PHD in 2022: December and Year End Wrap Up

I'm struggling a bit to think clearly.  Benadryl does wonders for allergies, but it also creates a lot of brain fog.  I think the cats, Grad Girls and my mom's, finally got to me yesterday.  Actually it's probably mostly due to my mom's cat.  He decided to sleep next to my head Tuesday night. Grad Girl and I drove back down to my mother's on Tuesday because it would cut 2.5 hours off GG's trip back to college and I needed to pick up some things that wouldn't fit in the car after our Christmas holiday.  At any rate, hopefully I can stick with this post long enough to finish (and hopefully it's mostly readable).  

I've been playing along with Quilting Gail's PHD (Projects Half Done) for the last 4 years. I've yet to earn my PHD, but it's been a good way to be accountable for both finishing up old projects and finishing up anything new that was started during the year.  Here's my end of the year report for 2022. 

There are no updates to the report for December. There were no more finishes, but there was progress on one UFO and two ongoing projects. 

Rhododendron, the Bonnie Hunter 2021 mystery quilt along, gained two blocks during December. 

So just one block left to finish and I can start quilt assembly.  This project has come a long way this year, some of the pieces for the blocks hadn't even been assembled yet when the calendar turned over to 2022.  

Rhododendron as of 12/31/2021

My word for 2022 was Progress. I met that with this project even though it's not finished. 

Melodic Mystery, the Meadow Mist Designs 2022 mystery quilt along, was started in October.  I'm still a bit behind, but only by one month. I still need to finish the December clue. 

I have 5 more flower blocks to finish to be caught up. January's clue is probably already out, I've just not had a chance to go check it out.  

There has also been steady progress on the Bonnie Hunter 2022 mystery quilt along, Chilhowie. 

Clue 1 is finished, clue 2 is close, the rest of the clues still need a lot of work.  Even so, I'm happy with all the progress on this project. 

Progress was made on two other UFOs earlier in the year, but then they stalled out. The first was Unity, Bonnie Hunter's stay at home mystery quilt along. 

I finished the last pieced border and final two unpieced borders. The backing has been made and is prepped for quilting.  All that's left is to get the Unity top prepped.  There are a lot of loose threads on the back of this one and it's just been more than I've wanted to deal with.

The 2021 Meadow Mist Designs Mystery quilt was a new start in 2021 that carried over into 2022.  The quilt top was finished back in November, but I struggled to find a good backing fabric. I finally ordered some.  This is next on the list for quilting once I get Unity out the door.  

In the finished column for the PHD program are Fluorescence and Reactive Intermediates. 

Fluorescence (self designed) was ready to go out for quilting in November of 2021, by February 2022 it was a finished quilt. This quilt is one of my all time favorites.  

Reactive Intermediates was made from the pattern Potions, by Flying Parrot Quilts. The quilt was a gift to Grad Girls undergraduate research advisor.  I started cutting the fabrics for some of the blocks at the end of December 2021. I had to be really disciplined to get this quilt finished for graduation in 2022.  But it got done (the night before, but that still counts).

There were two other projects that were started and then finished in 2022. After Grad Girl moved to Texas, she asked for one more grocery bag as she went down the one she left for her undergrad roommate.  There was request for grocery bags for the undergrad roommates as they were now short too. My Guy had been wanting his own set of bags so we could cut down on the number of plastic bags we were collecting.  

In total I finished seven grocery bags.  The grocery bags got me back in the sewing room after a rough summer of no stitching.  They were quick and fun finishes. Exactly what I needed to get out of my stitching front. 

The other finish was also a start inspired by Grad Girl. She wanted a couple of her favorite embroidery pieces made into pillows. 

I finished these the evening before we moved her to Texas. Last year seemed to be the year for just in time finishes.  Both of us were very happy with how the pillows turned out.  The star of each is her embroidery.  

In summary, I didn't do so hot on the UFO finishes, ending the year with just two. But I did make really good progress on a three others. I finished all of the new starts for 2022, since both Melodic and Chilhowie continue in 2023, those don't count.  Not a stellar year, but considering just how rough the year was, I'm happy to get at least that much done. 

You can see how everyone else did on earning their PHD's in 2022 over at Quilting Gail.  

PHD in 2022: June to October

 I've not written a PHD post in four months because there really wasn't anything to post about.  There was pretty much no stitching from June till the end of August. Over the last month or so, I've finished a couple of new projects and made a bit of progress on my 2022 UFO list.  My report is not stellar, but it could certainly be worse. 

I finished two of three new starts. That's probably my biggest achievement from the last few months.  

Grad Girl asked me to make pillows from two of her embroidery projects. 

Both pillows were finished the night before we moved her to Texas.  I really like how both pillows came out, so did GG.  It helps a lot that her embroidery projects were both beautiful.  

The second new project for 2022 was also a Grad Girl request.  I made grocery sacks for both her and her roommate a couple of years ago.  After moving to Texas, GG discovered that two grocery sacks weren't enough and she asked for a third one. Plus her old roommate was now short one for her shopping, so I was asked to make a second for her old roommates.  Then My Guy reminded me that he wanted grocery sacks too as it's hard to recycle the plastic bags in our community.  So I pulled some left overs and older fabrics out of the stash and got busy.  

Seven bags were made over the last few months.  The pattern is a free download from The Fat Quarter Shop.  These bags were really fun to make and were a great way to get myself back into the sewing room.  

The last new project is Meadow Mist Designs 2022 Mystery Quilt along, Melodic Mystery.  

I got a late start on this one as the first clue came out in early September. Clue 3 comes out tomorrow. I should be done with clue 1 by then, but I'm not even half way done with clue 2.  I'm hoping to be caught up by the time the December clue comes out. This mystery will run into next year, so I don't have to finish it. 

There was also some progress on the UFO side of things.  

Unity was as completed quilt top in April, the backing was assembled last month.  

 I just need to bite the bullet and prep both the backing and the quilt top for quilting. It's my least favorite quilting activity so I tend to stall on it.  Unity is the Bonnie Hunter surprise quilt along she started in 2020 during the pandemic.  

Macaron Mystery, last year's Meadow Mist Designs mystery, is almost a finished quilt top.

Two of the three planned borders have been added.  Macaron should be a finished quilt top by the end of the month.  

The last active project is Bonnie Hunter's 2021 mystery quilt along project, Rhododendron.  

There is no change to the project up on the design wall. I'm assembling blocks as my current leader and ender project. So there's been very slow progress on this project. It certainly won't be finished by the time this year's mystery comes out.  

I'm slowly getting back my stitching mojo in the middle of what's proving to be a major life change.  Most days I have this feeling that I'm missing something, something with a major deadline coming up.  Does everyone get "ghost feelings" like that after retiring?  

Linking up with Quilting Gail for the October 2022 PHD report.   

Stitching Stuff: Week 37 of 2022

The last stitching stuff post was back in June, 14 weeks ago.  I really didn't intend for my break to last that long, especially not the break from my sewing room.  It's been a struggle to get back into my habit of heading to the sewing room for at least 15 minutes every day so my metrics really do look sad.  

• 15 minute days/week = 3/7 days
• 15 minute days/June = 9/30 days
• 15 minute days/July = 0/31 days
• 15 minute days/Aug = 10/31 days
• 15 minute days/Sept  = 9/24 days
• 15 minute days/2022 = 135/267 days

Now that I'm back to posting, I'm hoping that motivates me to do better at getting in my 15 minutes.  

The project that got me back into the sewing room in August was a request from Grad Girl to turn some of her finished embroidery pieces into pillows for her new apartment in Texas. 

I'm pretty sure this embroidery project has made at least one previous appearance on the blog.  The fabric is a long held peacock inspired pattern from my stash. 

I used an envelope pattern, messing with zippers just didn't appeal.  

The second pillow is Grad Girl's first non-kit. The pattern came from a magazine.  

She did such a good job picking the colors for the rainbow.  She made several trips to Hobby Lobby looking for just the right color combination.  The fabric for this one was a special purchase from the local quilt shop.  I was texting her pictures and this was what she chose.  

I'm really bad about keeping track of fabric lines, so I have no idea of manufacturer or what line it's from. It works really well with the rainbow stitching.  

It was fun turning Grad Girl's finished embroidery pieces into pillows.  I don't have a picture of them in use, but they currently reside in her living room.   

I've been gone for so long, I'm not sure anyone will link up, but here's Mr Linky if you want to catch everyone up on how much stitching time you managed to work in over the summer.  

1. maggie f 2. Frederique

3. Stitching Loving Nana :) 4. DonnaleeQ

5. Quilting Gail 6. Amanda

Powered by... Mister Linky's Magical Widgets.