To Do List for the Week of 9/26/2023

It's hard to believe that October is just a few days away.  The end of the year always goes so quickly.  I've got lots of stuff on the calendar over the next few months, so my stitching time is definitely going to drop off.  I've done pretty well at taking advantage of all the stitching time this month.  That is definitely reflected in last week's to do list. 

To Do List for 9/19/2023

1.  Unity/Helianthus: Finish quilt, photograph ✔

2.  Macaron Mystery: Prep quilt top for quilting ✔

3.  Scrappy Butterflies: Finish adding borders - progress

4.  Malted Mystery: Continue to work on clue 3 ✔

5.  Wild & Goosey: Make 2 teal blocks - progress

6.  Chilhowie: Continue as leader and ender project ✔

Four check marks and progress on the rest of the list is a really good week.  My focus for the next few months is moving as many quilts as possible to the finish line.  I'm pretty sure I can finish at least two more before the end of the year even with the full calendar.  So that's the focus for this week's to do list.

To Do List for 9/26/2023

1.  Macaron Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Package and mail out for quilting

I finished cleaning off all the loose threads on Sunday.  I've found a box and the batting.  I just need to finish the packaging, write the label and take it to the post office.  That should be doable this week.

2.  Melodic Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Find backing fabric and decide on piecing plan

Melodic Mystery became a finished quilt top in August. It's actually not on the UFO list yet as it's not been over a year since I started it. But it will pass that milestone before I get this one out for quilting.  

3. Scrappy Butterflies (self designed):  Finish last border

  

The first border has been added.  The final border will be that darker blue from the alternate blocks.  It always takes longer to finish a border then I think it will.  Fingers crossed this is a finished quilt top before next week's to do list.  Since it will be my oldest finished quilt top, it will be next on the list after Melodic Mystery to get the backing, prep for quilting and send it out.  That's the plan for November anyway.  

4. Malted Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Continue to work on clue 3

I've finished one set of HSTs, the sister's block, the plus blocks and am now working on the T blocks.  There is one more set of blocks, plus another set of HSTs to finish before the end of the month.  I'm on track to finish this clue before the next one comes out.  

5.  Wild & Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Finish 4 teal blocks

I finished one block last week and got started on two more.  It's been slow progress on this project this year.  But that's OK, I'm just happy to move this one along a little. 

6. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Continue as leader and ender project. 

The center of block 7 is assembled. Now it just needs the borders added.  I should have a finished block by next week's to do list so it will be time to start on the components for block 8.  

That's my to do list for this week.  I'm going for slow and steady progress.  If not everything gets checked off, I'm good with that so long as there has been some progress.  Linking up with The Quilt Schmilt: For the Love of Fabric for this week's To Do Tuesday.  

One Off the UFO List

The first half of the year was all about new starts.  Two of the three 2023 projects have made it to the finished quilt top stage.  So for the last half of the year I'm prioritizing moving some quilts to the finished quilt stage.  The first big hurdle in that plan was getting Unity prepped to go out for quilting.  Unity was started in April of 2020 when Bonnie Hunter offered the Sew-In-Place quilt along to help all of us cope with the Covid pandemic. I made the last stitch to the binding on Tuesday, September 19th.  

Unity is far from perfect, but I learned a lot during the construction of this quilt. I perfected stitching an accurate quarter inch seam by the time it was fully constructed.  The quilt has a couple of puffy parts because I didn't have that down early on.  I'm eternally grateful to Trudy, she was still able to deal with those imperfections with the quilting.  My version is a bit different from Bonnie's.  I used a different block for the last full pieced border.  One because I didn't really like Bonnie's version and two, the Four X Star block has a lot fewer pieces. By the time I got to that point, I was ready to just be done. 

One of my "rules" for Bonnie's mystery quilts is that the fabric has to come from the stash.  The black with the colored flowers has been in the stash for years, so it was the first pull.  The other goal for Unity was to use a color palette that was new to me.  That's how the yellow and green were selected.  This quilt has always made me think of sun flowers, so that's what I stuck with as the name (the Latin version)

The green made such a good frame for the rest of the quilt that I stuck with that for the binding. 

The backing was purchased during one of Connecting Threads end of year sales. 

The photo doesn't convey the colors really well, but it does show off the quilting.  Since this quilt had so many piecing problems I told Trudy to keep it simple.  

Unity wasn't one of my better executed projects, but I learned a ton.  I will be rejecting any background fabrics that ravel very badly.  That's one reason why it took me forever to finish this project. I tried early on to fix some of my piecing problems, but the background fabric didn't take well to being unstitched and then restitched.  I had to replace a few pieces of background during that process.  Then clean up of the top was really a nightmare due to all the loose strings on the back.  Even with all the problems, I'm happy with the finished quilt and very glad to have it off the UFO list.  

Linking up with Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Stitching Stuff: Week 37 of 2023

There is just one week left in September. I'm not ready for it to be October.  The end of the year will come up really fast.  With that in mind, I'm trying to make my sewing time count.  I did pretty well on that front this week. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Sept = 23/23 days
• 15 minute days/2023 = 229/266 days
• Success rate = 86.09%

My goal was to stitch at least 75% of the time, so I'm doing well on that front.  There is a lot of holiday and family stuff going on the next 3 months. Sewing time may be scarce for a few weeks here and there, so I'm glad to have a bit of a buffer going into the holiday season.  

How are you doing on getting in your stitching time? 

Week 88 Photo Challenge: Floating

The weather here has been more spring like then fall like this week, at least in terms of the magnitude of the thunderstorms that have rolled through the last couple of days.  But the storms have brought cooler weather and higher winds.  Oklahoma is known for being windy, but during the hottest days, we had almost no wind this summer.  Wind and water were dominate subjects for this week's challenge. 

My photos this week covered both wind and water.  In my case wind won out. 

Kate: Floating Past the Sun

We'd had storms overnight into the morning on Friday. But both the sky and radar seemed to indicate they were passed.  I ventured out on my typical morning walk. Not more than 5 minutes after this photo, I realized just how dark it was to the north and west. Then there was this incredible lighting strike and thunder boom. I didn't get my usual 2 miles in, but I more than made up for the shorter distance in intensity.  You do not want to be the tallest thing around when it's lighting.  

My Guy went the water route with his photo for the week.  

My Guy: Flotilla

The wind picked up and the sky cleared up by sunset.  It was definitely a nice evening for a nice group paddle in the lake.

Grad Girl, as usual, picked a very different subject for her challenge photo. 

Grad Girl: Density Differences

  

Grad Girl is a big fan of ramen. This is one of her rare non-lab photos, but I couldn't resist keeping with the science theme for the title.  I can't tell if this is from dinner out or if it's one of her ramen bowls she fixes at home.  She had a pretty stressful week, so I'm wouldn't be surprised if she reached for some comfort food.  Her kitty wasn't feeling well early in the week, plus she's got pending grant deadlines on top of research projects.  I do not miss graduate school (or working for that matter).  

This week's challenge is pretty much wide open for any number of subjects.  

 

Grad Girl responded to the text with "Ooo, ok I have ideas".  So next week should be pretty interesting.  

To Do List for the Week of 9/19/2023

Hard to believe that more than half of September is in the books.  Looking at what's on my calendar, the end of the year will come really quickly.  Consequently my to do lists are getting longer.  Last week's list was up to six items, which makes it harder to check off the entire list.    

To Do List for 9/12/2023

1. Unity (Helianthus): Make label, binding, finish - progress

2. Macaron Mystery: Prep quilt top for quilting - no progress

3. Scrappy Butterflies: Finish top assembly ✔

4. Malted Mystery: Continue to work on clue 3 ✔

5. Wild and Goosey: Make 2 teal blocks - progress

6. Chilhowie: Continue as leader and ender ✔

Three check marks with progress on 2 others is really not a bad week at all. My goal is to just keep projects moving closer to finished.  With that in mind, this week's list is going to look pretty similar.  

To Do List for 9/19/2023

1. Unity/Helianthus (Bonnie Hunter): Finish quilt, photograph

 

Three corners of the quilt are stitched down. Just one more long side to that fourth corner.  I'm excited to finish Unity. It was one of those projects that I just struggled to get moving on. A lot of that was due to where I was mentally last year.  I'll be glad to mark this one off the to do list.  The plan is to get photographs over the weekend and give Unity it's own blog post on Monday.  

2. Macaron Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Prep top for quilting.

This was on last week's to do list, but I'd forgotten just how much effort goes into finishing off a quilt, so I choose to focus on Unity and Scrappy Butterflies to move those to finished quilt and finished top respectively.  Unity should be finished today, so I can concentrate on getting the next project out for quilting so there will be a finish for next month.  

3. Scrappy Butterflies (self designed): Finish adding border(s)

I'm still undecided on the border(s) for this quilt.  It's already larger than I wanted, but finishing out the Irish Chain pattern really makes the quilt.  My EQ file shows three borders, but that may become just one.  I'd really like to keep the size down on this one.  

4. Malted Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Continue to work on clue 3

One set of HSTs have been finished and the second set of HSTs is in progress.  The Sister block is almost finished.  Next up is the Plus blocks.  I'm on track to be ready for clue 4 when it comes out next month.  

5. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Make 2 teal blocks

I started one block last week, but didn't quite get it finished.  The goal is to make what I can each month to move this project along.  I've not decided yet if this project will become a focus for next year or if it will stay a make a few blocks a month project.  I have older rainbow scrap projects that are closer to finished then this one.  So those may be the focus for next year.  

6. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Continue as leader and ender project

Block 7 is still under construction, but it's coming along. Hopefully it's a finish by the end of the month.  That leaves just 2 more to finish. I doubt I have this quilt assembled before this year's mystery gets started, but having the blocks done means a quicker finish for next year.  

So another long to do list for this week.  Fingers crossed I can check off most of them before next week's post. Linking up with The Quilt Schmilt: For the Love of Fabric for this week's To Do Tuesday.