2026 Quilt Making Strategies: Third Quarter Plan

Hard to believe over half of 2026 is already past. The end of the year will come up quickly. So far I've stuck to the main strategy that was posted in January, but the priorities of some of the projects has changed.  That's not so bad.  The plan for second and third quarters was to focus on moving UFOs to finished, or at least closer to finished.  I'm going to stick with that strategy.

1. Guild BOM 2026

The 2026 Guild BOM has to be finished by the November guild meeting.  The first draft of the block instructions for the last 4 blocks are written.  The plan is to get all the blocks made this quarter and start quilt assembly.  I won't be able to complete assembly until October after the last block is shown, but doing all I can this quarter will help keep what needs to get assembled at the end to a minimum. 

2. Wild and Goosey. Continue to use two blocks as my leaders and enders. The goal is to have all the blocks done by the end of the year.  

3. UFOs to be moved to finished quilt tops.    

Lupine and Laughter just needs borders, so that should be a quick finish.  Good fortune still needs 7 of the star blocks constructed before assembly can start.  I do expect that project to make it to finished quilt top before the end of the quarter.  There may be some progress on Celtic Solstice by the end of the quarter.  I'm not sure the blue and yellow scrap quilt will see any progress at all.  It would be great if I get that far.  

4. Walking foot quilting.  

I've learned that it takes me a quarter to quilt one project.  So the goal for third quarter is to finish quilting Glowing Hearts. If I can make a start on Betty, that would be a really successful quarter. 

5. External Quilting

I've changed up the priority of my external quilts.  Squared Away is a gift for one of My Girl's college buddies, so it gets moved up to next in line.  My Girl has asked for 3 more quilts as graduation gifts for her grad school buddies. I suspect one of the girls will like Magnificent Mystery, so I'm going to bump that one up too.  

If I can end the quarter with 2 more finished quilts and 2 more projects moved to finished quilt tops, it will have been a really good quarter.  

Second Quarter Review 2026: Strategic Progress?

Back in January, I drafted a strategic plan (?) for 2026.  Strategic Plan is probably a gross overstatement of what I actually put together, but it was at least a potential road map for my quilting decisions.  Now that we are in 3rd quarter, I should probably take a look at where I'm at and decide on any adjustments.  

2nd Quarter Strategy

1. Guild BOM: Finish May through October blocks.  Finish Flying geese. 

The May, June and July blocks are all finished.  The flying geese for the alternate border are also all finished.  The instructions are written for the August and September blocks.  I needed to verify the cutting dimensions for some of the pieces for the October block and that got done last week.  So I didn't get everything done, but I'm also not too far off track.  If I put focus on this project in July, I should be back on track before we got too far into third quarter. 

2. Wild and Goosey: Continue as leaders and enders project

All the blue 3.5" blocks were finished last quarter and most of the blocks were sashed.  The hope is this project will be ready for assembly before the end of the year. 

3. Move UFOs to finished quilt tops. 

Three of the 5 UFOs became finished quilt tops: 2026 SAHRR, Magnificent Mystery and Old Town.  Lupine and Laughter only needs two more borders added to be a completed quilt top.  The remaining pieces needed to assemble the blocks for Good Fortune have been cut.  The chain blocks are all finished, but still working on the star blocks.  I didn't get it all done, but at least every project on the plan is farther along. 

4. Walking foot quilting

The plan was to finish off two quilts, but only Chilhowie was finished up. Glowing Hearts has been pulled out of the closet, the batting laid out to relax and I've been contemplating quilting motifs.  So even though it didn't get done, at least there was a bit of progress on it.  Based on how the walking foot quilting has been going, one quilt a quarter seems to be my speed, at least for now.  

5. External quilting

A backing was pieced for the 2025 Inverted Star BOM. Both the backing and the quilt top were prepped for quilting.  I delivered the project to the long armer the first week in July.  So at least that one will be a finished quilt in third quarter. I didn't even touch Chocolate Marshmallow.  It's probably going to go to the bottom of the list as My Girl has picked a few quilts that will be going to college and graduate school friends.  So those will higher priority the last half of the year.  

Second quarter wasn't a total success, but I have learned a lot. I'm doing well at moving projects to finished quilt tops. That will help a lot in clearing out my UFO list. But I'm not doing so hot on either the walking foot quilting or getting quilts ready for external quilting.  It seems one quilt top for each a quarter is about my speed on that part of the UFO process. I'll have to consider if that modifies my strategy for third quarter or not.  At any rate, there's been reasonable progress on all of my "strategies".  Not a bad first half of the year.   

May 2026 PHD Report

May went fast. Hard to believe that at the end of this month we'll be half way through 2026.  Looking back, May was a pretty productive month, even though my PHD report didn't change.  

I'm still going to link up with Ms P Designs for the May PHD report to show that no finish isn't the same as no progress.  

The goal for 2nd and 3rd quarter this year is to tackle my UFO pile.  Good Fortune was the 2018 Bonnie Hunter mystery. The project box had a pile of both A and B blocks, with a few other odds and ends from the various steps.  The A and B blocks will go into one quilt, the blocks that were supposed to be the pieced borders will either get worked into the quilt back, or into a separate quilt top.  The total number of blocks has been decided and all the pieces to make those blocks have been cut.  Probably won't make any additional progress on this project till this year's BH mystery is a finished quilt top. 

Progress on Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) has been slow since sashing the blue blocks has been my leaders and enders project for most of May. Slowly, but surely more 7" blocks are showing up on the design wall.  

Chilhowie, the 2022 Bonnie Hunter Mystery, was the next project on my "to be quilted" list.  Still need to add the second set of cross hatch lines to the left side of the quilt. I've figured out how to feed the quilt to the machine without dragging, so the stitching has been much more even on the more recent quilting lines.   

The 2024 Bonnie Hunter Mystery, Old Town, just needed the borders added. It's now a finished quilt top hanging in the closet with all the other to be quilted projects.  

Some quilts on the to be quilted list will be quilted professionally. the 2025 Guild BOM is one of those.  The backing was ready for stitching at the end of the month. So didn't quite get this step done in May. 

 

The Meadow Mist Designs 2025 Magnificent Mystery quilt also just needed a final border.  It's hanging right next to Old Town waiting to be quilted.  

The June block was added to the 2026 Guild BOM this month.  The July block is actually finished, but hasn't been shown to the guild yet.  The plan for June is to at least start on the August, September, October and November blocks and start on the instructions. 

Lupine and Laughter (2025 BH Mystery) was the project with the most progress this month.  All the alternate blocks are made.  The main block takes lots of stitching time, so it's been slow going, but there has at least been some progress with those.  

My progress chart isn't much different from April. Two projects have graduated to finished quilt tops, but that's about it for May.  Hopefully June will see at least one more finished quilt top and a finished quilt.  Cross your fingers for me.  

Sticking with the Strategy

It's been a quiet week on the weather front. That's been nice, no late night sessions watching the local weather to decide if we need to move ourselves to the tornado shelter.  My back is still a bit out of whack, I can walk and sit, but bending is completely out for now. Thankfully  I can still sew. 

I've been mostly sticking with my strategy for the year, but I'm not where I'd hoped to be at the end of first quarter.  So it was catch up time in April.  

The Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) is finally a finished quilt top.  The final two border strips were added yesterday.  The pattern didn't call for a border, but I usually like to see a frame around the quilt, it looks uncomplete to me when there is not one.  I'm thrilled with how this one worked out.  It's hard to get the colors right for a mystery quilt, I have no regrets about what fabrics I picked and where they went.  It may be my most favorite Meadow Mist Mystery ever. 

It's been slow going, but there has been lots of progress so far this year.  Linking up with Patchwork & Quilts and Sew & Tell Monday.  

April 2026 PHD Report

I'm not sure what happened to April. Well, that's not entirely true. We were on vacation for almost half the month, so there is only half of month of stitching progress to report for the April PHD Report over at Ms P Designs. There was definitely progress the latter half of the month, but definitely not as much as previous months.  My April PHD report looks exactly the same as March's report. 

No new finishes, but several projects moved closer to that goal this month. 

The Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter) quilt top is prepped for quilting. The backing is made and also prepped for quilting. The plan is to sandwich the quilt and mark it next week.  I have a rough quilting plan and will decide if more quilting is necessary as I go along.    

The blue blocks for Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) are almost finished.  Just 2 left to sew up. Orange is the color for May. The orange blocks were finished last year, so the plan is to stick with the blue blocks and get them sashed into 7.5" blocks.  If I get that done before the end of the month, it will be time to tackle the remaining purple blocks.  

The goal for April was to get Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) moved to finished quilt top. The narrow border is on. The final border will get added this weekend. I'm really happy with how this quilt worked out. It may be my favorite Meadow Mist Designs mystery.   

The May and June blocks are all finished for the 2026 Guild BOM. July is in progress. I'm only showing the addition of the May block since that's all I've shown the guild. I've pretty much decided on the blocks and the layout for 2027 Guild BOM. Now I just need to pick the colors and corresponding fabrics for it.  

The 2026 SAHRR (Quilting Gail) became a finished quilt top the week we got home from vacation.  Now it's waiting in the "to be quilted closet" for it's turn to be finished. 

My goal the last couple of years has just been to make progress. Even with the shorter month, several bars in my project progress graph got a bit longer in April. 

The chart for last month finally shows some progress in the big section of quilts to be finished. There is still 2/3 of the year left so hopefully there will a few more completed bars at the end of 2026. 

To Do List for the Week of 4/28/2026

Storm season has been brutal in Oklahoma this year.  I have family in Enid (they are fine).  There were tornadoes just west of us Sunday night. We were up late waiting to see if the tornado warning was going to cross the county line. No point going to bed if you have to make a run for the storm shelter just as you get to sleep. More rain/storms are in the forecast for today. Hopefully those will be mainly just rain, not strong storms.  

The severe weather hasn't affected my sewing time too badly.  I did pretty well with checking off my to do list for last week. 

To Do list for 4/21/2026

1. Guild BOM: Finish June and July blocks - progress

2. Magnificent Mystery: Finish assembly, decide on borders ✔

3. Chilhowie: Make backing ✔

4. Lupine and Laughter - no progress

5. Wild and Goosey: Continue making blue blocks ✔

Definitely not a bad week. My plan had been to finish the BOM blocks before I started back up on Lupine and Laughter.  I didn't get that far this week. Still it wasn't a bad week on the progress front. Hopefully this week will be better. 

To Do List for 4/28/2026

1. Guild BOM: Finish July block

The July block is under construction, I just ran out of time this week to get it finished. We went to visit my mother yesterday, so I missed one day of sewing time.  

2.  Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Finish borders

The rows are all sewn together. I'm really happy with how this project came together.  Cheryl didn't include borders in her version, my plan is to add a very narrow dark brown border and then a wider teal final border.  That should be doable this week.  

3. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Prep top and back for quilting

The plan was to use the left over border blocks and stash fabrics to make the backing.  The paisley is left over from a long ago sampler quilt. It has the orange and teal from the quilt top.  The dark brown is a Connecting Threads fabric that's been in the stash forever that matches the dark brown background of the paisley. You can see from the photo the backing still needs a good pressing. The back is easy to prep, but the tops always take at least a day to prep. Next week  will be sandwiching and marking.  

4. Lupine and Laughter (Bonnie Hunter): Work on A blocks

Since the BOM blocks and Magnificent Mystery are just about done, I should get back to this project before the end of the week. 

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

Just 3 blue 3.5" blocks left to make.  Once I have the last set of 4 finished, it will be back up on the design wall to decide on the final block sets and the start sashing the blue blocks together.  Since the RSC color for May is orange, I'll keep on working on the blue blocks.  If I get them all sashed before the end of the month, I'll switch to working on the purple blocks.  

That's my list for the week.  I'm hoping to drop off a couple of projects and bring back some older projects that need to be moved along. My plan is to not start any new projects until the next Meadow Mist Designs mystery quilt starts up in early fall.  Normally I link up with the To Do List post over at the Quilt Schmilt. There is no linky party posted just yet, I'll link up once it's up.  

To Do List for the Week of 4/21/2026

The storms put a hitch in my stitching time last week.  I still got a lot done, but didn't complete all of my to dos from last week. 

To Do List for 4/14/2026

1. 2026 Guild BOM: Work on May, June, July and Dec blocks ✔

2. SAHRR: Add final border ✔

3. Magnificent Mystery: Finish half blocks, start quilt assembly ✔

4. Chilhowie: Piece backing, start prepping for quilting - progress

5. Wild and Goosey: Continue working on blue blocks ✔

It was a good week even though I didn't get as much done on Chilhowie as I wanted.  There's always this week.  

To Do List for 4/21/2026

1. Guild BOM: Finish June and July blocks

All the flying geese for December are finished. The May block is ready for guild meeting tonight.  The pieces for the June and July blocks are cut, they just need to be assembled. So I'm on track with this project.  

2. Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Finish assembly, decide on borders.

I've made enough progress on assembly that I should be able to finish that this week.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to add a simple border, but just not sure which fabric to use.  

3. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Make backing

I work on quilting projects on Wednesday and Thursday.  I didn't get much sewing time last Wednesday because of the storms. The blocks for the borders didn't get used on the quilt top, so I decided to use those on the back.  The plan is to get all this blocks sewn into one strip that will separate one backing fabric from the other.  I'm trying hard to use left over stash or older fabrics that haven't made their way into projects yet for my backings.  

4. Lupine and Laugher (Bonnie Hunter): Work on A blocks

I've not touched this project since January. It's going to take a bit to get back into a groove on what I was doing.  

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

Just a few left to make. Hopefully those get finished before the end of the month.  

I'm hoping for a productive week. It would be nice to get back to some of the older projects on my UFO list.  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

2026 Quilt Making Strategies: Second Quarter Plan

After reviewing my first quarter progress, my second quarter overall strategy won't need to change. But I will need to adjust the project list for the quarter since there is a lot that didn't get finished in first quarter.  

1. Guild BOM: The focus for April is to get the blocks for May, June and July finished. I should probably also finish off the flying geese needed for the borders. Before the end of the quarter, blocks for August, September and October need to have the instructions written and the blocks made. November will be an easy block, so I'll try to get that one done as well. Then I won't have to do anything on this project till 4th quarter.    

2. Wild and Goosey: Continue to use two blocks as my leaders project for the quarter.  

3. UFOs to move to finished quilt tops: The plan is to focus first on the projects that didn't make it to finished quilt tops in first quarter. Since two of those don't need that much work, I'm hoping to work in at least two UFOs from the January plan.  

2026 SAHRR, Magnificent Mystery, Old Town, Lupine and Laughter, Good Fortune

4. Walking foot quilting: I hoping now that I have a designated time to quilt that two quilts will get quilted this quarter. The plan is to tackle the 2 smallest ones on my list.   

Chilhowie and Glowing Hearts

5. External quilting: Since I didn't get one done in first quarter, I'm hoping to get two done in second quarter.  

2025 Guild BOM and Chocolate Marshmallows

If everything gets done, there will be 5 more finished quilt tops and 4 more finished quilts.  That's probably way too ambitious a plan considering that I've already lost half of April.  If there is half as much progress, I'll be happy.  

First Quarter Review: 2026 Quilt Making Progress

Back in January I posted my quilt making strategies for 2026.  My goal for 2026 is to move projects to finished quilts or as close as I can get to finished for as many projects as possible. I've learned over the years it's a good idea to review where you are at with your goals a few times during the year. It's easy to forget at the end of the year what you decided at the first of the year if you don't.  The end of first quarter seemed like a good time to see if my goals still make sense and I'm on track.   

First Quarter Strategy

1. Guild BOM

On track so far.  May's block needs to be done for the April meeting next week.  I have instructions written for May, June and July and I've started the instructions for August.  

2. Wild and Goosey leaders

The plan for last three years is to keep two Wild and Goosey blocks in progress while I'm working on other projects. It's been slow going, but there's been steady progress over those three years. The red, yellow and orange blocks were completed in previous years. The green blocks were completed this year. Just a few more blue blocks to make and those will be finished.   

3. 2025/2026 Quilt Alongs and Mysteries

Most of the quilt alongs and mystery quilts I enjoy start either at the first of the year or at the end of the year.  So first quarter I always have lots of new stuff in the works. The strategy in first quarter was to get all of those to finished quilt tops.  

Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Full blocks finished, partial blocks in progress. So progress was just a bit short of the goal.  

Lupine and Laughter (Bonnie Hunter): Started block A. With deadlines on the other three new projects, this one didn't get much attention.  

2026 SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Kept up with all the prompts, assembled the quilt center, but didn't get the last 2 borders added.  

Scenic Waypoint (Meadow Mist Designs): Wasn't part of my quilt plan for 2026, but it was a fun quilt along that used up some of my older stash.  It was the one project that made it to finished quilt top during first quarter.  At least one got that far.

 

4. Walking foot quilting: The strategy was to quilt both Kate's Choice and Betty.  The walking foot quilting isn't hard, but I'd so much rather piece that it was easy to just not do the quilting. I finally settled on Wednesday and Thursday as my quilting days.  Once I did that, there was steady progress on Kate's Choice and it was finished by the end of March.  Betty wasn't touched.  But I'm OK with that, one finish is better than none.  I'll take the finish of a 14 year old UFO. 

5. External quilting: The strategy for first quarter was to get Chocolate Marshmallow quilted commercially.  That didn't happen, so this strategy was pretty much a fail for first quarter.  

First quarter wasn't a complete success, nor was it a total fail.  As usual, I was overly optimistic about what one can accomplish with 4 WIPs with deadlines in progress. Back in January, I outlined a strategy for 2nd quarter. I'm going to review that and do some course corrections. I'll share that strategy later.   

To Do List for the Week of 4/14/2026

This is my first to do list for April.  My last to do list was back at the end of March, just before we left for vacation.  With vacation prep, I just didn't have time to get to much that was on the list before we left, but I did make some progress after we got home.  

To Do List for 3/24/26

1. SAHRR: Finish quilt top - progress

2. Magnificent Mystery: Finish blocks, start quilt assembly - progress

3. Chilhowie: Piece backing, start quilt prep- no progress

4. Wild and Goosey: Continue working on blue blocks ✔

One check mark, 2 with notable progress and one with no progress isn't so bad for a to do list before and after vacation.  I'm hoping to make some good progress this week so next week the list will have some other UFOs that need to get moved to at least finished quilt top this year.  

To Do List for 4/14/2026

1. 2026 Guild BOM: Work on May, June, July and Dec blocks

Just a few more flying geese to assemble and the December blocks will be finished.  I've started cutting the fabrics for the other three blocks. The May block needs to be done before next Tuesday, so I need to get moving on that one.  

2. SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Add final border

The final border is a blue/black batik. It will be a nice frame for the quilt.  I had hoped to get it on yesterday but between the headache that wouldn't go away and finishing up taxes (maybe why I had the headache), my sewing room didn't see that much action yesterday.  

3. Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Finish half blocks, start quilt assembly. 

There are 5 more B half blocks to finish and then I can start sewing all the blocks together. I'm looking forward to getting this to the finished quilt top stage. 

4. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Piece backing, start prepping for quilting

This was on my last list and I just didn't get that far before vacation prep took over my schedule.  I'm going to stick with the plan to work on to be quilted projects on Wednesday and Thursday.  That worked really well with helping me get Kate's Choice finished.  Hopefully the quilting for Chilhowie will go faster.  

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

Just 9 blue blocks left to make, then I can start sashing them into blocks of 4. I probably won't get that far before the end of the month, but I'll be close.   

Other than Chilhowie, this is pretty much the same list I've had most of first quarter.  I'm hoping to make enough progress on this week's list so that next week's list looks a lot different.  Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

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.