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.  

To Do List for the Week of 4/28/2026

Storm season has been brutal in Oklahoma this year.  I have family in Enid (they are fine).  There were tornadoes just west of us Sunday night. We were up late waiting to see if the tornado warning was going to cross the county line. No point going to bed if you have to make a run for the storm shelter just as you get to sleep. More rain/storms are in the forecast for today. Hopefully those will be mainly just rain, not strong storms.  

The severe weather hasn't affected my sewing time too badly.  I did pretty well with checking off my to do list for last week. 

To Do list for 4/21/2026

1. Guild BOM: Finish June and July blocks - progress

2. Magnificent Mystery: Finish assembly, decide on borders ✔

3. Chilhowie: Make backing ✔

4. Lupine and Laughter - no progress

5. Wild and Goosey: Continue making blue blocks ✔

Definitely not a bad week. My plan had been to finish the BOM blocks before I started back up on Lupine and Laughter.  I didn't get that far this week. Still it wasn't a bad week on the progress front. Hopefully this week will be better. 

To Do List for 4/28/2026

1. Guild BOM: Finish July block

The July block is under construction, I just ran out of time this week to get it finished. We went to visit my mother yesterday, so I missed one day of sewing time.  

2.  Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Finish borders

The rows are all sewn together. I'm really happy with how this project came together.  Cheryl didn't include borders in her version, my plan is to add a very narrow dark brown border and then a wider teal final border.  That should be doable this week.  

3. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Prep top and back for quilting

The plan was to use the left over border blocks and stash fabrics to make the backing.  The paisley is left over from a long ago sampler quilt. It has the orange and teal from the quilt top.  The dark brown is a Connecting Threads fabric that's been in the stash forever that matches the dark brown background of the paisley. You can see from the photo the backing still needs a good pressing. The back is easy to prep, but the tops always take at least a day to prep. Next week  will be sandwiching and marking.  

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

Since the BOM blocks and Magnificent Mystery are just about done, I should get back to this project before the end of the week. 

5. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Continue making blue blocks

Just 3 blue 3.5" blocks left to make.  Once I have the last set of 4 finished, it will be back up on the design wall to decide on the final block sets and the start sashing the blue blocks together.  Since the RSC color for May is orange, I'll keep on working on the blue blocks.  If I get them all sashed before the end of the month, I'll switch to working on the purple blocks.  

That's my list for the week.  I'm hoping to drop off a couple of projects and bring back some older projects that need to be moved along. My plan is to not start any new projects until the next Meadow Mist Designs mystery quilt starts up in early fall.  Normally I link up with the To Do List post over at the Quilt Schmilt. There is no linky party posted just yet, I'll link up once it's up.  

Do you Ever Catch Up in Quilting?

Last week's post was about catching up in the sewing room after being on vacation. I was going to call this post "More Catching Up Sewing", but then I got to thinking about all the quilts on my UFO list and all the other "oh I want to make that" future UFOs.  So I'm pretty sure you never catch up on the quilting front. 

I've been working on my priority sewing projects this week. The number one priority in the sewing room since we got back from vacation was to have the May block for the Guild BOM finished. 

The block was finished last Monday, so no last minute sewing right before the guild meeting this month.  Here's what the sampler looks like right now.

  

There are borders between the blocks and the Carpenter star part of the quilt, it will all fit together once those are added.  I like how it's coming together.  The June block is finished and the July block is under construction.  Once those are done, it's back to pattern writing for the August, September, October, November blocks.  The flying geese are December's block and I have those finished, but not sewn into borders yet.  So I'm staying caught up. Making 3 blocks at a time is definitely the way to proceed.  

The final assembly instructions also go out after the November meeting, so it's not too early to start writing those up and getting started on assembly with the blocks I have. Next year's BOM is introduced at the December meeting.  I don't know for sure if I'm doing the guild BOM for next year, but from the rumbles I'm hearing from the board, they are hoping I'll volunteer again. It's been fun, but it's a lot of work.  

Linking up with Patchwork & Quilts, plus Sew & Tell Monday. 

Stitching Stuff: Week 17 of 2026

 

Spring storm season continues. We were lucky Thursday night, all we got from the storms that spawned the tornadoes out west was heavy rain and a lot of lightening. We had some rain and a bit of thunder from the storms last night. All the tornado warnings were south of us.  I will be glad when storm season dies down a bit. 

The stormy weather hasn't affected my stitching time. 

 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Apr = 24/25 days
• 15 minute days/2026 = 114/115 days
• Success rate = 99.13%

I've only missed one stitching day this year. Not bad for being almost a third through the year.  Time does seem to be flying.  I'm not ready for it to be May already.  

How are you doing at getting in your stitching time?  

 

1. Frédérique 2. Gretchen 3. maggie f 4. Kathy S.

5. Melissa G 6. Karen 7. Andrée at Quilting & Learning 8. Patricia in New Mexico

9. Quilting Gail 10. Linda at Texas Quilt Gal 11. Bonnie in Va 12. Deb in Canada

Powered by... Mister Linky's Magical Widgets.

Photo Play: January and February 2026

My quilting efforts this year have been pretty good. Not so my photography efforts.  One of my goals for 2026 was to take at least one photo per week.  Hasn't happened.  So there aren't a lot of photos from the first couple of months in the year. Though looking back, I did try more in January than I did in February.  But in the end, only 2 photos from each month made the cut for this post.  

All photos taken with a Canon 70D DSLR with a Tamron18-400 mm telephoto lens.  

It was incredibly cold in January, so being outside was just not fun. Both January photos show something warm. 

My Guy likes to bake when it's too cold to be out and about outside. These were a new recipe, brown butter cookies.  They were very yummy and didn't last very long as they were wonderful with coffee or hot tea. I thought this photo would look just right in a cookbook. 

I was reading a photography book in January, "Extraordinary Everyday Photography" by Jed Manwaring. The book is about capturing the details of everyday life, the stuff you see all the time. I snapped this shot at lunch one day. 

 

My Guy spends most of the winter in very lived in flannel shirts.  You can just barely see his glasses peaking out of the top of that pocket. I'm not sure it's a great shot technically, but it makes me smile.  It's so easy to take those weekend lunch times, with him in his slightly frayed flannel shirts sitting across from me for granted. So maybe there something to capturing those every day details we just don't consciously think of?    

February was more cold, cloudy days. Everything was still mostly brown. I did brave a walk one day early in the month and took some interesting shots. 

Any guesses?  Both photos are of a frozen lake.  The first one reminds me of sand, rather than ice.  

That's it for the first two months of the year. With spring making an appearance about mid March, I did get out with the camera a bit more that month. We were on vacation in April and the camera was out when we were hiking. I've not taken much since.  I haven't finished reading the photography book either. I'm going to need to change my game a bit if I want to do more on the photography front.