Monday Meanderings -- 5 - 4 -2026

What a great week I've had.  Lots of singing at rehearsals, tech rehearsal, and 2 great concerts.  Our spring concert has been held in a very nice Lutheran church in our county for a couple of years. The pastor is one of our singers and has been so giving with her time, talent and her church. In the past we haven't had huge audiences -- maybe a hundred or so.  We were very pleasantly surprised when we were told to hold off on starting the concert because people were lined up trying to park still! I never heard an official word on the numbers at the afternoon or evening concert but it looked packed. Chairs had been added in the front. Chairs were lined across the back of the room. And the crowds was engaged.  We did a lot of classic American songs as sing alongs. We sang a few standard patriotic songs.  Our three big pieces went really well. Those were America Sings, a medley from Hamilton, and Stomp from an opera by Aaron Copland.  I am tickled to invite you to Facebook to hear our rendition of Hamilton Highlights.  Here's the link to my page with the posting. https://www.facebook.com/bonnie.stapleton.52.

And, now back to my regularly scheduled post. My goals from last week...

4/27/26

✅Finish 3 more dash block, start trimming to correct size — all dash blocks finished, none trimmed. 

✅Quilt a top — just 3 of 9 rows to finish.

✅Make some more batik blocks — 2 more started.

✅Make binding and bind Bear quilt — binding made and quilt bound. 

✅✅✅Enjoy singing two concerts and one tech rehearsal —great rehearsal and two concerts with large audiences. 

Not a lot of pictures taken of items in progress.  But I have pics of the bear quilt. The bear fabric is really old but still works well in a baby quilt. I used red Sew Fine thread and Criss Cross Applesauce. This will be going to a local hospital's NICU. (Or I think that is where it will be going.) 

And here's the back and front.

I was happily surprised I was able to maintain my 15 Minutes of Stitching all week. 

Week ending 5/3/26:  123 days of 2026.

  123 stitching days out of 123 days. 100%

And now my goals for this coming week. 

5/4/26

Finish Quilting Trip Around the World for Nancy

Stitch on Snowman #2

Quilt Cats in Pajamas 

Work on UFO Challenge for May

Trim Dash blocks

Cut one quilt kit

Here's the beginning of Nancy's quilt. I believe the pattern is Scrappy Trips by Bonnie Hunter. I haven't poked around Bonnie's blog for a long time. Wow! She has a lot of great patterns available under Free Patterns, where this one is.  If you want some ideas that's a great resource. I found patterns for quite a few quilts I've made from Bonnie's free patterns over the years. 

The story behind this quilt is I was able to do a fast quilting job for my customer/friend in December. We are in the same quilting guild and she had it ready in December and I said I'd quilt it for her and the guild.  Fast forward to April when I "found" the quilt in a bag that had been covered up with other quilts. And, I'd forgotten all about it. No clue who had made it, when I'd gotten it, why I didn't write up paperwork for it.  I asked around with no one claiming it. So I took it to the April meeting and she came over to talk to me and saw it in a bag and was tickled thinking I'd gotten it done for her. OOOPS. No -- I had no clue who it belonged to! We had a laugh and I will have it done before she brings me another quilt to do this week. It's tough losing your brain. I relate to Scare Crow in the Wizard of Oz! 

Here's my UFO Challenge project for May. This is a quilt-as-you-go bargello table runner.  A friend of mine got totally fed up with it and offered it to me to finish as she didn't want to see it again! I've let it sit for a good 10 years and decided to put it on my UFO list this year. Its number came up for May.  I added two more columns to it today and will try to get it farther along this week.  Not much is happening so I might be able to get it finished except binding soon.  Time will tell. It will be a little smaller than the pattern. 

And last, here's snowman #2.  I haven't fused on all the elements. But I did start getting the jacket hand buttonhole stitched, except you can't really see the thread. I started left of his "neck" and am going down the jacket then across the bottom. Cool thing about the jacket wool is my dad bought it for me in Hong Kong in the 1960s.  He was career Navy and his ships (he was Commodore of a squadron of destroyers at that time) went to Hong Kong. I also got some beautiful pearls at the same time. Hum. Poor Mr. Snowman looks a little blank. Hopefully I'll get more done on him this week. He can't see a thing yet. 

I'm linking up with the following parties.

Stitching Time 

Oh Scrap

Quilting Patchwork Applique 

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

 

As some of you know I am a big reader. Sometimes I get inundated with reserved library books that are available for my Kindle.  That happened this past week. I turned in one or two books that weren't finished so I could read Norah O'Donnell's new book, We the Women. It has been very interesting reading about women who helped shape the United States from revolutionary times to now. The book is divided into sections based on the years. I'm starting The Gilded Age 1876 - 1926. Within each time frame several lives are covered. So far it has been fascinating. It is really an eye opener how women were nearly invisible except as homemakers.  Did you know a married woman couldn't own her own property as it transferred to her husband at marriage.  I'm looking forward to reading about more of these heroic women. 

Our country has been on a real roller coaster recently.  I keep up with the news.  I'm not happy with where we are now. But I also spend time stitching to help me keep myself centered and happy.  I hope you are also.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 12 - 9 - 2019

Lots of sewing this past week and quite a bit of singing or listening to music.  This week is concert week.  Here's a preview of my music schedule: 

Monday:  Rehearsal for Spotsylvanians
Tuesday:  no formal practice but I'll be listening to several recordings of songs we're singing
Wednesday: dress rehearsal for Heritage Singers
Thursday: concert for Heritage Singers
Friday: dress rehearsal for Spotsylvanians
Saturday: concert for Spotsylvanians
Sunday: concert for Spotsylvanians

Luckily, I still have sewing time cause I'm going to need it to finish my projects.

I didn't take any photos this week.  Heck, everything I am working on is for Christmas presents. So, there won't be many product pictures for a while. 

This week I am sharing photos from previous Christmas quilts I've made. First up is Christmas Favorites by Arts to Heart. I finished this in 2016 (or so.) But I won't tell you how many years it took me to complete! It hangs in our entry way every December. 

My next quilt is a Trip Around the World made during the summer of 2017 with Sarah of Confessions of a Fabric Addict's 12 Days of Christmas in July. I really lucked out finding all of the fabric in my stash.  And, believe me, it felt great using all of those stash fabrics.  (Hum, maybe it's time to make another TAW.) I gave this to Aimee and Ellie for Christmas that year.  (Click on the link above if you want to make one for yourself.) 

That's it for me today.  My goals are staying the same -- finish all those secret projects.  I don't think I'll be making the skirt I had planned to do as we've been able to find some other Victorian clothing to use.  The skirt will be made sometime but not under the Christmas pressure time. 

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap, Monday Making, and Design Wall Monday.  Check them out to see what folks are up to. I don't know about you, but I always find at least one quilt or project that tells me to make one like it when I surf the web.  I'm holding off starting anything new though. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

A Top is Done!

Here is my Trip Around the World from the 12 Days of Christmas Quilt Along. (You can find the beginning of the instructions at Confessionals of a Fabric Addict. Then just check her Blog Archive for July to see the rest of the instructions.  You will need to scroll to the bottom of each post to find the directions.)

I was able to pull all of the fabric from my stash.  And, quite a few were old pieces that needed to be used.  I was lucky to find a group of fabrics that worked well together. 

Can I just say how happy I am with this top? I really like how well the fabric created the darks and lights.  I'm thrilled I used up some very old fabrics. I even have one or two quilting designs I could use that will make it look even more Christmasy. I will need to find a backing for this one. Nothing in my stash will work. I'll probably do that next month when I'll be up in Lancaster county again. 

Did you enjoy your Eclipse watching?  I had a great time with some friends.  We shared my pair of glasses and we were all wowed by it.  Our area had about 85% cover but it was so amazing.  

Today I'm linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday and Midweek Makers.  Spend some time browsing through the blogs posted.  You will get so much inspiration!  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 8 - 21 - 2017

Welcome to Solar Eclipse Mania!! 

Ok, so maybe some folks are into the whole eclipse mania but we're in the penumbra section. (Yes, fancy word that means only a partial eclipse.) I have approved eclipse glasses that I'll be taking to the stitching group up at the clubhouse Monday since our eclipse time will be during our normal gathering.  So, I'll stitch a bit and watch a bit and then get back to stitching.  I'll need to figure out where I need to be to actually see it too.  Should be fun.  

On to my regularly scheduled blog.  Here's a peek at some of the projects I worked on this past week. 

The Trip Around the World is almost a top.  I've got about 5 more strips to sew and then I need to sew it together.  My granddaughter Ellie (age 3, closing in on 4) said she wants this quilt.  And yet she really wants some doll clothes for her birthday. I think I'll be making some doll clothes for her October bd. 

I used to make Streak of Lightening quilts as baby quilts.  I'd forgotten how easy they are so when I saw this blog about them I thought I'd make another one.  I used it as my leader-ender for the TAW.  Yea, I know sewing the rows was way more sewing than your typical leader-ender but I'm happy to have it done!  (You need to scroll down the blog to find the actual directions.) 

Those were the two biggies this week.  Here's how I did on the rest of my goals list. 

Aug 14, 2017

Work on Christmas TAW√

Keep hand quilting Civil War Quilt√

Quilt geese and flowers wall hanging√ started

Make backing for floral wallhanging√

Cut out a Streak of Lightening Quilt√ & main section is sewn together

Here's what I'm hoping to accomplish this 4th week of August:

August 21, 2017

Finish quilting geese and floral wallhanging

Quilt floral wallhanging

Finish Christmas TAW to top stage

Find backing for Streak of Lightening

Keep hand quilting Civil War Quilt

I'm linking up with my regular linky parties: Monday Making, Moving It Forward, Main Crush Monday and Oh Scrap. (I'll link Moving It Forward when I notice it's posted.)  Enjoy some time seeing what others are working on.  There is so much inspiration on the Internet.  

We had a couple of visitors at the house over the week. 

This little frog (maybe all of 2") was on the outside of the French door. I snapped his picture as I was bringing in the dog just before bedtime.  I love how it looks like the frog is on the chair! When I opened the door he hopped on to the side so I couldn't get a picture of him from the house to the outside. 

Kona (the black dog) had her BFF visit for the weekend.  Cassie's family was going camping and it was easier for us to have her than for her to go with my son's family.  Boy does that dog shed.  She walked into the house, shook, and left yellow fur all over the dark wood floors.  EEKS!  I took both dogs out Saturday morning and furminated them. They still kept shedding though! 

Safe Solar Eclipse Watching and Happy Quilting! Bonnie 

July OMG Achieved

Grid Lock is now a top!  And, with any luck I should have it quilted and bound by the end of the month.  I'm planning on spending the next two days to get it finished.  My One Monthly Goal was to get it to top stage and I did that by last week. So I will be pushing myself to get it totally finished.  

I should have a finished A Tisket, A Tasket quilt by Monday.  I need to get the label done for it and attached.  Believe me when I say I will be really happy to get it finished. It will be hung in the guest bedroom when totally done. 

I've also been sneaking in some strip sewing for the Trip Around the World that was the Quilt Along with the 12 Days of Christmas that Sarah Craig sponsored.    I'm not whizzing through it but I now have two of the four strata sewn.  Once they are all done I'll start slicing them up and putting them together.  I'd just finished the second strata when I snapped this picture of the back. I've pressed the seams open as instructed. If you want to make one, you can go to Confessions of a Fabric Addict here to start your own version.  This is on my ironing station Pat made for me several years ago.  Tomorrow I'll sew this one into a tube.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to keep up but the directions are there and I plan to finish soon... ok, sometime in August if I'm lucky. 

I'm linking up with Elm Street Quilts linky party for finished OMGs, Needle and Thread Thursday and Can I Get a Whoop Whoop. (I'll update with the link to Whoop Whoop when it is posted.)   Enjoy your favorite beverage and do a little Internet surfing.  Who knows, maybe you'll talk yourself into a new quilt too!  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Retreat Eye Candy!

Here are some of the projects that got worked on during retreat.  NONE of these are my projects but I sure wouldn't mind owning some of them! 

Do you remember this quilt from this post? Yes, you get to see my darling grands again but scroll down to the bottom.  There's the same quilt without borders.  Thanks go to Janice H. for suggesting the smaller pink border.  Sharon took the quilt home with her and happened to read the comments before picking out the borders.  She loved the idea and followed through with it. Janice was definitely right about this one!  I've got it to quilt it and then on it will go to Project Linus. These blocks were won at a retreat lottery several years back. 

Sharon started working on these hot chilies near the end of the retreat.  She laid them out on two different backgrounds to decide which she liked better the black or the red.  She and I both said the black as soon as we saw them together but I'm not sure I don't like the red better.  Glad it isn't my decision to make! 

MaryBeth was tickled to get this top finished -- unless she decides to put borders on it.

Sharon started and finished this cute Fourth of July wall hanging.  Directions were in  one of Quiltmaker's magazines this year. (Maybe the May June issue?) 

Michele made a tuffet for her grandmother. 

Bea put this together.  I'm not sure if it was a kit or not but I do know she started it at retreat and got it this far along. I think some borders come next. 

Dorothy was working on log cabin circles.  Don't you love her t-shirt?  There were a lot of different quilty shirts to enjoy at retreat. 

That's the end of pictures that I took at retreat.  There were a lot more projects being worked on but I just wasn't fast enough to snap pictures.  

I'll be linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday and Can I Have a Whoop, Whoop? (This isn't posted yet so I'll check back tomorrow to update it.) Take some time to visit blogs and get some great inspiration! 

Small rant -- Why does Blogger make it so hard to work with pictures?!!?  I had planned to show these pictures in a different order but as I started at the top I realized I could no longer move any pictures up or down.  Grumble, grumble.  In the end it probably doesn't make any difference at all but really, I wish it worked better.  I probably should look at Word Press one of these days. I know there are a lot more things I could control with it.... Sigh. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

A Big UFO Finish!

After 8 years I've finished my queen size Trip Around the World quilt that I started in 2006.  It started with 24 fabrics, if I remember correctly.  This quilt is done in sections.  You sew one strip of each color together into a strata.  Then you "tube" it.  You carefully lay the tube out keeping all the rows even.  Then you slice up the tube into 24 sections.  Once you decide where you want to start the pattern, you separate the two fabrics and start to lay it out.  Each slice gets the next fabric down (or up for that matter) separated from the next one.  Eventually you have 24 slices that makes up one of the quadrants.  Each row is offset by one square. Repeat at least 4 times, one for each quadrant.  I actually made extra rows so my quilt is not square.  Add a border, quilt, bind and you're done.

Some interesting statistics on this quilt.  There are 2,793 2" squares in the center.  There are 177,600 stitches in the quilting. (There may be more as sometimes the computer said there were 11,840 stitches per row and sometimes it said 12,305.  I used the lower one.)   If the stitches in a row were stretched out into a straight line it would be 1,165" long.  I find these info bites pretty interesting.

I had hoped to show the quilting close up with this picture. You can click on any picture to see a larger picture.  And here's the back.  (Hum, it seems to have a bit of fullness in it.  Definitely not noticeable on the bed.) 

I used a Pellon 100% Cotton batt.  It is definitely not as heavy as the Warm and Natural 100% cotton. It may mean we'll throw a blanket on the bed during the dead of winter.  But it will be much easier to move the quilt around too.  After the photo session I put it on the bed.  It looks good except now I need to make some pillow shams.  The plain pillow cases in beige don't look good.  The blue and yellow ones look worse.  We'll need to get some new art to put over the bed because the blue and red flower just doesn't look good anymore. Oh well.  

Here's the quilt with the binding almost finished. Pat and I agreed that I should do both sides of the binding by machine.  I am a slow hand stitcher when it comes to binding and I'm decent doing the second side of the binding by machine   I was able to put 382" of binding on in a couple of hours by machine while it would have taken me days to sew it down by hand.  

And now I can make a big √on my UFO list.  I am making steady progress on my UFOs.  Yikes, I just looked at my list.  I think this is the 8th UFO I've finished this year.  WOW.  I started the year with 55 UFO's.  Three of the quilts I finished were actually listed as 1 item.  Not bad, not bad at all.  Now to decide what UFO to work on next.  Actually, I cut out a new baby quilt today to donate to the NICU at a local hospital. 

I'm linking up with TGIFF at Quokka Quilts and Can I get a Whoop Whoop?

Happy Quilting All!  

It Might Be Time . . .

for a NEW quilt.  What?  I'm trying to finish quilts not start them.  Here's the story.

We've lived in our current house for 5 years.  We've redone several things to it.  We decorated the 2 bedrooms based on what was left on the walls and the carpet.  They both look decorated.  We put curtains up in the living room and dining room.  But, we hadn't done anything at all to our own bedroom.  White walls, white mini-blinds, beige carpet.  Ugh.  We hadn't even put pictures on the walls.  So first, we painted the walls. The fancy name for the paint is Mesa Taupe by Behr. Hum, that taupe doesn't look all that taupe in this picture but it really is a lovely shade of grayed brown.  

We've ordered new carpet. (Well, honestly, how long can we live with a hole in the carpet right in front of Miss Kona's bed?  She likes to lick and chew on the carpet there.  Jenny L. you are on notice if she chews a hole in the new carpet!)  And, look, we hung a picture.  This was one from my parent's house and I've always liked it.  That barely-there sunset (or sunrise?) really glows in this pic.  

New curtains were also in order.  Our bedroom faces the east -- we get morning sun full against the wall our bed is on for several hours.  We also get moonshine at night when the moon is doing its thing.  And both heavenly bodies have found the little space between the window frame and the mini-blinds.  I get a shaft of sunlight that hits me full in the face every sunny morning.  ARGH.  Pat, on the other hand, gets the moon shining on him when he's trying to sleep.  Brilliant solution was to get some drapes to put up that would cover the space between the wall and the mini-blinds.  BAM - problem solved.  And, oh how sophisticated the room looks. 

Except, now the quilt doesn't quite go with the rest of the room.  It's the yellow; the blue would be fine.  But the yellow -- blegh.  So, to finish a long story, we need a new quilt for this room.  But wait, I'm not starting any new quilts unless I really can see that they will be done in a short (6 months or less) time.  Not happening with an oversized queen. What's a quilter to do?  

To the UFO list! Well, I didn't really need to go to the UFO list as I knew I had a perfectly good quilt I can pull out and finish pretty quickly.  Take a look at it.  I last worked on it 2 years ago at the FCQ retreat. 

It will go perfectly in the newly redecorated room.  That should get me motivated enough to actually finish it up except I keep measuring it and I'm not sure about the amount of border I want to put on it. Hum, maybe I'll pull it out this weekend and remeasure and decide if I want a little border and then the big border as shown above.  I like the bedrails covered on the bed when made.  I'll also have to find a wide back to go with this.  It is a mix of batiks and regular quilting fabric.  It may jump ahead of my other big quilt that needs quilting.  

So there you have it. I don't really need to start a new quilt.  I just need to make some decisions and finish off an unfinished project.  And that will be a win-win situation.  Of course, I'll have to make some pillow shams too but I have quite a bit of fabric left from the trip around the world.  On the other hand I really don't like making pillow shams but to get the look I want, I'll have to do that. 

That's it for today.  I've got a quilt that needs to be loaded and quilted this week.  I've got some piecing projects I want to move forward.  And, now, I have a top to border.  

I'm connecting up with ****.  Evidently no where right now.  I had a Thursday link up to try but it hasn't been posted yet.  Do you have a favorite linky party?  Please share! 

Happy Quilting All!