Monday Meanderings 5 - 12 - 2025

This week was suppose to be an easy week -- a little quilting, a little reading, and taking it easy. I did do a bit of all three things but we also took in a play this week -- more about that at the end of my post. Let's look at my goals for this past week. Yep, it looks great! 

5/5/25

✅Work on 3 yard quilt project — top done!

✅Layout May’s UFO blocks — laid out ready to sew together. 

✅Keep making 9 patches — a few more were done.

✅Keep knitting on yellow hat — started the decreases. 

✅Quilt a top — a happy quilt is ready for binding. 

Here is photo proof of some of those goals! 

These are my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks from 2023.  I put them on my UFO list this year and their number came up in May.  Surprisingly enough I laid these out almost exactly as shown.  My friend Sharon suggested 1 switch which lightened the first row. She was right. Looking at it as I write this, I realize I need to move the dark red in the bottom row up one row and move the orange one down.  It should lighten up the bottom row nicely.  I've been trying to decide on a border but so far I'm not that enthused with what I have in my stash.  I'm going to let that go for the time being and at least get these blocks sewn together. 

Here's the top I got quilted today.  I bought an orange cotton for the backing.  And, I used orange thread. Wild, right? There's a little bit of the backing showing at the bottom right. 

Here's one of my favorite blocks in this quilt. Yep, when pigs fly.

For this week I've given myself an extra goal.  Hopefully I'll get them all done as well as finish at least one book this week. 

5/12/25

Quilt 3 yard project

Sew May’s UFO blocks together

Keep making 9 patches 

Finish knitting yellow hat 

Bind Happy Quilt 

Iron backings 

And, I've maintained my 100% stitching every day.  

W/ending 5/11/25. 131 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/May = 11/31
• 15 minute days/2024 = 131/131 days
• Success rate = 100%

Among the sewing and reading we went to our grand's play "Princess and the Pea." It was a shortened version (1 hour.) But was really fun. Our grand was the minstrel and did a great job singing and acting. Her middle school does a musical every year so I'm looking forward to seeing what our grand might do next year. 

The only drawback of the play was getting to our daughter's house. It generally takes an hour and a half to get from our home to hers. Three and half hours later we were there. UGH Another cool part of attending the play is we were able to see the results of major home improvements they recently had done. They have a new kitchen and dining room.  It looks wonderful. And adds a lot of space to their small house. 

I washed some more fabric this weekend. And boy, was I surprised. Look at these Color Catchers and Color Grabbers. The two navy blue ones and the top right were Color Grabbers. The other three were Color Catchers.  I will admit that the 3 Grabbers had been used before as well as the middle two Catchers. I've used a piece of the same fabric last year.  I don't remember any color sheets turning navy blue.  I originally said I like Catchers better. I think I'll like the Grabbers better from now on! 

The other fun thing that happened this weekend was Sunny had a grooming date. We figured it was time to lighten up her fur coat.  Here she is before her "spa" day...

And her after picture...

Wow! It's hard to believe she's the same dog.  The only thing I'll change for her next appointment is what is done to her tail.  Her tail was broken before we got her so with her tail shaved down shows where it was broken. It looks like _|. Yep it is a definite turn in her tail.  Recently her tail was very fluffy and curly.  You can see her fluffy tail on this pic. You'll need to scroll down to Sunny on the beach. Hopefully we'll have a fluffy tail showing up in the next month or so. We're so happy that she is doing so well. 

I'm linking with the normal parties: 

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Goals and a Few Finishes

We had a great Christmas but not the celebration we thought we were having.  Christmas Eve day our son called to tell us his wife had come down with Covid. He wasn't feeling all that great and also worried about the kids.  But the gist of the conversation was they couldn't host Christmas for us or his in-laws.  We all enjoy the opportunity to catch up with everyone while having room for the 17 of us to fit in the house or play in the yard.  Bummer.  Our daughter and her husband came up with a meal at their house really fast.  (Hum, what does it say about me when I'm concerned about the meal?) We were trying to figure out if a 6 lb. turkey breast would feed 7. They came up with a meal before we could figure that out! 

I thought I'd share some of the presents I made and ones I received after I do the normal goals post.  As you can see below I did pretty well on the goals. 

12/18/23

✅Sing at Mall and a private gig — done until mid January

Quilt a small quilt — the back is loaded ... but no sewing done

✅Wrap presents — finished with a day to spare!

✅Attend guild dinner  — Had a wonderful time — so much fun

✅Make more placemats — turned in 6! 

✅Wash, dry and fold some more fabric — 3 of 4 boxes done and returned, 1 to go

The gals who plan our quilt guild holiday party go all out. It was a beautiful scene and we had a lot of fun. 

So far this week I have been taking things easy. I did think about skipping goals but decided to go ahead and make a list.  I may not get them done but that's ok.

12/26/23

Quilt a small quilt or two 

Clean up several horizontal surfaces in studio 

Pick something fun and easy and make a quilt top

Finish Dec. Clue for Malted Mystery

Relax, read, and have fun 

Since some of the Christmas presents I made have been given away I'm including photos of two of my grands in their presents.  Remember the goals to embroider two sweatshirts?  Several months ago Urban Threads had a sale on some designs just right for sweatshirts.  I sent emails to both grands and asked them to pick the design they would like.  Sophie, the oldest, picked out several and asked me to surprise them.  Argh! How to make that decision as they were very different. I finally chose the first one listed. And, luckily they really liked it -- thought it was cool.  (I liked it because it had only 4 thread colors and only 4 thread changes. Yipee!) 

Natalie chose one after some prodding from her mom.  And, evidently totally forgot about it. (She mentioned that to me Christmas Day which was nice that it was a surprise.) Unfortunately I bought the wrong size sweatshirt and didn't realize it until after I'd embroidered it.  That went to my good friend's granddaughter who was tickled to get it.  This design used 8 colors and 11 color changes.  What was neat about both of them is I didn't have to buy any threads -- I used what I have. 

It's been quite a while since I last did any embroidery.  There was a learning curve to remember (or look up) how to do things but I think there might be some more embroidering in my future. 

Hubby got me two great Christmas presents.  One was a new sweatshirt. I relate to this pile of books.  Needless to say it hit the wash and I started wearing it right away.  

My other present hubby made for me after I sent him the idea.  Have you been using wooden blocks to help make your blocks/seams lie flatter?  I had the opportunity to use some at two of the retreats this year and decided I liked the bigger size rather than smaller ones.  I heard a lot of cutting, sanding and such from his workshop but didn't know what he was working on although I was hoping. I was really happy to see this 10" block. If you don't know about using wood blocks they started out in tailoring as clampers.  Someone decided it might work well to make quilt seams lie flat and they were right.  I always use steam with my iron as it doesn't seem to do well without it. Now I steam my units and/or my finished block and pop this wood block on it. It seems to pull out the heat and moisture leaving a very flat seam. 

I used this while working on some Happy Blocks and some of the blocks for Malted Mystery.  I was very happy with the results.  I chose a 10" block because I have the 9" (fin) Accuquilt Cube so I tend to make a lot of 9.5" unfinished blocks. 

Part of what's left of this week I need to decide on which UFOs I'll put on the APQ 2024 challenge. I might also list the quilts and other items I've finished this year.  I have decided I'm going back to keeping fabric usage and purchases again.  I've done it for many years and for some reason decided I didn't want to this year.  I wish I had so I'm going back to keeping that info. I'm not sure what new projects I'll start but might I admit to having a dresser drawer full of fabric and some patterns I pulled to use together.  I need to stop pulling and start using that fabric.  I keep planning quilts but haven't work on new ones since before October.  I also plan to participate in the 15 minutes of sewing every day at Life in Pieces. Although I do tend to sew every day, I am going to include time spent cutting fabrics, or cleaning up the cutting table and the like.  It all goes into the mix and counts toward sewing time. 

That's enough for today.  Here's some different blogs that I'll be linking with.  

Midweek Makers

Wednesday Wait Loss

Im hoping to spend some time surfing the Internet.  I really don't need more ideas, but it is fun to see what is going on with quilters around the world. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

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