October 2024 PHD Report

It's been a very weird autumn. October was cooler than September, but not by much.  My sewing room was my preferred location for most of the month. That means I have lots to blog about for the October PHD Report posted over at P Designs USA.  

One more finish in October brings my total to 5.  Not too shabby for me. I'm hoping for at least one more finish before the end of the year.  It won't be my best year ever for finishes, but definitely better than I've done the previous 3 years.  

Diatom (Dancing Lights) (Quilting Jetgirl) was my finish for October.  This quilt was started in 2023 and was on my "to be finished list" for this year.  It's a wedding gift for some of Grad Girl's good friends. I'm thrilled with how it came out.  It was hard to part with, but it's going to a good home. It was gifted last weekend and she was assured they would definitely use it to cuddle under this winter (assuming it's going to get below 80 at some point in south Texas).   

In addition to the finish, there was good progress on several other projects this month. Chocolate Marshmallows (Seabreeze Quilts) was started in 2014. It's on my "quilts to assemble" list for this year.  I finally decided on a setting for the blocks and got started on assembly.  At the end of October, all the sashing was made. Since then the rows have all been sewn together and I've started on the borders.    

Squared Away (So Scrappy) is another project on my "quilts to assemble" list. This project was started in 2018.  After dithering about the setting for years, I finally took a good look through the fabric closet, found a couple of fabrics that would work with the blocks. That pretty much decided the setting.  The sashing, corner stones and border strips were cut for our Girl's weekend.  I've since worked out the block layout but haven't started sashing the blocks yet.  

There was just one orange block left to complete for Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) at the end of the month.  I started back on the red blocks and will probably work on those till the end of the year.  

There was some progress on the leaders and enders project, the Simply Sensational Summer Scrap quilt (Kevin the Quilter).  Another set of 10 blue 4-patch blocks were finished and another set of yellow 4-patches are under construction. This one has been slow going, but that's what happens with leaders and enders.   

Grad Girl asked if I had a quilt she could give to her group's departing Post Doc.  She looked over what quilt tops I had done and picked out String Lights (Meadow Mist Designs) as a good option. But she thought it needed to be a bit bigger and really needed borders. The borders were added, the backing made and both pieces prepped for quilting.  It's been packaged up and shipped out for quilting.  This will probably be my last finish for 2024.  

 

The October block for the Guild BOM was finished pretty early in the month. The November clue covers one of the pieced borders. 

October's clue for the Marble Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) was also finished pretty early in the month.  So I'm ready for November's clue when it comes out tomorrow.  For some reason my digital camera has a hard time capturing purple accurately. The photo on the right is closer to the actual color of the fabrics than the one on the left.  

By the end of October I had made progress on each one of the projects on my 2024 quilt plan. 

Not all the projects show a change in status in my bar graph, but that's OK, I can see progress in my photos. It's been a good year so far and there are 2 months left in 2024. Well, maybe just a month and a half with all the holidays.  Even so, there is still time to make some progress on several projects before year's end.   

To Do List for the Week of 11/5/2024

It's been nice to be home for a stretch.  I was able to get some chores done last week that really needed to get done.  It's easier to wander off to the sewing room if the house is at least reasonably in order.  The sewing room time has been paying off, there was good progress on last week's to do list. 

To Do List for 10/29/2024

1. String Lights: Package and mail out for quilting ✔

2. Chocolate Marshmallows: Continue assembly ✔

3. Wild and Goosey: Continue making blocks ✔

4. Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt: Continue as leaders/enders ✔

Last week's list was pretty simple. Simple seems to be working for me, so this week's list will be just about the same.   

To Do List for 11/05/2024

1.  Chocolate Marshmallows (Seabreeze Quilts): Work on borders

I like nested borders and this quilt will have 4 total.  The first one is done and the second is started.  Hopefully I can finish all of them this week or at least get close.  

2. Squared Away (So Scrappy): Start sashing blocks

It was hard to come up with a layout for all the blocks.  I played with the blocks over the weekend and finally ended up on the phone with Grad Girl for some brainstorming.  I think this is pretty close to a final setting. I might move a block or too before I get serious about adding the sashing.  This is another quilt where I didn't really give any thought about how all the blocks would go together.  It's scrappy, anything works. Right? 

3. Guild BOM: Start pieced borders

The quilt has a flying geese borders on the top and bottom.  That means something like 28 flying geese.  That may take a couple of weeks.  

4.  Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Continue to work on red blocks

More triangles were cut from the scrap bins.  I don't have a very large variety of reds, hopefully there is enough so not all the blocks look the same.  

5.  Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter): Continue as leaders and enders. 

I need 200 plus blue 4-patches and more than 100 yellow 4-patches for my version of this quilt.  Lots more to make. It's slow going, but slow is still progress.

That's my list for the week. Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.   

A Bit of This and That

Have you adjusted to time change yet?  It's nice to have the sunlight in the morning, but it's not fun for it to be dark by the time My Guy gets home at night.  For some reason, it's harder for me to go back to the sewing room after dinner once the sun is down.  Not sure what is up with that, but that's been the case for a while.  I'll have to get myself going to the sewing room earlier in the afternoon for the next few months.    

Most of my focus this week has been getting Chocolate Marshmallows  (Seabreeze Quilts) assembled.  

I'm happy with how it's coming together and like the setting I chose.  The colors look muddy in the photograph, the pink is much brighter then shows in the photo. Now I'm on to adding the borders.  I should have one more finished quilt top added to the closet before the end of the month.

The other thing I did this weekend was some serious fabric closet diving to find fabrics for this year's Bonnie Hunter mystery, Old Town.  

My thought was to use light and dark teal as the red and coral.  But my stash didn't support that color choice. I decided to keep the teal print and pair that with light and dark brown that would work with off white odds and ends in the stash for a semi-scrappy background.  The browns looked muddy, but there was a red that was in the stash that worked well.  The gold fabric is new as I didn't have anything else in the stash that seemed to work.  This isn't a color palette I've used before and I'm excited to get started. Are you doing the Bonnie Hunter mystery this year?   

Linking with Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 44 of 2024

Is it really November?  October seemed to just speed by.  With the holidays coming up, I'm sure it will be January before any of us are ready.  Even so, I'm hoping to get a bit more done on my projects before the end of the year.   

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Oct = 31/31 days
• 15 minute days/Nov = 2/2 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 307/307 days
• Success rate = 100%

Keeping my stitching streak going into November has been a lot of fun. I'm hoping I can manage to keep it up in November. Things get dicey in December.  Even so it's been such a good year on the making time to stitch front.  

Progress on the stash reorganization has been a bit here and there the last few months. I did manage to get a bit more fabric pressed and refolded.  

There are just 4 yardage pieces left to press in the bin.  I should be able to empty the bin next weekend and then refill it with whatever prewashed yardage remains from the top of the wire rack in the fabric closet.  The progress on the stash reorganization has been really good this year. Still lots to do, but there has been a lot of progress. 

So how are you doing as we start the next to last month of 2024?  Have you met your goals or have you just decided what's not done can just be added to your 2025 goals?  

 

Week 127 Photo Challenge: Smoke

It's been 5 weeks since my last photo challenge post.  The main reason the challenge was on hiatus was Grad Girl's big exam that required a lot of effort to get ready for. Now That she's past that and a lot of our travel is done for a bit, we were all ready to get back to getting photos for the last challenge. 

This one was harder than we expected.  To be honest, I struggled the most.  I didn't get my photos till last night and it took some set up and patience.

Kate: Just Smoke

It took me several attempts at generating smoke before I found one that worked. But all the effort paid off, I ended up with several shots that were interesting.  This one was my favorite. 

My Guy captured this shot on his way out of town to photograph the comet.  

My Guy: Distant Fires

 

It's been incredibly dry here. We'd not had any rain for two to three months. We did finally get some rain on Wednesday and the forecast is for a rainy weekend.  It's definitely needed. There were grass fires one county over from us that required evacuations last Tuesday. I think the firefighters were able to prevent any homes from burning, but it was definitely scary for the residents.  

Grad Girl as usual found something from her experiments. 

Grad Girl: Toxic Orange Smoke

It may be a little hard to see, but there is a definite cloud of orange smoke (technically it's a vapor) in the flask.  This is red fuming nitric acid, which is very concentrated nitric acid and a very dangerous inhalation hazard. It's one the reagents Grad Girl uses in her lab work.  If you were to buy a bottle of nitric acid for general lab use, the concentration of that nitric acid is about 68% (the rest is water). Red fuming nitric acid is 86% nitric acid. Definitely a liquid that has to be handled in a well functioning fume hood.  

My Guy and I thought this challenge was hard. He pulled the card for this week's challenge.  It's harder. 

    

I actually have an idea. We'll have to see how that pans out. Should be another interesting week of photos.