Tuesday, July 1, 2025
To Do List for the Week of 07/01/2025
Monday, June 30, 2025
Definitely Progress, But Nothing Exciting
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Stitching Stuff: Week 26 of 2025
I didn't mean to be absent from the blog this week. We both attended a technical conference last week and our mornings were early and our evenings late. It was just hard to find the time to write a blog post. I also didn't do so hot on finding time to stitch during the later half of the week, it was just too hectic and we both were pretty much wiped out when we got back to the room. So this weeks stitching stats don't look so hot.
- 15 minute days/week = 4/7 days
- 15 minute days/June = 25/28 days
- 15 minute days/2025 = 169/179
- Success rate = 94.41%
Sunday, June 22, 2025
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%
1. Gretchen 2. maggie f 3. Melissa G 4. Deb in Canada 5. Karen | 6. DonnaleeQ 7. Julie in GA 8. Quilting Gail 9. Bonnie in Va 10. Stitching Loving Nana | 11. Andrée at Quilting & Learning 12. Marsha's Spots 13. Frédérique |
Powered by... Mister Linky's Magical Widgets.
Saturday, June 21, 2025
Week 144 Photo Challenge: Vegetable(s)
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
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.
Monday, June 16, 2025
Not Much on the Design Wall
Sunday, June 15, 2025
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%
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 |
Powered by... Mister Linky's Magical Widgets.
Saturday, June 14, 2025
Week 143 Photo Challenge: Old Book(s)
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
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.
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
To Do List for the Week of 06/10/2025
Monday, June 9, 2025
Back on Track
Sunday, June 8, 2025
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 |
Powered by... Mister Linky's Magical Widgets.
Saturday, June 7, 2025
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.
Wednesday, June 4, 2025
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.