To Do Tuesday for the Week of 5/31/2022

It was nice to have a three day weekend, it just went really fast.  I was able to spend most of Monday afternoon in the sewing room. It was nice.  My last To Do List was posted two weeks ago, so I've had ample time to make some progress on it.  

To Do List for 5/17/2022

• Macaron Mystery: Continue assembling rows ✔
• Rhododendron Mystery: Make hourglass blocks as leaders and enders  ✔

I kept the goals simple to accommodate what was already a busy schedule even without the never ending project. I'm good with the simple, my goal is progress. So there's been progress, just not as fast as I had hoped.  

I will likely have to work late tonight evaluating the last set of data for the never ending project.  But hopefully that will be it and I'll be back to my normal schedule.  Even so, I'll be keeping the To Do List short and pretty easy.  

To Do List 5/31/22

Unity: press backing fabric, decide how to assemble back

 

The backing has been washed, but needs a really good pressing before cutting the pieces for the back.  I laid Unity out on the living room floor yesterday to check for flatness and made a couple of seam adjustments. It looks much better after that.  

Macaron Mystery: Start on first border

Macaron will get three borders, two black and one white. I did look at using red, but I don't have enough for even a really skinny border. I barely have enough of the white and black with the squares to use those as border fabrics.  

Rhododendron Mystery: Make hourglass blocks as leaders and enders. 

 Those hour glass blocks are slow going. I've also been stitching up block A's while assembling the Macaron Mystery.  Macaron will be finished first, but baring another massive project at work, Rhododendron should be finished before this year's Bonnie Hunter Mystery comes out.  

That's my list for this week.  I'm linking up for To Do Tuesday over at Texas Quilt Gal.  Good luck with your to do list this week. 

A Little Stitching Time Feels Good

It's been a slow down and rest kind of weekend. I definitely needed it. This is the first weekend in over a month that I've not had to drag out the work computer and look at data.  I was under the weather on Saturday, all the stress and late nights at the computer finally caught up with me, so I  slept most of Saturday afternoon. The sewing room was calling my name by Sunday afternoon. It was nice to get to spend a few hours playing on the sewing machine.  

First on my list was to figure out what had been going on in the sewing room before the never ending work project took over my life. Potions was the last thing in the works, but it's completed and gifted.  The borders are on Unity, but it isn't laying flat, so it needs some additional work before it gets prepped for quilting. I'm not really in the mood to tackle that at the moment. 

The next thing on my list is to assemble the Macaron Mystery quilt. That involved lots of stitching time, so it fit the bill for an afternoon in the sewing room.  The two halves are now all assembled. 

Macaron Mystery: Meadow Mist Designs 2021 Mystery Quilt Along

All that's left is to piece the center sashing strip.  That's on the agenda for today.  Once that's done, I'll need to decide if getting Unity fixed is next or do I stick with Macaron till it's ready to go out for quilting.  Unity will probably win out. I'll have my direction all sorted out before drafting this week's to do list.  

It feels good to be back in the sewing room and spending some time catching up on blog reading.  I've got a ways to go to catch up with everyone. Linking up with Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, and Patchwork and Quilts.  

Stitching Stuff Week 22 of 2022

We've been enjoying our 3 day holiday weekend by playing catch up around the house.  The work project that will not end is still going.  Fingers crossed it will wrap up on Tuesday this next week. The Scientist in Training and I took a road trip to Texas early in the week to apartment hunt.  That trip was successful, but didn't really feel like vacation as my evenings were spent on the never ending project.  Consequently my plan to do some hand stitching each day just didn't happen.  It's been years since I've had a project that was so disruptive to the rest of my life.  My stitching report continues to look pretty lame.  

• 15 minute days/week = 2/7 days
• 15 minute days/May = 10/28 days
• 15 minute days/2022 = 104/148 days
• Success rate = 70.27%

This isn't the worst year in terms of not having time to stitch, but it's definitely the worst I've had in the last 10 years.  I'm hoping things ease up after midweek once the final report has gone out.  

Though I didn't get to do much stitching on our trip to Texas, the SIT started working on a new project. 

I'm looking forward to seeing this one completed.  

That's it for me this week. Hopefully you managed to get in some good stitching time this week. 

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

6. Frederique 7. Andre at Quilting and Learning 8. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 9. DonnaleeQ 10. DawnyK

11. Amanda 12. Stitching Loving Nana :) 13. Deb in Canada 14. Carol @ Quilt Schmilt

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Photo Challenge: Weeks 43 and 44

I had planned to post week 43 last Saturday, but not all of us had our photos by the end of the day. So this week we'll recap both week 43 and week 44 challenges.  

Week 43 seemed easy enough.

 

The Scientist in Training and I had a fun shopping day the weekend after graduation. It's one of our "things" after school is out for the summer.  Another part of that tradition is lunch at the Cheesecake Factory where dessert is just a given.  

Kate: Dessert is Art

Any dessert is art in my book, but the restaurant does do a nice job showcasing those decadent goodies.  

My Guy went artsy with his latest baking endeavor.  

My Guy: Manoushe

It does look good enough to eat.  

The SIT decided to go the liquid route. 

Scientist in Training: Organic Chemistry in a Glass 

Those are pineapple ice cubes in one of her novelty chemistry beer glasses.  

The challenge for week 44 was to come up with interesting photos. 

My solution was to go with a close up. 

Kate: What's in My Wallet

Not the most original shot, but I like it.  I tend to just stuff dollars in my wallet and don't take car to keep them all neat.

My Guy went the novelty approach.    

My Guy: Thanks a Million

On the other side is a thank you note for taking pictures during a work event.  We don't have a company photographer, so My Guy often gets asked to cover local events.  Some of his photos have ended up in company publications. It's always fun to open a report and realize that's your photo on the page.

The Scientist in Training went practical with her photo. 

  

We made a trip to College Station, TX this week so she could apartment hunt.  You can't drive in Oklahoma without hitting a toll road or two.  

That's the photos for the last two weeks.  It's hard for me to pick a favorite out of this bunch.  Do you have one?  

So what's this week's challenge? 

Both the SIT and I had to Google what this was.  Should be an interesting week!  

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.  

  

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

5. Colletta's Kitchen Sink 6. Frederique 7. Sherrie 8. Andre at Quilting and Learning

9. Angie in SoCal 10. katie z. 11. DawnyK 12. Amanda

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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

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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.  

To Do Tuesday For the Week of 5/1/22

The last couple of weeks have been pretty lean on stitching time.  So lean, there was no point in posting a To do List last week.  Thus my last list dates from the week of April 19th.  

Weekly To Do List for 4/19/22

• Potions: Make binding, attach to front of quilt, start hand stitching to back ✔

It took two weeks, but this item is checked off.  So I'm going to take that as a win considering just how crappy the last two weeks have been.  

Apparently, there are last minute additions to the project that required so much overtime the last few weeks. So I'm not done.  Unfortunately, this week includes an all day, off site meeting that I have to attend, plus stuff that I've put off to finish this project. It's not going to be a fun week on the work front and therefore not on the stitching front either since this is going to require more overtime.  So this week's list is going to be really short. 

Weekly To Do List for 5/3/2022

Potions: Finish hand stitching the binding.

I've turned one corner of the binding and am close to turning a second corner.  This needs to be done by the weekend. We'll see if I get that far.

That's my to do list for this next week. Linking up with Texas Quilt Gal for To Do Tuesday.    

Stitching Stuff: Week 18 of 2022

Hi. I feel a bit like Rip Van Winkle. Though it's only been half a month rather then 20 years.  In my last post, I foolishly stated that the worst of this inherited project was behind me.  Ha! Not even close. This is the first year that companies have had to do this regulatory audit, so none of us on the audit team had any idea just how much data we were going to have to sort through, interpret and analyze.  I've pretty much lived, breathed, and dreamed nothing but statistics the last couple of weeks. My deadline was last night at midnight. I finished, mostly, at 1 am this morning.

Needless to say my stitching time statistics really suffered this month.  

• 15 minute days/week 17 = 2/7 days
• 15 minute days/week 18 = 0/7 days
• 15 minute days/April = 12/30 days
• 15 minute days/2022 = 94/120 days
• Success rate = 78.33%

Definitely not one of my better months for stitching time!

My apologies for not getting the linky party up last week. I hope you'll link up today and share how much time you had for stitching the last couple of weeks.

1. Colletta's Kitchen Sink 2. DonnaleeQ 3. Julie in GA -- week 17 4. Julie in GA -- week 18 5. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 6. maggie f 7. Ivani

8. Gretchen 9. Dq at Dreamworthyquilts 10. Melissa G 11. Deb in Canada 12. DawnyK week 17 13. DawnyK week 18 14. Amanda

15. Andre at Quilting and Learning 16. Shasta @ High Road 17. Fr�d�rique 18. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 19. Carol @ Quilt Schmilt

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