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 

Monday Meanderings 9 - 20 - 2021

Did you have a great week last week?  Get a lot of quilting done and the like?  I did too but it seemed to be a slow week for me. I was successful with my goals so let's take a look at them.

UFO -- Roman Stripes 

9/13/21

✅Make Table Scrap Challenge runner — cut & laid out. 

✅Finish cutting out Economy blocks for retreat — finished &bagged for retreat.

✅Work on UFO blocks (need 2 more) Plan sashing — Trimmed blocks, made 3,  ready to sew together.  This pattern is called Roman Stripes. 

✅Make a couple of walker bags — Made 3 and turned into the guild (oops no pictures!)

✅Contact Grace Co. — Ordered new cables and small circuit board.

Here's what's up for this coming week.  It isn't a very long list because as soon as the parts for Ruthie come in I'll start catching up on my quilting.

9/20/2021

Finish orange table runner

Sew blocks together & start sashing UFO Roman Stripes 

If parts arrive, fix Ruthie & finish quilt on Ruthie

Put border on curved 9 patch

Last month I was really good and didn't buy any fabric.  This month I'm going crazy buying fabric and winning fabric.  I won a prize from the Positivity Quilt Along.  I received a squishy in the mail holding these beautiful fabrics. Whoop! Whoop! There were 7 fat quarters and a yard of the burgundy.  I need to start looking for fat quarter friendly patterns so I can make something special from them. 

Did you know Saturday, Sept. 18 was Jelly Roll Day?  I didn't either.  But I did read about it on Facebook.  There was also a link to some jelly roll friendly patterns.  Check them out here.  There are 15 different patterns -- one is probably going to call your name! I shared with my friend Sharon and she's planning on bringing instructions and a jelly roll to the retreat in less than 2 weeks. It's always nice to have a backup project just in case. 

• I'm linking with my regular parties. Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, and To Do Tuesday. (Ok, I've not been too successful on linking up on Tuesdays. I'll really try hard this week.) Join me in surfing the web.  There are lots of things to see out there.

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Decisions -- What Looks Best?

I've been working on a UFO for the last few days. (Well, not all that much work as I've read at least 3 books so far the week...) 

A little back story.  As many of you know I'm part of a group of quilters who used to belong to Faithful Circle Quilters in Columbia, Maryland.  As we moved away we became a block making group.  Every other month a member tells us which block she'd like us to use and what colors.  We then make blocks (and sometimes we go crazy!) and send them off to the member.  Several turns ago I asked for Chunky Churn Dashes from Bonnie Hunter's pattern. I've made at least one quilt ages ago and now I'll get two quilts out of the blocks I currently have.  I broke my blocks into two groups -- one with cutesy fabric and the other with more adult fabric. 

Over the last few days I've made a bunch of 9 patches thinking they would be a great way to bring the cutesy blocks up to a decent size.  What do you think? 

Unfortunately, I wasn't really happy with how this looked. I was really happy that I could use fabrics I already had for these 9 patches but I just think it is too busy. (Hum, this is getting to be a theme of mine...) 

So I found 4 different solids to see if anything was better. So here's what I came up with. Upper left is Kona Snow, upper right is Kona White, lower left is Kona Lake (I think) and bottom right is an unnamed yellow.  I wasn't excite by either Snow or White. I thought the blue and yellow were fine. Do you have a favorite?  I have enough of each fabric to cut 6.5" squares to put between the Chunky Churn Dashes. Let me know which you like best. 

Then I decided I would take a quick look at what I could do with 21 green and white 9 patches.  Oh yes, I did find a couple of fabrics I had enough to cut 6.5" squares to go with the 9 patches. Right now I'm leaning toward the bottom floral print but possibly using the hot pink as a border.  I don't have much of the elephant print but they would look cute with the 9 patches too.  I have a little bit of the green and the white left so I might be able to make more of  the 9 patches and cut the elephants to set a smaller quilt. (I might need to hunt up a border to get these up to 36" square or so.) 

By the way, this whole effort has been off my goal list. (OOPS!) Tomorrow and Sunday I need to get some progress made on that! 

I'm linking up with My Quilt Infatuation, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Alycia Quilts, and From Bolt To Beauty.  Join me in some blog surfing.   

Remember Daylight Savings Time starts Saturday, 3/13! 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Small rant -- blogger... please make the print the size I request.  Don't make it bigger or smaller.  I always check the font size  1) when I preview the post and 2) when go back to the post after checking the preview.  I can't believe how often the font size goes up or down from what I marked.  

Stashbusting Report November 2014

HA!

NOPE, no stashbusting went on during November. None, zilch, zippo.  But a lot of stash building was done. Here are the sad details. 

2014	Fabric In Month	Fabric in Year	Fabric Out Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
Nov	15	99.750	-0-	64.750	35.00

HERE'S some of the fabric that led me down the primrose path, so to speak.

Fat quarters... 

These will become 3 quilts of the 3 yards/3 quilt variety with backing.

Penguins will be either pillowcases or baby quilts along with the baby strollers.  The green hasn't been assigned anywhere. Maybe a backing fabric for something. 

Ruthie is working away on the other side of the studio.  She is helping me get at least one finish this month.  Hopefully several smaller quilts will also be finished.  Time will tell.  But, I will admit I bought several backings so I could finish some of these quilts including the one currently being finished up on Ruthie.  

Happy quilting all! 

January's Stash Busting

Or, perhaps more accurately, Stash Building.

2013	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out
January	12.5 yds	12.5 yds	8 yds	8 yds	4.5 yds in

When I got Bubbles in the spring last year, I became a participant in a quilt shop program of spend so much money and get a yard of free fabric.  Well, let me tell you, I have a LOT of free fabric coming this year.  Early in January I went up to Cottonwood Quilt Shop in Charlottesville and "bought" some fabric. And, then I didn't buy anything for the rest of the month.  Yeah, all of that fabric was free.  In fact I bought a whole quilt worth of fabric at one time, something I rarely do.  I'll be starting it this coming week too.  

Today I will start cutting some of the fabric for a mystery at Marge's Mystery for Relay. And, tomorrow I will be happily sewing away on some of the new fabric.  My leader/ender project will be Easy Street, Clue 5.  So, I'll be cutting some of those pieces today also.  

Happy Quilting All!

UH - OH

I will be having a bad report on fabric usage at the end of this month.  Just warning you. 

Today was the guild's live auction to raise funds to help pay for the batting for our charity quilts.  Last year I got some fabulous greens which I have been using all year long.  This year more items were bundled together. And, um, er, I bought 4 bunches of fabric.

I've gone through one of the bags so far.  It had approximately 16 1/4 yards of fabric -- for $3.00.  I only bid on it because I thought it was ridiculous to let it go for even less than that.  Turns out that each yard cost appx. 18¢ a yard.  Crazy.  And, that was the small bag. 


The second bag I looked at will no doubt have MORE fabric than the first.  Some of it was fabric book panels... which I'm not all that interested in but I might cut them up and frame with go with fabric and make baby quilts for our charity.  And, one piece was a knit.  Hum, maybe Jenny would like it to make something for Sophia.  We'll see.  

Colleen won the blocks at the retreat -- batiks sewn into these blocks.  She's already gotten the blocks sashed and put together.  Wow.  And, don't they look terrific?  When I saw what block we were using I couldn't "see" how they would be put together in a quilt.  She did a great job and now I wish I had won... but I would have had to enter a block or so to win!  


Happy Quilting All!