To Do Tuesday for the Week of 4/19/22

Last week was pretty much a bust in terms of time spent in the sewing room. I knew going in to last week that there wouldn't be a lot of stitching time, so I kept the list short and simple.    

Weekly To Do List for 4/12/2022

• Potions: Make binding, attach to front of quilt - progress
• Macaron Mystery: Continue assembling rows ✔
• Rhododendron Mystery: Work on clue 5, hourglass blocks as leaders/enders ✔

Two check marks and progress on the third is a good week considering just how much overtime I worked.  

I've still got a more than full load at work this week. So I'm going to keep this week's list short and simple. 

Weekly To Do List for 4/19/2022

Potions:  Make binding, attach to front of group, start hand stitching to back. 

The quilt was trimmed last week.  The label is made and the binding strips are cut. This quilt really needs to be finished by the first week in May.  I'm still going to be working a lot this week, but hopefully I can eek out at least 15 minutes each evening so Potions is done on time.  

That's my list for this week.  If I make any progress at all, I'll be thrilled.  Linking up with the Texas Quilt Gal for To Do Tuesday.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 16 of 2022

I'm a little late posting this morning.  It's been a very rough week, so sleeping in was very much needed.  It's been a week of full days and late nights at work. Needless to say both my stitching time and blog reading time for the week suffered pretty significantly. 

• 15 minute days/week = 1/7 days
• 15 minute days/April = 10/16 days
• 15 minute days/2022 = 92/106 days
• Success rate = 86.75%

I didn't manage to get to everyone's posts this week, I'm hoping to to do better this week. I've gotten past the worst of the project, but still have a lot to get done this week.  Fingers crossed I won't need to work so late each night.  

We had hoped to take advantage of the holiday weekend to catch up with family, but both My Guy and I had to work our Good Friday Holiday, so we are just catching up with the Scientist in Training.  Wishing you a very happy Easter. 

Hopefully you had much more productive week with the stitching stuff than I did.  

1. Julie in GA 2. Melissa G 3. Gretchen 4. Ivani 5. Colletta's Kitchen Sink

6. Frederique 7. DonnaleeQ 8. Quilting Gail 9. Andre at Quilting and Learning 10. DawnyK

11. Carol @ Quilt Schmilt 12. DonnaleeQ 13. maggie f 14. Shasta @ High Road 15. Dq at Dreamworthyquilts

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

To Do Tuesday for the Week of 4/12/2022

Life has been busy. It's tax season, plus my special project at work has really picked up and I ended up working most of the weekend.  While that helped with the work to do list, the stitching to do list suffered. 

Weekly To Do List for 4/5/2022

• Unity: Find backing fabric, press, cut panels - progress
• Macaron Mystery: Start assembling blocks into rows ✔
• Rhododendron Mystery: Work on clue 5, hourglass blocks as leaders and enders ✔

Two out of three isn't a horrible week considering how busy it was and how little stitching time I had over the weekend.  Thankfully, the I have some wiggle room with the due date for my part of the special project I picked up, so fingers crossed I won't have to work the holiday as we have family plans.  But that means I won't have a lot of stitching time either way.  So we'll keep this week's list pretty short and simple.  

Weekly To Do List for 4/12/2022

Potions: Make binding, attach to front of quilt

Potions: Patten by Flying Parrots Quilts

Potions showed up last Friday.  It's hard to see all the quilting detail in this shot, but Trudy did a wonderful job with it.  I'm going to focus on getting the binding ready and stitched on so I can use this as handwork over the weekend when we are hanging out with family.  

Macaron Mystery: Continue row assembly

Macaron Mystery: Meadow Mist Designs 2021 Mystery Quilt Along

For some reason the blocks wouldn't stay up on the design wall, so I took most of them down.  The two corners are assembled and the first rows of sashing are finished.  I doubt much gets done, but I'm hoping to at least get the sashing sewn to the next row of blocks.  

Rhododendron Mystery: Work on clue 5, hourglass blocks as leaders and enders

Rhododendron Mystery: Bonnie Hunter 2021 Quilt Along

One block A and one block B have been added to the design wall this week.  I've got half of the A blocks done, and not quilt half of the B blocks finished.  Progress is the goal and that's happening, though a bit on the slow side.  

I did find a backing fabric for Unity in the stash, but that's all I managed. It still needs to be pressed and cut. I'm not adding it to this week's list as it likely wouldn't get done with all the other commitments this week.  

That's my list for this week.  Linking up with Linda of Texas Quilt Gal for To Do Tuesday.  Good luck with your to do list.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 15 of 2022

It hasn't been the best week for long stretches of stitching time, but I've managed to work in some sewing time each day this week.

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/April = 9/9 days
• 15 minute days/2022 = 91/99 days
• Success rate = 91.92%

Even a few minutes each evening means progress and helps maintain some semblance of sanity with all the other stuff going on at the moment.  My goal for stitching time this year was to find at least 15 minutes, 75% of the time. I'm doing much better than I expected. But it was April last year when my stitching time went south. Hopefully I can do better this year. 

It's been a while since the subject of stash management has shown up on the blog.  Best I can tell, the last stash report posted was way back in 2020.  Turns out I'm really lousy at stash management, I love fabric way too much. Posting my excesses on the blog didn't really stop me from indulging in new yardage whenever the fancy struck. But I've been doing better at asking, "Do I really need and will I use a given yardage?" before pushing the buttons on the computer. So my metrics for 2022 don't look so shabby. 

  

I've actually used more fabric than I've purchased for the first time in 7 years.  The 12 yard purchase was some red, yellow and purple tone on tones to refresh that part of my stash, I don't have a lot of those colors. I do have a Connecting Threads fabric order that should show up this week, but it was purchased to be the backing for the Macaron Mystery quilt, so hopefully most of it will go back out before the end of the year.  

What's been more motivating for me on the stash management front is to see how my fabric usage compares to past years. 

Last year wasn't a good year for fabric usage. I'm doing better this year, fabric out is already more than half of what it was last year and less than 1/3 of the year has passed. I've tried over the years to use the data I collect in my Excel sheet to determine what drives fabric usage. Believe it or not stitching time doesn't correlate well with fabric usage.  Even the number of quilts finished in a given year isn't a wonderful correlation. 

If I was better at data analytics maybe I could figure out the multivariate factors that drive fabric usage.  For now, I'll stop with the nerd statistics and ask you how did your stitchy week go?   

1. Julie in GA 2. Gretchen 3. maggie f 4. Melissa G 5. karen

6. Ivani 7. Frederique 8. Andre at Quilting and Learning 9. DawnyK Week 14 10. DawnyK

11. DonnaleeQ 12. Jennifer in Indy 13. Quilting Gail

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

Photo Challenge Week 40: Every Photo Tells A Story

I'm a bit late posting for this week. The Scientist in Training has had some late nights in the lab working on getting the data for her Honors College Thesis.  So she begged a bit of time to get a photo in for this week (To be completely honest, I had to head in to work pretty early this morning, so I really didn't have time to write a post anyway).  At any rate, here's this week's challenge. 

 

Unfortunately my story is a sad one. 

Kate: The Story of a Lost Weekend

This is what I went into the office to work on.  Most of the calculations were actually done on the computer, but there were a few quick and dirty done on the calculator. I'll definitely be giving my Excel files a work out again tomorrow.  

My Guy's turned out really cute. 

My Guy: A Bird in the Cup is Worth.... 

 

My Guy went to town with the Lego stories, he captured several this week. 

Unfortunately for the SIT, her photo pretty much mimics her mother's. 

Scientist in Training: The Story of a College Career

She's obviously hanging out in her office outside the lab this weekend, just as Mom is. 

This week's challenge should be a fun one. 

I'll have to keep my eyes open to possibilities this week.  

April One Monthly Goal: Finish Potions

I was pretty sure what the plan was for my April One Monthly Goal. 

But I needed to be sure that Trudy was going to be able to finish the quilting. Potions is making the return trip and should be here Friday. 

Potions: Pattern by Flying Parrot Quilts

We've been vacillating between two names for this quilt. The first is "Reactive Intermediates" and the second is "Starting Materials". Both are common synthetic organic chemistry lingo.  We have decided on quilt label design. 

 

The SIT needs to provide me with her message for the recipient, then I can print the label.  

So to finish Potions, we need to decide on the name, make the label, make the binding and attach the binding to the quilt.  That should be doable by the end of the month.  

Linking up with Elm Street Quilts for the April One Monthly Goal.  

To Do Tuesday for the Week of 4/5/2022

I've been keeping my To Do Lists simple and short recently.  That seems to be working well for me, just enough items to keep me on track and not so much that I feel frustrated when my week goes wonky and my sewing time disappears.  Last week was a good week in the sewing room.  

• Unity: Add final border ✔
• Macaron Mystery: Make last block B, cut setting triangles ✔
• Rhododendron: Work on clue 5, hourglass blocks as leaders/enders ✔

Three for three is a good week, especially when one of those check marks means that Unity is a finished quilt top.  The plan is to keep the list simple for this week as well.

Unity: Find backing fabric, press and cut panels

I usually tackle the backing before I press and clean up the back of the quilt top. I'm pretty sure I have a backing fabric picked out for this quilt, it's just hiding somewhere in the sewing room.  

Macaron Mystery: Start assembling blocks into rows

Cheryl used half blocks as the setting triangles in at the top and bottom. That wasn't working for me, so I replaced those blocks with simple setting triangles.  All the sashing strips are cut, now it's just a matter of stitching all the rows together.  

Rhododendron Mystery:  Work on clue 5, make hourglass blocks as leaders and enders. 

I finished enough components to assemble another A block this week. The hourglass blocks are slowly starting to add up. I lack one hourglass of being able to assemble another B block.  

That's my plan for this week.  Linking up with Linda of Texas Quilt Gal for this week's Tuesday To Do.  

Not Quite the End of Unity

Saturday was pretty much a nothing but sewing day. A treat to myself since I may not get another chance to do that till May.  Sunday was laundry and taxes. (Is there a worse combination of chores?)  But those chores were finished early enough that I was still able to work in a few hours of stitching in the afternoon.  

The goal on Saturday was to finish adding the borders to Unity.  

Unity: Bonnie Hunter 2020 Sew in Place Quilt Along

I'm happy with how this project worked out.  My version differs from Bonnie's original instructions in a few places. The black border around the center block is made from the background fabric in Bonnie's version.  My friendship star border has the corner triangles in a different spot, so mine don't have the pinwheel look. Plus I used a completely different block in next to last pieced border.  So maybe this project should be called Parts of Unity?  

Next step is to figure out what the backing will be, get that sewn, then clean up the quilt back. That's going to be a chore as the background fabric unraveled badly. I'm hoping there is time to work that this month, we'll have to see how much time work suck up the next couple of weeks. 

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

Stitching Stuff: Week 14 of 2022

The wall calendar has been flipped from March to April.  We are hoping the weather has finally flipped more firmly to spring. It was cold and wet most of last week. This weekend has been much warmer.  I should be careful what I wish for, spring doesn't last long in Oklahoma. The average temps can go from the 70's to the 90's by the beginning of May.  

Spring does add to the to do list, but not as much as it used to when the Scientist in Training was living at home. Yard work still gets added to the weekend household chores.  But this week those kind of activities didn't affect my sewing time. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/March = 25/31 days
• 15 minute days/April = 2/2 days
• 15 minute days/2022 = 84/92 days
• Success rate = 91.30%

I managed 7 out of 7 days this week for the first time since the end of February.  My Guy's bicycle accident and resignations at work impacted my sewing time for the March.  Thankfully My Guy is mostly healed up, though he's still struggling to eat crunchy and really chewy foods.  Work is going to be messy for a few months. I'm expecting my sewing time to be impacted as there is going to be a lot of overtime this month to complete a project that wasn't originally on my to do list.  

How are you doing at maintaining your sewing time as the season turns from winter to spring?  

1. Julie in GA 2. Gretchen 3. maggie f 4. karen 5. Ivani

6. Melisa - Pinker n Punkin Quilting 7. DonnaleeQ Bears & Neutral Quilts 8. Deb in Canada 9. Amanda 10. Another Stitching Nana

11. Andre at Quilting and Learning 12. Quilting Gail 13. Carol @ Quilt Schmilt

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

Photo Challenge Week 39: A Pet?

Do you ever reach Saturday morning and just feel bliss as you sit down for that first cup of coffee knowing you don't have to rush it, then finish breakfast, shower, dress and head out the door?  I was so ready for Saturday.  

While I'm drinking that first cup of coffee this morning, I was looking over this week's challenge photos.  We actually had photos last night, usually I'm waiting on someone to get their photo to me sometime on Saturday.  This week's prompt was a bit of a challenge, so I expected not to be posting till this evening. 

The legal definition of "a pet" that states it's "domesticated animal that is kept for pleasure, rather than for commercial purposes".  I'm very allergic to animal dander, so we've never had pets based on the legal description. But if you reference the Merriam-Webster dictionary, there are several other definitions. Pet can also be used as an adjective; to imply something is kept or treated as a pet, express fondness or endearment (pet name), or imply something is a favorite (pet project).  I'll let you decide if this week's photos falls under one of those definitions. 

 

Kate: My Pet Activity

I can't say my sewing machine gets pats and pets, but it certainly is one of my favorite things to spend time with.

My Guy and the Scientist in Training went in very similar directions. 

My Guy: SCOoBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast)

My Guy has fed, watered and nursed this sourdough starter since early 2020. He was still able to make bread when you couldn't get yeast during the pandemic (He actually was OK on the yeast front too, he bought in bulk before that baking staple became scarce).  

Scientist in Training: My Pet Hermit

The SIT's pet sourdough is a lot younger than My Guy's. The care and feeding of Hermit didn't start till after Christmas this year.  The SIT and My Guy don't see any of the photos till I post on Saturday, so they have no idea what each of them did. In this case the SIT sent me her photo last Monday, My Guy didn't take his shot till last night. 

The challenge for this week should be fun. 

Hmm, wonder what what stories we'll have to tell from this week.  

PHD in 2022: March Progress

The first quarter of 2022 is done.  That was fast, or at least it seemed that way.  I'm definitely ready for spring.  Mother Nature ended March with a pre-April Fool's Day prank. We had snow flurries yesterday!  I had to drag my winter coat out of the closet.  It really felt more like January than it did the day before April 1st.

Now that March is over, it's time to assess how much progress I've made towards my PHD in 2022. 

There's been no new finishes this month, so my PHD report looks the same as February. 

On the other side of the equation, no new starts either.  I've been doing a good job at focusing on just a few projects and moving them towards completion.  My goal for the year is progress and I've done well in March on that front.  

Unity (Bonnie Hunter 2020 Quilt Along) has been the leaders and enders project for over a year. It's finally graduated to be my focus project during the second half of March.

The green will be the final border for the project. One strip is attached, the second is pinned and ready to be stitched on.  If work doesn't get too crazy this month, I'm hoping to have it out for quilting by the end of the month.  So it's on track to be my third finish for the year.  

The Macaron Mystery (Meadow Mist designs 2021 mystery quilt along) has also seen good progress this month. 

Just one more block to stitch together, then I can start working on the setting triangles and sashing.  There should be good progress on this project in April, but I doubt it gets to the finished quilt top stage.  

The Rhododendron Mystery (Bonnie Hunter 2021 mystery quilt along) has been moving slowly, it's my new leaders and enders project. 

Those hour glass blocks do take a bit of effort to get enough to finish a block.  I did add one block B and have the components of a block A that just need to be stitched together to show as progress for March.  My goal is to get the quilt top finished before this year's mystery starts up.  That should be doable.  

Potions (Flying Parrot Quilts) went out for quilting at mid month.  

This project should be on it's way back sometime next week.  The plan is to get it labeled and bound by the end of the month.  That should be doable. 

If work doesn't get too crazy, I'm on track for a total of four finishes by mid-year.  But I'm moving into a completely new position sometime in May/June, so all bets are off on what things are going to look like after that. 

Linking up with Quilting Gail for the March PHD Report.