To Do List for 4/28/2020

Hard to believe there are just three more days in April.  It's been a pretty productive month. The weekly to do lists have helped keep me on track. I've not checked everything off each week, but progress has been pretty steady.  Last week's progress was typical of the previous weeks. 

Weekly To Do List for 04/21/2020
Mosaic Mystery: Find fabric for and make backing ✔
Frolic: Make 4-patches and sashing strips ✔
Winter Quilt Along: Finish binding ✔
Unity: Finish steps 1 and 2 - progress

So three out of four checked off is a really good week.  Can I do as well this week?  

Weekly To Do List for 04/28/2020
Mosaic Mystery:  Press, clean up and package backing for quilting

The backing is all pieced. Both fabrics have been in the stash for awhile.  The iris fabric is directional so it's been hard to use in a project and so has the plaid on the tan paired with it.  Both go well with the color scheme of Mosaic Mystery, so make an excellent backing.  The plan is to give it a good pressing and be sure any stray threads have been removed.  

Frolic: Make two more light blue blocks

All the parts are ready for block 3, block 4 needs the black squares cut before it can be assembled. Making two blocks is about all I can manage in a week.  But after that, just one more block and it will be time to finish assembling the rows. 

Unity: Finish clue 2

Unity, 2020 Bonnie Hunter Sew-In-Place Quilt Along

Clue 1 is finished and I got a good start on clue 2.   I'm pretty happy with how it's looking.  It's a typical Bonnie project, lots of small components.  But the point is having fun with the process, not if I'm caught up with everyone else. 

So that's the plan for this week.  Linking up with Home Sewn by Us for the Tuesday To Do.  Good luck with your to do list this week.  

Finally Finishes

It was a good week in the sewing room.  I've not had more stitching time during this period of social distancing as work has been just as busy as always.  But the changes I made to work on only three projects at a time and to limit the weekly to do list to just four items each week is starting to pay off.  Playing along with the 2020 PHD program and the One Monthly Goal have helped with the focus too.  In fact this month I actually met my OMG a few days early for a change. 

This month's OMG is to finish the Winter Quilt Along project.  That happened last Friday.  

Stripes from the 2019 Quiltygirl Winter Quilt Along
Started November 11, 2019
Finished April 24, 2020

I'm really happy with how it came out.  Thank you Alycia for a very fun and easy quilt along.  Both the red and blue fabrics are left overs from other quilts. The binding is the same blue as the stripes.  There's about a fat quarter left of the blue and just over a half yard of the red.  The backing is left overs from backing two other quilts.

The white print is left over from Twinkle Stars and the blue check from Vintage Dresses.  I suppose you could call this one Leftovers, but I went simple and just named it Stripes.  This quilt will be donated to the Quilts of Valor program once it's washed.  

The second milestone is that the Mosaic Mystery quilt is now a finished flimsy. 

 Mosaic Mystery Quilt
from Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs

I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I only wish the butterfly print border was just a bit wider, but there wasn't that much of the print left over. Next up is to finish the backing and then do the dreaded thread clean up of both before shipping it out for quilting.  So this one is likely a June finish.  

So a good week on the finishing front.  I'm still behind for the year and it's not likely I'll catch up.  The goal is still to finish at least eight quilts this year.  I'm a quarter of the way there and we are almost a third of the way through the year.  The next three quilts on the list just need borders and backings, so hopefully those will go more quickly. 

Linking up with the April One Monthly Goal, Monday Making, Monday Design Wall and Main Crush Monday.   

Week 17 of 2020: Stitching Stuff

It's been a busy week on the work front, but I got one big project finished. That felt really good.  Unfortunately my day off turned into just a half day off, but I still got to spend some extra time in the sewing room on Friday.  How hard was it for you to get in your 15 minutes of stitching time this week? 

I ended up working late one night this week, but still managed to get in my 15 minutes of stitching time before heading to bed.

15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
15 minute days/April = 24/25 days
15 minute days/2020 = 106/116 days
Success rate = 91.38%

My success rate is well over 85%, so finding time to stitch has been going really well. It helps that we haven't been going anywhere.  

My late work night produced a bit of progress on the butterfly embroidery project.  

Not a lot of visible progress on stitching in the wing details but there is just a bit.  Hopefully I'll get back to the hand work later this week.  Linking up for Slow Stitching Sunday over at Kathy's Quilts. 

On one of my stretch the leg walks through the house this week, I saw this beauty just outside the dining room window.

It was raining cats and dogs that day, but the roses didn't seem to mind.  

That was my week, a lot of work, a bit of stitching and some raindrops on roses.  How did you do  at finding at least 15 minutes to stitch each day last week?  Link up below to share how successful your efforts were. 

1. Chrisknits 2. karen 3. maggie f 4. Julie in GA 5. Meloney

6. Chocolate Chip Cookie Eating Nana 7. Marti 8. katie z. 9. DawnyK 10. Loulee (Manxgirl)

11. Amanda 12. Quilting Gail 13. Deana

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

To Do List for 4/21/2020

Even with stitching every evening, it's hard to make really significant progress on my projects if there's not much time in the sewing room over the weekend.  The yard work and associated recovery cut back the sewing room time this weekend, so there wasn't as much progress as there could have been. 

Weekly To Do List (04/14/2020)

Mosaic Mystery: Add fourth border ✔ 

Frolic: Make more 4 patches ✔

Winter Quilt Along: Attach binding, progress

Unity: Finish step 1, progress 

Checking off two out of four isn't too bad, and there was progress on all four projects on the list.  Not a bad week all in all. So what's on the to do list for this week? 

Weekly To Do List (04/21/2020)

Winter Quilt Along: Finish the binding

Just two more corners to hand stitch down and I'm close to finishing off corner three.  I should definitely have a finish this week.  

Mosaic Mystery:  Find fabric for and make a backing

Mosaic Mystery is a finished flimsy. I didn't have time or the light last night to get a good photo of the whole quilt.  I'll get a better photo sometime this week. 

Unity: Finish steps 1 and 2

Step 1 is almost finished, the blocks just need to be sewn together and the first border added.  I've started cutting the flying geese for the first pieced border.  Clue 4 came out yesterday, so I'm really behind, but that's OK.  It's not a race. I'm enjoying the new project up on the design wall, it's keeping me motivated on the older projects. 

Frolic: Finish the 4-patches

 

These will be the leader and enders for the week. If I get these done, the sashing strips will be the next leader and ender.  

So it should be a good week. Chances are there will be a finish, always a good feeling. If I can get the backing done for Mosaic Mystery, that's one more quilt that's likely to make it to the completed list as well.  We have Friday off this week, so I should have more time in the sewing room this weekend.  

You can check out all the other Tuesday To Do Lists over at Home Sewn by Us.  Happy stitching this week.

Moving Right Along, But Nothing to Show

The weekend went way to fast. We did some much needed yard maintenance on Saturday.  Both of us paid for it on Sunday.  There is something to the fact we aren't as young as we used to be.  So between battle of the branches on Saturday and the Sunday morning retreat to the recliner with my heating pad, not much else got done. 

There has been progress on all the active projects, just not stuff that photographs well.  Mosaic Mystery needs one more border to be a finished flimsy. 

  
It would be nice to get Mosaic Mystery finished soon.  Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs has already posted that her 2020 mystery will start July 2nd. 

There is visible progress on the Unity Mystery Quilt.  

Unity, 2020 Bonnie Hunter Sew-In-Place Quilt Along

All the blocks are made for the medallion center, but all the pieces still need to be sewn together. Clue 4 comes out today. It's OK to be behind, I'm just enjoying the process and the newness of the project.  Hopefully Unity will get finished before the newness wears off.  

That's it for me this week.  Linking up with Monday Making, Monday Design Wall and Main Crush Monday.  

Week 16 of 2020: Stitching Stuff

Yesterday it was much warmer and sunny.  We took to opportunity to deal with a tree with branches that had overgrown onto the roof  That involved ladders, loppers, saws and very large trash bags.  Plus a dose of Aleve before bed last night.  Even so, I'm moving just a bit slowly this morning.  Stitching time was a bit limited this weekend but I did manage to work in my 15 minutes on Saturday even with the battle of the branches. How did you do at finding at least 15 minutes to stitch each day? 

   
My stitching week wasn't so bad. 

15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
15 minute days/April = 17/18 days
15 minute days/2020 = 99/109 days
Success rate = 90.83%

I managed at least minimal stitching time each day this week.  Enough to make progress, but not as much as I would have liked. Hopefully you had much better luck finding more stitching time each day.  You can link up at the bottom of the post to share how your stitchy week went.  

My April One Monthly Goal is to finish the Winter Quilt Along project.  I'm making progress stitching down the binding. 

I've turned one corner and got the label stitched down. So that counts as really good progress in my book.  I'm hoping to make some more good progress on the binding this afternoon.   Linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday.  

Did you manage to work in 15 minutes of stitching time each day last week?  Link up below and share your adventures in stitching and social distancing.  

1. Julie in GA 2. karen 3. Stitching Loving Nana :) 4. Marti 5. Meloney

6. Chrisknits 7. Shasta @ High Road 8. Angie in SoCal 9. DawnyK 10. Loulee (Manxgirl)

11. Amanda 12. Quilting Gail 13. Deana 14. Christina's Handicrafts

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

PHD In 2020 Update: Mid April

How is it already mid-April?  We've been working from home for pretty much a month now. We've got a routine, but I'm not a fan of working from home.  You'd think there would be some time savings with no commute, but I find it's harder to end the day on time.  

So my stitching time hasn't increased.  Add in making a few face masks for family and friends means that time for project sewing has actually been lower this month. But there has been some progress with the PHD program.  

Binding and label are done for the Winter Quilt Along project. 

I've started stitching the binding to the front of the quilt.  Just one side done as of tonight, but this part will go fast.  It's the hand stitching to the back that's going to be a bit slow. But that's OK, I like the hand stitching part of the finish.

There's been progress on the last border for Mosaic Mystery. 

The border strips are all sewn together.  So now I can cut the strips to fit the two longest sides.  I'm hoping to have a finished flimsy by the next PHD update. 

There's been good progress on Frolic.

Frolic, 2019 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

I need three more light blue blocks and I'll be ready to assemble the last 3 rows.  I'm hoping to have all the rows together by the end of the month.  

There's been a bit of progress on the Butterfly Medallion project. 

The cross stitch is done in the top of the wing and I've started adding in the black out line and detail stitching.  

That's all the progress towards the PHD in 2020.  

I couldn't resist  starting a new project. Bonnie Hunter's Unity quilt along just looked like too much fun to pass up. 

Unity, Bonnie Hunter  2020 Social Distancing Quilt Along 

The black and yellow fabrics have been in the stash for a long time. The colors looked great in EQ, I hope the actual fabrics work equally as well in the final quilt.   

So here's the PHD report as of today. 

So one finish, but one new start.  At least I'm breaking even on total number of projects.  I'm moving along on several projects, so I'm hoping for a mass of finishes later this year.  

Check out Quilting Gail to see how everyone else is progressing with their PHD programs.  

Weekly To Do List for 4/14/2020

It was back to work yesterday morning after the three day holiday weekend.  But it was a good weekend on the stitching front, even if my to do list fell victim to the making of more face masks and the new quilt along I couldn't resist.  Here's last week's list.   

Weekly To Do List (04/7/2020)
Mosaic Mystery: Add fourth border - progress
Frolic: Finish 2 lt. blue blocks, stitch rows together ✔
Winter Quilt Along: Trim quilt, make binding ✔

Checked off two and made progress on the third, that feels good.  Especially considering the number of other distractions in the sewing room last week.  So what's the plan for this week?  

Weekly to Do List (04/14/2020)

Winter Quilt Along: Finish label, add binding, finish quilt

The excess batting and backing has been trimmed off. 

The binding is ready. 

It wasn't on last week's to do list, but the label is printed, it just needs to be trimmed up and framed before being pinned to the quilt. 

Fingers crossed I'll have another finish by the end of the week.  

Mosaic Mystery:  Add the final border

Frolic: Make more 4-patch blocks

I've used up all the 4 patches made as part of clue 1.  I only need 12  of these little units to finish off the last three blocks.  This should be an easy leader and ender project for the week. 

Unity: Finish clue 1 and 2, start on clue 3 

That's a pretty ambitious to do list. If I can manage to check off two of the four, it will have been a really good week.  Linking up with To Do Tuesday over at Home Sewn by Us once it's posted. Good luck with your to do list this week.  

Something New To Go With the Old

The weather turned miserable on Sunday.  It was cold, wet and very windy.  So our Easter was very low key.  Since we had Friday off, I got in an extra afternoon of stitching time this weekend.  So though it wasn't our typical Easter, it wasn't a bad holiday.  It was nice to have some extra down time.   

There was a request for more face masks, so I spent some time this weekend and made a few. 

How some of you are making hundreds of these I don't know.  I only finished 8 more, but that took the better part of two afternoons and I was pretty sick of them by dinner time on Sunday.

While stitching on the masks, I worked in a few more seams on Frolic.

Frolic, 2019 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

So it's over half assembled now.  The progress on getting this to finished flimsy stage has been pretty steady. I doubt will be a finished flimsy by the end of April, but hopefully by the end of May it will be.   

I resisted for a week. But after seeing the second round of Bonnie Hunter's Unity quilt along, the temptation was just too much and I couldn't keep myself from auditing fabrics.  After surveying the stash, playing around in EQ, here's the final selection.   

The gold floral and the black floral have been around for a few years. The green isn't that old and the neutral, which is actually a white with pale yellow dots on it, was purchased last year. I liked how this color combo worked in EQ, hopefully it will work as well with the actual fabrics. The mask making slowed down progress on these blocks, but I like what's up on the design wall so far. 

Unity, Bonnie Hunter  2020 Social Distancing Quilt Along 

   
I'm way behind as clue three will come out today, but that's OK.  It's rare that I can keep up with Bonnie's clues.  I'm looking forward to adding in the blocks with the black floral. Hopefully, I'll still like it at that point.  

Starting a new project is always a nice distraction. I left room in my quilt plan for one unspecified new project, so I'm still on track with my goals for the year.  It's hard to focus only on the older projects. A new project here and there is just necessary to help keep up the fun level.  

Linking up with Monday Making and Design Wall Monday for the normal Monday show and tell.  

Week 15 of Stitching Stuff

Happy Easter!  It's not the holiday we expected, no big family gathering as in years past. It will just be the three of us, but we are making the most of it.  We spent Good Friday taking care of things around the house and just relaxing. I'm finding working from home more stressful and busy than working in the office is.  But we are all getting into more of a daily groove, so finding time to stitch a bit each day hasn't suffered too badly. How are you doing at finding some time to play with needle and thread for at least 15 minutes each day?

I didn't have a perfect week on the stitching front. With all the extra stuff going on with working from home, I almost missed a deadline for personnel reports. It took the better part of an afternoon and evening to finish those. I was too wiped out to stitch once they were done.    

15 minute days/week = 6/7 days
15 minute days/April = 10/11 days
15 minute days/2020 = 92/102 days
Success rate = 90.20%

Even with the day of no stitching time my success rate is still over 90%, so I'm still on track with my goal of stitching 85% of the time.  You can link up at the bottom of the post and share how your stitching week went. 

In celebration of Easter, here's some clear signs of spring we've seen during our lunch walks the last couple of weeks.  

I think these are crabapple blooms? 

Definitely red bud blooms. 

I'm pretty sure this is Bradford Pear.  

I don't remember what this is, it's the ground covering around our rose bushes.  

I haven't had time to figure out what these are, they were growing in the median at the end of the street, but they sure were pretty.   

That's been our view of spring.  Please link up below and share if social distancing helped you find more time to stitch or has it just been a distraction?  

1. Loulee (Manxgirl) 2. Julie in GA 3. Chrisknits 4. karen 5. Marti

6. katie z. 7. Quilting Gail 8. Shasta @ High Road 9. DawnyK 10. Amanda

11. Meloney 12. Nana Handstitching Blocks 13. Deana 14. Christina's Handicrafts

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

Happy Easter!

Weekly To Do List for 4/7/2020

The working from home thing is starting to become a bit more normal.  Though I'm spending more time in video conferences than meetings during a typical week in the office.  It's a lot harder to end the day since I'm already home.  So I'm still struggling to do much more than my 15 minutes of stitching time each evening. By the time we finish up, go for an evening walk and eat dinner, there's just not much energy for stitching.  Though I can't really blame that for the lack of progress on last week's to do list.  The need to make a few face masks for the family and friends took over the bulk of my stitching time this weekend.  Just how badly did that affect the to do list? 

Weekly To Do List 03/31/2020
Twinkle Stars: Finish Binding ✔
Mosaic Mystery:  Add 4th border - no progress
Frolic:  Make 2 lt blue blocks, continue quilt assembly - progress
Unity: Pick out fabrics, make center block - abandoned

Twinkle Stars was finished last week. That alone made my week.  I made some good progress on Frolic.  Progress on Mosaic Mystery fell victim to my face mask sewing.  I did demo some fabrics for Unity, but in the end decided it just didn't fit in with my goal to work on finishes this year. I'll save the pdf files as they come out. Maybe I'll decide to make that later this year once I get a few quilts off the UFO list.  

So what's the plan for this week? 

Weekly To Do List for 04/06/2020

Winter Quilt Along:  trim excess batting, make binding

That should be doable as this is only a 4 day work week since we have Good Friday off. 

Frolic:  Finish 2 lt. blue blocks, assemble rows

This is the progress on the two blocks from last week's list.  The first is almost finished. There is still quite a bit of assembly needed for the second block. 

Mosaic Mystery:  Add the final border. Hopefully I'll have better luck this week on getting this to do item checked off. 

So that's my list for this week. You can check out all the other lists over at To Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.  

A Bit of this and That

The weekends are the most normal part of the week.  Laundry and housework still have to get done.  And spending significant time in the sewing room is a big part of my normal.  It was a pretty ordinary weekend.  Though my sewing project for Saturday was out of the ordinary.   

Since the CDC is now recommending we all wear face masks if we go grocery shopping, I pulled out bin of large scraps,  found a few feet of elastic in my old clothes making stash and made a few.  These are for my family and the Scientist in Training's roommate's family.  None of them are perfect, but they won't come apart.   

I used Frolic as my leader and ender project while I was working on the masks.

Frolic, 2019 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

Two rows are assembled and there has been good progress on getting row three finished off. I'm really happy with how this one is coming together.  

That's pretty much all that went on in my sewing room this weekend.  Linking up with Monday Making and the Monday Design Wall posts.  

Week 14 of 2020: Stitching Stuff

The Scientist in Training and I were up a bit late just hanging out.  She's better at the staying up late thing then I am.  It apparently affects me more than it used to, the 15 Minutes to Stitch linky party is a bit late this morning as I over slept.  

Working from home is finally becoming routine and it's been easier to work in my stitching time.  Last week was really good on that front. 

15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
15 minute days/March = 29/31 days
15 minute days/April = 4/4 days
15 minute days/2020 = 86/95 days
Success rate = 90.53%

So I'm back to stitching more than 90% of the time.  My goal for the year is to manage at least an 85% success rate, so I'm doing really well with that goal. You can share how successful you were at finding time to stitch so far this year at the bottom of the post. 

It's a new month, so here's the stash report so far for 2020. 

Fabric used in March = 2.4 yards
Fabric used in 2020 = 15.42 yards
Nothing in for 2020

March was a bit slower on the fabric out front, but at least there's not been any fabric purchases to date and I'm in still in the black 3 months into the year. Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for the regular stash report.  

There was a bit of slow stitching this week. Not as much as there has been, but enough to make visable progress. 

I should finish off that top wing sometime this week.  Linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday.  

So now that I've caught up with all the other Sunday linky parties, here's the 15 minutes to stitch linky party.   

1. karen 2. Chrisknits 3. Julie in GA 4. Meloney 5. Marti

6. Shasta @ High Road 7. katie z. 8. DawnyK 9. Loulee (Manxgirl) 10. Amanda

11. Quilting Gail 12. Deana 13. Carol Andrews 14. Christina's Handicrafts

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

Progress on the 2020 PHD and Other Quilty Ambitions

The first quarter of 2020 is over.  It's definitely not been the year I was expecting in terms of work and general life.  The stuff going on the sewing room has been progressing almost normally. So I'm going to concentrate on what progress there's been there.  

My 2020 Quilting Ambitions were pretty simple.  

The big push this year is to finish a few quilts.  I signed up with Quilting Gail's 2020 PHD Program to help keep me motivated on that front.  And I can finally show some progress on that front. 

A finish finally!  The last stitch in the binding for Twinkle Stars happened about 10:15ish on 3/31.  

Twinkle Stars from a Tutorial by Angela Feldbush of Soscrappy

I'm really happy with how it turned out.  Twinkle Stars was my 2015 Rainbow Scrap Challenge project. So just a bit over 5 years from start to finish.  Part of the reason it took so long to finish was that I struggled with deciding on the setting and borders. That's my usual hurdle to finishing up one of my scrappy projects.  This quilt will go live with one of the Scientist in Training's writing group buddies. The SIT loves it, so much that she said it's hard to give it up to someone else. It's always nice when the family likes what you've made.  

That's the only finish so far this year. But there has been good progress on a few other projects. 

The Winter Quilt Along project was partially assembled at the beginning of the year. 

Quiltygirl Winter Quilt Along from Alycia Quilts

It's back from being quilted and needs to be trimmed up and bound.  That's going to be the One Monthly Goal for April.

I've continued to work on the 2019 Bonnie Hunter Mystery, Frolic. Last year's mystery quilt went on for a few weeks past the first of the year.  I still need to finish up a few of the blocks, but there's enough done to start the assembly process. 

Frolic, 2019 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

I'm happy with how this one is coming together.  The blocks have quite a few pieces, so finishing the last five will probably take all month.  Then there are the pieced borders to finish. I'm hoping this one is a completed flimsy by the end of May.  

Mosaic Mystery is another mystery quilt still in progress from 2019.  But all it needs is one more border. 

Mosaic Mystery Quilt from Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs

The borders always take longer then I think they will. Even so, I'm hoping to have the last one on and a backing made for this project by the end of the month.  

I've added one more project to my current rotation and that's the embroidered medallion quilt.  

This is usually my take along travel project, but it now sits by my recliner. It's my "sit with the family and hang out project". Which I've done a lot of the last couple of weeks. I'm stitching on the butterfly in the upper right and have made a fair amount of progress on it. 

No plans to get this project finished this year, I'm just hoping to move it along a little more this year.

So how is 2020 going?  Three months into the year and only one finish wasn't the plan.  But a second quilt just needs binding and a third should be ready for quilting by the end of this month. And I've not started any new projects, yet.  I'm really tempted by Bonnie Hunter's Unity project. I've been auditing fabrics for it, but haven't decided if I'm going to start that one or not.  Not the best first quarter, but definitely not the worst!