Photo Play 2025: April Summary

It's been a slow year on the photography front.  I just haven't been reaching for my camera much this year.  Having said that I did do better in April.  We did more of the photography challenges in April, so I picked up my camera more.  What was probably the best motivator was all the spring flowers that were blooming around the house.  It was hard to whittle down the list to post, but that's a problem nice to have after having no photos to post for March. 

Following photos taken with a Canon 70D DSLR with a Sigma 105 mm macro lens. 

One of our photo challenges was bottles. My photo for that challenge was a shot of the whole bottle.  But I also like this one of the details of the cracks in the bottom (that's the design, the bottle hasn't been broken).  I like the the way the reflections and shadows add highlights and interest to the mostly dark in the rest of the photo.  

Things started blooming in April and flowers are hard for me to resist. 

The honeysuckle bush really bloomed this year. They are such delicate flowers. 

And the roses didn't let me down, there were a few blooms but lots of buds early in April. 

The rest of the photos were taken with the Canon, but with a Tamron 18 to 400 telephoto lens (it handles windy conditions better than the macro does). 

More honeysuckle:

 And finally, raindrops on roses:

So April wasn't a bad month at all on the camera front. May's probably not going to be as good. My photography mojo seems to be hiding in the same place my quilting mojo has been hanging out.  There's still a bit of the month left so maybe that will change.  

To Do List for the Week of 05/20/2025

My last two posts made it pretty clear that I've not been that interested in spending time in the sewing room this last week.  Progress on last week's to do list shows that.  

To Do List for 05/13/2025

1. Kate's Choice: Continue to quilt blocks - no progress

2. Glowing Hearts: Finish piecing the blocks - progress

3. 2025 Guild BOM: Cut fabrics for July blocks - no progress

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

Definitely not the best week for progress on the to do list. But there will be weeks like that. My goal for the last couple of years is just to make progress and I did that.  Just not as much as I would have liked.  Hopefully I can do better with this week's list.  

To Do List for 05/20/2025

1.  2025 SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Finish binding 

Trudy did a wonderful job with the quilting for this quilt.  The label is made and printed.  I got the binding sewn to the front last night and made a start with the hand stitching on the back.  This is a gift for Grad Girl's roommate. Fingers crossed I get my first finish for 2025 this week.  

2. Glowing Hearts (MMM Quilts): Finish piecing blocks, start assembly 

I added one more heart to the design wall. Just two more left to stitch and then assembly can start.  

3.  2025 Guild BOM: Cut the fabrics for the July blocks

I really need to get to going on July's blocks. The June guild meeting is tonight!  The next meeting will be here way before I'm ready for it.  

4.  Old Town: Work on blocks at Late Night Sew

I finished off the last of the 4 patches this week. I ended up cutting 1.5" squares for the last set of 6 rather than strip piecing. But they are done now. Steps 1 to 5 are completed, that leaves steps 4 to 9 left to finish up.  My goal is to have this project to the finished quilt top stage before this year's mystery kicks off.  

I'm keeping the list short again. If all that gets checked off is item #1, I'll be happy.  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

Oh Where Has My Sewing Mojo Gone?

We had thunder and lightening Sunday afternoon, so it wasn't exactly wise to plug in the sewing machine. But even after the storm passed I had a hard time convincing myself to go sew. I did eventually make my way upstairs very late in the afternoon.  I made pretty good progress on several projects.  The only one worth showing is Glowing Hearts (MMM Quilts). 

My plan is to add one more row of hearts for a total of 12. Nine of those are finished and up on the design wall.  I found a dark navy in the stash to use for the sashing.  I'm hoping to at least get all 12 blocks finished this week and get the sashing cut.  We have storms coming in this afternoon/evening, so not sure how much progress I'll make today.  

Linking up with Monday Design Wall and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 20 of 2025

My sew mojo has been pretty absent this week. I've managed to get in my minimum of 15 minutes each day, but that's been it other than late night sew. 

 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/May = 17/17 days
• 15 minute days/2025 = 132/137 days
• Success rate = 96.35% 

Not a bad week, but not a stellar week either.  My weeks seem to be that way lately.  Maybe I'm in a rut?  Fingers crossed this next week is much, much better on the stitching front. 

Since we were at my mother's last weekend and I decided this weekend to focus on sitting at the sewing machine, no scrap processing or fabric pressing happened.  Hopefully your week was much more productive than mine.  

To Do List for the Week of 05/13/2025

I've not been paying attention to my calendar and several other activities have snuck up on me.  I have a statistics project that will need my attention over the next few weeks.  So I'll have to think what goes on my sewing to do list, especially for next week.  Before getting to that, I should look at how I did on last week's list.  Since we spent time with family for Mother's Day last weekend, I missed out on my normal "nothing but sewing day".  So I didn't get quite as far as I'd hope to on my to do list.

To Do List for 05/06/2025

1.  Kate's Choice: Continue to quilt blocks ✔

2.  2025 BOM: Pick fabrics for July ✔

3.  Chilhowie: Find backing fabric ✔

4.  Glowing Hearts: Finish piecing blocks - progress

Not a bad week at all, each project moved ahead.  This week I actually have multiple meetings, which is the exception rather than the rule since I retired.  It will mean changing up my normal routine, but hopefully won't affect my stitching time too much. Here's the list for this week. 

To Do List for 05/13/2025

1.  Kate's Choice: Continue to quilt blocks

Half the blocks are quilted, leaving the better part of three rows of blocks left to quilt.  The plan is to get back to quilting over the weekend.  

2.  Glowing Hearts (MMM Quilts): Finish piecing the blocks

I only finished one additional block, with a second partially constructed over at the sewing machine.  Assembly instructions will come out on Thursday.  There is still time to get all the blocks finished before then.  

3. 2025 Guild BOM: Cut fabrics for July blocks

It may seem early to be working on July, but I'm trying to stay ahead.  The July blocks will get shown during the June meeting and that will be here before I know it.  

4.  Old Town (Bonnie Hunter): Work on blocks at late night sew

I didn't make it to last week's late night sew, so there's been no progress on this project since April.  I've finished clue 5 and made a good start on clue 6, almost finished with clue 2. I did take the time to cut all the pieces needed to make the rest of the block components, so all that's needed is to get them all sewn together.  

Not a long list, but if I can move all of these along, it will be a good week. Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday. 

Slow Going

It was a nice weekend here. The weather was pretty weather and we  spent Sunday with my family.  My mother is doing better, but she tires easily these days, still we had a good visit.  

Looking back at last week, I didn't do a lot in the sewing room.  The most progress was made on quilting the Kate's Choice blocks.

 

The blocks in the first 3 rows are quilted and the first block for row 4 is done. So just over halfway there.  I've switched out the walking foot for my regular sewing foot, so I'll get back to working on some of my other projects the first part of this week. I'll go back to quilting more blocks next weekend.  

Linking up with Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 19 of 2025

 

Hope all the mothers have their kind of day.  I'm spending mine with my mom, but won't get to see my girl this year. 

I wasn't very motivated this week.  Sometimes you just need to do something else. Reading was big on my list of something else for some reason.  Even so I still managed at least 15 minutes of stitching stuff each day.  

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/May = 10/10 days
• 15 minute days/2025 = 125/130 days
• Success rate = 96.15%

Not a bad week, just not as productive in the sewing room as I had planned.  So much for trying to maximize my sewing time this month. 

On the stash reorganization front, there was some progress on the fabric closet organization. 

Five pieces of yardage, plus 2 half yard cuts were pressed and folded.  The two blues on the bottom are 4 to 5 yard cuts.  It's a nice chunk to have ready to go for what ever projects I get up to later this year. 

How did you do on your stitching and organization goals this week?

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

5. DonnaleeQ 6. Karen 7. Frédérique 8. Deb in Canada

9. Bonnie in Va 10. Quilting Gail 11. Andrée at Quilting & Learning

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Week 140: Tree(s)

This week's photo challenge was pretty easy compared to several we've had over the last couple of months. 

The weather hasn't been too wet this week, well at least not here. Grad Girl has definitely gotten soaked a couple of times this week on her walk back to the car. So it hasn't been too hard to get out with the cameras.  My Guy and I photographed the same event, but ended up with very different photos.  

Kate: A Year Later

On May 6, 2024 we spend one of the scariest hours of my life in our tornado shelter. We were very lucky, the closest damage to us was about 2 miles to the north of us.  The community of Barnsdall, located to the west and south of us, took a direct hit from what was later determined to be an EF4 tornado. My photo is taken from one of our walking trials just to the south and east of the high school.  A year later you can still trace the path of the tornado through the woods by just tracking the tree damage. 

My Guy's photo also relates to that same event. 

My Guy: Survivor Elm

If you look closely you can see a bit of damage on this elm.  There used to be another elm next to it, but it was destroyed in the tornado. This is north and east of town.  From this photo you'd never know there had been a storm as the land owners cleaned up the damages.  We've been lucky this year so far, lots of strong wind and rain with a little hail.  The rivers are up, but not at flood stage, at least not yet.  

Grad Girl is almost finished with the second draft of her thesis and has started job hunting in earnest.  She'll graduate this summer.  So she's not out and about much yet, so her photo comes from her walk to the car after a full day of editing. 

Texas A&M has a beautiful campus.  They need the wide walk ways since the number of students is over 70,000.  You need the shade trees in the summer because it gets hot!  

This week's challenge is another very appropriate to the season. 

It's a good time of year to photograph gardens. Hopefully we'll come up with something interesting.  

To Do List for the Week of 05/06/2025

I'm a bit late getting to my to do list for this week. All the rain has brought on lots of pollen and mold, two big allergens for me.  Lots of annoying allergy symptoms are sapping my enthusiasm for much of anything this week. I was tempted to not even draft a to do list, but if this keeps up, I'm going to need the motivation.  At least last week's list has all check marks

To Do List for 4/29/2025

1.  2025 Guild BOM: Finish June blocks ✔

2.  Kate's Choice: Continue quilting blocks ✔

3.  Old Town: Continue assembly at late night sew ✔

4.  Glowing Hearts: Cut fabrics ✔

This week's list looks long, but most of it is prep work, not actual sewing.  

To Do List for 5/6/2025

1.  Kate's Choice: Continue to quilt blocks

Finished row 2 and got started on row 3.  I'm hoping to finish row 3 and get started on row 4 this week. I'll work on blocks till the weekend, then I'll change out the walking foot for my regular foot and work on some of my projects needing block construction. 

2. 2025 Guild BOM: Pick fabrics for July blocks

The plan is to work ahead so I'm not finishing blocks the day of the guild meeting.  July blocks have to be ready for the June meeting.  

3. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Find backing fabric

This is next in line to be quilted, so I'm trying to get it ready while I'm still working on Kate's Choice.  

4.  Glowing Hearts (MMM Quilts):  Finish piecing blocks. 

Three are the blocks are finished.  All the pieces are cut, I just need to sit down at the machine and do the assembly.  

That's my list for this week.  Short and hopefully doable even with annoying sinus stuff going on. Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

Plans for May?

It doesn't seem all that long ago that we kicked off 2025, but now it's May. June follows, which means that mid-year isn't that far off.  Do you ever wonder what happened in the sewing room and why you don't have more done?  I could be sewing more, so my plan for May is to maximize my sewing time while still doing the other things that need to get done around the house.

My primary goal for the last couple of years is to make progress on my UFOs. I'm doing well on getting quilts to the finished quilt top stage, but it's been slow moving projects past that. I've started doing some quilting with my walking foot and really want to use the learning curve there to get some of my smaller quilts finished this year.  I'm still working on the Kate's Choice blocks and am hoping to get that project very close to finished by the end of the month.  The next project I want to quilt with the walking foot is Chilhowie, the 2022 Bonnie Hunter Mystery.

The quilt top was finished last September.  My Chookshed Challenge for May is to find the backing fabric, make the backing and prep for quilting. I'm hoping to get as far as getting the quilt sandwiched and ready to quilt. But I'll take any progress I can make on this project.

I gave into temptation and started a new project last weekend.  Sandra of MMM Quilts started a quilt along last month, Glowing Hearts.  It looked like fun, plus the resulting quilt would be small enough to quilt on my machine with the walking foot.  I cut all the fabrics and got started stitching on the blocks this weekend. Here's the first block. 

I had to make the alternate block to see how it looked.  

I decided to keep the background fabric the same for all the blocks as there is more than enough of the teal/blue background. The colors are working much better than I expected.  Hopefully there is a dark blue/navy in the stash to use for the sashing and borders.  Since the bundle from the stash had half yard cuts, the plan is to make 12 blocks rather than the 9 Sandra used. That should make nice sized quilt for donation.  

Linking up with the regular Monday linky parties: Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts, plus the Chookshed Challenge and MMM Quilts Glowing Hearts first block.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 18 of 2025

It was another chill week.  I'm making progress on emptying the attic. But now I'm to the actually stuff in boxes.  So figuring out what to keep, donate and pitch is going to take longer.  I still managed to get in my stitching time this week. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/April = 30/30 days
• 15 minute days/2025 = 118/123/days
• Success rate = 95.93%

I've kept the momentum from March and managed to stitch every day in April too.  We'll see how it goes in May, My Guy is hinting he wants to take a few days off and actually go some place.

I didn't make any progress on the stash reorganization.  The plan there is to do that weekend mornings, but I've been pretty lazy about getting upstairs the last couple of weekends.  Maybe I'll do better next weekend.  

How well did you do with your sewing goals this week?

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

6. DonnaleeQ 7. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 8. Gretchen 9. Meloney 10. Quilting Gail

11. Jennifer in Indy 12. Bonnie in Va 13. Carol @ Quilt Schmilt

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Week 139 Photo Challenge: Single Source of Light

There were a lot of ways to interpret this week's photo challenge. 

Is the challenge to take a photo of a single light source, image created by a single source of light, or and image illuminated by single source?  Our photos cover all those approaches.  

I wasn't really sure of my approach for last week.  Then I just happened to notice this right after My Guy left for work one morning this week. 

Kate: Single Source Star

We have a beautiful stained glass lamp in the entry way we use as a night light.  The pretty teal star on the wall is the light shining through the stained glass.  My image is the "created by" the single light source. 

My Guy went right to the THE light source 

My Guy: The Prototype

We've had a few dramatic sunsets this week. Lots of evening clouds at the end of our stormy days this week. My Guy contributed the photo of a  single light source.  

Grad Girl is on the downhill side of the semester.  She did well on her statistics exam, got a 100 on her statistics project, finished grading all of the lab reports, and is now working on making the first round of edits on her thesis. 

Part of those edits was to go back and get the Carbon-NMR and mass spectroscopy data for several of the materials she synthesized. These are the NMR tubes with samples she submitted for testing one day this week. Her work was definitely colorful.  She covered illuminated by a single light source.

Definitely a nice variety in our images for last week.  Not sure that's going to be the case for this week's photography challenge. 

 

At least everything is green now, so we'll have more than bare branches to show.  

April 2025 PHD Report

April seemed to move in slow motion till the middle of the month, but the last couple of weeks went fast. So I'm not ready for it to be May.  But since it is, it's time to take a look at where I'm at with my quest for a PHD and link up with Ms P Designs for the April PHD report.  On first glance it's a bit sad, there has been no change in my PHD report since January.  

 

The only change all year has been a new start which was planned for.  No finishes, but no other starts either.  Even though there haven't been any finishes so far, there has been a lot of progress on various projects this year. I have my fingers crossed that there will be a change in next month's report. 

One of my quilty ambitions since I retired was to learn to quilt using my walking foot.  There is finally some progress on that front. 

A few blocks of Kate's Choice are quilted and it's not going too badly. This project started in 2012 and was supposed included blocks from Barbara Brackman's Grandmother's Choice sampler. At that time in my quilting life, I just didn't have the skills to make some of those blocks, so I finally decided to just do my own thing and finish it with whatever blocks I felt like making.   

The 2017 Bonnie Hunter Mystery, On Ringo Lake made it to finished quilt top. 

I'm hoping to quilt this one with the walking foot.  The plan is to practice on a much smaller quilt before tackling this one. So it will probably be much later this year before this becomes a finished quilt.  

The RSC color for April was red. I didn't get much done with my Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) blocks this month. 

I started two blocks, but didn't finish any last month.  I'll move on to green once these two are finished.  My priority for the month is to quilt the Kate's Choice blocks, I probably won't make much progress on this project in May either.  

The Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter) suffered the same fate as Wild and Goosey, not much progress since the first 2 weeks of the month were spent quilting.  

All the 16 patches for the center are made. I'm still fiddling with block placement, but this should be close. I'm not sure how much progress I'll make on this in May, the quilting comes first.  

Old Town (Bonnie Hunter) has been my late night sew project for April, mainly because it's the one project I have a lot of the pieces already cut so I can just sew.  

I made good progress on clue 2, finished clue 5 and made a start on clue 6.  I have all the pieces cut for clue 6 and clue 8. I still need to look at what I need to cut for clue 7.  This will continue to be my late night sew project for May.  

Yellow was the guild BOM color for May. I have to be a month ahead as I'm leading the BOM this year.  

I went scrappy with my version of the blocks. It's been fun to see what others in the guild are doing.  The first draft of the quilt assembly instructions is done. I'm going to let them sit for a bit and then look over them in a month or two to see if they still make sense. Those instructions don't go out till the November meeting, but it's nice to have them done so I have time to review and correct. The blocks for June are almost done.  Once I finish those I'll get back to quilting Kate's Choice.    

My project tracker shows some good progress for the month. 

One more project moved to finished quilt top and two in the quilting stages.  The bar for Grandmother's Choice/Kate's Choice looks a bit odd, but when using quilt as you go, the steps aren't in the normal order.  I'm hoping to have two finishes for May and hopefully more going out for quilting by the end of the month.  

To Do List for the Week of 04/29/2025

I did spend hours in the sewing room last week, but some things take longer than you think they will.  I did make good progress on my list for last week, but didn't get to all of it.  

To Do List for 04/22/2025

1.  2025 SAHRR: Mail to Trudy ✔

2.  2025 Guild BOM: Finish cutting fabric, start June blocks ✔

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

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

Three out of four isn't a bad week.  I made good progress on my top two priorities, so I'm not feeling too bad about how last week went.  This week will look pretty similar. 

 

To Do list for 04/29/2025

1.  2025 Guild BOM:  Finish June blocks

The pieces for all the blocks are cut, they just need to be sewn into the blocks.  

2.  Kate's Choice: Continue quilting blocks

The back of the quilt will alternate the light and dark large prints from the collection.  Hopefully I'll get back to the quilting by the weekend.  

3. Old Town (Bonnie Hunter):  Continue assembly at late night sew

Just a few more square in a square blocks to finish and clue 5 will be finished. I would have finished these last week, but somehow two of the gold corner pieces got left at home.  The plan is to keep making the 4 patches for clue 2 and make good progress on clue 6.  

4. Glowing Hearts (MMM Quilts): Cut fabrics

I've followed Sandra Walker of MMM Quilts for a number of years, but have never participated in one of her sew alongs. This year's project looked like fun and would be an easy project to quilt with straight lines using the walking foot. So I made a deal with myself; if all the fabrics could be found in the stash, I could play along.  

It didn't take long for me to find a half yard bundle of India Summer from Benartex in my precuts stash.  There is no copyright on the selvage, but from what I can find online, it looks like this line dates back to 2014. The bundle was wrapped in twine with a card saying "Enjoy". So I'm guessing I won this someplace?  Absolutely no memory of acquiring it.  I do remember buying the teal/yellow background fabric, it's from the Falling Leaves collection by Wilmington Prints.  It's been in the stash awhile, but it works well with the half yard cuts. This wasn't a planned project, but it will make a fun donation quilt and move some older stash out of the fabric closet (that's my justification for not sticking to my quilt plan).

That's my plan for this next week. Good luck with your stitching plans.  

What's on the Design Wall?

It was a very wet Saturday.  We didn't get the rain that caused flooding in the southern part of the state. But we got enough to make doing anything but hanging out in the sewing room miserable.  So that's pretty much what I did the whole weekend.  Unfortunately, I can't show off all the progress as most of my time was spent making the June blocks for the Guild BOM.  I have to have those ready for the next meeting. I should be able to finish those this afternoon and then get back to the project that's up on the design wall. 

Kate's Choice is up on the design wall, well at least most of it is.  The plan for the last couple of years has been to use this project to learn to quilt with my walking foot.  I finally made some progress there. 

The top row and half of the second row are quilted.  It's hard to see in this photo, but blocks are quilted with 3 nested squares. It's clearer in this photo. 

I've discovered the quilting isn't hard, just time consuming.  The plan is to get back to this project later in the week once the guild BOM blocks are done.  It definitely won't be finished this month, but hopefully by the end of May it will be done or close too.  

This was my Chookshed challenge for April.  For once I actually made good progress on that challenge.  Also linking up with my typical Monday linky parties: Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 17 of 2025

It's been a pretty chill week. I did take one day to go visit my mother. We had a nice afternoon of gossip and just hanging out.  Even with the day trip, it was still a good week on the stitching front.  

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/April = 26/26 days
• 15 minute days/2025 = 111/116 days
• Success rate = 95.69%

I've not done as well with my scrap processing and sewing closet reorganization the last couple of weeks. Hopefully, I'll get back into that effort soon.  

How did you do at getting in some good time in the sewing room? 

1. Frédérique 2. Gretchen 3. maggie f 4. Melissa G

5. Karen 6. DonnaleeQ 7. Deb in Canada 8. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting

9. Quilting Gail 10. Bonnie in Va 11. Andrée 12. Marsha's Spot

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Week 138 Photo Challenge: Graceful

This week's photo challenge has a lot of interpretations, so we all managed to take photos.  

Dictionary.com defines graceful as "elegance or beauty of form, movement or speech".  That's pretty wide open on the photography front.  My effort focuses on beauty of form. 

Kate: Graceful Curves

One of our orchids is blooming again.  They are such beautifully delicate flowers, very gracefully curved.  Definitely graceful in form. I've found places in the house where I can get good direct lighting and clear backgrounds.  I took lots of photos, this is one of my favorites.  

My Guy's approach is covers the graceful movement point of view. 

My Guy: Scissortail

 

The Scissortails are back in the fields.  This one wasn't far from our house.  They are such beautiful birds to watch, very graceful with their loops and dives.  The photo is actually in focus, the blur is from movement.  

Grad Girl has had quite a week on the school front.  She had a statistics final, turned in the first draft of her thesis and started work on the final project for her statistics class.  That's on top of working to finish grading lab reports for 72 students.  So she can be forgiven for going with something easy.  

Grad Girl: Graceful Distain

There are few things more graceful than a kitty, especially one that can so eloquently judge you with just her eyes.  Not sure if Grad Girl woke her up or if she earned that stare by just taking up room on Queenie's couch. 

Last week's challenge was pretty easy on the subject matter front. This week's challenge is probably going to require some set up. 

Should be interesting to see what we each come up with for this prompt.