Week 41: Stitching Stuff

It's almost the middle of October.  The last two weeks have gone by pretty quickly.  It's getting darker earlier and cooler in the evenings. Getting in an evening walk means getting that in when I'm normally heading to the sewing room.  The change in seasons is the hardest time to keep up the sewing room (and exercise) habits as you have to rearrange your schedule to fit in the new normal.  So far so good on that front for me. Does your sewing time change with the seasons?  

If I head straight up the stairs after our walk, it's not hard to get into the stitching groove.  So far I've navigated the season change pretty well on the sewing front.  

15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
15 minute days/October = 12/12 days
15 minute days/2019 = 257/285 days
Success rate = 90.18%

My goal for 2019 was to manage 15 minutes of stitching time at least 90% of the time. I'm meeting that goal at the moment. I'm not sure how easy that's going to be staying at that level this week. I'm not going to be home at all on Monday, and maybe not Tuesday either.  The plan is to work in some handwork, time allowing.  

In terms of the stash report, there's nothing out at all. The projects under the needle this week have either already had the fabric counted, or it's mystery stuff that I don't count till the blocks are assembled.  So at some point, I'll have a bunch out.  

In the non-stitching stuff category, we met up with the Scientist in Training yesterday and checked out The Gathering Place in Tulsa.  The park is just over a year old and has been generating a lot of buzz.  If you've got kids, it's a great place to spend an afternoon. Apparently the SIT is still kid enough to enough some of the activities. 

The park runs along the river just south of downtown.  It's a wonderful place to just walk and check out nature. 

There's also some fun places to hang out like the Boathouse, which has the coolest lighting. 

It was a fun afternoon.  If you are ever in Tulsa, OK, you should definitely put this place on your "to visit" list. 

So how did your stitchy week work out? 

1. Meloney 2. Julie in GA 3. Chrisknits

4. DawnyK 5. Amanda 6. Shasta @ High Road Quilter

7. Christina's Handicrafts

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2019 Finish Along: 4th Quarter Ambitions

The year of 2019 is winding down way faster then I'd like it too.  Now it's time to decide what can be finished in the three short months left in the year.  My third quarter ambitions for the 2019 Finish Along were a complete bust, zero, nada, zilch finishes for the quarter.  Is there any hope for fourth quarter finishes?

Maybe.  There were no finishes last quarter, but there was good progress on two or three projects. A shoe in finish is Vintage Dresses.

 Vintage Dresses
by Charise Randell

It's been quilted and trimmed, it just needs the label and binding.  I ended up ordering a fabric for the binding to finish out the progression of blues. That should be here this weekend, so this one should be an October finish.

Next up is Twinkle Stars.  

Twinkle Stars

Tutorial by Andrea Feldbush of Soscrappy

Just three more seams and this one will be ready for the borders.  I decided to finish out the diamonds along each edge using a pieced border, but those pieces should sew up pretty fast.  A final border of the background fabric to float the blocks and it will be ready for a backing.  This is supposed to be a Christmas gift so it really needs to get done soon. 

Also in the "bordering" stage is the Storm at Sea quilt for my bed.  

Storm at Sea
Paper Piecing Class by Carrie Randell (Quilter's Hideaway)

Just two borders left.  I bought a wide backing for this quilt, so that won't have to be pieced. It would be nice to start the new year with a new quilt on our bed. 

The last possible finish is Daisy Chain. 

 Daisy Chain Mystery
2019 Little Bunny Quilts Mystery
by Alison of Honey, Bunny & Doll Designs

This quilt also just needs borders and a backing.  Borders always take longer than I think they will.  Plus, I'm not sure what I'm going to do on this one. There's not enough of any one fabric to use as a border, nor is there enough to make a scrappy one.  I don't have a lot of those tans in my stash or scraps, so I'll need to do some stash shopping to see what else will work. 

If I can finish all four of these, that will bring the total number of finishes for 2019 to seven, which would be a tie with the most finishes I've had in one year. (Seven finishes happened in 2010, 2011 and 2017, that seems to be my max capacity).  

Linking up the 2019 Finish Along via That's Sew Julie.  Good luck to everyone on reaching their 4th quarter and 2019 quilty goals.  

Slow Going

Cooler temperatures that match the time of year finally showed up this weekend.  So did the rain. It was a good weekend to stay home and spend some time in the sewing room. There was some good progress on a few things.  Vintage Dresses is all trimmed up and ready for binding.  Now I need to find a darker blue in the stash to use for the binding.  

Then there's been progress on the October Clue for the Mosaic Mystery quilt.  

Mosaic Mystery
The Meadow Mist Designs 2019 Mystery Quilt Along

  
There are a few completed blocks, but those had been already put away in the project box when I remembered to get a photo.

The biggest effort as been to get the rows of Twinkle Star blocks sewn together into a finished flimsy.  There's been progress, but it's been slow going. 

Twinkle Stars

Tutorial by Andrea Feldbush of Soscrappy

The top and bottom 4 rows are sewn together.  The middle two rows are almost there. I hadn't decided on how to finish this project off. Leave it like it is or add a border or two?  After playing around in EQ a bit that's been worked out. 

 Completing the diamonds on the edges makes for a nice finish and then just a plain white border to float the blocks on.  Not sure on the binding color yet.  The pieced border won't be so bad, I've cut 6.5 x 2.5 rectangles and adding the corners to one side of those rather than making the border completely out of 2.5" squares. I'll need just 4 squares for the corners.  A lot fewer seams that way.  

I'm chipping away on my to do list for the month and that feels really good.  Hope your weekend was as productive. 

Linking up with the usual Monday linky parties. 

Monday Making
Monday Design Wall 

Week 40 of 2019: Stitching Stuff

It was a long week, way too many meetings on my calendar.  I spent most of Saturday in my sewing room, so now I feel much, much better.  Fitting in time in the evenings helps, but there's nothing like having the better part of a day to sit and play with fabric.  How did your stitchy week go? 

My Guy was out of town most of the week, which made it a little easier to work in my 15 minutes each evening.  

15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
15 minute days/Sept = 30/30 days
15 minute days/Oct = 5/5 days
Success rate = 89.93%

September was a good month with stitching time every day. I doubt that will be the case in October.  There's too much stuff going on the week of October 14th. Still I'm hoping I can find a way to work in my 15 minutes most days. 

Most of my efforts this week have focused on getting Twinkle Stars assembled, so there's been no fabric out for the week. Writing a stash report just doesn't make sense when there's nothing to report.  

The weather has turned cooler here this weekend, I was out and about last weekend with the camera to take advantage of what may be our last warm weekend. 

The old fashioned roses probably won't last much longer. But they still look pretty at the moment. 

The Monarch butterflies are hurrying south.  This one stopped for lunch on our blue Boneset. 

So how did your stitching go this week?  Was it easy to fit in those 15 minutes or did you struggle with all the other stuff that just seems to magically appear, begging for you to accomplish it when all you want to do is sew? 

1. Julie in GA 2. Chrisknits 3. Meloney

4. Mary-Kay 5. DawnyK 6. Angie in SoCal

7. Angie in SoCal 8. Amanda 9. Shasta @ High Road

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October Already?

We are already five days into the tenth month of the year, the start of the fourth quarter of 2019.  It's the wind down part of the year.  Except if you quilt. Then it's either "what can I finish by the end of the year" or "what Christmas presents do I have left to finish" time of the year. So keeping that in mind, I've been contemplating what the October One Monthly Goal is going to be. 

I try to avoid Christmas gift sewing as it's just stress and pressure I don't need.  However at the beginning of the year, I did commit to the Scientist in Training that I would finish off quilts for her writing group buddies who are graduating from collage. The first is finished, I'm still working on the second, Twinkle Stars.

Getting this quilt into finished flimsy state was my September OMG.  That didn't happen, though I did make a lot of progress with the assembly.  

On the other hand, Vintage Dresses is back from the quilter. 

Each dress has been quilted in matching colors with some great filler swirls in the rest of the block. It looks even better from the front. This quilt just needs to be trimmed up and bound.  That would be a relatively easy finish for the month. 

Also close to being a finished flimsy is Storm at Sea.  

 Storm at Sea
Paper Piecing Class by Carrie Randell (Quilter's Hideaway)

It just needs two more rounds of borders added to make it a finished flimsy. 

I've not accomplished my OMG for the last two months.  My success rate there is 7 of  9 or 78%.  That's actually really good considering that my success rate last year with the OMG was 42%.  The difference is being realistic about what I can get done. Due to some family issues, I'll be out of pocket for up to 2 weeks this month.  Sewing time will likely be limited, so as much as I'd like to pick finishing off Twinkle Stars, that's not likely to happen this month.  Finishing off Vintage Dresses is much more likely to happen as I can hand stitch when I can't get to the machine.  So that's the OMG for this month, finish Vintage Dresses.

Linking up with Elm Street Quilts.  Good luck with your goals for October stitching.