Stitching to the Plan?

Two weeks of January gone and two weeks left in the month.  It hasn't been a bad start to the year.  My hardest commitment to stick to is moving some of my quilt tops into finished quilts, with me doing the quilting on a number of them.  I stuck with that plan this week and managed to assemble row 3 of Kate's Choice.  

There are 6 rows in this project, so I'm half way done with row assembly.  It will be a challenge this week to switch to quilting as late night sew is on Thursday, not Tuesday.  I just have to convince myself to switch over to the walking foot on Wednesday.  That may be hard as the SAHRR first prompt comes out on Wednesday. 

I went off script by selecting fabric for a project that wasn't on my plan for 2026.  

 

Meadow Mist Designs is sponsoring a Stash Busting Quilt Along starting in another week.  Cheryl's Scenic Waypoint pattern is just sitting on my computer and I certainly have the stash.  The colorful fat quarter bundle is Quilter's Candy from Connecting Threads and so is the black I've chosen for the background.  I'm not sure how old the fat quarter bundle is. The copyright on the selvage says 2011. It could be that old. Definitely time to use it in a project. I only need 10 of the fat quarters for the throw size quilt, so I still have a bit of culling to do before we start cutting next week.     

Linking up with Patchwork & Quilts and Sew and Tell Monday.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 3 of 2026

January is more than half over. But it doesn't seem to be going as quickly as it went last year. I like a slow start to the year.  We've not had snow or ice, but it's been cold with a biting wind.  Definitely makes you want to stay home and just sew.  Which is such a hardship, right?  The weather has definitely been more conductive to more sewing time.  

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Jan = 17/17 days
• 15 minute days/2026 = 17/17 days
• Success rate = 100%

It's been a pretty good month so far on the stitching front.  I may not be staying on track with all my projects, but I've seen good progress so far on most of them.  

Has the new year been better or worse for you on the stitching front?  

Photo Play: October 2025

It's been a while since my last Photo Play post.  I need to catch up on what last year's photography looked like before I decide my photographic direction for 2026. The plan is to review and wrap up last year's efforts before the end of this month. 

Life was busy in November and December last year. After spending the last week of October in Houston with My Girl, we were back down there the last week of Thanksgiving.  Which meant I was really busy catching up at home and didn't take much time to look over my photographs.  I wasn't sure there would be anything to post, I couldn't remember if I'd taken much of anything. But looking back, we took a trip to Eureka Springs, AR early in the month.  I didn't use my big camera much, but the I-Phone got a work out.  

Fountain in Downtown Eureka Springs

Arkansas had the same warm autumn we did, things were still really green and blooming the first week of October.  

Leaf Detail

Wingstem Seed Head

Asters

Blue Asters

Some leaves were changing colors, you could find a few on the ground here and there.  

Autumn Color of a Virginia Creeper leaf

While we were in Arkansas, we took a trip over to War Eagle Mill. It's a working mill and they grind their own flour. During Covid when bread making took off, the only place we could find bread flour was to order it directly from this mill.  My Guy stocked up while we were there and we took a walk around the grounds. The mill wheel is driven by War Eagle Creek. Around one side of the mill, I found this poor fella. (Taken with a Canon 70D/Tamron 18-400 mm telephoto lens).  Makes you take that warning sign just a bit more seriously doesn't it?  

Prisoner or Victim?

We also took a day to hike the Leatherwood Lake Trial.  (Canon 70D/Tamron 18-400 mm telephoto lens)

First of the Autumn Leaves?

Lake Fauna

My Guy normally carves a couple of pumpkins before Halloween.  They were sitting in the entry way for a couple of days.  Have you every looked up close at the texture of a pumpkin?  (Canon 70D/Sigma 105 mm macro lens)

Just to show how wacky the weather was in Oklahoma this fall, the following picture was taken in late October. The roses were still blooming and the Monarchs hadn't made it all the way south just yet. Taken with my I-Phone 12. 

My photos from October look more like spring than autumn. That's just how it was this year. If I have a favorite, its the last photo. But not a bad effort for the month.  The I Phone camera works pretty well.  There wouldn't be so many nice photos, if my only camera was the DSLR.   

Getting Started on the 2026 SAHRR

I  wasn't going to play along with the 2026 SAHRR hosted by Quilting Gail.  

I had so many new starts last year and so few finishes, that my project list is longer than it's ever been.  So why add another project? Especially when I was already so far behind on the projects started in the last quarter of 2025. It's such a fun challenge and I've loved all the quilts that have come out of it.  What if I used fabric left over from previous projects? (This is why my list is so long, using up my stash is always enough justification to start something new). I found the fabric pretty quickly.   

This older Batik line from Timeless Treasures was purchased as part of a kit, but was used in a completely different project a couple of years ago. There's not a lot of yardage, but maybe I could make this work?  Was there a background fabric that would work? Yes, but there's not a lot. Some of my previous SAHRR's used a lot of background.  So limited fabric was a challenge. Could this still work?  

Looking back at the 2026 SAHRR Quilt Parade provided some inspiration and a way to deal with the limited fabric. Several of the designers made blocks, not rounds of borders for last year's SAHRR. Using Electric quilt, a design using 6 blocks arranged around a center block developed. Some fabric may need to be added for the final border, but I can work with that. Here's my center block:

 

Using left overs is challenging because you are limited in yardage, so you have to use what you have. Even though this wasn't my first choice of fabrics, it still turned out nicely.  This block is 36" X 36", so it will definitely be the focus of the quilt.  The pattern for this star came from Quilting Jetgirl's Diatom pattern, it's block 9.  The original block finished at 18", so I had to double the size of the pieces to enlarge the block. The only tricky part was the flying geese and that worked out once I played around with a few scraps to get the size of the "geese" right.   

I'm excited to get the first prompt and see what block develops from that. But before we get to that point, I'm going to check out all the other center blocks over at Quilting Gail's kick off post.   

To Do List for the Week of 01/13/2026

We'll be halfway through January towards the end of this week. It certainly does seem like time has sped up the last few years.  Maybe I just have more stuff to do?  I definitely did a lot on my to do list for last week.

To Do List for 1/06/2026

1. 2026 Guild BOM: Finish February, start March ✔

2. Kate's Choice: Assemble second row ✔

3. SAHRR: Finish center block ✔

4. Magnificent Mystery: Work on Oct/Nov/Dec/Jan clues ✔

5. Wild and Goosey: Work on green blocks ✔

This was my first week of setting priorities on what I worked on. Limiting the list and tackling the most important projects seems to have worked. though a couple of the goals just required me to make progress on a given project.  But I've found in the past that consistent progress makes a difference, so long as you limit the number of projects you include.  I'm going to stick with the strategy this week. 

To Do List for 1/13/2026

1. 2026 Guild BOM: Finish March, start April

The March block is just about assembled. I still need to go back and change the pressing instructions in the instruction file that goes out to the guild members. I finished writing the April instructions in advance of starting that block. The plan is to stay ahead this year so I'm not in panic mode at some point.  

2. Kate's Choice: Assemble third row

There are 6 rows, so I'm a third of way finished with the assembly process.  It's not coming together perfectly, but as it's my first try, I'm trying to cut myself a bit of slack with the imperfections. Done is better than perfect, right?  

3. Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Work on Nov/Dec/Jan clues

This is another project I'm making good progress on. The October clue was finished last week and I'm pretty sure the November clue will be finished this week.  That leaves me another 2 weeks to make progress on the December and January clues before the reveal comes out in February.

4. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Finish green blocks, start on blue

Just need to finish 2 more green blocks and I'm done with that color for this project.  I need to cut some blues, my scrappy triangle bag doesn't have many of that color left after last year's efforts.  

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