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.  

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.  

2026 Quilt Making Strategies: Second Quarter Plan

After reviewing my first quarter progress, my second quarter overall strategy won't need to change. But I will need to adjust the project list for the quarter since there is a lot that didn't get finished in first quarter.  

1. Guild BOM: The focus for April is to get the blocks for May, June and July finished. I should probably also finish off the flying geese needed for the borders. Before the end of the quarter, blocks for August, September and October need to have the instructions written and the blocks made. November will be an easy block, so I'll try to get that one done as well. Then I won't have to do anything on this project till 4th quarter.    

2. Wild and Goosey: Continue to use two blocks as my leaders project for the quarter.  

3. UFOs to move to finished quilt tops: The plan is to focus first on the projects that didn't make it to finished quilt tops in first quarter. Since two of those don't need that much work, I'm hoping to work in at least two UFOs from the January plan.  

2026 SAHRR, Magnificent Mystery, Old Town, Lupine and Laughter, Good Fortune

4. Walking foot quilting: I hoping now that I have a designated time to quilt that two quilts will get quilted this quarter. The plan is to tackle the 2 smallest ones on my list.   

Chilhowie and Glowing Hearts

5. External quilting: Since I didn't get one done in first quarter, I'm hoping to get two done in second quarter.  

2025 Guild BOM and Chocolate Marshmallows

If everything gets done, there will be 5 more finished quilt tops and 4 more finished quilts.  That's probably way too ambitious a plan considering that I've already lost half of April.  If there is half as much progress, I'll be happy.  

First Quarter Review: 2026 Quilt Making Progress

Back in January I posted my quilt making strategies for 2026.  My goal for 2026 is to move projects to finished quilts or as close as I can get to finished for as many projects as possible. I've learned over the years it's a good idea to review where you are at with your goals a few times during the year. It's easy to forget at the end of the year what you decided at the first of the year if you don't.  The end of first quarter seemed like a good time to see if my goals still make sense and I'm on track.   

First Quarter Strategy

1. Guild BOM

On track so far.  May's block needs to be done for the April meeting next week.  I have instructions written for May, June and July and I've started the instructions for August.  

2. Wild and Goosey leaders

The plan for last three years is to keep two Wild and Goosey blocks in progress while I'm working on other projects. It's been slow going, but there's been steady progress over those three years. The red, yellow and orange blocks were completed in previous years. The green blocks were completed this year. Just a few more blue blocks to make and those will be finished.   

3. 2025/2026 Quilt Alongs and Mysteries

Most of the quilt alongs and mystery quilts I enjoy start either at the first of the year or at the end of the year.  So first quarter I always have lots of new stuff in the works. The strategy in first quarter was to get all of those to finished quilt tops.  

Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Full blocks finished, partial blocks in progress. So progress was just a bit short of the goal.  

Lupine and Laughter (Bonnie Hunter): Started block A. With deadlines on the other three new projects, this one didn't get much attention.  

2026 SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Kept up with all the prompts, assembled the quilt center, but didn't get the last 2 borders added.  

Scenic Waypoint (Meadow Mist Designs): Wasn't part of my quilt plan for 2026, but it was a fun quilt along that used up some of my older stash.  It was the one project that made it to finished quilt top during first quarter.  At least one got that far.

 

4. Walking foot quilting: The strategy was to quilt both Kate's Choice and Betty.  The walking foot quilting isn't hard, but I'd so much rather piece that it was easy to just not do the quilting. I finally settled on Wednesday and Thursday as my quilting days.  Once I did that, there was steady progress on Kate's Choice and it was finished by the end of March.  Betty wasn't touched.  But I'm OK with that, one finish is better than none.  I'll take the finish of a 14 year old UFO. 

5. External quilting: The strategy for first quarter was to get Chocolate Marshmallow quilted commercially.  That didn't happen, so this strategy was pretty much a fail for first quarter.  

First quarter wasn't a complete success, nor was it a total fail.  As usual, I was overly optimistic about what one can accomplish with 4 WIPs with deadlines in progress. Back in January, I outlined a strategy for 2nd quarter. I'm going to review that and do some course corrections. I'll share that strategy later.