Catching Up: The March 2026 PHD Report

Our trip to Texas started on April 1st. Between getting laundry done and packing, there just wasn't time to get all my project photos taken before we left.  I missed the April linky party at Ms. P Designs. Even though the link up has closed, I'm still going to publish a March report to reference at the end of the year (my memory is very short).  Here's my PHD report as of the end of March.   

There is finally a finish to report.  Kate's Choice is finally a completed quilt after 14 years on the UFO list.  

Kate's Choice is the first quilt I've quilted myself.  I learned so much while finishing it off.  If you want to read about the long road from start to finished for this quilt, you can find the whole story here.

Just the one finish, but there has been good progress on several of my other projects.  

With all the sewing that happened in March, there was a lot of progress on the blue blocks for Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter).  More than half the blocks are finished. The blue blocks are almost finished, just 10 of the 3.5" blocks left to make.  The plan is to keep working on the blue blocks till they are finished unless either teal or purple is chosen as the RSC color of the month, then I'll work on those colors. If I can keep up the momentum, hopefully this will be a finished quilt top by the end of the year.    

 

I was hoping to have Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) assembled into a quilt top before the quilt parade last Thursday.  All the full blocks are finished, but I'm still working on the half blocks. It's been such a fun quilt to make. I'm happy with how the color palette worked out.  Hopefully it won't take me too long to get this project to finished quilt top.    

The April block of for the guild block of the month was shown at the March meeting. That block has been finished for awhile, but I don't show the blocks on the blog till the guild has seen them.  Now I'm working madly on finishing up the next 3 or 4.  

After keeping up during the challenge, I fell a bit behind after the SAHRR (Quilting Gail) prompts were done.  The pieced borders were added before I left. There are still two borders to be added, but if there had been time to photograph it at this stage, I would have sent it on to the parade. We had to be in Houston by 6:30 PM the day we left, so there wasn't any wiggle room in our schedule and I just didn't have time to get it up on the design wall.  This project won't take much time to finish up.   

Scenic Waypoint (Meadow Mist Designs) was assembled before the end of the quilt parade for the Stash Busting Quilt Along.  It was nice to get some of my older stash made into a quilt.  Hopefully it gets quilted before the end of the year. I really like the way this project came together.  

A finish and significant progress on several projects, definitely not a bad month. All the consistent progress during first quarter paid off.  There are few more colored squares on the project tracker.  

Though I missed a number of my deadlines, there was still good progress in March. A finish really made my month. Not as clean of a slate as I had hoped to start second quarter with, but it could be so much worse!  

Linking up with the typical Monday linky parties: Patchwork & Quilts and Sew & Tell Monday.  

First Finish of 2026

Last week was very productive, but the weekend was a bit rough since my back decided it needed to let me know I'd over done it.  We had to switch fitness centers (it's a long sordid tale that I don't want to dwell on).  The new fitness center equipment is the same, but different.  Different enough that my "normal" fitness routine is using muscles and putting me in positions different from before.  My back finally cried "Stop!" late Friday night.  So I have some rethinking to do when we go work out tomorrow.  Thankfully, I felt much better yesterday.  

I finished sewing the binding on Kate's Choice.  I'm going to share a lot about how this project evolved, mainly for myself as my blog is how I keep track of both my quilting and major life stuff.  If you want to see the finished quilt and not read the whole sorry tale, just scroll to the end.   

Kate's Choice actually started off as Grandmother's Choice, a quilt along sponsored by Barbara Brackman back in 2012.  

This sounded like such a fun quilt along.  I had the perfect fabric in my stash, Decadent Victorian from Moda fabrics.  

This line came out in 2007, so it was already 5 years old when I started the quilt along.  The bright pink is Bella Rosa from RJR fabrics, also from 2007.  The dark green used in some of the blocks and the border wasn't in the original fabric pull. 

I kept up with the first few weeks of the quilt along.

 

I made the first 5 blocks and then got completely stumped on the 6th block.  Barbara was using a lot of template patterns in these blocks and that was a skill set I hadn't mastered yet (still haven't).  Plus I was working full time, a supervisory position with 11 direct reports and a 13 year old at home. It's hard to tell from the photos, but the only block that was anywhere close to 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 was the Monkey Wrench block on the top right.  I was so frustrated with this project it was sent to time out in October of 2012. 

In late 2023, I was looking over my unfinished project list trying to decide what UFOs were going to go on my PHD list for 2024.  I was retired by then and a lot more experienced with piecing (by this point I'd been through the Bonnie Hunter school of piecing via her mystery quilts). Barbara had very thoughtfully left the quilt along posts up here.  After looking over at the number of template pieced blocks, I decided to just do my own sampler pulling blocks out of the Quilt Block Bible by Rosemary Youngs. 

Since I was picking my own block, the project name was changed from Grandmother's Choice to Kate's Choice.  My plan was to use these blocks as a quilt as you go project so I'd finally learn how to use my walking foot. I finished all the blocks in August of 2024, but didn't start quilting them until April of 2025. 

A very simple square in a square quilting pattern was quilted on each block. By the end of April 2025, one row was completely quilted and I'd made a start on the second row.  I marked my quilting lines with a hera marker. That worked out pretty well. All the blocks were quilted by August of last year and the first row was assembled by the end of that month.  

Assembling that first row was not fun at all.  So the whole thing went back into time out till January of this year.  After finishing only one quilt in 2025, but with 11 quilt tops needing to be quilted, I needed to get with the program on "how to quilt stuff".  So I made getting this project done a priority. I set up my sewing week such that Wednesday and Thursday were walking foot days. It was slow, but steady progress. All the rows were assembled by mid February.  

Once the top was all assembled, I realized it really needed a border. None of the reference books I had were helpful on that front. So I made up my own process and thankfully it worked. 

The borders were quilted with a "keyboard". That seemed to be the simplest option and it worked with the square in a square quilting in the blocks. The quilt was bound in the same dark green used on the front border.  I put the last stitches into attaching the binding last Monday, March 16th.  

I'm pretty happy with how it worked out. It's a small quilt, just lap sized. But I'm Ok with that, it will be a nice quilt to use in the office to cover up my legs when I'm working on the computer during the winter.  My Guy likes the back better than the front. 

I quilted the blocks with the backs attached. If you are careful with the layout, you end up with a two sided quilt. 

This was my next to oldest UFO.  I'm thrilled to have it finished and off the UFO list. It's not perfect by any means, but I learned so much by doing the quilt as you go method. I'm no longer scared of my walking foot.  I feel more confident to quilt some of my other finished quilt tops. 

Linking up with my typical Monday linky parties; Patchwork & Quilts plus Sew & Tell Monday.  Also linking up with Favorite Finish for March and I Quilted This.  

To Do List for the Week of 3/10/2026

There's a lot going on in my sewing room this week (and next week and the week after). All the quilt alongs have ended and I need to have finished quilt tops for the quilt parades.  So my priority will change for this week's list. Before I get to that, here's how last week's list went.  

To Do List for 3/3/2026

1. Kate's Choice: Finish borders ✔

2. Scenic Waypoint: Finish block and start quilt assembly - progress

3. Magnificent Mystery: Finish block, start quilt assembly - progress

4. SAHRR: Work on final border, quilt assembly - no progress

5. Wild and Goosey: Work on blue blocks ✔

6. Guild Challenge block: Make at least one block ✔

I had hoped to make lots of progress yesterday, but the massive sinus headache made that impossible. There was time spent in the sewing room, just not the hours I had hoped for.  But at this point, progress is progress.  Here's this week's list.

  

To Do List for 3/10/2026

1. Scenic Waypoint (Meadow Mist Designs):  Finish block and quilt assembly. 

The blocks for the first 4 rows are all sewn together. That leaves row 5 blocks to assemble and then start the sashing the blocks to sew into a top.  Probably not going to be a finished quilt top in time to post for the quilt parade for the 2026 Stash Busting Quilt Along.  

2. Kate's Choice: Finish binding

One side done, one corner rounded.  Just 3 more left.  

3.  SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Work on final border blocks and quilt assembly. 

The first row of blocks is sewn together.  That's as far as I've gotten.  It will my first priority once Scenic Waypoint is a finished quilt top.  

4. Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Work on block assembly

Half the blocks are assembled.  So still a ways to go on this project. But the deadline for the linky party is still three weeks away.  I might just get this one done in time.  

5. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Continue working on blue blocks

Four blocks have been finished since the beginning of the month. I'm hoping to make good progress on these. It would be nice to be able to assemble the quilt before the end of the year.  For now, I just keep two blocks going as my leaders while I'm working on other projects. 

That's my list for this week.  It's pretty much the same list I've had since the beginning of the year.  But a couple of projects should fall off in the next week or two at the most.  Will I add something new? Probably not, the plan is to move all the current quilt along projects to finished quilt tops (except for Wild and Goosey), then see what UFOs I tackle next.  

Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

Closing in on Finishes

Most of the quilt alongs/mystery quilts I sew along with start in 1st or 4th quarter.  That only becomes an issue when it's time to produce a finished quilt top for the quilt parade at the end of the quilt along.  That happens for 3 projects over the next 3 weeks. The deadline for the Meadow Mist Designs 2026 Stash Busting Quilt Along is this Wednesday.    

The last 2 blocks in row 4 of Scenic Waypoint are lined up by the sewing machine ready for stitching. 

Still need to finish the 4 blocks for row 5.  The quilt is assembled with sashing and corner stones. So there is a long way to go to have a finished quilt top by Wednesday. Will I get there? We'll see. 

One reason I'm not farther along on Scenic Waypoint is that I spent 3 days last week working on finishing up the borders on Kate's Choice.  Once those were all on, it just made sense to get the binding made and attached.  I'm hand stitching on the back and made it past one corner. 

   

Finishing up the binding will have to wait a few days. Fingers crossed I can have a finished quilt by the end of the week. But any progress on Kate's Choice will have to wait till after Wednesday.    

Linking up with Patchwork & Quilts, along with Sew and Tell Monday.  

February 2026 PHD Report

February is such a short month.  January was 5 weeks, so a true 4 week month is a shock afterwards.  Now that the second month of 2026 is finished,  it's time to report on how I'm doing on my PHDs (projects half done) and link up with Ms P Designs' PHD in 2026.  My PHD report is unchanged from January.   

No finishes, but no new starts either. It was still a good month because there has definitely been progress on several projects.  

Kate's Choice is an almost finish. The second border is attached.  The top border is quilted, but I had to stop and figure out how to deal with the sashing for the top and bottom borders. That's figured out. Hopefully both borders get finished and added this week. Then all that's left is binding.  It would be nice to have a finish for March.  

Since the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for February was green, I took the month to sash all the green Wild and Goosey blocks (Bonnie Hunter).  Now that those are done, they go back into the project box with the yellow, orange and red sashed blocks. I may make some changes later, some have triangles that stand out a bit much. But I'll wait till I get all the blocks done and see how it looks when these are up on the wall with all the other blocks.  

The quilt assembly instructions came out for the Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) in February. I'm not quite half way done with constructing the blocks.  So not completely caught up, but not way behind either.  

The January, February and March blocks for the Guild BOM have been released. April will be shown at the guild meeting this month. I've started on the instructions for May, I should get back to the instruction writing and block construction this month. It would be nice to have May, June and July ready to go before April gets here.  

The SAHRR (Quilting Gail), is over for this year. I chose a large center block with much smaller sampler blocks as my approach to the challenge this year.  I've changed up the blocks in the sampler rows to better balance the color density in the blocks. There are still  some borders to add, but it's coming together pretty well  

 

When Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs kicked off her 2026 Stash Busting Quilt along in January, I couldn't resist starting Scenic Waypoint.  I'm about a week behind schedule. But for me, that's not too bad. The blocks are turning out nicely and it feels good to use up some older stash fabrics. 

There was an error in my project mapping graphic last month, I over stated how far along I was on Magnificent Mystery.  So that bar is shorter, but to compensate Kate's Choice became an assembled top, so that bar got a bit longer.  

I should finish up the three quilt tops that have been my priority since January this month.  So hopefully a few lines in the graph will be longer. I'm hoping that happens earlier in the month, so I can start working on that big block of quilts that need to be quilted before the end of the month.  We'll see how far I get on those.  

To Do List for the Week of 2/24/2026

February will end and March will start between now and the next week's to do list.  This month is such a short one, I always feel behind at the end. Looking back over February's to do lists, it was actually a really good month.   

 

To Do List for 2/17/2026

1.  Kate's Choice: Cut borders, layer and pin for quilting - progress

2.  SAHRR: Start 5th prompt ✔

3. Scenic Waypoint: Finish corner units ✔

4. Magnificent Mystery: Continue block assembly ✔

5. Wild and Goosey: Continue sashing green blocks ✔

All the progress is starting to show up on the design walls in the sewing room. This week's to do list will look pretty much like last week's.  

To Do List for 2/24/2026

1. Kate's Choice: Work on borders

I finally decided on the dark green as the border, it makes the best frame for the blocks. The left border is completely quilted and attached.  All the strips are cut for the remaining 3 borders, but batting is only cut for the right border.  It's not likely that the all the borders will get done this week and attached. Fingers crossed the next three borders go on as easily as the first. It would be nice to have a finish this month.  

2. SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Start 6th prompt

Just one block left in this year's quilt along.  I'll decide how to assemble the block rows once that's done.  I have a loose finishing plan, so I need to firm that up once the last block is decided.  

3. Scenic Waypoint (Meadow Mist Designs): Assemble blocks

Last night I started laying out the possible blocks on the design wall.  Once that was done, the panic hit, it looked like a hot mess. I've moved a center here and a set of hourglass blocks there.  But nothing seemed to help.  So I stopped and built the quilt in Electric Quilt using very similar colors.  Once you add the sashing, it doesn't look like such a hot mess.  I have some thoughts on how to set the blocks so there are patterns that draw the eye. The other option is to make each block a single color.  I'm going to play in EQ a bit more before I start sewing the blocks together.  

4. Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Continue block assembly 

It's been slow going on block assembly as this project isn't my priority at the moment. There are enough blocks finished now to see how the pattern is going to work.  This is a mystery quilt, so I'm always happy when my color selections work out.  It's not as bright as most of my quilts are, but I've wanted to use these three teals together for a long time.  It's nice to see them out of the stash and into a quilt.  

5. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Continue sashing green blocks

Sashing these blocks has been my leaders and enders project for February.  I'm around half way done with these. I'll keep these in the rotation until they are all sashed.  

It's been the same list for several weeks now.  Hopefully I'll get far enough along to be able to rotate some things off and others back on.  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

To Do List for the Week of 2/17/2026

Hard to believe that February is already more than half over.  I need to get busy on a few projects if I'm going to stay on track with my goals for the year.  My weekly to do list helps to keep me on track, most weeks anyway.  I didn't do too badly last week.  

To Do List for 2/10/2026

1. Kate's Choice: Assemble Quilt top and decide on borders ✔

2. SAHRR: Start the 4th prompt ✔

3. Scenic Waypoint: Finish hourglass/center units, start corner units ✔

4. Magnificent Mystery: Continue block assembly ✔

5. Wild and Goosey: Continue sashing green blocks ✔

Five for five. I'll gladly take that. Hopefully I can carry that momentum into this week's to do list. 

To Do List for 2/17/2026

1. Kate's Choice: Cut borders, layer and pin for quilting

All the blocks are quilted and assembled into a quilt top.  It looks unfinished, so I'm going to try to add a border. It should go together just like the blocks did. The plan for this week is to cut the front and back borders and the sashing strips. Then sandwich the border strips and quilt them. I'm hoping the process is more interesting than it is frustrating.  We'll see.  

2. SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Start 5th prompt

I survived curves and that wasn't at all assured.  Looking forward to seeing what comes next.  

3. Scenic Waypoint (Meadow Mist Designs): Finish corner units

The hourglass and center block units are all finished, finally! So all I have to work on this week is making all the corner units. I've gotten started, but don't actually have any units completed yet.  I'll have lots of sewing to do this week to keep up.

4. Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Continue block assembly

I've only finished 4 blocks, but you can start to see the secondary patterns.  What looks black is actually a very deep brown.  So far so good, it's been fun to see this project come together. 

5. Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Continue sashing green blocks

 

I've made some progress on getting the green Wild and Goosey blocks sashed.  Just a bit over one quarter of the blocks are finished. I'll need to get busy if I want to finish all the sashing of the green blocks this month.  

I'm hoping for another good week of solid progress. Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday. 

January 2026 PHD Report

I'm playing along with Ms. P Designs' PHD in 2026 again this year.  It's my sixth year and I've yet to earn my PHD.  Maybe I can make it work this year?  We'll see. 

Only one month into the program and I've started 2 new projects already.  One was planned, the other unplanned.  I'm hoping to finish both quilts this year. Fingers crossed on that plan.  No finishes yet, but there has been good progress on moving several projects closer to that point.  

My big goal for January was to restart the quilt as you go for Kate's Choice.  I've made good progress this year. Half the quilt is sewn together and two rows of the other half are sewn. That leaves the last row to sew together before assembling the second half of the quilt.  Not a finish yet, but good progress this month.  

Work on Wild and Goosy (Bonnie Hunter) continues this year. All the green blocks needed for the final layout are finished. They still need to be sashed.  Since green is the color for February, I'll get back to those this month. I did finish a few blue blocks during the month. I need 16 sets of 4 blocks for the planned setting. I'm just over half way there with the blue.  

  

Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) kicked off back in August of last year. I finally caught up with all the clues this month.  I'm ready for the reveal later this week.  

The 2026 Piecemakers Guild BOM kicked off back in December.  I've actually completed all the blocks up to April, but I can only show what's been revealed to the guild. The guild got the February block at the last meeting.  Those participating showed their Carpenter Star blocks during the meeting, there are some stunning color combinations in the works. It will be fun to see this one come together.  

There's been some progress on Lupine and Laughter (Bonnie Hunter).  I got off to a really late start with last year's mystery. I've committed to making the first block.  I finished off all the hourglass units and have started assembling those blocks.  Once I finish those I'll decide what happens next.  

It wasn't in my 2026 quilt plans to play along with the 2026 SAHRR (Quilting Gail), but it's such a fun challenge it was hard to resist.  I'm going a bit off script in making a sampler quilt rather than a medallion quilt. Two of six blocks were finished by the end of January. 

The unplanned start is Scenic Waypoint, started as part of Meadow Mist Designs 2026 Stash Busting Quilt Along.  I did a lot of cutting, but it's been a bit slow getting the hourglass blocks assembled. At the end of January I was done with one color, almost done with a second. 

At least one project hit a major milestone this month. 

Magnificent Mystery went from block construction to ready for quilt assembly.  By the end of February, the plan is for Kate's Choice to be a finished quilt. Then I can start on the next quilt to be quilted.  I'm hoping that one goes faster.  

To Do List for the Week of 02/03/2026

Winter hasn't completely relented, but we at least got a bit of a warm up yesterday.  I'll take highs in the 50's after a week of highs just above freezing.  The cold weather has been really good at driving me into my sewing room. One certainly doesn't want to be out and about much in those temps.  More sewing time was definitely a good thing for making progress on last week's to do list. 

To Do List for 01/27/2026

1. Kate's Choice: Assemble 5th row ✔

2. SAHRR: Make block for second prompt ✔

3. Scenic Waypoint: Continue cutting fabrics, start hourglass blocks ✔

4. Wild and Goosey: Work on blue blocks ✔

It was certainly a short list, but it still feels good to check off all four items. This week's to do list is just a little longer. 

1. Kate's Choice: Assemble 6th row

This is the last row that needs assembly.  I'm considering if I can add borders. I think that's doable.  Determining if I can make that work as a quilt as you will be on next week's to do list.  

2. SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Make block for third prompt

The third prompt comes out on Wednesday. I'm sure my EQ program will get a work out once it's released, though the block probably won't get made till the weekend.  

3. Scenic Waypoint (Meadow Mist Designs): Finish hourglass blocks, start on centers

There are 10 sets of hourglass blocks to make, these purple ones are part of the third set. Still 7 sets to go. I need to start sewing faster!  

4. Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Start quilt assembly

The reveal for this mystery quilt comes out this Thursday. I'm looking forward to seeing how all the components come together.  I won't finish assembly this week, but hope to have a finished quilt top by the end of the month.  

5.  Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter): Sash green blocks, work on blue

I put all the green blocks up on the design wall to distribute the scrappiness and decide which blocks went in each 4 patch.  The green centers were cut from what was in the 1.5" scrap bin. So these are ready to be sashed with black.  Once all the blocks are sashed, I'll go back to working on the blue blocks.  

If I can make progress on each project it will have been a good week.  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.