Monday Meanderings 5 - 20 - 2024

Did you read that date on the headline?  May 20th?  Is it just me or is the calendar flipping by a lot faster than I think it should? On the other hand I always have my goals to keep me motivated on my sewing so maybe that is what makes the days go so fast. Here's what was on last week's list. 

5/13/24

✅Quilt Jenny’s quilt — Done, ready to return to her. 

✅Put border on pinwheel top — finished, now to think of backing.

✔️Make another basket block or two — finished a bunch of HSTs but need to cut out basket pieces. 

✅Cut, ✅layout, and ✅start stitching the stars quilt top for Va Star Quilt Guild — almost finished with center portion.

✅Sew misc blocks — RSC, FCQ Equilters— finished a lot of blocks but probably need a few more Equilter blocks.

Here's the quilt Jenny asked me to quilt for her.  She loves designs by Elizabeth Hartman.  In fact the last three quilts I quilted for her were Elizabeth's designs.  Anyway, this one is a baby quilt for a neighbor.  Here's the last row or so of cats. Did I mention she likes bright colors? The pattern is called Quick and Easy Swirls available at My Creative Stitches. May I repeat that it really is a fast and easy design to stitch out?  

By the way the blue on the orange kitty's nose is blue painter tape I use to mark my rows for the computer. 

One of the things I worked a lot on wasn't even on my list.  Here's the finished Bow Tie quilt. I believe it was the April UFO challenge. I'm happy to have it to top stage. Although I might put a border on it.  What do you think? Border or no border? 

After I got it all together I decided I should have moved a block or two to get it away from a similar color.  Oh well.  It's 42.5 x 60.5".  I'll have to buy backing for it. Although I won't do it until I look through my collection of fabrics just in case. 

Here's the layout for the stars quilt top from the blocks donated to Va Star Guild.  For the most part they are beautifully done.  Although I realized as I was sewing them with the "sashing" they aren't all 12.5".  I faked it so they should come out ok.  Here's the picture I took to make sure I sewed the pieces in the right places. (Um, I didn't. I had to take one piece off of two of the blocks and resew them in the right places.) If you want to see more about this project you can look at my Feb. 15th post. The pattern I'm using ends up being square.  I'm trying to decide if I'd (or the guild) would rather it be rectangular.  It might be used as a raffle quilt for us or it might be donated to a charity so they can use it as a fund raiser.  Do you like square quilts or rectangular quilts? 

Now here's what I want to work on this week.

5/20/24 

Quilt and bind one of my quilts

Finish the inside of the star quilt for VSQ

Plan something for May UFO challenge blocks another set of large flying geese blocks 

Cut out a quilt using the scattered forest animal print 

Pull out a block set and plan a top 

Stitching Time! I've been stitching every day this week.  Most days it was in my studio quilting but one or two might have been knitting days. I've got a couple more hats done to donate. 

W/ending 5/19 140 days in to 2024. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/April =  19/19 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 133/140 days
• Success rate = 95.5%

I've share almost all of the Costa Rica trip.  I was going to combined the last two days but I think that is way too much in one blog. So I'll write a bit about our last day in Monteverde this week and next week I'll finish off our trip.  

Our last full day in Monteverde was windy — 35 mph winds whipping around when we woke up.  The whole family went to breakfast together before splitting up for different activities.  We went with our son and his family to Monteverde Butterfly Garden.  A tour guide started us indoors where they had a multitude of different live insects.  Aimee was willing to hold just about anything. She knows her bugs and likes them.  Here she is with a large cockroach.  Despite what people think about cockroaches they are very clean. 

Side note if you have kids or grands 3rd through 6th or 7th grade here's a book recommendation.  Shoebag by M. E. Kerr (also known as Mary James.) Shoebag is a cockroach who like all cockroaches are named after the place they are born.  He lives with his parents, Drainboard and Under the Toaster in a Boston apartment. Shoebag is transformed into a, gasp, person and somehow is adopted by a family.  I haven't read it in years but I remember enjoying it as did the kids who checked it out. That's where I learned that cockroaches are really pretty clean insects. 

She wanted to hold the tarantula but was told they are too fragile. Next up was the first butterfly garden.  We saw a multitude of beautiful butterflies. Bright blue Morpho butterflies were all over the enclosure.  Ellie was hoping to pick one up but no, didn’t happen.  This picture shows one with her hand giving a sense of size.  These were pretty big compared to some butterflies. 

We toured 3 different butterfly habitats.  Here’s Teddy in one of them. (I was trying to get a good picture of Ted I could use as a background on my iPhone.) 

I took a couple of picture of flowers while we were in Costa Rica.  Up first is Red Ginger (pink version..)👇

Flower 2 👇 Brazil’s White Angel Trumpet. These are pink version.  All parts of the plant are considered poisonous. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brugmansia suaveolens

Flower 3 Noble Dendrobiumis is one of the most widespread ornamental members of the orchid family. These were growing on a tree in the compound in Monteverde. 

And the last flower is a Lollipop plant. I'm pretty sure this was in one of the butterfly gardens.  

I'll have the exciting trip home next week. In the meantime I'm linking up with my normal Linky Parties: Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap,  Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musings. I hope you can take some time to go check out these Linky Parties.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie  

Monday Meanderings 5 - 13 - 2-24

It was great to be able to spend a lot of time in my studio this week.  There were no rehearsals to go to and not much reason to go out except our normal morning workouts 4 days a week. So, yep! I got all my goals done this week.  And I finished four actually 6 books and audio books this week. I'm not sure how I did that but I often have 2 books going at the same time. I did spend a lot of time reading since I hadn't been able to do that much the week before. 

5/6/24

✅Finish Ombré log cabin top — done! 

✅Keep making bow tie blocks — all blocks made for the top.

✅Continue processing scraps/fabrics on cutting table … fold and replace or cut into usable sizes — cleared off cutting mat by cutting and returning fabrics to correct locations.

✅Attend ‘Annie’ in Maryland where 2 grands are performing — great fun watching Annie Junior at their middle school.

Finished ombre log cabin top spread out to be measured.

And this week ----

5/13/24

Quilt Jenny’s quilt

Put border on pinwheel top

Make another basket block or two

Cut, layout, and start stitching the stars quilt top for Va Star Quilt Guild

Sew misc blocks — RSC, FCQEquilters

And, I had another great week for the 15 Minutes to Stitch. Sometimes it was knitting and sometimes I was sewing in my studio. I've decided both activities count as stitching along with needlepoint and counted cross stitch. Every week I stitch for all 7 days raises my success rate.  Yea. Maybe next week I'll make it to 9.5%! 

W/ending 5/12 133

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/April =  12/12 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 126/133 days
• Success rate = 9.47% 

Because I finished all my goals early on Sunday I decided I would start planning a quilt with these fabrics. I picked up the top left gold fabric on the free table at the Country Piecemakers meeting when Sharon and I went down to it in April. The following week I picked up the cute forest animals at the Virginia Star Guild free table the following week. The grey, black and orange and black plaid were in my stash.  I've gone through two of the Ursula Reikes baby books.  I only have 17" x WOF of the animal print so I am trying to pick a pattern that will let me use most of it. I should make a decision soon as to the pattern and then get it cut out.  I'm going on a retreat in July and will need quite a few cut out projects to work on. 

Now, on to more of our Costa Rica trip.  In Monteverde we went to an agro tourism farm that showed how coffee, sugar cane and cacao are grown and processed. El Trapiche tour shows a bit of the culture of Costa Rica through these crops. 

Kevin and Ellie in front of sugar cane.

Young coffee plants are nurtured until they can survive in the fields.

Our guide showed us four colors of the coffee beans.

Teddy was fitted with a basket just like a coffee picker would be.  Luckily he wasn't put to work picking the beans. 

The beans at this farm are hand picked so that only ripe beans are picked.  Many commercial coffee plantations also are hand picked as it is difficult to get machinery on the hills where plants grow.  

This was one machine used to sort the coffee beans.

Truth be known I am not a coffee drinker so I wasn't paying close attention to the coffee bean information. For more info about what happens to the coffee bean to become a cup of coffee check here.  

We also learned how sugar cane used to be processed.  They demonstrate using old equipment that squeezes the sugar out of the cane. If this was a commercial operation the juice would then be clarified, concentrated and crystallized. You can read about the steps needed to make sugar out of cane here. 

Old fashioned way of processing sugar cane.

On the tour the sugar was boiled so cane candy could be made.  The four grands had a chance to push the hot liquid around to make hard candy.  Surprisingly it wasn't all that easy.  I don't think I got more than a taste of the candy and I'm not sure what happened to the rest of it. (It was pretty sticky so the moms may have tossed it out.) 

We also learned how chocolate was made from cacao. I'm pretty sure the green one is unripe while the yellow one is ripe (or almost ripe enough.)  

We were given a taste from a raw cacao pod. 

Aimee is checking out the inside of the cacao pod.  

We were each given a taste of the white liquid that surrounds the beans. The beans don't taste very good until roasted and sugar is added. The white liquid was sweet with a hint of chocolate flavor. 

At the end of the tour we were able to sample some chocolate, coffee and a traditional taco. There is a nice gift shop where you can buy some of their products.  I bought several dark chocolate bars to take to my stitching group.  Dark chocolate which has less sugar was recommended because it holds its shape better in heat. I was afraid our luggage might ended up sitting on the tarmac in various airports or even sitting in the car as we drove back to the airport.  Most dark chocolate I enjoy but this was a higher percentage of dark chocolate than the Ghirardelli chips I buy. So it was almost bitter. 

It was definitely an informative and fun tour.  The grands were engaged most of the time.  It was pretty hot during the tour but we all seemed to enjoy it. You can read more about the long history of cacao and chocolate at this link.

I've only got two more days of the trip to share.  I haven't decided if I'll do next Monday or the next two Mondays.  Check back next week to see what else we did. 

I'm linking up with Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musing. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 5 -- 6 -- 2024

It's a late start on my blog this week.  It was a really full tiring weekend so I went to bed early instead of writing it Sunday night like I usually do.  Surprisingly I did get all my goals accomplished this week. So here's last week's goals. 

4/29/24

✅Bind quilt — done!

✅Sew sashing on pinwheels, sew quilt top — done trying to decide about borders 

✅Make more bow tie blocks — Many finished with more cut, ready to sew

✅Knit more hats — another 2 or 3 done 

✅✅Sing at Spotsylvanians rehearsal and 2 spring concerts — LOTS of singing done this week

I've changed the layout of the bowties this week.

Will you look at that? I'm missing a block in the second to last row. Never noticed until I looked at the picture on the blog. My goal is a 7 x 10 setting. So quite a few more to make. 

Here's what I'm planning to do this week.

5/6/24

Finish Ombré log cabin top

Keep making bow tie blocks

Continue processing scraps/fabrics on cutting table … fold and replace or cut into usable sizes 

Attend ‘Annie’ in Maryland where 2 grands are performing

I hope to figure out and do whatever is needed to finish the Ombre top. I decided I didn't like how big it was and I took it apart to remove one diagonal row. It's been sitting in a back room waiting for me to start on it again.  This is the week.  It should be a fairly easy fix and then I'll sew the two sections together.  (Or at least I hope it is easy.) 

Week ending 5/5:

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/April =  2/2 days 
• 15 minute days/May =   5/5
• 15 minute days/2024 = 119/126 days
• Success rate = 94.44%

Not a bad week considering how busy I was.  Most of the stitching is knitting on hats.  Although I did finish several bow tie blocks too. 

I realized I haven't been keeping up with my fabric usage versus fabric coming in.  I finally finished March statistics.  Yea! More fabric used than brought in.  Don't think I'll have such good results for April, but I might be surprised. 

2024	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out  Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
Mar	2.5	8.75	13.125	39.50	30.75

I'm posting this late so will only share one picture from the Costa Rica trip.  This is the house we stayed in while in Monteverde.  The other two houses looked pretty much the same.  It was a nice set up in a lovely setting. 

I'm going to link up with Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musings. 

And here's one last photo -- me, and the rest of the sopranos singing our  hearts out at our concert.

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Malted Mystery

I just realized today is the last day to link up my finished Malted Mystery top to Cheryl's   I'm doing a short post today to share the finished top.  Cheryl does a great job keeping the quilt a mystery until the end.  

Here's a new photo of Malted Mystery.

I really like the end result and that many of the fabrics came from stash.  But, boy the dark purple really looks dark, or really black. In real life it doesn't overpower the rest of the colors so much. 

Here's a trip down memory lane (my earlier posts) about Malted Mystery.

It's been a great year.  Many thanks goes to Cheryl for her wonderful design and a fun time.  Don't forget, her next mystery is Marble Mystery starting on July 4.

Hum, looking at the first picture with my fabrics maybe I should have realized my dark was really dark!  Oh well -- I like this quilt anyway. 

I'm linking up to Cheryl's Malted Mystery Linky Party.  It's really fun to see all the different colors quilters used to make this quilt.  Amazing finishes and fun to see the different interpretations.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

May 2024 Mysteries and Sew Alongs

I missed the start of Say It With Flowers a stitch and quilt along by Joy who blogs at Days Full of Joy.  Every month an embroidered flower design will be available free during the month it is released.  If you forget  to pick it up there is a small charge for the design.  The first month you get the setting block pattern. Joy says it’s likely the blocks will remain free for the first few months as she figures out her options as she closed her Etsy shop.  https://www.daysfilledwithjoy.com/2024/03/26/say-it-with-flowers-our-new-2024-quilt-block-of-the-month/#when-do-we-start   

Sandra who blogs at mmm.quilts has already started her annual quilt along. This year it is Luminous Layers QAL. Check out this post to get the details and catch up with the sewing. https://www.mmmquilts.com/2024/04/luminous-layers-quilt-along-schedule.html

Vintage Bowtie Sew Along starts May 14 and runs for 6 weeks. The pattern is from Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree Quilts book Strawberry Garden.  https://blog.figtreeandcompany.com/special-announcement-today-strawberry-garden-book-sew-along/ $

Material Girlfriends is hosting a 3 Yard Quilt Series sew along in 2024. I think it started in April. Here are the details: you must sign up to get a notice around the 15th of every month.  You will get a link to their sew along page which will direct you to the current free pattern. There is a small catch — you only have 10 days to pick up the pattern. **I noticed they said the April pattern will last until April 30th so hopefully you’ll be able to pick it up before it expires.** Here’s the link to the quilt along info and the link to the first pattern: https://materialgirlfriends.com/2024-3yd-quilt-series-sew-along/

Pat Sloan is offering a free quilt along called Heart of America.  Check out her post about it here: https://www.ilovetomakequilts.com/2024/04/-christmas-all-year-and-more-.html.  Here’s the link to the free pattern at the Fat Quarter Shop. https://www.fatquartershop.com/heart-of-america-quilt-pattern-free-pdf. 

Have fun checking out these mysteries and quilt alongs.  A quick tease -- Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs has announced her next Mystery -- Marble Mystery -- starting July 4.  Stay tuned for more info or visit her announcement page https://meadowmistdesigns.blogspot.com/2024/04/marble-mystery-quilt-along-announcement.html

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie