Stitching Stuff: Week 25 of 2025

 

It's been quite week on the storm front thankfully. Summer has kicked in. Hot and humid are the words of the week.  Looks like we are in for  a lot of that over the next few weeks.  It's a good reason to hold up in the sewing room during those hot afternoons.  Which is pretty much what I did this week, it definitely helps with the sewing time. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/June = 21/21 days
• 15 minute days/2025 = 165/172 days
• Success rate = 95.93%

A good week on the stitching time front.  Not so good on the scrap processing or fabric closet organization.  The weekends have been a bit busy trying to get a few other things done around the house.  Hopefully I'll get back to that at some point this year. 

Were you able to make time to stitch last week?  

Week 144 Photo Challenge: Vegetable(s)

We started this photo challenge almost exactly 4 years ago.  The first post was on July 2, 2021.  We gave My Guy the first deck of photo challenge cards for Father's Day that year.  Some cards have taken longer than a week to finish for a variety of reasons.   I took a several month hiatus from the blog in 2022.   The last year has been tougher as Grad Girl has been working hard to finish up her master's. She just didn't have the energy or time some weeks.  So there hasn't been a photo challenge post each week.  But we definitely aren't ready for the end but this week's photos are from the last card in the second deck. 

None of us had problems finding subject matter, the challenge this week is to make an interesting photo. My approach to that is typically to see what I can get with macro photography.

Kate: Red Pepper

Red peppers are one of my favorite raw veggies.  I can eat red, yellow and orange peppers with no problems. But green peppers tear up my stomach.  My favorite part of the photo is probably the texture in the stem.  

I went raw, My Guy went with a cooked veggie. 

My Guy: Pizza in Progress

This was Sunday dinner: caramelized onion with peach and prosciutto. We wanted something different on the pizza. It was supposed to be pear and fig pizza, but pears were out of season and figs are hard to find at our local small town grocery store. So he winged it. It was still really, really good.  

Grad Girl finished all the paperwork needed to get her thesis submitted and applied for graduation on Friday. It was a stressful week for the poor girl, turns out there's a whole approval process that had to occur, it wasn't as simple as just submitting the thesis to the website.  With all of her committee out of the country, that got tricky with the Friday deadline. She pulled it off, but not without losing a bit of sleep and sanity. But she still came up with a photo when I asked. 

Grad Girl: Grad School Garden

Like her Dad, Grad Girl likes to have fresh herbs.  With all the things she needed to do to get out this summer, her garden hasn't been thriving.  Hopefully, she'll have a bit more time over the next few weeks to nurse her basil back to health.  

So that's the last photo card from the second deck.  We've been discussing what to do going forward as none of us what to end the challenge. It's been a very nice way to do something as a family, even with Grad Girl so far away.  As luck would have it, Amazon came through and I found another deck of photo cards from a completely different company.  There are 100 cards in this deck. That's almost 2 more years of photo challenges.  Here's the first one: 

Hmm, it will be interesting to see what we all come up with. 

If you are interested in this photo card deck, here's the full info.  

100 Photography Ideas Cards from Tip Info.  You can find them at Amazon (no affiliation, just sharing if you are interested in doing something similar). 

To Do List for the Week of 06/17/2025

Do you ever look at your calendar and realize that you don't really have that much time to get ready for something?  Grad Girl will be moving home next month.  She's been applying for jobs and has had one video interview so far.  With the current job market, she's probably going to be here for at least a month, likely 2 to 3 before she finds a full time chemist job.  I've been using her old closet as storage for some of my quilting supplies, I'm going to have to find someplace else because she's going to need the closet.  I have time, but will need to add that to my decluttering to do list.  

Maybe it goes on my quilting to do list too?  It certainly wasn't on last week's to do list.  

To Do List for 06/10/2025

1.  2025 Guild BOM: finish cutting, finish assembly - progress

2.  Kate's Choice: Continue quilting blocks - no progress

3.  Old Town: Work on blocks at late night sew ✔

4.  Embroidery or Cross Stitch: Stitch one night this week ✔

5.  Wild and Goosey: Finish red blocks - progress

6.  Summer Scrap Quilt: Continue as leaders and enders ✔

It wasn't a bad week, three check marks, two with some progress and only one with no progress.  I'm finding it hard to get back to the quilting because I have deadlines with the Guild BOM blocks. My next deadline is in later July, so hopefully I'll have some time to quilt this week.  So it will stay on the to do list for this week. 

To Do List for 06/17/2025

1.  2025 Guild BOM: Finish July blocks, start cutting for Sept. 

It will take an hour or so to finish up the blocks for July. That's doable before tonight's meeting.  I'm going to try to get ahead on August. July will be busy.  

2.  Kate's Choice: Continue quilting blocks

The plan is to change over to the walking foot tomorrow and spend a couple of days quilting.  I'll just have to be disciplined and do it.  

3.  Embroidery or Cross Stitch: Stitch one night this week. 

I made a little progress Sunday night.  It's slow going, but to be fair that's only an hour of stitching time.  But progress is progress even if it's slow.  

4.  Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Finish piecing red blocks, start sashing red blocks

Just one last red block to finish paper piecing and I can start sashing the blocks with black.  Orange is this month's RSC color, but I finished all the work on those blocks.  So I'm continuing with a different color.  I'll be paper piecing a couple more green blocks this month too.  I'd really like to see this project be ready for assembly sometime next year. Hopefully, by doing a bit each month, I'll get there.  

5.  Old Town (Bonnie Hunter): Continue assembly during late night sew.

All the gold/neutral flying geese are made and I've moved on to making these subunits.  Hopefully assembly of the blocks will start in early July.  I've been working on this at late night sew because it's the only non-guild project I have everything cut for.  

6. Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter): Continue as leaders and enders. 

Yesterday's blog showed the progress from last week.  The only change is that some of the yellow border blocks are sewn together.  It's been fun to see this start to come together.  It feels like I've been making all those 4-patches forever!  

It's the same list as last week, though I'm hoping to do a bit better on the quilting and the cross stitching this week. We'll have to see how that works out.  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday. 

Not Much on the Design Wall

It was another wet weekend here. The kind that's perfect for just hanging out in the sewing room.  Sewing time was spent working on the 2025 Guild BOM blocks for tomorrow's meeting.  I'm making good progress and if I can work in a good afternoon of sewing, I'll have them done.  Other than those blocks, there's not a lot going on in the sewing room.  I did finish stitching all the flying geese for clue 7 of Bonnie Hunter's Old Town mystery.  

I've been stitching a few flying geese with every BOM block I've been making. Normally the previous year's mystery becomes my leader and ender project, but in an effort to empty my blue scrap bins, I've been working on the Sensational Summer Scrap quilt (Kevin the Quilter) as my leaders and ender project for most of the year.  

The scrappy center is now all sewn together and the borders are now in the works.  This is the only project up on my design wall currently.  It's been fun to finally see this project start coming together after months of making the four patches.   

I'm not planning to start anything new for a couple of months. I really should get back to quilting Kate's Choice, but the guild BOM takes precedence.  I'll need to do a better job of keeping up as life will be busy in July. One lesson I've learned is it's wise to work ahead on the guild BOM. I've already started on plans for next year's.  It will be a sampler, which means a written block pattern each month.  Best if I get on jump on that this year.  

Linking up with the usual suspects for Monday: Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 24 of 2025

 

It was another good week on the playing with thread and fabric week. Except I did a lot more playing with fabric than with actually sewing it.  I need to get a start on next year's BOM.  There is no way I'm going to be able to make a block and write a pattern each month.  I'm going to start early on that.  Still it kept me spending time in the sewing room and playing with my stash. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/June = 14/14 days
• 15 minute days/2025 = 157/165 days
• Success rate = 95.76%

It hasn't been a bad year on the stitching time front.  I may not be 100%, but 95% isn't a bad place to be approaching mid year.  

I didn't get any stash stuff done, other than sorting through what was in the fabric closet that could be used for next year's BOM.  I found some, but ended up buying a bit too. But that's OK, sometimes you have to buy to use.  

I shared one sign from our Texas trip last week. I have another for this week. 

This little carton was painted on the west side of an orthopedic surgeon' s office.  I bet that office is a fun place to work and the surgeon is probably pretty entertaining too.  

So how was your stitching week?  

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

6. Karen 7. Stitching Loving Nana 8. Frédérique 9. DonnaleeQ 10. Meloney

11. Quilting Gail 12. Bonnie in Va 13. Carol @Quilt Schmilt

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Week 143 Photo Challenge: Old Book(s)

We've managed to keep up with the photo challenge for 3 weeks. It does make a huge difference that Grad Girl is mostly done with all her stuff for the master's degree and she has more time to contemplate photography.  Last week's challenge was one right up our alley. 

All three of us are bibliophiles, big time.  Grad Girl is at a disadvantage as most of her older books are here and not in Texas.  So she'll get a bit of grace with this week's post.  

I raided my professional library for my photo. 

Kate: Chemistry Tomes

These chemistry books were written in the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's, These weren't purchased because I collect old books, no I collected these to use.  When I was a refinery chemist, we didn't have a lot of high tech equipment in the lab, but I did have access to a lot of chemicals.  These books included a lot information not only on how to test for certain chemicals, but the chemistry of some basic reactions that don't get included in modern text books.  When I had the refinery job, the Internet wasn't the World Wide Web just yet, so these old books were the quickest way for me find ways to answer questions about what was going on in operations.  

Similarly My Guy's photo comes from his professional library. 

My Guy: The Classics

These are his physics undergraduate and graduate text books for the most part.  There are a couple of older classics that he has added to his collection over the years.  So these are probably not what you'd consider classics, but they are the go to texts for physicists.  My Guy doesn't have much reason to consult them these days, he pretty much functions as a weird mix of chemist and engineer.  He has used my stack of chemistry books more than once over his working years.  

As I said Grad Girl's oldest books are still here in her bookcase.  So she improvised.  

Grad Girl: Old is Relative

Now that she's mostly finished with school, Grad Girl spends her days applying for jobs and occasionally treats herself to some time out of the apartment for coffee and a good book.  That book came out last year, so it's not a new release.  For the purposes of our challenge that counts as old.  

My Guy and I took pretty much the same range of photos.  But then again how many ways are there to photograph old books?  

This week's challenge card is the last one in the deck. 

We should have some colorful photos for next week.  

Photo Play 2025: May Summary

May turned out to be a reasonable month on the photography front.  I took the camera out early in the month and then we were on vacation at the end of the month.  Nothing from my early in the month photography efforts made the cut to my curated list.  At least I have a few photos for the end of the month.  

The following photos were taken with either a Canon 70D DLSR with a Tamron 14-400 mm telephoto lens or an I-Phone 12.  Some photos have been cropped.  

The following three photos were all taken in Norman, OK when we stopped for lunch on our way to Texas.  These were all taken with the I-Phone. 

The first two "chalk" paintings were taken from one of the buildings. It's hard to ignore the brilliant colors in those.  The fish in bottles (do you see them, took me a bit to figure out what all the white "dashes" were), was on the side walk in front of the building.  I don't do a lot of graffiti photographs, but these were too good to pass up.  

This last trip to College Station we were going to have a lot of time on our own early in week since Grad Girl was preparing for her thesis defense. My Guy dearly loves to walk and hike. So I asked Google to find walking/hiking trails close by.  It came back with Lick Creek Park, which was about 20 minutes from where we were staying.  It had wonderful walking trails with lots of wildflowers and birds.  My bird shots didn't come out so well, but I did get a lot of wildflowers photos.  

The following photos taken with the Canon 70D with a Tamron 18-400mm lens. 

Blanket flower

Horace's Dustywing

Rock Rose 

The following photos taken with an I-Phone 12.

Green Lynx Spider on a Black Eyed Susan

Partridge Pea Flower

American Beauty

Bee on a Blanket Flower

Buttonbush

It's obvious that I enjoy wildflower photography as I certainly have a lot of photos this month.  There are some just good luck shots with the insects, those can be hard to catch no matter the camera you have with you.  I used the I-Phone a lot on close ups. The Tamron telephoto is a wonderfully versatile lens, but it does struggle with the extreme close ups I love to take.  Thankfully the I-Phone does pretty well at close range.  

How's June looking on the photography front?  I've picked up on the photography study a bit, so the cameras been out a bit more.  There is still more than half the month left to see what I can come up with.  

To Do List for the Week of 06/10/2025

Laundry and household chores are my prime focus this week after not doing much of either last week.  Shirking my housekeeping duties last week let me take advantage of the return of the sewing mojo.  That shows up clearly in the progress with last week's to do list.  

To Do List for 06/03/2025

1.  2025 Guild BOM: Finish cutting fabrics for blocks - progress

2.  Glowing Hearts: Finish assembling quilt top ✔

3.  Kate's Choice: Continue quilting blocks - no progress

4.  Betty: Find backing, figure out assembly ✔

5.  Old Town: Work on block units at Late Night Sew ✔

6.  Embroidery or Cross Stitch: Stitch on night ✔

7.  Wild and Goosey: Finish green, sash orange blocks ✔

8.  Summer Scrap Quilt: Continue as leaders and enders ✔

Definitely not a bad week considering how long my to do list was. Only one "no progress" item. I can live with that.  I'm slowly catching up on chores and laundry this week, but I'm hoping to still get in a good bit of stitching time.  But with the added chores, I'm going to shorten this week's list a bit.  

To Do List for 06/10/2025

1.  2025 Guild BOM: Finish cutting, finish assembly

All that's left to cut is the colored pieces for the border sawtooth stars.  Assembly has started on the Inverted Star block for July. The guild meeting is next Tuesday, so this has to get done.  

2. Kate's Choice: Continue quilting blocks

Since this requires the walking foot, it's been harder to schedule this with all the other projects. Once I finish the BOM blocks, the plan is to switch back to quilting for a few days.  

3.  Old Town (Bonnie Hunter): Work on blocks during late night sew. 

All the HSTs for step 6 were finished last week. Now I'm on to the flying geese for step 7.  I'm in awe of those who can finish a BH mystery during those last weeks of the year.  It takes a lot of stitching to finish a clue! 

4.  Embroidery or Cross Stitch: Stitch one night this week.  

There was a bit of progress Sunday night before bed on the rose throw cross stitch. Saturday and Sunday evenings seem to be my best bets to work in a bit of hand stitching time during the week.  We'll see if I can keep it up for a few months. 

5. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Finish red blocks

The orange blocks are all sashed, but I forgot to get a photo of those.  I'm back to working on the red blocks.  Just four more are needed for the planned layout.  I should be able to get those done this month.  

6.  Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter): Continue as leaders and enders. 

I'm still working on getting the center of the quilt assembled.  The plan is to work on assembly and then make more 4 patches if needed.  We'll see how that works out. 

That's my list for this week. The guild BOM is a have to do, so it will get done this week. The rest will probably see some progress.  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

Back on Track

Apparently a week in Texas with My Guy and Grad Girl was enough to get my missing sewing mojo to make a come back.  That week away definitely got me out of my rut.  

The first thing to be tackled when I got back to the sewing room was to finish assembling Glowing Hearts  (MMM Quilts) and get the borders on it. 

Now it's a finished quilt top ready for the parade over at MMM Quilts next Sunday.  I deviated from Sandra's pattern a bit: 12 blocks instead of 9 and a second wider border.  The 46" x 55" finished size works better with the requirements for the non-baby charity that the local guild supports.  I didn't think the colors were baby friendly, so went for an older girls quilt instead. I'm happy with how it worked out. 

Now I need to figure out what to tackle next on my quilt plan. Maybe it's time to focus on getting some quilt backs made and try out some of the local long arm quilters? 

Linking up with Design Wall Monday, Patchwork & Quilts, plus the Glowing Hearts quilt parade once that linky party is up.   

Stitching Stuff: Week 23 of 2025

 

Happily, my quilty mojo came back this week.  I got lots done in the sewing room once I recovered from our trip to Texas (Still working on getting all the laundry done, I may have been stitching instead of working on that).  It definitely shows up in my stitching time numbers for the week. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/June = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/2025 = 151/158 days
• Success rate = 95.57%

Hopefully the return of the mojo will last another week.  I've got lots to do in the sewing room.  Getting the guild BOM blocks made before the meeting is an absolute need to do this week.  

No scrap processing or stash closet work this week. Maybe next week. (Assuming I get the guild BOM blocks done).  

I didn't do a ton of photography while we were in Texas, but I did catch a sign outside a candy shop when we stopped in Norman, Oklahoma for lunch.  

It was so very tempting to go check out the dark stuff, but I resisted.  

How did your crafty week work out?  

1. Gretchen 2. maggie f 3. Frédérique

4. Karen 5. DonnaleeQ 6. Bonnie in Va

7. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 8. Andrée 9. Marsha's Spot

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Week 142 Photo Challenge: Melting

With Grad Girl finishing her master's we all seem to be more engaged with the photo challenge.  I actually got photos early from Grad Girl, but still waited till Friday afternoon to come up with mine.  This week's challenge wasn't hard.  

 

The challenge this week is getting an interesting photo.  I definitely tried to get something interesting, not sure I pulled it off.  

Kate: Melting Wax

Can you see the pool of wax reflecting the flame and the lighter color edges where the wax is softening?  It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be to get a good shot. There were only 3 decently clear shots out of the seventy so photos that I took.  The plan was to get the wax dripping down the side of the candle.  Definitely harder to do than I expected.

My Guy took a lot of photos, but wasn't really happy with any of them (seems to be a theme). 

My Guy: Submerged

It's been pretty warm here in the afternoons, so ice in a glass doesn't last very long if you are sitting out on the porch. Ice is always such an interesting subject, in and out of water.  

Grad Girl's photo is a similar theme to My Guy's but makes a statement.  

Grad Girl: 9 AM in Texas

It's hard to tell, but this was taken from her apartment balcony.  During south Texas summers, it's always so miserable in the morning with the heat and humidity.  In the evening's it's cooler.  That's flipped from what it is here in Oklahoma. We get cooler mornings, but often don't hit our high's in the summer till 5 or 6 PM. That makes for warm evenings.  

Maybe not the most original photos, but not bad.  When I sent Grad Girl this week's challenge card, she said her dad and I had a bit of an advantage. 

I reminded her that "old" was a relative thing.  Should be interesting to see how we each interpret this one. 

May 2025 PHD Report

May went fast!  It didn't help that at about the halfway mark my sewing mojo disappeared.  So not as much progress as I would have liked for the month. But there is still a bit to report for the May PHD report over at Ms. P Designs.  

Finally a finish shows up on the PHD report, along with a new unplanned project. The finish is a project started this year, so there is still no progress on the UFO column.  

The 2025 SAHRR, aka Stars in a Derecho Sky, (Quilting Gail) was my finish for May.  Trudy, who has quilted so many quilts for me, is getting out of the quilting for others business and this is the last quilt she'll ever quilt for me.  It's already been gifted to Grad Girl's roommate as we were in Texas last week. She loved it. 

I'll need to amp up my walking foot quilting if I want to see a few more finishes before the end of the year.  Even with my absent sewing mojo and a week of vacation, there was still a bit of progress on several other projects in May. 

During my week on the road, I relearned how to do counted cross stitch and worked on a throw that was started back in the early 80's.  It will join my medallion butterfly embroidery as a travel project. It's not really a quilt, so I'm not going to add it to my spreadsheet as a quilt.  It will just be one of those sewing room projects I'd like to see get done in the next few years.  

Half the Kate's Choice blocks have been quilted.  I'm hoping to finish the other half this month.  It would be nice to have another finish by the end of this month.  This is my second oldest UFO, so it would be nice to get it off the list.  

The lack of Wild and Goosey blocks (Bonnie Hunter) for May is a direct result of my sewing mojo problem.  I didn't even finish 2 green blocks.  The plan is to do better with getting the orange blocks all sashed this month. 

 

Work continued on the center for the Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter).  The left and bottom single rows of squares have been added and the first row is sewn together. It's been fun to watch all those scrappy blocks finally come together.  

All the step 2 block components for Old Town (Bonnie Hunter) were finished in May. Clues 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are all completed.  Another afternoon was spent cutting the rest of the pieces needed for the remaining steps.  Hopefully a couple more clues can be finished off this month since all that's left is sewing pieces together. The goal is to have this project assembled before this year's mystery quilt is started.  

The color for the June Guild BOM was green.  Since I'm leading the program this year, I have to be a month ahead.  Half way through and I'm happy with how the blocks are coming together. It's been fun to see what the guild members have decided to do with their projects.  Now I need to get going on the July block so it's ready for this month's guild meeting.  

Glowing Hearts (MMM Quilts) was my unplanned new project in May.  It's been a fun project to make.  All the fabrics came from the stash, which was my requirement before allowing an unplanned project on my list.  Moving along some of my older stash is always a good reason to start a new project. Plus this one is small enough that I can quilt it myself.   

Maybe it wasn't such a bad month after all?  There was progress on a lot of projects, but some didn't see as much work on them as I would like.   

  

The only progress that shows up on my project tracking sheet is finishing the 2025 SAHRR and starting Glowing Hearts.  No other projects reached major milestones in May.  Hopefully I can do better in June.