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.  

To Do List for the Week of 4/21/2026

The storms put a hitch in my stitching time last week.  I still got a lot done, but didn't complete all of my to dos from last week. 

To Do List for 4/14/2026

1. 2026 Guild BOM: Work on May, June, July and Dec blocks ✔

2. SAHRR: Add final border ✔

3. Magnificent Mystery: Finish half blocks, start quilt assembly ✔

4. Chilhowie: Piece backing, start prepping for quilting - progress

5. Wild and Goosey: Continue working on blue blocks ✔

It was a good week even though I didn't get as much done on Chilhowie as I wanted.  There's always this week.  

To Do List for 4/21/2026

1. Guild BOM: Finish June and July blocks

All the flying geese for December are finished. The May block is ready for guild meeting tonight.  The pieces for the June and July blocks are cut, they just need to be assembled. So I'm on track with this project.  

2. Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Finish assembly, decide on borders.

I've made enough progress on assembly that I should be able to finish that this week.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to add a simple border, but just not sure which fabric to use.  

3. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Make backing

I work on quilting projects on Wednesday and Thursday.  I didn't get much sewing time last Wednesday because of the storms. The blocks for the borders didn't get used on the quilt top, so I decided to use those on the back.  The plan is to get all this blocks sewn into one strip that will separate one backing fabric from the other.  I'm trying hard to use left over stash or older fabrics that haven't made their way into projects yet for my backings.  

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

I've not touched this project since January. It's going to take a bit to get back into a groove on what I was doing.  

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

Just a few left to make. Hopefully those get finished before the end of the month.  

I'm hoping for a productive week. It would be nice to get back to some of the older projects on my UFO list.  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

Catching up in the Sewing Room

We've been home a little over a week from our vacation. I can claim that laundry is all caught up. Still a few chores to do before I'm caught up there.  Catching up in the sewing room has been a bit harder.  My biggest focus has been on getting the Guild BOM block done for May. There has been good progress on that front, it should get finished today.  

The other focus has been trying to move projects from first quarter to finished quilt tops.  The final borders finally made it on to the 2026 SAHRR (Quilting Gail).

The border photographed darker then it actually is. It looks solid black, it's not. It looks much better in person. My SAHRR quilt for this year is definitely different from my previous three finishes.   

I was going to skip the quilt along this year, but then decided if I could do a sampler, that would be manageable. The fabrics for this year's project are left over from another project (there is enough left over for a third project).  I really like the big center star and the pieced border.  I don't do small projects as you can tell from my previous quilts. It was nice to just make one block each week. Now the quilt top goes into the "to be quilted' closet.  Hopefully it will get quilted before the end of the year.  

Linking up with Show & Tell Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.   

Stitching Stuff: Week 16 of 2026

It was a busy week. Taxes took up a good part of Monday.  By Wednesday, I was mostly caught up on laundry. Still a bit behind on my monthly chores, but a few of those were knocked out. We had nasty storms on Wednesday and Friday.  The storms meant I had to shut down my stitching a bit early so I could unplug my machine.  These storms had a lot of lighting. I got caught in nickel/quarter sized hail on my way home from a doctor's appointment Wednesday afternoon. We spent a good 20 minutes in the storm shelter Friday night due to tornado warnings.  Thankfully, it looks like our next round of storms isn't till next weekend.  

Even with all the disruptions, it was a good week on the stitching front. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Apr = 17/18 days
• 15 minute days/2026 = 107/108 days
• Success rate = 99.07%

Fingers crossed it's mostly a calm week. It would be nice to have a week with no drama. Well, that's not happening this week. I have to finish the May block for the Guild BOM.  It's in progress. Hopefully I won't be madly stitching on it at 4 PM the day of the meeting!

Here's what the hail looked like on Wednesday (photo curtesy of My Guy).

I drove about 5 miles in that hail.  It sounds so much worse when you are in the car.  I kept repeating, "don't get any bigger, don't get any bigger" (they had forecast golf ball sized).  Then it was, "please stop, please stop".  I sat in the car for probably 5 minutes waiting for it to end before I made the mad dash into the house in the pouring rain.  

Hope your week has been much more boring than mine was, but with lots of time to play with needle and thread.  

1. Gretchen 2. maggie f 3. Kathy S. 4. Julie in GA 5. LeeAnna

6. Frédérique 7. Karen 8. Andrée at Quilting & Learning 9. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 10. Linda at Texas Quilt Gal

11. Quilting Gail 12. Bonnie in Va 13. Shelina at Quilt and Color 14. Deb in Canada 15. Marsha's Spot

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Week 153 Photo Challenge: Skate Park

It's been almost a month since the last post on our photo challenge. This new deck of cards we started late last year has some challenging subjects, such as this one:

My Guy and I were going to go photograph at our local skate park.  He got there first and took this photo. 

All that remains of the skate park is the sign and a slab.  The skate park was opened in 2020 and was really nice.  I've searched our local news sources, but don't find any info on why it was removed.  

We decided to end the challenge with just My Guy's photo.  One of the problems with trying to photograph a skate park, is having a camera around kids when you don't have a kid there. That can be  unsettling to a lot of people and none of us wanted to have a run in with an upset parent or the local police.  

I'm not sure the next challenge card is any easier.  

It will be interesting to see what we all come up with. I have a couple of ideas.  Fingers crossed they aren't the same ones My Guy has.