Monday Meanderings 1 - 15 - 24

We finally were able to meet up with both of our kids and all the grandkids this weekend.  We celebrated with our daughter's family on Christmas Day.  We all ended up at our son's house on Saturday afternoon for present swapping, chatting, and simple food.  That means I can finally show some of the Christmas presents I made last year.  But first let's look at the goals' list from last week.  It was a good week. 

1/8/24

✅Finish 3 yard quilt top — done.

Make ✅backing for and ✅quilt small strippy quilt.

Start on UFO appliqué block — Started but realized I didn’t want to make more blocks. The plan is to use a setting from Circle of Nines book. 

Bind 30 Something quilt and strippy — neither got done!  

✅Iron one or ✅two backing fabrics  -- done and sewn together.

I was happy with what I got done.  I did get the last box of fabrics washed, dried, and folded. It will be going back to the guild Wednesday so it can be used in more quilts for our community projects. 

Here's what I'll be working on this week. 

1/15/24

Bind 30 Something and Strippy quilts

Load and quilt another quilt

Work on Appliqué quilt

Make more Bow Tie blocks, start blocks for FCQ Equilter 

Start ripping out row of Ombre quilt 

Cut out a bricks quilt 

Yes, I decided I'm taking one of the rows out of the Ombre quilt.  It shouldn't take that long to rip out the stitches.  But I'll have to move the setting triangles too. This quilt isn't on the top of my to do list but I will start ripping out the stitches during my weekly hand stitching group. The group is always entertaining and ripping stitches will get done fairly quickly. 

Speaking of the grand's ornaments I can now share all of them. First up is all four together. 

These were from a kit by Rachel's of Greenfield. I changed up some of the designs by adding buttons on the cuffs rather than embroidering snowflakes along with other things. I also swapped out some of the felt with other colors.  Here are each of the designs up close. 

My thought on the ornaments for 2024 is to do something machine embroidered.  Although, I may change my mind before I actually start on them later in the year.

The big homemade gift for this year went to our son, Kevin.  Years ago he gave me two big bags of t shirts.  No ideas were given on which t shirts were the most important. What he might like color wise, etc.  I let them sit in the quilt closet for years.  I made our son-in-law his quilt. Someone paid me to make another t shirt quilt. I waited a bit more and finally, this year, I decided it was time to do it. I don't particularly like making t shirt quilts although the recipients generally love them. He had totally forgotten about them. (Or maybe he lost hope that I would use them!) 

Here's his first look in the gift bag. 

And then he was taken with the first shirts he really noticed. Yea, he was really touched about the whole thing. But he really liked the two white shirts center front. They were from his wedding day 5K. Yep, we all did a 5K the morning of his wedding. One shirt says "Aimee and Kevin's wedding day 5K." Then there is a picture of his dog, Cassie and the words "Cassie Sponsored."  The one below that was from the back of the shirt and has a picture of Homer and the words "Homer Approved!" Homer was Aimee's dog. They both loved them included in the quilt.

Now for the full quilt picture. Hum, their daughter was peeking out and has her tongue out for some reason. (Almost every picture I took of her this weekend that tongue is hanging out! What??)  There were a lot of shirts for races (running and biking), some from rowing in college and one from the music school in college. Sorry this one isn't the best picture.  You can see the shirts better in the next one which was taken while I was working on it. 

The backing was the same as the border. The binding was the same blue grunge used in the quilt.  The quilting pattern is Rhapsody E2E with Puppy Paws from My Creative Stitches. Kevin and family are all great dog fans hence the Puppy Paws in the quilting design. 

I did really well with 15 Minutes to Stitch this week. Even the day we went for our family Christmas get together I was able to get 45 minutes of stitching in before we left!  Here are my  results. I'm really happy. But I know there will be some days I won't get any time but in the meantime I'm in the stitching zone! 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Jan = 14/14 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 14/14 days
• Success rate = 100%

It's time to move on to the Linky Parties. Let's check out what's happening with quilters by using these links. 

Oh Scrap

Life in Pieces

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings 

It's time to get to bed! Morning comes early and there might be snow! If it isn't there first thing in the am there's a continued chance during the afternoon and evening.  I can't decide if I like that or not but I have plenty of things to do to keep busy! 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 3 - 15 - 2021

Today I'm sharing the T shirt quilt I made over the fall and winter.  Truth be told I ignored the T shirts for almost a year before starting on them.  You can see them laid out in this post. I didn't share any other pictures from what I can tell.  So today, a few more pictures. The quilt has been received by the customer and she was happy with it. 

First up just the shirts with coping strips to make them all fit together.  The customer determined the placement of the shirts and I made them fit together. 

There were some really cool shirts including a shirt from a Pike's Peak Marathon and the 100th Anniversary of the Boston Marathon.  

I needed to figure out how to make it a twin size quilt as it was pretty close to being able to be used on a bed. The name of the runner was added. I picked friendship star  blocks to fill in the height needed to be bed size. 

Notice no feet under the quilt.  Pat had to stand on a step ladder for this one.  And, because it was a gorgeous day after a lot of snowy and sleety days here's one from a distance with a little bit of snow. 

Unfortunately, I didn't take any closeups nor any of the back.  It was quilted with an allover basic stipple.  The backing and binding was the same grey as the front.  I still have one more T shirt quilt in me -- my son handed me 2 big bags of shirts from his running and rowing days several years ago.  He'll probably be waiting for a while before I tackle his T shirts.

Next up goals  --  Last week's goals:

3/8/2021

Begin March table runner ☑️ Background pieces are ready to stitch together. 

Quilt customer’s quilt Started but ran into issues but now resolved.

Start a flannel quilt use some pink and purple flannel☑️ Done and ready to quilt.

Finish planning the Anniversary quilt Nope, didn’t even look at it.

This week: 

3/15/2021

Put March table runner together

Quilt customer’s quilt 

Quilt one of my quilts

Put together the chunky churn dash quilt 

Prep doggy tumbler quilt — what should go with the dog fabrics & cut it out 

That's it for me today.  Check out my regular linky parties.  Hopefully I'll get them linked as they become available.  Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, and To Do Tuesday.  Woot! Woot!  It is Tuesday morning and I'm linking up to To Do Tuesday.  (some weeks  I forget all together, others I'm late to the party!) 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meandering Plus

Yea! It's November.  Tomorrow is Election Day.  Please VOTE!  There has been a wonderful turn out for early voting -- thanks to everyone who took this option.  Please be patient with getting results.  Because of the overwhelming number of ballots that have been turned in it is doubtful that we will have the outcome of the election on Tuesday night.  Be PATIENT.  Keep quilting! 

First up I'm sharing my October statistics.  What a month.  I don't normally have double digit fabric numbers both coming in and going out.  Getting 5 quilts finished last month is amazing.  (Don't worry I doubt if I'll keep up that pace!) 

2020	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
Oct	13.250	72.125	16.750	86.50	14.375

This month I was worring that I had bought more fabric than I used.  Much of the fabric purchased early in the month went to backings.  Close to the end of the month I bought some solids, one for a T shirt quilt I am making for a customer but the other pieces are on speculation. But I did continue to use more than I brought in during October. 

Now my November OMG. 

 

My Goal for November, 2020 is to prep 15 t shirts by cutting, stabilizing and beginning to sew sashing on.  

Ok that's the goal I'm admitting to the world, but I would really like to get the top done and quilted.  (Don't hold your breath... but wouldn't that be wonderful?)  I've just measured the quilts and the widths vary in size by 8" or so. I will need to talk this over with the customer as some shirts don't have enough fabric to all be cut the same width so the sashing in between will be different widths.  Luckily only one has important info on the back so that shouldn't be too hard to incorporate.  I need to spend some time with a pencil and my quad ruled paper. 

That's my plan for this month.  Tomorrow or Wednesday I'll post my goals for the week. (First I need to figure out what those goals are!) 

I'm linking up with my regular Monday parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, and Design Wall Monday.  Let's surf! 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 12 - 30 - 2019

Now I can share pictures of some of the secret projects I was working on over the last two months or so.  First up the t shirt quilt for Brian.  

He gave me a stack of shirts from his days in youth recreation programs. The sizes were all different -- from about a size 5 to adult.  Most were from his hometown's parks and rec program.  I let them age for a couple of years.  OK I was procrastinating.  Part of the time I was looking for fabric that would work with the shirts. I finally found this black with multicolored dots on it. 

You can see a little of the quilting in this one.  Brian's sport is soccer and most of these shirts were for soccer teams when he was a kid.  I found a great soccer ball quilting design and used it. Lynne's Soccer Ball is available at Intelligent Quilting. (PS it's on sale now!) 

I also found a great soccer print for the backing of the quilt. You should be able to click on it and it will enlarge which might show the quilting design better.  (Fabric came from JoAnns.) 

I was tickled with Brian as he had no idea I actually had been working on it.  He was surprised that so many of his numbers were "10".  He spent quite a bit of time checking it out.  His mom was there too and she really liked it too. 

Luckily this isn't the last quilt of 2019.  Here's one that just needs it's binding put on. This space quilt will be the last finish of 2019. I'll share more of it after I get that done and have time for a photo shoot. 

Space Quilt - 2019. Omni thread, Fern Gully quilting design.

Every year I make ornaments for the grands.  This year I decided I would see what was available in embroidered designs.  I also was given some metallic threads that a friend couldn't get to run nicely on her machine so I decided to try them with this star design.  This is Nordic Christmas Ornament - Star from Embroidery Library. Here's the front. 

And now the back. I really like that I could embroider their names and dates on the back.  On the other hand I made quite a few errors getting to four finished ornaments.  Maybe I'll do embroidered ornaments for next year -- in July! 

I'm saving a few of the items for my next post.  I made more of my presents this year than I normally do.  Hopefully I got pictures of all of them too. But I was so happy to mess around in my studio working on quilts a couple of days after Christmas. 

I'm linking up here: Oh Scrap, Monday Makings, and Design Wall Monday. I'm looking forward to a leisurely scroll through the end of the year web sites. 

Happy New Year and Happy Quilting  Bonnie