Monday Meanderings July - 20 - 2026

It was a great week! Retreat is over and I'm exhausted.  But what fun we all had. There were 7 of us sewing in a space that was actually designed for scrapbooking.  I failed to take pictures of sewing area. So here's a verbal description.  We each had a table to set up on.  Then there were tables for an iron and for cutting mats.  Those two tables were on risers so they were at a comfortable height. There was also a snack table and an extra refrigerator. There was also a bedroom and bath downstairs.   Upstairs there was a kitchen, dining room, living room, one bedroom and access to a beautiful screen porch. The next floor had two more bedrooms and a bath room.  A nice set up for us. 

Here're my goals from last week. 

7/13/26

✅Pack up sewing projects & supplies and travel to retreat! — arrived, sewed and came home. 

✅Work on projects most are groups of blocks to make into tops — most were moved forward or finished. 

Prep Snowman #3 for hand appliquéing— started but not finished. 

I'll show my retreat projects after my goals for this week. So here they are. 

7/20/26

Knit on a new hat

Work on Snowman #2

Finish prepping Snowman #3 for hand appliquéing

Cut more blocks and sew turquoise and green baby quilt together 

Load a quilt on Ruthie and quilt it. 

I had a really successful retreat. I brought 8 projects to work on. Most were blocks needing to be put into tops.  One was a new quilt cut and ready to sew. Here are some of the projects.

Since I finished all the Veronica blocks before I left I decided to sew them into a top. Once I find backing fabric this one is ready to throw on Ruthie. 👆🏼

This economy block, along with about 7 others, was made at retreat.  Then I laid out all the blocks on my design bed.  And, then I moved blocks around.  Took photos and turned them into greyscale. And again and again.  After an hour or so I decided I needed to reevaluate the blocks.  They were a variety of fabric colors and styles. I finally decided to put these basic in their pouch and look at them once I got home.  My guess is I'll make some more blocks that are medium and then the quilt will look more balanced.  A lot of the blocks looked really dark when turned to greyscale. So I went on to something else. 

I started this quilt with the little 9 patches which are 3" in the quilt.  I actually cut out the other parts for last October's retreat. I sewed this top at retreat. Except, I didn't cut the colored border. In fact I have no idea what fabric I'll use for the border. I'm hoping to get it finished sooner, rather than later. I might have a fabric that will work. I'll keep you posted on this one. 

Next up I pulled out the blocks to make this little baby quilt. It's a 64 square quilt,

set 8 x 8. It finishes 36" square. The squares are cut 5" and finish at 4.5". Are you asking why I made these blocks 5"?  It's because I have a 9" Aaccuquilt Cube. The big square turns is 5". My other choice would have been 6" finished which seemed too big for my fabrics.  The fabric was a kit from Craftsy when they were going out of business. It all is sea motifs. Whales, clams, bottles in the sea, etc.  I may  have enough fabric left over for a second one.  I think I have yardage of one or two of these fabrics to use as backing.

This is another 36" square baby quilt.  The lozenge shape is from my 9" Companion Set. It's called a signature block. You might notice I have some holes in the design. I was going to just make some at the retreat but it took quite a long time to make the first one. So I decided to put this one away and cut the extra blocks out on the Accuquilt at home.  

Not a great picture but this is the one totally new quilt.  I used one of my Quilts for Baby books by Ursula Reikes. The Eiffel Tower fabric was free on a give away table at one of my quilt guilds.  I didn't bring both pages of the directions -- only the sewing it together part.  I still need to cut the border and apply it.  Again, I'l need to find backing for it eventually. 

And, that's my trusty Featherweight that really sewed a lot this past week.  One thing I learned is the Singer needles are not any good.  I'd changed the needle in it for the only needle I had with me, from Singer. The stitches were awful, skipped, big and poorly formed.  Luckily a friend had recently taken a Featherweight maintenance class. The instructor said the Singer needles were awful. She gave me a new needle and that Featherweight sewed like a champ for the whole retreat. Phew! 

 

On the afternoon of the last day I moved on to this top. 👇🏼  Well, it's not a top yet. It started out as blocks that had been pieced on phone books pages. I did get the blocks sewn together in rows. But then I decided I might want to take off some of the paper before I sew the rows together.  It was getting late after I got one row of the papers removed. I quit sewing, packed up my supplies and then went on to bed.  I think tearing these papers out will be great to do when I'm watching TV or at my stitching group.  So these will take a while before I get them sewn together.  

My last project did get started.  You can see one of the blocks here on last week's post. It's the watermelon Happy block.  I didn't take any pictures of the rest of the blocks I made during the week. Again, something I'll be working on over the upcoming weeks and months too.  I think all the blocks are ready to be sewn into rows and a top. 

So, yes, I made forward progress on a lot of projects.  Most need more progress to get to top stage. But WOW I was amazed how many projects I worked on and made good progress.  I have another retreat in October -- so I'll need to get another group of projects ready to finish or at least move forward for it. Who knows, I may wait 'til then to finish some of these projects. 

NEWS ALERT!

I didn't do any stitching today! In fact, I forgot all about it until a few paragraphs back! So here are the numbers. 

Week ending 7/19/26: 200 days of 2026.

 199 stitching days out of 200 days 99.5%

I'll start back up tomorrow.  At least I got reading on my Kindle done. Now it's time to remind all to check out these Linky parties.  

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

One thing I didn't mention is I took most of my tools and projects down to the sewing room when I got home. Tomorrow I'll only have to take down a few things.  Of course, then I'll need to put everything back away.  Hopefully it will all be put away by lunch. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

National Sewing Machine Day & Some Finishes!

June 13th is National Sewing Machine Day.  I read that we should share our machines.  I have no idea where I saw it but I thought I'd give my machines a little love and attention. 

So here are my machines from oldest to newest. 

This is my trusty Singer Featherweight.  It is from the early 1950s.  It's a slow workhorse that I take to sewing days and retreats.  Unfortunately it doesn't sew fast at all.  Some day I may see if there is something that can be done to speed it up some but in the mean time it is slow, steady and reliable. 

Meet Ruthie the Nolting Long Arm and her computer.  I've had her for 9 or so years when we traded a smaller one in for her. She's quilting away on one of my 3 yard quilt tops. 

I bought this Viking Topaz in the last 8 or 9 years.  I use it mostly for embroidery. I found I perferred my older Bernina for piecing and some quilting. I keep this one set up for embroidery. 

This is my newest sewing machine, a Bernina B 570. I've only had this one for 8 months or so.  It has way more bells and whistles than I need.  It's been fun to learn what it can do for me.  I want to try making quilt labels with the built in alphabets.  Someday I might buy the embroidery module and then sell the Viking. 

I also have a very old Elna Carina which weighs under 20 pounds. It's also good for taking to sew ins and retreats.  I might start taking it along with the Featherweight and see how it does. 

Now on to the two finishes from earlier this year. First up is the framed 9 patch in blue. The FCQ Equilters made the blocks for me a couple of years ago.  I finished the top last year but didn't get it quilted until this year. (I have a couple of smaller tops waiting to be quilted.) This pic was taken this spring -- note the azaleas in bloom. 

And, a close up view. Below that is a picture of the front and back. 

Next up is Traffic Jam, quilt pattern is by Pat Sloan and a free version can be found on her web page here. She also has a pattern for sale which has 3 additional sizes. You can check out a couple of different colorations here as well as finding the link to purchase the pattern. 

I've made a couple tops/quilts using the pattern. One I decided to use 2" squares since I had a ton of them. But I don't remember if this was it or one of the others I've got hanging around.  I used Susie's magic binding on this one.  

I don't remember the exact measurements but both of these quilts are basic lap quilts.  I'lll have to check my pile of finished quilts to see whether these have been donated or not.  

Please take some time visiting the following Linky Parties.  I used to post often on Fridays and these were my go-to blogs. 

Needle and Thread Thursday 

Beauties Pagent

Finished (of Not) Friday 

Off the Wall Friday 

I'm leaving you with a picture of my friend Sharon's really old sewing machine. She doesn't use it but it is fun to see it and the booklet and supplies for it. 

This is a National Rotary sewing machine that was owned by Sharon's grandmother. Sharon has the Certificate of Warranty dated September 9, 1938. Notice the boxes (tied with string!) and the manual by it. Evidently it had a table it could be set into also.  

Do you have any antique sewing machines in your life? 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie

Monday Meandering -- 6 - 24 - 2024

It was a great week for sewing. I went to my guild's sewing day before the evening guild meeting on Wed.  I know I can't spend a whole day out and about but I did pretty well getting to the sew in a bit before 3 and getting some string blocks started. I didn't finish them because I usually use half square triangles for the corners and the ones I brought to use were too small. Bummer.  I like the fact that I always have strings and phone book papers cut to size ready to go.  It didn't take me long to pack up and go. Funny that I didn't think to put that on my goals list last week. Nonetheless, it was a great sewing week. 

6/17/24

✅Make 2 more placemats — done and turn into guild. 

✅Quilt a bit more on the seaside picture — done, still have to tie off some threads. Wait, no, I didn't finish the whole thing I just did more quilting on it! 

✅Bind string quilt — finished. 

✅Lay out the blue blocks from FCQ EQuilters and sew into top — the blocks are on the design wall. More are being made before it can be sewn into a top. 

✅Finish the inner and outer border on the stars quilt — done and returned to the guild. 

Here are some of the blocks that FCQ Equilters sent me on my last turn. I picked out the ones that had some other colors in them and then started making some more.  Does that yellow stripe one bother you?  It screams at me.  I probably will remove it and make something else to go there. (These are made in pairs so I'll probably take out both of them.) You'll be seeing more of these blocks in the future. I probably have enough for another fairly big quilt.  I'm making this the size the guild requested for seniors -- 40" x 60". 

One goal I really wanted to get done was finish the star quilt for Virginia Star Guild. You can read the background story here and here. All I had left to do was to put the borders on, one with mitered corners. Ugh. I used the 6.5" cut borders that the woman who had been making the quilt had precut.  I whipped out my trusty book on making mitered corners to see how to do it. Many years ago I took a class with Susan Cleveland to learn how to do mitered corners. She had a great book, Marvelous Miters, available so I bought it for future reference.  It was pretty much easy peasy using her directions. 

I found it interesting that you can't see the miter because the border fabric is so busy.  Luckily, I will not have to quilt this one.  I can't see doing an edge to edge quilting design over those gorgeous stars. Hopefully another long armer can do a great job on it.  It's good to have this done! 

Here's what I hope to work on this week. 

6/24/24

Finish blue blocks and sew into top

Quilt one of my quilts

Bind one of my quilts

Keep working on seaside top

Cut out a kit for July retreat 

I'm glad I made it to the guild sew in last week because I always take my featherweight (FW) sewing machine since it is very portable.  Although I really like my FW unfortunately it is really slow.  I've compared my FW with friends who have them and, yep, it is s-l-o-w. Which got me to thinking about a very old Elna Carina I have.  I stapled the receipt to the instruction book so I know it will be 40 years old on July 16th. (I paid $909.48 for it.)  Within the last 10 years I had it serviced and put back into working order. Except, when I took it to a class it didn't work. I can't remember if I tried it after that day but I decided it was time to figure out what was wrong and whether hubby and I could fix it. 

Surprise, surprise! It works pretty well. Except, the light didn't work. In fact, there was no bulb in the socket. Except, there was the remnant of the bulb. Took hubby quite a while to get it out. Thanks to Amazon, a new bulb arrived the next day. Light is restored and the machine works. It's a little clunky but it definitely sews faster than my FW. I plan to take both the FW and Elna to the retreat I'm going to in July. Hubby also made wooden pieces to hold up the plastic insert I had for the sewing desk. (Don't cry -- but the insert only cost $9.00.)  Here's what it currently looks like. 

The other bonus to this machine is it is lightweight.  I think it is even lighter than the FW. I'm not sure it will last long as it really sounds like it is old when I sew. I'm happy to give it a try and hopefully it will work well for me. 

Stitching Stuff -- 

Yea me! I again was able to stitch every day.  Here are the latest numbers. 

W/ending 6/23 — 175 days in to 2024. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/June = 23/23 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 168/175 days
• Success rate = 96%

One of these days I'll share some of the finishes I've had since the beginning of the year.  I tend to post only 1 time a week and don't want to spend anymore time.  Ok, I'm reading and sewing and knitting so why would I want to stop what I love to post something else?  To combat my inertia, I plan to write a post earlier in the week and then post it later in the week. (Don't hold your breath, I haven't done well getting a second post done this year, but I will try.)

I'm linking with these parties -- Oh Scrap, Life in Pieces, Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musings.  Hope you find a lot of inspiration surfing this week. 

The bunny from last week has been showing up and perhaps is living under some of our bushes. He's eating the hostas.  Darn him.  Why couldn't he chomp on the little purple flowered ground cover that goes all over the place? Sigh. 

Happy Quiting All! Bonnie