novel too late and getting up at 7.  Oh well.  Nap time it is!

Happy Quilting All!