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.   

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. 

Catching up in the Sewing Room

We've been home a little over a week from our vacation. I can claim that laundry is all caught up. Still a few chores to do before I'm caught up there.  Catching up in the sewing room has been a bit harder.  My biggest focus has been on getting the Guild BOM block done for May. There has been good progress on that front, it should get finished today.  

The other focus has been trying to move projects from first quarter to finished quilt tops.  The final borders finally made it on to the 2026 SAHRR (Quilting Gail).

The border photographed darker then it actually is. It looks solid black, it's not. It looks much better in person. My SAHRR quilt for this year is definitely different from my previous three finishes.   

I was going to skip the quilt along this year, but then decided if I could do a sampler, that would be manageable. The fabrics for this year's project are left over from another project (there is enough left over for a third project).  I really like the big center star and the pieced border.  I don't do small projects as you can tell from my previous quilts. It was nice to just make one block each week. Now the quilt top goes into the "to be quilted' closet.  Hopefully it will get quilted before the end of the year.  

Linking up with Show & Tell Monday and Patchwork & Quilts.   

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.  

To Do List for the Week of 3/24/2026

Hard to believe there is just a little over a week left in March.  It's been a good month for me on the productivity front. Even with my allergies and my back issues, I've been doing pretty well at getting my to do lists mostly checked off.  

To Do List for 3/17/2026

1. SAHRR: Work on borders ✔

2. Magnificent Mystery: Work on block assembly ✔

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

Three for three is a good week.  I didn't get as far with the SAHRR as I would have liked. Hopefully it's far enough along that I can get remaining borders on before the linky party ends. That will be to do #1 for this week. 

To Do List for 3/24/2026

1. SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Finish quilt top

 

I'm adding a partially pieced border to the completed sampler part of the quilt.  Then adding two additional strip borders to get the size up a bit.  I'm probably half way done with the square in a square blocks.  

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

These are the pieces left to sew into blocks. I did a count last night of the number of blocks completed.  There are 3 more block A's and 3 more block B's, plus the fill in half blocks left to complete. So its getting there. I've been working on stitching one block as work has been proceeding on my priority projects each week.  I'll be glad to get this one to finished quilt top. That will be the end of my deadline sewing for first quarter. 

4. Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter): Piece backing, start quilt prep

Chilhowie is the 2022 Bonnie Hunter mystery.  The quilt top was finished in September of 2024.  It's the smallest of my quilts to be quilted.  It will be the first quilt I try to quilt with my walking foot as a whole project.  It's small enough that it shouldn't be too hard to wrestle it on my home machine.  We'll see how that goes.  I'm hoping the quilting on this one goes faster than Kate's Choice went.  

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

So many different blues in these blocks. This week a few more scrap strips were cut into triangles to increase the amount of lighter fabrics going into these blocks.  I counted how many sets of 4 there were in this stack.  I need 4 more sets of 4 to be finished with the blue blocks.  The purple and teal block sets still need to be finished, but I'm getting closer to quilt assembly time.  Fingers crossed that happens before the end of the year.  

So that's my list for the week.  Hopefully, the allergies will stay managed and I'll figure out my fitness stuff so there are no back issues this week.  It would be nice to be back to a 3 item to do list next week.  Linking up with The Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

To Do List for the Week of 3/17/2026

March started with three quilts that needed to be finished tops before the end of the month. Those three have been my priority since January and have been on my to do list every week. I made good progress on at least one of those last week.  

To Do List for 3/10/2026

1. Scenic Waypoint: Finish block and quilt assembly ✔

2. Kate's Choice: Finish binding ✔

3. SAHRR: Work on final border blocks and quilt assembly- progress

4. Magnificent Mystery: Work on block assembly ✔

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

A finished quilt and a finished quilt top.  That's probably the best week I've had all year!  This week's too do list will be a lot shorter.  Hopefully that means I make good progress on the two remaining projects with deadlines. 

To Do List for 3/17/2026

1. SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Work on borders.  

All the blocks from this year's prompts have been sewn into a center panel.  The plan is to add some additional borders to get the size up a bit.  The quilt parade is a week from tomorrow, so I need to get moving on that.  

2.  Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Work on block assembly

The quilt parade for this mystery is 2 weeks from tomorrow. This project won't be my priority this week, but I kept one block in the works at the machine while I was getting Scenic Waypoint put together. The plan is to do the same this week while assembling the SAHRR. It's slow going that way, but at least it keeps the project moving. 

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

I had to stop and cut black triangles last night so I could keep making the blue blocks as my leaders project.  I also need to cut some more lighter and medium blue scraps. What's left in my triangle bag is mostly darks at this point.  

Finishing up two projects really shortens the list. Hopefully next week's list will be even shorter.  I need to get back to the guild BOM blocks.  If I get another three BOM blocks done and the instructions written, I'm good till July!  

Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.

To Do List for the Week of 3/10/2026

There's a lot going on in my sewing room this week (and next week and the week after). All the quilt alongs have ended and I need to have finished quilt tops for the quilt parades.  So my priority will change for this week's list. Before I get to that, here's how last week's list went.  

To Do List for 3/3/2026

1. Kate's Choice: Finish borders ✔

2. Scenic Waypoint: Finish block and start quilt assembly - progress

3. Magnificent Mystery: Finish block, start quilt assembly - progress

4. SAHRR: Work on final border, quilt assembly - no progress

5. Wild and Goosey: Work on blue blocks ✔

6. Guild Challenge block: Make at least one block ✔

I had hoped to make lots of progress yesterday, but the massive sinus headache made that impossible. There was time spent in the sewing room, just not the hours I had hoped for.  But at this point, progress is progress.  Here's this week's list.

  

To Do List for 3/10/2026

1. Scenic Waypoint (Meadow Mist Designs):  Finish block and quilt assembly. 

The blocks for the first 4 rows are all sewn together. That leaves row 5 blocks to assemble and then start the sashing the blocks to sew into a top.  Probably not going to be a finished quilt top in time to post for the quilt parade for the 2026 Stash Busting Quilt Along.  

2. Kate's Choice: Finish binding

One side done, one corner rounded.  Just 3 more left.  

3.  SAHRR (Quilting Gail): Work on final border blocks and quilt assembly. 

The first row of blocks is sewn together.  That's as far as I've gotten.  It will my first priority once Scenic Waypoint is a finished quilt top.  

4. Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs): Work on block assembly

Half the blocks are assembled.  So still a ways to go on this project. But the deadline for the linky party is still three weeks away.  I might just get this one done in time.  

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

Four blocks have been finished since the beginning of the month. I'm hoping to make good progress on these. It would be nice to be able to assemble the quilt before the end of the year.  For now, I just keep two blocks going as my leaders while I'm working on other projects. 

That's my list for this week.  It's pretty much the same list I've had since the beginning of the year.  But a couple of projects should fall off in the next week or two at the most.  Will I add something new? Probably not, the plan is to move all the current quilt along projects to finished quilt tops (except for Wild and Goosey), then see what UFOs I tackle next.  

Linking up with the Quilt Schmilt for To Do Tuesday.  

February 2026 PHD Report

February is such a short month.  January was 5 weeks, so a true 4 week month is a shock afterwards.  Now that the second month of 2026 is finished,  it's time to report on how I'm doing on my PHDs (projects half done) and link up with Ms P Designs' PHD in 2026.  My PHD report is unchanged from January.   

No finishes, but no new starts either. It was still a good month because there has definitely been progress on several projects.  

Kate's Choice is an almost finish. The second border is attached.  The top border is quilted, but I had to stop and figure out how to deal with the sashing for the top and bottom borders. That's figured out. Hopefully both borders get finished and added this week. Then all that's left is binding.  It would be nice to have a finish for March.  

Since the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for February was green, I took the month to sash all the green Wild and Goosey blocks (Bonnie Hunter).  Now that those are done, they go back into the project box with the yellow, orange and red sashed blocks. I may make some changes later, some have triangles that stand out a bit much. But I'll wait till I get all the blocks done and see how it looks when these are up on the wall with all the other blocks.  

The quilt assembly instructions came out for the Magnificent Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) in February. I'm not quite half way done with constructing the blocks.  So not completely caught up, but not way behind either.  

The January, February and March blocks for the Guild BOM have been released. April will be shown at the guild meeting this month. I've started on the instructions for May, I should get back to the instruction writing and block construction this month. It would be nice to have May, June and July ready to go before April gets here.  

The SAHRR (Quilting Gail), is over for this year. I chose a large center block with much smaller sampler blocks as my approach to the challenge this year.  I've changed up the blocks in the sampler rows to better balance the color density in the blocks. There are still  some borders to add, but it's coming together pretty well  

 

When Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs kicked off her 2026 Stash Busting Quilt along in January, I couldn't resist starting Scenic Waypoint.  I'm about a week behind schedule. But for me, that's not too bad. The blocks are turning out nicely and it feels good to use up some older stash fabrics. 

There was an error in my project mapping graphic last month, I over stated how far along I was on Magnificent Mystery.  So that bar is shorter, but to compensate Kate's Choice became an assembled top, so that bar got a bit longer.  

I should finish up the three quilt tops that have been my priority since January this month.  So hopefully a few lines in the graph will be longer. I'm hoping that happens earlier in the month, so I can start working on that big block of quilts that need to be quilted before the end of the month.  We'll see how far I get on those.