2026 Quilt Making Strategies: Third Quarter Plan

Hard to believe over half of 2026 is already past. The end of the year will come up quickly. So far I've stuck to the main strategy that was posted in January, but the priorities of some of the projects has changed.  That's not so bad.  The plan for second and third quarters was to focus on moving UFOs to finished, or at least closer to finished.  I'm going to stick with that strategy.

1. Guild BOM 2026

The 2026 Guild BOM has to be finished by the November guild meeting.  The first draft of the block instructions for the last 4 blocks are written.  The plan is to get all the blocks made this quarter and start quilt assembly.  I won't be able to complete assembly until October after the last block is shown, but doing all I can this quarter will help keep what needs to get assembled at the end to a minimum. 

2. Wild and Goosey. Continue to use two blocks as my leaders and enders. The goal is to have all the blocks done by the end of the year.  

3. UFOs to be moved to finished quilt tops.    

Lupine and Laughter just needs borders, so that should be a quick finish.  Good fortune still needs 7 of the star blocks constructed before assembly can start.  I do expect that project to make it to finished quilt top before the end of the quarter.  There may be some progress on Celtic Solstice by the end of the quarter.  I'm not sure the blue and yellow scrap quilt will see any progress at all.  It would be great if I get that far.  

4. Walking foot quilting.  

I've learned that it takes me a quarter to quilt one project.  So the goal for third quarter is to finish quilting Glowing Hearts. If I can make a start on Betty, that would be a really successful quarter. 

5. External Quilting

I've changed up the priority of my external quilts.  Squared Away is a gift for one of My Girl's college buddies, so it gets moved up to next in line.  My Girl has asked for 3 more quilts as graduation gifts for her grad school buddies. I suspect one of the girls will like Magnificent Mystery, so I'm going to bump that one up too.  

If I can end the quarter with 2 more finished quilts and 2 more projects moved to finished quilt tops, it will have been a really good quarter.  

Second Quarter Review 2026: Strategic Progress?

Back in January, I drafted a strategic plan (?) for 2026.  Strategic Plan is probably a gross overstatement of what I actually put together, but it was at least a potential road map for my quilting decisions.  Now that we are in 3rd quarter, I should probably take a look at where I'm at and decide on any adjustments.  

2nd Quarter Strategy

1. Guild BOM: Finish May through October blocks.  Finish Flying geese. 

The May, June and July blocks are all finished.  The flying geese for the alternate border are also all finished.  The instructions are written for the August and September blocks.  I needed to verify the cutting dimensions for some of the pieces for the October block and that got done last week.  So I didn't get everything done, but I'm also not too far off track.  If I put focus on this project in July, I should be back on track before we got too far into third quarter. 

2. Wild and Goosey: Continue as leaders and enders project

All the blue 3.5" blocks were finished last quarter and most of the blocks were sashed.  The hope is this project will be ready for assembly before the end of the year. 

3. Move UFOs to finished quilt tops. 

Three of the 5 UFOs became finished quilt tops: 2026 SAHRR, Magnificent Mystery and Old Town.  Lupine and Laughter only needs two more borders added to be a completed quilt top.  The remaining pieces needed to assemble the blocks for Good Fortune have been cut.  The chain blocks are all finished, but still working on the star blocks.  I didn't get it all done, but at least every project on the plan is farther along. 

4. Walking foot quilting

The plan was to finish off two quilts, but only Chilhowie was finished up. Glowing Hearts has been pulled out of the closet, the batting laid out to relax and I've been contemplating quilting motifs.  So even though it didn't get done, at least there was a bit of progress on it.  Based on how the walking foot quilting has been going, one quilt a quarter seems to be my speed, at least for now.  

5. External quilting

A backing was pieced for the 2025 Inverted Star BOM. Both the backing and the quilt top were prepped for quilting.  I delivered the project to the long armer the first week in July.  So at least that one will be a finished quilt in third quarter. I didn't even touch Chocolate Marshmallow.  It's probably going to go to the bottom of the list as My Girl has picked a few quilts that will be going to college and graduate school friends.  So those will higher priority the last half of the year.  

Second quarter wasn't a total success, but I have learned a lot. I'm doing well at moving projects to finished quilt tops. That will help a lot in clearing out my UFO list. But I'm not doing so hot on either the walking foot quilting or getting quilts ready for external quilting.  It seems one quilt top for each a quarter is about my speed on that part of the UFO process. I'll have to consider if that modifies my strategy for third quarter or not.  At any rate, there's been reasonable progress on all of my "strategies".  Not a bad first half of the year.   

To Do List for the Week of 7/7/2026

My last to do list was almost a month ago.  With all the travel to and from Texas along with plans with My Girl, it was hard to assess what I was going to be able to work on. I didn't do so hot on addressing my last to do list, so I just used that one for a couple of weeks.  Even with three weeks, I didn't get to every item. 

To Do List for 6/16/2026

1. 2025 Guild BOM: Finish prepping quilt for quilting ✔

2. Lupine and Laughter: Continue assembling quilt ✔

3. Good Fortune: Continue making main blocks - no progress

4. Celtic Solstice: Cut fabrics to finish blocks - no progress

5. 2026 Guild BOM: Finish block instructions, cut pieces - progress

6. Wild and Goosey: Continue sashing blue blocks ✔

Three check marks and one item with some progress isn't bad considering I was on vacation for 10 days.  My list didn't include working on my butterfly travel embroidery project.  There was lots of progress on that.  That last list was probably a bit ambitious, so I'm going to scale it down just a bit this week.  

To Do List for 7/7/2026

1. Glowing Heart (Sandra Walker): Make backing, piece batting

Glowing Hearts was the quilt along offered by Sandra of MMM Quilts in 2025. This is the next project to be quilted on my home machine.  I have some thoughts about what to do for the back, but I need to see what if what's left over is enough.  I have a piece of batting that is definitely long enough, but is just a bit shy of being wide enough. I can certainly reconfigure the piece to be the right size.  If that gets done this week, I'll count that as good progress. 

2.   Lupine and Laughter (Bonnie Hunter): Add last border

The strips are all cut and pinned for stitching.  This should go pretty quickly and be an easy to do to check off this week.  

3. 2026 Guild BOM: Cut pieces for last 4 blocks

The instructions are written for the last 4 blocks in the block of the month series.  I need to get August's block done pretty quickly, but I'm hoping to finish up the remaining blocks by the end of the month.  Then I can start on quilt assembly. It won't be long before I need to make some progress on the project for 2027.  

4. Good Fortune (Bonnie Hunter): Continue making main blocks

I've not touched this project in the last three weeks, so I'm hoping to get back to it this week and make some progress on finishing up the blocks.  

5. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Finish sashing blues, work on teals

Only 3 blue blocks left to sash and one purple 3.5" block from June left to finish before I can concentrate on making some progress on the teal blocks.  

That's a doable list for this week (famous last words right?).  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday. 

An Interrupted Stitching Week

Last week, especially last weekend, didn't go exactly to plan. It was a good thing I set yesterday's Stitching Stuff post to automatically upload before we went to dinner on Saturday.  We beat the storm home by less than an hour.  Radar clocked the straight line wind speed at 80+ mph just north of where we live. The force of those straight line winds across the windows on the north side of the house was pretty scary. We lost a few shingles from the roof, but it was already scheduled for a new roof this year, we'll just have to do it earlier than planned.  The worst of it for us was losing power for 15 hours.  Thankfully it cooled off markedly after the storm and we got power back just before noon when it really starts to heat up around here. The city did a good job getting the roads clear quickly, it was sobering to see the number of large trees that didn't survive the winds. Lots of fences down too.   

The power outage meant my nothing but sewing Sunday didn't happen till later. We went out to breakfast as we couldn't make coffee (both of us are worthless till we get coffee).  Then we came home to work on cleaning up the yard/patio and the freezer/refrigerator.  The power was off long enough for the ice in the freezer to melt, so that was a mess. I did get a couple of hours in the sewing room late in the afternoon.  

 

 

The second border for Lupine and Laughter  (Bonnie Hunter) got added.  Just one final border and this will be a finished quilt top.  

The other thing that slowed me down this week was learning a new to me sewing machine.  My Bernina 153 is 25 years old. It still sews really well, but maybe it's time for it to be a back up machine?  I purchased a Bernina 570 a while back, but had been dreading learning a new machine, so it stayed in the box for while.  I finally pulled it out, set it up and am in the process of remembering that you have to use a button not a lever to raise and lower the pressor feet. I'll get there, eventually. 

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

Stitching Stuff: Week 27 of 2026

 

Did you spend last evening watching fireworks?  We didn't go this year, it's just way to hot to be outside for long, even after dark.  Summer really hit this week, the sewing room has been the place to be.  

• 15 minute days/week = 6/7 days
• 15 minute days/June = 28/30 days
• 15 minute days/ July = 4/4 days
• 15 minute days/2026 = 181/185 days
• Success rate = 97.83%

It's a long drive from south Texas to northern Oklahoma, I was pretty tired when I got in last Monday.  Stitching just didn't happen.  That's OK, I at least got my time in the rest of the week.  Fingers crossed I'm back to 7 days of stitching time this week.  

My Girl and I had lots of adventures last week.  We went furniture shopping one day as I could be at the apartment when the furniture was delivered.  The big furniture box didn't go to waste.  

My Girl has been wanting a design wall. A bit of white flannel from Michaels and some white Gorilla tape and she had a simple, but functional design wall to sit on her craft table.  It's about 40" x 64".  Those are my Wild and Goosey blocks up on it.  My Girl is pretty happy with it.  I'm hoping she gets some good use out of it this summer.  

Have you been hiding from summer in your sewing room this week? 

 

1. Gretchen 2. maggie f 3. Julie in GA 4. Melissa G

5. Frédérique 6. LeeAnna 7. Bonnie in Va 8. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting

9. Patricia in New Mexico 10. Quilting Gail 11. Andrée at Quilting & Learning

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