Photo Challenge Week 4

 We've hit week 4 of our family photo challenge. We struggled a lot with this week's subject.  

I went literal with my attempt. 

Kate: How to Boil Water

I tried to capture the steam over the pan, but our stove top just didn't have the right lighting. So nothing exciting. If you search on pictures of boiling water via Google, there wasn't a whole lot of exciting images there either.  I did try some other things, but they didn't work out so well. I discovered it's hard to pour boiling water while also trying to take a picture of it.  

My Guy decided that "boiling" didn't require the application of heat. 

My Guy: Not all boiling water is boiling

This is from the heavy rains we had last weekend.  It was pretty impressive how big and deep some of those pop up streams were.

The Scientist in Training had a busy week, lots of stuff due on Friday as next week is summer semester finals. I'll update the post if she sends me an image today.  

I picked the challenge card for week 5. 

 We did death in week 2, decay should be as interesting. 

To Do Tuesday for the Week of 7/20/21

The middle of July has come and gone.  It always feels like the last half of the year goes faster than the first half.  Thankfully work has calmed down, but my weekends are going to be pretty full the rest of the month. There won't be much stitching time, so the To Do List will be a bit lighter this week.  First though, here's the progress on last week's To Do List.

To Do List for 7/13/2021

• Morewood Mystery: Press and prep quilt top for pressing
• Cabins and Fans: Finish row 6 and start row 7 ✔
• Unity: Make HSTs for step 6 ✔
• UFO list: Pick a new project to replace Morewood Mystery ✔

Three out of four isn't a bad week.  Even though there's not a check mark, there was progress on getting Morewood ready for quilting.  So what's the plan for this week? 

To Do List for 7/20/2021

Morewood Mystery: Finish prepping quilt top for quilting

Morewood Mystery by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs

I'm actually a little bit farther along than shown in the photo. I've got the first row of blocks pressed and dethreaded.  Thankfully this quilt doesn't use any fabrics that fray easily. It should go quickly.  If I get nothing done this week but having this ready to ship out, I'll be happy.  

Cabins and Fans: Work on row 7

Cabins and Fans, self designed

Row 6 is finished and sewn to row 5 and the first block in row 7 is sashed.  I'm really happy with how this quilt is coming together.  Once row 7 is done there is just one more block that will need sashing and the addition of the setting triangles.  So this project has moved along well. With the busy weekends the rest of the month, I doubt all the rows get done, I'm just hoping for some progress between now and the first of August

Unity: Make HSTs as leaders and enders

Unity: Substitute block for Step 7,  not in the Bonnie Hunter version

The end is in site for Step 7.  Once this block is pieced, just 6 more are needed to finish the last border for that step. Just a top and bottom border after that.  By October, I'm hoping this quilt top will be ready to prep for quilting.  While I was searching for the fabric to finish up the Scrappy Butterfly project, I found the backing fabric for this project.  I've enjoyed working on Unity, but it will feel good to have this quilt off the To Do List.  

That's my list for the week.  Good luck with your list of stitchy stuff for the week.  Linking up with ChrisKnits for To Do Tuesday.   

The Next UFO

It was a steamy weekend, though not as hot as it can be here in July.  It was a good weekend to stay in and stitch.  One project on the stay in and stitch to do list for the weekend was to pick which UFO will replace Morewood on my WIPs list.  I limit my "in progress" list to 4 projects.  Morewood is in the process of being prepped to be sent out for quilting, so  a replacement will be needed before the end of the month. There are still 8 untouched quilts on my UFO  list for 2021.  

      

After a bit of dithering, I went with the next quilt on the list, Scrappy Butterflies.  

 Scrappy Butterflies
Block is available in EQ8 Block Library

These butterfly blocks were my Rainbow Scrap Project in 2013.  I made the blocks and then stalled on how to set them together which is why they've been on the UFO list for so long. Just sashing the blocks wouldn't make a very big quilt and I really didn't want such a simple layout.  Over the years, I've played around with settings, but just couldn't come up with anything that clicked.  There were twenty something versions in EQ for finishing this project. I kept coming back to an Irish Chain setting. 

 

But I'm not a fan of square quilts, plus just slapping some borders on these blocks didn't appeal. I finally figured out a rectangular setting last week. 

Still not a fan of the plain borders. What if I repeat the Irish Chain block in the border?

That actually worked out.  Yes it will be a lot more piecing, but I really like how this version looks.  I have enough background fabric to make all the blocks, but couldn't find the enough of the right blue in my stash to use as the contrast.  The local quilt shop gives a discount during your birthday month. So the Scientist in Training and I stopped in on Saturday to check out what they might have. We came home with the blue on the right (the background is on the left).

All that's left is to work out the cutting and piecing instructions. Hopefully I'll have that done by the time Morewood is all prepped and ready to sent out for quilting.  

Linking up with Design Wall Monday and Monday Making. 

Postscript on follow by email: I wrote in yesterday's post that I had tried Mailchimp as a replacement for the Feedburner follow by email function.  Turns out there is a limit on the number of emails you can send per month and I exceeded that with yesterday's post. It was prohibitively expensive to add enough credits to send emails for the rest of the month. Staying with that service meant I'd have to go with weekly emails, but even then the count wouldn't reset till 8/2.  So I've switched to FollowIt (fingers crossed that I've done the set up correctly).  Hopefully the emails will go out later this morning.  For those that follow by email, thank you for your patience.

Stitching Stuff: Week 29 of 2021

It's been both wet and steamy here this weekend. It really rained yesterday morning, so of course when the sun came out the humidity went through the roof.  Unfortunately, I had lots of errands to run on Saturday. The Scientist in Training and I were wishing the car air conditioner would cool off faster after each stop. 

Before moving on to the stitching report, I have an update for those that follow Life in Pieces via email.  It's been a bit rocky navigating sending out the blog via RSS feed with Mailchimp. I discovered yesterday that Mailchimp has a limit of 10,000 emails per month for their free service and I've exceeded that limit. The cost for additional credits to send out more emails is prohibitive.  I'm looking for an alternative service, but that's taking some time. The free service resets on August 2nd.  If I don't find a solution before then, the RSS feed is now set to go out weekly  on Tuesday mornings.

Now on, to the stitching stuff. I had a pretty good week. 

• 15 minute days/week =  7/7 days
• 15 minute days/July = 17/17 days
• 15 minute days/2021 =172/198 days
• Success rate = 86.87 days

I'm back on track with meeting my goal of stitching 85% of the days in 2021.  I still have one item to check off my to do list for the week. I'm hoping to get to that this afternoon.  

One of the nice things caused by all the rain is the profusion of wildflowers.  

The Indian Blankets are still blooming, along with the Black Eyed Susans

 and Basket Flowers.   

Did you find lots of stitching time this week?  

1. Chrisknits 2. Ivani 3. DonnaleeQ 4. Julie in GA

5. karen 6. maggie f 7. DawnyK 8. Quilting Gail

9. Carol @ Quilt Schmilt 10. Dq at Dreamworthyquilts

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Photo Challenge Week 3

I'm a bit late posting this week, I decided to sleep in a bit. It was a long week.  It was a good morning for sleeping late, there's an absolute deluge of rain going on this morning.  

Welcome to week 3 of our Family Photo Challenge.  This week's challenge card was randomly picked last Friday by My Guy. 

Definitely an easier to interpret subject than our last pick "Death".  So this week's photos are definitely more conventional.  

Kate: Lunch on the Wing

This bee was really enjoying an early lunch from all the mid summer basket flowers that are blooming. 

My Guy: Mostly Wing Winged Thing

 

The basket flowers are also popular with the Monarch butterflies. 

SIT: Grounded Wings

 

The Scientist in Training closes out the week with a beetle, another winged citizen of the insect world. 

The Scientist in Training is home this weekend, so she picked the card for week 4. 

Definitely not something I would normally photograph. It will be fun to see what we each come up with.