To Do List for the Week of 5/5/2026

Hard to believe it is already May. I completely missed that yesterday was "May the 4th Be With You" day.  Today is Cinco de Mayo, so happy holiday if you are of Mexican heritage. Mother's Day is this weekend (I have no idea what to get my mother).  

The end of April, beginning of May were pretty productive as my to do list shows for last week shows. 

To Do List for 4/28/2026

1. Guild BOM: Finish July block ✔

2. Magnificent Mystery: Finish borders ✔

3. Chilhowie: Prep top and back for quilting ✔

4. Lupine and Laughter: Work on A blocks

5. Wild and Goosey: Continue making blue blocks ✔

Definitely a lot of progress on the to do list last week. Now that Magnificent Mystery is a finished top and the Guild BOM is caught up for a few months, I can add something back to the list and it will still be shorter then last week's list. 

To Do List for 5/5/2026

1. Old Town (Bonnie Hunter): Work on borders

I finished assembling the quilt top back in December of last year. It got put away to concentrate on all the new projects that started in December and January.  All it needs is the borders.  I spent some time in Electric Quilt yesterday and finally decided on fabrics and layout.  I'm excited to get this one to finished quilt top.  

2. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Sandwich quilt and start marking

The top, batting and backing are all prepped.  With my back, I can't crawl around on the ground, so I'm going to have to take the sandwich to the quilt shop and assemble it there.  There is a big table in the back that should make that a lot easier.  If all I do is get the sandwich made this week, I'm good with that.  

3.  Lupine and Laughter (Bonnie Hunter): Work on A blocks

 

In the project bag were 5 finished block A's and this partially assembled one. My plan was to make 3/4 of the blocks, I think.  I need to pull out my notes and confirm that. The plan is to work on this one till it's finished quilt top.  

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

 

Just one blue block left to finish. Then I'll need to lay out all the blocks in groups of four and decide which block goes where.  Sashing goes fast so I'm hoping to have these all made into 7.5" blocks by the end of the month.  

This week, my to do list is all Bonnie Hunter quilts, three mysteries (2024, 2022, and 2025) plus one Rainbow Scrap Challenge project (2019).  I've started 14 mysteries, finished 7 of those, and 3 are quilt tops.  So 4 are still in the block making stage (well 3, Old Town just needs borders). 

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

Sticking with the Strategy

It's been a quiet week on the weather front. That's been nice, no late night sessions watching the local weather to decide if we need to move ourselves to the tornado shelter.  My back is still a bit out of whack, I can walk and sit, but bending is completely out for now. Thankfully  I can still sew. 

I've been mostly sticking with my strategy for the year, but I'm not where I'd hoped to be at the end of first quarter.  So it was catch up time in April.  

The Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) is finally a finished quilt top.  The final two border strips were added yesterday.  The pattern didn't call for a border, but I usually like to see a frame around the quilt, it looks uncomplete to me when there is not one.  I'm thrilled with how this one worked out.  It's hard to get the colors right for a mystery quilt, I have no regrets about what fabrics I picked and where they went.  It may be my most favorite Meadow Mist Mystery ever. 

It's been slow going, but there has been lots of progress so far this year.  Linking up with Patchwork & Quilts and Sew & Tell Monday.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 18 of 2026

 

This hasn't been the easiest week.  My back was complaining a bit last week. Finally on Wednesday it reached a breaking point and I made a trip to urgent care. They couldn't do much for me other do some x-rays, give me a muscle relaxant and tell me I needed to see a doctor. Like most rural communities we have a shortage of primary care doctors. I finally found one that was on our insurance, but I can't get an appointment for a couple of weeks. The back is getting better, but the x-rays were concerning, so I still need to see a doctor.  

Thankfully the back injury hasn't kept me from the sewing room.  I'm just a bit slower going up the stairs.  So it was another good week on that front. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Apr = 29/30 days
• 15 minute days/2026 = 121/122 days
• Success rate = 99.18%

Not a bad week. One of my main activities this week was prepping Chilhowie for quilting. That meant standing and stretching a bit across my work table. My back felt much better after each prepping session. Who knew that some sewing works as well as physical therapy?  

How was your stitching week? 

April 2026 PHD Report

I'm not sure what happened to April. Well, that's not entirely true. We were on vacation for almost half the month, so there is only half of month of stitching progress to report for the April PHD Report over at Ms P Designs. There was definitely progress the latter half of the month, but definitely not as much as previous months.  My April PHD report looks exactly the same as March's report. 

No new finishes, but several projects moved closer to that goal this month. 

The Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter) quilt top is prepped for quilting. The backing is made and also prepped for quilting. The plan is to sandwich the quilt and mark it next week.  I have a rough quilting plan and will decide if more quilting is necessary as I go along.    

The blue blocks for Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) are almost finished.  Just 2 left to sew up. Orange is the color for May. The orange blocks were finished last year, so the plan is to stick with the blue blocks and get them sashed into 7.5" blocks.  If I get that done before the end of the month, it will be time to tackle the remaining purple blocks.  

The goal for April was to get Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) moved to finished quilt top. The narrow border is on. The final border will get added this weekend. I'm really happy with how this quilt worked out. It may be my favorite Meadow Mist Designs mystery.   

The May and June blocks are all finished for the 2026 Guild BOM. July is in progress. I'm only showing the addition of the May block since that's all I've shown the guild. I've pretty much decided on the blocks and the layout for 2027 Guild BOM. Now I just need to pick the colors and corresponding fabrics for it.  

The 2026 SAHRR (Quilting Gail) became a finished quilt top the week we got home from vacation.  Now it's waiting in the "to be quilted closet" for it's turn to be finished. 

My goal the last couple of years has just been to make progress. Even with the shorter month, several bars in my project progress graph got a bit longer in April. 

The chart for last month finally shows some progress in the big section of quilts to be finished. There is still 2/3 of the year left so hopefully there will a few more completed bars at the end of 2026. 

Photo Play: March 2026

March was cool and dry. We had fires south of town that were really scary. Thankfully those were pretty quickly contained.  But there were a lot of days when the smoke on the air just made being outside miserable. By mid month the temperatures had warmed up enough so that you could see a few things blooming here and there. There was enough going on that my camera came out of the bag a bit more frequently.     

Unless otherwise noted, all photos taken with a Canon 70D DSLR with a Tamron 18-400 mm telephoto lens.  

There was one rainy day early in March. It wasn't nearly enough to take the edge of what had been a very dry winter.  But it did make for some interesting through the window photography. 

You can see the tree is just starting to get its leaves, but the berries haven't fallen off just yet.  It reminds me of a very soft focus oil painting.  

We needed to run some errands one day mid March, something My Guy isn't fond of.  So I bribed him with a walk along Pathfinder and lunch after the errands. That was a productive day on the photography front.  

Fallen Tree

Red Buds

More Redbuds

Toothwort

Virginia Creeper

Winter's Left Overs

Winter's Left Overs II

The spring flower are always fun to see and they are one of my favorite things to photograph. They are easy targets. It's harder to photograph a landscape that is still mostly brown. But the bright red mixed with the deep green of the Virginia Creeper against that textured tree surface is pretty eye catching. That's probably my favorite photo from the walk.  For the downed tree and the brown leaves, it's all about capturing the textures.   

I don't normally include photos from my sewing room. Those are usually pretty focused on showing what the project looks like.  Every once in a while I do take one that is just a bit different from my typical.  

Taken with my old Sony Cyber-Shot DSC 9V, this close up is more about the textures and colors than it is about showing progress on the project.  

So March wasn't a bad month, I did actually use my camera. We were on vacation in April, so the camera came out of the bag more then normal.  I should have at least a couple of shots to post from our wanderings in Texas.