Monday Meanderings -- 9 - 28 - 2026

Boy, it's been a week.  I was off doing way more things away from home than I usually do. I made it through the week but I'm still exhausted.  Let's start with my goals. 

9/21/26

✅Bind Popsicle Quilt — Done! 

✅Quilt 1 or 2 small quilts and bind — One quilted. 

✔️Finish bright Honey Bouquet top — One more row to sew on.

Layout RSC blocks from 2025, sew together — nothing done! Oops. 

Attend ✅Sewing Expo and ✅State Fair — both done. 

I feel like I did a great job on the goals considering I was out and about so much.  Let's see what I have to show for my ✅s. 

Oops -- no pictures of the Popsicle quilt.  But I took at least one picture of the baby top I quilted late this afternoon! I'm pretty sure the bricks are 2.5" x 5" and the beige squares are 2.5".  I had hoped to quilt two but .. nope, didn't happen. 

This is only 36" x 39" give or take an inch. I finished the top in March of this year. That's a fast turn around for the quilting part.  But I did buy a navy blue backing when I was in NC this summer so this one fit well with it.  I still have nearly 2 yards of backing left! Another quilt top should get done fairly soon. The quilting design is Feather Late Than Never by My Creative Stitches.  It is a great design to add some motion to a top. I like this quilt pattern so well I'm thinking of picking another color and duplicate it. Maybe red or green. I should have lots of scraps in either color. 

Here's how far I got on the Honey Bouquet quilt.  I went wild cutting big bricks but I'm keeping this one at about 36" wide, as it is here.  I am going to add a row on the top using 4 horizontal bricks to bring it up to a size for a lap quilt.  It will go to one of the community organizations that Va. Star Quilt Guild supports. It may be a while as I need to figure out a backing. (Note to self -- Check to see if enough navy blue from the quilt above is left.....) 

Thursday I went to the Original Sewing and Quilting Expo in Fredericksburg. I spent some time checking out the vendors and the quilts.  But most of the time I was an Ambassador with the assignment to help out a teacher in one of the classrooms.  I was very impressed with both of them I helped.  The first class was about using rulers with your domestic machine. Cris Roach did a wonderful job showing how to use rulers. I particularly liked how she recommended rulers to buy - one straight and one curved. (Or better yet one that had both.) Her class was full. My job was to take tickets and keep a count of the number of people who attended.  I also helped as needed with samples.  

After 2 full hours learning about ruler work the next teacher came into the room. Eric Drexler was giving a talk on threads. I've never actually gone to a threads discussion by a professional.  He is a Sulky Educator and makes beautiful pieces.  It turns out Eric is also the son of the man who started Sulky many years ago.  He spoke about needles and lots of different Sulky threads.  Below is a Zentangle style piece he shared with the class.

I enjoyed listening and viewing the information both teachers presented.  It was a bonus that I got free admission to the Expo and basically was able to attend 2 classes for free! And, by doing so it helped my guild get free booth space. 

By the end of the day I was exhausted!  But, I was up and out to workout early on Friday. A friend had died and we attended his funeral later that morning.  One of the disadvantages of living in a 55 and older community is our friends are old. It was a nice service and a lovely luncheon held afterwards.  Hubby's small barbershop group was asked to sing at the luncheon.  

Friday afternoon and Saturday morning I spent time doing a bit of sewing and more time actually prepping hand stitching projects.  One was my on-going snowman project that I've been ignoring recently.  And the other was organizing the grand's Christmas ornaments.  I prepped 4 ornaments and one snowman for sewing while I manned Va Star Guild's booth at the State Fair on Saturday afternoon. 

HA! I got one branch added to the snowman and nothing else done of my own. Susan was sitting with me working on this fabulous witch's hat she made. You can see all the clips she used to hold the binding in place.  In the 4 or so hours we were there she was almost finished with her binding.  We also were selling raffle tickets and teaching any interested kids how to sew a button on a little fabric star they could take home.  It was a busy and fun event. I was really tired by the time I got to the car for the 40 minute drive home! 

Several of my guild friends had quilts in the fair and had won ribbons. I was particularly pleased to see a friend from my neighborhood had won a red ribbon for her quilt. Actually she entered two and they both won a ribbon! Here's Sue's sunflower quilt. I'm pretty sure she did most of the sunflowers by hand using English paper piecing method.  (I did not enter anything but I really need to think about it next year.) 

Here's what I hope to work on this week. I've got a lot planned.  And, happily not very much else happening! 

9/28/26

Finish Honey Bouquet top 

Bind small blue quilt 

Quilt another small top 

Layout top and sew 2025 RSC blocks together

Finish cutting kit for retreat 

Anything that strikes my fancy 

I somehow got 15 minutes of sewing done every day this week! Yeehaw! 

Week ending 9/27/26: 270 days of 2026.

 262 stitching days out of 270 days 99.7%

I started cutting out a 40" wall hanging to sew at October's retreat.  I finished the whites and still need to cut the floral that goes with it.  I'm hoping I can use it eventually on the quilt hanger in our bedroom.  Time will tell! 

Please spend some time checking out these blogs and the Linky parties shared on them: Stitching Time, Oh Scrap, Quilting Patchwork Applique, Design Wall Monday, Monday Musings. I didn't get to visit many this week -- just too busy! 

Have you encouraged your friends and neighbors to vote?  I make a point of reminding people that early voting is going on now.  From what hubby reports people are getting out early to vote in Virginia.  He will work one day a week for all of early voting.  And then he is a voting chief at a polling location on Election Day. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie  

 

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 

Monday Meanderings 7 - 28 - 2025

It was a great week and a great retreat.  I really enjoy gathering with these ladies, catching up and sewing.  I'll see some of them at the Country Piecemakers meeting in August. I was really successful too. Here's my goal list.

7/21/25

 ✅Attend retreat — great fun and terrific to see these friends again. 

Piece these tops in the order given as time allows:

 ✅Soho — center done, will do borders at home.

Triple Rail baby quilt — what was I thinking?  This was not a doable project! The rails were all made but the novelty fabric wasn’t right. 

  Irish Christmas (mine in spring colors!) — HSTs were sewn and trimmed. Putting the quilt together will come later. 

 ✅Cornerpost — all done. 

 ✅Pretty Please — need to find a border.

 ✅Dinos and Friends (PCQ Charity Quilt for Kids) — easy-peasy. Finished, ready to find a backing and quilt

 ✅Write article on Mysteries and Sew Alongs  — done. 

 ✅Keep working on cross stitch project bag — one thread was stitched. (Doesn’t sound like much but it is making progress.

First up, Soho. Not a great picture but you get the idea. This is a Fabric Cafe 3 yard quilt.  The beige fabric corners on the blue block should be the border on this one.  I knew I would need to use a different fabric for the border as I didn't have enough. I'll check my stash to see if anything will go with this one.  It may take a while to finish. 

Triple Rail baby quilt -- oh my goodness.  I don't know what I was doing when I cut out this "kit."  The triple rail part of this one was made although I had to cut some more strips to succeed.  But the center novelty fabric? I have about 20 8 x 8" blocks. I needed 4 much smaller squares. I decided not to cut the 8 x 8" blocks as they would work really well for a quilt bigger than 36" square. I'll find another novelty fabric to go with the rails.  Stay tuned. 

Irish Christmas is a more involved quilt.  I got all, 48, of the half square triangles sewn and trimmed.  This project might wait for my October retreat or I might sew it before then.  It is a bit more complicated to try to make it in a retreat setting -- catching up with friends, talking and carrying on. So maybe this will be done at home in the near feature.

Cornerpost is from a magazine design I had saved.  I probably won't do another one but it was fairly easy to put together.  (I turned the center row upside down so I ended up with the three light blocks all at the bottom. Bummer. But, not worth turning it around.) 

Pretty Please is another 3 Yard Quilt. I made it earlier this year that you can see here. This is a very easy, quick quilt.  The borders, in purple, will be added soon.  I like the multicolored popsicles It's a fun quilt. 

Dinos and Friends was super easy and fast to sew together. It took much longer to find all the fabrics, iron them, and cut them out than to sew it. (I love having kits to sew at retreat.) I probably should have cut out two instead of just one. I may have to find some more fabric to make another one of these quilts. 

Here's a link to Jan Ochterbeck's blog and directions for this quilt and others. This will be given through my quilt guild to a youngster in our community. 

Luckily the drive back from the retreat house was easy -- no rain, no wind just some traffic. I've already taken one nap.  I'll probably go to bed early tonight -- I'm pooped! Here's what's on the list for this coming week. 

7/28/25

Put all my retreat supplies away

Put borders on Pretty Please

Finish FCQ Equilters blocks 

Pick a top and backing and quilt it

Keep knitting on the current hat

Work on cross stitch project bag 

I definitely got my 15 minutes of stitching done this week. 

W/ending 7/27/25. 208 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/July = 27/27
• 15 minute days/2024 = 208/208 days
• Success rate = 100%

Here are a few photos of some of the other projects people were working on. (BTW -- there were only 7 of us.) 

M's lunch box from a pattern from Annie's called Out to Lunch 2.0. She had a good time making it. She also made -- get this -- tennis shoes! 

Pretty cool. I'd love to make a pair but my feet like good arch support! 

B cut and sewed this top at retreat. (It was 6 days and 5 nights, although we all left by about 11 this morning.) This doesn't do the colors justice though.

D is a Studio 180 teacher and was working on these blocks. She was able to get quite a few of them done. 

I was surprised that I didn't have more photos.  I hope my friends will share photos when their blocks becoming tops.  A lot of fun sewing was going on.  

I'm worn out. So, let's get the link-up done and call it a night! 

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings 

I'll be back to link the last two tomorrow.  I hope you can take some time to visit these Linky parties and check out different blogs around the world. 

Happy Quilting,  Bonnie