May 2025 PHD Report

May went fast!  It didn't help that at about the halfway mark my sewing mojo disappeared.  So not as much progress as I would have liked for the month. But there is still a bit to report for the May PHD report over at Ms. P Designs.  

Finally a finish shows up on the PHD report, along with a new unplanned project. The finish is a project started this year, so there is still no progress on the UFO column.  

The 2025 SAHRR, aka Stars in a Derecho Sky, (Quilting Gail) was my finish for May.  Trudy, who has quilted so many quilts for me, is getting out of the quilting for others business and this is the last quilt she'll ever quilt for me.  It's already been gifted to Grad Girl's roommate as we were in Texas last week. She loved it. 

I'll need to amp up my walking foot quilting if I want to see a few more finishes before the end of the year.  Even with my absent sewing mojo and a week of vacation, there was still a bit of progress on several other projects in May. 

During my week on the road, I relearned how to do counted cross stitch and worked on a throw that was started back in the early 80's.  It will join my medallion butterfly embroidery as a travel project. It's not really a quilt, so I'm not going to add it to my spreadsheet as a quilt.  It will just be one of those sewing room projects I'd like to see get done in the next few years.  

Half the Kate's Choice blocks have been quilted.  I'm hoping to finish the other half this month.  It would be nice to have another finish by the end of this month.  This is my second oldest UFO, so it would be nice to get it off the list.  

The lack of Wild and Goosey blocks (Bonnie Hunter) for May is a direct result of my sewing mojo problem.  I didn't even finish 2 green blocks.  The plan is to do better with getting the orange blocks all sashed this month. 

 

Work continued on the center for the Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter).  The left and bottom single rows of squares have been added and the first row is sewn together. It's been fun to watch all those scrappy blocks finally come together.  

All the step 2 block components for Old Town (Bonnie Hunter) were finished in May. Clues 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are all completed.  Another afternoon was spent cutting the rest of the pieces needed for the remaining steps.  Hopefully a couple more clues can be finished off this month since all that's left is sewing pieces together. The goal is to have this project assembled before this year's mystery quilt is started.  

The color for the June Guild BOM was green.  Since I'm leading the program this year, I have to be a month ahead.  Half way through and I'm happy with how the blocks are coming together. It's been fun to see what the guild members have decided to do with their projects.  Now I need to get going on the July block so it's ready for this month's guild meeting.  

Glowing Hearts (MMM Quilts) was my unplanned new project in May.  It's been a fun project to make.  All the fabrics came from the stash, which was my requirement before allowing an unplanned project on my list.  Moving along some of my older stash is always a good reason to start a new project. Plus this one is small enough that I can quilt it myself.   

Maybe it wasn't such a bad month after all?  There was progress on a lot of projects, but some didn't see as much work on them as I would like.   

  

The only progress that shows up on my project tracking sheet is finishing the 2025 SAHRR and starting Glowing Hearts.  No other projects reached major milestones in May.  Hopefully I can do better in June.  

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.