To Do List for the Week of 06/03/2025

We were in Texas all last week to attend Grad Girl's thesis defense and then just hang out with her afterwards for a bit of a celebration. Poor girl hasn't had a real vacation in over a year.  The presentation of her work was public, so we were able to attend that. Afterwards we waited in the hallway while she took questions from her committee. 

It was a good week, other than the flat tire issues. We picked up a large bolt somewhere on Sunday/Monday. By Monday night we were running with the spare (thank goodness Grad Girl has a car).  After two visits to the tire shop and the locating of a second leak that wasn't patchable, we ended up having to replace the tire on Saturday.  We had to make a few compromises on activities, but only canceled one planned outing due to needing to be back in time to pick up the car on Saturday.  

We didn't get home till late last night.  Now I have unpacking and laundry to do.  But before I get to all of that, I need to decide what's on my to do list for the sewing room.  Last week's list was short and sweet (necessary with all the travel and thesis defense activities). 

To Do List for 05/27/2025

1.  Hand stitching: embroidery or counted cross stitch ✔ 

I'm hoping that my stitching mojo is back. The fact that mid-year is almost here may have a lot to do with me feeling like I need to get back to the sewing room.  I'm going to be ambitious with this week's list. If I don't check off every item that's OK.  If there is progress on the first three, it will have been a good week.  

To Do List for 06/03/2025

1.  2025 Guild BOM: Finish cutting fabrics for the blocks

The neutral background is cut for the inverted star. The colored pieces for that and all the pieces for the sawtooth stars need to be cut.  If I can start assembly that would be great.  

2.  Glowing Hearts (MMM Quilts): Finish assembling quilt top

The first two rows are sashed, assembled and sewn together. Assembly of the third row was started.  I should be able to get this to finished quilt top pretty quickly. 

3.  Kate's Choice: Continue quilting blocks

There's been no progress on this project for several weeks.  I'd like to have a finished quilt by the end of the month.  That may be a bit ambitious, but no reason not to pursue that goal.  

4.  Betty (Meadow Mist Designs): Find backing, figure out assembly

This is my Chookshed Challenge project for June. The quilt top was finished last year and needs to be quilted. I'm hoping to actually get the backing made sometime this month, but figuring out the fabric and the assembly part will set me up for that later this month.  I really need to concentrate on finishing a few quilts if I'm going to meet my goals this year.  

5.  Old Town (Bonnie Hunter): Assemble blocks at late night sew

Another project I've not worked on for a few weeks. I need to figure out where I'm at with it.  I know all the blocks pieces are cut, just need to get all the subunits made.  

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

Both my embroidery and cross stitch projects have been just travel projects.  If I'm going to make progress, they need to be worked on more frequently.  

7.  Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Finish green, sash orange blocks

All the orange blocks are finished, but they need to be sashed with black to make 7.5" blocks.  I've already sashed all the yellow blocks. I'm trying to decide if I assemble this as a medallion quilt, start with the center and add each color as borders.  That might be easier then making it in rows.  I still have time to work that out.  I'll still work making a few 3.5" red blocks this month. I only need a few more to have all the red ones needed for the design. This project won't get finished this year, but I'm hopeful it will be ready for assembly next year.   

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

The plan is to assemble the center and start on the borders. I don't want to make any more 4 patches until I see if I need more yellow or blue. I'm close to my estimated counts.  I'm hopeful this will be a completed quilt top by the end of the year. 

It's a long list, but most of the items are just to make progress. I think I can do that this week.  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

Just 28 Days to Mid-Year!

About mid-morning yesterday I realized it was June 1st.  Along with that came the realization that we'll be half way through the year at the end of the month. I'm hoping that fact jump starts my sewing mojo, because I'm not doing so hot on my goals for 2025. 

I don't have much to show for this week.  My goal was to reacquaint myself with counted cross stitching.  I made a mistake pretty quick on my relearning process and had to unpick a lot of stitches.  But eventually a bit of progress was made.    

I'm going to try to work on this once a week to keep it moving.  Linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday over at Kathy's Quilts. 

My Chookshed Challenge for May was to find the backing fabric for Chilhowie.  

I found this yardage lingering in the quilt closet, left over from a quilt started in 2010, finished in 2015. As part of my older stash, it will be nice to use it up and get it out of the stash. The teal and orange echoes the colors in the quilt top, so it should be a fun backing. If I remember correctly, I have blocks that I didn't use in the border that can make this piece stretch if needed. 

Hopefully I'll be more motivated this week. A long to do list would probably backfire, so I need to think strategically.  

Also linking up with Monday Design Wall and Patchwork & Quilts this week.  

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.  

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.  

To Do List for the Week of 04/01/2025

March was a pretty productive month, fingers crossed April is as well.  I did pretty well with my last to do list for March. 

To Do List for 03/25/2025

1.  2025 Guild BOM: Finish May blocks ✔

2.  2025 SAHRR: Trim backing - progress

3.  On Ringo Lake: Make 2 blocks, start quilt assembly ✔

4.  Wild and Goosey: Making blue blocks ✔

5.  Summer Scrap Quilt:  Leaders and enders ✔

Four out of five is definitely not a bad week.  Progress has been slow, but steady.  I'm hoping for more of the same for this week's to do list. 

To Do List for 04/01/2025

1.  2025 SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Trim backing, start prepping quilt top

I was able to get the backing with 25% off on Saturday. It's got both the green and the blue, so works well with the quilt top. It's been washed, but needs to be pressed before it's trimmed to size.  I'd like to get this project sent out for quilting before mid month, so I'll start prepping the quilt once the backing is ready.  

2. On Ringo Lake (Bonnie Hunter): Finish quilt assembly, start borders

Just one more row to add and the two halves can be sewn together. I'm happy with how this project is coming together. It feels good to get another of my older projects close to being a finished quilt top. 

3.  Kate's Choice: Learn to use walking foot and practice quilting

  

I finished the blocks for this sampler in August of last year.  One of goals the last couple of years has been to learn to quilt.  Trudy, who has done such a wonderful job with my quilts the last 10 plus years, is retiring from the quilting for others business sometime this year. She's going to quilt the 2025 SAHRR for me, but that's probably the last one she'll do.  So it's definitely time for me to learn.  I have several smaller quilt tops intended for donation that will look perfectly fine with straight line quilting.  So I'm going to start the learning process with figuring out how to use my walking foot.  I have one, I've just never used it. Getting the quilting going on the Kate's Choice blocks is my Chookshed Challenge project for April.  

4.  2025 Guild BOM: Cut fabrics for the June blocks

I'm trying to work ahead on this project so that if life happens, I'm still ready to go, plus it will help give me a head start on getting the quilt assembled to show in December/January.  

5.  Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Finish blue, start teal blocks

I'll probably need to cut some more teal scraps, there aren't very many left in the bag from last year.   

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

Looks like I'm back to a longer list this week.  We'll see how well I do at getting it all checked off.  

Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

Moving on with the Quilt Plan

It was a pretty low key weekend here. The trees seemed to have greened up overnight. And the spring storms have definitely started up.  Nothing too severe yet, thankfully, as we really need the rain.  

The Stay At Home Round Robin quilt had been my focus for most of first quarter. Now that it's a finished quilt top it was time to find something else to work on.  I signed up to play along with the Chookshed Challenge over at Dreamworthy Quilts this year, but to date haven't done a really great job of doing much with those projects.  For March, the 2017 Bonnie Hunter Mystery, On Ringo Lake, was my pick to work on. This month I actually made some progress on this challenge. 

The parts for two more blocks were cut and those were assembled.  I decided against Bonnie's pieced sashing and instead went with a simple sashing with corner stones.  That makes a cool secondary pattern. I'm happy with how it's coming together.  The last row is partially assembled.  By the end of today all the rows should be assembled and I'll have made a start on the borders. This should be a finished quilt top before the end of April. It does feel good to make some progress on one of my older projects.  

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

February 2025 PHD Report

No surprise that February went fast.  I just wasn't ready for how fast it went.  Now that we've moved into March, it's time to post a February PHD report and join the linky party over at P Designs USA.  

There's been no change in my PHD tracking sheet. 

No finishes, but no new starts either.  So not good, but not bad either.  Though I've not had any finishes, there has been progress on several projects.  

To get finishes, backings are needed. I didn't get very far with my plan to move Chocolate Marshmallows (Seabreeze Quilts) closer to finished, but I did at least find the fabrics and figured out how to piece the back. Moving this project closer to finished was my Chookshed Challenge for February.   

Progress on Wild and Goosy (Bonnie Hunter) was limited. I didn't get many blue blocks finished.  The March RSC color is yellow and all those blocks are finished.  I'll keep working on the blue blocks this month along with sashing the finished yellow blocks.  

Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter) blocks continue to be my leaders and enders project this year.  I'm more than half way on each color. 

I had hoped to get farther along with the Marble Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) project during February.  I've made a lot of progress the last few days in prep for meeting the deadline for the quilt parade from this mystery.  All that progress will show up on the March report.  

The March block for the 2025 Guild BOM was finished. One quarter done with this project. 

Most of the month was spent working on the Stay at Home Round Robin project (Quilting Gail). I managed to finish border 5 by the end of February. There was a lot of progress on border 6 in March, but this is where the project was at the end of last month.   

Even with all the focus on one project, there was no change in my project tracking spreadsheet.  

Maybe not my best month for the PHD challenge. At least there was good progress on one project this month. The plan is to do better in March.  

To Do List for The Week of 03/04/2025

In spite of a weekend of pretty much nothing but stitching time, I still didn't do so well on my to do list for last week.

 

To Do List for 2/25/2025

1.  2025 SAHRR: Finish borders, 4, 5 and 6 - progress

2.  2025 Guild BOM: Start on April Blocks - no progress

3.  Chocolate Marshmallow: Assemble backing - no progress

4.  Marble Mystery: Finish assembling quilt - progress

5.  Wild and Goosey: Make blue blocks, start sashing yellow ✔

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

It wasn't a bad week, I just had way too much on my list.  The Stay At Home Round Robin is pretty intense, with a new prompt each week.  If I concentrate on it, it's hard to get much else done. So a to do list of 6 was probably not wise. There are a couple of deadlines that drove the longer list.  It's the same for this week. But I'm hoping after this week, I can back off and slow down a bit and concentrate on some longer range goals for 2025.  

To Do List for 3/04/2025

1.  Marble Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Finish quilt assembly

The deadline for submission for this mystery quilt parade is tomorrow.  I've got all but 2 rows pieced, I just need to finish those, assemble and add the borders.  Doable if I make this my priority for today. 

2. 2025 Guild BOM: Start April Blocks

I only have two weeks till the next meeting and these blocks need to be finished.  

3.  2025 SAHRR (Quilting Gail):  Finish 6th border and add final borders. 

All the blocks for the 6th border are finished. I have till the 26th to get all the borders added.  That's doable.  

4. On Ringo Lake (Bonnie Hunter):  Find project box, determine next steps. 

On Ringo Lake is my pick for #2 for the Chookshed Challenge.  Grad Girl asked for a quilt for one of the guys graduating from her group and she picked out this one as one he might like. I've not done any work on this quilt since 2019. First step is to find the project box and figure out how many more blocks I need to make and if I'm sticking with Bonnie's setting plan or not.  

5. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Assemble yellow blocks into 9-patches. 

The RSC color for March is yellow, but I've finished all the yellow paper pieced blocks for this project.  I've also finished all the orange and almost all the red. So the best plan to move this quilt forward seemed to be getting the blocks assembled into 9 patches prior to actually assembling the quilt.  I'm also continuing to assemble the blue paper pieced blocks. That's the color I have the least of and need the most of in the quilt.   

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

Both my blue and yellow piles have exceeded 100 blocks. This has been a really good leaders and enders project.   

That's my list for this week.  If I can make progress on each, even they aren't completely checked off, I'll be happy.  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.  

The 2025 SAHRR: Round #2

The prompt for round #2, half square triangles, can be found at Anja Quilts.  

Half square triangles are versatile little blocks.  I played around in EQ, ran a couple of options past Grad Girl and finally settled on this version. 

Not the most original border, but it works OK. I'm ready for prompt #3 coming out on Monday.    

The 2025 SAHRR was also my Chookshed Challenge project for January. My goal was to get the center and first prompt finished.  I've actually finished the second prompt so definitely met my goal for the month.  

Getting Started on the 2025 SAHRR

The middle of January snuck up on me. I had hoped to have my center block picked out and ready to go before the the first 2025 SAHRR kick off post went up. But that didn't happen. I've been contemplating center blocks since 4th quarter last year. I knew the color palette was going to be predominately green, but hadn't picked the fabrics.  Inspiration struck when Grad Girl and I found a beautiful blue and green Batik in the close out section of the local quilt section.

From that we found the bright blue and the darker green.  I pulled a gray from the stash to use as the background.  Now that I had the fabrics it was easier to decide on a center block. I'd been going through my patterns to find something that clicked, but ended up designing my own center block.  

I'm pretty happy with how it came together, though it's certainly not perfect.  Now we just have to wait till the prompt for the first round is announced on Monday over at Kathleen McMusing's blog. 

I'm playing along with the Chookshed Challenge this year. I realized when the  Mid-Month Check In post went up that I had never specified what my January challenge was.  My goal for this month is my #9, get the center block and first round border finished for the SAHRR before the end of the month.  I've got the center done, now to stay on track with the first border.  

ChookShed Challenge

Dreamworthy Quilts is sponsoring the Chookshed Challenge again this year. 

The challenge has you pick 10 quilting related goals for the year and then uses a random number generator to pick which project you work on for the month.  I like challenges that help me stay on top of my to do list for the year and the monthly accountability helps with that. But I don't work well with random, I'm just not wired that way.  So I'm going to pick my list of 10 goals to play along, but I'll decide which one to work on during any given month.  

The first 6 goals for the year is to make backings, quilt, label and bind all the finished quilt tops from last year.  

From left to right, top to bottom

1. Chocolate Marshmallows 

2. Squared Away

3. Chilhowie

4 Malted Mystery

5 Indigo

6 Betty

Here's the remaining 4 goals

7. Learn to quilt as you go by quilting the blocks for Kate's Choice.

8. Finish On Ringo Lake as a gift for one of Grad Girl's chem buddies

 

9. Start and finish the 2025 SAHRR as a gift for Grad Girl's roommate

10. Finish the blocks and assemble my oldest Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt, Celtic Solstice. 

These will be on my 2025 PHD plan as well, but it doesn't hurt to the same entries in multiple challenges. Hopefully that means I'll actually have double the incentive to make progress on these projects.