Photo Play 2025: January Summary

February was an amazingly busy month.  Keeping up the Stay At Home Round Robin quilt along plus the week long trip to Texas kept me pretty busy this month. So I'm just now reviewing how it went on the photography front for January. 

One of the first things on my photography to do list was to look back at all the photos I took in 2024. Then I compared that to my photography efforts in 2023.  There were a couple of take homes from that exercise.  

• I took a lot more photos in 2023 even though I only really kept up with the photo play for half the year.  
• A number of photos taken in 2024 weren't my typical subjects, I tried new subjects, more focus on light and shadows.

After considering the reasons for both of the above, here are my photography goals for 2025. 

• Take more pictures
• Take more walks, go more places
• Continue to learn my camera functions
• Keep studying photography via books/videos   

So how did it go for January?  Not so hot.  I did take a few photos, but definitely didn't follow the take more walks, go more places in January. Just one photo made the cut from my January efforts.    

I'm not a fan of the cold, so I took my photos of the first snow fall of 2025 through the windows.  I like the pop of color in with all the black and white.  The photo is a little grainy, it was shot in low light, but I like the effect.  (Shot with a Canon 70 D DLSR with a Sigma 105 mm lens.)

Looking ahead a bit, I've not done much with my camera this month. I still have a couple of days to fix that. My Guy and I are going hiking at a new place tomorrow.  So I'll at least have the opportunity to take a few photos. Hopefully some of those will be good/different enough photos to make it through editing.  

To Do List for the Week of 02/25/2025

The drive home from Texas was mostly uneventful.  But it's a long time to be in the car, it's a 9 hour drive.  The worst part was the heavy fog from College Station to Waco, thankfully there wasn't much traffic. But I was pretty tired when I pulled into the driveway. I ended up in bed a good hour before my normal bedtime last night, but feel much better this morning.  

I got in several solid days of stitching time last week, but because I was so behind on my priority projects (projects with deadlines), I didn't do so well with my to do list last week. 

To Do List for 2/18/2025

1. Guild BOM: Write instructions and finish March blocks ✔  

2. 2025 SAHRR: Finish borders 3 and 4 - progress

3.  Marble Mystery: Assemble quilt top - no progress

4.  Old Town: Continue working on clues - no progress

5.  Summer Scrap Quilt: continue as leaders and enders ✔

At least my highest priority project got finished. There was good progress on the SAHRR, but I didn't get caught up. At least there was progress. I'm hoping for better progress this week.   

To Do List for 2/25/2025

1.  2025 SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Finish borders 4, 5 and 6

I changed my mind on border #4.  My split blocks are just really long.  The top and bottom borders are assembled, I just didn't get them attached to the quilt.  I'm hoping to make quick work of borders 5 and 6, but I always seem to bite off more than I can do in one week.  

2. 2025 Guild BOM: Start on April blocks

I was a little late finishing off the March blocks, so I'm just going to start on the April blocks now so I ensure they are done well in advance of the guild meeting.  

3.  Chocolate Marshmallow (Seabreeze Quilts): Assemble backing

If I want to get more finishes this year, I need to start working on getting those quilts out the door for quilting.  

4. Marble Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Finish assembling quilt

The parade of quilts is sometime next month and I'd like to have a finished quilt top to show.  

5. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Make blue blocks, start sashing the yellow blocks.

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

I finished a few 4-patches while I was in Texas.  Still lots of these needed for the final setting.  

That's my list for this week. I'm hoping that more checkmarks appear in next week's post.  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

Sewing on the Road

My stay in Texas ends today.  All my stuff is packed up and ready to load. I'm having my coffee while I put this post together. It's been a fun visit with Grad Girl.  We had a lazy weekend. I sewed at the dining room table, she played video games on the couch while we binge watched shows on Disney.  So pretty much a perfect weekend.  

I did get a lot of stitching done. My priority project for the week was to finish the blocks for the 2025 Guild BOM.  The guild meeting got canceled due to all the snow, but I posted the blocks on the guild's Facebook page so everyone could see the color for the month of March. 

 

Everyone will be making teal, aqua, turquoise blocks for next month.  I had all of the blocks kitted, except I forgot to cut scraps for the border around the Inverted Star. A quick trip to JoAnn's fixed that omission.  

Progress was also made on catching up with the Stay at Home Round Robin.  But I forgot to get any pictures.  As everything is packed to load it would be a pain to dig out the project bag.  

I brought way more projects then I could work on. I didn't make any progress on Old Town or the Marble Mystery.  This is the last week for the SAHRR, hopefully I'll get back to those two projects in another week or so.  

Linking up with Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

It was a fun week and I'll miss these two once I'm back home. 

Fingers crossed traffic isn't too bad today.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 8 of 2025

 

It's been a different week. The concert on Tuesday was fun.  Wednesday was a bit stressful as all of Grad Girl's buddies were trying to decide if they could drive home after the ice and snow storms in Oklahoma and Arkansas.  Thankfully the roads improved pretty quickly and they all got home safely.  I've spent the rest of the week sewing and hanging out with Grad Girl when she was off work.  I head home tomorrow. I'll be sorry to leave Grad Girl, but I'm also ready to be back home.  My stitching time for the week was really good, even with all the travel.  

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Feb = 20/22 days
• 15 minute days/2025 =  49/53 days
• Success rate = 92.45%

It's hard to compare to last year.  But I knew that 100% was not sustainable for the long term.  But stitching more then 90% of the time is still a lot of stitching time.

Did you have time to stitch this last week?  

  

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

6. Karen 7. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 8. DonnaleeQ 9. Quilting Gail 10. Deb in Canada

11. Bonnie in Va 12. Jocelyn @CNN 13. Marsha's Spot

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To Do List for the Week of 02/18/2025

I'm finally feeling better. Which is good as this week I'm in Texas visiting Grad Girl. The timing was dictated by a concert we both wanted to attend. It's been a girls "week" as several of Grad Girl's college friends also came down for the concert.  I feel very fortunate to be included. The concert was last night and we didn't get back till almost 1 AM. Definitely not my normal hours.  The friends left after lunch, but I'm staying through the weekend to have some hang out time with my girl.  

The early part of last week, I was still feeling out of sorts.  So I didn't make a lot of progress on my to do list. 

To Do List for 2/11/2025

1.  Guild BOM: Finish March Blocks - progress

2.  SAHRR: Finish 3rd border, start on 4th border ✔

3.  Wild and Goosey:  Continue making blue blocks - no progress

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

I made progress on the projects with deadlines. So maybe not the best week, but not the worst either. Due to the snow storm at home, the guild meeting was canceled, so I didn't have to have something ready to send to the guild president. I just have to have all the files ready to go by the end of the month.  So that helped.  

What's the plan for this week? Since Grad Girl still has to work the rest of the week, I brough my sewing machine and a few projects to work on.  She's got a full schedule today and tomorrow, so I'll just sit and sew. But I should see a lot of her over the weekend.  This week's to do list consists of what I was able to cobble together as projects that could be bagged up for travel. 

To Do List for 2/18/2025

1.  Guild BOM: Write instructions and finish March blocks. 

All the HSTs are made, I just need to sew the subunits together. I need to cut the pieces for two more of the sawtooth stars, but I've started assembly on what I have already cut.  

2. 2025 SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Finish borders 4 and 5.  

I have a plan for both borders. I just need to assemble the blocks.  

3.  Marble Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Assemble blocks into rows and add horizontal sashing.  

 When I last worked on this, there was just one row left to assemble.  The plan is to finish the rows and then get those sewn together. 

4. Old Town (Bonnie Hunter): Continue working on clues

All the pieces are bagged up and ready for more work.  I won't finish all the clues, but any progress would be good. 

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

I need to cut some additional squares before I can make more 4-patches.  

Since I'll have at least one nothing but sewing day, I'm hoping to get a lot done this week. Not sure what Grad Girl and I will decide to do over the weekend, but hopefully I'll still have some time to get in a good deal of stitching time.  

Linking up with The Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

The 2025 SAHRR: Border 4

I noted in my Stitching Stuff post that not much got done this week.  That included any progress on the 2025 SAHRR,

I was able to finish off all the Friendship Star blocks from border 3 and worked out a plan for week 4.  

The green border strips are cut, but didn't get attached.  I finished 2 blocks for border 4, but that's it. The border will be a mix of blue and green blocks.  I'm hoping to catch up this week, finish border 4 while working on border 5.  We'll see how that works. 

Linking up with Pieceful Thoughts for the 2025 SAHRR, Monday Design Wall and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 7 of 2025

 

I've been AWOL this week.  Partly I'm still struggling with a cold and just haven't felt like doing much.  That really impacted my motivation to climb the stairs to my sewing room and that shows in my numbers for this week.  

• 15 minute days/week = 5/7 days
• 15 minute days/Feb = 13/15 days
• 15 minute days/2025 = 42/46 days
• Success rate = 91.3%

At least my stitching time is over 90% for the year.  I didn't really set a goal for that this year.  If I'm still moving projects along than I'm stitching enough.  

I've got some stuff going on early this week, I'm hoping to get in some stitching time each day, but it won't be easy early in the week. How did you do this week at getting in your stitching time?  

 

1. Gretchen 2. Melissa G 3. Deb in Canada 4. DonnaleeQ

5. Andrée 6. Melisa- Pinker n' Punkin Quilting 7. maggie f 8. Frédérique

9. Quilting Gail 10. Elvira 11. Marsha's Spot

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To Do List for the Week of 02/11/2025

It hasn't been the best week on a number of fronts.  I've got some type of respiratory infection that's been ramping up for the last week. Yesterday was pretty much a recliner/couch/bed day. My nose is sore from all the blowing, my chest hurts from all the coughing, and my head hurts.  With all that going on, my sewing room time hasn't been wonderful this last week.  

To Do List for 02/04/2025

1.  2025 SAHRR: Finish the 3rd border - progress

2.  Guild BOM: Finish the March blocks - no progress

3.  Chocolate Marshmallow: find backing fabric - no progress

4.  Marble Mystery: Finish quilt assembly, start borders - progress

5. Old Town: Continue working on clues ✔

6.  Wild and Goosey: Finish purple and start blue blocks ✔

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

It's actually not such a bad week, it was a long list. I have a few check marks to go along with the no progress comments.  Since I'm still fighting this crud, I'm going with a much more pared down list for this next week.  

To Do List for 02/11/2025

1.  Guild BOM: Finish March Blocks

I have to have this ready for the guild meeting next Tuesday.  So it becomes my highest priority.  

2.  SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Finish 3rd border, start on 4th border

 

The 3rd border just needs 3 more Friendship stars. Those are in various stages of assembly at the sewing machine, they won't take long to finish.  I have border 4 drafted, just need to cut the fabrics and start assembly. Hopefully it will go faster than these stars did. 

3. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Continue making blue blocks

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

A much shorter list for this week.  Hopefully I'll get to feeling better as the week goes on and be more productive than I feel capable of now.  

Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 6 of 2025

 

Hopefully we have evicted the squirrels and the roof has been repaired.  That's probably the biggest item checked off my "not quilty" to do list from last week.  Yesterday My Guy and I judged Science Fair.  It's always fun to see what the kids come up with, but it is tiring.  I definitely needed a nap when we got home yesterday after lunch.  Time in the sewing room didn't happen till after dinner.  All in all it was a pretty good week.  

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/ Feb = 8/8 days
• 15 minute days/2025 = 37/39 days
• Success rate = 94.87%

I'm falling behind on some of my "need to do" projects even with all the stitching time.  I'm hoping to play catch up on Sunday.  It's supposed to be cold, so hanging out in the sewing room is probably the warmest thing I could do.  

Have you had time to sew this month?  

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

6. Quilting Gail 7. DonnaeeQ 8. Bonnie in Va 9. Amanda 10. Andrée at Quilting & Learning

11. Rebecca Grace 12. Jocelyn @CNN 13. Marsha's Spot

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The 2025 SAHRR: Round #3

It's been one of those weeks where I ended up with less stitching time then normal.  So I'm a bit behind on Round #3 for the SAHRR.  This week's prompt of "stars" was posted by Quilting Gail.  

I had hoped to play catch up this weekend, but I forgot that I was judging Science Fair this weekend, so there went most of my Saturday.  I've made good progress, but it takes a while to make 30 3.5" Friendship Stars.  

The plan is for two borders of blue stars and 2 borders of the green/blue stars.  All the blue stars are made, but I'm still working on making all the green stars.  The borders with the green stars will mirror the borders with the blue stars.  I'm hoping to get the last 3 star borders made before the next prompt comes out on Monday. I'm going to to have to hit the sewing room early tomorrow.  

January 2025 PHD Report

Usually January feels so slothful, the days drag and the month feels like it goes on forever. Not this year.  I'm amazed to find we've reached the end of the first month of the year.  It will speed up from here, so 2025 is set to move fast it seems.  

With the end of the month, it's time report on my UFO progress and link up at P Designs USA for the January PHD Report.  First off, my report.  

One new start and no finishes. That's a pretty typical start to my year. At least the new start was planned for.  If I can keep it to the three that were planned and finish at least 4, my UFO list should go down.  I'm hoping to do much better than that, but I'm going to need to start focusing on finishing to make that happen.  

The new start is the 2025 SAHRR (Quilting Gail). 

Round two is finished. So far I've kept up with the prompts.  Hopefully that continues.  This quilt is for Grad Girl's roommate so I need to finish it before May. 

There has been progress on several of my other projects this month. 

 

Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) is my Rainbow Scrap Project for 2025.  This month's color was pink. I'm not using pink, so the plan was to finish all the red blocks needed for the layout and then start on some purple blocks. I miscounted how many reds were needed, I still need 8 of the 3.5" squares. By the time I realized that, I'd moved on to purple.   I'm sure red will come up again later this year and I can finish those up.  I've wrapped up the purple blocks for now and moved on to blue which is this month's RSC color.  

My leaders and enders project for 2025 is the same as I was using for the last half of 2024, the Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter).  I added 10 of the blue 4 patches and another 10 of the yellow.  I checked my counts, there are still lots of 4 patches to make.  

The 2024 Guild BOM is now a finished quilt top.  I wasn't so sure about the dark gray, but it works.  There is no plan for this quilt, hopefully it will get finished this year.  But I have six other quilt tops in the closet to finish first.  

Most of January has been spent on block assembly for the Marble Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs).  Attaching the sashing is ongoing..  Hopefully this will be a finished quilt top by the end of February.  

Not as much progress on Old Town (Bonnie Hunter) as I would have hoped for.  Clues 1 and 3 are finished.  Clue 4 was finished after the end of the month and I'm more than half way done with clue 2.  I'm slowly but surely working through all the clues.  Hopefully I can finish clues 5 and 6 before the end of February.    

The 2025 Guild BOM is on track. Since I'm the owner of the program this year, I have to be a month ahead, I've not started on March yet, but January and February are completed.  

My project tracking sheet doesn't show much progress. 

But a finished quilt top and progress on five other projects isn't a bad start to 2025. February is a short month, but hopefully I can keep up the momentum.   

To Do List for the week of 02/04/2025

Starting paragraph

To Do List for 01/28/2025

1.  2025 SAHRR: Finish second border ✔

2.  2025 Guild BOM: Start March blocks ✔

3.  Marble Mystery: Finish making blocks ✔

4.  Old Town: Continue working on clues ✔

5.  Wild and Goosey: Continue making purple blocks ✔

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

It was a good week on the productivity front. Even if I'm not hitting major milestones with most of these projects, it's nice to see progress happening.  

So what's the plan for this week? Pretty much the same as last week and the week before, a bit of progress on several projects.  

To Do List for 02/04/2025

1.  2025 SAHRR (Quilting Gail) Finish third border

The prompt for this week is "stars".  I'm going to do Friendship Stars and have gotten all the blue pieces cut for those.  I still need to cut the green pieces. Then it's going to take a lot of assembly. I may be taking this prompt down to the wire.  

2.  Guild BOM: Finish the March blocks

I've gotten started on cutting the fabrics, but I need to finish that and then get going on assembly.  

3.  Chocolate Marshmallow (Seabreeze Quilts): Find backing fabric

If I want more finishes, I need to get started on prepping some quilts to go out for quilting. The plan is to shop the stash and piece a back if necessary. 

4. Marble Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs):  Finish quilt assembly, start on borders.

The vertical sashing strips are almost finished. Then I'll need add the horizontal sashing.  This photo is the closest I've gotten to the true colors in the quilt.  The deep purple tends to look black in most of my photos.  I'm excited to get this one to a finished quilt top.  

5.  Old Town (Bonnie Hunter):  Continue working on clues

Clue 4 is finally finished and I've moved on to clue 5.  Clues 1, 3, and 4 are all complete.  Still lots of pieces to make for this project.  But I'm making progress.  

6.  Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter):  Finish purple and continue with blue blocks.  

The top block is purple the bottom is blue.  I sometimes have a hard time deciding what's blue, blue violet, or purple. Red violet is usually easier to weed out.  It doesn't help that my digital camera really struggles with purple, it often looks blue before color correction.  

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

I'm back to making blue 4 patches this week.  My pile of blocks is slowly growing.  

That's my list this week. It's ambitious, other than my two deadline projects, I'm just hoping for progress on everything else.  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

A Bit of This and That

I wasn't ready for it to be February already.  We've already had a full weekend in this short month, so now it's almost over.  Well maybe not really, but it certainly feels that way.  It will certainly go fast that's for sure.  

The weather was nice this weekend, so I got out and enjoyed it.  So there wasn't as much time in my sewing room as typical. Still there was progress on a few things.  One of which is my version of Marble Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs).  

There's a lot of purple in this one and I like it. The plan is to get this to a finished quilt top before the end of the month.  

Since it's a new month, I need to pick a project for the Chookshed Challenge.  The goal is to get in more than 7 finishes this year. If I'm going to do that I need to start pulling out those finished quilt tops, piece backings and get them ready to go out for quilting.  I'm going to start with the my oldest finished quilt top, Chocolate Marshmallows. This was number 1 on my list for this year.  

This is one project I've not pulled potential fabrics for the backing, so I'll need to dive into the stash for that. With the SAHRR going on right now, I'm not sure I'll get it all the way out the door. But any progress is good.  

Linking up with Design Wall Monday, Patchwork & Quilts, and the February Chookshed Challenge post.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 5 of 2025

 

It was definitely one of those weeks.  I kept hearing noises in the ceiling over my sewing room, then this huge crash coming from the walk in attic.  You guessed it, we have squirrels in the attic.  My husband sealed up the attic about 5 years ago after our last infestation which required replacing a significant portion of the wiring over the dining room and entry way.  But they've apparently found new ways in. I did find someone who would trap and remove them, plus fix the places in the roof they've damaged.  I'm pretty sure the stress of dealing with that led to one day of a full out miserable and debilitating migraine.  So my numbers aren't perfect for this week. 

• 15 minute days/week = 6/7 days
• 15 minute days/Jan = 29/31 days
• 15 minute days/Feb = 1/1 days
• Success rate = 93.75%

I was just out of commission for one day thankfully. It's been a long time since I've had a migraine that bad. Being retired seems to have greatly reduced the number of migraines I have. Wonder why? 

So how are you doing at getting in your stitching time so far this year?  

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

5. Karen 6. Deb in Canada 7. Donnaleeq 8. Quilting Gail

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

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