PHD Report for 2025

Now that 2025 is over, it's time to review the progress on my PHD plan and link up with Ms. P Designs for the PHD Wrap Up report.   Looking back, my 2025 PHD report is probably my worst in the seven years I've participated.  

Lots more starts than finishes this year.  At least I finished one of those new starts this year.  One finish is better than none.  That gives me lots of incentive to get more finished in 2026.  But finishes aren't the whole story, there was a lot of progress on other projects this year. (This is a picture heavy post. I didn't realize just how many projects I had worked on in 2025).  

The Rose Throw is a counted cross stitch project started sometime in the mid to late eighties. I came across this project during a sewing room clean up and reorg.  I'd forgotten how long it takes to make progress on counted cross stitch.  I made a bit of progress this year, but not much.  This one will probably sit in time out all year while I focus my hand stitching efforts on the butterfly embroidery project.  

The blocks for Kate's Choice were finished last year.  All the blocks were quilted this year and I started assembling the quilt as a quilt as you go. The first row is finished.  I'm not a fan of this assembly method, so the project got put in time out. It will get finished in 2026.  That's my first goal for the year.  

 

Normally there's more progress on this project during November and December, but the last time I worked on the Butterfly panel was Thanksgiving.  The embroidery in the third corner is all done and I've started stitching on the 7th butterfly.  This is my travel project.  It will probably see some progress this year, but won't be finished. 

 

On Ringo Lake was the 2017 Bonnie Hunter Mystery.  After 8 years it's finally a finished quilt top.  I've been trying to finish up all my BH mystery quilts. Out of 14, 7 are uncompleted.  Which isn't awful, but still not stellar.  This is one I'm hoping to finish quilting this year.  

It's been slow going on Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter).  This project started in 2019.  I've been making the blocks as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I'm almost done with the green blocks, but still need lots of blue, purple and teal.  But the quilt is over halfway now. I'd like to finish it this year, we'll see how it's looking by 4th quarter.   

The Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter) is also a project from 2019.  It came out of time out when I was looking for something to use up a few scraps as my bins were getting full.  It was my leaders and enders project for the first half of the year.  I needed the design wall for something else, so this project got put away.  Not sure when I'll get this one out again.  Hopefully I won't wait another 5 years!   

I joined the local quilting guild in 2023, about midyear if I remember correctly.  A bit late to start the BOM that year, but I did start the 2024 one.  For once, I stayed on track and actually finished the quilt top in time to show at the January meeting.  It's still waiting to be quilted.  I haven't decided to quilt it myself or send it out.  We'll see how some of my smaller and simpler projects work out.  

The Marble Mystery was the 2024 Meadow Mist Designs Mystery.  It's been a finished quilt top for most of the year. This is another project I hope to quilt with the walking foot sometime this year.  

The 2024 Bonnie Hunter mystery was Old Town.  One of my 7 unfinished BH mystery projects. All the blocks are done, I just to need to figure out the borders.  Hopefully that happens sooner rather than later.  

Leading the guild BOM for 2025 was a learning experience.  I've seen several finished quilt tops and it's been such fun to see how everyone has made them their own.  My version still needs to be quilted. One thing about being the lead, you have to keep up!  

The 2025 SAHRR (Quilting Gail) was my only finish for 2025.  This quilt was gifted to My Girl's grad school roommate as a thank you for being such a good one.  The roommate's favorite color is green, so that was picked as the predominant color. I've finished all of the SAHRR quilts that I've started. Fingers crossed that stays true for this year!  

MMM Quilts offers a quilt along in the spring.  I've admired from afar, but decided if I could pull all my fabrics from the stash I'd participate in her Glowing Hearts quilt along.  The background fabric had been in my stash forever without finding a home till this project.  Another quilt top I'm hoping to quilt myself this year.  

I got a late start on the 2025 Meadow Mist Designs Magnificent Mystery.  The September clue is the only one completed, but I do have a good start on the next three. The January clue came out yesterday, so I need to get a start on that. Assembly happens next month.  It would be nice if I had all the component parts done by then.  

Apparently, I'm a glutton for punishment as I agreed to lead the guild's 2026 BOM.  I am finding that the sampler blocks I picked for this year are much easier to cut and assemble. Fingers crossed I can keep up better this year.  

And lastly, Lupine and Laughter was started during the local quilt shops late night sew on New Year's Eve.  I wondered if we'd get the reveal this week. I just checked this week's clue is more pieces. I'm going to make the blocks that use the hourglass pieces and hold off on any of the other clues till I see the reveal. Then I'll figure out what's next. I'm behind, but that seems to be par for the course with a BH mystery.  

One finish and progress on 14 other projects.  That's a lot for one year.  So maybe not as lame a year as I was thinking?  

November 2025 PHD Report

How can it be December already? We've reached that point where you've either done a great job on your PHD plan or not.  There's not much opportunity to fix it at this point.  So I'm going to confess my lack of progress and link up with Ms. P Designs for the November PHD report.  

 

No new finishes, but one new start.  The 2026 Guild BOM won't end until next year and doesn't officially start until January. But as I'm the one leading it this year, I have to be ready to go one month early.  It's possible I could finish one other quilt before the end of the year, but it's not likely at this point.  Even though the finishes haven't happened, there has still be good progress on several projects over the last month.  

The butterfly embroidery project saw some stitching time over the Thanksgiving week.  You can see a bit of stitching on that bottom middle butterfly. Since we have family time coming up at Christmas, I'm sure this project will see a bit more progress before the end of the year.  

 

Almost finished with the dark green corners for Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter), just one small dark green block left to finish.  Then on to the bright green blocks. Just 12 of those left to make. I'm hoping to finish those before the end of the year.  I'll have to stay diligent to meet that goal.

I really like the secondary pattern that shows up with the addition of the sashing to the Old Town blocks (Bonnie Hunter).  Two rows done and sewn together, with a good start on row 3.  I'm still hoping to get this project to finished quilt top by the end of the year.  

The 2025 Guild BOM quilt top is finished. It needs to be pressed pretty badly, but you can still get a good look at how it came out.  I was so happy to have this completed for November's guild meeting.  I've heard from several of the guild members that they really enjoyed this project. It will be fun to see what variations come from the participants.  

Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) is progressing slowly. The September clue is completed and I've got a start on the October clue.  I still need to cut the pieces for the November clue and December's clue will come out tomorrow.  I'm hoping to get in some good stitching time this week so I can catch up a bit. I have holiday stuff that needs attention too, so we'll have to see how that all goes.  

 

The mushroom trivets that My Girl is making for a friend aren't on my list.  She pieced them and I quilted then bound them. So a joint quilting project. These trivets have been a nice way to practice quilting with the walking foot.  Both of us were pretty happy with how these turned out. 

 All the pieces are cut for the first block of the 2026 Guild BOM and assembly of the subunits has started. Still a bit to go before this is a finished block. I have two weeks.  Fingers crossed that it all goes together smoothly and quickly. 

My project tracker hasn't changed much since the start of the year.

 

All the blocks were finished for Old Town. The 2025 Guild BOM is a finished quilt top.  Those are the only two changes to the quilt plan for November.  We'll see what happens with December. I'm hoping to move Old Town to finished quilt top and will probably start this year's Bonnie Hunter mystery at some point before the new year.  Now that I've got a better handle on the walking foot quilting, I'm hoping there will be more finishes in 2026.  So I'll definitely be playing along next year.  

October 2025 PHD Report

Hard to believe there are just two months left in 2025.  It's been a busy year in and out of the sewing room.  The summer was mostly out, I'm hoping fall and winter are mostly in.  Since October is over it's time to assess where I'm at on my PHD report and link up with the October PHD report over at Ms. P Designs.  

My PHD report isn't looking great this year. Only one finish back in May. There was one new start in October, the Meadow Mist Designs 2026 Mystery quilt along. That one has been on the quilt plan all year, so it wasn't a surprise.  I keep saying that I need to focus on finishes, but I've been more focused on my Guild sewing projects which have pretty hard deadlines.  There is some comfort in knowing I've made good progress on some of my UFOs, even if they haven't moved to finished quilts yet. 

The Butterfly Medallion embroidery project saw lots of progress while we were on vacation last month. 

 I've made a start on the 4th diagonal row. The greenery at one end is all finished and I made a start on the next butterfly.  I'm sure this project will see more progress as the holidays are coming up.  

The green blocks needed for the corners of Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) have been the focus for several months. 

The plan is to have really dark green blocks in the corners with lighter/brighter green blocks in the next diagonal row.  I've been focusing on finishing up the dark green blocks recently. I didn't make very much progress in October, just two more of the 3.5" blocks.  Hopefully I'll do better in November.  

Another six blocks were added to Old Town, the 2024 Bonnie Hunter Mystery.  

Just two blocks left to make.  There will be pieced sashing between the blocks and those are all almost assembled.  The goal is to get this project to finished quilt top before the first clue for the 2025 mystery comes out. Since Bonnie is putting the first clue out a bit earlier than typical, I'll be cutting it close.  

The 2025 Guild BOM is coming to an close. The December block to be shown at the November meeting is done.  I've started assembling the rows, minus the December block. 

I've decided to add in the December block and just show it as part of the finished quilt top at the November meeting. That's just 2 weeks off, so I need to get busy!  

The new project this month is the Magnificent Mystery from Meadow Mist Designs. The clue with all the cutting instructions came out in August, the piecing clues didn't start until September. 

I finally cut the pieces for the September and October clues.  The November clue will come out this Thursday, so I'm a behind by a good bit. Hopefully I can get caught up pretty quickly. This mystery will run into April or May of next year, so it's not a project that has to be completed this year.  

My project tracker doesn't show a lot of progress, but there's been some since the last update in June. 

The blocks that were finished for the 2025 Guild BOM and the start of the new mystery quilt along are the only updates. My focus the next month will be finishing up the 2025 Guild BOM and getting started on the 2026 Guild BOM.  So it's looking like finishes won't be in the cards for this year. 

September 2025 PHD Report

It's been a busy summer. August and September were especially busy.  August was so busy I didn't have time to put together a PHD report.  Thankfully things have slowed down enough for me to put together a September PHD report and link up with Ms. P Designs.  

No changes to the PHD report.  It's not all bad, at least there aren't any new starts. That will change in October. I will be starting two new projects. Those were planned for at the beginning of the year, so no surprise there. 

Even though the PHD report shows no changes, there was some decent progress on some of my works in progress. 

There's been some good progress on Kate's Choice the last couple of months.  

Back in July, all but one row of blocks was quilted. Since then I completed quilting all the blocks and moved on to assembling the first row back in August.  There wasn't any progress on this in September. I had to switch my priority to the 2025 Guild BOM blocks.  I hope to get back to this project before the end of the year.    

There was some good progress on my long running travel embroidery project.  

I hadn't worked on this project since last December.  It's over half finished now, with just one corner of blocks left to stitch.  I won't finish it this year.  Maybe next year?  

Progress on Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) has been sporadic the last couple of months.  

 

 

I haven't put all the blocks up on the wall since December of last year.  A lot more is done than I expected. The upper half, minus one 3.5" blue block, is completed. A finish for next year? Maybe. I've still got lots of the cool colored blocks to make.   

The Old Town (Bonnie Hunter) blocks see a lot of progress during my late night/open sew time at the quilt shop. 

I was hoping to have this to the finished quilt top stage before the next mystery came out. Just 7 blocks left to make. I've started cutting the pieces for the pieced sashing strips.  I'm still doubtful it will be a finished quilt top, but it will be close.   

After my panic in September when I realized the guild meeting was the next day and I hadn't started the block for October.  I decided it would be wise to finish off all the 2025 Guild BOM blocks.  

The blocks for January through September are up on the design wall, minus some of the sawtooth stars as they wouldn't fit. This is not my final layout, I'll decide that once all the blocks are done. I have November's block finished and have started piecing December's.  I'm hoping to start assembly on this quilt in October. I also need to make a start on the blocks for 2026.  I'm definitely going to work ahead for next year's BOM.  

It's not really a quilt project, but I've been making donation blocks for the guild. 

So far I've turned in 20 blocks, but I only have pictures of one set. The donation blocks are the Bonnie Hunter leaders and enders project she suggested in July.  It's been a nice way to use up some scrap yardage that's just been sitting in the stash.  

Just as there's been no changes in my PHD tracker, the same holds for my project tracking graphic. 

I'm really hoping to move some projects closer to finished before the end of year. Getting backings made would be a good place to start.  Kate's Choice is the closest to being completed. Once I get to a comfortable place with the Guild BOM projects, I'll focus on getting that done. Maybe it will happen this year?  

July 2025 PHD Report

July was a busy month. I was away from home for over a week helping Grad Girl move.  So there's not a lot of progress to report for the July PHD report over at Ms. P Designs.  

There are no updates to my PHD log.  No finishes, but no new starts either.  I can at least celebrate that!  There has been progress on some other projects this month.  

There's been a bit of progress on the Rose Throw counted cross stitch project.  I just didn't feel like doing much handwork this month.  Does it look like a rose? Not so much yet.   

One more row of blocks for Kate's Choice were quilted this month.  I've made more progress in the days since the end of July. My plan is to focus on this project till it's completed.  

All the red blocks for Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) are all sashed. That finishes up the last of the warm colored scarp blocks. There are still lots of cool color blocks to make before I can start sashing any of those colors.  

Progress on the Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter) has been pretty minimal this month, but there has been a bit. 

All the components for Old Town (Bonnie Hunter) have been made. So block assembly has started.  Each block requires 25 pieces, so they take a bit to construct, which is why I've only 2 were completed at the end of July.  This will be my late night sew project for August.  

I was a bit slow on finishing off all the August sawtooth star blocks for the 2025 Guild BOM , but they are all done.  I've made this pattern before, but since it's all scrappy, it doesn't look exactly like my previous version.  

There's been progress, but no movement on project tracking graphic.  

It looks the same as it did in June.  Some months are just going to be that way. I'm hoping to see some projects hit milestones this month.  That's assuming we're not moving Grad Girl to a new location for a job. If I loose another 10 days to apartment hunting and a move, it will be worth it.   

June 2025 PHD Report

Hard to believe we are half way through 2025.  Now that it's July it's time to take another look at my progress with the June PHD report over at Ms. P Designs. 

  

I've not done so well on the finishing up front, but I have been making steady progress on several other projects.  

While cleaning up the sewing room, I found a very old counted cross stitch throw started back in college.  It's been added to my traveling handwork projects.  Not a lot of progress on this, but at least there's been some. I'd forgotten just how much time it takes to do counted cross stitch.   

Another oldie saw some progress in July.  A few more blocks for  Grandmother's/Kate's Choice project were quilted this month.  Just 2 rows left to quilt.  

Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) also saw a lot of progress this month.  All the orange blocks were sashed as it was the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for June.  Once those were finished, the remaining red blocks were finished and sashing of those started. 

In May, quilt assembly started for the Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter).  This month the center was assembled and the first border of the yellow 4-patches was added. 

Clues 6 and 7 for Old Town (Bonnie Hunter) were completed in June.  A good start was made on clue 8.  I'm really hoping to be assembling the quilt blocks by the end of July. 

 

The color for the July Guild BOM block was red. I've already started looking for my sashing options.  August blocks are already under construction as we've got some stuff going on this month, so being ahead will be important.  

Glowing Hearts (MMM quilts) became a finished quilt top.  It's in line for quilting, which I should really focus on this last half of the year.  This was an unplanned project, but it used up some older stash and was a lot of fun to make.  

There has definitely been progress, but other than Glowing hearts none of the other projects have hit a major milestone, so my tracking graphic doesn't look much different than last month's. 

Only Glowing Hearts shows any progress on the bar graph.  Some months are going to be like that.  We'll see what gets done in July, it's going to be a busy month.