Monday Meandering 10 - 21 - 2024

 It was a great retreat weekend!  The weather turned a little colder than normal.  The lows were in the 30s! Yikes. Highs ranged from the low 70s to the 50s.  That was ok -- another reason to stay in a quilt.  I didn't take any walks except to the cafeteria, around the sewing room, and walking to our bedroom a couple of times each day. Most days my step counter was over 10,000 stitches.  

I didn't have a huge goal list last week. Here's what it looked like. 

10/14/24 

✅Have a great time at retreat — I had a wonderful time.

✅Make at least 4 tops from kits — finished 5 tops and got 2 others started! WOW

Quilt one of my quilts after retreat — nope.  

I brought 8 projects to work on.  One wasn't even looked at.  Two need to be finished. See below for the specific projects I worked on.

Here's what I hope to do this week. 

10/21/24

Finish Frolicking Frogs top started at retreat

Wash new fabrics 

Put two borders on 3 yd quilt started at retreat

Bake some items for the annual community craft show

Clean up some of the stuff on the cutting table

Quilt one top 

Sharon and I set up our tables and got to work right away.  She had to leave Thursday morning as her son was getting married Saturday night.  This picture shows some of our finishes before she left.

Her items are on the left: 2 3 yard quilts and a baby quilt using 2" squares. (She had sewn most of the squares together before retreat started.) My items on the right included 2 framed 9 patch quilts, a 36" baby quilt, the unfinished 3 yard quilt and a doll quilt top.  (The framed 9 patches came from the FCQ Equilters group so all I did was sew the two tops together.) The doll quilt only needed two borders sewn on. 

One of the reasons I had such successes at retreat is I precut my projects. Last year I made a big cutting booboo at the beginning of my major project and it was downhill from there. Lesson learned. So I made sure I picked easier projects and all were ready to just sew away. 

Here are pictures of some of the projects: 

I have so many of these blocks from the EQuilters.  I sewed this 4 x 4 top and a 3 x 3 top. And, there are a lot more blocks to make into more tops. 

This is a 36 x 36" baby quilt using the leftover fabric from Boxes and Bows quilt. It was a free pattern shared on this blog: https://www.sameliasmum.com/2014/11/one-block-baby-quilt-tutorial.html#google_vignette. 

Here's a closeup of the center buggies. People either see the buggies or, surprisingly, see peacocks.  More than 1 saw peacocks.  Strange, huh? 

This is another 3 yard quilt.  I was expecting it would sew up really quickly.  Um, no.  It wasn't all that fast. 

The yellow was suppose to be the next border but I didn't have enough of it left. Bummer.  So on our shopping trip to Fork Mountain Quilting I was able to find a pinky/red to use as the next border.  It ends with a bigger border of the turquoise fabric.  I need to wash the pinky fabric before I can sew it into the quilt. 

My last finished top to share is a Jelly Bean top. It takes me quite a bit of time to cut out all the pieces for this block.  But it's a snap to sew up this log cabin style quilt. For this one I used a kid's print for the center block. You can find instructions for this very easy block designed by Pat Sloan. If you want to make one check out the directions here.  

I've worked hard this week to make sure I got my 15 minutes of stitching each day.  Friday after driving home (4 hour trip!) I whipped out my knitting and spent 20 minutes working on a little hat.  I was surprised I wanted to spend more time in my studio on Saturday. Sunday afternoon we were going to watch a granddaughter's soccer game.  I spent the morning stitching and then later afternoon we went up to watch the game.  So, yes I stitched on something every day this week. 

W/ending 10/20  — 294 days in to 2024. 

• 15 minute days/Oct = 7/7
• 15 minute days/2024 = 284/294 days
• Success rate = 96.6%

Not bad.  I've only missed 10 days this year.  I make a point to sit down and stitch on days I'm on the go a lot. Normal at home days I spend several hours sewing.  I've got a LOT of quilt tops that need quilting. So I'll be trying to get more tops quilted over the next few weeks. I have several quilts I want to stitch on my domestic machine.  I hope to pin one and get it quilted soon! 

The retreat was held at Smith Mountain Lake in south west Virginia.  I snapped this picture on my way out on Friday.  The little blue on the right of the tree is a bit of the lake. At the 4 H Center the lake view is even better.  I'm already looking forward to next year's retreat. It's a fun group of quilters. 

Please take some time to visit the following Linky parties. Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musings. Have fun seeing what people are working on this month. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 5 - 29 - 2023

This week zoomed by with a lot of studio time and way less reading than some weeks.  I guess if I read I don't get as much stitching done.  The book has to really draw me in and the one I was reading earlier in the week didn't. The next one up did. Have you read any of Sherry Thomas's Lady Sherlock mysteries.  I just finished #7 and it did grab me and kept me. I've enjoyed all of them -- some as audio books and some as ebooks. Evidently it didn't cut into my stitching time all that badly as I got all my goals done! Whoop,!Whoop! Let's take a look. 

5/22/23

✅Mail two packages of blocks out -- sent out Friday and I bought a pair of shoes.

✅Finish fusing & trimming tee shirts for a quilt -- all done.

✅Put border on APQ UFO for May -- mitered and sewn on in two different colors, fancy! I also need to quilt it but haven't decided what how to yet.

✅✅Trim and bind 2 quilts -- Finished both of them.

Here's Sheep in Boots -- quilted and bound. (Too bad I never think about getting a label on before I sew the binding on!) 

And an up close view. . .

I used Ginger Flower for the quilting design and So Fine thread.  This will be going to a local hospital's NICU via my local guild, Virginia Star Quilters. 

Here's what I'll be doing this week. 

5/29/23

Hem a couple of pairs of pants

Make 2 Flower Song Blocks 

Finish 3 RSC blocks 

Put border on grapes quilt

Doesn't seem like all that much to me so I might work on some other things. You won't see much about the t shirt quilt again until late June or possibly July.  I've got a plan to get one part completed every month until the whole quilt is done. Here's part of one of the tee shirts already trimmed and stabilized. The hard part is coming -- figuring out where each shirt is to be placed and what fabric I'll add to it. 

Yep, you might have guessed, this is a a triathalon tee shirt. My son used to do a lot of running and biking. Please don't tell him I'm working on his quilt. (Yea, I know you don't really know him and I am hoping none of the family actually reads my blog!) 

I finished everything on my Goals List early Sunday afternoon. So, I decided I would try a block I'd been wanting to make for a while.  This is called String Bean and is 12.5" x 15.5" unfinished. It uses mostly 2.5" strips.  I have a slew of them and I thought this might help me get rid use them. Here's a link to Pat Sloan's pattern in case you have lots of strips too. This log cabin variation is very easy especially if you have a lot of precut strips or you've got leftover jelly rolls. 

My plan is to use a solid or reads-like solid in the center and then surround it with a colors drawn from multi-color fabrics that I'll also use. I was surprised to find this very nice hand dyed fabric in a scrap basket. It was a pretty big scrap and I have no idea why I would have thrown it in the basket instead of my hand dye box. I'm hoping to use lighter, spring colors while using up some of my smaller pieces of solids. The hand dyed pink fit right in with my plan. Time will tell whether I succeed. 

That's about it for this post. Here's my list of Linky Parties I'll be linking with:

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday 

Monday Musing 

To Do Tuesday

Take some time this week to visit these parties and join in.  You never know what great idea you'll see on quilter's blogs. 

I hope to publish my next Mysteries and Sew Alongs on Thursday, June 1. Check back if you are looking for a new sew along or mystery to do. 

I was so surprised to see my Peace Lily bloom.  I first noticed it before we went to the beach and I was so disappointed that I would miss its full bloom. I was wrong. It took several weeks to get to this point.  And, I suspect it will continue with this display for several more weeks.  My surprise at the bloom is because the plant is quite old and I can't remember it ever blooming before. Heck, I bet we've moved it at least 4 times.  A couple of years ago I separated it into two pots.  The second one looks anemic but this one has been quite nice and now the added bonus of two blooms. Do you have house plants?  I'm not much of a gardener but I do keep up with several house plants. 

It's time for me to finish this off and get on with my latest novel.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie