To Do List for the Week of 2/28/2023

I'm not sure where February went, I'm not ready for it to be March.  Though I am ready for it to be spring. It was in the 70s yesterday, but temps will start out below freezing later in the week. Early spring in Oklahoma is just a bit nutty.  But based on the weather in California the last week or so, I'm sure many are feeling that way now.  

I can't blame the weather for my lack of progress on last week's to do list. That is mostly due to my shoulder acting up. Progress on my to do list is pretty minimal.  

To Do List for 2/21/2023

1. SAHRR: Finish borders 2, 3, 4 and 5, start border 6 - progress

2. Diatom: Finish blocks 3 and 4 - no progress

3. Melodic Mystery: Continue assembly of quilt top - no progress

4. Wild and Goosey: Finish 2 blue blocks - progress

5. Chilhowie: Continue making blocks as leaders and enders ✔

Only one check mark, but progress on at least two of the remaining items. It was just one of those weeks.  I'm choosing to be happy with what I was able to get done and not focus on what didn't. 

I'm still fighting the shoulder inflammation, though it's markedly better than last week.  I still have to limit my computer time.  Typing on the keyboard, even in the more ergonomic set up, still makes it ache.  Thankfully sewing doesn't seem to be causing any issues.  I'm going to cut back on the to do list for this week and concentrate my efforts on making progress on a few things. 

To Do List for 2/28/2023

1.  SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Finish border 3, make progress on borders 4, 5, and 6.  

 

I've got a good start on the flying geese and square in a square blocks.  I've cut some fabric for the pinwheel blocks.  The final parade is on March 13th, I'd like to have a completed top by then. 

2.  Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Finish one block in the March rainbow scrap color. 

Three blue blocks were finished in February, one short of my goal. But I'm happy that I almost doubled the number of blocks completed.  Some progress is better than none at all. 

3. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Continue making blocks as leaders and enders.

Block 3 is under construction.  Leaders and enders is a slow process, but it does make for consistent progress as long as I'm sewing at the machine.  

That's my list for the week.  Hopefully being a bit more focused will mean three check marks for next week.  Linking up over at the The Quilt Schmilt: For the Love of Fabric for this week's To Do List.  

Stay At Home Round Robin: Week 5

It was a productive day.  Computer time makes my shoulder worse, sewing time seems to help, though I did a lot more scrap hunting and fabric cutting than I did stitching.  Hopefully as this week goes on the shoulder will hurt less, but till then I'll be limiting my computer time. 

Most of the afternoon and evening were spent playing catch up on the 2023 SAHRR.  The final prompt comes out tomorrow over at  the Quilting Gail blog.  I made good progress today on the previous prompts, but didn't get caught up. 

The stars from week 2 are finished and attached.  The hourglass blocks are all made and stitching them together into borders is in progress.  The flying geese are coming along, I'm almost half way done with those.  I did get started on this week's square in a square blocks.  Only two are finished and up on the design wall, but there are several others over at the sewing machine in various stages of completion.  The plan is for each border to have a center diamond, with 3 square in a square blocks on either side.  I'm using blue and green scraps for this border.  You can see all the other SAHRR projects over at The Darling Dogwood.  

I'm really hoping to get caught up this week, but the final parade for the finished projects is March 13th, so I do have a couple of weeks to finish off all the borders.  

Also linking up with Patchwork & Quilts, plus Monday Design Wall linky parties this week.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 8 of 2023

It's not been the best week on several fronts. I wrote earlier that my shoulder was not happy. It's gotten worse since my post on Tuesday.  It hasn't hurt this bad in years. I've been on a steady diet of anti-inflammatories and heating pads this week. Most days I was able to get in 15 minutes of stitching time, but no more than that.  I've had to stay off the computer, so I'm way behind on blog reading and email replies.  Finally on Saturday, I found all the computer connectors to allow me to hook up to my old work from home set up that is much more ergonomic than my normal computer location. Even so, I have to limit my time on the keyboard.  So my apologies for the late replies to last week's link ups and comments. The shoulder seems to be slowly healing, so hopefully by the end of this week it will be mostly back to normal. Still, I'll have to watch my stitching and computer time till the inflammation is completely gone.  

I'm really not ready for it to be week 8 of 2023. 

The sore shoulder affected my ability to get in all my sewing time this week.  

• 15 minute days/week = 6/7 days
• 15 minute days/Feb = 22/25 days
• 15 minute days/2023 = 49/56 days
• Success rate = 87.50%

I missed one day this week, I was just too sore to even lift my arm up to the sewing machine.  By the end of the week I was able to stitch for about an hour, but most days it was just the minimum 15 minutes of stitching time. I'm hoping the worst is over and next week will be much better on stitching and computer time.  How did your stitchy week work out? 

 

1. Amanda 2. Frederique 3. Gretchen 4. Julie in GA

5. Ivani 6. Karen 7. DonnaleeQ 8. Shasta @ High Road

9. Carol Andrews 10. Janice - Jannimary

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Week 60 Photo Challenge: A Piece of Jewerly

We took a week off of the photo challenge since My Guy was traveling the week before.  He volunteers at the Sutton Avian Research Center.  They make 2 trips a year to take Masked Bobwhites bred here to repopulate the coveys in Arizona. The group stays on a couple of days to work on creating good habitat areas for the Bobwhites.  But he was back this week, so we have photos to post for the last challenge card we pulled. 

 

Finding subject matter wasn't a problem for me.  Actually deciding on what subject to use was more of a problem.  I took a lot of photos this week and it was hard to narrow it down to just one.  One of my standing gift requests is for interesting jewelry and my family regularly delivers on that. Some of the pieces are a bit too interesting for my personality but they've gifted me some really pretty baubles as well. 

 

Kate: Cute as a Button

This is a necklace My Guy gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago.  It's made from antique buttons.  I have several pieces from the couple that make this jewelry, they retired just after Christmas this year. Some of my most favorite necklaces are from their shop. I'm sad they closed up, they had some of the most interesting, but lovely designs.  

My Guy's photo for this week fits in really well with his recent trip. 

My Guy: St. Christopher Medal

This St. Christopher medal was given to My Guy by his dad when he was fairly young.  It was well patinaed then. My Guy's dad was very perceptive, so I wonder if he knew then just how much his son was going travel when he grew up (St. Christopher is the patron saint of travelers).  My Guy's been to some pretty interesting and truthfully scary places, such as the middle of nowhere in Indonesia, somewhere on Timor Sea, plus more mundane trips to UK and Canada.  The scariest trip for me was when he had to be airlifted off the ship in the Timor Sea.  It was a 4 hour helicopter trip to the mainland.  His boss didn't know why, he just got emailed they were bringing him back. It was another 2 hours after they landed before I actually heard from My Guy. That was one of the longest days of my life.  My Guy was really, really sick with a virus (106 F fever).  It would be another 5 days before they would let him fly home.  

Grad Girl hasn't been all that into jewelry until recently.  She dresses pretty simply, but recently has had to get more dressed up for various functions and realized she doesn't have any necklaces to dress up or down her look.  So for Christmas this year, she asked for necklaces and the family delivered.  

Grad Girl: The Celestial Collection

She didn't exactly follow the prompt, but I like the theme and composition she ended up going with.  She has some fun pieces in her collection. 

We drew a new card last night. The theme for this week is going to be really hairy. 

Sorry, I couldn't resist the pun.  This should be interesting.  Grad Girl made the comment "Oh good, I was going to vacuum this weekend anyway". So I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to her shot or not. 

To Do List for the Week of 2/21/2023

I'm a bit late posting today.  Computer time has been limited, my shoulder has started acting up again. That's eaten into my stitching time, my blog reading and email replies.  Being at the sewing machine doesn't bother it as badly as being on the computer does, but I've had to cut down on both to help get the inflammation down.  A couple of days of limited activity and my shoulder should be back to normal.  This along with my allergies over the weekend affected my progress on last week's to do list. 

To Do List for 2/14/2023

1. SAHRR: Finish borders 2 and 3, start four - progress

2. Diatom:  Make block 3 - progress

3. Melodic Mystery: Start assembling quilt ✔

4. Wild and Goosey: Make 1 block - progress

5. Chilhowie: Continue project as leaders and enders ✔

So only 2 check marks for last week, but there was progress on all the other items.  I'm not sure how this week is going to go, how well my shoulder heals is key.  At any rate, I'm keeping pretty much the same list for this week. 

To Do List for 2/21/2023

1. SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Finish borders 2, 3, 4, and 5, start border 6. 

Border 2 is almost finished, I've got a good start on the border 3 hour glass blocks, but the border 4 flying geese are going to take some stitching. I've got the plan for border 5 worked out in EQ, now I just need to find the fabrics and start stitching the square in a square blocks. I think I'm going to paper piece mine this time. 

2. Diatom (Quilting Jetgirl): Finish blocks 3 and 4.  I started cutting the pieces for block 3, but that's as far as I got.  

3. Melodic Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Continue assembly of quilt top.

I finished two rows, which I believe are the top and bottom of the quilt.  These go pretty quickly, so hopefully I can get all of the rows assembled this week. 

4. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Finish 2 blue blocks

I didn't quite finish last week's block.  I had to find the black fabric used for this project so I could cut some additional black wings.  I found the fabric, cut the parts cut.  I had hoped to finish the block last night, but between Grad Girl's phone call and My Guy getting home from work, I didn't have time to finish it.  

5. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Continue making blocks as leaders and enders. 

I need to cut some purple squares to add to the units in this photo.  Once that's done, there are enough parts to assemble block 3.  I'll be a third of the way done with the blocks after this block is assembled, I'm only making 9.  

That's my To Do List for this week.  You can find other stitching to do's over at Carol's The Quilt Schmilt: For the Love of Fabric.  Good luck with your to do list for the week.  

Stay at Home Round Robin: Week 4

Week 5 of the 2023 SAHRR will be posted by Emily of The Darling Dogwood blog in the morning.  So today wraps up week 4 of this stitch along.  The linky party for week 4 progress can be found over at Anja Quilts. 

I'm still behind on finishing my rounds.  Round 2 is almost complete, there's been good progress on round 3, but almost no progress on making the flying geese for week 4.  Here's how it looks up on the design wall. 

All that's left of round 2 is to sew the bottom border to the top.  Five more hourglass blocks are needed before round 3 can be assembled and stitched on . There's a long way to go on week 4, just 2 flying geese up on the design wall when I called it quits this evening.  There are another 4 in progress over at the sewing machine, but I'm going to need about 40 more flying geese to finish out that round. I'm wondering what week 5 is going to be?  

Also linking up with Monday Design Wall and Patchwork & Quilts as part of my normal Monday post.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 7 of 2023

This post is a little late today, I've not been feeling well the last couple of days.  I went to bed early last night and completely spaced off this week's linky party.  

My week went well till Friday. I noticed on my walk that some of the trees are starting to bloom. I've had a headache since Friday, so I suspect my seasonal allergies are to blame. My stitching time took a hit too. 

• 15 minute days/week = 5/7 days
• 15 minute days/Feb = 16/18 days
• 15 minute days/2023 = 43/49 days
• Success rate = 87.76%

My goal is to stitch 75% of the time, so I'm still on track with that.  Sunday is my nothing but sewing room day, so I'm hoping to catch up a bit on my to do list for the week.  How did your stitchy week go? 

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

6. Doonaleeq 7. Quilting Gail 8. Shasta @ High Road 9. Andre 10. Lyndsey

11. Janice - Jannimary 12. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 13. Carol @Quilt Schmilt 14. Susan in TN

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To Do List for the Week of 2/14/2023

Happy Valentine's Day!  Hope you have some fun plans with your loved ones.  Grad Girl got her box of goodies over the weekend (including a toy or two for Queenie). My Guy is currently somewhere between here and Arizona, but he took me out for a special Valentine brunch on Saturday and then I took him out to dinner on Sunday (normally he cooks on Sunday).  

Last weekend was busy, on top of the celebrating the holiday early, there was science fair to judge and getting My Guy ready for his trip.  You can probably tell what's coming, the To Do List didn't fair all that well last week. 

To Do List for 2/7/2023

1. SAHRR: Finish border 2, start border 3 - progress

2. Wild and Goosey: Make one blue block ✔

3. Chilhowie: Make components as leaders and enders ✔

4. Unity: Prepare for quilting - no progress

Two check marks and progress on a third is actually a pretty good week. I didn't think I'd get to Unity and I didn't.  Eventually it will get done.  Probably once the SAHRR is over.  

It's the middle of the month tomorrow.  There are other quilt alongs in progress that I need to get back to, so this week's to do list is going to be longer than it has been. 

To Do List for 2/14/2023

1.  SAHRR(Quilting Gail): Finish borders 2 and 3, start 4

All the friendship stars for the second border are finally done, I've started on the hourglass blocks for the third border and I've worked out what border 4 is going to look like.  If I can get 2 and 3 done and a start on border 4, I'll be happy with my progress.  

2. Diatom (Quilting Jetgirl): Make block 3

Blocks 1 & 2 are completed.  These blocks go together pretty quickly once all the pieces are cut.  I should be able to get #3 finished before #4 comes out this Friday. 

3.  Melodic Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Start assembling blocks into a top

I was all caught up on the component parts when the reveal and final assembly clue came out earlier this month.  The goal is to have the top assembled by the end of the month.  That should be doable if I get going on it this week. 

4. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Make at least 1 blue block

I'm two for two on getting blocks made.  I may have gone too dark with the newest block.  I probably need at least one more like that to pair it with. I'd probably be wise to mix in more lights with the darks.  The goal is to get at least 4 blue blocks made this month.  Before I make block #3, I need to find the black I was using as a background. I'm not sure where it went. Hopefully it's in the pile with the other fabrics for the in progress projects.

5. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Continue making component parts as leaders/enders

There are almost enough of the hourglass blocks to make another full block.  We'll see if I get that far this week. 

That's my list for this week.  It's pretty ambitious. I'm going to need to get into my sewing room and get busy every day this week to have a full set of check marks for next week. 

Linking up Carol who blogs at Quilt Schmilt: For the Love of Fabric for To Do Tuesday.  Good luck with your to do list this week.  

Stay At Home Round Robin: Week 3

I don't normally put two posts up in one day, but while the SAHRR is going on, I'll probably wait till the last moment to post my progress so I can link up with the weekly progress post. This week you can see everyone's progress on week 3 over at ChrisKnitsSews SAHRR link up.  This will double as my normal Monday morning post for Monday Design Wall and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Even being home a lot more now that I'm retired, the piecing for SAHRR is running behind.  Maybe I'm just a slow stitcher?  I'm still working on the Friendship Star blocks from week 2. Those are almost finished, but not quite.  I've made a start on the hour glass blocks for week 3, but haven't gotten very far. This is what's up on the design wall so far. 

Hard to see where I'm going from what's up on the wall at this point. Here's the EQ mock up for the plan at this point. 

Catching up is probably not in my future this week. So I'm not even going to speculate on that.  We'll see what the week brings. My Guy is out of town, so I'll have fewer distractions. I'm behind on my other quilt alongs so those will need to have their round at the sewing machine this week.  EQ projections may be all that shows any progress for the SAHRR over the next few weeks.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 6 of 2023

It feels like this week went really fast.  It's Sunday again, so it's the point in the week to share how much stitching time you were able to sneak in. 

I did really well this week at finding time to stitch. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Feb = 11/11 days
• 15 minute days in 2023 =  38/42 days
• Success rate = 90.48%

It was a good week. Most days this week, I managed to get in at least a couple of hours of stitching time each day.  I'm still not caught up on my SAHRR project, but there will time this afternoon to play catch up.   

I did get in a couple of hours of sewing room clean up last week.  I cut more scraps, but not enough to make a dent in any of my piles.  But every little bit helps.  I may switch gears this week to address at least one of the piles of fabric sitting all over the sewing room.  

How did you do this week on finding time to stitch and/or organize? 

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

6. Shasta @ High Road 7. DonnaleeQ 8. Frederique 9. Lyndsey 10. Janice

11. Susan in TN 12. Andre at Quilting and Learning 13. Carol Andrews

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Week 59 Photo Challenge: Something Metal

 This is photography post number three this week. I'll be back to quilting stuff tomorrow.  This week's photo card was definitely easier to work with than last week's. All three of us were able to get some fun photos for this card.

I played with several different subjects for this week's challenge.  There was a potential shot found on one of my Art of Seeing walks. But I decided to go with a photo of an object that sits on the breakfast nook table and is just such a part of everyday life that it tends to get overlooked. 

Kate: Metal Plates

 

This is a "bowl" made of bicycle chains.  It was a Christmas gift to My Guy (who is notoriously hard to buy for) from my sister. We use it to hold paper pads for the grocery list, pens, pencils and other odds and ends that are used when doing the crosswords, writing up recipes, etc.  

My Guy chose a subject from one of his other hobbies for this week's challenge. 

My Guy: Metal for Metal

My Guy plays his acoustic/classical guitars pretty much every day when we are home.  Every once in a while he'll get out one of his electric guitars, plug in the amp and jam for a bit.  The guitar is a BC Rich Mockingbird.   

Grad Girl pulled her photo inspiration from one of her experiments this week.  

Grad Girl: Too Much Pink

The pink color in both liquid phases above is due to potassium permanganate. Potassium is chemically classed as a metal, so is the manganese that is also present in that compound. She was trying to remove the pink color  (the potassium permanganate) from the bottom phase so she could proceed to the next step. 

Grad Girl's photo is my favorite for this week.  I'm looking forward to this week's challenge, it's one I've got lots of subjects to select from.  

How to make it interesting will be the challenge, but I have some thoughts on that.  We may have two weeks on this challenge. My Guy is heading out of town on Monday and won't be back till next Sunday. It depends on how much time he has to get a photo before he leaves. This is a busy weekend, we are judging the junior and senior high science fair projects this morning, then he's helping with another science project for one of the elementary schools in the county.  So there may or may not be a photo challenge post next Saturday.  

Photography Lesson 3

Disclaimer: Non-quilting post, quilting related posts will return Sunday.  

Wednesday I posted about my new photography project to improve my creativity and imagination.  The project started just over three weeks ago so I'm a little behind on documenting how it's going. Exercise 1 and 2 were in the last post, this post covers Exercise 3.  Basically the assignment started at your front door, walk a prescribed number of steps, then shoot 20 photos within the proscribed radius.  My steps took me to our breakfast nook.   Here's the best of the 36 photos from that exercise.  (All photos Canon 70D w/18-400 telephoto)

I may have cheated a bit with the direction I choose. The breakfast table was covered with the stuff we were decluttering from other locations. So there was a lot of subject matter, but how to make good pictures from those odds and ends?  That was the challenge. My Guy makes his own beer, these bottles are old so were slated to be dumped.  I like the narrow depth of field in this one and the way the light highlights the right side of the bottles. 

 

My Guy has several herbs sitting in front of the window, those were also within in my radius.  I like the diagonal lines that run from left to right. I got the depth of field right as most of the leaves are in focus. 

I like the dark monochromatic colors and the texture of this shot.  Any guess what these are?  

Lastly, I really like the detail in this photo and the angle isn't usual. The lighting just works.  This is half of a set of book ends, the other end is the front of the bike.  

Those are my favorites from the exercise.  There wasn't much practicing after this assignment because it was so cold. But it snowed one morning, so a walk (a short one I assure you, it was pretty cold) yielded this shot. 

I really wanted the tree with the snowy field in the background. It took a bit of maneuvering to get the perspective I wanted. The composition is what I wanted, but this isn't a sharp photo. The branches look blurry when you blow it up. It was a really dreary day and my combination of shutter speed with aperture just wasn't up to getting the right depth of field for a sharp image.   

What did I take away from this exercise? Judicious cropping coupled with a narrow depth of field can create an interesting photo of even mundane objects. I still need to work on learning all my camera settings to address blurry and dark photographs.  

New Non-Quilting Project: Photography

Warning: Non quilting post. So if you've come for piecing and quilts, this post isn't for you. I won't be offended if you don't read on.

I've always wanted to improve my photography skills, but when working full time one hobby was often more than I could manage. With retirement, I have the time.  So I pulled this book off the shelf late last year and decided to put some effort into the assignments. 

 

The first assignment was to take pictures that break some of the common rules of photography. My choice was the "rule of thirds"  Meaning that your main interest points should lie along the lines that break the photographic area into thirds.  Here's my effort avoiding having subjects at those key intersections.

Camera: I-Phone 12, taken on a walk in the neighborhood

Well, I tried. The large leaf in the bottom is pretty close to the intersection of those lines dividing the photo into thirds, so it does draw your eye there.  But the branches do point up towards the left with no clear focus on the other lines.  This probably wasn't the best example, but it's all that I came up with on my short walk.  

The next exercise was to throw a hoop (I used a 10" embroidery hoop) onto the ground and take at least 20 pictures of things in that area. I actually did this before Christmas, but there still wasn't much on the ground. I did take 20 photographs, here's my best of that bunch. 

Camera Canon 70D w/18 - 400 telephoto lens, taken in the field down the street from home

This was before we got the below freezing cold front, so there was still a bit of green around. No idea what kind of ground cover this is, but it filled the screen with green. I like the texture and detail in this photo.  There's a lot of brown dead stuff  in my other photos from that exercise. So not off to the most auspicious start here.

You have to practice what you learn in the exercises, so I've been going on photo walks as part of my project. Note that these photos were taken in January, so most everything is dead and brown in Oklahoma.  You have to look hard to find something photo worthy and even then I'll concede that some of my pictures don't have the best subjects.  But like scrappy quilt projects, you work with what you have. One of the main goals of this book is to learn to see possibilities for creative photos. January in Oklahoma is great for that challenge. 

1/17/23: Canon 70D w/18-400 telephoto, 

   

Initially this photo was put in the dud file.  But after considering it for a day or two, it grew on me. The exposure is wrong, the tree and sky on the left are overexposed. But I like the star burst of the sun just showing behind the tree.  What I learned from this shot is that I need to get a better handle on my camera settings, so I'm also working on that.    

A different walk later in the week yielded this photo.

1/19/23: Canon 70D  w/18-400 telephoto,

I like the red leaves against the rough bark.  (Remember I said most everything is dead and brown, so a little color seemed photo worthy).  I did better watching my exposure for this shot, but I didn't get to that point till the later part of my walk.  Some of my previous shots are a bit blown out due to overexposure. 

What did I learn?  Automated digital cameras have made it too easy to just take a picture without any consideration for composition or camera settings. "I'll fix it in Photoshop" is one of my common comments about my photos. So I'll work on that for the next exercises.  

To Do List for the Week of 2/6/2023

This last week seemed to go really quickly. Not sure why, maybe because My Guy was home sick a couple of days or because I actually had a day out on Friday. Coffee with friends, a spur of the moment trip to the local quilt shop and a walk in the park was a nice break from the routine. It didn't impact my stitching time, I did mostly OK on last week's To Do List.  

To Do List for 1/31/2023

1. SAHRR: Finish Border 1, start border 2 ✔

2. Wild and Goosey: Make one bright blue block ✔

3. Chilhowie: Continue making blocks as leaders and enders ✔

4. Unity: Prep top for quilting - no progress

I was still so far behind on SAHRR, that I decided to sew on Saturday and Sunday rather than prep Unity.  I'll get to it at some point, I'm having fun working on SAHRR.  Check marks on three out of four is still a pretty good week. 

I'm going to stick with a short list this week as well and focus on just a few projects for one more week.  

To Do List for 2/7/2023

1.  SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Finish border 2, start border 3. 

The Friendship star blocks are coming together.  I still have four sets of HST's to make, but they are going quickly.  The third prompt was released yesterday.  I played with multiple options in EQ8. I have a plan, I'll get going on those blocks once I finish cutting all the HSTs. Fingers crossed I can finally get caught up this week.  

2. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Make one blue block.

I was happy to finally get another block finished for this project. I'm hoping to finish one block a week this month.  I'm not using pink in this project, so I'll just use last month's color for this month.  

3. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Continue making blocks as leaders and enders. 

I'm back to making hourglass blocks. Once I finish a few of these and I can start on block 3 of 9.  

4. Unity (Bonnie Hunter): Prep for quilting.  I'm hoping to have this project ready to go out for quilting before the end of the month. So I'll keep it on my to do list.  

That's my to do list for this week.  Good luck with your to do's this week.  Linking up with Quilt Schmilt: For the Love of Fabric for To Do Tuesday.  

Stay At Home Round Robin: Week 2

This is my typical Monday morning post, I'm just posting a little earlier than usual so I can link up with Pieceful Wendy for Week 2 of the SAHRR. I'm also linking up with the Monday Design Wall and Patchwork & Quilts, my typical Monday linky parties.  

I've really been enjoying the SAHRR (stay at home round robin). This is my first time playing along and it's showing. I'm having a real hard time keeping up with the clues. I was definitely over ambitious with my week 1 plans.  That border is finally done. 

 

I'm really happy with how week 1 worked out.  I've started on border 2, but didn't get very far. 

 

I have most of the HSTs made, so the rest of the friendship star blocks should go together pretty quickly.  The plan is to put spacers between the star blocks to evenly distribute them in the borders.  

I'm looking forward to seeing what the prompt is for week 3. Will I get caught up?  Maybe, maybe not.  If I can't keep up that's OK, I'll do what I can when I can. 

Stitching Stuff: Week 5 of 2023

The first month of 2023 is in the books, now it's time to see how well we all do at moving our various projects along in this shortest month of the year. 

My stitching week got off to a delayed start due the trip to Fort Worth, TX to meet up with Grad Girl.  I drove home in freezing fog/drizzle last Sunday. The defroster was on high the whole 2 hour drive home to keep the windshield free of ice. Thankfully the roads didn't get bad till after I got home. After that drive I wasn't really in the mood for stitching.  However, the rest of week went well.  

• 15 minute days/week = 6/7 days
• 15 minute days/Jan = 27/31 days
• 15 minute days/Feb = 4/4 days
• 15 minute days/2023 = 31/35 days
• Success rate = 88.57%

My goal for 2023 was to stitch at least 75% of the days this year, so far so good on that front.  I didn't set a goal for my stash, but do keep track of what's used.  For January the usage was 4.5 yards. I'm hoping that goes up as I finish up a few quilts. 

I finally updated my word for 2023.  My sewing room is a mess and needs a big overhaul. So my focus every Sunday morning is going to be cleaning up and organizing.  I wasn't home last Sunday, but the Sunday before processing scraps was most of my morning clean up activity.  This is all the trimmings from my efforts.  

And here's the strips that came from all that trimming.  

It doesn't look like much does it?  Every little bit helps, but I've got a lot more scraps to work through.  I did decide after looking over what I'd been saving, if a scrap is over 6.5" wide, it either gets cut down to smaller bits or added back to the fat quarter drawer depending on size.  I've been using my 1.5" strips in my SAHRR, it's been nice to have strips already cut to size.  

Have you managed to keep up with all your stitching stuff this week?  Link up below and share how it's going (link will be open till Thursday morning). 

1. Janice 2. Ivani 3. Gretchen 4. Frederique 5. Julie in GA 6. maggie f

7. Karen 8. Colletta's Kitchen Sink 9. Marti 10. DonnaleeQ 11. Jennifer in Indy 12. Quilting Gail

13. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 14. Shasta @ High Road 15. Lyndsey 16. Carol Andrews 17. Andre at Quilting and Learning 18. DonnaleeQ

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