New Projects Coming

Though I've not spent a lot of time in the sewing room the last couple of weeks, there has been some planning going on here and there.  The Meadow Mist Designs Magnificent Mystery kicked off back in July with the fabric requirements. I don't usually start cutting the fabrics till the first set of block instructions come out, which happen Thursday this week. I've been pulling fabrics and putting them back, but I think this weekend I reached my final selection. 

I've wanted to make a brown and teal quilt for awhile. This project seemed like a good opportunity to try out that color combination.  Many of these fabrics have been in my stash for years. 

The other new project that's still in the planning stages is the Guild BOM for 2026.  I agreed to take that on again for next year.  I have the quilt designed in EQ. Next year's BOM will be a sampler quilt.  Since that will mean a new block each month, I wanted to get going on that this year and make the blocks while I was writing the instructions. My plan is to start with the first couple of blocks  this month.  Here's my fabric pull for that project.

 

All this fabric needs to be washed and pressed.  I'm hoping to get to that in the next couple of weeks.  

Most of my projects are still at the stage they were at the last time I blogged, so not much to share there.  But Grad Girl finished her first quilt top while she's been living at home. 

She did all the embroidery by hand last winter.  The embroidery and quilt pattern is Ingrid's Wildflowers from Missouri Star. I helped her change the quilt pattern to include corner stones.  This is only her second ever sewing machine project (her first one was a pincushion).  She did such a great job with it. Her plan is to finish it as a wall hanging for her bedroom.  She wants to try a three yard quilt next.  Probably won't start on that till I go visit her in October (at least that's the plan now).  

That's it for me this week. We will be moving Grad Girl this week, so I'll probably be scarce in blogland for a bit.  Linking up with Monday Design Wall and Patchwork & Quilts.   

Progress on Kate's Choice

It was nice to get back to the sewing room on Sunday.  After a week away from home, the first decision was to decide what to work on.  I finished off the August inverted star block for the guild BOM so I was free to work on something else.  Since I'd really like to get another finish in soon, the project box with the quilted Kate's Choice blocks was pulled off the shelf.  First step was to cut the sashing strips for the front and back of the quilt and attach those. 

The sashing on the front will be same pink fabric as in the first block and the back sashing will that green dot from the bottom block.  Attaching the sashing strips to the first block wasn't a problem, but there were issues when I tried to attach the second block to the sashing.  I was having problems with skipped stitches, then I realized that the walking foot wasn't flat. Once I figured out how to fix that, things went smoothly and the first row is finished, including the between rows sashing. 

Once I figured out the skipped stitches this went together pretty quickly.  Dealing with the sashing on the back was a bit more of a challenge.  

It looks OK from a distance, but close up you can see it's not perfect.  I've got the sashing strips pinned to the second row, but had to stop for dinner last night and didn't get back it it.  The plan is to work on it this afternoon once all my morning chores are done.  I won't finish it this month I don't think, but any progress is good. 

Linking up with Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts. 

What's Up on the Design Wall and What's Not

The summer allergies are still hanging on, but it wasn't so bad this weekend.  A lot of sneezing, but I've not needed quite so many tissues.  I suppose that's progress? 

In the sewing room my main focus has been on getting the blocks for the Guild BOM done before the meeting next week.  I can't show those till after the meeting, so they aren't up on the design wall this week.  

Since I need my regular sewing foot for the BOM blocks, there has been no progress on Kate's Choice, so it's not up on the design wall either.  

What is up on the design wall?

 

I've been working on Old Town, the 2024 Bonnie Hunter mystery.  It's fun to see the secondary pattern the blocks make when they are up on the design wall.  Bonnie used pieced sashings for this project and I'm going to make those as well, just haven't gotten that far yet. The pieced sashing use more of the teal fabric and I definitely want to include more of that in this quilt.  Still lots of blocks to make before I get to making the sashing pieces. 

I've assembled 7 of the 25 blocks so far. My goal is to have this into a finished quilt top before the next mystery kicks off in November.  If I keep working on it at late night sew, I'll at least get close.  

That's it for my design wall this week.  Linking up with Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Quilt as You Go Progress

It was a slow, stay around the house kind of weekend.  We went to church and that's about it.  Most of my weekend was spent in my sewing room.  My focus was to make some good progress on my "quilt as you go" project, Kate's Choice.  

Row 6 is all quilted.  The next step is to trim off the extra batting. 

Trimming started with row one and I got as far as row 3 before dinner. 

Here's all the trimmings from the first 3 rows.  I need to trim the last 3 and then cut the sashing strips for both the front and back. I know what I'm using for the front, I need to decide what will work for the back.  Kate's Choice probably won't be done by the end of the month, but I'm hoping to make good progress on it in August.  

Linking up with Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Finding a New Rhythm

We all expected an adjustment with Grad Girl moving home till she finds a job.  It's not so much having Grad Girl home, she's pretty self sufficient. But her cat, Queenie, has had a harder time adjusting.  I think she's finally getting over the stress of moving. But probably, it's that she's gotten us through the initial training of having a cat running the home.  

I finally got back to my quilt as you go project this weekend.  

Three blocks in row 5 of Kate's Choice are completely quilted and a fourth is almost done.  I'm hoping to get row 5 finished up today and make a start on row 6. Having this done by the end of next month is doable it I keep on it.  

Queenie hasn't been hanging out in the sewing room much. When they first got back, she went back to her old favorite hang out, the landing at the top of the stairs.  

She has recently discovered the end table next to the couch and the old recliner in the living room are also comfortable nap locations.  

Stay cool and stitch on, that's my plan at least.  Linking up with Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Getting Back to the Sewing Room

We finally made it home early yesterday afternoon.  All of us were hot and tired.  Queenie, Grad Girl's cat, isn't a fan of hotel rooms. So none of us got a lot of sleep the previous 4 nights.  Needless to say after we unloaded and got lunch, everyone of us, including the cat, took naps yesterday afternoon. It was early evening before I made it up to the sewing room and took stock.  

The last sewing I did was to finish the August Inverted Star block for the Guild BOM. 

The color for August is brown. I only finished 3 of the 5 sawtooth stars needed for the sawtooth border. But at least I had enough to post on the Guild Facebook page what the color was for August.  I missed the guild meeting due to the move preparations. 

That's about all the action in my sewing room over the last couple of weeks. I figured out where I was with Old Town, Wild and Goosey, and my leaders and enders project. I've got all the pieces pinned for the next bit of sewing, but ran out of steam at that point and went to bed. 

We didn't have Internet at the apartment for most of the week and we were so tired each night we were staying in the hotel, that I'm way behind on emails and blog reading. So I'll be playing catch up on that front this week.  

Linking up with Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.     

What to Post When You Can't Show What You Are Working On?

Secret projects didn't used to be very common in my sewing room.  But with taking on the block of the month program for the guild, I don't feel like I can share much of that sewing till I've showed it at the guild meeting.  Getting a bit ahead has been my focus for the last month, so there's not much else going on in the sewing room.  If I take off all the bits and pieces of the BOM off my sewing table, here's what's left. 

Wild and Goosey along with Old Town are most of what I've been stitching on as I've been assembling the guild BOM blocks.  So not much exciting. Though I am hoping to finish off those red and beige flying geese so I can start assembling the Old Town blocks at late night sew.  

Meadow Mist Designs published the fabric requirements for this year's Magnificent Mystery last Thursday.  I did take some time to look in the stash closet to see if I could pull a palette together from what I already had (my goal with these mysteries is to use older stash, maybe with with an new addition or two). This was my first pass. 

I've wanted to make a teal and brown quilt. Not sure why, it's just a color palette I haven't tried before.  The two teals have been in the stash for years.  The beige toile at the top is the proposed background.  It's the only beige I have that has enough yardage.  Not all the fabrics touch each other (Cheryl is always really good about giving you info on which fabrics touch which).  I'm pretty firm on the teals and the dark brown.  The print, the tan and the beige toile, I'm not sure of.  There is lots of  time to decide if those work.  

Linking up with Monday Design Wall and Patchwork & Quilts. 

Definitely Progress, But Nothing Exciting

There really was a plan to post last week, but I'd forgotten how hard it is when you have an early morning start and have to find coffee and breakfast before your first session.  Meetings all day and then social networking meetings in the evenings, left me pretty much spent at the end of the day. I don't do this type of stuff very often now that I'm not working.  It was fun though, I miss the technical part of being a research chemist and I definitely got to do some technical stuff during the meeting.  

The meeting did take me out of the sewing room for the better part of the week. But between a bit of weekend sewing and what I got done before I left, there is a bit of progress to post about.  

The row 4 blocks for Kate's Choice were all quilted just before I left for the conference. So just two more rows left to quilt.  

Clue 7 for Old Town (Bonnie Hunter) was also finished. 

Clue 8 is in progress.  It's more flying geese. I'm almost half way done with those.  I'm hoping to be able to start assembling blocks in July.  

So there's been progress, just nothing as exciting as a finished quilt top or finished quilt.  Linking up with Monday Design Wall and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Not Much on the Design Wall

It was another wet weekend here. The kind that's perfect for just hanging out in the sewing room.  Sewing time was spent working on the 2025 Guild BOM blocks for tomorrow's meeting.  I'm making good progress and if I can work in a good afternoon of sewing, I'll have them done.  Other than those blocks, there's not a lot going on in the sewing room.  I did finish stitching all the flying geese for clue 7 of Bonnie Hunter's Old Town mystery.  

I've been stitching a few flying geese with every BOM block I've been making. Normally the previous year's mystery becomes my leader and ender project, but in an effort to empty my blue scrap bins, I've been working on the Sensational Summer Scrap quilt (Kevin the Quilter) as my leaders and ender project for most of the year.  

The scrappy center is now all sewn together and the borders are now in the works.  This is the only project up on my design wall currently.  It's been fun to finally see this project start coming together after months of making the four patches.   

I'm not planning to start anything new for a couple of months. I really should get back to quilting Kate's Choice, but the guild BOM takes precedence.  I'll need to do a better job of keeping up as life will be busy in July. One lesson I've learned is it's wise to work ahead on the guild BOM. I've already started on plans for next year's.  It will be a sampler, which means a written block pattern each month.  Best if I get on jump on that this year.  

Linking up with the usual suspects for Monday: Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Back on Track

Apparently a week in Texas with My Guy and Grad Girl was enough to get my missing sewing mojo to make a come back.  That week away definitely got me out of my rut.  

The first thing to be tackled when I got back to the sewing room was to finish assembling Glowing Hearts  (MMM Quilts) and get the borders on it. 

Now it's a finished quilt top ready for the parade over at MMM Quilts next Sunday.  I deviated from Sandra's pattern a bit: 12 blocks instead of 9 and a second wider border.  The 46" x 55" finished size works better with the requirements for the non-baby charity that the local guild supports.  I didn't think the colors were baby friendly, so went for an older girls quilt instead. I'm happy with how it worked out. 

Now I need to figure out what to tackle next on my quilt plan. Maybe it's time to focus on getting some quilt backs made and try out some of the local long arm quilters? 

Linking up with Design Wall Monday, Patchwork & Quilts, plus the Glowing Hearts quilt parade once that linky party is up.   

Just 28 Days to Mid-Year!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First Finish for 2025

Happy Memorial Day if you live in the US.  Hopefully you didn't have your plans drowned out by the rain.  That's about all we've seen this weekend is rain.  

My lack of sewing mojo is still a thing. But I did get myself motivated to make and stitch the binding for my version of the 2025 Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR) quilt.  

I'm really happy with how it turned out.  The quilt is 75.5" X 79.5".  So a good size for cuddling on the couch with.  The quilt needed a name before I could design a label. The quilt is going to Grad Girl's roommate, who happens to be from South Dakota. For some reason I Googled "green sky in South Dakota". And believe it or not, the search returned photographs of an emerald green sky in South Dakota.  That green sky was due to the sun interacting with the hail in what is called a "derecho" storm back in July of 2022. A derecho storm is basically one huge and intense thunderstorm. A huge and intense storm is a good approximation of what grad school feels like sometime, so it just had to become part of the quilt name. 

The big blank space includes a thank you message to the roommate for being such a good friend during the time they've lived together.  

Trudy did a wonderful job with the quilting. 

I asked for something organic, like vines.  It worked out well. Trudy is exiting the quilting for others business.  I did have a moment of sadness realizing there would be no more boxes with quilted quilts from her when this one arrived. But her exiting the business did motivate me to start learning to quilt my own projects.  

Since this was a gift, I purchased the backing fabric specially for this quilt. 

The green with the splashes of blue works really well with the front of the quilt.  I bound it with the bold blue.  

This was my third SAHRR quilt. I've enjoyed making all of them.  This is the one quilt along where all my projects have been finished and gifted to others.  Now I can start thinking what's the center for next year's version going to be.  Maybe I need to decide who gets the next one first?  

Linking up with my normal Monday linky parties: Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts. 

Oh Where Has My Sewing Mojo Gone?

We had thunder and lightening Sunday afternoon, so it wasn't exactly wise to plug in the sewing machine. But even after the storm passed I had a hard time convincing myself to go sew. I did eventually make my way upstairs very late in the afternoon.  I made pretty good progress on several projects.  The only one worth showing is Glowing Hearts (MMM Quilts). 

My plan is to add one more row of hearts for a total of 12. Nine of those are finished and up on the design wall.  I found a dark navy in the stash to use for the sashing.  I'm hoping to at least get all 12 blocks finished this week and get the sashing cut.  We have storms coming in this afternoon/evening, so not sure how much progress I'll make today.  

Linking up with Monday Design Wall and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Slow Going

It was a nice weekend here. The weather was pretty weather and we  spent Sunday with my family.  My mother is doing better, but she tires easily these days, still we had a good visit.  

Looking back at last week, I didn't do a lot in the sewing room.  The most progress was made on quilting the Kate's Choice blocks.

 

The blocks in the first 3 rows are quilted and the first block for row 4 is done. So just over halfway there.  I've switched out the walking foot for my regular sewing foot, so I'll get back to working on some of my other projects the first part of this week. I'll go back to quilting more blocks next weekend.  

Linking up with Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

Plans for May?

It doesn't seem all that long ago that we kicked off 2025, but now it's May. June follows, which means that mid-year isn't that far off.  Do you ever wonder what happened in the sewing room and why you don't have more done?  I could be sewing more, so my plan for May is to maximize my sewing time while still doing the other things that need to get done around the house.

My primary goal for the last couple of years is to make progress on my UFOs. I'm doing well on getting quilts to the finished quilt top stage, but it's been slow moving projects past that. I've started doing some quilting with my walking foot and really want to use the learning curve there to get some of my smaller quilts finished this year.  I'm still working on the Kate's Choice blocks and am hoping to get that project very close to finished by the end of the month.  The next project I want to quilt with the walking foot is Chilhowie, the 2022 Bonnie Hunter Mystery.

The quilt top was finished last September.  My Chookshed Challenge for May is to find the backing fabric, make the backing and prep for quilting. I'm hoping to get as far as getting the quilt sandwiched and ready to quilt. But I'll take any progress I can make on this project.

I gave into temptation and started a new project last weekend.  Sandra of MMM Quilts started a quilt along last month, Glowing Hearts.  It looked like fun, plus the resulting quilt would be small enough to quilt on my machine with the walking foot.  I cut all the fabrics and got started stitching on the blocks this weekend. Here's the first block. 

I had to make the alternate block to see how it looked.  

I decided to keep the background fabric the same for all the blocks as there is more than enough of the teal/blue background. The colors are working much better than I expected.  Hopefully there is a dark blue/navy in the stash to use for the sashing and borders.  Since the bundle from the stash had half yard cuts, the plan is to make 12 blocks rather than the 9 Sandra used. That should make nice sized quilt for donation.  

Linking up with the regular Monday linky parties: Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts, plus the Chookshed Challenge and MMM Quilts Glowing Hearts first block.  

What's on the Design Wall?

It was a very wet Saturday.  We didn't get the rain that caused flooding in the southern part of the state. But we got enough to make doing anything but hanging out in the sewing room miserable.  So that's pretty much what I did the whole weekend.  Unfortunately, I can't show off all the progress as most of my time was spent making the June blocks for the Guild BOM.  I have to have those ready for the next meeting. I should be able to finish those this afternoon and then get back to the project that's up on the design wall. 

Kate's Choice is up on the design wall, well at least most of it is.  The plan for the last couple of years has been to use this project to learn to quilt with my walking foot.  I finally made some progress there. 

The top row and half of the second row are quilted.  It's hard to see in this photo, but blocks are quilted with 3 nested squares. It's clearer in this photo. 

I've discovered the quilting isn't hard, just time consuming.  The plan is to get back to this project later in the week once the guild BOM blocks are done.  It definitely won't be finished this month, but hopefully by the end of May it will be done or close too.  

This was my Chookshed challenge for April.  For once I actually made good progress on that challenge.  Also linking up with my typical Monday linky parties: Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.  

On Ringo Lake: Another Finished Quilt Top

The weather people certainly called it this weekend. We had lots and lots of rain.  The rain didn't break till mid afternoon Sunday, that probably made for some pretty soggy egg hunts in our area. Sunday was definitely a day for a good nap and lots of sewing room time. When the sun finally came out in the late afternoon, it seemed like a good time to get the documentation shots of the most recently completed quilt top. 

On Ringo Lake was the 2017 Bonnie Hunter mystery.  I didn't use the pieced sashing from the quilt along,  a simple sashing with corner stones worked out pretty well.  The yellow didn't photograph the best, it's a lot brighter in real life than it photographed yesterday.  I'm pretty happy with how this quilt came together. I'm hoping to get it quilted in the near future.  

One of my unofficial goals for 2025 is to get all of my Bonnie Hunter mystery quilts to finished quilt tops this year.  I've started 13 BH mysteries.  Of those 7 are finished quilts, 3 are now quilt tops and 3 still need the blocks made. With On Ringo Lake moved to the to be quilted list, I've gone back to working on the 2024 BH mystery, Old Town.  I'm still making making block components for it, so it's going to take a bit to get it to finished quilt top. 

Linking up with the Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts linky parties this week.    

Slaying the Big, Scary Walking Foot Dragon

I've put off learning to quilt with a walking foot for years.  The walking foot was this scary sewing machine accessory that I didn't want to take the time to figure out. I'll give myself a break for when I was working, I barely had time to piece a few quilts each year. But I've been retired for almost 2 and half years.  I have lots more sewing time. But the idea of getting out that walking foot and doing something with it was just off putting. I'd so much rather piece.  But with the wonderful quilter that has worked with me for 10 plus years retiring, I am going to need to find an alternative that fits my budget. Especially for the smaller finished quilt tops hanging in my closet.  So I located the walking foot. It wasn't where I thought it should be, but I did eventually locate it and figure out how to attach it to the machine. 

Armed with a practice quilt sandwich and a couple of quilting with a walking foot references (I can definitely recommend "Walk" by Jacquie Gering) this happened. 

I followed the exercises in the book and filled up that practice quilt sandwich.  Then I got brave enough to pull out the second Kitty trivet that Grad Girl made when she was home last Christmas.  

The photo angle makes it look a bit wonky, but at least the quilting shows up pretty well. Here's a better photo of all the quilting on the kitty. 

I told Grad Girl this one was the sad kitty trivet since her whiskers were drooping.  Her response was "Well I'd have droopy whiskers too if someone was going sit something hot on me all the time". It's certainly not perfect, but I'm mostly happy with how it turned out. It definitely gave me a chance to practice using the walking foot in different ways.  It wasn't nearly as scary or as hard as I expected. We'll see if I still feel that way once I start quilting on Kate's Choice sometime later this week.  

Linking up with Monday Design Wall, Patchwork & Quilts and for the first time with Free Motion Mavericks.  

Closing in on Finishes

We didn't see any snow yesterday, even though radar said it was snowing at our location.  We did see the cool temps which normally mean a whole Sunday of stitching for me, but after lunch a 2 hour nap under a warm quilt seemed necessary.  Once I worked through the groggy feeling, there was still time for a few hours of sewing. I finished another border for On Ringo Lake.

On Ringo Lake is my version of the Bonnie Hunter 2017 Mystery.  I have two more borders to add. A another thin yellow border and a final red border.  Yes it's a lot of borders, but I really like how the final version looks in EQ. Hopefully it will look equally good when those are finished.  

I also finished cutting and prepping the backing for the 2025 SAHRR.  Next is prepping the quilt to go out.  That will probably be on next weekend's to do list.  It's not one of my favorite tasks.  

Linking up with Design Wall Monday and Patchwork & Quilts. 

Moving on with the Quilt Plan

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

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

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

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