Stitching Stuff: Week 40 of 2026

 

It was a good week on the stitching front.  I only managed 15 minutes on Monday, but I got it in before I had to make that drive home.  I've not done that much time in the sewing room, but I've made it to open sew at the quilt shop a couple of times this week. I feel more in the groove after that.  

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Sept = 28/30 days
• 15 minute days/2026 = 270/276
• Success rate = 97.83%

September wasn't a perfect month on the stitching time front, but I'm OK with that.  I'm still in the high 90's in terms of stitching time percentage.  When you think about it, just 6 days with no stitching time is really good when you realize it is October! 

It's nice to be sewing at home, but I do miss my sewing observer. 

My daughter's cat, Queenie, decided my pressing mat was prime napping territory. Thankfully she only napped on it when I wasn't sewing. It wouldn't have been fun to ask her to move.  

Did you get your stitching time in this week? 

September PHD Report

September felt like summer rather than fall this year.  It also went really fast. I'm not ready for it to be October.  We'll blink and it will be New Year's at this point.  I'm never ready for how fast the end of the year goes. 

Now that the month is over it's time to take stock and make a report on my progress for the September PHD Report sponsored by Ms. P Designs.  My September PHD report looks exactly like August's report. 

Another month with no finishes. But I made really good progress on several projects in September.  

The Butterfly embroidery project saw some progress since I was on the road the last week of the month.  I'm slowly making progress on the 9th butterfly.  Since we'll be seeing family for Thanksgiving and Christmas, this project will probably see more progress before the end of the year.  

My last Bonnie Hunter mystery project that's not been moved to finished quilt top is Celtic Solstice.  I pulled that project box at the beginning of the month.  All the blocks are made and two row of the quilt are sew together.  Just 5 more rows left to stitch.  

Squared Away (Soscrappy) came back from the long arm quilter the last day of the month. The quilt needs to be trimmed. I'm working on the label with My Girl since the quilt will be a gift for one of her college buddies. This should be finished this month. 

All the teal 3.5" blocks for Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) were finished very early in the month.  Those blocks are being sashed to make the 7.5" blocks for the quilt.  I've been working on making more purple 3.5" blocks. About 2/3 of the blocks are finished.  There are twenty something left to make.  I put all the blocks (except the ones under construction) up on the design wall.  There's been lots of progress this year, lots fewer blank spaces.  I'm excited to be getting so close to the assembly stage.  

The quilting of Glowing Hearts (Sandra Walker) has been moving along slowly.  The blocks in two of the rows have been quilted and one block in the third row has been started.  Fingers crossed this will be my second finish for October. 

All the big blocks for the 2027 Guild BOM are made.  I've finished the blocks needed for the pieced sashing, those will be November's blocks.  I have all the sashing and border strips cut, but haven't started assembly yet.  That needs to get bumped up on the priority list because the quilt top needs to be ready for the November guild meeting.  Here's what's been shown to the guild so far. 

I've fallen behind on this year's Meadow Mist Design Mystery, Marigold.  All the pieces are cut for the September blocks, but only two of them got made.  So I'll be playing catch up this month.  The October clue is already out. 

September was another productive month. No finishes, but several projects hit milestones.  There is definitely a lot more color in my chart then there was at the first of the year. 

With two quilts closed to finished, I'm hoping to see a bit more color in that top block of my chart for next month.  It's been a pretty good year.  Hopefully I can keep up the steady progress this month. 

To Do List for the Week of 9/29/2026

The drive from Houston to home Monday was just over 11 hours. Needless to say I was pretty wiped out yesterday. I slept late yesterday, got up just in time to go work out at the gym and make a run to Walmart.  After lunch, it was nap time.  I just never worked up the energy to dig my computer out of the bag and get it set up.  So I'm a day late with my to do list. 

Last week I was sewing from the road, without my normal set up.  It was still a pretty good week on the progress front.  

To Do List for 9/22/2026

1.  Celtic Solstice: Continue making blocks ✔ 

2.  Marigold Mystery: Work on September blocks ✔

3.  2026 Guild BOM: Start quilt assembly - no progress

4.  Wild and Goosey: Work on teal/purple blocks ✔

5.  Butterfly Medallion embroidery: Continue to stitch ✔

Check marks on 4 out of 5 is not a bad week.  I ended up not working on the Guild BOM because I just really didn't have the room and there were plenty of other projects to work on.  I made pretty good progress on the projects I took with me.  I'm looking forward to spending some time in my sewing room. Here's my list for this week. 

To Do List for 9/30/2026

1.  Squared Away (SoScrappy): Make binding, sew to front

I picked up Squared Away from the long arm quilter yesterday. I haven't had a chance to get it out of the bag and unfold it, but from what I can see it looks good.  So I'll definitely have another finish for next month.  

2. Glowing Hearts (Sandra Walker): Continue quilting

No progress on this last week since I wasn't home.  I'm hoping to finish another row, or at least close to another row, this week.  Fingers crossed I'll actually have two finishes in October.  

3. Celtic Solstice (Bonnie Hunter):  Assembly quilt top

All the blocks have been made. Now it's time to start assembling the quilt top.  I also need to decide how to use the left over border blocks. I'll probably use them in my border, I just need to see how many I have and what's the best way to use them.  

4. Marigold Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Finish September blocks

 

The first September block is almost finished. There are 3 more chain blocks left to make, plus 5 of the star blocks. I'll need to get busy on those as the next clue comes out tomorrow.  

5. 2026 Guild BOM: Start quilt assembly

All the strips for the sashing and borders are cut, I just need to start sewing things together.  

6. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Continue working on teal/purple blocks

There are 42 of the 3.5" purple blocks finished. The quilt layout needs a total of 64, so 22 blocks left to make.  Progress is slow but steady.  I'm hoping that all the blocks are made before the end of the year.  I may have to bump this up in priority to make that happen.  

That's my list for this week. It's a bit more ambitious then usual, hopefully I can make good progress on all the projects this week. Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.

Sewing at the Dining Room Table

I'll start my trip back to Oklahoma in just a bit.  Not looking forward to the drive. I won't get home till dinner time tonight.  I've had such a good time hanging out with My Girl this week. We've hit all our favorite food spots, plus found a new place for brunch that has the potential to become "our" brunch spot, even when her dad is along for a trip.  We did some "necessary" stuff shopping and some just for fun shopping.  We did a lot of just hanging out and talking.  So it's been a good visit.

I spent the week sewing at the dining room table. Not ideal, it's not ergonomic, so I can't sew for long stretches.  Even with the restrictions, I did make good progress on Celtic Solstice.

The last 6 main blocks for Celtic Solstice (Bonnie Hunter) are finished. Now it's time to start assembling the quilt top.  That will happen this week once I'm home. 

Several of the teal Wild and Goosey blocks (Bonnie Hunter) are now 7" sashed blocks.

That's a third of the blocks.  Another 8 left to sash and those will be done.  

It wasn't a bad week on the stitching front.  I probably won't get much stitching done today since I'm driving home. But I am looking forward to spending some time in my sewing room this week once I've caught up on laundry.  

Linking up with Patchwork & Quilts, as well as, Sew & Tell Monday. 

Stitching Stuff: Week 39 of 2026

 

It's been a fun week getting to hang out with My Girl and Queenie.  It's been harder to find time to stitch on the weekends as we've been out and about, but I managed to get in some play with needle and thread even if we were out and about. 

• 15 minutes/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minutes/Sept = 24/26 days
• 15 minutes/2026 = 263/269 days
• Success rate = 97.77%

So it was a good week on the stitching week. I haven't gotten to all the projects I brought along, but the plan for today is to stay in and just hang out.  So I'm hoping to at least pull one other project bag to work on before I leave tomorrow.  

Last weekend we shopped at the big stores, this weekend we hit a couple of quilt shops, a book store, and had lunch yesterday at a tea shop. 

The tea was wonderful and lunch was really good too. It was so nice to do something just a bit different for a change. 

How did you do at getting to your stitching stuff this week?

Update: The original post was flagged by Blogger as containing malware or a virus.  Two of my Stitching Stuff posts were flagged. The one common thing I can find between the two posts is one of the linky party participants.  I've removed the linky party from those two posts to see if that fixes the problem.