Monday Meanderings 8 -14 - 2023

What a week! I was busy most of the week... not a lot of time to sit around and do nothing! But it was a fun week. I'll start with my goal list and share what was going on.

8/7/23

✅Work on Happy Block quilt (4 x 5 set) -- finished top

✅Grammy Camp - ✅make dog biscuits, ✅paint and assemble bird houses, ✅swim 

✅Work on red and yellow RSC blocks -- nothing finished but some parts were made

✅Meet up with Preeti Harris for lunch -- great fun to meet Preeti in person!  

I did finish my Happy Block top.  In fact I've already made a backing, stitched some batting scraps to get a batting to fit and loaded the backing onto my long arm. 

It took a while to figure out the layout to get a reasonable mix of light and dark blocks.  It'll be quilted this week.  

Monday I met Preeti Harris, who blogs at Sew Preeti Quilts, for lunch and conversation.  We gabbed about quilting for several hours. Have you read her blog yet?  She comes up with so many wonderful quilts. It's always fun to meet up with a fellow quilter. 

Preeti and Bonnie lunching.

Preeti is an ambassador for Island Batik and gifted me with three pieces of orange batiks from Island Batiks.  I can't wait until I can add these gorgeous pieces to a quilt. (Don't expect fast results.  I am so behind on at least one Christmas present that I shouldn't start anything new. Bummer.) 

Early Wednesday morning we picked up our two youngest Grands for three days of Grammy Camp.  The plan was to have a couple hours of swimming every day but one day thunderstorms were predicted.  Pat and I had made plans that we thought would fill up the three days. 

 

The kids made dog treats for the new puppy. I'm not sure what caused this look on ES's face but she looks like her dad with that look!  

The next day they made puzzle bird houses. Pat had precut most of the pieces but let them use one of his saws for a small cut. Then it was sanding time.

Followed by painting time.  TS, 6, painted the one on the left. ES, 9, painted the one on the right.  She also made a friendship bone she plans to give half to a friend and keep the other half for herself.  

ES showing off a face mask we made for her mom who asked for a big mask and may be a weighted one.  Hum.  ES traced the biggest mask I own and then I added a little bit more to it.  We decided to try to make a channel in the mask and fill it with ground walnut shells. I don't know if it does what Mom wanted but ES enjoyed modeling it when it was done. 

Read aloud time was included in the plans. We read Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner. It was just the right length to get read in two days plus it was pretty exciting.  What I didn't like was the dog dies in the last chapter and I started sniffling. (Darn sad stories!) I hadn't read it in years so it completely surprised me. But it was a terrific book and they enjoyed. 

I'm not sure why they were cuddling up with fleece blankets when it was 85+ degrees out. But they did every time we read together.

Friday afternoon we took them back to our designated meeting place where Mom was waiting to take them home. We were happy to find out our kids took advantage of no kids and had a very nice date night. It turns out Pat and I were totally exhausted. We picked up take out on the way home for that night and neither of us did all that much Saturday.

Sunday we went up to our son's house for a family party to meet the new puppy. (Well, we'd already met him but our daughter's family hadn't.) It was also a little celebration for us for our 50th Wedding Anniversary.  Kevin smoked a pork and we had pulled pork sandwiches and lots of yummy go-withs. It was fun to be all together.  Aimee and Kevin tend to host all of the full family get togethers. Lots of room outside to play and enough space for 10 or 16 when both sides of the family gather together. 

So after that busy week this coming week is mostly empty of activities.  Here's what I hope to accomplish. 

8/14/24

Quilt Happy Blocks top

Load and quilt Va Star charity quilt

Finish 30 Something top 

Work on misc blocks: FCQ Equilter blocks, retreat blocks, and red and yellow RSC blocks. 

Not a huge list but I'm hoping to get the two quilts done by Wednesday.  I need to take the charity quilt to the guild on Wednesday evening. We'll see how I do. 

You know the drill.  Please check the following Linky parties.  I haven't had as much time to do that recently but I hope to spend a goodly amount of time checking these parties out this week. 

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Sew & Tell

Monday Musings 

To Do Tuesday

That's it for me today.  It was a great week but boy am I tired!  This week should allow for lots of sewing time and reading time. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 8 - 8 - 2023

This week is going to be busy, oh so busy. This week is Grammy Camp.  My two youngest grands are spending a few days with us.  So far we have plans for them to  go swimming every day, make a bird house with Peka, make dog biscuits to take home to Chewy, and a puzzle that we can work on.  Hopefully that will keep them entertained during the three days. As you might guess, I won't be doing a whole lot of stitching this week so I've cut back my whole list this week.  

Let's start with how I did last week.  It was a good week. 

7/31/2023

✅ Quilt big pinwheel quilt — done but not bound yet.

✅ Mail blocks to FCQ Equilter — done and already received.

✅ Figure out dog biscuit recipe and cutter — ready to make with grands.

🆗 Finish border of Thirty Something quilt and sew top together — progress made, almost together.

This top was finished in April this year as part of the APQ UFO Challenge. I put it in the to-be-quilted closet until I found some backing.  The quilting design is called Malachite.  I don't use it often but I really like the texture it creates.  Hopefully before August is done I'll have it bound.  Right now, it hasn't even been trimmed. 

Now this week's goals -- they look much different from my regular goals. 

8/7/23

Work on Happy Block quilt (4 x 5 set)

Grammy Camp - make dog biscuits, paint and assemble bird houses, and swim with the Grands.

Work on red and yellow RSC blocks

Finish the Thirty Something blocks and sew together 

Along with Grammy Camp we are going to a "Meet the Pup" barbecue.  Here's a picture of the new pup our son's family got in June.  They lost both of their dogs (a really old yellow lab and their previous German Wire Haired Pointer) earlier this year. 

Chewey, named after Chewbacca, at approximately 6 weeks old.  I'll try to get some more pictures of him this weekend.  Chewey came into the family the day we got home after the cruise.  We are an easy stop on their way home from the breeder so we got to see him right after they picked him up.  We'll be seeing him for the second time with the whole family on Sunday. (Pictures will be shared...) 

I know a lot of people try hard not to get distracted by projects not on their goals list. I do check mine during the week and keep to it.  But this week I realized I didn't want to use the 30 Something quilt to send to children in Ukraine.  It isn't going to be easy to quilt with so many intersections with 6 seams coming together. So, I had a goodly number of Happy Blocks that wouldn't be hard to bring up to the right size. I figured I needed 8, maybe 9 more blocks. Except I couldn't decide how to lay them out.  I cut the extra blocks and then laid them out with the finished blocks trying to decide where I should place them. Here's one layout -- which isn't the final one by far. 

I switched to grey scale to see what the placement looked like. Yep, too dark on the top. I've made a few more of the blocks. Because the blocks are laid out in different ways I won't make them all until I know where they will be placed. This will be changed around so the lights and darks are more evenly spaced. Hopefully, this week. 

And finally Sharon gave me until August 14 to figure out my fabrics for the Malted Mystery.  She's got hers planned but won't be able to start cutting until then. We generally FaceTime to work on our quilts together.  I went to the stash and made an initial pull.  I haven't verified fabric amounts. Here's what I came up with.  I haven't figured out which colors would be in which position but this is what I will start with. Oops... that lighter orange would actually be with its orange friends. They are hand dyes -- some are probably purchased but I'm guessing I did some of them too -- many, many years ago.  It's time to use some of them! Hopefully I'll have enough of the other fabrics or can find similar fabric. The light purple will be a 1 yard amount.   

That's it for me.  I'm linking up with my regular Linky parties.  Please give a look at what's happening across the Internet.  I hope I have some time to surf these blogs this week! 

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musing 

To Do Tuesday

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 8 - 10 - 2010

I have had "working on the dog blocks" on my goal list for several weeks.  If you read this blog regularly you might remember they are really old blocks -- as in early 1990s from a block swap on the old Prodigy. I know I've taken them out once before but haven't found the post or the pictures from then.  So I started anew a couple of weeks ago. I find it interesting when someone shows the process of going from blocks or a beginning idea to the final design.  I haven't quite got the final design ready to show but I can show some progress shots.

All I did was slap them on my design wall.  I tried to figure out placement but honestly, with all the different blocks divisible by 3" I'm floundering. 

So next I tried to draw the sizes on paper.  Eh, didn't work well because I was using 10 squares to the inch paper which makes it really hard to work with multiples of 3. Cancel that idea and toss the paper. 

Next I remembered I had a 2 x 2" flannel grid.  I got it years ago when watercolor quilts were popular. 

Ok, I'm making progress. I've added another floral dog in the same pattern but cut to 9" instead of adding background to make it 12". 

I've filled in some of the "holes" with fabric.  I wasn't sure about the blue and beige stripes made from half square triangles but they do help lighten the feel of the piece. And, I'm thinking sashing between each row. (Although that dark blue doesn't add anything.) 

I've added a couple of blocks -- the machine appliquéd dog on the turquoise in the top row and the dog fabric with the star in black and white.  Hum, I didn't quite make that block correctly.  To make the star stand out correctly I should have put the black with white dots in the four corners.  (It's not being changed, I don't have anymore of that black fabric...) I've changed the blocks around a bit.  I machine zigzagged with medium grey thread around the black scotty on the dark red to make the scotty more obvious. (bottom row, left.)  I've added several different ideas for sashing and I've used more of the hst in blue and beige.  

My plan for completion is to use several different fabrics in the sashing between rows. I may use various sashing but I plan to pull colors from the blue fabric with  dots fabric and from the blocks.   I hope to also use dot as a border around the whole quilt. 

That's my big plan for this week.  I want this moved into the to-be-quilted closet rather than the UFO tub! Time will tell. 

Goals from last week: 

8/3/2020

Finish Sewing Silver Lining Blocks into top√

Quilt customer quilt √ started 

Plan dog top and make fillers as needed  √ Good progress made

Visit new quilt store opening 8/3! Boo — opening postponed, I’ll visit it next week 

Decide whether to participate in Morewood Decided against it… need to finish UFOs not start big new ones…. little news are ok though! 

And, now, this week's goals... a lot more than I usually list but I'm trying to make progress on stalled pieces.

8/10/2020

Shop at new quilt store 

Work on Wonky Family piece

Finish putting together dogs top

Work on the propeller blocks (have to get the dog blocks off the design wall before I can do this one. 

Finish customer’s quilt

Quilt one of my quilts

A few thoughts before I end:  Does the new Blogger drive you crazy?  I like to move my pictures around, place text next to a pic, design the space, so to speak.  Um, doesn't really work for me.  Bang head on computer a few times.  I'm putting up with what I can get it to do.  

And how about a cuteness overload picture? Our son's family spent a week at the beach house and ended it by picking up a new puppy they had purchased at the beginning of the summer.  Introducing the newest grand dog: Walter, aka, Wally. 

He's about 8 weeks old and is a German Short Haired Pointer.  Here's what Wikipedia says about them: " The German Shorthaired Pointer was developed to be a dog suited for family life, as well as a versatile hunter. Therefore, its temperament is that of an intelligent, bold, boisterous, eccentric, and characteristically affectionate dog that is cooperative and easily trained. This breed is smart, friendly, willing, and enthusiastic."  I don't think Walter will be hunting but he will enjoy family runs and bike rides.

We had Cassie for the week. So, we got to have some up close time with Walter when Kevin and Theo came down to get her.  The bonus was it was neutral territory for the dogs to meet.  Theo is trying to convince one of them they might like the grass in his hand. (Hum, I never thought about it but how appropriate I've written about my current dog quilt and introduced Walter in the same post!) Hopefully we'll get Walter pictures over the next months.

Lots was going on last week.  This coming week will be much slower! 

I'm linking to my regular linky parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, Main Crush Monday and To Do Tuesday. (I'll be popping back in to see if these bloggers post this week.)  I had a great time looking at folk's blogs last week.  I hope you'll join me at looking around the Net this week to see what is new! 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 7 - 20 - 2020

A surprise tonight -- I finally decided to figure out how much fabric I used in June. (Yep I'm really late with this!)  It took a bit of adding and multiplication to get the final number.  And, yep, I was surprised.  I used more fabric than I brought in...and I brought in plenty. Here's the data: 

2020	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
June	9.000	45.750	12.375	46.875	1.125

It's now official -- I've used more fabric than I've purchased this year.  Most of the yardage was wide backs which means I have more than enough backings for a while. I'm not planning on buying any fabric the rest of this month.  I can be strong! (maybe)

I did pretty well on my goals this week: 

Quilt the Pirate quilt✔️ quilted Pictures after it's bound and I have a photo shoot

Make another Christmas paper pieced block✔️ one more Snowman  (purple brimmed hat.)

So here are the  finished blocks.  I ended up making one too many polar bears.  So the question is should I make a 3rd snowman and 1 or 2 penguins.  If I make 3 of each animals I'll not use the the extra left facing polar bear.  These are paper pieced designs from Sew Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Mary Hertel.  Hum, maybe I should add a reindeer too. what do you think? Mary has some other penguins in her Etsy shop. I think I'll be shopping this week.

Work on painted block✔️ almost finished no pictures yet.

Pull out UFO of dog blocks and make the center of the top… yikes. Need extra blocks...first one is done. ✔️  Here are the blocks I've got.  These blocks are from a swap ages ago (as in the mid 1990s through Prodigy -- one of the first commercial internet service provider for customers.) The blocks had to be multiples of 3". These are the ones I received. Most of them still have the tag listing the maker, location and email address. (I wonder how many addresses would still be good?) The black dog with the red bow is mine. I just threw these on my design wall to get an idea of what I need to bring it up to a decent size. What do you think?  I'm thinking I need to make more; maybe throw out the middle one in the top row.  

I have a slew of dog patterns I can add to these and Mary Hertel has a lot of faces of different breeds. But what about adding some four patches, 9 patches or flying geese?  Here's the dog I finished this week. I forget which book I found this in but it's the same dog as the blue and pink floral one in the upper left above.  I need to add a piece at the top or bottom to make it the same size as the other one. I think I might try some machine appliquéd dogs too.  I bet they would go MUCH faster. 

As much as I "like" the idea of paper piecing I'm not that good at it.  I end up having to take out those tiny stitches and recut fabric pieces all the time.  

That was last week's goal list.  On to this week's list: 

W/O 7-20

Quilt another personal quilt

Make more blocks: dogs, Winter paper pieced, CP 

Finish Painting Wood Block 

Set the airplane blocks from last year’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge

I find that some weeks I am raring to work in the studio.  Some weeks I putz around and don't get much done.  Hopefully this week I'll be getting a lot done.  

Pat got a package in the mail from my cousin last week.  We were both tickled with his new mask.  Marilyn's been making some really nice custom masks.  I'm not sure I need a USC mask but I graduated from USC too.  

I'm linking up to my regular Monday linky parties: 

Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, and Main Crush Monday.  I plan on spending some extra time with these linky parties this week. I didn't last week and I'm sure I missed important happenings in studios! 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie