Stitching Stuff for Week 21 of 2022

I'm not really ready for it to be Sunday.  It's been another long week.  That work project that was supposed to just last 3 weeks back in April is still hanging on.  This week I at least made it to Wednesday before it came back. Unfortunately that meant more overtime and another Saturday spent on the work computer.  All of which meant my stitching time took another hit.

• 15 minute days/week = 3/7 days
• 15 minute days/ May = 8/21 days
• 15 minute days/2022 = 102/141 days
• Success rate = 72.34%

Unfortunately, I still have more to do on the work project this week. Thankfully there is a hard deadline of June 1st. But that will likely mean more overtime this week.  Hopefully not so much that I can't get back to the sewing room.  At least I did get mount laundry mostly tackled yesterday while I was working on the various files.  

Hopefully your week went much smoother and you've had lots of time work in a bit of stitching time each day.  

  

To Do Tuesday for the Week of 5/17/22

My work schedule is starting to return to normal, thankfully.  I've had more time in the sewing room the last week.  The work project took another two weeks to complete. I didn't know that was going to be the case when I posted my last To Do List.  

Weekly To Do List for 5/1/2022

• Potions: Finish hand stitching the binding ✔

There was a hard deadline of May 6th for this project and I was able to meet that. I'm so glad the work on this quilt was ahead of schedule and it's good that this special project didn't pop up any sooner. 

I'm hoping to be back in the sewing room a lot more during the week. But it's summer, so the SIT and My Guy have some plans to do a few things since she'll be moving to Texas in the fall. I won't have as much stitching time on the weekends. Consequently, my To Do Lists will probably be a lot shorter during the summer months.  

Weekly To Do List for 5/17/22

Macaron Mystery: Continue assembling rows

Asembly has been going pretty smoothly.  Just two more rows of blocks and three more rows of sashing and the quilt top will be mostly done.  

Rhododendron Mystery: Continue making blocks, make hourglass blocks as leaders and enders. 

The A blocks are going together pretty quickly, the B blocks are taking a bit of time.  The goal is to get this project finished before this year's Bonnie Hunter Mystery gets going.  

That's it for my to do list for this week.  You can see what's on everyone else's plate for the week over at Texas Quilt Gal's To Do Tuesday.  

Finishing Potions

It was past time to get back to our normal weekend activities. We managed to have an uneventful and laid back weekend. I wasn't able to scale mount laundry, but we all have enough clean clothes to make it a week. More importantly, I actually got a solid afternoon of stitching in on Sunday.  It's been awhile since I was able to spend more than a few minutes in the sewing room. It definitely felt good to spend some quality time in the sewing room for a change. 

Last weekend was the Scientist in Training's graduation. So I did spend some time in my sewing room that Friday rushing to finish the hand stitching on Potions so the SIT could give it to her undergraduate advisor. The binding was finished just before 8 PM.

Reactive Intermediates (Potions): Pattern by Flying Parrot Quilts
Started December 28, 2021, Finished May 6, 2022

 

This isn't the best photo. We needed to get on the road early Saturday morning, so I had to go with artificial lighting to get any type of photo of the finished quilt.  

Trudy did a great job with the quilting as usual. 

The background is quilted with a simple meander. The various beakers, flasks and test tubes each have a unique quilting motif of swirls, bubbles or fumes.  I'm really happy with how the quilt turned out. More importantly, so is the SIT. 

The goal was to make the quilt look like a storage cabinet. That's why there is no dark blue border strip on the bottom.  I had to get creative with the binding to keep that look. 

The binding switches from dark blue to the light blue to maintain the look of cabinet legs at the bottom. I wasn't able to get the seam in the binding to match exactly with the seam in the border, but after ripping it out and trying several times, I decided that was as good as it was going to get.  I love the backing fabric. It would be hard to find anything more perfect to go with the front.  

The SIT and I had fun with the label. 

The final version of the label has a message from the SIT in the teal box. Had the never ending audit not happened, I would have finished this is project in April.  I've learned not to stress over being off by a month. In 20 years, one month will not matter at all.  

Reactive Intermediates is finish number 2 for the year. I'm off target by a bit, but hopefully I can get back on track before the end of the year.  

Linking up with Monday Making, Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Stitching Stuff for Week 20 of 2022

Things were supposed to have slowed down at work two weeks ago. They didn't.  It's been 6 weeks with lots of overtime and not a lot of time off.  That hasn't been very compatible with finding time to stitch. 

• 15 minute days/week 19 = 2/7 days
• 15 minute days/week 20 = 3/7 days
• 15 minute days/May = 5/14 days
• 15 minute days/2022 = 99/134 days
• Success rate = 73.88%

My goal for the year was to stitch at least 75% of the time, so I'm not doing so well on that front. I'm hoping this audit is THE project for the year and I won't have anything else that requires that much effort.

In addition to a busy work schedule, My Guy and I had been busy planning a graduation party for the Scientist in Training.  The SIT graduated with honors last weekend with BS degrees in chemistry, biochemistry and psychology.  

We had a great weekend celebrating with her school friends on Saturday, then with the rest of the family on Sunday.   Congratulations SIT!  Her next step?  Graduate school at Texas A&M.  We are debating if the SIT gets a name upgrade on the blog.  We've not come to a definite decision on that as yet.   

My apologies for not getting a post up last week. Unfortunately my allergies didn't respond well to the sudden warm up and high winds we had over the that weekend. I pretty much spent Sunday trying to cope with watery eyes, a sore throat and runny nose. I mostly just slept while everyone else partied.  Hopefully with the audit over and life getting mostly back to normal, there won't be any more interruptions to the regularly scheduled linky party. 

How have you been doing on finding time to stitch?

1. Gretchen 2. Colletta's Kitchen Sink 3. DonnaleeQ 4. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting

5. Ivani 6. DawnyK week 19 7. DawnyK 8. Amanda

9. Quilting Gail 10. Andre at Quilting and Learning

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

Photo Challenge: Weeks 41 and 42

It's been 5 weeks since I last posted on our family photo challenge.  Life has been insanely busy.  I've spent the last six weeks working on the never ending audit. I thought I was done 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately not.  So the last 6 weeks have meant incredibly long work days without a lot of time off on weekends.  As the final deadlines loomed, it got even more insane. I now really understand how accountants feel at tax time.  And like taxes, I'll get to do this audit again next year. Can you feel the joy?  Not!

Enough on the explanation for my prolonged absence from the photo challenge. Week 41 was a bit of a challenge for all of us.  

This was the challenge for the second week in April. I was already pretty deep into the audit stuff and just didn't have the creative capacity to really see with my camera. So I wimped out a bit and made my inanimate face. 

Kate: Fabric Face

I had lots of fun playing with the bits and pieces of the Macaron Mystery block pieces to capture my face for the week. 

My Guy always has this way of seeing things I don't. He did a really good job with this challenge. 

My Guy: Face of a Yeti

Can you figure out what this is?  Maybe the photo caption gives you a clue?  

The Scientist in Training had exams this week if I remember and she didn't get her photo till pretty late that week. 

Scientist In Training: The Faces of Automobiles

She, like me, was just trying to get by as her schedule was pretty packed.  

Week 42 was relatively easy, but both the SIT and I were really distracted with other things that week as well.  But the subject matter wasn't all that difficult to find, just maybe hard to get an interesting shot. 

My photo was an easy subject, I just had to work out the angles to hide all chaos that not having time to clean house caused.

Kate: The Bedroom Mirror

My Guy went with the optical illusion angle. 

I'm not sure where the SIT was when she took this shot. 

Scientist in Training: Mirrored Street

I assume it's Stillwater, but maybe not.  She was getting ready for an undergraduate poster session and a presentation to the Electrochemical Society, so she was doing the best she could with the time she had.  

With me working on the never ending audit and the SIT getting ready for finals and graduation, we didn't pull a card for a couple of weeks.  Last night we decided that life had calmed down enough so that we could get back in the groove of weekly photo shoots. 

I hope you'll come back next week to see what we come up with for this challenge.