Best of Life in Piece's for 2023

This year has been one of transition.  I retired late in 2022, so 2023 was the first year since I was 16 without a work schedule.  At least a work schedule outside the house. So it's been a year of adjustments and discovery as to what one does when there is not a demanding job requiring daily attention.  Spending time in the sewing room has gone up, but not as much as I thought it would. There are still days I have to remind myself to get my 15 minutes of stitching time in. I've certainly posted more this year then in the recent past.  It's a good time to go back and look at what stands out for 2023.  Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs is helping us do that with her Best of 2023 Linky party. 

This is my 9th year linking up or the Best of party. Here's my top 5 "best of" for 2023

1.  Most views (357):  Week 58 Photo Challenge: Recreation of a Movie Scene

Our family photo challenge has been going on for about 2.5 years. We don't post every week, life sometimes gets to hectic for one or all of us.  But we try to keep up with it.  I can't say this is one of my favorite posts, because Grad Girl just didn't have time to get a shot.  But My Guy came through with a classic, which turned out to be a really cool photo for the prompt. 

My Guy: Homage

It's been a fun to see what we each come up with for each challenge card.  We have enough cards for all of next year, so there will be more family challenge photos posted in 2024. 

2. Most Comments (36):  Just Two Charm Pack Quilts Blog Hop: String Lights

Cheryl Brickey (Meadow Mist Designs) is one of my favorite quilt pattern designers.  She offers a mystery quilt almost every year, so when she asked for volunteers to participate in the blog hop for her newest book, I was more than happy to stitch a project from the book. 

 

String Lights is probably one of the easiest quilts in the book, but that meant I had a good chance of at least getting a finished quilt top done before the hop started.  The fabrics came from a kit that had been in the stash for a long time, so I was happy to finally find a home for them. Plans are to move this project to finished quilt in 2024. 

3.  Stitching Stuff: 15 Minutes to Stitch, most link ups (22, Week 1)

 

Not every one who links up is working on meeting a stitching time goal, but many of the long term participants link up each week to share how they did on getting in their stitching time each week. Thank you to everyone who links up regularly and shares that having to post how often they got to the sewing room is motivating for them too. 

4. Finish I'm most proud of: Unity (Helianthus)

Helianthus is far from being one of my favorite quilts.  It's not that I don't like it, it's that I made so many mistakes in putting this one together that it was a bear to finish.  I tried so many times to fix the issues, to the point I had to take out parts of the sashing and replace it with new fabric.  It was so tempting to just bypass this quilt. But I knew if I did that, it would remain a quilt top forever.   I owe a huge thanks to Trudy who agreed to quilt it. I told her if it puckered, it puckered, do what you can with it.  It didn't come out too badly.  It's become one of our trip quilts, it was loaded into the car and used over Christmas.  So I'm glad I pushed through and got if off the UFO list. 

5. Most fun project in 2023:  Stay at Home Round Robin 2023

I've watched this quilt along sponsored by Quilting Gail from the side line for the first 2 years, but last year decided I had the time to play along.  Well that went how I expected, I did well at first but got behind.  But I was really happy with my finished quilt top.

 

I used my blue, green and teal scraps for this quilt.  It came out so much better than I expected.  I enjoyed deciding on what my version of each prompt would look like.  The 2024 SAHRR kicks off in a couple of weeks and I'm on board for that one.  I just need to get my fabrics washed and make my center block. I have a plan this year!  Still probably means I'll get behind, but that's OK, it's all for fun. 

This year was a good year, definitely better than last year.  I didn't get as much done as I wanted, but there were still some fun accomplishments during the year.    

2023 Q3 Quilting Ambitions Check In and September PHD Progress

The end of September was hectic with vacation preparations, complicated by a three day migraine.  So blogging went out the window for several days.  Vacation preparations got done, but I didn't have the energy to get into the sewing room to get photos for my end of the month post.  Since I've not done anything stitching related for the last couple of weeks, all I have to post is progress on my quilting goals for the year and my PHD progress for September.  I'm linking up with Quilting Jetgirl's 2023 Q3 Check In.  

2023 Ambition #1: Finish some quilts, make progress on some quilts and start some quilts. 

There has been one finish and progress on all but one of the quilts on my 2023 plan since my 2nd quarter update.  A second quilt is out for quilting and three others are finished quilt tops.  I am hoping to finish another three quilts before the end of the year. Even if that doesn't happen, I've made good progress on the quilt plan.  That counts too.  

2023 Ambition #2: Acquire a new skill.

In my second quarter update I noted that my plan was to learn to quilt my own projects. I've not done anything on that front, but I'd forgotten that back in April I did take a class on editing quilt patterns.  I can't say I've mastered that skill, but I did learn something new.  I've played a little with creating a tool that can help me calculate the yardage from instructions, but it still needs a lot of work.  

2023 Ambition #3:  Stitch 15 minutes a day and post associated linky party. 

At the end of the quarter, there were 37 Stitching Stuff linky parties with an average participation of 11.7 bloggers.

 As of the end of September, I'd stitched for at least 15 minutes 86% of the days in 2023.  My goal was to exceed 75%, so I'm on track, at least for now. With last week's vacation and the upcoming holidays, finding stitching time will be harder.  

2023 Ambition #4: Sewing room clean up

• Press, cut and sort scraps: some progress
• Organize yardage: no progress

I've spent some time cleaning up my scraps, but I've not done much of anything with my yardage.  Though I have used up some older pieces of yardage as backings.  I've not had enough finishes for that to impact my yardage storage, but every little bit helps. 

I'm mostly happy with where I'm at with this year's ambitions. Just 2.5 months left in the year.  We are at the point what gets done, gets done and what doesn't will just have to be incorporated into next year's ambitions.  

As far as September progress, the PHD report finally shows a finish.

 

There was good progress on several projects in September. 

Scrappy Butterflies (self designed) was assembled, the first border has been added, attaching the second is in progress.  This should be a finished quilt top by the end of October. 

A few more teal blocks were added to Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter). 

Unity (Bonnie Hunter), aka Helianthus, became a finished quilt in September. 

 

The Macaron Mystery quilt (Meadow Mist Designs) went out for quilting last month.  

The stash yielded a reasonable backing fabric for Melodic Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs).  The plan is to get this project out for quilting before the end of October. 

 

Progress on Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter) continues as my leaders and enders project. 

Malted Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) first piecing instructions came out in September.  I didn't quite get that clue done before October's clue came out last week. 

The project tracking chart is showing some longer bars this month.

 

Hopefully a couple more bars move closer to the left of the chart by the end of this month. 

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.  

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.  

Moving Along

It's not quite autumn here, the highs have been in the high 80s, lower 90s. But it's amazing how much of a relief that is from the 99+ days we had for most of the summer.  Unfortunately our autumns, and springs too, seem to last for only a week or so before we go on to the next extreme.  I'm not ready for winter.  

The lower temps have made the sewing room much more bearable in the afternoons, I don't have to turn down the air conditioning to work now. Which means I have been spending a lot more time in the sewing room.  This week the focus was to get all the blocks for the Scrappy Butterflies project sewn together. 

 

I'm happy with how the final layout worked out.  Getting the borders added is the next step.  The goal is to have a finished quilt top by the end of the month. 

Once Scrappy Butterflies was assembled, the rest of last week was spent on moving Unity (Bonnie Hunter) closer to finished.  The label was printed, rinsed and framed with fabric.  The binding was assembled, pressed and sewn to the quilt.  Now comes the hand sewing. 

 

Unity is a larger quilt than I normally make, it's 108" long.  So there will be a lot of hand stitching on this one.  I managed to turn 2 corners yesterday.  Fingers crossed I can finish the hand stitching today. Unity will be my first finish since May of last year. 

Linking up with Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

To Do List for the week of 9/12/2023

Where did the last week go?  I worked in my stitching time each day, but it wasn't enough to check off all the items on my to do list. 

To Do List for 9/5/2023

1. Macaron Mystery: Prep back for quilting ✔

2. Scrappy Butterflies: Finish border blocks, finish assembly - progress

3. Wild and Goosey: Make 2 blocks - no progress

4. Malted Mystery: Start on clue 3 ✔

5. Chilhowie: Continue as leaders and enders ✔

Three out of 5, with progress on the 4th to do item isn't a bad week. I didn't get my typical nothing but stitching day on Sunday.  So that definitely played into how things worked out with last week's list.  

I'm signed up for a stained glass class tonight with some friends from work, so I probably won't get in much stitching time today, as it's gym and Walmart day as well.  I should be able to manage good sessions the rest of week. Well assuming I don't come down with the flu.  My niece was at my sister's birthday party on Sunday. She'd lost her voice, due to what she thought was allergies, but she tested positive for the flu yesterday.  She wasn't sneezing or coughing, so fingers crossed she didn't spread flu germs to the rest of us.  At any rate, here is the to do list for this week. 

To Do List for 9/12/2023

1. Unity (Bonnie Hunter): Print label, make binding, finish

The color palette used in Unity has always reminded me of sunflowers. So the Latin genus for sunflowers, Helianthus, seemed to be a good name for this quilt.  I need to decide which fabric I'm using for the binding, but that's probably going to be dictated by what fabrics are left over more than anything.  

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

The back has been pressed and all the loose threads (which just seem to be everywhere in my sewing room) have been removed.  Fingers crossed I can get the top prepped so it can go out for quilting before the end of the month.  My goal is to finish at least one quilt a month for the rest of the year.  

3. Scrappy Butterflies (self designed): Finish top assembly

All the border blocks are finished. The top 4 rows and bottom 3 are all sewn together.  That just leaves rows 5 and 6 to finish up.  Unity and Macaron are my priorities this week, so if I get any work done on the borders that would be great, but I'll be happy to have all the rows assembled by the end of the week.  

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

Clue 3 has a lot of stitching, 2 sets of HSTs, plus 2 sets of blocks.  Hopefully I can get the two older projects off the list so I can concentrate on finishing the clue before the end of the month.  

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

I may be reaching with this to do item, but I'll leave it on the list.  Any progress on this project this year is going to help move it along next year.  

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

Block 7 is coming together, slowly. 

That's a big list for this week and I doubt I get to all of it.  But any progress is good.  Linking up with The Quilt Schmilt: For the Love of Fabric for this week's To Do Tuesday.