Best of Life in Pieces in 2021

 This is the 7th year that I've played along with Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs Best of series. It's fun to look back at some of the high points posted on the blog this last year.

  

1. Most Views (400): Stitching Time: Week 2 of 2021

I'm not sure why this one had so many views, though it's one of my favorite posts from this last year.  The Scientist in Training took a few stitches on my traveling cross stitch project while we were visiting family last Christmas. From that she decided to give embroidery a try.  She had finished two projects by the second week of the year and hasn't looked back since.  She's been designing her own projects for months now.  

2. Second Most Comments(23): The Oldest UFO

The post with the second most comments documented the finish of what was then my oldest UFO.  Picnic Stars is one of my favorite quilts. The blocks had been finished for years, but I could never figure out how I wanted to set them.  Having finally decided on a plan, it took still took me a couple of years to get it finished up. The post with the most comments (27) was my #1 in this list. 

3. Most Link Ups for the 15 Minutes to Stitch (18): Week 1 and  Week 4

Both weeks had 18 link ups. That's one less than the maximum in 2020. But on average there were 13 participants who stuck with the stitching time goal for 2021, which is up from 9 last year.  Thank you to all the bloggers who stuck with me this year, especially since most of them were much better at blogging about getting in their 15 minutes of stitching time than I was.  

4.  My Favorite Finish for 2021: Grassy Creek ( Fritillaria)

Grassy Creek isn't my favorite Bonnie Hunter Mystery, but there were several other factors that made it my favorite finish for 2021.  The colors are out of my comfort zone so normally I would change them for the mystery, but decided to just stick with them to see how that worked. I like the end result. Another reason it's my favorite finish is that this mystery was finished well before this year's started. That's a first. 

5. My favorite family photo challenge post:  Week 23: Fire or Something Burnt.  

The Family Photo Challenge started as a Father's Day Gift for My Guy.  I bought him a card deck full of photo prompts. We draw a new card every Friday (lately it's been a bit later in the weekend as life has been busy). We've had such a great time with this challenge. We didn't think the Scientist in Training would play along each week, but she enjoys it too.  It's been a really fun family thing we can do even though all of us aren't in the same place. It's hard to pick just one favorite from this year, so I just picked the last post for week 23, Fire or Something Burnt.

That's my Best of Life in Pieces for 2021. Linking up with Meadow Mist Designs Best of 2021. 

2021 MidYear Quilty Ambitions Check In

Back in December 2020, Quilting Jet Girl hosted the 2021 Planning Party to give everyone a chance to think about goals for the new year.  Well, 2021 is more than half over and it's time to check in on the progress (or lack thereof) on My 2021 Quilty Ambitions as part of the 2021 MidYear Checkin. 

2021 Quilty Ambition #1: Finish 8 Quilts in 2021

I'm not doing so hot on this one.  As of July 1st there are only two finishes in 2021. 

My May and June were pretty crappy months at work, so I didn't get much done in the sewing room. That's disappointing.  But in 2020 there were only 2 quilts finished by 7/1/2020, but there were 7 finished by the end of the year. So there is still hope to meet this goal.  

The other part of this goal is to play along with Quilting Gail's PHD in 2021.  

The biggest achievement here is that there are no new projects started so far this year. That will change, but limiting the new starts will help me focus on finishing off the older projects.  

2021 Quilty Ambition #2: Stay Focused

To move quilts to finished, I have to stay focused on just a few projects.  What's worked for me on that front is to limit my weekly to do list to just 3 projects.  If I'm trying to finish up a quilt, I'll let the number of focus projects increase to 4. There are 3 focus projects at the moment.  

Beginning of the year to end of June progress on
Unity (Bonnie Hunter), Morewood Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs),
Cabins and Fans (self designed)

Unity, Morewood Mystery, and Cabin and Fans are the current focus projects.  Morewood Mystery should go out for quilting this month and I'm hoping to have Cabins and Fans ready to go out next month.  Unity has been my leaders and enders project. I'm hoping it's ready to be finished up in September. That will get me to five finishes for the year. 

2021 Quilty Ambition #3: Continue to Host the 15 Minutes to Stitch Linky Party 

As of week 27, there have been 26 weekly 15 Minute to Stitch linky parties. I only missed week 14 (due to work trauma, it's been a bad year on that front).  At the end of June, my success rate at finding 15 minutes to stitch was 85.64%.   My goal is to stitch 85% of the days this year, so I'm on track with this goal.  

Not a bad first half of the year, but I'm hoping for better the second half.  Linking up with Quilting Jet Girl's 2021 Midyear Checkin.

PHD Progress at the Half Way Point

Hard to believe it's already July 2021.  The last two months have passed really fast for me. My work-life balance was pretty much non-existent during that time.  Thankfully, things have improved and I have hopes of making more progress this month.  So hopefully next month's PHD report will look a lot better than this one.  

 I squeezed in one more finish at the end of June. 

Not a great showing for the half way point in the year. But that's all I had finished at the midpoint of 2020, but 5 more projects were completed before the end of the year. I'm hoping for a repeat of that this year. I've been really good on not starting anything new. That's probably my biggest accomplishment for the year. 

Grassy Creek was the new finish on the report. 

I'm really happy with how my version of Grassy Creek, the 2020 Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt, worked out.  It's not my usual color palette, I used Bonnie's recommended colors for this mystery.  I only made half the blocks, which ended up creating a nice throw sized quilt. This is BH mystery quilt #9 for me. I've only completed 4 others. There are two other BH mystery projects on the PHD list, On Ringo Lake and Celtic Solstice.  But they are at the bottom, so it's not likely I'll get that far this year.  

The Morewood Mystery quilt advanced to finished quilt top in June. 

Morewood is my fifth Meadow Misty Designs mystery quilt. I'm in the process of assembling the backing.  I'm hoping to get this project out for quilting before cutting the fabric for this year's Macaron Mystery.  Cheryl just posted the fabric requirements for this year's mystery.  So I've got another month before she posts the cutting directions.  These are one clue a month mystery quilt alongs, so not as fast and furious as a Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt along.  

There's been visible progress on Cabins and Fans. 

Rows three and four are all sewn together along with a good start on assembling row five.  I'm excited to see this quilt come together.  I'm hoping to have a finished quilt top by the end of the month.  

Progress on Unity  plods along as it's my current leader and ender project. 

Unity is another Bonnie Hunter quilt along.  Just two more blocks and I'll be able to sew on border number 3 for step 7.  Fingers crossed the next 9 blocks go much faster then the last 9.  After that there is only another top and bottom pieced border before I can finish this one off with a plain border.  

There wasn't time for any hand stitching this month, so there's been no change to the embroidered butterfly panel.   

That's the progress for this month.  Linking up with Quilting Gail for the monthly PHD report.  Happy stitching this month and for those in the US, have a wonderful 4th of July holiday.  

Finished Finally

 Just a couple more days till the calendar turns over to July and we'll officially be starting the second half of 2021.  My plans for 2021 haven't gone so hot. I started out strong and then April happened.  Work has been insanely busy since, so May and June haven't been great on the stitching front.  Work has bumped down from insanely to just the normal crazy busy, so I've gotten more stitching done the last week.  Enough stitching that June's One Monthly Goal is finished. 

My OMG for June was to finish Grassy Creek (aka Fritillaria).  For reference a Fritillaria is one of these:

Photo from Eden Brothers
 

I've never seen one of these, they don't grow here, but the colors fit well with my version of Grassy Creek.

Grassy Creek (Fritillaria): The Bonnie Hunter 2020 Mystery Quilt
Started: November 27, 2020
Finished: June 25, 2021

It's rare that I finish a Bonnie Hunter Mystery before the next mystery starts. Making only half the blocks seems to be the way to go if I want to finish before the next mystery comes out.  

 

Trudy quilted a repeating leafy pattern in yellow.  It gives the quilt a very nice texture when the light shines on it just right. 

The backing is a red, blue and gold print that's been in the stash for awhile, it blends well enough with the colors in the front.  I used the yellow/gold for the binding.  

I took my standard glamor shot with the quilt thrown over the rocking chair. 

There was a break in the deluges of rain, so I tried to get a shot with the Black Eyed Susans. 

Not a great shot, but it was fun to try something a bit different. 

I think the label worked out well. 

 This is only quilt finish number 2 for the year, so finishing up 8 is going to be a stretch. But at the end of June last year, I only had two quilts finished.  There were 5 more quilts finished before the end of the year. So there's still hope that I can meet my goal of 8 for the year.  But I best get busy!  

Linking up with the June One Monthly Goal Finish, Monday Making and Design Wall Monday.  

To Do Tuesday for 6/8/2021

We actually hit steamy yesterday.  It's been a very cool spring here compared to the high temps elsewhere in the country the last couple of weeks, but the cool stuff may be over for a while.  Work continues to be busy, but things look to be calming down.  I got in more stitching time this week, but I still didn't finish everything on my list.  

Weekly To Do List for 06/01/2021

• Grassy Creek: Sew on binding, finish quilt - progress
• Morewood Mystery: Work on border 3 ✔
• Cabins and Fans: Assemble row 3, start row 4 ✔
• Unity: Make HSTS for clue 6 as leader and ender ✔

Three out of four's not bad.  The hand stitching on Grassy Creek is taking longer than planned.  I really only had 15 minutes of stitching time most evenings last week. But some progress is better than none.  I have plans with my sister this weekend, so I probably won't get much stitching done, so this week's list is going to be pretty light.  

Weekly To Do List for 06/08/2021

Grassy Creek: Continue sewing on the binding. 

Grassy Creek, the 2020 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

I've passed the first corner, so still three left to go.  

Morewood Mystery: Finish border 3, start on the last border

Only one more border strip to pin on and stitch down to finish off border 3. I've already cut and starting sewing together the strips for the last border. 

Cabins and Fans: Continue assembly of row 4

Cabins and Fans, self designed

I have the sashing strips cut so I also hope to get row three sewn to row 2.  I just found an error in row 3, so I'll have to pull out the seam ripper and get that fixed before proceeding with work on row 4.  

Unity:  Continue making HSTs for clue 6.

Unity, 2020 Bonnie Hunter Sew-In-Place Quilt Along

I need to cut some more bits and pieces of the various fabrics before I can make any more blocks. That's on this week's to do list as well. 

That's my to do list for this week.  I'm hoping to make progress even if I can't check anything off for the week.  

Linking up with Chris Knits for To Do Tuesday.  

Getting Back on Track

The two day weekend went really quickly.  The Scientist in Training was home, but had a wedding to attend and a sleep over with the high school buddies, so we didn't see much of her.  Between errands and a nasty sinus headache, I didn't get in  as much sewing time as I would have liked.  I turned the first corner on stitching down the binding on Grassy Creek. 

I had hoped to have a finish this weekend, but I didn't get in much stitching time during the week.  I'm hoping for more progress on that front this week. 

Row three of the Cabin quilt is done. 

Cabins and Fans, self designed

The first two blocks for row four are in progress.  I had to stop and cut more sashing strips. The plan is to get row 3 sashed to the rest and get a good bit done on assembling row 4.  

Linking up with Monday Making and Monday Design Wall.  Enjoy your stitching time this week.  

June One Monthly Goal

It's so hard to believe it's June already and that the year is just about half over.  There has been some good progress on my UFOs, but just one finish so far. I'm hoping that all the work will pay off in lots of finishes the second half of the year.  I've been playing along with Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal for several years, it's the one goal I have met each month this year. 

 So I'm definitely going to set a goal for this month.  I'm close to the second quilt finish for 2021. 

I've started stitching down the binding on Grassy Creek.  I'm close to turning the first corner.  So this is definitely a doable goal.  Maybe I should be more ambitious, but work has been crazy busy, so I'm going to go easy on the expectations for sewing room progress.  

Linking up with the June One Monthly Goal.  Good luck with your stitching plans for the month.  

PHD Progress

The plan for this year was to finish a lot of quilts. Participating in Quilting Gails 2021 PHD (projects half done) is supposed to help me with that goal.  

May was a definitely lacking in stitching time, so my PHD report doesn't show a new finish yet. 

The biggest success so far this year is that I've not started anything new.  I do have some planned starts later in the year, but so far I've avoided the squirrels.  The only change to the list was the addition of another project to this year's UFO list.  I don't expect to finish it this year, but making progress counts for something too.  In spite of the lack of stitching time last month, there was visible progress on all the current projects.  

Grassy Creek has the binding sewn to the front and is prepped for the hand stitching to the back.  

I've got a whole month to get that binding stitched down by hand. Finish number 2 should show up on the report next month.  

There wasn't much progress on the Morewood Mystery.

Just two white border strips were added this month. Not much, but it's still progress. 

Row two of Cabin and Fans was completed and sewn to row 1. 

Good progress was also made on getting row 3 assembled. There was a bit of un-sewing and rearranging of row 2 to adjust the order of the different colors.  So there was more stitching on this project then it first appears. 

Construction progressed just a little bit on the third Step 7 border for Unity. 

Just four more blocks needed to finish off that third border.  

The newest project added to the 2021 rotation is an embroidered panel that will eventually become the center of a medallion quilt. 

This is my travel project. I made a good bit of progress on that 5th butterfly while we were on vacation.  

Though it wasn't the month I was hoping for, there was still really progress on each project.  Some months that's as good as it gets.  

Linking up with the May PHD Report over at Quilting Gail's

To Do Tuesday for 6/1/2021

We had a relaxing holiday weekend.  We didn't go anyplace, we just hung out around the house. Consequently I was able to spend some quality time in my sewing room for the first time in weeks.  May wasn't the best month for stitching. My last To Do Tuesday post was almost a month ago.  My stitching time was just so limited that I haven't bothered to make up a list since. So we'll start from where I left off and just move on from there. 

Weekly (Monthly?) To Do List for 05/04/2021

• Grassy Creek: Make label and binding ✔
• Morewood Mystery: Work on border 3 ✔ 
• Cabins and Fans: Assemble Row 3
• Unity: Make HSTs for clue 6 ✔

It's taken me most of May complete three of the four items on my last to do list. At least there is some progress for the month. That's better than none.  Since life continues to be pretty busy, the goal with this week's list is to just keep moving on all the current projects. 

Weekly To Do List for 06/01/2021

Grassy Creek:  Start stitching down the binding

Grassy Creek, the 2020 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

The binding has been machine stitched to the front. All that's left is to hand stitch it to the backing.  I've got the clips in place and the thread selected, I just need to thread a needle and start stitching.

  

Morewood Mystery: Continue adding border #3

Morewood Mystery by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs

Two of the four border strips are added.  I need to measure the top again before I cut the final two strips for the top and bottom.  

Cabins and Fans:  Assemble row 3, start row 4

Cabins and Fans, self designed

I had to unstitch the second row, flip it and then restitch to the sashing.  The printed layout I'm working from didn't have the final block placement. Now that's worked out, I should be easily able to finish row three and make a start on row 4.  

Unity:  Make HSTs for clue 6 as leader and ender

Unity, 2020 Bonnie Hunter Sew-In-Place Quilt Along

Not a lot of progress on this project last month. Just one more block finished for the top border strip. Just 13 more blocks needed to finish this round of borders for Unity.  

That's my to do list for this week. With life being so hectic, I'll be happy if I can check off even just one thing on my list by the end of the week.  Linking up with ChrisKnits for To Do Tuesday.  

Forward Motion

Happy Memorial Day to everyone in the United States.  Since we just got back from vacation, we are staying close to home this holiday weekend.  The mountain of laundry from vacation is just about conquered and I finally made my way back to the sewing room for more than just a few minutes on Saturday and Sunday.  The first priority was to complete my One Monthly Goal for May. 

I knew at the beginning of the month that stitching time was going to be on the slim side between the goings on at work and vacation plans.  So I tried to set a reasonable goal for the month, but still make good progress on moving Grassy Creek to finished quilt status.  I had to stay up a bit late last night, but I did finish this month's goal. 

The label is made. 

Naming quilts is always hard for me, but I've been trying to get better at it.  So I did the Google thing to search for orange flowers and discovered these blooms called Fritillaria. These flowers don't grow in Oklahoma, so I've never heard of them, but I really liked the name. That's part one of the May OMG done. 

Part two was to finish making the binding. 

The binding is wound around a left over wrapping paper tube ready to be stitched on.  So a check mark next to that goal. 

Part three from the list for May's OMG was to trim off the extra backing and batting. 

That's done as well.  So Grassy Creek is ready to have the binding sewn onto the front. I'll probably spend this week hand stitching the binding to the back.  Fingers crossed I'll have a finish by next weekend.  

I'm still massively behind on replying to blog comments and catching up with everyone's blog. I'm going to devote some time this morning to getting caught up on both while I finish laundry.  The plan is to get in some good stitching time this afternoon. Hope you are enjoying the last part of your holiday weekend. 

Linking up with the Finish for the May One Monthly Goal, Making Monday and Monday Design Wall.  

May One Monthly Goal

Life continues to be hectic. I realized this morning that I hadn't decided on a One Monthly Goal for May.  

I won't be able to stitch a couple of weekends this month, we have family obligations. Work continues to be crazy busy and will likely remain so.  So this month's OMG needs to be something simple, no point in setting an unrealistic task for the month.  

Grassy Creek is the project closest to being a finish.  

Grassy Creek, the 2020 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

The goal for May is to get the label and binding made, then trim off the excess batting so it's ready to have the binding attached.  Not sure I'll actually get it stitched on, but I'm hoping I can get that far by the end of the month. 

Good luck with your OMG.  Linking up over at Elm Street Quilts.