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? 

 

June PHD Report

Hard to believe we are half way through 2026. By this point you realize your goals were just a touch too ambitious and what seemed doable back in January is probably not going to get done. At least that's how it seems to work for me. Thankfully it is the start of a new month, so another chance to make good progress on my projects.  Linking up with Ms. P Designs to review on my progress with my June PHD Report.  

June's report includes another finish.  It's my second for the year. Which isn't much, but two finishes is double what I had last year. Not what I had hoped to achieve by this point in the year, but I'm not going to be too hard on myself. 

Chilhowie, the 2022 Bonnie Hunter Mystery, was finished in June. This is my first attempt at quilting a whole quilt (my March finish was a quilt as you go project).  I learned a lot while quilting this project. It's far from perfect, but it doesn't look too bad. The quilt is 61" x 62", a bit bigger then I remembered.  This project was donated to the local charity that supports women fleeing domestic violence.  I'm hoping this colorful quilt ends up with one of the kids, I think they'd like the bold colors.

Even though there was only one finish this month, there has been good progress on some of my other UFOs.  

The embroidered butterfly panel is my travel project. It came along with me on my visit to My Girl the last week of June.  I also took my sewing machine. But the days we had plans, it was easier to work in a few minutes of embroidery time then pull out all the sewing stuff. I sew on her dining room table, so it has to get put away when we eat. I made good progress on the 7th butterfly. 

I needed a new block assembly project for June.  The UFO with the most blocks already completed was Good Fortune, the 2018 Bonnie Hunter Mystery. The chain blocks were a pretty quick finish, the main pinwheel blocks are taking a bit longer. 

June was spent adding sashings to the blue Wild and Goosey blocks (Bonnie Hunter). I made good progress with those, but didn't quite get finished.  It's much easier to put the blocks up on the design wall now that most of them are sashed. I'm excited to get this project to the assembly stage.  Purple and teal still need a number of blocks, but there has been progress on both.  

The 2025 Guild BOM is prepped for quilting and will be dropped off for long arm quilting this week.  Fingers crossed that means a finish in July.  

The July block of the month for the guild was shown at the June meeting.  I've been working on the blocks for the rest of the year.  Instructions have been written, but that's about it. I need to get going as I'll need to have the August block ready in just a couple of weeks. 

 

The blocks for Lupine and Laughter (Bonnie Hunter's 2025 mystery) were finished last month and assembled into a top. The first border is on.  The strips for the last two borders are cute. Those should go on in July. 

Looking back, there was visible progress last month on my project tracking chart.  

 There was a finish, another quilt that reached the ready to be quilted stage, and another quilt to adding borders stage. There has been steady progress in the first half of the year.  Hopefully I can keep up the momentum into July.